[b][center]The Dragon's Boytoy Knight
Chapter Five
By: Veronica Foxx
For: Engy[/b][/center]

Cera was quite pleased with the progress that the kobolds had made since he had figured out how to motivate them.  In the further three months since he'd started rewarding them with sex, they had made impressive advancements in their ability to work together effectively in groups both large and small.  What he considered to be their graduation exercise had been staged against himself, the lizardman, Adamos, and Evelyn all at once.  The attack had been realistic, though with blunted weapons and capped claws all around.  The four had made their way into the woods and made themselves scarce, forcing the scouts to locate them and provide warning to the rest of the warren.  He hadn't given the kobolds a timeframe on when the attack would come, and he had waited an entire week in the brush before doing so.  The reasoning for that was the general laxity that they tended to fall into when they didn't see any immediate reward or have him looking over their shoulders.  They actually managed to surprise him.

During his brief sojourn, they had actually built further defenses in the form of traps.  Big Brother had taken an active role in the management of the warriors again, which position he had vacated in favor of the Dragon's Knight, and he had apparently been paying close attention while the seafoam dragon commanded and trained them.  On the approaches to the nest, they had laid out triplines attached to clattery alarms made from bones, sticks, and small pieces of metal.  There were still roaming patrols, as Cera found out later, but several small guard posts had been set up in the trees to cover the area as well.  When they crossed the first of the triplines, they heard the alarms but could not find them.  The transformed knight had to dismount and hunt down the cause, then followed it back to find the platform built into the middle branches of a pine.  It was small enough and unobtrusive enough to pass casual notice, made from twigs and leaves and straw so that it resembled a bird's nest.  He judged that a pair of kobolds at most could have manned it, and they were long fled by the time he discovered it.  It both impressed him and put him on alert.  It was his first hint that he might have misjudged these creatures.

Then again, had he taken the time to consider, he would have recalled how industrious they were at their digging.  All but the most newly hatched young were even enlisted to help remove small rubble and tamp in shoring studs along the tunnels.  They had managed to burrow their way all the way through the mountain from this rear side far up the slope of the land down to Master's cave, and even then they had not finished.  They had created a honeycomb of tunnels barely wide enough to fit a pair of them side-by-side that wrapped around the caverns that Master inhabited so that they could reach him anywhere that he happened to be at any time that they were needed.  Quarters had also been created deep within the mountain, about half-way between Master's lair and the kobold warren, where both kobold and drake eggs were kept and Cera could find some measure of peace.  The matriarchs brooded over the eggs and left him be in his suite of rooms, aside from the occasional breeding request, while Adamos and Eveyln slept or bred.  Some part of Master's magic made it so that each clutch of drakes matched about half the number of kobolds that had been laid, and each miniature drake immediately found a partner kobold to attach itself to.  The new generation of kobold warriors would grow up in the saddle, and the drakes would grow up as battle mounts for the tiny draconoids.

Their laxity in his presence, he came to realize once they'd reached the outer fortifications of the warren, was [i]not[/i] laziness.  He barely recognized the walls and pitfalls and various other defenses that he had assisted to lay out.  If he had not [i]known[/i] that the warren existed, he would easily have passed it by; small trees and shrubbery had been uprooted and replanted along with creeping vines and moss to disguise the purpose-built defenses as little more than natural furrows and rises in the land.  Small bits of worked stone peered through, and he might have considered it a long-dead and half-buried ruin, little worth exploration.  But he [i]did[/i] know that the warren was there, and it made him all the more wary and all the more respectful of Turalisthasy's leadership.  Through concentration, he summoned up a haze over his vision that he had learned to summon; it cast a slight glow around living things, for his eyes only, showing him plants and small animals and even the kobolds, were they visible.  It could not penetrate stone, thickly layered wood, or heaped earth, but he had expected to find them hidden beneath shoddy camouflages of leaf barriers and such.  They were not.  The fortifications appeared empty.

