by Gabe Hudson
Bar none, this is the most gorgeous dragonette I’ve ever crossed paths with.
At that moment, I cough up more blood out of my beak.
“You wannath lay my eggsth?” I whisper.
She huffs softly. “Why I shoulda seen it sooner. You’re the spitting image of your granddaddy. You’re a Terrible, ain’tcha?”
“Yesth ma’am.”
“ ’Course you are. Why you couldn’t hide the fact that you’re a Terrible no more than a monkey could talk with its butt. You Terribles is something special, I’ll say. You goin’ to grow up and conquer your own galaxy and rule over it with an iron talon, like your granddaddy did?”
“Yesth ma’am. I aimth to anyway.”
Now I’m struck by how yellow this dragoness’s eyes are, how piercing they are. I sense a power there that I don’t understand. Plus I can feel myself blushing just slightly. Or maybe it’s just my blood has stopped circulating and I’m dying.
I turn my scaly green head and cough up another spatter of blood onto the floor. I can taste my own blood in my beak.
Now this dragonette smiles a beakful of fangs. “Shoot,” she whispers, “I know I wouldn’t want to be some poor sucker on a planet that you invaded, that’s for dang sure. Why look at your scaly face, darlin’. It’s got Evil Ruler written all over it.”
I just manage a faint smile. I’m sure I look freaking hideous.
“You make fella feel real niceth,” I whisper. “Thanketh you for goodth death.”
I don’t bother to think about where all this is going, because it’s not every day that an older juicy babe with a powerful thick tail fawns over me like this. And she still has a claw under my beak, and now we’re just staring into each other’s eyes.
As I lay dying and staring up into her eyes like this, I think:
Well if this is how I die, then so be it.
It’s a royal send-off.
Please just let her eyes and her odor be the last things I see and smell.
The luscious dragoness flutters her wings and purrs, “Well I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She winks at me. “I taste even hotter than I talk.”
She quickly glances around to make sure we’re alone here in the stone corridor, and then she puts her black beak right up to my scaly green earhole and whispers: “I can feel you rumbling, sugar. And here we are, all alone. Maybe you want to get yourself a teensy-weensy little ol’ lick?”
Her breath is hot. Though I don’t know if it’s from her throbbing ovowomb or from the lava in her belly. She pulls back a couple inches so we’re looking directly into each other’s eyes again, and her yellow eyes start shining as if a light is emanating from within them.
I turn my scaly green head and cough up more blood.
“My name Gorkth.”
“I know who you are,” she says. “Nice to meet you, Gork. I’ve heard a lot about you. My name’s Metheldra.”
Then the dragonette reaches out with the back of her talon and wipes the blood off my beak.
Metheldra. I know I’ve heard that name before but I can’t recollect where, and like I said, it’s pretty hard for me to focus at this moment. Especially with Metheldra’s mating scent wafting up through my nostrils and kissing my brain and making me delirious with lust. I really need to rub scales with this dragonette.
“You frunds with my grandpath, Dr. Therrible?” I croak.
Something inside me is hemorrhaging, because the blood is trickling out my beak and out my flared green nostrils.
“That’s right. I help Dr. Terrible out here at the Institute.”
“What kindth of thelp? What do youth do here?”
“Why don’t you step into my lair and I’ll show you,” she purrs.
Then she reaches up and clasps my horns in her talons, as if she is assessing how badly wounded I really am. “Mmmmmm,” she says, “I see your horns have some room for growth. I might be able to help you with these horns. I’m an expert in BIOCON LEVS. I think I might be able to make these horns of yours grow.”
Then she points her powerstaff at me and pulls down my Cadet Profile on her floating screen. “I see the Oddsmakers have given you at 0.1% chance of making it through Crown Day,” she purrs. “And your BIOCON LEVS are null. I don’t mean to scare you, but your WILL TO POWER status is Goner. You seem like you’re in big trouble, Gork.” Then she purrs, “Why don’t you step into my lair?”
