I woke with a pounding headache, but kept my head down. It felt like an iron spike was being driven through stone. The repetitive clink-clang of metal striking metal reverberated through my skull, only to make my head throb even harder. Even through it all, some thoughts came trickling back.
Clink-clang!
Don’t go out alone, they said.
Clink-clang!
Keep an eye on the skies.
Clink-clang!
There are bigger threats than those Pegasus Tribe brutes on the winds.
Clink-clang!
Ones which snatch away unwary ponies.
Clink-clang!
And gobble them down whole.
Clink-tok-tok…
I frowned as the odd new sound trailed away as if something clattered to the floor. I scrunched my nose. At least the hammering stopped before it.
Daring to open my eyes even a crack, all I found was a solid stone floor lit by something dim and red. At least it wasn’t the morning sun blasting me in the face. Maybe I would have a chance to beat this headache before then?
Lifting my head, it felt so much heavier than usual. That, and moving came with a clinking of metal. Part of my neck was colder than normal. Unable to see the source from my perspective, I stretched my legs all at once like a cat. The clinking came again. This time, more of it, and from more places.
Struggling to focus properly, I blinked several times. Doing what I could to help my eyes adjust to the dim red light. A light I soon discovered was emitted from a jewel in what looked like the claws of a glassy-rock sceptre, which, itself was stabbed into the floor in front of me. From what little I could see, I was in a cave.
With nothing else to do, I shifted my hooves. The clinking of metal snapped my attention back to seeking its source. I didn’t have to look far, and it was the source of the cold I felt against my hide. Thick iron shackles were clasped around my forelegs, pinned in place by iron bolts. I could only assume, from the cold and heaviness I could feel, I had a fifth one around my neck like a collar. The clinking I had heard, heavy iron chains attached to the shackles which trailed out across the floor of the cave.
Moving my rear legs gave me the same responses. I was bound by chains. Following the links, I discovered they each led across the floor to the eyeholes of five thick metal spikes. An enormous metal hammer, its head easily bigger than my own, lay where it had fallen next to one of the spikes.
Was that what I had heard earlier?
My brow creased in thought and concern as I examined the hammer. How could anypony possibly have lifted it? Even the spell slinging, selfish unicorns would have struggled with that thing.
With nothing else to do and no answers as to why I was here coming to me, I chose to test my restraints. I moved my right foreleg first, pulling it back toward my body. The heavy chain clanked solidly as its links scraped along the uneven stone ground. They rattled and clinked when I move my leg enough to pull the chain taut. The edge of the shackle around my foreleg forced itself down my leg, where it suddenly dug into my flesh above my wider hoof.
I stopped pulling, let the chain fall slack, then examined what the shackle had done. Thankfully, it had only pinched my hide. Probably best not find out what would happen if I tried to remove it any harder. A throaty chuckle caught my ears.
I snapped my head up and did my best to look around in the dim light of the cave. All I could see was solid rock and a layer of ice… which appeared to be creeping down the wall even as I watched. Joy. The ice had followed us to this new land.
I clenched my teeth and pulled back on my chains and shackles again, filling the cave with the clank of metal.
“Don’t bother, pony.” It was a deep voice. Only uttered in the lowest of tones, yet it rumbled off the walls. “Die cast construction. A lost art to some, but not I.”
I stopped pulling on my chains and tried to focus on finding the source of the voice. After a few scraping sounds, which I assumed were the movements of my captor, I felt something large against my back. Then, a cold metal mug was suddenly pressed against my snout.
“Drink,” the deep voice behind me ordered. “It will keep the cold ones at bay.”
When I didn’t, a huge scaly hand grabbed me under my chin. Using their clawed flingers, they forced my mouth open and began to pour the drink down my throat. I gasped and gagged, doing my best to break free and stop from swallowing, but I was at my captor’s whim. They held my head back against what I assumed to be their chest and continued the forced drinking session.
Once they were happy I had enough of the drink in my mouth, they forced my mouth shut, covered my nose, and stroked my throat. Held there, my body chained and braced against another, I couldn’t move. My lungs felt like they were burning as the moment wore on and on.