He had trained with Big Brother, helping the dragonwrought kobold even as he explored his own developing magical abilities, so it was possible that the shaman was countering his ability in some unknown way, but summoning up a second sight-veil showed no traces of magic aside from his own and the ever-present bubble of Master's power that kept watch over him.  That disappointed Cera slightly; either the kobolds had withdrawn into the warren to create a siege situation or they might just all be asleep for the daylight hours.  He had drilled it into them time and again that watch must be kept at all hours of day and night, but the nocturnal creatures were sensitive to the brightness of the sun.  Heavily smoked glass and leather had been used to create goggles that they could wear to face the day, but they were still loath to do so.  And yet, this was meant to be a test, a full frontal assault by a small force that knew the kobolds were present.  Despite their obvious industry at disguising the site, a lack of overseeing guards was unforgivable.  He began to doubt that the sentry posts he had seen on the approach had even been attended.  So he dismounted, unsheathed his practice blade, and gestured for the rest to follow as he led the way towards the main entrance between the earth-and-stone walls.

And he found that his disparaging thoughts were sorely misplaced almost immediately.  They had changed the layout of the pit traps, widened and deepened them.  He was able to walk through the entrance to the outer walls, but the second Adamos set his claws to the apparently solid earth, it gave way, dropping them both onto the padded tips of punji stakes.  It hurt, but the wounds he would have received were not fatal in themselves.  When his mount managed to pull him out, however, his group surrounded by the warriors.  Ballsy had been downed and trussed with only a single simulated kobold casualty.  Cera decided to press the attack anyways, considering how an adventuring party would likely seek to exterminate them regardless of the odds, and found himself swifty trapped in a net, trussed just as neatly and tightly.  Adamos apparently felt discretion to be the better part of valor and simply laid down, then rolled over to show his stomach, for which the kobolds rewarded him by assigning a pair to see to his pleasure.  Evelyn simply gave Cera a wry glance and minced her way back to the nest, having been agitated by such a long time away from her eggs.

Turalisthasy had done well, and Cera felt that he had no more to teach them.  He understood now how they had made the perilous journey from their former home to the shelter of Master's protection.  Their size and the way of the world had shaped them to fight in one way, he had taught them to fight in another, and Big Brother had melded those styles into a cohesive manner of defending themselves that was both efficient and unexpected.  A celebratory day of rest and orgiastic release had followed their test, and now Cera found himself somewhat at loose ends.  The dragonwrought shaman was taking full command of the warriors once more, and the knight had nothing left to do for the moment.  It felt... good having a moment to relax.

Then Master's voice sounded in his mind, [i]Cera, come see me.  And bring Ballsy with you.  I've got something that I need you to do.[/i]

The seafoam dragon heaved a sigh of wistful regret, then hunted down the reptile and used the kobold tunnels to reach the larger lair.  He had not yet learned to communicate silently over distance, though Master had only begun demonstrating the ability in very recent times, but he knew that his obedience would be known.  He could feel the magical presence watching over him, a constant pressure since his own abilities had begun to manifest.

"At your command, Master," he greeted as he came to kneel before the throne-like chair, paying obeisance.  "What would you have of me?"

"Well, first, Cera, I wanted to let you know, I'm very happy with what you've done with the kobolds," came the response.  "You've been very good, true to your word and diligent in fulfilling my requests.  So, I'm going to reward you.  Firstly, you don't have to think or speak of me only as Master any more or only be complimentary.  Second thing...  Well, yeah, I'll go ahead and do it.  I remove the order regarding pleasure for following my orders and worse when disobeying.  I don't think I need that any more to keep you in line.  You really are a dragon of your word, a true knight in the best sense, so I'll let you free of that."

Cera was almost at a loss for words, but he managed to say, "Thank you... my liege?"

The last had been a test, calling the dragon something other than the moniker he had been forced to use for so long now, the word that had been forced into his mind by the lemon-scaled monstrosity, and he had to choke back a sob.  He could not stop the tears that leaked down his silvery cheeks, but he swallowed down the lump in his throat.  It was such an incredible relief to be allowed to think and speak and feel as he wished to, as was natural to him, and to feel his prehensile shaft finally beginning to retreat back into its hiding place after nearly a year of aching hardness was both foreign and exhilarating.  His oath-sworn liege remained silent as he fought through the emotions for calm, then he lifted his head to repeat his gratitude.

"Thank you, my liege.  I [i]am[/i] a man of my word, and I [i]am[/i] a knight.  I am [i]your[/i] knight, the Dragon's Knight, Cera Seafoam.  My word is my honor, and without my honor I am nothing.  A knight's oath is worthless without the honor to uphold it."

