#ROTDK

[vixen525noms]

This really was a great rp/story the two of us put together. I even used some elements when I DMed in DnD!

Return of the Dragon King pt 1: Prison Break

[A non-sexual high fantasy GT/vore story with both hard/fatal+ other fantasy violence and safe/soft]

This story is a prose adaptation of an RP between @vixen525 and I. It takes place in one of her worlds and features mostly her characters.

Summary/Pitch: Separated from Sophia by the evil (and illegitimate) Prince Nero, Yonah must rescue his princess from Nero's devious clutches. With a collection of quirky fantasy characters as allies, Yonah aims to bring an end to Nero's reign and return the rightful heir to the throne.

But before that, he must escape from one of Nero’s prisons.

Story General Warnings: Return of the Dragon King overall will contain hard/fatal vore (in an intense fantasy violence style) along with soft/safe (the good stuff). Themes of abuse and torture as well. (There may be one instance of soft fatal that if I ever get that far I’ll warn for that specifically but it’s so far off from this it may never get written down)

Chapter Specific Warnings: This chapter contains all the story general warnings. This is NOT the chapter with soft/fatal. It’s hard only. It very much treads the line between hard vore and just standard fantasy violence. This part contains a very brief mention of attempted (and failed) sexual assault.

Onto the story:

----

For the 20th night in a row Yonah was replaying the moment in his mind, and like the 19 times before, this time was slightly worse than before.

It started with merriment, feasting, dancing, joking. Then transitioned to screaming, to blood, to Sophia being dragged away and him unable to stop it. And finally ended with waking up here, on a hard stone floor, in a room with no windows, with cold metal around his ankles and a chain attached to a back corner. With a terrible pounding in his head and an indescribable weight upon his core.

While he wondered why it had happened. Why this diplomatic mission to another world had been under false pretenses, however it wasn’t really worth dwelling on. He wasn't going to get answers here. All that he knew was he had failed. He had failed to protect Sophia. His charge. His friend. His princess. She was taken and he had let it happen!

After his 5th day in the prison cell he had given up trying to escape. Whatever that pressure was, pushing on his core, it stopped his magic. He had woken up without his robe, staff, and hat. For a normal wizard that would be a problem, but Yonah HaEsh was half FireWitch in addition to half giant. He had his own natural magic! Surely he could melt the cuffs and bars.

Nope. He could see the air shimmer with heat around his hands. He was generating magic, but it seemed to be… negated as soon as he tried to release it. All it succeeded in doing was make him tired. And hungry.

He was so hungry. The prison guards were giving him just enough food and water to stay alive for reasons that were beyond him. So he spent most of his time laying on the floor. Conserving his energy. For what purpose? For what event? None at all. He just hoped. And cried. Or at least tried to. His tears had long since dried up.

The screech of the prison bars sliding open grated upon his ears and he drew a harsh breath but did not give the guards the satisfaction of interacting with him. He had tried to rush at them a few times, just to have a little fun. But the chains weren’t long enough to let him reach the bars. All his antics got him was humiliation.

“Oy! Halfbreed Thing, you’re in luck,” came the voice of a nameless guard, “the warden decided to give you a treat tonight!”

Yonah didn’t respond. It was clearly sarcasm.

“He also said if you don’t eat up, you get nothing for a week!” And the door was closed again.

He still did not look. He had decided he wasn’t going to even touch what they had assumedly given him. It was probably poisoned, or drugged. Or both. He drew another breath.

That smell.

He finally looked. His heart racing. They wouldn’t… would they?

Standing with her back against the bars was a young woman with straight black hair, wearing a similar tattered outfit as himself. She must have been cold, and scared, but she was not shaking. Instead she stared right into his eyes. The fear in them was evident.

Now that his ears were no longer ringing he could hear her breathing. She was trying to calm down.

Apparently she succeeded. As she talked first.

"So... I guess they put you in here because you use magic too?" her voice was weak, and her accent thick upon his ears but he understood her well enough.

Yonah did not respond right away. Carefully he sat up, leaning against the back wall where his chains were connected, rattling them as they piled up.

“Well they certainly didn’t throw you in here so you could be my pet.” he snorted steam with his words, happy he could still do that much, and pleased him to see her concern at this display. So perhaps he could have some fun, even as her scent started to permeate his cell, leading his thoughts in another direction.

“No…” she answered, not moving any closer. “I doubt they’ve been feeding you well. I suspect they threw me in here in hope that you’d eat me.”

Yeah no shit. Had she heard the guard? Or was she too scared to listen. He had listened, even if he pretended otherwise.

“Being tossed a person to eat. How barbaric. Do they think I am some sort of feral animal?” His voice was hoarse with dehydration, and conflict. For he was considering eating her. Yonah HaEsh, despite being half giant, was not above eating smallfolk, if necessary. And she certainly smelled…delectable.

She shook her head “Many giants wouldn't hesitate if hungry enough… They may be normally polite to smaller folk but when half starved? All bets are off”

Yonah nodded, “I suppose so… Though I am only half giant.” He couldn't do more than suppose, as he did not know anything about giants of this world, though he remembered seeing one at Prince Nero’s castle. A little less than twice as tall as his own mother, and his mother was over 40ft tall! What he did know was that giants in his world would be tempted just like him, and while they were also normally polite… ish… their own survival was more important than the life of someone they did not know.

So why was he holding back? Well for one thing, she was out of reach. For another… He did not like the idea of being fed a person, it was insulting. The idea was nearly offensive enough to scare his hunger away. Nearly.

“Why you?” he hissed. Trying to chase away the remaining offensive thoughts. The mental images of grabbing her, sinking his fangs into her soft tasty flesh, and using his jaws and hands to rip her apart. The thoughts of how delicious it would be to finally satiate his hunger properly for the first time in weeks.

It took her a long minute to answer “I… keep escaping. I got out the door this time, nearly made it to the outer wall.”

“Ohhhh, curious” he breathed out, glad his ‘treat’ turned out to be interesting enough to distract his thoughts with. “You do not look like an escape artist. Or are you of hidden talents?”

She shook her head “The magic they use to… nullify the magic of others… doesn’t work on me. And my own magic doesnt like that im captive and kept… helping me escape”

Ohhhhh fascinating. He did not say out loud this time. “Sounds like you are a handful. Though perhaps you are rather, a mouthful. Or two in my case.” he smiled with all his fangs.

She swallowed nervously “Y-yes”

“Why don’t they just kill you? Are you important?”

She shook her head again “They are waiting for the execution order. That’s… why I’m here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She took a breath. “If another prisoner kills me… they don’t lose their capital funding for executing a prisoner without the proper paperwork…”

“That’s where I come in” and he snarled “I don’t like being used as a tool. And I don't really want to eat you”

She nodded “That’s… good”

“But I am hungry.”

“Oh…”

“Why are you in this prison?”

She looked away. “I… killed someone. With magic.”

More fascinating by the second. “Why, would you do that.”

It was an obvious struggle for her to answer “It wasn’t… it wasn’t intentional. He pinned me up against a wall and started tearing off my clothes. My magic just... reacted. The next thing I knew he was dead”

Yonah snorted again “Should have been intentional!”

“I haven't had any formal training! My magic just happens!”

“Shame” he sighed. “Do you know why I am here?” he asked, changing the subject.

“You’re… a mage. A rogue one. Like I am.”

That was new to him, “A rogue mage?”

“Practicing magic is highly regulated, don’t you know?”

“No.” Yonah saw that made her very confused “I am not of this world”

She seemed to accept this easily. This world seemed to be more comfortable with the idea of other worlds than his own, which had only started to make contact with new realities. He had also decided she didnt need to know his story yet. For he had not made up his mind on keeping her alive, or eating her. If he ate her, then it would have been a waste of breath to tell his own tale of woe.

He tugged on his chains to pile them up and keep them from getting tangled. And for the next few minutes he occupied himself with this task.

“They stop-”

Yonah looked at her so fast his neck cricked. She started again.

“They stopped using shackles on me because the chains kept breaking. Perhaps I could” she took a single step forward, and seeing that Yonah did not react, took another. “I’m sure you would appreciate more freedom of movement.” She took another step.

“Well not all of us are so damn talented now are we?!” he growled. She took two steps back.

“Im trying to help you! Maybe I can figure out how to get it to work on you too!”

“A self proclaimed untrained mage!” he spat “and why would you help a monster like me?”

For as much as he wanted to be civil, he was also a monster. And as much as he tried to fight the temptation to be monstrous, he did not know if he could succeed.

“It wasn’t being a monster that got you in trouble! It was magic.”

She sounded very sure of that.

Yonah snorted “That is your own assumption”, and turned around to lay his head on the chains, facing the corner.

After a few minutes he heard her soft footsteps, and he craned his neck to look. She had gotten a lot closer than he expected and was reaching for his chains. She was clearly in the mood to help him. Unfortunately he was in a mood to play with his would be treat instead, and he did not have any confidence that she could help, so why not have fun.

“Are you sure that’s wise little morsel?” he sighed with a fanged smile.

Amazingly she did not back up but touched chains by his ankles.

“No. But sooner or later they will get the execution order signed. So my odds of survival are shit. But they are better if I free you.”

Yonah made his eyes glow with what fire he had left “Are they better? You said you were untrained.”

She looked embarrassed, “I’m hoping I can practice on these chains of yours. My magic does disable the nullification. We can work together to get out.”

“Untested magic is dangerous” yonah growled “Maybe I should just eat you!” he snapped his teeth.

Still she did not leave. Instead she stood up and glared at him “So what? I die and you survive another week until the next council meeting and your execution is approved?”

Yonah narrowed his eyes “Maybe I dont care about that anymore.” but he does not move either. “You dont know why im truly here. Maybe I deserve this!”

His fiery eyes still on hers, she retaliated “I dont care if you do! I need to get free, and I cant on my own. You want to be free to dont you? If I can use my magic, I can break these chains, disable the anti-magic on this room, save us both!”

Yonah rolled his eyes, losing their staring contest. He did not stop her from continuing her investigations of the chains. But his mind wandered, until he exclaimed.

“Maybe you’re a plant! Instead of using me to kill you, you’re here to kill me!” he jerked the chains away from her.

“I’m unarmed!” she insisted and scrambled forwards to maintain contact with the metal.

“You said they cannot chain you, that their anti-magic shit doesnt work on you, so yours does work, and it’s killed someone before!” He knew that this new panic was not helping him in the slightest, and yet he did not care.

“Most of my magic isn’t working! I just somehow break chains and disable the magic nullification! I don’t know how it works or how to activate it! But the fact I can means they want me dead so they stop having to catch me! And magic isn’t allowed and I definitely don’t have the indicator that I have special permission, those are super obvious.”

Yonah blinked “Could be lies! You could be spitting lies! Permission to use magic. How ridiculous”

“Everyone knows that the few legal mages have face tattoos to make them obvious”

Yonah breathed steam again and finally she backed away from the painful heat. “I dont! I don’t know anything about this world! You could say anything and I wouldn’t know if it was truth or lies!”

“Oh… right” she looked at her feet “You aren't from this world. That must suck as much as my own problems with my memory…”

She rambled a little more about how she was definitely a prisoner, it was obvious from her malnutrition, and that despite not being able to be kept in chains she had marks on her wrists and ankles from the failed attempts.

But Yonah was not listening anymore. Once again he turned away and was trying to cry himself to sleep.

So she took the opportunity to touch the chains near his ankles again.

“Careful now!” he hissed without looking at her. “You don’t want to get burned” Hearing her yelp as she touched the chains, which he had put his mind to pumping his fire into. Maybe he couldn’t melt them, but he could make them painful to touch.

He heard her curse, and then the chains rustled again as she grit her teeth and grasped the half giant sized links, whining in pain and holding back tears. 3 seconds were all she could manage before she had to stumble back, sitting on the ground and blowing on her burnt hands.

Yonah sat up and looked at the chains. He did not let his face show any surprise as he found rust and cracks that had not been there before.

“Wow. It didnt work. Big fucking surprise, some help you were, but I guess you were telling the truth about being being put here for me to eat.” he lay back down. “Maybe I’ll do that in the morning.”

Suddenly the pain in her hands was not as important as what the half giant had said.

“It started to work! But I couldnt hold on long enough!” she wailed, “I tried! I really tried, to help you’re sorry ass!”

“And you FAILED” he snorted back.

“Only temporarily!” she insisted

“And look where it got me. Nowhere. I’m going to sleep”

“If the chains were just a little cooler! Then maybe-”

“I told you to be careful. You have only yourself to blame for your failures and your injuries” he stated, fully aware it was his fault. And that he was sabotaging himself. And yet he couldn't stop himself.

“I was trying to help you. You don’t have to be so rude. We are stuck in the same situation and I am trying to make a difference.”

“I dont have to be polite either. Now you’re the one being rude, keeping me awake”

She crossed her arms in defiance of her own fear “You’re kind of an asshole. I thought maybe we could work together to escape but apparently you’d rather stay and be executed.” She stood up, glancing at her hands, “Guess I’ll just try to figure out how to disable the nullification and escape without you if you really are that opposed to working together.” She turned and walked back to the cell bars before sitting down again.

Yonah looked away, no longer amused by her company, for he was too tired, and too hungry, too angry. Mostly at himself for heating up the chains.

Of course, he couldn't sleep, even though he wanted to do so. After about 10 minutes he glanced at the human, who was making hand motions at the bars. He could just barely feel the sparks of magic failing to become embers at her will.

That got boring really quickly, and he noticed that, unlike earlier, she was shivering. Not with fear…

“You’re wasting your time, little one”

She gasped and jumped from her sitting position, nearly toppling over. He was not asleep like she had assumed. And now he was staring at her with those glowing eyes again, full of fire and hunger.

“I am not giving up” she yawned and shook even worse, “I have no desire to be executed, not by the prince, and not by you!”