My right wing spasms and I flop around some more in my blood here on the floor.
I’m practically swimming in my own blood by this point.
So this dragonette’s idea of me going anywhere other than where I am seems comically deranged, considering how filthy and weak I am.
Can’t she see I’m dying?
But I’m also feeling super stirred-up and juicy. Because what I really want is for this chick to lay my eggs. This is my dying wish. Well I know how despicable this sounds, because I am dying and you’d think your thoughts and feelings would be a sight more noble than that in the face of the sacred. But they aren’t. My thoughts, I mean.
Because I’m starting to get some very clear thoughts in my head of what me and this dragoness can do if we “bump scales.”
Now you may be surprised to hear this, but I’m still a virgin. Because dragon chicks are programmed to avoid mating with a fool like me.
My datastream is a deal breaker.
You don’t want your little baby dragons to hatch out of their eggs with WILL TO POWER deficiencies.
But something about this dragoness seems different. Like her WTP is so fiendish it will override the wussy BIOCON LEVS of any fool she mates with.
So I figure if I hurry up and mate with this chick, then at least I won’t have to die a virgin.
This will at least be one shame I won’t have to endure in the Underworld, to have died a virgin.
“Whereth yer lair?” I whisper. “I’m readyth. We rubth scales. I die. You layth my eggsth!”
Metheldra smiles and points her index claw at a door in the wall I didn’t notice before. “It’s right there,” she purrs.
Then she gingerly scoops me up off the ground and presses me tightly to her bosom and carries me across the threshold.
“Now let’s get you out of that uniform and cape,” she whispers.
It feels wonderful to be wrapped up in her warm embrace, to be held so close to her green scaly bosom like this.
And if I weren’t so afraid of dying right now, I’d faint.
“Thanketh youth.”
[ 34 ]
SWORD PLAY
“Owwwwwww!” I cry.
This isn’t how I expected it to feel.
This dragoness Metheldra’s lair is full of swords.
“Please stop!” I cry.
I mean she has what look to be at least a couple hundred swords hanging on the wall. And they’re all shapes and sizes—short swords, long swords, curved swords, serrated swords, swords with black handles, swords with red handles, swords with strange runes engraved in the blades, swords with three blades, swords with oddly shaped blades devised for some horrible purpose I hope I never have to learn about. And all of these swords are mounted along the wall in a massive display device constructed of silver and black velvet.
“Oh my God that hurts!” I cry. “Please stop! Please stop! I’m begging you!”
Metheldra is the swordupuncturist Dr. Terrible has been flapping his beak about.
So here I am lying on this stone slab without any clothes on. And I already have forty or so swords stuck into my scaly body—in my wings, in my tail, in my long neck, in my talons, in my horns, in my hind legs, in my forelimbs, and even in my webbed feet. Several swords are jammed to the hilt right in my poor belly. The only light in the room is coming from a bunch of drooping candles on a nearby table.
Now Metheldra calmly pulls another long shiny sword off the wall and holds it over me, and the silver blade winks in the candlelight. And she runs an index claw slowly across my scaly chest as if she
’s searching for the right point of entry.
“No more! No more!” I say. “Please don’t stick another sword in me! Please! It hurts! Oh my God it hurts so much!”
Whatever lusciousness I was feeling a few minutes ago out in the corridor is long gone. Having a chick stick a bunch of swords in your torso will do that to you. It’s a buzzkill. My virginity is intact. But somehow in the midst of getting all these swords stuck in my scaly green ass, my dang death seems to have eased on up too.
“I can feel your WILL TO POWER blocked in your heart region, Gork,” she says, snorting blacksmoke out her nostrils. “Your heart is way too big. The size of your heart is life-threatening. It’s preventing you from being connected to the BIOCON sources in your environment.”
“My heart? What’s wrong with my heart? My heart’s just fine the way it is,” I gasp.
Of course secretly I know my giant compassionate heart is to blame for pretty much all my woes. But maybe by playing dumb I can somehow trick Metheldra out of doing whatever it is she’s about to do to me with this mega sword she’s wielding in her talon.