And he was.  He [i]was[/i] the Dragon's Knight.  Even if he were to become human once more, he could never return to the life that he had led, could never face those to whom he had once owed fealty.  He would have need to admit his crimes against them: the breaking of his vows and swearing to the dragon, his abduction and transformation of his former friend, his aid and training of the kobolds.  He would be disgraced, dismissed, and banished at best, or executed after painful torture to extract all that he knew of his new master at best.  Here and now, though, he had a place, and an honorable one, obeying his liege and defending those who needed his protection.  The kobolds were worthy creatures, he had come to see.  They were no worse than humans, and perhaps better in some ways; their communal nature and attitude left none outcast or discarded or destitute.  

"Not all knights hold those beliefs so tightly, but I've seen that you do.  I'm going to hold you to your oaths, and I want your advice on some things in the near future, but I have another mission for you first.  Someone's been scrying on me.  I was able to trace the spell, at least a little.  It's to the east, across the ocean.  I made a trinket that should be able to guide you there."  The larger male held out a small pendant on a chain.  When Cera took it, he could feel a magical tug on his senses that pointed in a generally eastward direction.  "I want you to find whoever was trying to spy on me and convert them, then bring them back to me."

"As you command, my liege.  It shall be done."

"Good, and Cera?"  The seafoam dragon looked up at him inquiringly, and the golden dragon gave him a genuine smile, lacking any malice or artifice.  "Thank you.  For everything you've done.  We'll talk about some things when you get back."

"As you say, sire.  Shall I prepare myself and take my leave?"

"Yeah, try and get this taken care of as quickly as you can.  I don't like the thought of someone watching over my shoulder, maybe figuring out my plans, probably getting ready to attack me as soon as they can get a fighting force together."

Cera offered him a salute, ignoring the slight hypocrisy of the dragon's words, and headed back to the quarters that had been dug for him just off of the brooding chamber.  He supposed that he had rested well enough during his time training the kobolds.  It had not been exactly stressful or required great exertion, and it felt just as good to have a new mission, better perhaps.  He had kept his equipment tended and ready, as always, and it took little enough time for him to don the highly revealing armor, strap on his weapons, and don the pack containing the various transformational trinkets that he had been given on his original trip to capture Adamos.  So far as he understood, they allowed his liege to channel draconic magic into the subject that they were placed upon, and he wondered if he might eventually make similar items of his own.  He would have to ask for training in the magical arts once he returned.  But the salt of the sea was calling, and had not realized quite how much he had missed the kiss of it against his scales.

He passed through his master's lair once more on his way out, but the one-armed dragon was not present.  Grunts and moist sounds from the direction of his sleeping chambers indicated that he may have taken Ballsy for some private pleasure, and Cera decided it best to leave them to it.  He had nothing else that he needed, so he exited the caverns and began making his way down-slope and further eastward, following the curve of the mountain somewhat north as well, until he reached the cove where he had originally come to terms with his current form.  It was strangely nostalgic, and he could still see the improvised obstacle course laid out, partially rotted away by the weather and home to nesting seabirds.  The strong breeze sweeping up the sharp cliffs carried smells that made his chest swell and his fins itch.  He paced back, and as he had done so long ago, raced to leap from the edge and dive into the restless waters below.  This time, he knew it was no mistake, and he anticipated the cool embrace, eager for its embrace.  He cut the water as before, feeling the acidic burn and the slight pain of growth as his ear-fans, back fins, and tail spade enlarged, new fins sprouting from his arms and legs, his gills adapting to the mineral content, and it was glorious.  He was in the element that his body had been made for, and it was as good as sex, or almost.

