The Fire Dragons

I shot forwards and slightly to the left, trying to take her from the side, but she turned to meet me head to head. I snapped at her throat and missed. With my claws I lashed out viciously, but she caught them in an unbreakable grip with her own talons. I squirmed to try and break free, bracing myself for pain... but it didn't come. Where I expected her to be holding me roughly, claws digging in sharply, instead it was somehow more gentle, yet still too firm for me to break free, squeezing and kneading my paws in just the right way, her claws moving across my scales in surprising little stroking circles. It was intoxicating, and so unexpected that before I knew what had happened the violence had ebbed out of me...

"This is how I'll touch you when you're my mate."

Suddenly I remembered myself. Snapping myself back with a snarl of fury I lunged forwards and to the side with my full weight, and to my satisfaction and slight surprise felt her give way and topple onto her side. I leapt on top of her, aiming for her throat, but she intercepted me and after a brief but furious struggle we ended up rolling, face to face, each with all four limbs wrapped around the other, wings flat against our backs. I pulled and tore at her armour with my talons, but she simply squeezed, drawing us closer together until I could feel her heart beating fast and strong against my chest.

"This is how I'll hold you once we are one."

I snarled and bared my teeth, struggling to remind myself that I loathed her and that her touch was hateful.

"And this is how I'll kiss you."

She pushed her mouth in front of mine and shot out her long forked tongue to lick me on the snout, a gentle tickling sensation. Without thinking about what I was doing I let out my own tongue to meet it and they intertwined, a damp and delicate dance, a feeling so immense that it pushed the fight straight out of my mind. When it was over, after just a few tantalising moments, I noticed that we were closely entwined, our limbs quite still. I felt that I should be fighting, that I should be angry, but for that brief second I was unable to remember why.

It all came back as Marmondwike, seizing the advantage, rolled me sharply onto my back and jumped to stand triumphantly on top of me, pinning me helplessly under her black bulk. I waited for the cold touch of claws around my throat, but it didn't come. Instead, I felt a single claw trace tender zig-zags across the scales of my belly, moving down towards my tail until...

"Well well, Sedge my dear, it looks as though you've enjoyed this almost as much as I have."

I hadn't realised, until that moment, how wet I had become down there. It was seeping out across my scales. And as soon as I noticed, I felt my bloodlust deepen and flower, completing its inexorable metamorphosis into a different, even stronger kind of lust. I needed, I yearned for fulfilment. Marmondwike's claw traced an ellipse around and around my queenhood, tormenting the already sensitive flesh. I desperately wanted her to slide the claw inside but part of me rebelled, insisting, hazily, that she was my sworn enemy and that I despised her.

"Why haven't you claimed your victory?" I said weakly.

She glanced up at my neck, exposed and vulnerable. "Because I never intended to win that way."

I was confused for a moment, but then thought I understood. Forming a temporary alliance between the part of me that wanted her and the part of me that hated her, I lunged upwards, leaping up as she let herself be pushed back, until we lay in exactly reversed positions. My claws stood poised over her neck. One simple motion, and she'd be out of my life forever. I stood motionless, precisely balanced at the apex of the decision, hatred pushing against desire, until finally I dropped my neck into her outstretched talons and felt them clasp gently around it.

* * *

The first time I'd met Marmondwike was when she'd dropped out of the night sky to land in front of my cave. I'd emerged from my home, hissing and spitting fire, trying but failing to intimidate the unwelcome new arrival.

She'd said, "hello stranger."

Fire queens don't visit each other. We don't socialise, except perhaps to scream insults from a distance, and never meet face to face, except to fight over territory. That one should pay me a house call was unprecedented and baffling. I reacted in the only way I knew how.

"Miserable writhing worm! I am Soursedge, dire queen of the Pike." I gestured all around me. "This mountain is mine. If you don't leave it now, I shall..."

"Mountain?" She looked amused. "It's a mere hill!"

I shrieked. "It's a mountain! My mountain! Get off it right now or..."

She interrupted me again. "No, you're right, it's a mountain. I see it now. With a queen as dreadful, as loathsome, as delectably rank-scented as you sat astride it, you make it a mountain. I'm Marmondwike, your new neighbour."