Yonah’s eyes dimmed with compassion, “You can try again in the morning. You keep this up and you’re going to freeze to death”

To his surprise she snarled at him, “What do you care!? You obviously arent worried about execution, and I dont have much else to do at the moment!”

Yonah rolled his eyes “Do you want a warm place to sleep or not? I’m only offering once. Can’t imagine you’ve had a warm bed in a while”

“I- what?” she paused, processing what he said, “Warmth… sounds wonderful… But you talked about eating me in the morning!” so she did not step near him.

“I said maybe. So you don't have to worry about it until then” He considers for a moment “I’m still making up my mind. I dont want to be used as an execution method, but I am starving. However” he yawned, his fangs looking larger than before, “I promise not to eat you tonight, and I am very warm if you want to sleep in my arms.”

“This room is absolutely freezing…” she admitted, “But I dont like the idea of you waking up before me to have a snack!”

She still looked hesitant so he added “Tiddles won’t be able to bring anything with you still visibly uneaten”

Now her fear was replaced almost entirely with confusion “Tiddles?”

“One of the little guards who did this to us. Sneaks me food most nights. If he comes tonight, I promise that I will let you try again, in the morning, to break the chains, before I resume considering whether or not to eat you. How does that sound?”

“How… likely is this Tiddles to show up?”

“He appears most nights, but not the last, and he never skips more than one night in a row.”

“How about you promise to let me try again, regardless of if Tiddles shows up!” she was not about to take such a chance.

Yonah scrunched up his face “Fine.”

“Alright, that’s much better.” she took a step towards him again “It means you have to let me go, and you wont think about eating me until after I get to genuinely try to free us”

“If you’re not tucked out of sight soon, I dont get fed, and I’ll have have a much harder time not thinking about it” he threatened “Tiddles can’t claim he thought I ate you if you’re standing alive at the front of the cage!”

A few more steps, she was almost within reach… “Fine… I guess… I just want to try a couple more times, it will be quick”

His patience waring thin he made his eyes flash “but I want to sleep, and to get fed”

“It will only take a moment!” she stopped just out of reach.

“Tiddles often manages to get me an entire barrel of crap! I’ll be willing to share” his mind now on the food, he couldnt think of much else.

“Im starting to figure it out though”

Why was she so insistent! This was not the time! “You’re tired, and cold, and hungry. You try any more magic and you’ll just pass out.”

He had gotten to his knees but he deflated a bit, lowering down into a position not unlike a crouching dragon “So I offer one more time than I said I would. A warm place to sleep. A proper meal. Or you refuse, and I get angrier, I get hungrier, and you stay cold and my only option for dinner”

She hesitated and finally sighs, “You are probably right... I just got so close to escaping today... I was gonna use a wind spell to blast open all the doors when one of them tackled me...” She took the step forward that got her within reach, and Yonah slowly reached around her, stopping her rambles. “But maybe after a rest I’ll have better success”

Having held back long enough, yonah scooped her up and returned to his corner to curl around his new teddy bear, thin and cold as it was. In contrast, his own embrace is soft, pillow-like even. And warm. So very very warm. She tensed in his grip for only a moment before calming down and closing her eyes with a deep sigh.

“By the way, I didnt introduce myself. My name is Savina”

Not resisting the urge, Yonah nuzzled her with his face, his normally neatly trimed facial hair overgrown and tangled and in need of a wash. He was drinking in her scent, even if he was resisting getting a taste, “I didn’t introduce myself either. Now shut up or I’ll put your head in my mouth to shut you up. I hear Tiddles”

As he was facing the back wall, it appeared as if he was alone in his cell, as the footsteps got closer, along with scraping noise and soon, a jingling of keys. Unlike earlier, the screech of the door opening was not so bad, knowing what it meant.

“You awake big guy? Damn this thing is so heavy… I managed to get a lot of scraps so it’s not mostly water this time! Probably tastes just as bad as all the rest, worse since I couldn’t sneak any salt in... but better than nothing right?”

The only response Tiddles got was a slight movement of Yonah’s head. His bushy mane of unkempt black hair shifting. Then two orange lights appeared. The giant's eyes locked on him with anticipation and hatred.

The guard, Tiddles, who couldn't have been older than 20, dragged a barrel within reach of Yonah, though the prisoner did not make any move.

“The others were laughing earlier about how you got a decent meal tonight… but I dont see any plate. Not surprised it was a lie. Im sorry again that this is not seasoned. But…” He left and returned before Yonah could investigate the food. Holding a large sack, the smell coming from which made yonah take a very intense breath.

“I did bring these… They were going to be used to torture other prisoners. Tested them on me. Just one bite and I thought my tongue would burn up in my own mouth, I drank so much water I thought I would throw up. But maybe it’s not as intense for giants!”

Through his dehydration Yonah started to drool, the spicy smell of the hot peppers filling his half FireWitch brain.

The display of hunger caused Tiddles to freeze up a moment “Um… I’ll take that as a yes to these. Great Goddess they make my eyes water!” he set the sack down and went to the other back corner where an empty barrel was on it’s side.

“I’ll take this one, yes?” Tiddles didn’t wait for an answer but said “you’re… not as talkative tonight. Usually you threaten-joke about eating me along with the slop. You alright?”

As soon as Tiddles had moved away from the full Barrel and sack of peppers, Yonah Sat up and scooted over with one hand. Revealing the reason he was not talking. Savina was tucked into his elbow, having fallen asleep.

Tiddles seemed briefly transfixed by the woman. If yonah had to describe the expression the closest would be reverence. Before cringing away.

“That’s what they meant by a good meal!?” He shook off his surprise “what a load of dragon crap. You’re not some feral animal”

Yonah didnt respond to this continued attempt to bond with him as he dragged the barrel back to his corner and stuck his finger in, building up his fire to warm up the cold scraps and water. Tiddles made no more small talk and left him to his pitiful “meal”.

Once the contents of the barrel started to steam, Yonah nudged Savina awake. She was not happy about that.

“I was actually sleeping well, what the fuck”

Yonah set her on his lap, the barrel in front of them both. “If you dont eat some of this now, I’ll eat all of it. You wont get a single drop, but if you eat now, you wont make a dent in it noticeable to me”

She nodded, understanding, and put her hands into the barrel. Yelping in pain as the hot slop made contact with her burnt hands.

Grumbling about how she was an idiot, yonah rummaged around in his chain pile for a flat piece of metal. It was a band from a previous barrel that he had broken. That was the only time he had gotten an earful from Tiddles about how if he continued to do that, Tiddles wouldnt be able to sneak him more food. He was able, with some effort, to heat it, pinch it, and bite it into a sort of ladle, which he used to scoop up the scrap soup and hold it to Savina who was very grateful.

Even with his encouragement she ate very little. Yonah had no idea how long she’d been here, but it was likely longer than himself, and it was very probable that her stomach had shrunken, so he eventually gave into his own hunger and stopped trying to get her to eat more and let her slump against his middle and fall back to sleep.

But before he ate any of it he took the peppers out of the sack and crushed them into the prison soup. It took all his self control not to just eat the peppers straight up. So he rewarded himself by licking the juice from his fingers.

He would have downed the contents of the barrel like a shot but resisted as it would have wasted all his patience preparing it for better taste. And even if it was literal scraps in unsalted water, hunger was the best seasoning. And the peppers, made this the best thing he’d tasted in the time since he woke up in this cell.

It made it much easier to not think about eating the woman in his lap as he too lay down to fall asleep.

---

He woke first, and during the hours of the night his stomach had become rather empty again. Though he kept his promise and resisted thinking about eating her. He did not, however, resist tasting her; he never made a promise involving tasting.

“NO!” she yelped and sputtered as he licked her face like a very large dog waking up it’s owner, clearly convinced he was going to eat her, panicking.

He stopped licking her, But he was not listening to her protests. The moment she yelled the world felt lighter. He felt… no, no time to dwell. He tossed Savina aside and focused on generating a lot of fire into his ankle cuffs. It wasnt enough to melt them, but it was enough to make them soft. Soft enough that he could pull and stretch them and get free.

And then the feeling was gone. Back to that soul crushing feeling that had been ever present, as if it was never gone.

“What did you DO?” he snarled as he rubbed his freed ankles, which were red and raw from the previously tight metal cuffs.

Savina got up, looking frazzled with one side of her hair sticking up and out at odd angles due to half-giant spit. “What I was trying to do last night! Hey!”

Yonah crawled to her and picked her up, putting his face close to hers to demand, rather loudly “Do it AGAIN”

Defiantly she took his gaze and his rank breath “I wish I could! Like I said before, and like you just saw, I can’t do this on purpose! It just happens!”

In a rage his eyes flash and he bares his teeth “Fucking useless!”. His urge to throw her against the wall lost out to his being touch starved and instead he sat back down to hold her just a little too tight.

He did not fail to notice that a small hint of the relief of pressure occurred when she gasped at his moment of rage.

“So. Did that count as your morning try? Should I start considering whether or not to eat you again?”

She stiffened in his grasp “that wasn’t intentional! But doesn’t it prove what I was saying, that I am too useful to consider eating, that with practice I can succeed?”

“I already got my legs free. I can reach the bars now. Reckon i can try smashing them… and if I eat you i may have the strength to do it” he huffed. With a small amount of food and a night’s sleep, what he had was the energy to be a massive dickhead again. “So you would be helping me.”

“Those bars are heavily reinforced with the prison magic! They’ve kept giants bigger than you in this prison!”

“I’d still like to try, so you’re lucky I want company more than a proper meal right now,” he chuckled against her. She was so skinny she wouldn't even be a proper meal, maybe half of one.

“Please let me try again later to disable the nullification. Then we can both get out and get decent food” she sounded both desperate and angry.

“I know exactly what I’m eating if I get out” his eyes flashed again and he licked his lips.

Savina shuddered but did not sound disgusted when she said “i think i have an idea of what… or who… that might be”

“So, are you going to try again or what?” Yonah was getting impatient.

“Will you be ready to break down the bars when the magic reinforcement is gone?” she asked.

Yonah backed up against the wall, bracing himself so he could charge. If she succeeded.

Savina went to the front of the cell, grasped the bars and closed her eyes, muttering. Occasionally she let go and made hand gestures.

Nothing.

Maybe she needed encouragement. Yonah growled at her. Low and threatening. Savina stiffened and he felt the pressure lift, very slightly, very briefly.

“Get on with it!” he hissed.

“I’m trying!” she shot back, walking to the center of the cell, it didnt seem to matter where she was.

Then she screamed, her whole body hitting the ground as suddenly Yonah was on top of her, having pinned her under a hand. He snarled in her face “Maybe I should just eat you then! At least my last meal will be a tasty one!”

This succeeded in having the desired effect. Whatever the nullification was, it lifted. However he could feel it coming back.

“NO! I’m trying, give me one more chance, I know I can do it!”

He was not listening to her. He had confirmed his theory. Without hesitation he took her left arm in his jaws. She started crying and screaming, Pushing at his face to pull away. “Stop Stop! You’re hurting me!” Her voice was shrill.

/That’s the idea/ he thought.

With a sickening CRUNCH and a shriek, it was Yonah’s turn to be thrown, against the wall.

Not that he cared. Not one bit.

The magical nullification was gone.

From the entire prison. With no signs of coming back.

Keeping his promise not to eat her, and extending that promise to any part of her, Yonah crawled over to Savina and opened his jaws to release the nearly severed arm, along with at least a gallon of bloody drool. Savina just sobbed. Hmmm she could bleed out. That would also be counter to his promise, in spirit, if not in word. He rubbed a thumb and finger together until they were red hot and pressed the tip of the finger to her shoulder.

The scent of burning flesh filled the air as he cauterized her wound. But there were more important things to take care of now.

Fueled by adrenaline, hunger, and literal fire in his veins, yonah gripped his prison bars, making them red hot. In a few moments he wrenched them apart and he was out. He barely noticed the flash of light behind him as he stepped out of his cage.

The alarms hadn't even started ringing by the time he ran into the first unfortunate guard.

----

It was the alarm bells that brought Savina back to earth. She sat up, and blanched as a sticky arm rolled off her chest and into her lap. She was still covered in blood but the wound had sealed. For all her lost memory she did recall something very important. She should keep her arm. Holding it kept her from trying to touch her shoulder. She had never experienced anything so painful in her life-

No… wait. She had experienced something more painful… Now her head throbbed too! Nevermind any of this! She had to find the half giant mage, he was her ticket out. Even with the magic nullification gone, she wouldn’t get far drained of her own magic and severely injured.

It wasn’t hard to find him. All she had to do was follow the trail of carnage and busted cell doors.

The first guard she found had no head, and a chunk of a shoulder missing. Blood pooled on the ground from the massive bite. Hmmmm. He had a nice sword. Putting her arm down momentarily, She took the sword and a belt to sheath it. It was a bit tricky to get the belt off the person and onto herself but she managed. Before she took her arm off the ground and continued on, not caring to avoid stepping in the blood. .

More dead guards lined the halls as she progressed. Most of them were missing their heads, some of them burned to a crisp. But many were only missing their limbs, or had a bite taken out of the side. Some of those were still living. One in particular had been bitten from the hips down, their guts spilling out onto the floor. She decided not to use her sword to put them out of their misery. Her excuse being that it would be too much effort to put her arm down every time.

Finally she caught up to the large mage. He was in one of the storage rooms where the more dangerous items confiscated from mages were kept. He was ransacking it, shoveling items into something, but finished as she entered and stood up, putting a hat on his head. If he wasn’t so large and didn’t have such a distinct physique, she might not have recognized him.

Dressed in a stunning outfit of mostly blues and golds, with a massive wide brimmed pointed hat to match, his hair now shining and tied back in a segmented pony tail, standing up to his full height and holding a majestic wooden staff, the once brutish creature from the cell was looking more like a person. Except for the fire in his eyes and blood and viscera hanging from his jaws.