With his enlarged fins, he swept around the cove several times, just to revel in the freedom and speed, at least twice as fast as he could manage in freshwater.  And it had been far too long since he had even had a good swim in even that, ever since he had been assigned to train the kobolds.  He [i]could[/i] have made more use of his master's small pool and the waterfall that spilled into it, but he had been reticent.  He had been a fool, he now admitted.  He had still been holding a grudge, still been holding hatred in his heart, but he was coming to believe that the dragon was truly a fair liege, if a bit harsh in his acquisition and management of subjects.  Cera had expected to remain fully enslaved, his thoughts chained and his body subject to the dragon's whims, but he had been freed of those constraints.  The dragon could still command him, so far as he was aware, but he was free to think and feel as he wished, as was natural to him, and it was freedom that he appreciated quite thoroughly.  As he circled the enclosed bay, he took a few moments just to think every spiteful, hurtful, hateful thing that he could about his lord, simply because he could, but he realized that most of those thoughts no longer had any venom behind them.  It still rankled slightly that he would find himself instantly obedient to any whim that his lemon-scaled master might have, but he had come to respect the dragon.

Thinking of which, he had been given a task, a mission, and the magical tug of the pendant was pulling him towards sunrise.  He exited the bay and headed out to sea, his body moving in a rippling motion that traveled from snout to tail, mimicking the motion of the waves above.  When he grew hungry, he hunted down fish to devour, swallowing them whole, then continued onward.  The sun was slightly past its zenith when something began to impinge on his senses.  It was sound, but more than that: it was pressure, temperature, direction, food, mating, and more.  It was a cacophony, faint but discernible, and it intrigued him far too much.  The sounds were coming from the same general heading that he was travelling, if a bit to the north, so it would do him little harm to investigate so long as he was cautious.  The seafoam dragon altered course slightly to head towards the source.  As he drew nearer and the sounds grew more clear, the information that they conveyed became more intelligible as well.  There were no words as such, but information was conveyed nonetheless.  Feelings and headings, the direction of hunting grounds, the feel of the deep waters below, the possible dangers nearby, and even gossip about who was mating with whom floated on the song woven by many beings.

It was a pod of dolphins, the playful fish that followed ships and were rumored to save drowning sailors, a good luck omen for any sea voyage.  He was amazed, and not the least at the fact that he could understand them.  He was swimming as fast as they, perhaps faster, and he knew that they could keep up with a swift interceptor.  It was elating, and then he saw one of them swoop upwards to burst free of the surface, his eyes allowing him to peer through the rippling surface and watch as it twisted and flipped through the air to dive back inwards.  The first was swiftly followed by a second, then a third, until the whole pod was leaping and cavorting through the waves, squealing out their delight in the fun and joy of it.  It was an overwhelming flood of glee, and he found himself unable to resist joining.  With the speed of his travel, he should easily be able to mimic their actions, and so he turned himself upwards, cutting through the water and bursting into the air.  He soared, [i]soared[/i], and he wondered if that was how it felt to fly.  He wondered if birds, or perhaps dragons, felt the same privilege in their airy element.  Then gravity began to pull him back downwards, and he angled himself to slice back downwards, arrowing into the depths only to arch back upwards.

Then he found himself stunned by an blast of interrogative and tones, loud and alarmed.  Well, perhaps not alarmed.  More concerned than alarmed, inquisitive, curious, but demanding.  He could see the dark, grey shapes floating around him, some circling, some holding still, all pointing their rounded noses towards him as they assaulted him with questions.  It was deafening and painful, and he felt a new instinct rise to let him respond.

[i]Quietly![/i] he begged them, his own song not quite matching theirs but similar in nature, pitched in high squeals and long clicks.  [i]Please.  It hurts.  Not so loud.[/i]

There was a moment of startled silence, and then the gossip began again, swirling back and forth between the dolphins, though at far lower volume.  He caught snatches of speculative thought, rumors and legends, tales of different songs that were sung by far larger creatures who plumbed the deepest depths of the ocean.  One of them surfaced, then plunged back down to come up before him, floating in the water so that one of its eyes faced him from only a few feet away, and it sang to him.  Again, it was not quite words, but it sang slowly, with new and interesting alterations included, ones that formed pictures and more easily translatable concepts in his mind.