Finally, with no other way out, I swallowed. Coughing hit me seconds later as my lungs fought to be filled with air yet again. And, into that moment, my captor forced the metal mug to my mouth once more. And the liquid flowed. Again and again, the cycle repeated. I did my best to fight against it, but my lungs always gave out. I needed to breathe, and my captor knew it.
I was such a quivering mess by the end of the last mouthful, I only knew my captor was done when they crushed the mug in their scaly hand and cast it aside like a piece of refuse. In that same moment, their grip on my body relaxed and I landed on my hooves. Standing there, my head pounding, legs trembling and chest aching, I loudly sucked in enormous breath after enormous breath, just to try and steady myself.
Then, the betrayal. My stomach heaved and I let out a spluttering series of coughs which wracked my body so hard, I fell to the floor. While I lay on my side, letting out a few weak coughs as I regathered my breath, a feeling, that was strangely warm, began to fill my lungs.
As I did my best to force my stomach to eject that which it had just been forced to take, I caught a glimpse of movement. I turned my eye to it and instantly, my heart began to race. A scaly clawed foot, much larger than my hooves, stomped onto the ground beside me. Fearing what I would find, but nevertheless, curious, I slowly turned my head to gaze further and further up.
Some slate-coloured scales around this creature’s thighs bore thick white scars of battles long past. As did its long, spike-backed tail. Like the spines of a great beast, they ran up the back of this creature, between large membranous wings and the broad, strong shoulders above them. When he turned to face me, I knew what he was. Towering over me as he did, seeing his reptilian eyes and the spines and horns sprouting from his scalp; those jagged teeth in his maw. This was a dragon.
Keeping my eyes on this monster and doing my best to back away from him, I barely glimpsed the gaping hole where the ceiling should have been. Ice clinging to the upper reaches of the walls glistened in the dim red light while thick clouds swirled even higher above.
I blinked my eyes a few times and shook my head. I didn’t normally get so much detail with just a glance. Maybe I was going crazy or this was a nightmare, brought on by the endless marches in search of unfrozen lands by order of my father. Peering up at the dragon, I watched as he strode around the cave on only his hind legs. It was a decently large cave, considering this dragon could move about so easily within. Probably able to hold all twenty-three members of my family with room to spare.
I shook my head again and let out a breath. Not just my lungs, I could feel it in my core. My body felt just so warm. Another shake of my head. It shouldn’t be. I could see ice on the cave walls above! What was happening to me?
“Having trouble?”
Keeping my head down and still gasping in each breath, I squinted at the dragon. He was busy unbuckling armoured plating from his torso, exposing more thick scars as he slipped free of it. When he sat, he removed what passed for a helmet and set it on the floor, facing me. He adjusted his position then, simply stared at me with his hard, cold eyes.
Something at the base of the sceptre caught my eye. My heart leapt into my throat and I pulled back violently on my chains when I spied bones on the floor beneath the sceptre. Ribs and vertebrae, at least six full legs. All were clear and clean. They were piled together, more than from a single creature, yet I spied only one skull. One pony-ish skull with strangely sharp teeth and the stubs of more than one horn growing from above where its ears would have been.
My body trembled with the sight before me even as I failed to remain still.
“Don’t eat me,” I gasped, shaking my head as I tried to back away. The chains clinked then pulled taut and I was stopped in my tracks; the dragon still looming over me. “Please, don’t eat me…”
The dragon laughed, a throaty sound which made my bones quake. He reached down and cupped my muzzle in one of his massive hands. With a tiny movement, he forced my gaze up, locking my eyes with his. “I don’t want to eat you, pony.”
His voice didn’t leave me with much assurance. “Th-Then why the bones o-of others?”
“Hmm,” his throat rumbled as he turned to regard the pile of remains I had spotted earlier. His eyes glinted in disappointment when he looked upon the bones.
“Those?” he said, before grinding his teeth together. “Those are failures.”
My eyebrows pinched together, my ears flattened and I felt a huge lump catch in my throat. Maybe some of the liquid was coming back up? I should be so lucky. I was hit by another coughing fit.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I believe I have… worked out the problems they had.”
His head turned back to me. “Pegasus. Unicorn. I thought flight would be a good trait, but it became mangled and warped. Then magic…”
His eyes rolled up and I followed them, regarding the hole in the ceiling which let in the chill wind. “Explosive, unforeseen consequences.”
