Saida and the Dragon

Saida bolted awake with a scream ringing in her ears. It took her several seconds to understand it had been hers.

Rubbing her face, she glanced at the alarm clock—five in the morning, on the dot—before falling back in bed and staring at the ceiling. Hardly her first dream of being eaten. Not even the first one with a dragon. This one hadn’t been as…

(admit it)

…sexy as many others. The teasing red panda and mink. The demon mice. The friendlier mouse, who suggested there were alternate universe versions of Saida all dreaming of one another, before eating the entire planet. The goth bunny girlfriend at the school for magicians (what a weird concept).

Not that she hadn’t shamefully gotten off during it. Goddess. And it had been so damn vivid. An end-of-the-world movie, post-apocalypse, living among ruined cities, avoiding…something. More than likely, avoiding that very dragon. But as cliché as “eyes that stared into your soul” was, his swirling eyes had grabbed and held her and rifled through her subconscious, in a way that by all rights should have felt far more violating than it had.

What had he said? Here you are at last, cat of ten thousand doors.

And then, as she slid down his throat into his stomach, his voice rang in her mind: An ending in me for you, a new beginning in me for the one who dreams of you. I consume you utterly, and consume your dreamer as well.

She slept fitfully for the next two hours, drifting in and out of more dreamed lives, until the alarm sounded once more.

Saida moved mechanically through the motions of getting ready for work: brew coffee, pour coffee, get cereal, wash dishes, walk to train station, board train, ride for a half-hour.

This time, though, the dreams stayed with her. They wouldn’t leave her head, wouldn’t stop being so vivid. Wouldn’t stop feeling like…like memories, memories of other Saidas. Lives where she’d done better in her career, lives where she’d done much worse. Lives where she lived only among other cats (Rhas?) with mice in the walls; lives—like her real one—

(is this one any more real?)

—where she lived among many others. Lives where she had a boyfriend, or a girlfriend (far more common, interestingly), or a polycule; lives like this one where she remained single and (mostly) comfortable with it. And more than one life where she’d been cursed/blessed to come back from the dead.

And so, so many where that life ended—temporarily or permanently⁠—going down someone’s throat.

By the time she stumbled off the train, her head throbbed with a migraine to end all migraines. The dreams, the visions, they weren’t stopping, they wouldn’t stop. The walk through downtown to the office became a strange phantasmagoria, every sound louder, every scent stronger, every color more saturated. Were people staring at her?

They probably wanted to eat her. Everybody wanted to eat her. Who’d be the one who’d get this Saida? Who was laughing at her? Who was laughing at her?

She closed her eyes, resting against the office building’s wall for a moment. The laughter was in her head. The laughter was the dragon’s.

The laughter wasn’t real.

Taking a deep breath, she collected herself, straightened her blouse, and walked into the high lobby, heading toward the elevator bank. She could make it. She was normal.

When she tapped her ID card on the entrance gate, the light flashed red, refusing to open. Frowning, she tapped it again. Still red. Tap. Red. Tap. Red.

People were starting to stare. Dammit. They probably wanted to eat her. No, she wanted to eat them. Stare at her, get what’s coming—

“It’s not going to work, Miss Talirend.”

She turned. Her boss, a twitchy mouse about ten years her senior, looked at her with his habitual slight disapproval.

She cleared her throat, shouting at the voices in her head—the other Saidas, and especially the fucking dragon—to stay quiet. “Why not?”

He raised a brow. “Surely Personnel called you over the weekend.”

“I don’t…I don’t think so.” She looked at her phone in alarm. “No messages.”

His tail flicked back and forth erratically. “About the reduction in force. Half the team was affected.”

“Including…me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s, uh, all in the email.” He shifted on his paws awkwardly. “If you have anything to collect from your desk, I can take you up, I guess.”

Saida’s vision filled with red. She closed her eyes, staggering.

“Ah…Miss Talirend?” he said cautiously.

“I don’t feel…” She was about to say I don’t feel good, but that wasn’t true, was it? She was burning up, not with fever but with a cleansing fire, new growth sprouting everywhere. “I don’t feel myself.”

“You don’t look…ah…oh, my goddess.”

She opened her eyes, looking down at him from, yes, a greater height than before. Was he…was he cowering?

She liked the idea he might be cowering.