[i]Dragon?[/i] the dolphin inquired, disbelieving.  [i]No more dragons near surface.  Dragons stay in deeps, down in the dark, away from humans.  No dragons seen by mother or mother's mother or mother's mother's mother.  Only the big blues sing with dragons, down in the deeps.  Lost?  Young?  Very small.  Need help to find home?[/i]

Small?  He... well, yes, he was taller than he had been as a human, but he was still far smaller than his liege, and even his liege was small compared to the dragons of lore.  Young, he supposed he might be, considering he had only been one for just over a year.  What was surprising was that they knew of dragons, and seemed even to long for them, to miss them.  There was regret and yearning in the song of the dolphin, and a wistfulness.  From what he understood, they had not seen one in generations, and yet they offered him assistance without more than a moment's consideration.  He took a moment to determine the best response, and tried to focus his thoughts into whatever means had allowed him to communicate in the first place.  He felt the squeals and clicks emerge from near the center of his skull, and he sang back to the one before him.

[i]Dragon, yes, and young.  I am not lost, but I am hunting.  I need to find some islands or a continent, somewhere in the direction of the sun's rising.  I would welcome assistance, if you could guide me.  I need to find someone, return them to my... my leader.[/i]

His response was heard by the rest of the pod, and he was surrounded by the disharmonious chatter once more, several of them breaching and dancing across the surface, at least until their apparent alpha whistled shrilly for silence.

[i]Help!  Help dragon!  Islands to sun's rising, days of swimming.  Swim with us!  We will take you.  Dance with us!  Play with us![/i]

And he did.  He swam and danced through the sea with the dolphins, hunting with them, racing them, playing games of agility and stamina, seeing who could soar the highest or do the most flips or perform the most complex maneuvers before splashing back into the salt.  When he grew tired, he clung to one with claws and tail, falling into sleep with the dolphin to anchor and carry him.  They swam onward, even at night, keeping near the surface so that they could rise and breathe, more slowly but ever onward.  As he had been told, it was three more days worth of travel before they came within range to sense the islands, and even Cera could feel them disrupting the waves and currents at that point.  He thanked them as he made to depart, and they begged him to return, to play with them again.  He promised that he would, if they remained nearby, explaining that he should be able to swim with them as he returned to his home, hopefully within a few days.  They advised that they would remain in the area for a few turns of the sun before heading back towards better hunting grounds, and he left them with that.

Following the pull of the pendant, he skirted the first island and found a second beyond it.  After circling it once, he was certain that it was the source and came ashore.  He could see several more islands off towards the horizon, a chain of them.  The first, behind him, was almost barren, from what he could see, only a few shrubs and grasses covering it, but this was larger.  Trees hugged the interior, starting several hundred yards back from the high tide line, and a small cabin stood just outside of their ranks.  It had to be the source, no question about it, and he approached with sword drawn and shield readied, expecting a fight.  What he was not expecting was to have a gangly berobed figure come stumbling out of the small home into the evening, waving its arms frantically in the air and shouting joyously.

"You came!" the figure cried, its voice thready but masculine.  "I found you, called you, and you came to me!  I searched for so long that I began to think no more might be left living in the world!  Dragon!  Thank you!"

"Thank... you?"  Cera lowered his weapon, confused more than anything, and the figure stumbled to its knees before him, leaning in to kiss at his water-slicked toes.  He stepped back across the sand with disgust and perturbation.  "Stop that!  What is wrong with you, man!  Comport yourself with some dignity!"

The man remained kneeling but rose upward, throwing his hands up in a worshipful pose, nearly babbling.  "Yes!  Yes, great dragon!  Thank you for coming!  Please, great dragon, please, I beg of you a boon!  My life is yours, if you will only grant me a boon!  Please, I beg of you.  I have treasure and magic, whatever I have is yours, if only you will grant me a boon..."

The man was wheezing and panting from his run, breathless, weeping even, and Cera began to worry that the excitement might seize his heart.  His age seemed to be little more than middling, his late thirties at best, but his cheeks and eyes were sunken, dark bags beneath sagging lids, arms thin enough for the bones to be seen, fingers knobbly and gnarled.  He was... dying, from all appearances, but Cera could sense the strong magic about him as well, nearly as strong as the golden dragon.

"What... what would you have of me, sir mage?"