My jaw fell at the implication of what I was seeing. What had this dragon done to make a spell slinger erupt so violently?
“But you.”
My attention snapped back to him from the hole in the ceiling. He was staring at me again, turning his head as if studying me. He sniffed and snarled again as he leaned back. “I can even smell one of the leaders on you. I bet you are the child of one.”
I did my best to ignore him and, instead, focus on getting back on my hooves. After that? Well, I’ll just have to see. I have hard hooves after all.
“Fitting. So were the other two. But you, one of rock, earth and stone.” His lips quirked into a smile at their very corners, sending another chill shooting up my spine. I swallowed heavily and shrank further beneath his gaze. He reached out and ran a single clawed-finger against my cheek. “I believe you will have the strength required.”
I gave a long blink as I tried to hold back a question, yet it still slipped from my trembling lips. “Required? For what?”
The dragon leaned forward and stared at me, his hard eyes boring deep into my mind and soul. He simply breathed in and out as if this were the calmest and most in control he had ever been in his life.
“Everywhere we dragons went, you ponies were sure to follow.” He clenched his jaw and fists, bones popping in his hands, as he growled, “And ever at your backs, the bitterness of blood-freezing ice, wind and snow.”
He leaned further forward, bringing his nose down to near level with my own. Yet, in no way did he appear to be bowing. Instead, his lips curled back and I caught some of the heat in his belly mixed with his breath as he snarled at me.
“Each time you brought them near, more of my clan succumbed. Their bodies frozen on the once perfect lands we found. Their flames forever snuffed from existence along with their souls.”
He reached out and stroked the jewel at the top of the sceptre. “Even my beloved Coal was consumed by the ice you ponies brought. Her soul one with the rest now. Yet, here I am. Continuing on.”
With that said, he rose to his feet. As he approached me, he snatched the strange sceptre from where it stood. The gleaming stone in its obsidian claw flashed with a light from within the moment he touched the sceptre itself.
I kept my eyes on the sceptre. Strangely, between it and the dragon, the sceptre felt the most dangerous.
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
I jumped and pulled away from the dragon’s voice. The chains pulled tight. The shackles dug in. When had he got beside me? Even as I continued to pull at my taut chains, my eyes remained focused on the jewel atop the sceptre.
“You can’t keep your eyes off it.”
If he meant the sceptre, then yes. Even as I shook my head, my eyes remained open and fixed on it. I tried to will them shut, but they refused. I grunted and panted, still trying to pull away while the chains held me in place.
“You feel it in your blood, don’t you?”
The warmth within me flared even hotter, as if his very words compelled my blood to boil. My hide tingled as his hand swept across my coat.
“Only one with dragon blood in their veins will heed the call of he who wields the Bloodstone Sceptre.”
I felt the dragon’s scales against my cheek but I couldn’t pull away. I was already at the end of my chains. When he spoke, I could smell the sulphur on his breath.
“I hope you appreciated the drink. After she froze, she gave her heart so I could make another. Set fire in their blood. One final gift from my beloved Coal. All you have to do is look at the jewel. I think even a pony can do that.”
I scraped at the ground with my hooves. Still not entirely believing what was happening.
With one clawed hand holding the sceptre in front of me, keeping my focus forward, the dragon used his other hand to continue his slow strokes and caresses of my hind quarters. My tail rose, just a little. Another stroke and the soothing glow of the jewel had me slowly parting my hind legs. Going just a little lower with every pass of his hand until I felt it slip between my legs and give my partially sheathed stallionhood one long stroke.
“Wha-WHAT ARE Y–”
The dragon hushed me. “Only dragons talk.”
And, with that statement, that oddly gentle fact, as I stared into the jewel, my voice was stripped away. Only whimpering breaths escaped me now as the dragon worked his hand along my shaft, coaxing more and more of it out between his scaly fingers. It sent a tingle down my spine and a shudder through my breath.
Umn! I started at the sound, then just as quickly I realised it had come from my own throat. Okay. So, grunting is acceptable noise. At least I wouldn’t be completely silent through this.