“I don’t think I need anything from my desk.” She slid her tongue across the back of her teeth. Had they gotten a touch sharper, a fraction longer? Did her jaw have a slightly different shape than she remembered?

He gaped up at her, taking a step back. “I…uh…haha…” The mouse clearly wanted to run, but couldn’t tear his eyes away from hers.

She remembered that feeling, with the dragon. In the dream.

A dream to her. But another, real Saida.

Here you are at last, cat of ten thousand doors.

She took a step toward him, maintaining the same distance. “Are you shrinking?”

“I b-believe you’re growing, and I very much wish you’d stop.” He backed up faster, until he hit the wall by the opposite elevator bank.

Goddess, he was right. He wasn’t even chest high to her now, and her clothes—her blouse and skirt had ripped. She felt…heavier. Tough. Dense. Strong. She ran a hand over her stomach, feeling the musculature. She closed her eyes, taking another deep breath. Goddess, she liked this.

“Oh, god, stop growing!”

She opened her eyes and looked down at him. Now he stood hip-high to her. Her clothes fell off her in shreds. Her claws, both toe and finger, had gotten sharper, thicker, more menacing even in scale.

His pupils dilated. “Stay back!” He sidled along the wall. “Shoot her! Shoot her shoot her shoot her!”

What? Saida turned in time to see the rabbit security guard with his pistol out, firing. Three shots in rapid succession. The bullets hurt, punches against her stomach and chest.

But only like punches. She could hear them bouncing off her, not sinking in. Bouncing off the skin underneath her fur.

With a deep, bone-rattling snarl, she took a step toward the rabbit, claws fully out. He screamed and bolted in the opposite direction. Panic broke out across the lobby.

She straightened up and banged her head on the ceiling—a ceiling that had to be close to twenty feet high. What was happening to her couldn’t be real, and yet it was. It had to be the dragon. Somehow. A new beginning in me for the one who dreams of you.

The mouse looked around frantically and tried to make a run past her. She reached down and easily grabbed him in a hand; he was, what, about the length of her forearm now? She paused, marveling at the muscles on her arms, and everywhere else on her.

“Please—Miss Talirend—Saida—”

She put a finger on her other hand to her lips. “Shh.”

He fell silent, staring with dread fascination as she opened her muzzle wide, showing off her changing set of teeth, and brought her jaws down over his face. Even as she did so, he obeyed her command to stay quiet, all the way through the point she unhinged her jaws—she didn’t know how, but it was natural, easy—and swallowed his head. Then he started screaming, the sound wet and muffled.

She tightened the grip of her jaws, closing her eyes and concentrating on the feeling of his struggles. Delicious. Arousing. She let her powerful throat muscles pull him in smoothly, pinning his arms to his sides and locking his kicking legs together as they disappeared between her lips.

Oh, goddess. In all those dreams—those other lives—being swallowed had been dismayingly sexual, as if being coated in saliva and held helpless was a weird turn-on. But being the one doing the swallowing, feeling helpless prey squirming and sliding down her throat into her stomach, effortlessly dominating someone so absolutely, so completely⁠—

She took a ragged breath once she was able to and staggered, dropping to a sitting position, letting out a loud, lewd moan. “The other Saidas can be prey.” She closed her eyes, running her hands over her body. “This one is changing her story.”

When she opened her eyes again, she saw her head just missed the lobby ceiling once more, even though she remained sitting. She’d doubled in size again. And she felt—she felt—

She knew what was happening, didn’t she? She didn’t know why, but she was becoming a dragon. A cat-dragon. More muscle, fiercer claws, but still distinctly feline. Yet, she sensed those different teeth, the different jawline. A different tongue, longer and more flexible, more tongue than should be able to fit in her mouth. Even her tail had changed—still lushly furred, but longer, more flexible.

The lobby had emptied out, but police gathered outside, preparing to come in. She’d have to crawl past them to get out.

Unless…

Punching through the ceiling was shockingly easy, and people literally tumbled into her hands. She laughed, pushing them one by one into her mouth, feeling them futilely fight their demotion to cat food. The squirrel engineer. Gulp.

The wolf businessman. Gulp. Mmmm—

The deer woman trying to climb away—ah, yes, that dragon-cat tongue is prehensile, wrapping tightly around a leg and dragging the morsel back. Gulp. Ohhh—

She was growing. She was getting hungrier.

