A Princess and her Dragon

Andrea turned white as a sheet, as if something forbidden had just been given voice. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

The Witch smiled, though the conversation had gone completely over Embra's head. Mammal business, she assumed.

"How much are you charging for this...wonder potion? I have coin, but if you aid us, my patrons will be very generous in compensation once our journey is complete."

Sybil snorted. A distinctly unladylike sound that made Andrea crack a smile despite herself. "Gold and silver, pah! I have plenty of that already. And gems, too, so don't even try. Adventurers only pay in currency, I'm sick to death of it! I'm interested in being paid in things of true worth."

"Beyond...gold and silver? I don't, I mean..." Embra searched herself. All she had was all she was. Her blade was an extension of her arm. Her armour the bulwark with which she would defend her Court's sworn charge: the House of Rubies. "I have nothing to offer."

"Sure you do," the Witch purred, closing the distance and perking her eyes up to meet the Knight's own. "You can give me your vows."

Anger, hot and righteous, burned in her chest. "I would never betray my oath! I am a Grand-Knight! To do so would be to abandon everything I am, everything I hold sacred!"

The Witch rolled her eyes. "Oh, spare me the speech of the slighted paladin. I've heard it all before. Unless you have something else of value-"

"My title."

The Witch and the Knight froze, turning slowly to see the cringing figure of Princess Andrea, playing with the ring around her neck.

"Your title?" the Witch asked, but was interrupted by Embra's outraged roar.

"Your Highness, you cannot! I forbid it!" she declared, her claws cut a firm horizontal line through the air before she continued. "This whole journey is dependent on you taking your rightful place! Your siblings-"

"Are not terrible. Jonas is smart, if a little nervous around people. Gertrude is a natural born politician, albeit a selfish one. And Trajan is a strong, bullheaded block of iron who will keep them both safe."

"But they are not firstborn! You are. By all the laws of gods, beasts, and men, you are to ascend the throne after your father's death. My oath demands..." Her words faltered, lips forming them but there was no voice to accompany them. Something had shifted. The Knight straightened out her posture, appearing as grand as any of the marble statues that guarded the gates of Castle Carmine.

The Witch looked practically giddy, as any merchant in the middle of a bidding war between two desperate clients ought to look. It made Embra even angrier, but beneath that smouldered a white hot cinder of resolution.

"If I were to give up my Vow, what would that mean in practical terms. Would I...turn my back on her? Would I become a blowabout wastrel? An amoral butcher?"

Sybil shook her head. "You have a very strange understanding of how this works, dear. All I want for you to break your vow. After that, you may continue your life as if nothing had ever happened. You can uphold every act to that vow, you can perform every deed you would under its aegis. You would not have to change a single thing about your life, your relationship, or your destiny. But...you would know the vow had been broken. As would I. As would she," she nodded at Andrea, who looked horrified that such a thing was even being spoken about.

"Embra! You can't...I mean, I forbid it!" The Princess crossed her arms and did her best impression of her father's authoritative voice without realizing it. "You will not forsake yourself to make this deal. We'll find another way to hide me. I'll wear full body robes, I could pretend to be a penitent monk! I could...I could..."

The Witch turned her pleasant expression upon Andrea, then uttered words as cold as night. "You could dress like a man, dear."

The Princess fumed. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her side, venom boiling in her blood. For a moment, Embra thought Andrea was about to murder the Witch with her bare hands. Then, she stormed out of the hovel.

Embra's first instinct was to join her, to console her somehow, though she wasn't quite sure the extent of what had been said. But it had affected Andrea deeply. And so, Embra knew it was important.

"You've upset her," Embra said, her hand reaching for the hilt hanging over her shoulder. "You should not have done that."

The Witch's smile remained jubilant until Embra's blade left its sheath. The scalding intensity in the Grand-Knight's gaze did not waver, even flicker for a moment. It was at that moment that Sybil realized she had made a dreadful mistake.

"We can...erhm...still make that deal," she said, stepping backward. Embra closed the distance effortlessly. "You wouldn't want to anger a Witch of the Wild, would you?"

"Your spells appear to require a verbal component," the Knight noted. "I wonder how well you'd be able to speak them with no breath in your lungs." Distantly, she remembered the chirugeon's words. The Witch was important to this region. She saved lives.