“I need another of my kind,” the dragon said while his fingers worked me. Each one stroked the underside of my stallionhood in rhythmic bursts which soon had my whole body rocking back and forward at his touch. Even when he changed the pace, my body quickly adapted to meet it as I slowly felt myself being lulled by the pleasure he was stirring within me. Even the glow of the jewel seemed to pulse in time with the dragon’s ministrations.
“But, I don’t need a drakon,” the dragon breathed, his hand still stroking the length of me between my legs.
Ungh. My eyes crossed as I whimpered from the attention. Damn it, body. That ain’t no mare giving you attention!
“Only a drakaina will do.” His breath tickled my ear. “Which are you?”
Pinning my lips shut with my teeth, I grunted through my nose. As a pony, I had no idea what the dragon was talking about. Another part of me, somewhere deep inside understood his meaning and it shocked me to my core.
But, every stroke of my stallionhood, every breath against my ear, every second I continued to stare into that jewel, the answer I knew was right, the one I held most dear and closest to me, wavered just that little bit more.
And he stroked and stroked. There was nothing I could do. I was completely at his mercy and boy did my body decide to go along with his coaxing. I could feel the tension growing as the dragon worked his magic. Deep within my balls at first, but soon spreading along the length of my cock to its very tip. Where it waited as the dragon teased me over and over again.
Becoming frustrated, my breath hitched in my throat, only escaping in short, gasping bursts. Then, with one strong stroke from his fingers wrapped around my shaft, it finally happened.
I could feel it spurt beneath me, but my eyes remained glued to the jewel’s glow. I had to watch it. I needed to watch it. When the spurts became a mere trickle, I was greeted with the strangest sensation I had ever felt. With the dragon still stroking me, I could feel my stallionhood retreating. With a slurping, sliding, slimy sensation, not only did it sink back into its sheath, but further, deeper. To somewhere inside of me I never knew existed until now.
When it was done, all I felt was a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The sensation which only came from too much cider mixed with my father’s pudding surprise. I staggered a step. The chains clanked and the dragon grabbed me to keep me still.
Then the sceptre disappeared from view. So, shaken by what had happened, all I could do was let my head flop as I tried to regather my breath and senses while the dragon moved around me.
As I sucked in yet another steadying breath, I glimpsed the ice creeping further down the walls of the cave. I tried to look up and see what was happening, but the jewel was suddenly back in front of me. And I was transfixed.
I could feel the dragon adjusting his position around me. Making me stand just so. With the sheer size of his body compared to mine, he must have hunched himself tightly for him to be pressed against the backs of my thighs while his head loomed above my own.
The dragon’s voice was only a whisper, yet it rumbled through my bones, causing all the fur on my body to stand on end. “I’m going to fuck the dragon into you.”
Even as his threat tickled my ears, and, with shaking body, I wondered exactly what it meant. Yet, I could feel, somewhere deep inside my core, that it was also a promise. A promise he quickly moved to fulfil by pressing the tip of something against my freshly opened slit.
He grunted and I mentally screamed. This was actually happening. I felt the tip slip against me a few times before finally seating itself. My back stiffened instinctually. As did my legs. The dragon, feeling my body tense, ran his fingers down my side, paying close attention to the spot near my hip, just inside my thigh. It was actually rather soothing. Where and why he had learned it, I would–
Ya-hargh! Urgh! I clenched my teeth as I felt something pop behind me. I wanted, no I needed to squeeze my eyes shut as the presence of something more pressed against me. But the jewel wouldn’t let me. That tiny bit I’d first felt, the thing which sent pain screaming up my spine. It was inside me. Something was inside me?!
And it didn’t stay still, either. Bit by bit, it pulled back just enough for me to think it would pop back out and this nightmare would end. Then it would move forward again. Not with much force; the dragon must have had near infinite patience. But every time it moved forward, it made it just that little bit further, bringing with it more pain as the hole it was making its home in did its best to allow greater and greater girth to pass through.
My breath hitched with the slowly growing rhythm of the simple back and forth movement from whatever was within me. I could feel the fingers of the dragon’s free hand parting either side of my mane as he stroked the back of my neck from head to shoulder. Stroking back whenever the thing, that dragon cock I now assumed it to be, pushed deeper within me, letting up as the thick cock retreated.