With misplaced confidence she walked right up to Yonah and holding the shoulder end of the severed arm she swung to smack him in the ankle. He had on boots now and she wasnt sure he felt that until he looked down at her.

“You FUCKING ASSHOLE!” She bellowed “You TORE my arm off! Why would you do that?!”

He looked at her angry and quizzically “The anti-magic field is gone. It worked.”

She did not back away from his gaze, since he was not currently trying to eat her she figured he wasn’t going to. Clearly he had not hesitated with the guards. She waved the arm around in frustration "you didnt have to BITE IT OFF"

Yonah crouched down to snarl “Clearly I did. You weren’t in enough… danger to disable the field. I’m rather clever you know.” Without asking he scooped her up to hold her up to his face with a cheeky, blood stained grin, “After you told the story of your assault, I started to put the pieces together. Mortal peril seems to do the trick nicely”

“I still dont think you needed TO BITE MY ARM OFF,” she repeated.

Once again she used the severed arm to slap him, now in the face.

He blinked in a kind of shock and then bared his teeth “I think you’ve lost your arm privileges”

His first instinct was to get the wrist between his teeth and gulp the arm down. But… he still felt like he should keep his promise. And now that his belly was half filled with chunks of prison guard he could think clearer.

“WHAT THE FUCK YOU BASTARD!”

Savina shrieked as the giant man pinched her arm, the severed arm, plucking it from her weak grasp. His eyes flashed and it was lit up like a match.

Lost for words she watched as her arm burned into ash before her very eyes, the giant man grinning once again.

Now she was shaking with rage “I COULD HAVE RE-ATTACHED THAT”

His grin became a scowl “How in this reality was I supposed to know that?”

“Weren't you listening, you didnt even need to bite it off in the first place! My magic was starting to work!”

He talked as he placed her onto his shoulder, securing her to the harness he had found with his belongings.

“Didn’t I? We dont know that. Guess we will have to experiment later” he smiled wickedly, marching out of the room “But right now, I’m still hungry and there’s still more guards left alive.”

As he said this a guard rushed around the corner with a crossbow and fired. Yonah, having heard the footsteps just jerked his staff and the bolt exploded. He snatched up the guard, put the poor fucker’s head in his mouth and bit down, while pulling the body away. The sound was similar to when he’d bitten her arm, and blood spurted from the neck onto his face, and Savina’s entire person.

Yonah swallowed the head and tossed the body aside “I can’t eat them all at my size even if I only eat pieces. I can burn them, or crush them” he explained as yet another guard appeared which he simply squashed by slamming his staff down upon, “but I think we need some help. The human prisoners do not seem so eager to get back at their tormentors as I had thought.”

“They are running away from you. If you weren’t on a massacre they would probably be taking the advantage to riot and get revenge.”

“So we need more monsters.”

As he continued through the prison he broke every occupied cell, letting the prisoners run, and killing every guard with an intense savagery. But the most horrific thing, in Savina’s opinion, was when he picked up whole and alive guards and tossed them into his hat.

Eventually he broke into a cell and the prisoner inside did not immediately cower or run, but stood up, eyes reflecting in the darkness. A tall pale man with dark hair smiled with sharp fangs.

“That’s a vampire!” Savina informed him. The vampire bowed.

“A very blood starved vampire, and I could smell the flood coming from the other side of the prison, yet I was too weak to break myself free once I felt the magic nullification just, go away. Was that you?” he stared at Savina, not Yonah.

Savina gingerly touched the raw, burned flesh of her shoulder and looked very annoyed, “Yes. it was me.”

“I’m going to feast now, as I see you have been doing, mysteriously small giant”

“Don’t fill up on the ones I’ve killed, take out the ones still alive” Yonah instructed.

“Wise words,” said the vampire, “though I will take a little of this one, just to gain back my strength.”

Before leaving yonah sniffed at the vampire. Then reached up into his hat and pulled out a fancy, though sadly wrinkled and dirtied, suit. And tossed it at the vampire.

“Smells like you”

The vampire stood up from taking a drink of blood from the guard who Yonah had decided to merely kick against a wall.

“My clothes! You are a gentleman monster!” And with a snap of his fingers swapped out his prison outfit for his old one. “I feel more like myself already!”

Done with the small talk, Yonah moved on. It was time to get out of this place, with hopefully minimal distractions. He would still make a snack, a charred corpse, or a bloody pulp out of any guard he came across.

But it was only a few cells later that again, the prisoner did not immediately scream or flee. Yonah could sense a very eerie magical aura from her, she was pale like the vampire but he suspected she was not one. She smiled at him like the vampire but her teeth were flat.

“My dear emancipator, did you come across a spider necklace during your rampage? I would very much like to have it back.”

That was odd enough that Yonah decided not to ignore it and instead reach into his hat. He did not recall a spider necklace so he could only think the words. An object indeed fell into his hand. Which he tossed to the woman who squealed like a giddy teenager as she caught it.

Putting it on she rubbed the shining black thorax of the obsidian spider inlaid on the silver medallion.

That eerie aura from before increased 100 fold, followed by the chittering, skittering, buzzing of millions of tiny legs and wings. Unlike Yonah’s cell, this woman’s had a window. And through it marched or flew an unimaginable number of insects and arachnids.

Yonah took a step back. But the plaque of bugs was swarming into the prison from every window, every crevice, every crack in the wall, every broken pipe.

“My children will clean out this place” she giggled, though it was closer to a witch’s cackle.

Yonah backed away from her. Deciding that it was now time to leave this wretched place, confident the bugs could take care of the rest. It was by her merciful magic that the bugs avoided him entirely, and seemed to be able to scramble away from his footsteps even as he started down the corridor.

Ah, another guard, coming out of a nearby door, a good distraction from the creepy crawlies. He rushed and shoved the guard up to their torso into his mouth and got ready to bite down. As the ribs started to crack between his teeth the taste of this guard matched up to a familiar smell.

Releasing his jaws he held a gasping, screaming Tiddles.

“If you dont want that one, my babies will happily take him!” The bug witch called from behind him.

Ignoring the creepy aura yonah wheeled around snarling “He’s MINE” and he secured the flailing young man to his shoulder.

“Suit yourself” said the witch, “but he seems to not like you very much, and I am not overly fond of him myself”

Tiddles was indeed trying to free himself, earning him a swift flick to the head. “Probably hurts with those broken ribs to struggle like that, little one. I will keep you safe.”

Without another word Yonah turned back. Enough of this. He pointed his staff at the wall and blasted a hole through, stepping outside. Still in the walled compound he did not take a fresh breath of freedom just yet. He ran for the walls.

Arrows and crossbow bolts rained down at him. Fine. It was time for some big magic. Yonah stopped and took his staff, raising it into the air he found in it the perfect spell. He swirled it around and chanted. The morning sky, which was clear, crackled, and a swirling storm cloud gathered overhead.

The guards on the ramparts screamed as bolts of lightning struck them, leaving Yonah free to take down a section of wall and flee into the forested mountains.

It was after he had been half running half jogging for 15 minutes that he stopped and sat down against a cool boulder shaded by the trees. Or rather he nearly collapsed. One big gorey feast after weeks of starvation would not immediately restore him. That would take time. He had been running on the reserves of his magic, adrenaline, and a bloodlust.

The moment he closed his eyes to rest however, he felt Tiddles renew his struggling.

“Why do you keep this up” Yonah mumbled, not looking at Tiddles, but feeling him freeze.

“I dont want to die!” the young man squeaked. “I saw you eat the other guards!”

“Well then aren’t you in luck that I filled up on them? I had enough to be satisfied for a while.”

That did not calm Tiddles down any more, the struggling was back “You kept me as leftovers!” he shrieked.

“Naw” Yonah said and reached into his hat to draw out an intact, but dead, guard, “I already did that.”

He felt Tiddles faint at that declaration. This did not bring Yonah any joy, as Tiddles’ terror had done before. Being so full Yonah just returned the corpse to the pocket space that was his wizard hat.

“So, where to now?” Savina said after five minutes “We need to get going, surely someone will try to follow! There is more than one shift of guards and they will be looking for all the escaped prisoners, especially you, who was responsible!”

“I think the bug witch will make sure no one does” yonah said, though it was more likely that at least one idiot would manage to slip away. “But I am tired, We need to find a cave or something to hide out in to recoup my… I mean our strength”

“I can help with that”

As if on cue the bug witch stepped out from behind a tree. Yonah eyed her suspiciously. Savina was too hurt and too exhausted to do the same.

“Oh really? And why would you?”

She just laughed “You saved me? And you returned my amulet to me! I owe you big time. By the way, you look just awful. Would you like my children to clean you up?”

“What do you mean?”

Before she answered there was more buzzing in the air as wasps swarmed around her “these little gals are very efficient! I promise they will not sting”

“They cannot hurt my humans either!” he said, nervous about what was about to happen.

“Of course”

He still held his breath as the wasped charged at him and his companions. Savina screamed as well before she smartly held her breath too. Tiddles was the luckiest, unconscious for the whole thing.

It was over in just a minute, thank the gods, as Yonah would have to take a breath. Still, he sneezed and a few bugs flew out. Savina was breathing heavily.

“So, bug witch,”

“Cait!”

“Cait… What’s a nearby place for a big monster to get some rest?”

The woman considered “Hmm… The woods that way are decent. Bears will be scared off by you. Humans should leave you alone. There’s a cave in those woods if you want extra shelter. I want to get back to my home but I can have one of my babies guide you there”

“That would be much appreciated” Yonah focused and gathered up more strength to stand up. And then froze in place as the largest drider he had ever seen came into sight.

“Babe!” he called, ignoring yonah and scooping up the witch into a hug that transitioned into messy kisses.

“I got out of the prison!” she declared, “this nice big fellow helped me! Got my amulet!”

The Drider was a full head taller than Yonah and eyed him over with all 8 eyes before nodding. From between all of his feet a smaller, but large dog sized tarantula, scampered up to Yonah.

“Charlie here will lead you to shelter!” said Cait, “Now I haven't been home in a long time”

And with that, the witch and the drider left.

Charlie made a hissing sound while scraping her feet on a rock to get Yonah’s attention. She led Yonah to a large rocky incline and eventually to the mouth of a cave.It was large enough that if he crawled, he could get in. Which he did without hesitating.

The cave was larger in the inside and he probably could have stood up but he stayed sitting.

The spider stayed at the entrance of the cave, made a little dance, and then disappeared.

“Seems safe enough…” Yonah said. He unharnessed Savina so she could sit in his lap. “Guess what, I was lucid enough during my rampage that I picked up food that wasn’t dead guards!” and from his hat he got out some bread and cheese, and even a barrel of water.

“Um… no thanks” she said.

“You must eat, Savina”

“Im too nauseated from the pain.”

She did look a little green now that she said it.

“I have a healing potion… it should numb the pain a bit.” This he took from a sleeve. A small vial. Just a single ounce. It was like a grain of rice in his palm “It will even help with your shoulder, to at least regrow the flesh around it and stop infection”

She took it, and still looking like putting anything in her mouth would make her vomit, she downed it like a shot.

30 seconds later she felt much better. Or at least, felt less pain… She still felt like complete shit. But took the food with her good arm and started eating.

“I dont know why you brought him along…” she said, referring to Tiddles through a mouthful of bread.

“I doubt someone as kind as him works at an evil prison if he has a happy home to return to. Plus if i had let him go.. The other prisoners might not have been so kind to him. He was still a guard.” Yonah yawned, “Fuck. Im tired. Didnt we just wake up like, an hour ago?” he asked.

“Sure but you just broke a prison” Savina pointed out.

“I did… didn’t I…” Yonah tried to lay down but found that didn’t work with Tiddles on his shoulder. So he resigned himself to sleeping upright for now.

Still half starved, Savina did not manage to eat much. So yonah put the food back. He found a outcrop of rock that he could lean against and put an arm protectively in front of Savina. She put her own remaining arm over his. And they both fell asleep at the same time.

Even through the exhaustion of his over half a month in prison, and the torpor his kind got from a full belly, Yonah HaEsh heard the quiet footsteps of someone entering the cave.

Yet his brain was still slow to react. He opened his eyes and stared down.

Kneeling in his lap, holding Savina’s arm to his fanged mouth, moments away from biting down, was the vampire.

----

[FIN]

UHHHH thanks for reading. If you liked this please let me know. If this fits your blog theme please reblog it!

I hope you enjoyed this. and I hope to have more of it for you in the future. lots more adventure to come!

[dorkshadows]

How tall do you think Wukong is in JTTW: ROTDK? Cause I noticed that he seems taller than Wujing in the Monster's theme songs. In the novel it says that Wukong is around 4 feet tall, I think, and Wujing is taller than him (I can't remember what his height was). But what do you think his height is in the movie???

In the novel, Wujing is VERY tall, probably taller than the average man by far. Meanwhile, canon Wukong was less than 4 feet lol.

In ROTDK, I think Wukong and Sanzang are roughly the same height. Maybe around 170-172cm? And if Wukong appears taller than Wujing (and it's not just an angle thing), it means Wujing got shortened in the film. Looks like they made him slimmer and smaller than he's usually portrayed!

[lapin-demoness]

Feature Friday

Artist: KJNightwolf/NathanAdonis

One of my favorite Legend of Zelda artists, he is also currently working on his own story, titled "Rise of the Demon King", a tale that tells the story of Ghirahim and his older brother, Malakai, who becomes King.  This tale is meant to fill in the gaps that we do not know about Ghirahim's early history as the Demon Prince before Demise reigned as the Demon King.

KJNightwolf/NathanAdonis is not only an artist when it comes to drawings, but he is also talented in music-making, fursuiting, sculpting, and voice-acting.

Please check out his deviantART here: http://nathanadonis.deviantart.com/

And check out his Tumblr here: http://kjnightwolf.tumblr.com/

All works are copyrighted to KJNightwolf/Nathanadonis and do not belong to me.  I claim no copyright over the works depicted here.