Everything about the big black dragon impressed me. Her great rippling body bristling with midnight scales, her penetrating saffron eyes, the strong roar of her voice, her overwhelmingly dark and rich reek... but perhaps most of all her calm, outrageous self-assurance. Here was a queen so ferocious she didn't need to shout and burn and intimidate.

A fire queen has only two instincts that let her deal with something she admires: she can either claim it as her own or set herself against it. If Marmondwike had been a drake, I might have let my admiration turn to desire: the desire to hold her close, to protect her, to be close to her, to mate with her, to consider her mine. But instead I forced it to turn to loathing. Her qualities marked her as a threat to my own superiority, and thus she was my mortal enemy.

"Fangless flameless fog-fearing fairy!" I screamed. "Begone! If I see you again, I'll sink my talons deep into your flesh!"

"Ooh, I'll look forward to that," she said, winking. "Until next time, Sedge."

"It's Soursedge!" I'd shouted as she flew into the darkness. My mind seethed, cursing her name a thousand times. I hated her, but it was a hatred born of deep admiration, that also forms the basis for love. And one can easily turn into the other.

* * *

We lay quiet and still for a minute while our lives reconfigured themselves around us. Her claws played gentle patterns on my neck as I stared into her bewitching yellow eyes.

"Hello lover," she said.

"Hello," I replied, unsure what to say.

My mind spun. I was Marmondwike's mate. I didn't know what to make of a fact like that. Why had I just done what I'd done? I ran it through my head again, trying to make sense of it. I was Marmondwike's mate. Fire queens didn't let people take them as mates. They took people as their mates. There was a difference. I tried reversing the sentence. Marmondwike was my mate. That was better. I could deal with that.

She was mine.

Suddenly the new reality of things clicked into place. She was mine! That big, beautiful dragon, with her loathsome body and fetid rancour and magnificent coat of scales as black as the void between the stars, she was mine. True, I was at the same time hers, but that side of things was for her to enjoy.

She lay there on her back, wings spread to either side, legs in the air, one set of talons curled around my throat and her eyes gazing hungrily into mine. I ran the back of a single claw over her belly, feeling it clatter over the black scales, reminding myself that she was real and she was mine and she was lying there beneath me, and... and that I wanted her. All the lust that had arisen unbidden during the fight now poured back into me. I had to touch her. I ran my claws over her body, all over, needing to touch every part of her, sliding and stroking and gripping, relishing the feel of her. Now I was stroking the leathery folds of her outstretched wings. Now I was brushing the strong curve of her jaw, now running my feet down the great sweep of her tail. She closed her eyes and moaned in delight.

There seemed an enormous amount of her to touch, and I felt suddenly that I didn't have enough paws. Shaking my head loose from her grip I brought it down to rake my tongue across her scaly armour, loving the rasp, the pleasingly foul taste. I paused to stare once again into her eyes. "This is how I touch you now you're my mate."

She shrieked in joy, and then she was touching me as desperately and comprehensively as I'd been touching her. We became a confusion of pawing limbs and flashing claws, roaring and bellowing, a wild frenzy of motion that, to anybody watching, was barely distinguishable from the combat we'd so recently been entangled in.

Without speaking we somehow both knew at once the moment to stop pawing at each other and to draw each other close. Legs wrapped around flanks, tails entwined. Closer, I had to have her closer to me. Our wings folded around one another, our long necks hooked around each other's shoulders; a living knot, squeezed tightly together. I could feel her great warmth, her searing breath on my back, her racing heartbeat. I luxuriated in the world-filling bleakness of her scent, letting it flow into my lungs, losing myself in it. I squeezed harder, feeling her respond in kind, trying to meld us into a single dragon.

"This is how I hold you now we are one," I said. "And this is how I kiss you."

Unfurling only slightly to face each other, we stuck out our long, slender tongues and let the tips touch, just gently, before hooking them over one another and letting them dance, lapping and twisting and looping and playing, every spark of my concentration focused on that shimmering and intricate and glorious overlap of tongues. I almost didn't notice the rippling pressure of her talons on my scales, the low throbbing of her chest against mine, the squirming and grinding of her tail and hips against my own. Deep within me, the heat in my loins grew more and more intense, until I became conscious of my juices streaming out of me, trickling wetly down my leg. And then I noticed that it wasn't just my juices.

Marmondwike, breaking from the kiss, stared into my eyes. "Now show me how you fuck me."