Sybil stumbled, her feet catching on something small and wicker. Tumbling to the ground, she caught the potion before it could be dashed. Her mouth moved to form something other than a deal, but Ember's blade came down like an executioner's axe. She shut her eyes tight. Only when the Witch opened them again after an agonisingly long wait, only when she saw the steel in the flickering green hearthlight pressing up against her neck, did she believe she was still alive.

"The potion," Embra demanded. She held out her hand, the other holding the greatblade without so much as a quiver of muscle.

"The deal," Sybil countered. All that put-upon warmth in her voice had fled. There, from her true self, poured a voice of acid intent. "Kill me and before your blade falls I'll smash this potion. Your Princess will be a walking target. You may be strong, but you will slip up. You will falter. And she will die. What price is your honour, brave Knight?"

After a pause that seemed to drag on into the next century, the dragon decided. Embra's next words were almost too quiet to hear.

***

They made camp far from the Witch's hovel. Neither woman believed any hospitality Sybil would offer would be genuine. After camping out in the Royal Wood immediately after the castle fell, and now after weeks of hard travel, they'd both fallen into familiar patterns. Gathering wood, constructing a lean-to, preparing a meal. The vittles on offer were not luxurious, but it was filling enough. But as they sat in silence around the campfire, Embra could tell it was not the stewed meat and hardtack that would be taking up the Princess' mind.

"You took her deal, didn't you?" she asked, speaking for the first time since they'd left the hut behind. Embra briefly thought about lying, but she was a terrible liar. And even with her vow compromised...it wouldn't be right.

The Knight pulled the purple globe from her pack. "My vows mean nothing if I fail to protect you."

Andrea stared at the potion like it was the deadliest of venoms. "I don't suppose we could get a refund, like I could when I was at the shops in town."

Embra smile was faint. "I don't suppose so. Once broken, a vow cannot be repledged. At least, not right away. Otherwise it would be meaningless." She held out the bottle to Andrea, who looked about ready to huck it into the woods without so much as a second glance. "Please, your Highness. I have given up so much for this. For you. Please do not make it be for nothing."

Despite herself, despite everything, Andrea took the potion. Embra knew this wouldn't be easy. The Princess had often spoken about her body, how it had felt strange and 'not hers' before the King's alchemists had brewed her that concoction from pregnant female centaurs. After that, the formerly reserved woman had become so...charming, so outgoing. But nevertheless determined to be the best heir to the throne as possible. To lose that progress, to change so completely for weeks, months...Embra had no conception what that might be like.

She uncorked the bottle. "Whatever happens," Andrea said, "Thank you...for everything." With a final deep breath, she upended the potion, gulping it down as fast as the bottle could empty. The liquid glowed as it slid down her throat.

The changes started small. After a brief burp, to which she laughed, her eyes perked up.

"I think my voice changed," she said, then clapped a hand over her mouth. It had! It sounded much higher in register. As the waves of magical energy permeated her form, she watched her skin change hue. From the pale, almost malnourished hue of the unworked aristocracy to the well-tanned skin of someone who made a living outdoors. She blinked a set of gorgeous red eyes one moment, then blinked a set of green ones the next. All the identifiers that marked her as a member of the House of Rubies, vanished in a few pounding heartbeats.

She was shrinking, too. In height, at least. Every other part, from her hips to her buttocks to her thighs, those were all growing. But the parts that grew the most were her breasts. From tiny buds, bare handfuls, they blossomed into a veritable harvest. Embra tried not to notice, but since her species didn't really have breasts, it was always worth a look when the local warmbloods popped them out. Soon the Princess' clothing was splitting down the seam, her body's growth exceeding the tight silk's tensile strength. She struggled to hold it up, but in mere moments her once expensive dress fluttered to the ground in a half-dozen torn pieces. Another feature of her old life abandoned like a shed chrysalis.

"Here," Embra offered her blanket, and Andrea took it. She wrapped it around herself as if it was a towel and let the rest of the transformations take place out of her protector's sight. Andrea did her best not to notice as her hair colour changed to a dirty blonde, as her facial features broadened out even as her chin softened back into her face. But there was one change that she could not ignore. She lifted the blanket and gasped.