"Mage?  Mage!  Ha!  Mage, indeed.  Mage enough to seek and call to a dragon, but not mage enough to heal the wasting sickness that takes me.  Mage enough to summon lighting, shake the earth, part the seas, but not mage enough to heal my own body.  It is a curse upon my family, my line.  None man born of my family should live past his twentieth year lest he sire a son, and then the son takes up the curse, the wasting disease.  I was able to prolong my life, but I could not break it.  I refuse to pass this curse on to another, but nor do I wish to die.  If I were transformed, though, if I were something other than a man, perhaps the curse could be broken.  There are many creatures, and some of which I might convert myself into, but there is nothing so noble, so powerful, so beautiful as a dragon, and I would wish to be one.  I promise you, dragon, I will dedicate my life to your service, I vow on my life and on my power, if only you will grant me this.  Please, I beg of you.  I do not wish to become a beast or a monster, which are my only other options..."

"It is not to me, but to my master that you must swear," Cera answered, intrigued that someone might [i]desire[/i] such a transformation.  "Swear on your life and your power that you will serve him whom I serve, and your boon shall be granted."

"I so swear, dragon!  I so swear!"

Cera felt a ripple of magic as the vow was given, a twang in the air that arrowed back in the direction from which he had come to reach the island, and he was curious as to what it could mean, but that could come later.  For now, he had his mission to complete, and far more easily than he had expected to do so.  He extracted one of the transformational pendants and laid it about the man's neck, then stood back as he felt his liege reach through it to begin the transformation.  This one was different from Adamos and Evelyn, different even from himself.  The man's robes ripped as he began to grow and swell, muscle piling onto his spare frame.  His arms thickened and extended, then the last finger erupted into a long, narrow spine.  More fingers began to grow from behind it, between his last digit and wrist, extending towards his hind end as a tail sprouted from beneath the tail of his robe.  Cera could not see the man's legs, but he expected that they were growing and changing likewise as thick membrane began to stretch between the elongated digits on his arms, forming themselves into wings as they split the sides of the mage's garment.  The last bits to change that the seafoam dragon could see were his neck and head, the first stretching while the latter bulged into a snout and grew fins and spines.

In the end, a draconic figure stood crouched before him, winged and somewhat feral in appearance.  When it stood, it was leaned forward, unable to maintain a stance quite as erect as Cera was capable of.  It set the claw-hand of one wing to the sand and ripped off the remainder of the rags to peer back at itself, covered in reddish-orange hide, with a thick, erect shaft dangling between its legs and laden balls.  It turned its attention back to Dragon's Knight, and the sea-scaled dragon could see the hunger there, a hunger he knew well.  With a sigh, he began peeling away his armor, resigned.  He was barely able to finish piling his belongings neatly above the tide line before he was bowled over by the newly-transformed male.  They were of a size, but the former mage had quite powerful legs, no doubt meant to heave him aloft for flight.  Cera feared that the creature might well have become more akin to Adamos than himself as he found himself pinned and felt a prodding shaft jabbing at his rear.  Then it spoke.

"I'm sorry.  I'm so very sorry.  I can't help myself.  I [i]need[/i] it.  I [i]need[/i] it!  Please... I'm so very sorry..."

The knight knew that need well himself, though he controlled it with an iron grip.  He was not surprised that a man not trained to such discipline might find it overwhelming.  He reached a hand back, taking hold of the male's member and guided it up beneath his tail, then let out a huff as it plunged in until the other male's heavy sack slapped against his own.  He had to brace himself as he was immediately assaulted with fast, hard thrusts that drove the length deep into his innards.  Unsurprisingly, or perhaps surprisingly now that he was no longer under compulsion to feel pleasure, it was actually an enjoyable experience, and he felt himself growing hard as well.  The thrusting cock buried in his rear stroked pleasantly against a spot within him that built his pleasure higher with each stroke.

"It is natural after a transformation," he explained to the mage.  "It will take some time to fade.  Do not be ashamed; it is part of our nature.  You will have to learn to control yourself, but rest assured that you will find yourself well taken care of once we return home to my liege."

"Yes!  Yes!  Oh, thank you, dragon!" the much deepened and strengthened voice boomed as Cera felt slick heat fill him.  He was slightly disappointed, not having reached his own orgasm, but he felt the shaft begin to move within him once more before he could voice the lack.  "Thank you, dragon!  Thank you!"

It might well be a few days before Cera could rejoin the dolphins after all.  Not that he found reason to complain, or wouldn't so long a he got his turn to be the one riding rather than ridden.  He wondered if he might convince his winged companion to give it a try with the salt spray cresting over them.

[center][b]The End[/b][/center]