“Hopefully I can unblock it with this sword.”
I gulp. “Now wait just a second,” I say. “Let’s talk about this. What exactly are you planning on doing with that sword?”
Metheldra flicks her powerstaff and a floating screen appears in the air and there’s a live image of my black heart on the screen, and my heart looks like a huge nasty throbbing greasy oyster. Up there on the floating screen, you can plainly see my heart is so gigantic it fills both sides of my entire chest cavity. She points at the screen with her sword.
“Gork,” she says, “I’m sorry to have to be telling you this, but this is the biggest dragon heart I have ever seen. No wonder your horns won’t grow! No wonder your BIOCON LEVS are so low. No wonder you have no WILL TO POWER. The size of your heart is undermining every other aspect of your life and your development as a dragon. Now, I would ask you if you have a problem with fainting, but one look at the image of your heart here and I already know the answer to that question. I’d be surprised if you weren’t fainting at least five times a day, maybe more.”
A strange little whimper bubbles up in the back of my throat.
Then she reaches out and carefully rubs my puny horns with her other talon.
“You poor thing,” she whispers. “You poor poor poor thing. Don’t you worry. Metheldra is going to fix you.”
“Mmmmmmm,” I moan. “That feels so good.”
I love the way it feels as she keeps gently rubbing my puny horns like this because, when she rubs them, well it makes me feel strong and super. And feeling strong and powerful isn’t a familiar sensation to me, which is partly why I find the whole experience so exhilarating.
“Mmmmmmm. Gosh that really does feel so good. Please don’t stop.”
It’s the way she clasps each horn with her talon, and then rubs her talons up and down over them. “That feels good. Please don’t stop. Mmmmmm.”
“You poor poor poor thing,” she whispers. “Metheldra is going to fix you. You poor, poor thing. Metheldra is going to fix you. You poor, poor thing.”
“Mmmmm,” I moan. “That feels so good. They’re so small. I hate how small they are. I want to have big horns.”
She keeps rubbing my horns.
“Don’t you worry,” she purrs. “I’m going to make your horns very, very big. Metheldra is going to fix you. Metheldra is going to fix you. She is going to make you into a big strong dragon with big scary horns.”
Then without warning she swings her other talon around in a flash of silver and sticks the sword blade right into my heart and pushes down with all her weight.
[ 35 ]
METHELDRA THE SWORDUPUNCTURIST
“Owwwwwww!” I sob.
I’m instantly thrashing around on the table and twisting this way and that, trying to break free. But the blade has gone straight through my heart and out my back and I’m pinned to the slab, like some sort of science specimen in a display case.
I hiss and spray sparks out of my beak.
My tail is thrashing around like an enraged beast.
“Take it out!” I bellow. “Take it out! Please take it out!”
Now I’m really starting to freak out and I suddenly get worried I might go insane because of how much pain I’m in with this sword blade jammed straight through my giant heart. I thrash around even harder and I’m struggling to get to my green webbed feet, and in the midst of my insanity I’m convinced that I can just run out of her lair with the table stuck to my back.
I’ll learn to live like that. With the sword right through my heart, and that table pinned to my back. I don’t care. As long as I manage to escape from her lair right this instant, that’s all that matters.
Then Metheldra rears back and snatches another sword with her other talon and she brings this sword down handle-first and bashes me in the snout with the butt of the sword handle. Blood instantly spurts out.
I’m dazed. I’m seeing stars. And I black out from the pain. Or from the blow to my snout. I don’t know which one it is. But I’m gone.
When I come to, I’m still lying on the table.
Metheldra is gazing down at me by candlelight with a serene look in her hooded eyes, and she is gently rubbing my horns. And it really does feel yummy, the way she’s rubbing my horns like that. I glance down and see there are still at least twenty swords stuck through my scaly body, including the giant silver sword stuck through my heart. But for some reason, I don’t care. I don’t feel pain anymore. I’m actually feeling pretty faboo.