"It's...it's going away!"

"What?" Embra asked. Andrea looked up, but she bit her lip.

"I...my penis..." she said, voice as quiet as a mouse, "It's shrinking."

Embra blinked. "Doesn't it do that normally?"

The Princess hid her hand in her face. "I'm not losing my erection, Embra. It's disappearing into my body!"

The Knight still looked confused. "That's how mine works when I'm not using it."

Despite the very facts about her body changing in real time, Andrea, Heir to the Throne, took her eyes off her vanishing prize and looked straight at her protector's puzzled face.

"You're telling me that, THIS WHOLE TIME, you were ALSO BORN IN A MALE BODY and you never TOLD ME?!"

Understanding didn't so much as scry Embra's expression, let alone reach it. "I'm a dragon. We have both. We always have both. Gender is..." she made a wiggling expression with her hand. "The call of my heart is more female than male, so I call myself She. Others are the opposite, or in between, or reject the duality altogether. Is it not so for humans?"

Andrea mimed strangling the (now much taller) woman, but was bowled over by another wave of changes. She spilled off the log, blanket tangling around her legs, and Embra watched as the last vestiges of her cock shrunk down into almost nothingness, forming into a tiny bud overtop of a healthy-looking mammalian vagina.

The wave of changes ebbed, though it would be a while until Andrea could return to a sitting position with Embra's help.

"Are you alright?" Embra asked

The Princess nodded, then let the blanket fall from her body once more. This time, she made no effort to recover herself. Instead, she spread her legs to the heat of the fire.

"This new body...it feels incredible. It's strange, to be so out of place yet feel so at home. All these sensations I'd yearned for, all these feelings I craved. It's all here, it's all..." Andrea's train of thought derailed, and a perverse smile touched her lips. With a slow, deliberate motion, her fingers drifted down from her soft, squeezable navel to the space between her thighs.

Embra turned away. Though she was no stranger to nudity, or even open sexuality, her charge was never this free with her naked form. The Knight wondered if this was another side effect, and if the Princess might regret being so...overt.

"I am just glad that you are feeling better. I was worried that the changes..." The Princess' breath caught as she touched her new pussy for the first time. "May be affecting your judgement."

Andrea nodded, but did not halt her explorations. "I understand. And honestly, you're right. My mind doesn't feel quite my own. But of all the terrible things that have happened to me this month, I finally have a victory to my name. I've gained a body-" She twitched, touching something particularly sensitive. "A body that I can grow to enjoy."

"Perhaps I should leave, then. Leave you to explore your new form with a modicum of privacy."

The Princess tilted her head, halting her fingers. "Would you like to leave? I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"I don't mind, Open carnality is something I'm trained to ignore."

Andrea returned to pleasuring herself, though with the good grace to look a little shamefast. "I guess, as a royal guard, you saw a lot of strange and embarrassing stuff. Maybe you did some yourself. Did you ever...did you ever fuck one of those barmaids at the Cracked Barrel? I know you spent a lot of time down there."

"I've never slept with a mammal."

That caught Andrea by surprise. "Really?"

Embra shrugged. "I was barely out of my clutch when I took my vows. One of those was an Oath of Chastity to the King and Crown, to never sire heirs while I was in his service. Of course, many in the Court didn't take that seriously. But I did. I..." Her voice faltered as she realized, for perhaps the first time, just how much her life had changed.

No longer was she merely one of many. Most of the Court of the Crimson Scales had fallen when Castle Carmine was attacked. If there were a few who remain, they would be assigned to charges just as she had been, and they'd likely never cross paths until the revanchist wheels turn for those loyal to Princess Andrea and her family. She was also far from the comforts she'd grown used to, though that fact would likely affect Andrea more than Embra. As a Grand-Knight, a part of her duties had been, would be, to guard the King and his family while they were on campaign, or on state visits. And that meant being okay with getting up before the break of dawn, packing gear, and heading out onto the road.

The only constant that moored her to her old life was her armour and her sword. Reminders of the powerful ties that bound her to the Order and the vows she took, some she took more seriously than others, but all she felt were inviolate. To break one would be to invite ruin. That had been her guiding principle. To obey, to serve, to protect. And now...and now...