Then, on one of the deeper probes, my nerve endings short-circuited from the waist down.
Nyah! Haah! My rear legs spasmed while my front hooves began to knead the floor. Oddly, having had hard hooves all my life, I could have sworn I was starting to feel the texture of the rock beneath me.
Naah! Another blast from my nerves washed the thought aside as the dragon sank deeper into me. I couldn’t help but grin goofily as the tingling gradually faded. But, when it did, my mind cleared just enough to grasp what was really happening and the pony in me screamed with horror.
At that same moment, my right shoulder gave a lurch. Then my left followed. The muscles in them spasmed and writhed. I swear I could actually hear them gurgling beneath my hide. And they weren’t the only ones. The length of my spine rippled and flexed before my hind legs copied my front ones and nearly threw me to the floor. I swear, only the hold of the dragon’s hand and the length of his cock buried deep inside my body kept me standing.
Then the dragon began to move, dragging his length almost all the way out of me before forcing it back in. It was a slow and steady motion at first, one which set my nerves to tingling. But, this time was harder to revel in. As different parts of my body shifted and bubbled. Bones groaned and creaked, the tingle could only take away so much pain.
I flexed my forehooves as I scraped them against the floor. Clenching my teeth against the pain, the squeal of something hard yet sharp scratching against stone reached my ears. The sceptre moved and I followed it down, giving me a glimpse of what was happening.
Where once I had hooves, my emerging claws dug deeper and deeper furrows into the rock as I continued to ride the rhythmic motion from the dragon on my back. My hips shifted with hard cracks, first left, then right, jolting me and forcing the dragon to adjust his position, a change which–
Argh! More! My brain screamed at the mix of pain, from what felt like my spine being ripped out at the spot where my tail had previously been, and the pleasure of the dragon moving within me. My spine stretched further and further while I felt my newly separating toes scrape against the floor. More crunching and cracking of bones in arms and legs, the pain rendered somewhat mute by that shaft driving harder within me. Ungh. More…
My limbs were longer now and bent differently. Useless stubby hooves had been replaced by scaly fingers and toes with pointed tips. Good for ripping. Good for gripping. I clutched at the collar around my throat. Squeezing it. Yanking on it. Using every bit of my growing strength to try and tear myself free.
The dragon chuckled as he drove his drakonhood into me. “Soon, little one. Soon.”
Unh! My mind. Drakon. Drakaina. I knew what he wanted. I knew what he needed. The tiny bit remaining of my pony-self screamed at me to fight back. To not give in. But the mix of pleasure and pain… Argh! It was intoxicating! And, the growing dragon part of me spurred me on, driving me forward, filling me with yearning to let the dragon finish what he started. To become what he desired. And I was letting it. I needed it!
It didn’t even matter that I couldn’t see myself. My blood was so aflame, I could feel every inch of my body as it pulsed through it. Even as it twisted and stretched. I snarled as skin ripped open to reveal fresh ruby scales. Spines tore free to protrude along my back and flex with my movements like those on the dragon who held me. I screamed as two somethings stretched the back of my skin, again and again until they forced themselves free, tossing aside pony flesh to beat erratically either side of my still pony-sized body. My fresh, elegant wings. Outrageously large for my current form.
Thankfully, not for long.
Ribs cracked in sets of two from the lowest to the very highest, reshaping my figure and bringing out an elegance no pony could truly appreciate. As my neck stretched and spines poked free, marching ever up toward my head, I snatched hold of my collar shackle with one hand, the other I still needed for balance or the dragon would slam me into the floor, and tried to wrench it open.
It was useless and, as my muzzle and skull cracked and shifted, I let out a keening wail. A wordless plea for help combined with the desire for the feelings the dragon was forcing into my body to never, ever stop.
Then, his hands were there. Right next to mine. And the jewel was gone, its power over me no longer needed, yet its glow still surrounded us. I turned my head to fix an eye on him. My mouth hung open, panting from his movements. My tongue slipped against the sharp tips of my teeth, yet I didn’t taste any blood.
Taking hold of my iron collar, the dragon easily wrenched it open, stripping the bolt with a metallic twang. The collar fell from my neck and I rewarded my mate by pulling his maw to mine for a kiss. His pace slowed as he tore through the chains binding my wrists and ankles. Their shackles were loose. They could come off later.