[breakingdownbailey-blog]

I feel asleep during The Rise of the Dark Knight last night... I have yet to finish it.

SO I will watch it at work

[vore-scientist]

Return of the Dragon King pt 2: Restless and Relaxation

Part 1 is here

[A non-sexual high fantasy GT/vore story with both hard/fatal+ other fantasy violence and safe/soft]

This story is a prose adaptation of an RP between @vixen525 and I. It takes place in one of her worlds and features mostly her characters. And i must give a big thanks to @j0hnnymouse for proofreading

Summary/Pitch: Separated from Sophia by the evil (and illegitimate) Prince Nero, Yonah must rescue his princess from Nero’s devious clutches. With a collection of quirky fantasy characters as allies, Yonah aims to bring an end to Nero’s reign and return the rightful heir to the throne.

Contains: safe/soft non-sexual vore. Fear play. Mentions/depictions of hardvore. Non-hardvore related blood. Depictions of cPTSD. Strong language. Mature/crude humor and humor derived from references to sexual activity* (very brief, no explicit depictions, and it’s unrelated to the GT and vore content). Non-vore related vomiting (not detailed). Non-sexual nudity (if you can imagine the characters are… not clean after the prison break and magic can only go so far). Oh and what should be the last mention of a failed sexual assault. 

*while I never intend to write anything like a sex scene (I don’t know how and don’t intend to learn) I am experimenting with drawing humor from referencing (the few and far between) sexual encounters the adult characters may end up in. 

IMPORTANT: if you didn't see the notification, Savina is now missing her arm. Yonah tore it off completely and then destroyed it (burned it, did not eat it, still keeping his promise not to eat her). You can read part 1 again to see how that changes the story to be slightly more hilariously dramatic. 

---

Welcome back readers! It's been a while because I am a graduate student so let's do a quick recap of Return of the Dragon King Part 1: Prison Break.

Yonah was imprisoned for an unknown reason for just over 20 days, starved and abused with a magical nullification field in place

He was given a “special meal” of another prisoner, a woman named Savina, whose death was desired to be expedited  for unknown reasons. Yonah does not really want to eat her, but he is starving to the point of ferality. 

He discovers that Savina nullifies the magical nullification under extreme duress and he bites off her arm which causes whatever power she has to pulse out and take out the magic nullification field of  the ENTIRE prison

Oh i forgot, there is a young prison guard who has been sneaking prisoners (including Yonah) food some nights. This guard has been nicknamed Tiddles by the prisoners. That’s a fusion of the words “vittles” (an archaic word for food) and “tidbit”(a word for small bite of food).

With the nullification gone, Yonah goes on a rampage. Savina finds him in the storage room and she smacks him with her severed arm and he burns the arm in punishment for that sass. 

He continues to tear through the prison, smashing, burning, and eating guards. He takes some live ones and just tosses them into his hat

He nearly bites Tiddles in half but instead takes Tiddles as his own to protect. 

As he starts freeing other prisoners. Mostly humans but a few other monsters. Notably a vampire and some sort of witch. This witch unleashes a plague of bugs and insects and Yonah decides it's time to skedaddle. 

Flees to a forested mountain where the bug witch helps him find shelter

Yonah and his humans hunker down. 

Alright! That's caught you up. Let's continue. 

----

Kneeling in his lap, holding Savina’s remaining arm to his fanged mouth and moments from biting down, was the vampire. 

Low enough to not even wake the unconscious woman, Yonah growled and bared his teeth at the vampire who’s eyes looked up at him in surprise. 

“You’re rather brave, and rather stupid, for someone whose fangs are smaller than mine own.”

Smooth like oil as black as his hair, the vampire stepped back and stood up. He looked devilishly handsome despite being emaciated, and in spite of his disheveled suit. Or perhaps because of it. He smiled a disarming smile to return the show of predatory canines. 

“What-”

“I am here for her. For her blood,” the vampire answered. 

“Wh-”

“Being from another world, you are unaware of how… rare… her kind are. How magical… how… Exquisite… to sample.” As he spoke, his suave seriousness only waivered to show his desire, and his eyes flicked to the woman. 

Yonah frowned. “How-”

“Again, you wouldn't know. There are beings native to this realm with the ability to know and influence the emotions, the thoughts, of others. The most powerful of which are the old golden dragons. Then the young golden dragons. And then the Vampire Lords.”

Yonah said nothing but narrowed his eyes. 

“You are wondering what a vampire lord is. Well,” the vampire lord bowed, “I am one.”

“I got that,” Yonah spat. 

“A very powerful, old vampire. My strength is only rivaled by a few.”

“Those are big, bold words for someone so small,” Yonah grumbled, thinking that this wasn't the setting for the vampire to be puffing himself up. He still adjusted so that Savina was not within easy reach of the bloodsucker.

“I sense that you are well aware that size is not an indication of power.” The vampire’s voice was still pleasant, but his eyes had been on Savina the entire time Yonah was moving her, and his hands twitched in wanting to reach out. So he said, with a little more venom, “I suggest you give me a taste.”

“She lost a lot of blood,” Yonah said. “She is vulnerable. I am not risking her health and you look hungry.” He blinked “Why-”

“Do I look hungry even after feasting on so many prison guards?” The vampire shrugged, “Bad timing with the break-out. Mid morning! And me with no protection from the sun. Thankfully, the carnage provided enough blood in my veins to allow me to regenerate as I ran, nearly at the same rate as the sun contrived to disintegrate my skin. By the time I made it to cover, I was in want of more.”

“Then no fucking way are you getting a taste. Not now, if you are so hungry.” Then after a moment's consideration, “Why not have some of my blood. I have plenty, I doubt I would even notice.”

The vampire scoffed, “Why would I want-” then he smiled, “You are a… unique and powerful magical beast. You have blood that no other vampire will ever have tasted, I should be the first!” he tapped a finger on his chin as he considered, “I suppose you will want information about Sophia for this.”

The vampire had the smuggest of smiles someone could wear upon his face, but Yonah did not notice. HIs mind, which had been going fast to try and process a lot of new and implied information, ground suddenly to a screeching halt. For the vampire had said the last thing Yonah could have expected.

“S-Sophia…” he said, softly, lovingly, desperately, guiltily. Then his eyes blazed, providing more light in the cave which had very little. “How in the space between realms is her name upon your bloody lips?”

“I need that blood first,” the vampire waved a finger. “Food before information.”

Yonah reached out a hand then paused. “How much will you tell me?”

The response was a fanged smile, “That, my unusually sized friend-” (Yonah thought it a little soon to be called “friend”) “-depends on how delicious your blood is.”

Then, faster than Yonah was prepared for, the vampire leaped and grabbed his hand, holding on with little claws that were not there before. Targeting the pinking finger he sank his teeth right in. Yonah grunted as the fangs pierced his skin, much thicker than a human’s, with concerning ease. What he wasn't concerned about was the vampire draining him. Surely the man would have popped in the attempt. 

To Yonah's surprise, the vampire let go after only a few seconds, wearing a more excited and genuine smile than before. The blood dripped from his lips and he expertly licked it up, not wasting a drop. 

“Damn!” he declared. “Your blood is spicy!” He went back to feeding. In a new spot, much to Yonah's annoyance. 

The vampire drank and drank and drank, his eyes turning red before he closed them in bliss at his special feast. Yonah lifted up his hand so the vampire was dangling over the cave floor and did not think to lower it for the vampire’s comfort, and instead brought the little creature up to his face to examine. As he drank, Yonah saw the sunken cheeks fill out and the pale complexion become a healthier pink. 

Eventually, the vampire let go. By that time, Yonah’s finger had turned quite purple and numb. The vampire dropped into a heap in his lap, right next to Savina. But now his eyes did not wander towards her. Rather, they were unfocused. 

Yonah poked him with his numbed finger, but he did not move. 

“Hey, I want that information.”

The vampire drew breath and smiled, looking up at him, but also looking past him. “Infromashun isssss vampirreesss best friend!” 

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Yonah accused rather than asked. 

The vampire hiccuped and took a while to speak, having to take a lot of time to form a coherent answer “Haven't beenssssoful in solung,”

“Useless bloodsucker,” Yonah hissed. Then gathered the man into his arms, worried the overstuffed vampire would throw up and Yonah would have to clean that up! He didn't care about making a mess of the prison, but he was sleeping in this small cave and he’d rather it not stink of his own rotting blood. He passed out as soon as the vampire snuggled into his elbow,As soon as the vampire snuggled into his elbow, he passed out, bringing Yonah’s collection of sleeping smalls up to three. 

Holding them all, seeing them all peacefully slumber, it hit him how exhausted he still was. But… maybe he should take a precaution. With great care, he made his way to the cave entrance and flopped down across it, casting a small illusion to make his ass look like the mountainside if you weren't looking too close. Then he let himself doze off again. 

And woke up to TIddles trying to climb over him and squeeze between the rocks and Yonah’s backside. That would simply not do! Yonah grabbed him and placed him on the ground. The human flinched when Yonah spat out a small ball of fire, but he had it drift up to the ceiling to bring proper light to the cave. 

“Where do you think you were going to run off to?” Yonah asked and Tiddles stood his ground as defiantly as he could. 

“Anywhere! Back to where I hid my life savings, then back to my hometown, back to my friends.”

And die along the way I expect,” Yonah snorted, “Fortunately for you, I have nothing better to do than wander while I think of a way to get Sophia back. I could take you to your friends.”

This made Tiddles pause, before he asked, “Who is Sophia?”

“Someone very important to me,” Yonah answered. 

“I would like to know as well!”

The voice was Savina’s. She sat up in his lap, looking much better for someone who lost an arm.

“I know who she is!” The vampire smiled wide, his fangs still stained a bit red. “Thank you, by the way, for your blood. I have not eaten so well in many lifetimes.”

The vampire was certainly more eloquently spoken than when he had passed out blooddrunk, but when he wriggled out of Yonah’s arms he still stumbled and looked very full and rosy cheeked. 

“You said my blood was spicy?” Yonah asked, to avoid talking about Sophia a bit longer. 

The vampire sighed and looked at Yonah wistfully. “Exquisitely so. I haven't experienced the sensation of spice since I was turned, many centuries ago. I honestly believed I never would again. I will be wanting more, I would right now if I wouldn't throw up, and honestly I am tempted to make you mine to have exclusive access to the supply.”

Yonah growled at this statement. He would not belong to anyone. In fact, “I do not think that would be possible, I am under magical contract already.”

It would be irritating, if time consuming, to explain Yonah’s contract with King Ben, the Mystical Monarch. That he was bound to serve until he or Ben died. Even here, in another world, sent by His Majesty’s own magic, Yonah could feel a lingering, specter of a tug on his essence that wanted to snap him back to the Mystical Woodlands. 

“Ah.” The vampire put a hand on his chin in consideration. “Yes that could be an issue, I will not make an attempt after all.” Then he gave Yonah an amused look, “You are avoiding the subject of your princess.”

“A princess?!” Savina sounded excited. “Like, a real one?”

Yonah’s expression grew dark, “Yes. You see, the reason I was in the prison…”

“Did you kidnap a princess?” Tiddles asked. 

He couldn't help it, and Yonah growled a bit, “Technically yes.” So Tiddles did not inquire further along that vein. 

Yonah took a deep breath and he could feel his eyes getting moist before he spoke again. “I was escorting someone of great import before I was taken, before she was taken from me. I tried to stop it, and I failed.”

Another breath. This was painful to talk about. “I was sent with a liaison, a delegation. The Princess Sophia was to be our world's ambassador to yours, and to meet with the Princes of Susemi and hopefully the first cross-dimensional treaty between the world of Hahzeh and your world. It was just to begin talks, nothing more. But…” His eyes grew hot. His tears did not fall but instead rose as steam from the corners of his eyes.

“That prince,” Yonah spat. “I should have seen he had other machinations. Said the blood of a magical princess from another world would make their bloodline stronger.”

“Oh, and that didn't give him away?” Savina sassed him and earned herself a particularly low growl.

“That was the moment he made his move!” Yonah bellowed. “That was the moment he took her! And I couldn't stop it! Killed all her escorts, except me, who they locked away. Poisoned my drink. I blacked out as I reached for her, heard her screaming,” he choked. “Screaming for me…” 

The two humans and one former human were staring at him oddly, so he gave them a harsh look. Savina reached up to put a hand on Yonah’s chin, which, after the weeks in prison, sported a very messy beard. Still, the stroking grounded him and his expression softened. 

“Your tears,” she said. 

“What about them?” Yonah tried not to sound harsh, but he leaned his face down towards her, looked at her more intently, even as condensation gathered on his glasses. They were enchanted so they wouldn't fog up, but were not protected from condensation. Yet. 

“These are not the tears of a guard, but of a guardian.”

“So she’s in the clutches of Nero…” The vampire mused and paced the cave, looking around as if expecting to see someone he knew. 

“OW! OW! OW!” 

Savina had made a fist and pulled at Yonah’s beard even managing to pull out a fistfull of hair. 

“Nero…” Her voice carried so much venom Yonah was surprised she spat none. “That bastard. Tried to take me once, got me to the castle under false pretenses as well, charmed me and then… showed his true intentions. Said I was special, could make the land greater.”

“Are you royalty as well?” Yonah asked, though his thoughts were on new concerns, which were only minimally diverted when Savina clutched her forehead, and rubbed at the back of her head, wincing. 

“I don't… remember,” she said, “I took a head injury as a kid, woke up on a shore beneath the cliff where the castle stands. I only know my name because it's on my necklace,” She gasped and felt at her neck. 

“They TOOK IT!” She looked up at Yonah with dismay and then a spark of hope, “It was at the prison, maybe-”

“I don't recall any specific necklace,” Yonah answered before she could ask. Tiddles and the vampire held out empty hands and shrugged. Yonah took off his hat and held it out to her, “I shoved a lot of junk in here, just think of it and it might be there.”