No. That wasn't quite true. There was one more thing from her old life. Andrea. Beautiful, intelligent, sweet Andrea. Princess Andrea who, despite her age being in the mid 20s, had never once taken a suitor. At least officially. If the rumours and the constant rotation of her maid staff was any hint, she was never at a loss for night time companionship. She might be in a different body, but the gleam of her eyes was the same. Emeralds now, rather than rubies, in an ocean of white.

Andrea scootched closer on the log. Embra could feel the warmth from the fire, but somehow, the body heat radiating off her charge caught her thermal-sensitive eyes the most.

"Would you like to?" she asked with a shy smile, then added, "Be with a mammal, I mean."

If Embra could blush, she would. And if her face wasn't already scarlet, it would have turned so in an instant. "Your Highness, that is...inappropriate, to say the least. Remember what the Witch said: there would be certain side effects to the potion."

She nodded slowly. "I understand that. And I can't say that I'm completely free of any interference from my new hormones. But...gods above...I feel so good! And I want to share it. I want to share it with you."

She leaned in to plant a kiss upon Embra's mouth. The Knight jerked away the first time, her head swimming with confusing feelings. She did not resist the second kiss, however. Or the third.

"Your Highness," the powerful dragon struggled to voice between passionate smooches, "We cannot do this. My vow...I swore..."

"Your vow is gone. That was the cost, remember? There's nothing stopping us if we want to indulge in a little bit of harmless bonding." Andrea reached for Embra's lap, but felt cold steel in her path. The armour of a Grand-Knight still keeping her safe from temptation.

"I don't care what that Witch said. I am still loyal to my bond, to keep you safe." Embra declared, but Andrea's hands were moving again. They found the straps holding the breastplate to protective tassets, and began working at the fasteners. The dragon knew she should struggle, should object. But a part, a hungry part, wanted to indulge.

Pieces of armour clattered to the ground, one after the other. Some with Embra's help, others without. It felt like her old life was being peeled away. The tasteless rind of a delicious fruit discarded, leaving the plump and sweet flesh beneath ready to be devoured. Her sheathed sword was last to drop, held in her off hand as her breastplate was removed. Though it took concentrated effort, she let the blade slide out of her grip and to the ground. Within reach, of course, but she had set it aside. And in its place-

"Keep me safe then," Andrea purred, "Do it by staying close. Do it because you want to. And do it because...because I can take care of you, too."

Her soft fingers slid against Embra's hide. Her extremities, arms, legs, and neck, they were all protected by a thick hide, scaled in parts, that made her such a formidable force on the battlefield. But beyond that, the skin became supple. And sensitive. Andrea found the dragon woman's slit, and an electric shock ran up the larger woman's spine. It had been so long since someone else had touched her there. Too long.

"How does this...I mean, I know how a human's works. But..." Her fingertips drifted along the purple/red lips, their touch exploratory but not unkind.

"That depends. Do you want this," she said, pointing to the slit between Andrea's own legs, "Or do you want something more...substantial?"

The Princess smiled. "I have to admit, I'm a little curious."

"As you wish, your Highness," Embra replied, with the same tone she'd used when obeying her charge a hundred other times in their lives. Embra closed her eyes, reaching into her sense of self to find the muscles she needed. They were dormant when not needed, but were always ready to be called upon. She willed them back to life, and the presence inside her made itself known. The weight, the tension, it was all there like it had never left.

With a sigh, she relaxed her control, and a bright red tapered tip pushed itself out from her pussy. It thickened as it emerged, filling with the blood of an aroused dragon. Her pussy's lips puckered and closed around it like a mouth around a lover, supporting the new organ even as it continued to grow. And grow. And grow.

"Oh my...oh my goodness..." Andrea breathed, watching as Embra's shaft grew beyond the limits of mere human anatomy.

"Is it too big? I can try to withdraw some of it. It may be difficult, but-"

The Princess cut her off. "I've just never had one that was so big. But it's perfect. You're perfect."

Embra beamed. Not only was Andrea kind, but she was earnest. And eager. And needy. A deep, primal hunger reached out from the primordial abyss and threatened to seize her. Draconic passions, appropriately, burned hot.