But now…
“More,” I breathed, my voice rumbling up from deep in my core. It was more feminine than his, but unmistakably draconic. The fact that I could talk again was just a little thing. We weren’t done yet.
With him still inside of me, he urged me to stand on two legs just like him. I was shorter, of course. But not so much as when I was stuck on all fours. I kissed him again, his hands now stroking the tender scales of my underbelly while I held his head close to mine with a single, gentle touch.
Breaking the kiss, he pressed his head to mine. Both of us, forehead to snout. Panting breath flared our nostrils while our hips continued to roll against each other; my long ruby spine-backed tail squished uncomfortably between us.
He whispered his name. Ironspines. A fine name for a mate.
I gave him mine. Turnip Picker, son of Puddinghead. He snarled at that and I stroked his scaly cheek as I asked him for a new name.
While he thought about it, I decided to test my new form’s flexibility by, while keeping him firmly planted inside of me, twisting around, even raising a leg high between us as I rotated on the spot.
I chuckled at the shudders the movement gave him. They couldn’t possibly have felt anything like mine with his cock stirring deep within me, scraping against my inner muscles as I finally came to face him. As he recovered, I started to put my new muscles to use, flexing myself on his shaft. Squeezing its length and girth while pushing fractionally away from him. My new wings flapped, keeping me balanced before I slid back down and felt his tip press deep inside of me.
Suddenly, I felt twin trails of searing pain ripping down either side of my spine. Ironspines’ arms were around my body, his claws digging in deep as he left a mark to claim me as his own.
When I had recovered enough that the pain was more of an ache, I relaxed my jaw, it having opened in a soundless scream. And, with eyelids drooping and a huge grin on my face, I stared into my mate’s eyes. He named me Pyre. Hearing it uttered with his breath… it filled me with such warmth that I pulled him into another deep kiss.
With him in reach, I returned the favour he gave me before. Being careful to avoid his eyes, I dug my claws into his face and dragged them up from snout to the back of his scalp. I smiled at the marking. Now, he was mine. He shook it off faster than I, soon returning to the pace and rhythm we shared before my final change.
Snorting as he pumped into me while I clenched my muscles around him, I gazed deeply into his golden eyes and lost myself within.
“Give me your clutch,” I growled.
Ironspines said nothing. He simply adjusted his stance. I wondered why until his pace and strength dramatically increased. I could only gasp as he drove into me over and over. He had been holding back?
I snorted at that thought. I guess he didn’t want to unleash his true strength sooner or he would have broken my old body. Wish I could say I kept up with him, but my body was still new. These sensations were so strong. I found myself sinking into the pleasure of it all.
I came back with a gasp. Wind was howling in through the cave opening and the hole in the ceiling, but neither of us felt the bitterness it carried. We were too busy and too warm to pay it any attention. To me, right now, there was only one other in the world. And that was Ironspines. The drakon. And he was currently rocking this drakaina to her very core.
* * *
Sleep eluded us that night. What was the point? We were too busy getting to know each other on the most intimate of levels. Even when we rested, we did so tightly in each other’s arms. And, as I said, sleep eluded us. While still in the act, at one of my highest peaks, I looked to the heavens to see a herd of snowy horse spirits racing across the sky, desperately trying to flee the fiery pulse of light and magic which nipped at their heels.
Stupid windigos.
When the sun finally rose, I emerged from the cave with Ironspines at my side. He pulled me in front of him and wrapped me in his arms. His huge hands gently stroked my belly even as he pressed the Bloodstone Sceptre against it. Oh, that wicked jewel, it had definitely worked its magic on me. I pressed my thighs firmly together. After all that Ironspines and the sceptre had done during the night, keeping his seed to fertilise his clutch was the least I could do as repayment.
No longer was I a pony scuffing up turnips from the muck with his hooves, barely growing enough to survive. I was now drakaina. Pyre, mate of Ironspines.
I reached up a hand and pulled Ironspines’ head down for another in a long line of kisses. We had some time. It would be a few months before I was ready to lay. Maybe we should go another round? Make sure it sticks.
Author's Note
Much thanks to MosAnted for helping to edit this.