And goddess, was she turned on.

Saida-Dragon clawed at the floors, the walls, pushing up, up. Her horns—she had horns now, ha!—ripped through the building as easily as her hands. Dragon magic surged through her in a firestorm, the cream-colored fur on her belly and chest weaving into silvery scales, leaving the rest of her still furry—but just as invulnerable. She swung that newly charged tail, demolishing walls. Rubble and debris rained across her, plaster and wires and office furniture and office workers, and she still reached, reached, reached—

She burst out of the top of the building.

How many stories was—had it been? Fifteen? Sixteen? She had to be at least two hundred feet tall now.

Panting, she shook off, sending chunks of building and temporary survivors flying, and took stock of the situation.

Giant cat-dragon. Check.

Weird pains in her back. Hmm. Check.

Still hungry. Check.

Still horny. Check.

Crowds fleeing down the street, traffic jammed in all directions. Lovely. Police at her paws, firing fruitlessly. Cute. She lifted a paw and brought it down on the closest police cruiser, crumpling it. Frighteningly easy, strangely sensual. Check.

She touched her face, feeling her elongating muzzle, and looked around—mostly down. Was this a dream, a searingly vivid one? She couldn’t prove it wasn’t. The arguments for it being a dream outweighed the arguments for it being real, didn’t they? Even setting aside how physics-violating she was, she wouldn’t revel in being a monster, gleefully eating people and smashing buildings. She’d curl up into a small (or giant) ball, begging for help.

It’s not a dream, and you know it.

She held still, letting herself face that truth, letting herself soak in it.

But there had to be a price for this kind of power, didn’t there? Was the price being a monster? Was the price becoming the kind of being who’d, well, eat people and smash buildings?

No, there had to be a benefit for the dragon. What had it said? Consume you utterly, and consume your dreamer as well. She was the dreamer.

And she was still on the menu.

Tanks and military vehicles rolled along side streets, and abruptly she had more immediate concerns to deal with. Something smacked at her hip, the same feeling as the bullets a few minutes ago, but…less.

Two steps forward, one on the traffic jam, one on the low building across the street, and she leaned down toward the tanks, growling. The growl built into a roar, with a fluttering in her stomach, an unsettlingly electric feeling rising in her lungs. Something—trying to burst out—

She opened her mouth, feeling as if she was about to spit up. What came out was a crackling line of blue-white energy, halfway between a propane torch and a lightning bolt. The tank it hit exploded with such force it all but vaporized.

And as she breathed out that beautiful, terrible bolt of fire, the pain in her back exploded like the tank.

Oh shit, what’s happening?

She stumbled onto all fours in pure panic, right hand smashing through another building, left hand trapping a group of soldiers. Cars, trucks, and one more tank flattened under her legs as she fell. Gasping, she spread her wings for balance—

Her eyes grew wide, and she looked back and forth, still panting. Her wings?

Her wings. Huge, silvery bat wings.

Saida flapped her wings once, slowly, and broke out into hysterical laughter. She sat up, bringing the handful of soldiers with her.

Was she even bigger? Yes, definitely. Half again as she had been. Godzilla-sized now. The handful of soldiers—at least a dozen—all looked maybe an inch and a half high, relatively. She had fangs bigger than they were.

Tilting her head back, she held her hand up over her muzzle and parted her jaws wide, letting the tiny men fall in. Sliding down her tongue, bouncing off lips and teeth. Several fell past. No matter. Swallowing them wasn’t the same experience as swallowing her ex-boss or the first few office workers, but it wasn’t any less thrilling. A last one hung onto one of her fangs desperately, as if that were somehow safe. She just waited. His screams intensified as his grip slipped…ah, there he went. Gulp.

She shuddered with pleasure, looking down. Two of the ones who’d fallen were on her chest, sliding down her cleavage. Smirking, she pushed her breasts together, feeling them squirm, then squirm frantically, then make tiny snaps.

More laughter, deep laughter, but this time, not hers. What? She whipped her head from side to side, but saw—

Thank you for opening the door.

The dragon. Inside her mind. Inside her body.

She looked at herself in shocked understanding. The draconic features were his features, adapted to her form. The same color, the same scales. “And you want to transform the rest of me.”

I’m consuming the rest of you, my dear.