Without hesitation she tried it out, but her hand came out empty. She looked like she was about to cry, but had no energy for it. So Yonah refocused, catching the vampire’s knowing eye. 

“But Nero. If I learn he has forced himself on Sophia-” 

“He has,” said the vampire with startling confidence and infuriating calm and seeing the fire in Yonah’s eyes quickly added, “Tried. He tried, and failed” Then he started to laugh, which did not help to calm Yonah’s anger. 

“WHAT!?” Yonah snarled and Savina shied away from his face, though she did not leave his lap. “How do you know- STOP LAUGHING!” And thankfully, the vampire did. 

“How I know? Well, yes, you are from another world.” Something the vampire loved to point out, Yonah would have started to think if he wasn’t so angry, “Hard to explain before you get so angry you do something you re-” Yonah growled at him. “But I am confident! She is, well, in that regard, fine.”

Yonah slammed a fist into the wall as he roared. “WHEN I CATCH UP TO HIM, I WILL PERSONALLY RIP HIS DICK OFF BEFORE I BITE OFF HIS HEAD!”

“Sophia did try that. I am sorry to say she got locked in a tower for it, but that’s better than the alternative.”

This did not exactly calm Yonah down as the vampire had expected, but he did smile and hiss out “That’s my girl,” before adding, “But then I suppose I must go to that tower, to prevent him from trying again.”

The vampire was silent and contemplative for a good 30 seconds. Thankfully not any longer, or Yonah would have become impatient. 

“According to my sources, we have about 45 days before such an attempt will be made.” 

The precision and certainty of the pronouncement left Yonah, and everyone else, a bit dumbfounded. 

“What sources?” Yonah growled. “We are in a cave! And why would he wait so long?”

“My brother,” the vampire said without any more explanation. Though Yonah wanted to force an elaboration, he was also interested in the answer to his second question. 

“Nero’s advisors and shamans have told him that to conceive a child in the 17 days before the summer solstice would be most auspicious. Both the timing of conception and birth would then occur during holy days, showing to the people that Nero does still honor the gods. A move like that will gain him much face, as he has shown disrespect in the past, leading to unrest. Oh, and he will marry her first, so there is that.”

“So we have 45 days to plan and carry out our attack…” Yonah murmured while thinking.

“Our what?” said the vampire. 

“Oh, do you not wish to be included? Fine then. MY attack, and maybe Savina.”

“Good! I did want to be included,” Savina said, “Also, I am hungry now, and my arm doesn’t hurt as much.” 

Yonah did not like the sound of that. He was unsure if no pain meant something good or bad. But his attention was drawn away by something, or rather, the lack of a thing. Tiddles was no longer in the cave. The little shit had run off while Yonah was rightly distracted by Sophia’s peril. Or perhaps because of Yonah’s outburst. 

Thankfully the young man’s scent was still fresh and without a word Yonah road and turned around, crawling out of the cave to chase down the former prison guard. It would not do to bring Savina, so he left her. 

It did not take long to track Tiddles down though he had gotten surprisingly far. He was by a stream and halfway up a hollow log. Yonah just picked it up and got a satisfactory yelp of surprise. 

Holding the log vertically did not immediately get Tiddles out, so he shook it a bit. Now he held a rather scraped up human in one hand, and a log in the other. Yonah gave the human a harsh look, who just struggled futilely in his grip. 

“Running away was very very stupid,” he informed Tiddles, who stopped struggling to give him an angry glare. 

“Let me go! Let me get my stuff and go!” he demanded.

“Oh, that’s why you were in the log then?”

Tiddles did not answer so Yonah sat down and released Tiddles into his lap, but not the log. Tiddles did not run away, which confirmed the answer, so Yonah reached in with his fingers, only to withdraw them. Two pinpricks of blood formed at the tip and Tiddles looked rather proud. 

The steps in Yonah’s mind went as such: Tiddles hid something in this log. Something worth setting up a complicated measure to protect. This something is valuable. Again, valuable enough to protect. This protection wouldn't have even hurt a human that much…

Hurriedly, he tucked the log under an arm and drew out from his hat the statue of a dragon holding a bowl and with jewel toned eyes. He let some of his blood drop into the bowl and the eyes glowed green. 

“Poison!” He snarled at Tiddles, “Think about your next sentence carefully, for if I am dying I will take you out before I do.”

“It’s not deadly!” Tiddles quickly said. “It’s just painful enough, and might make someone start to shiver, to make thieves think they got a deadly snake bite…” 

“Clever. And for your sake, you better be telling the truth. I suspect I am too large for even a deadly poison at this small dose to harm me.” Yonah said. He took the log back in his hands and got it to smolder.

“No!!! You’ll damage everything!”

Yonah did not answer, but as the wood crackled he started to crush the log, gently, until it cracked with little resistance and he blew out the flames, allowing the log to fall apart without harming anything inside. In the pile of wood and ash and charcoal was a small box. 

“Give that to me!” Tiddles demanded. 

“Sure.” Yonah handed it over and Tiddles was so surprised he almost dropped it. Yonah laughed at the human’s fumbling. Once Tiddles was clutching the box securely, he made his way back to the cave. Then, he picked up the pace. 

Ducking into the darkness and setting down Tiddles, he found the vampire helping Savina to eat some of the food they’d taken from the prison kitchens. He felt bad for interrupting, but he checked her over. 

“I did not bite her,” the vampire supplied. 

“Forgive me if I do not believe you,'' Yonah hissed, but he was telling the truth, and Yonah relaxed. Though he insisted the vampire take more of his, just so he wouldn't be tempted. The vampire looked a bit insulted, but was still enthusiastic to take more. 

It hurt a bit, the fangs ripping through his skin as he suddenly rounded and lunged as Tiddles once again was sneaking out of the cave.

“I will not have this. I will not keep chasing you down, and you will get a taste of what your punishment will be should you continue…” Yonah yanked the box from Tiddles' shaking grip, putting it in a pocket, and licked his lips. 

Tiddles' eyes bulged. “No!” he cried. But Yonah ignored him and lowered the human into his mouth.

Predictably, Tiddles did not want to be eaten and kicked at Yonah’s face, but to no avail, Yonah skillfully got Tiddles' feet into his mouth and from there, it was easy. He made sure not to bite Tiddles, but did not make an attempt to be so gentle as Tiddles flailed. And while it tasted good, Yonah was not thrilled at the iron flavor of blood that signaled to him Tiddles had scraped up against one of his fangs. Still he kept going. Soon, Tiddles was crying as his head entered Yonah's mouth, only to be silenced after a few more swallows. 

It was very satisfying to have Tiddles settling into his stomach. True, he had been more full yesterday after gorging himself on the prison guards, but it was different having live, struggling prey. And struggle he did, splendidly, so Yonah rubbed at his stomach to communicate his thanks. Then turned back to the other two smallfolk to crawl over and sit with them, looking far too pleased with himself. 

“So, I meant to ask you before I got distracted…” He looked at the vampire. “What is your name?”

Having just eaten, it took the vampire a moment to raise an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted that one alive! Are you so fickle in your mercy?”

Yonah crossed his arms, pressing them down on his stomach causing Tiddles to squirm and audibly cry out in protest. “Answer my question first.”

“I am Tadhg,” he said, standing up and bowing, then losing his balance. Neither Yonah nor Savina offered any help to the tipsy vampire. “It is a pleasure to meet you, y-uhh,” he corrected himself, realizing. 

“I never gave you my name,” Yonah hissed, narrowing his eyes. 

“Must’ve heard it somewhere,” Tadhg said. “Maybe a little dove told me.”

“You can call me Aish and shut up.” It wasn’t a lie. It was his surname. The original surname of his family, though it had been altered over time. Still accurate enough to not be a lie. 

Tadhg looked satisfied but Savina rolled her eyes. No! Yonah lunged and caught her as her eyes rolled back and she keeled over, before she hit her head on the floor. And then she threw up. As if on cue, Tiddles started to struggle again. And the vampire leaned in to listen with evident morbid curiosity. Fuck! He knew he forgot something. 

Careful not to disturb Savina and with one eye on the vampire, Yonah got out his staff and extracted the spell he meant to cast a minute ago, one that would prolong Tiddles life in his stomach. It did not provide fresh air however, so it was paired with a spell that opened small connected rifts, barely larger than pinpricks but sufficient to cycle air. He had learned it from a rather clever slayer back home. It wasn't a particularly cheap spell to cast, not for the meager amount of time it bought, though it was more tricky than expensive. The slayer demonstrated how to set up the spell and Yonah expertly adapted it to be stored in his wizard staff. That was the only slayer he let live. 

He smiled as he remembered that, and licked his lips remembering that slayer’s second attempt on his life. He made sure to bite off their head before swallowing them. The spell didn't work on the dead. Just to make sure his Tiddles wasn't still in danger of dying, he poked himself in the gut. 

“You still with me? Still alive? Not dying in agony? I cast the spell to keep you safe, at least for the next 20 or so minutes.”

There was no reply. This concerned Yonah for a brief moment. He knew very well how long it took his stomach to kill a single human, and one minute ain’t it. One of the barrels of water they had taken was within reach and he cast a very simple spell to pull out the heat, so the water was near frigid when he took a large but carefully quiet swallow. 

It was just a minute movement but he felt it, then nothing. He groaned and looked at Tadhg who shrugged and went back to sniffing the supplies in a rather unhappy manner. He took out an apple that was colored with vibrant reds, greens, and yellows. If it came to it, he supposed he could ask Tadhg if Tiddles was alive or not. A dead person’s mind could not be sensed. 

Yonah sighed, “if you’re faking you’ll just pass out from hyperventilating anyways. I know it’s fucking safe. I’ve done this dozens of times.”

Still there was no answer, so he called the rift that he had placed outside his stomach near his mouth and blew into it, using magic to make the air frigid. 

While Tiddles had anticipated the drinking trick, he was unprepared for such a surprise as a puff of cold air in the hot humid stomach. And he yelped. 

Yonah patted his stomach. “Are you done with your little panic attack now?”

At first there were mutters, barely audible, but Tiddles found his voice. 

“It all makes sense. It all makes sense now. I should have realized sooner. I’m such an idiot, of course. You are just like him” 

Even though Tiddles could not see, Yonah rolled his eyes. 

“Of course you saw right through, just like him, just like him!” He felt Tiddles kick at him, or punch? Perhaps it was just out of general frustration. “Just like him. Pretending to care about my wishes, pretending to care about my feelings, then I get my hopes up and I get shoved into a sack! Tricking me into thinking you care only to get what you want from me!”

Very little of that made sense to Yonah. “I don't think you understand why I ate you. I did not trick you, and I don't want anything from you.” That was a little untrue. Yonah wanted Tiddles to stay out of trouble by sticking by him.

“This is no different than my dad shoving me in a sack!” the reply came sharp and with sharp movement. 

“I would bet money if I had any that your dad was not a magical being sworn to protect you.” Yonah pointed out, but this did not help. 

“Lies! I won't believe your lies anymore. You ate me because you didn't want me to go, my dad did the same thing, threw me in a sack to punish me. He said he’d let me out but I nearly suffocated every time! I wish my friends were here! At least when they ate me, it was to hide me from my dad!”

Ignoring that last, interesting piece of information, Yonah thought on these words and his response. He wasn't happy to hear the wheezing sobs from his middle but he wasn't about to let Tiddles out just yet. 

“You are partially right, but still very wrong.” Yonah said only for Tiddles to get angry.

“I am NOT wrong at all! You proved it! You’re just like my father. You even used the same trick as him.”

“I let you talk for a while. Now let me talk again.” Yonah took a deep breath.

“Eating you was impulsive. It wasn't nice of me and it was, in a way, a punishment for you sneaking off. You're young, weak, and vulnerable, yet you tried to run off into the dangerous woodlands. The drider and I are not the only monsters in these lands, but I am the monster who has sworn to protect you, because you saved my life. You kept me fed and kept me from completely losing my mind. So it is my duty to keep you safe. That means stopping you from running away.”

He got no response so he continued his little speech. 

“I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know enough to fuck with you on the level you think I am. But I digress. If you miss your friends so bad, we shall take you to them. I can travel faster than you, and you’d be safe. Along the way, we will think of how to rescue Sophia.”

He paused for a brief moment to widen the air rifts, now probably large enough to let in a little light. The simple portals could only let light and air through, nothing larger or more complex. 

“Back home, when I had my princess, I'd eat her all the time. Sometimes I’d chase her around all the time. It was a game. And when I caught her, I would eat her. I miss her a lot… and chasing after you reminded me of that.”

“My friends are nice, this is not at all like when they would chase me! They made a plan for me to escape my parents and run away. Getting that box was part of that plan, but then you chased me down and took it away and ate me! You found joy in taking away my hope!”

“I couldn't eat the box!” Yonah retorted, “The spell keeping you safe doesn’t extend to objects. And I did not take it away, it is here, and you will get it back.”

“My dad would say he’d give me my things back too, but never did. More lies. I should have known better than to trust you, to have any hope.”

“Well you’ll just have to believe me when I let you out and give it back. But right now I'm going to be a jerk, rather than pretend to be nice. I am an asshole and I'm being upfront about it.”

“A controlling manipulative asshole, like my dad, I figured that out already.”

“I don't understand how I have been controlling. But I know I did not manipulate or trick you into my stomach. You did not get tricked into waltzing into my mouth. So I'm going to enjoy being full for a bit before letting you out.”

Tiddles did not respond so Yonah leaned back against the cave wall and checked once again on Savina. He had kept her by his side since she had passed out and now that he wasn't arguing with his occupant he smelled the drying vomit from a few minutes before. He quickly cleaned that up with a simple spell, though some stickiness and smell lingered (magic cannot replace proper laundering). Her eyes fluttered slightly, a good sign. Then she spoke, and put a hand on his stomach. 

“Did… you eat that young guard?”