My heart raced. My lust pounded at the centre of my mind, shouting: yes! We'd bring each other to a gasping orgasm; sating ourselves on pleasure. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, I wanted more right at that moment than to fuck that odious, gorgeous creature until she screamed.

"No," I told her.

She stared at me despondently as I extricated myself from her. "No?"

I yearned to drop myself back onto her and lose myself in her, but I was too much of a fire queen. I had to show her that she didn't dominate me, that I could deprive her of what she most wanted on a whim. With Marmondwike bigger, stronger, more repulsive and more cunning than I was, I had to do something to stop myself from slipping into the role of a submissive little drake sheltered under her wing. There'd be plenty of time for sex later.

"No. I just don't feel like it right now," I lied, trying to sound casual. She glanced at my streaming pussy and gave me a look to say she didn't believe me, but said nothing. Instead she spread her legs a little, giving me an unobstructed view of her own queenhood: a parting in the slick black scales; a deep and alluring cleft into her innermost recesses, shining wet with juices overflowing and dripping over her armoured hip...

I tore my eyes away. "I'll be sleeping in my lair; come join me when you've finished yourself off."

Turning my tail I swept as regally as I could into my little cave and lay down on my side atop my soft ashen bed. Marmondwike, rather than follow my suggestion, followed close behind me; I raised a wing in front of me in invitation to slip herself under it, but instead she laid herself behind me and folded her own wing over my belly, her talons resting on my back, as though I were a favourite drake. I chose not to protest. The feeling of being blanketed by her was far too pleasant for that.

If I'd guessed that, like me, she was resigned to swallowing her lust and letting it burn itself out, I was wrong. No sooner were we laid down together than I felt her shift and wriggle behind me, and she settled into a rhythmic pulsing quiver, accompanied by quiet wet noises and soft gasps in my ear. Gritting my teeth I managed to resist the temptation to sink my talons into my own crying queenhood and join in. As she came to a moaning climax her claws tightened and squeezed on my shoulders, and then she was still.

"Sleep well, Wike. Dream dreams of glory and desecration."

"Sleep well, Soursedge. Dream dreams of me."

* * *

I dreamed.

I dreamed that I awoke to the sweet sound of birdsong, soft sunlight filtering in through the mouth of the cave. The scent of flowers and newly-cut grass greeted my nostrils. I smiled.

Marmondwike wasn't beside me. She must have gotten up early to watch the sunrise again, without wishing to disturb me. Bless her sweet heart. I got to my feet and stretched, leaving our feather bed to join her outside the cave.

It was a magnificent morning. The moorland bloomed in green verdancy, and vibrant green shoots were springing into life all over the Pike. It had been raining but now the sun was out, causing wisps of moisture to curl up from the land, and arching over the whole landscape was a breathtaking rainbow. But I had eyes for none of that. I was interested only in my Marmondwike.

She sat on the edge of the rock, her black scales shimmering in the sunlight. Her spotless claws, her perfect tail, her flawless wings, all formed a kind of living, breathing poem to the beauty of the draconic form. She carried a scent suggestive of autumn leaves and bonfires.

"Good morning, my angel," she called to me. "Care to join me? I was meditating on the beauty and bounty of Mother Nature."

"That sounds wonderful, my peppermint cream," I said as I sat down beside her, our tongues flashing out to share a brief and tender kiss...

"AAAAAAAARGHHH!" I woke up with a mighty roar, my whole body shaking.

"What? What? What is it?" said the voice of Marmondwike in my ear, alarmed by my sudden outburst.

I took a moment to calm my nerves. I breathed in deeply. My cave smelled the way it always had and always would: dreadful, perhaps even more dreadful now that it contained two death-scented fire queens instead of just the one.

"I... nothing. Just a nightmare. A nightmare about you."

"Ooh, you're having nightmares about me now are you?" Her tongue rasped against my neck. "Well don't keep it to yourself. What exactly was I doing in your nightmare to get you waking up with such a ghastly scream? Is it something I could try again now you're awake?"

"No, not a good nightmare. A bad nightmare. You -- and my cave -- and the Pike -- you were all... well... nice." I shuddered as I said the word.