I smile weakly up at her. “Metheldra gonna fix me. Mmmmmmm. I like you rubbing my horns. Mmmmmm. Yummy.”
“That’s good, Gork,” purrs Metheldra, as she rubs my horns. “We need to unblock your BioCon Channels. You’ve lost connection with the electromagnetic waves from the island. The name of this sword I just stuck in you is the HeartShrinker.”
“The HeartShrinker?”
“Yes. The blade was forged here at the Institute’s volcano. It’s designed to help cadets become more ruthless and deranged. There’s not a dragon heart in the universe that could withstand this blade. Your heart is shriveling as we speak.”
“Mmmmm. Me like the HeartShrinker. My horns feel big and strong.”
“By stabbing your heart with this HeartShrinker sword and letting the blade stay pierced through your heart, we should be able to shrink your heart down to a much more manageable size. So that your heart stops interfering with your natural tendencies to be ghastly and fiendish. I can tell that’s where a lot of your BIOCON LEVS are getting blocked. Your grandfather Dr. Terrible always said he wanted me to treat you if I ever got the chance.”
I can feel my heart shrinking under the onslaught of this sword. The natural flow is being restored to my scaly green ass. For once in my life, it feels like my gigantic compassionate heart isn’t trying to get in the way of everything. And with my massive heart out of the way, my body can get back to the task of jacking up my WILL TO POWER.
Part of me hates myself for this, but the truth is that Metheldra’s words about Dr. Terrible wanting her to treat me make me feel warm and happy inside. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate the deranged bastard. But the warm feeling is there too.
I keep my lids closed as I lie on the slab and snort firebolts.
“I think I can feel my heart shrinking,” I purr. “That one sword you’ve got stuck in there is working, it feels good. By the way, you never told me where Dr. Terrible is. I need his advice. I aim to get this chick Runcita to be my Queen. And today’s Crown Day, so I got until sunset today. And if I don’t get Dr. Terrible’s advice, I might miss my chance to get a Queen and end up having to live out my days as a slave.”
Metheldra pulls one of the swords out of my tender belly.
“I’m sorry, Gork,” she says loudly. “But I have strict orders from Dr. Terrible not to reveal his location to anyone. And he made a point of saying that goes f
or his grandson Gork, too. I made a promise to Dr. Terrible and as much as I’d like to help you, I’m afraid I have to keep it.”
But then she drops the sword and it clatters on the stone floor.
“What a klutz I am!” she says.
Now she bends down to pick up the sword and puts her beak to my earhole: “Dr. Terrible’s hiding in his secret underground bunker on the west side of the island. The one where the entrance hatch is disguised as an old dead tree trunk. Off of Conquer More Road. Do you know the bunker I’m talking about? If you do, just nod your head slightly. Be careful though! I’m pretty sure my lair is bugged. There might even be some micro-drone transmitters in here.”
And I don’t know if it is her breath or the information she whispers to me, but I suddenly feel dizzy. I know exactly what underground bunker she’s talking about, over on the west side of the island. I’ve been there a thousand times before. I can’t believe I didn’t think to look for Dr. Terrible there.
Anyway, I nod my scaly green head slightly so Metheldra will know I know where that bunker is.
Then the dragoness stands back up straight alongside me.
“But even though I can’t tell you where Dr. Terrible is,” she says loudly, “I think I can give you a piece of information that will be even more valuable than that! Something that could help you in your quest to get a Queen. You want to take that chick Runcita, right? Dean Floop’s daughter?”
Now at that moment there’s suddenly a loud banging at Metheldra’s lair door.
“Open up! Open up! By order of WarWings Security, open this door at once! We know you have Dr. Terrible’s grandson in there! Resistance is useless! Open up!”
I hiss and spray sparks out my beak.
Metheldra quickly yanks the rest of the swords out of me and hands me my uniform. “Hurry!” she whispers. “Go through this tunnel and it’ll take you back out to the main entrance of the Institute!”