Yonah nodded to her, “Yes, but he’s being kept safe. And I will let him out.”

She nodded, looking wistful, not unlike Tadhg had at the apples. And she did not question his words, just closed her eyes and leaned more purposefully into him.

The soft tapping of feet and Yonah looked up to see Tadhg approaching him. “You really are a dumbass, aren't you!” it was not a question. “The kid basically said you are emotionally torturing him and you arent bothered at all! That’s what proves to him that you’re like his abusive shithole father.”

Yonah opened his mouth to protest but then made a face. The vampire was right but he didn't like it. “I… wasn't focusing on the right things being said,” he admitted.

“And what are you going to do about it?” The vampire put his elbows on Yonah's thigh and looked up at him. And when Yonah did not answer for nearly a whole minute the vampire slapped him, “You’re stalling.”

“Do not bite her,” Yonah said, transferring Savina into Tadhg’s arms, though she seemed reluctant to leave him. The vampire understood that she should be kept upright. 

“I am letting you out now,” Yonah said, poking himself to make sure Tiddles was listening. 

“I don't believe you!” came the reply. That was to be expected. Instead of just proving himself he decided on a different tactic.

“Then why not make a deal with me? I have come to realize that with my employment of rather brutal methods in my escape from the prison that I ingested items that may not have… been taken care of. I do apologize for that, but I would appreciate if you tried to collect anything indigestible for me, and bring them out with you.”

Tadhg put a hand to his face as Tiddles cried with a distressed triumph, “Ha! That’s what you wanted after all then! Forcing me to clean up or die?”

“No…” Yonah growled, “I only thought of this just now.”

“Well, I believe you that you want this stuff out, so I accept your deal. But it is difficult to see. Fuck!”

Yonah chuckled as he snapped his fingers, creating a ball of light within him, a spell so practiced he barely had to think about it. He also let himself enjoy the feeling of Tiddles scrambling around with purpose. It was much nicer than from fear or panic. Until he felt a sharp pain. 

“What-” he started.

But Tiddles answered, “you got things stuck into your stomach.”

Oh. He wondered what things. He had tried, though not very hard, to avoid swallowing any weapons the guards were carrying. A few more times, he felt those sharp pains, becoming more grateful to Tiddles with each pang. 

Finally, Tiddles spoke up. “That’s all I could find.”

Yonah got to his knees, placed one hand on the floor, and one to his stomach, and he retched. The first time, the first few times he’d done this, it had been very difficult and almost not worth the trouble. He wasn't entirely against digesting someone alive, but it was never pleasant, and he could count on one hand how many times he’d done it to someone who did not deserve such a fate. He’d rather not continue this tally on his second anytime soon. Thankfully, his body had adjusted over time and now it was merely unpleasant, and mostly for the person whose life he was sparing. Tiddles smoothly traveled up his throat and slid out of his mouth, face red from heat and puffy from tears. 

Without really thinking, Yonah tapped Tiddles on the head and cast the same cleaning spell he had on Savina. This, more than being free, caused Tiddles to glance at him. Yonah broke the eye contact briefly to look around and reach into his pocket, taking out the box and holding it to Tiddles, who held his shirt (which he had taken off to use as an improvised sack) full of junk, mostly metal. “Trade?”

And Tiddles dropped the offensive pieces on the ground and took the box into his arms, hugging it tightly. In his head, Yonah heard a familiar voice and he glared at the vampire. Thinking very hard:

“Are you sure?”

The vampire nodded. And with caution Yonah reached out to scoop Tiddles into his arms. The young man did not protest so Yonah completed the motion into a firm, but affectionate hug. And he did say softly, “I am sorry for causing you such distress. I meant merely to scare you a little.”

“Stop talking about it. I don't want to think about it,” Tiddles said, becoming stiff. Yonah obliged and Tiddles relaxed again.

Savina, too, came over to benefit from a cuddle, but the vampire seemed interested in the pile of debris that Tiddles had recovered from Yonah’s gut. It was mildly entertaining so Yonah watched. Most of it was shirt buttons and boot buckles but there were other things: misshapen & oddly colored disks, some of which looked metal but Yonah couldn't be sure. A dagger that still had blood on it, keys (useless now), several pieces of metal that when Yonah squinted he identified as badges and rank symbols. It surprised Yonah that a none-too small amount of the pile was… well, he didn't notice until Tadhg, with evident relish, put on a bracelet of an ornate chain of gold with a large marbled pearl inset on a thick solid part. 

A none-too-small amount of the pile was jewelry. Gold and silver chains mostly, without any stones, though he saw speckles of color. Tadhg sifted among the pile for a while and seeing Yonah watching, made a point to show him a large handful of stud earrings containing stones of all colors, which he otherwise would not have noticed being like grains of sand to him. Because his gut still ached a bit he couldn't help but inquire what else in the pile could have been responsible for the stabbings. Tadhg seemed fascinated by this line of inquiry and went back to his sorting with new purpose. 

He came back with the dagger Yonah saw before, two more small knives, and several long thin steel pieces that had attached large pendants. One of the gold ones was particularly large and shaped like a gryphon being stabbed, with rubies for the blood and polished abalone for the feathers. 

A gasp came from his arms and Yonah adjusted so Tiddles could reach out. “That…” he stammered. 

Tadhg handed it over and Tiddles took it in shaking hands. 

“This… is my mothers hat pin…”

There was a prolonged silence finally broken by Tadhg gasping and clutching his gut. He ran to the other side of the cave and was violently ill. 

Tiddles looked worried. “What- is he…”

“I think he ate an apple…” Yonah said. “DID YOU EAT AN APPLE?”

The response was strangled and clearly embarrassed, “No…I’m fine…”

So Yonah focused on Tiddles again and said, “I did not know your mother was a guard…” Unsure if he should feel sorry for him. 

Tiddles gripped the pin tighter. “They both were…” 

“Do you want to check if anything in the pile was your dad’s?” Savina suggested, having woken shortly after Tiddles' exclamation, quickly surveying the situation. 

Tiddles shook his head, “He wasn't on duty that night… and while she… she can't hurt me again… I don't want to think about what will happen should my dad find me.”

“I’ll eat him,” Yonah said, a little too quickly and a little too casually. 

Tiddles laughed. “Now I almost wish he would find me.”

They stayed in the caves another night, Tadhg needed to recover from the consequences of his drunken impulses and Savina wasn't yet well enough to travel. There wasn't much of a plan other than heading in the direction of Tiddles’ home town. 

It was early morning and they were taking stock of their supplies. 

“Not much food left…” Yonah said. 

“There’s the dead guards in your-” Tadhg started, but Yonah pointed out that the two humans couldn't eat that. The two humans looked sick just thinking about it. 

“And we can't raid the nearby town.” Yonah continued. “Everyone is looking for us.”

“Perhaps Cait could give us some assistance,” Tadhg suggested. All three looked at him in confusion. He sighed. “The bug witch.” And they all nodded in recognition. “I just wish it wasn't morning. At least the forest is dense.” He peeked outside, at the sun that broke through the canopy. “Hey! What was that for- oh, you are an ass, but thank you.” He picked up the parasol that Yonah tossed at him, hitting him in the head, opening it to discover intricate embroidery. 

“I cannot imagine who had this in the prison!” He mused. “Mine was burned when I was arrested.”

“I did,” Yonah said. “It’s Sophia’s”

Tadhg nodded and twirled it, “I am honored to borrow it.”

“How are we to find the bug witch?” Tiddles asked with an air of hope that they would not. It was a valid question that none of them could answer properly.

“I imagine she is further into the forest, closer to the mountain,” Yonah said, scooping up all three smalls. Tadhg sat upon his shoulder, making use of the shade provided by the wide rimmed wizard hat. Savina and Tiddles were placed in chest pockets, designed into his robe for this expressed purpose. 

He had barely taken a step away from the cave when a cloud of wasps flew down from a tree and away in a very distinct direction. Yonah could have sworn that for a second the swarm had paused. It was as good a lead as any, so he followed the insects.

This had to be the correct way. None of them failed to notice a steady increase in spider webs. Yonah was careful to not step on or into any of them, and yet managed to get entangled. It was surprising, as there certainly had been no web between those trees before, and now it was thick with the stuff. The small beings in his pockets were trying to get out, but to no avail. Tadhg had, by chance, avoided any web and had, in fact, jumped down from his shoulder just before Yonah jerked around and got himself more stuck than before.

“Fuck this,” he growled and drew a breath for a spell that he needed to speak. Bringing up the fire in his own blood and igniting it with the magic, he breathed out a flame, careful to aim away from his passengers.

Only… the silk did not catch. He tried again with the same result. A third time did not do anything different. 

“That’s not going to work.” A shadow fell over them and looking up saw the massive drider skillfully navigating the treetops. “Only dragon fire, or acid, would be able to damage my webs. Here let me help you.”

He made his way down and they saw the woman on his back, sitting cross legged and without anything to hold her to him, even as he climbed the vertical. 

“Come to say goodbye before you leave?” The drider asked, pulling webbing from Yonah as if it were simply some wet string. When Yonah tried to do the same, he got stuck and the drider laughed.

“Yes, and for assistance. We do not wish to enter too many towns on our journey,” Yonah explained. “Especially not so close to this one. Thus, we are in need of supplies to last us past the first few towns.”

“We are happy to provide anything you need,” the drider assured. “You saved Cait! Gods above, you all look awful. Perhaps you might stay in our oasis while we get those supplies for you?”

“That sounds very nice! We accept!” Tadhg said before Yonah could answer. The vampire had somehow climbed back to his shoulder without his notice. 

“Wonderful! Come this way. Mind the webs now!” The drider turned and made his way over ground. Cait turned around on the thorax to chat with them as they followed. Yonah noticed that she looked much more recovered, definitely more so than himself and he pointed this out.

“Oh yes, they tend to really starve giants into a feral savage state,” she said. “It's a well known scheme: to propose a budget needed to feed giant prisoners only to use the money for their own vices. You were not the first giant to be given a special meal of a troublesome prisoner, and you won't be the last. I was in there a while, once heard the weeping when a giant came to their senses.”

Yonah confirmed this despicable tactic from Tiddles. “They often threatened to get rid of me that way… if only my father wasn't in line to be warden. Then my father would ‘joke’ that he might not mind it.” 

“All this talk of prison guards is making me hungry!” the drider announced. “That one you gave me yesterday was quite good. Do you perhaps have another?”

Tiddles shrank into the pocket at that, remembering he was in the presence of man-eaters and forgetting his comfort. 

“We shall give you better rations,” Cait said, with no evident disgust at her lover's choice of a snack.  

Bemused, Yonah took a corpse from his hat. And his eyes went a bit wide as he handed it over to the drider. And Cait laughed, Tadhg too, as Tiddles sucked in a breath to say: 

“Oh… I guess my father is the warden now…”

“Not that there’s much to be warden of!” Said Tadhg 

---

“Now this is more like it!” Tadhg said as he had Yonah set up a tent of a special silk that Malone had provided them, with a canopy over the pool of water. 

It was indeed a quaint oasis. A hidden jewel in the mountainside. A cool waterfall, a clean pool to wash and rest in, soft moss along rocks perfectly shaped to lay upon, and there were even bushes and trees with fruits that Yonah was sure were not currently in season. 

Everyone was able to wash up. They all needed it, despite cleaning magic.

“You must wash up,” Yonah insisted to Tiddles, whose dark cheeks flushed when the other three showed no qualms about undressing to get clean. 

“She’s naked!” he squeaked and Savina looked at Tiddles with a bit of amusement. 

“We are all naked” Yonah pointed out. “Except for you.”

“Because she’s naked! And so are you and you’re… helping her bathe.” 

Of course he was helping her bathe, Savina was still weakened from suffering her traumatic injury, and he had used magic to reduce himself in size to help. It was something he would have to take care to do only occasionally, as he was lucky enough to find the pouch full of powdered fungus (which was the component needed to activate the enchantment). But he had to assume such a component was unique to his world, and his supply thusly limited. 

“I’ll wash up after you are all done.” Tiddles turned his back and sat on some rocks by the start of the river that fed into the pool.

“Suit yourself.”

Even with Yonah’s assistance, the physical exertion required to wash soon had Savina in an exhausted state, and she started to fall asleep where she stood in the water. Yonah tried his best to keep her awake until she could be dried off.

“Tattoos?” she asked, her alarm and confusion fighting her exhaustion. “What tattoos?”

With a little illusion magic Yonah conjured visions of the intricate silver and black markings that covered her back. In places, it looked and felt more carved, dare he think, clawed, than tattooed. But surely too deliberate in design to be made by claw, and the color all wrong for scars. It was a busy design, but perhaps there was the twisting form of a serpent, and on her shoulder blades were definitely skeletal wings. 

She was silent for so long, Yonah worried she had fallen asleep but she was still examining the vision before her. “I… I knew there was something, but I thought it was a birthmark. It was how Nero-” She spat after saying the name. “-was able to have people search for me.”

She drooped a bit. “I do not recall how I got them.”

All the soap was washed away, so she only had her remain awake long enough to cooperate getting her clothes back on. Finally, she fell asleep and he settled himself down on a soft mossy stone, warmed by the sun, next to Tadhg’s tent. Tadhg was still naked and lay under his canopy, feet in the water. 

“About time,” Tiddles grumbled, starting to stand up and turn around. Then yelped and fell, still clothed, into the water. Having been spooked by the giant spider leg stepping out of the treeline. 

“Oh, you are all small!” Malone eyed Yonah with interest. As he walked forward, he used a few of his many legs to pick up Tiddles, skillfully remove his clothes, and place him in the pool proper. He even stabbed the tiny bar of soap on the tip of a massive claw and dropped it in Tiddles’ hands. “But you still do not smell human, so I suppose you have shrunk, rather than returned to a natural size.”