"Nice?" I felt her drape her leathery wing over my still-trembling body in sympathy and dig her claws reassuringly into my back. "Don't worry Sedge, it was all a dream. The Pike is barren and blasted. Your cave is an abomination. And I'm a devious black-hearted monstrosity."

I snorted. "Psss! Black-hearted? You? You're a frivolous, flamboyant, frolicking feather fancier. A cowering, clawless cloudspotter, that's what you are."

Marmondwike gave me a little nibble at the base of my wing. "Mmm, I love it when you talk dirty."

I smiled to myself. "You're nothing but a meditating, moralising rock balancer!"

"Yes!" Marmondwike leapt on top of me, straddling me, pinning me on my back with her forepaws pressing down on my wings. She leered down at me with her evil yellow eyes, her tail swishing eagerly. "Tell me more, my gruesome queen," she said in a voice like rusty knives.

I hissed up at her and narrowed my eyes, feeling arousal build within me once again.

"You mediocre, monkey-massaging melon sucker!"

She kissed me forcefully, her tongue lapping liberally all over my snout. "More!" She insisted.

"You pathetic, petal-covered, pollen-spreading photosynthesiser!" I roared up at her, spraying her with acrid spittle. In response she kissed me again, dropping her hips to grind industriously against my own, her scales rubbing insistently against my tender queenhood.

"You, Marmondwike, are nothing but a galloping, grey-minded grass eater!"

"Oh, my queen! My ravishing, filthy-minded, vermin-bodied queen!"

Marmondwike spun around on top of me, still pinning me legs-up against the bed but with her head now poised above my seeping slit. She stuck out her tongue and licked heartily around the opening in my scales, making me squirm. I stared up at her hind quarters and tail, oscillating intriguingly close in front of my eyes. Her gaping queenhood caught my eye, a slit in the black scales leading into a damp and deeper blackness beyond. I licked my lips.

"Marmondwike you mushroom-collecting, milk-drinking ground crawler! Get you dainty lady parts out of my face!"

"Dainty? You despicable creature, Sedge!" She dropped her hips, her loins descending to smother my face, her queenhood slobbering its indescribable putrid wetness over my snout. I shook in barely containable lust, and thrust my tongue deep inside that vile unspeakable orifice, lapping in and out, feeding my unquenchable thirst for her acrid juices. At the same time I felt her own foul tongue thrust itself deep inside my body.

We drank from each other, gripping each other with our claws as we tortured each other with our tongues. The pleasure built inside me, like a fierce belly fully of fire but somehow even hotter, demanding to burst free. But it was Marmondwike who came first. I felt her insides clench and she screamed, a sound like tortured steel being wrenched asunder, and she let out a great jet of flame from her mouth. The feeling of the hot fire tickling over my pussy sent me over the edge and I added my own ear-splitting scream to the air as my whole body throbbed and writhed with pure, unbearable ecstasy.

* * *

"Breakfast."

Marmondwike placed the hunk of charred meat ceremoniously in front of me as I stepped outside. She'd cooked it herself, roasting it with her flame. I leaned down to sniff it, and prodded it with a claw. It was burnt to a black crisp, resembling a lump of charcoal more than a piece of flesh.

I glared at her. "It's barely cooked, you vapid vacillating vegetarian!" I hissed.

She shrugged her wings. "What can I say? I like my meat rare. Take it or leave it."

I took it. We ate together in contented silence, devouring the meat wolfishly, occasionally spitting pieces of bone or gristle over the edge of the rock. In truth, she'd cooked it to perfection, but I wasn't about to tell her that.

"What now, darling?" she asked me when we'd both finished eating. "How do you fancy flying out with me and finding something pretty to burn? I could use a stretch of my wings."

The moorland spread out below where we sat, brutal and austere. The sky was a beautiful damp shade of grey, thick and oppressive. The kind of day that made me want to leap into the air and soar.

"Let's do that," I agreed. "Later. But first, I have a better idea."

"Oh?"

I leered at her. "Yes. First, you're going to mount me like a good little drake."

She curled her tail and arched her spine in mock offence. "A good little drake?!"

"That's right." I stuck out my tongue at her. "My obedient, timorous little mate, ready to submit herself to my every need at a click of my talons. That's you."

I turned to present my rear to her, raising my tail to ensure she had an exquisite view of my inviting queenhood. She stared at me hungrily, her forked tongue flashing out in anticipation.