The sensations abruptly coursing through her body were all too familiar: the feeling of being trapped in hot wetness, sucked on, pulled down a throat. She remained where she was, in the middle of a trampled block, police and military fruitlessly firing at her. But—

“In the dream—you were the apocalypse in that world.”

And through you, I will be this one’s, too.

She took a ragged breath. “You can’t have me.”

You’ve already lost, little cat.

She moaned, partly in terror, partly in pleasure. Squeezing her eyes shut, she lashed her tail, destroying another building. No. No! She couldn’t get all this power for a mere moment—there had to be a way to fight—

There is not.

She could feel his smirk around her. She could feel his smirk inside her. He would consume her from the inside out.

But that meant that right now, the dragon was inside her.

She lay back in the rubble, envisioning it. Envisioning him, inside her. Experiencing everything she experienced when she ended up as prey. Terror. The erotic confusion of a predator’s teeth, their lips, their tongue, their saliva being turn-ons. The wetness. The heat. The helplessness. The inevitability.

Stop fighting, the dragon commanded, but she could sense the tiny waver in his voice.

She chuckled—around him. She pictured him struggling in her mouth now like she had in his, focusing on the sensations, the tastes, the sounds. And goddess, if she was turned on before… “It feels good for you, too, doesn’t it?”

Stop this! Now he sounded distinctly panicked. You are prey! Always prey, time after time after time!

Saida-Dragon rolled over, through more buildings, reached toward the train station. She blindly grabbed for a car, closing a hand around it, lifting it up, blowing the terrified hundred-odd passengers a kiss…then lowering it between her legs. She spread herself with her other hand, and⁠—

“Ohhhhh my goddess!” She bucked hard enough to send tremors through more of downtown.

Stop it! St-stop—ohhh—

Yes. She felt the dragon in her mouth, the pressure, the weight against her tongue. The little dragon. The little, helpless dragon, turned on by his predicament. Turned on by knowing she was turned on.

“You unlocked all those versions of me, all those memories,” she panted. “You made them so vivid. But instead of me becoming one of them, little dragon, I’m making you one. Feel what they feel.” She let out a building-rattling moan. “Surrender to being…my…prey.”

You can’t! I won’t!

She thrust the train into herself deeper, slid it out, slid it back, hearing the screams and panic coming from her toy. And the higher her pleasure rose, the more solid the form of her other toy, the one in her mouth, became, scrabbling with his claws against her tongue, getting slipperier, slicker. Getting more aroused as she pumped that tongue against him.

Stop! I c-command you—

“Come for me, snack,” she breathed around him. “Show me how much you want to be my food.” She bucked again, both at the sensation of the train and the way he bucked his tiny body against her tongue.

No! I gave you—gave—oh! Ohhhh—

“Say it!” she roared around him. “Before I come! Say what you are!”

He shuddered, whimpered, tried to resist her. She thrust her tongue against him, hard, one last time, as she plunged the train all the way into her sex.

He climaxed as hard as she did. I am your food! he screamed. I am your⁠—

She swallowed.

Saida-Dragon yowled, muscles clenching, claws digging deep trenches in the pavement. He slid helplessly down her throat, into her stomach, and it made her—it made her—

She yowled again, electric fire pouring out of her mouth, incinerating a swath of buildings as her head lolled.

Finally, she fell limp, panting hard, putting a hand on her stomach. She sensed his struggles as a futile tickle. She’d won. He was hers. His power was hers—and her power now soared far beyond what he’d had.

Saida—the creature that had been Saida—let out another roar and rolled over onto her side. She’d grown again, hadn’t she? Yes. But she could control that now. As small as she wanted…as big as she wanted.

She lifted the tiny, battered and crumpled train up. It was too small to be a good toy at her new size, but she’d find more. She curled her elegant tongue around it, pulling it into her mouth and swallowing it whole.

As she came down from her high, the soldiers took more desperate, pitiful shots against her. So cute. Rolling onto all fours, she aimed at the remaining military, blasting it away with more fire.

Fighter jets streaked across the sky. She’d have to find out how they tasted. Would they bring out bombers? She hoped so. The panic when they failed to stop her would be so delicious.

“You had your world to be an apocalypse for,” she murmured, crawling forward so she straddled intact buildings, then lowering herself down, levelling several city blocks chest-first. She rolled in the rubble, starting to purr thunderously. “This one is mine.”