“You would be correct. It only lasts three hours, but I figured I did not need to return to my size. I am quite capable as a wizard no matter-” Yonah said, before his words slurred suddenly. The wind had changed direction, and the smells. Oh, the smells hit his nostrils like a bird slamming into a window. Roasted meats, garlic, onion, familiar and unfamiliar spices. His mouth filled with drool. 

Baskets and bushels were strapped to Malone’s thorax, which had some of the appetizing aromas, but the main source was held in his arms. A platter with a large roasted deer which looked bloated, having been stuffed with mushrooms and root vegetables, glazed with what smelled to Yonah as something with a wildberry base. When it was placed down, Yonah saw and smelled that the intestines had been stewed entirely separate, stuffed with fruit, and placed back in to make a very appealing presentation. 

“I think you have a reason now.” Malone grinned, setting down the platter and the baggage. “Otherwise this will get cold.”

He did not need telling twice. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the magic keeping him small and picked up the deer and took a bite. The flavors exploded across his tongue as tears sprung to his eyes. Surely any cooked food, even with just a little salt, would have tasted heavenly after weeks of tasteless mush or the disgusting mix of scraps Tiddles would gather. But this? This was transcendent. 

“Sorry for taking so long,” Malone said. “But Cait insisted we make something special for her savior.” 

Once Yonah was coherent again, Malone described what was what in the packaged supplies. Food mostly, but spices, alcohol,  tools, more camping supplies, miscellaneous magical components. Oh, by the way, would Yonah like to make a list of things? Cait could check to see if she has any to spare, should such components be common to his and her magic. Yonah took a moment to lick his fingers of grease and glaze to write this list. After his first big bite he went much slower, to savor his treat. 

One of the components he realized he should have would be scent mask. The rations smelled delightful, but could attract unwanted guests. Malone objected to this, saying that it would be advantageous should wildlife poke around to be easily caught and extend the life of the very rations that they were after. Yonah countered by pointing out that wildlife wasn't his chief concern, but monsters that were not as personable as himself and Malone. 

To Yonah’s surprise Malone laughed. “Ah, you make a good point, and without even knowing this land once had the colloquial nickname ‘The Kingdom of Monsters’.”

“It was…” Yonah said, bemused, and felt Savina adjust in his lap. He looked down. “Did you know this?”

Savina was holding her head. “I don't… know… but the name is familiar.”

“This should help,” Malone said. “And understand that my giving it to you, to her, is not about friendship but of duty, to help out an Amica Bellua.” 

“What is an Amica Bellua?” Yonah asked the obvious question. Though clearly it wasn’t, as Malone gave him a shocked look. 

“HOLD ON!” Finally, Yonah noticed that Cait was there in what must be her typical spot, cross-legged on Malone’s thorax. “You took her from that prison without knowing what she was!?”

That drew up Yonah’s anger. “Yes,” he growled. “I don't know much of this world, so stop looking at me like I'm an uneducated barbarian. And I am not so selfish and uncaring as to only save people who i know beforehand are valuable-” 

“One who is bonded to a monster.”

“Oh, like you?” Tiddles asked. 

That was the wrong thing to ask, as Cait and Malone both looked angry and ashamed. 

“The methods for purposefully creating a bond are ancient and lost. In legends, it seemed to happen naturally after a tragedy or achievement. We have tried many times, and are still trying”

While he was extremely curious, Yonah didn’t inquire further. Cait recovered and spoke as if there was no divergence. 

“Judging by her power and markings, she is bonded to a prodigiously powerful monster, ” Cait said. “Clearly you need some education on this matter. Like my Malone said, we have something to help, and you definitely need it holy trickster goddess.”

There was no arguing with that, but what was going to help him and Savina understand? He was about to ask when Cait produced, with the wave of her hand, a book. It was not human sized, somehow it was perfectly sized for someone like himself. And as it settled into his outstretched arms he could feel its history and its love. It had no title, it had no author, but it was leather bound and heavy. He opened it to find paper so thin it was almost transparent, thousands of pages. 

“A history, or in many cases mythology, of Amica Bellua,” Cait explained. “It is, in short, a love letter to our world’s history, focusing on the bond between smallfolk and beasts.”

Before Yonah could say thank you, he had to catch Savina in mid air. As she launched herself at the book with a strength that she should not have and ferocity that was not earned. Even as he held her, she struggled not unlike a frenzied rat, thankfully without the sharp fangs. After a few seconds he found what he felt was a safe and secure way to hold her, even as she protested, sounding distressingly desperate. “Let me read! Let me read!”

Cait and Malone looked shocked, and Cait managed to say. “I think you should let her read.” “Oh, I agree,” Malone concurred.

“What do you agree with?” Yonah asked. Tadhg had appeared at his side, holding the open parasol, but still naked. 

“That she must read the book,” the vampire said.

Savina was still trying to get to the book, her breathing was rapid and panicked, her eyes wide. With her one hand she scraped at his skin, and pulled at the hairs. Yonah looked down at her and stroked her. 

“I will let you read, but you must calm down.”

Those must have been the magic words for her breathing relaxed, though her pulse was still very noticeable, and while she gripped at his skin she was not trying to use claws she did not have. 

“We will leave you to read,” Malone said, as Cait climbed up to his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. Malone smiled and blushed a bit. “And if you hear any screaming, just ignore it.”

Just as quickly as he had stepped out of the forest, Malone stepped back in and disappeared before Yonah could gather his thoughts enough to say “Wait, I can't read… the words…”

It was rather fortunate that this world had his shared languages, at least spoken. This amazing serendipitous feature did not extend to writing. Translators had taken a long time to train in preparation for the negotiations. All worthless in the end, and the translator that Ben had sent with them died the night of the betrayal. 

During his lapse in concentration, Savina broke free and scrambled to the book and opened it.

Yonah’s brain broke. The words, the letters, were foreign as they had ever been, moreso as this was an entirely different language than the one he had been previously exposed to. And yet, he understood as if he was born reading it. Not that he was actually able to read it, as Savina flipped through the pages. 

“Slow down!” he urged. “You might tear a page!” For she was using both hands to flip through them as fast as she could, and they were thin. Taking his eyes off the words for a moment, Yonah cleared his head and noticed the smug vampire leaning against him again. 

“Did you do something?” Yonah demanded.

Tadhg looked surprisingly innocent as he answered. “No, I did not a thing to the Amica Bellua”

“I mean to me,” Yonah clarified.

Tadhg laughed. “Well yes, I am sharing my ability to read this language with you.”

“Feels weird,” Yonah said, knowing full well Tadhg expected praise, or at least a thank you. 

Taking Savina in one hand and the book upon his lap, he flipped back to the front. Hoping for a table of contents. And there was! But it was strange, organized in some sort of categories. And it was difficult to know which applied to Savina. With Tadhg’s help, they identified a few sections that might be relevant. 

The first was on feliforms, then avians, and finally pseudodragons. With Tadhg helping him read, it felt so strange, as the words didn’t process in his own brain. To him it was gibberish, and yet he understood it. The book was fascinating. Each section described the legend of the first person to be bonded to all the specific kinds of beasts.

To give you, the reader a taste, three famous first bonded to feliforms were: Umayma, who solved the first riddle ever given by a sphinx, Rhodri, who rescued a Cath Palug from quicksand, and Belgium, who cured a serpopard of insomnia with a magic flute. 

By the time Yonah got to reading the story about the flute, all three of his small companions were settled upon him, and the sun had reached its zenith, starting on its journey to setting. 

The avian section was much larger, there was a great deal of avian monsters that, over time, had bonded to a person. Of note: Tzipporah, who found an abandoned rukh nest and against her tribe’s orders kept the eggs warm and raised the babies. Morgan, who tamed a cockatrice and rode it into battle, turning the tide of some great war. And Cadicia, who was gifted a dove at her naming day that matured into a Caladrius. With it, she roamed the lands, healing the sick and injured.

When it came to more intelligent avians, several “first” bonded to phoenixes of several varieties, Vaso, who married The Alkonost (or at least he was the first one; the current spouse was unknown) and Kimeya, who trained a flock of ravens that gained sapience and magical powers. This was the only entry with a name for the beast: Shikoba, And it was them (the still living flock, though none of the original members remain) who insisted on their name being included.

Along with the myths were what powers or responsibilities came with being bonded, usually responsibilities. To guard secrets, perform rituals, that sort of thing.  Where the author could, they named the current bonded, but it was not very often.

By the time they’d reached pseudodragons, it was early evening. They had been reading for nearly the entire day and there was a buzz of excitement. 

Of course, you, reader, like our characters, are most excited to reach the section on pseudodragons, though perhaps for different reasons. You, the reader, are most likely excited because the title of this series is Return of the Dragon King. The characters are excited because so far, no beast has been identified as one that Savina could be bonded to. None were disheartened by the fact that the previous sections did not, as the certainty that it must be a pseudodragon was quite exciting. 

First was the section on the Gye-Lung. Definitely not bonded to Savina, as it was bonded to a Zuko who was still alive and ruled the country of Varanus across the sea. Then they moved onto the quetzalcoatl. Another candidate immediately dismissed, as it was another powerful dragon-like serpent that bonded to an entire city, Metzli, on an entirely other continent.

The next pseudodragon was the wyvern. Yonah started reading about how wyverns came into being, how they were seen as bad omens, how unlike true dragons they lacked forelegs and were clumsy on the ground. Nothing about people bonding to them. And Savina was restless in his lap. 

“Something wrong?”

“What the fuck are you reading!?” She accused. 

“The… book?” Yonah answered. He looked at the others. 

“I’ve been reading along and it’s not… the words… it’s all wrong! That’s not what any of it says! Are you making it up?” She sounded distressed.

“Tadhg is helping translate for me.” Yonah admitted, “I can’t actually read this.” 

He rounded in Tadhg. “Are you fucking with me and feeding me falsehoods now?”

Tadhg profusely denied this.  “No no no… I…” 

Savina rubbed her eyes and held her head “I… the words, it can’t be about wyverns when it’s all about… go back a page. I need to read it again!” She demanded. Without any explanation, Yonah found himself obeying her order. 

“What words do you see?” Tadhg asked her, but she shushed him. 

“Dragons! And it's hard to think! Let me read!” And Tadhg was about to call her out for her childishness when screams were heard from the woods. 

“Is someone in trouble?” Tiddles asked. “Should we go check?”

Human hearing is not as acute as that of giants or vampires, and both of those creatures shook their heads. “That was Cait.” Yonah said. “And we were warned-“ 

But then Cait's voice rang out clear “BY THE GODS!” It was not fear, it was ecstasy. “YES, ! USE THE PEDIPALPS! YES” And Malone's pleasured laughs rumbled through the trees.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t-“

“No.” Both Yonah and Tadhg said. 

“I’ll put up a sound barrier” Yonah took out his staff, but then a new scream. A closer scream.

Then he felt something ping off his glasses and something wet smack into his forehead. Tiddles shrieked, and now he had two unconscious humans in his lap. 

Caits screams and Malone’s laughter ceased, or perhaps Yonah could not hear them any longer as the warm sticky blood spread across his fingers from the back of Savina’s head. Better his hands than the book which she was face down upon. 

—-

Tiddles came to on some soft moss, and he saw, to his horror, three monsters and one witch examining the young woman that had been in the prison. She was still unconscious and her dress stained in blood. 

The giant was holding her, tears streaked on his cheeks. Was she dead? It was hard to tell. 

No. The drider who had eaten the corpse of the warden was reassuring Yonah. The vampire on his shoulder (still naked, tiddles notes) looked annoyed about something, but was being chided. 

Despite what all his instincts told him, he approached. And instantly regretted it as all four looked at him. 

“You’re awake!” Yonah held the woman in one hand and reached for him and he backed away but not fast enough and he was being held against Yonah's warm chest. The heart beat fast underneath. 

“How… long was I out?” he asked. 

“Ten minutes, and Cait and Malone only just arrived.” Yonah answered his next question. 

“We came as fast as we could,” Malone put in. 

“You… couldn't have been ten minutes away, the screaming-” Tiddles muttered

Both Cait and Malone blushed, “Well…” Cait said, “There’s this thing called a coital lock and-”

“Nope!” Tiddles interrupted, “Don't need to hear about it! I heard enough already!”

“Then I shall focus on the injured,” Cait said. To Tiddles’ horror, Yonah handed over Savina to the bug witch without hesitation, though at least he’d shrunk down to watch what she was doing. And after a few minutes Tiddles had to admit that she did know what she was doing. He didn't know what was in all the potions and salves, but she found a way to shave the area around the wound (which took some doing; a normal razor couldn't cut it, literally) to apply medicine and bandage. Only then, she hesitated. 

“What is that?” she asked, in a tone that made everyone instantly worried. 

Yonah leaned in closer. “The wound… is it sealing?” For it had stopped bleeding, he figured thanks to the medicine, but now it looked to be healing. 

“No!” She pointed and he saw. He thought it was hair that had not been removed but it was coming out of the wound. Against all judgment and logic he pinched it between his fingernails and pulled, too fast for Cait to intervene. More blood spurted out, and in his hand was string, ending coiled around a piece of broken metal. Savina convulsed, the bleeding rapidly stopped, and she breathed easy. 

“What the fuck is that?” Cait said with fascination and annoyance. 

Tiddles looked from Cait, to the object, to Yonah, then noticed. He reached up and plucked a piece of metal from Yonah’s forehead, stuck to it by dried blood, and reunited the point of a twisted metal arrowhead with its other half.

“How did that get in there? And more importantly, how has she lived with this?” Yonah asked. 

“Well… she is clearly a very powerful Amica Bellua,” Cait said, with a concerning certainty and astonishing reverence. “I think… I think she might be a Drakenmad.”

“No way!” Tiddles then put his hands on his mouth as everyone looked at him. “The last one… was killed, nearly four decades ago!

Malone snorted, fidgeting with some of his limbs in annoyance, “You mean Nero claimed to have eliminated the last of that line. Some of us don't believe his lies.”

“Or at the very least, many of us hoped they were lies.” Cait looked like she might cry. Tadhg too. He had slipped away and returned, having finally dressed himself. He quickly got a cloth to wipe at a red tear before it could touch his white collar. 

“Don't tell me you believe this nonsense!” Tiddles accused Tadhg. “She’s far too young!”

“The world is a magical place,” Tadhg hissed at Tiddles whose face drained as the vampire showed, for the first time, hostility towards him, eyes solid red, fangs lengthened, his voice sharp as a knife. “I haven’t aged in nearly a millennia!” And his anger successfully hid his moment of hesitation on revealing the length of time. Then he cleared his throat. His eyes went back to light blue, though the veins were more pronounced. 

“I had suspected; her scent was familiar to me. I have attended the court of the Drakenmad many a time. But I could not get my hopes up. We vampires deal in information, and there has been not a hint of any speaking to a survivor in, as Tiddles said, over forty years.”

Yonah frowned now. “Nero also did not look forty years old, and if he proclaimed the last… Drakenmad… dead, so long ago, he could not have been a child then.”

“He is using dark magic.” Tadhg said, a snarl forming on his lips. “Some of my kin… extending his life, made deals, irresponsible…” His eyes were turning red again. No, the red was dripping down his face, and he did not bother to stop the bloody tears from falling. His tone and expression nearly kept anyone from inquiring anything more from him further. Nearly. Yonah put it in the back of his mind to ask about this later, when Tadhg was calm and, hopefully, a more loyal friend. 

“Are you certain? She is this Drakenmad?” 

At least it was a slight adjustment of topic. That helped Tadhg take a breath to answer. 

“Very.” 

And he looked guilty, taking a piece of jewelry from a pocket. He winced as he did so, and Yonah took it quickly. It was a necklace, A simple silver chain with a dragon pendant, and it had some writing on the back of it. 

“The necklace she lost!” Yonah glared at Tadhg, “You found it? Where? Why did you not give it back?”

“I found it…” Tadhg tried to remain composed as he spoke. “In the pile of crap retrieved from your stomach. I knew it was special, I had a suspicion it might be her necklace. It is clearly made of old magic, as I cannot hold it without some exquisite agony where the metal makes contact with my skin.”

That was ridiculous, and Yonah wasn't going to let Tadhg get away with lying. “She said it had her name on it. That’s what the engraving is right? So you had to know!”

This made Tadhg look very annoyed and his cheeks pinked “The language… is so old, even I don’t know it. That is another reason I knew it was valuable.” He went on. “But it made sense, once she started reading the book, now that we have more information. This was made by a dragon, her dragon.” 

Malone and Cait agreed this must be the case after they each examined it as well. 

“So… oh old and wise vampire, what do we do with this information?” Yonah asked. The question helped ground Tadhg a little more., and the vampire gave it a lot of thought before he answered. 

“The question isn't… Well, the issue is not only do we know a drakenmad is alive, we have the drakenmad herself. We, of course, cannot tell anyone, or even a group such as we-” he indicated everyone except for Tiddles who did not object to the exclusion. “-would be overwhelmed by the force that would assault us. In addition, she is in a delicate state and I think we should avoid telling her the full truth of her birthright.”

No one objected to this, though Yonah privately thought it was a bit scummy of them to hide this from her.

“Can we at least return her necklace to her?” Yonah asked, “She was distraught upon finding it gone.”

It was agreed that she could, as long as she hid it under her shirt.

Cait, who had been fiddling with something now spoke up. “I think her skull tried to heal around this, and broke it in half!” 

This brought them all back to the real matter at hand. The witch had continued her healing work, and Yonah felt a little guilty for neglecting his own attention to the matter. 

“Will she be ok?” Yonah asked, desperate. 

As if in answer, Savina opened her eyes, “Why are you all talking, I am trying to sleep. My head hurts- whoa!” 

Yonah hugged her tight and Cait smiled. 

“I think so, especially now that this is out.” 

To drive home the point of her own fragile mental state, Yonah felt her heart rate go up as she tried to process the item held before her. She tried for a moment to reach out to it, as if she wanted to examine it, but her hands shook and she withdrew, but did feel the back of her head, where the wound had healed, but the hair was stubble and a small lump had developed. 

Upon delicate inquiry, she was able to confirm that she did not remember being shot, not exactly. 

“My memory… it hurts to remember past a few decades. My earliest clear memory is walking along a beach, under a cliff.” She winced and held her head. “Can I see the book again?”

“Perhaps later,” Tadhg said. “But certainly, you are bonded to a powerful wyrm.”

This prompted Yonah to show her the necklace. To his delight, her expression lit up and her pale complexion warmed. “How did you find this?”

“Oh, we were going through the um… treasure Tiddles retrieved and thought it might be the necklace you spoke of. But you must hide it under your shirt when you wear it.” 

She nodded, understanding without needing explanation, and tucked it away. 

“This is all crazy!” Tiddles burst out, “You’re talking about world shattering bullshit, and I'm just, I’m just Scott, the poor prison guard! I’m not special like any of you! I shouldn't be a part of this! Why can't I just go home?!” he cried, sitting down and curling into a ball.

“A fantastic idea!” Malone tapped all his feet, “This young man is from Kestrel, correct? I have friends there! They can certainly give you more information and aid, as I assume you plan to get your princess back from Nero and deal with our bonded? You must go at once!” 

Tiddles looked away. “I was hoping I could just go alone.”

“Nonsense!” Malone said. “With your luck aura? I cannot imagine you making it alone.”

“And I already swore to take you!” Yonah put in. 

And Malone clapped his hands “One step ahead of me, I see. Already planned on going. I will go get you a map then!” And he left. Cait stayed behind to watch Savina a bit longer, and to instruct Yonah on how to monitor her recovery. 

The map, which was also drawn on silk (though this was not at all sticky) wasn't very detailed. A cartographer, Malone was not. There was a directional arrow, the main road for them to take, the major cities the road went through and a few small towns in between. Serviceable, if inelegant. 

“So we are leaving now?” Savina asked, her voice a little stronger than before. 

“In the morning,” Yonah decided, though his companions grumbled a bit. Tiddles also wanted to leave, as he’d wanted to every other moment, and Tadhg wished to travel while it was dark. 

“I require at least one night sleep,” Yonah insisted, “Where I am not sleeping on cold stone, where my back is not to the entrance of a cave, and where our peace and security can be assured.” He yawned, adding the display of his fangs to his argument, and no one spoke up again. 

Before going to sleep, they had a fabulous dinner. Malone was a monster after Yonah’s own heart, and revealed to have spent much time practicing the culinary arts while his love experimented with her entomancy and served as the local witch to the residents of the forest. 

It was curious that the meal included fried bugs. Tiddles even brought it up. “But, don't you love bugs?”

Cait laughed. “Bugs prey on other bugs. I can raise some for sustenance like others do goats.”

“Did you use magic to get them so large?” Yonah asked as he took a massive beetle between his fingers, dipped it in the sauce Malone had indicated, and ate it with a satisfying crunch. 

“I did use magic,” Cait confirmed. “But rearing of cicada longhorn beetles is not new. It’s more popular among beastfolk, as they often keep colonies using their food scraps. But you see, this young man is not so reluctant!”

Tiddles had carved into one to use the carapace as a bowl, poured some of the sauce on,  and scooped out the hot insides with evident relish. 

“I am not surprised, he is from Kestrel,” Cait observed. “A lot of beastfolk there.”

“Only in West Kestrel…” Tiddles mumbled around his mouthful. “But that is where my friends live.”

Savina also had no problem eating beetle, though it was an effort to get her to eat enough to satisfy both Yonah and Cait’s regiment for her recovery. 

In addition to the beetles, there was another deer, which the smallfolk got to try this time. There was also a savory boiled grain and vegetable dish, and warm wine which left everyone red-cheeked as Tadhg had been after feeding upon Yonah. Which he did, though looking very jealous of everyone else’s food. 

Full and happy and warm, they all fell asleep. And Yonah was right: it was a better and deeper sleep, knowing they were in the lair of a powerful monster, protected by said monster and the near impenetrable border of web. 

So deep, it was midday when they woke.

Malone escorted them to the edge of the forest and to the road, pointing down it, “You can easily stay in the trees for a while and still follow the road, but there are farmlands as well, and farmers who will not appreciate a giant stomping on their crops.”

This reminded Yonah of their need to stay at least a little inconspicuous, as they were all wanted criminals at the very least. It might be slower to travel in the forest than on the road, but it would be even slower if Yonah had to be shrunken down for it. 

With a Tiddles on one shoulder, a vampire on another, and Savina in a chest pocket, he turned his back to Malone and took the first step. 

“I can't believe I’m actually going home,” Tiddles said under his breath. 

[dorkshadows]

Do u think dat da person who created jttw rotdk is a SunTang shipper? Cause I tink they have a webpage in weibo where they release a short moment between da 2 in a valentine day video.

Hi anon! Well, there are a lot of people who created Reincarnation of the Demon King. And I think I did see that video LOL not sure if it was Valentine's though- more of a (Lunar) New Year video, but blatantly SunTang-coded anyway lol.

Either way, yeah, someone on the creative team ships it in my humble opinion.

[vore-scientist]

Return of the Dragon King pt 1: Prison Break

[A non-sexual high fantasy GT/vore story with both hard/fatal+ other fantasy violence and safe/soft]

This story is a prose adaptation of an RP between @vixen525 and I. It takes place in one of her worlds and features mostly her characters.

Summary/Pitch: Separated from Sophia by the evil (and illegitimate) Prince Nero, Yonah must rescue his princess from Nero's devious clutches. With a collection of quirky fantasy characters as allies, Yonah aims to bring an end to Nero's reign and return the rightful heir to the throne.

But before that, he must escape from one of Nero’s prisons.

Story General Warnings: Return of the Dragon King overall will contain hard/fatal vore (in an intense fantasy violence style) along with soft/safe (the good stuff). Themes of abuse and torture as well. (There may be one instance of soft fatal that if I ever get that far I’ll warn for that specifically but it’s so far off from this it may never get written down)

Chapter Specific Warnings: This chapter contains all the story general warnings. This is NOT the chapter with soft/fatal. It’s hard only. It very much treads the line between hard vore and just standard fantasy violence. This part contains a very brief mention of attempted (and failed) sexual assault.

Onto the story:

----

For the 20th night in a row Yonah was replaying the moment in his mind, and like the 19 times before, this time was slightly worse than before.

It started with merriment, feasting, dancing, joking. Then transitioned to screaming, to blood, to Sophia being dragged away and him unable to stop it. And finally ended with waking up here, on a hard stone floor, in a room with no windows, with cold metal around his ankles and a chain attached to a back corner. With a terrible pounding in his head and an indescribable weight upon his core.

While he wondered why it had happened. Why this diplomatic mission to another world had been under false pretenses, however it wasn’t really worth dwelling on. He wasn't going to get answers here. All that he knew was he had failed. He had failed to protect Sophia. His charge. His friend. His princess. She was taken and he had let it happen!

After his 5th day in the prison cell he had given up trying to escape. Whatever that pressure was, pushing on his core, it stopped his magic. He had woken up without his robe, staff, and hat. For a normal wizard that would be a problem, but Yonah HaEsh was half FireWitch in addition to half giant. He had his own natural magic! Surely he could melt the cuffs and bars.

Nope. He could see the air shimmer with heat around his hands. He was generating magic, but it seemed to be… negated as soon as he tried to release it. All it succeeded in doing was make him tired. And hungry.

He was so hungry. The prison guards were giving him just enough food and water to stay alive for reasons that were beyond him. So he spent most of his time laying on the floor. Conserving his energy. For what purpose? For what event? None at all. He just hoped. And cried. Or at least tried to. His tears had long since dried up.

The screech of the prison bars sliding open grated upon his ears and he drew a harsh breath but did not give the guards the satisfaction of interacting with him. He had tried to rush at them a few times, just to have a little fun. But the chains weren’t long enough to let him reach the bars. All his antics got him was humiliation.

“Oy! Halfbreed Thing, you’re in luck,” came the voice of a nameless guard, “the warden decided to give you a treat tonight!”

Yonah didn’t respond. It was clearly sarcasm.

“He also said if you don’t eat up, you get nothing for a week!” And the door was closed again.

He still did not look. He had decided he wasn’t going to even touch what they had assumedly given him. It was probably poisoned, or drugged. Or both. He drew another breath.

That smell.

He finally looked. His heart racing. They wouldn’t… would they?

Standing with her back against the bars was a young woman with straight black hair, wearing a similar tattered outfit as himself. She must have been cold, and scared, but she was not shaking. Instead she stared right into his eyes. The fear in them was evident.

Now that his ears were no longer ringing he could hear her breathing. She was trying to calm down.

Apparently she succeeded. As she talked first.

"So... I guess they put you in here because you use magic too?" her voice was weak, and her accent thick upon his ears but he understood her well enough.

Yonah did not respond right away. Carefully he sat up, leaning against the back wall where his chains were connected, rattling them as they piled up.

“Well they certainly didn’t throw you in here so you could be my pet.” he snorted steam with his words, happy he could still do that much, and pleased him to see her concern at this display. So perhaps he could have some fun, even as her scent started to permeate his cell, leading his thoughts in another direction.

“No…” she answered, not moving any closer. “I doubt they’ve been feeding you well. I suspect they threw me in here in hope that you’d eat me.”

Yeah no shit. Had she heard the guard? Or was she too scared to listen. He had listened, even if he pretended otherwise.

“Being tossed a person to eat. How barbaric. Do they think I am some sort of feral animal?” His voice was hoarse with dehydration, and conflict. For he was considering eating her. Yonah HaEsh, despite being half giant, was not above eating smallfolk, if necessary. And she certainly smelled…delectable.

She shook her head “Many giants wouldn't hesitate if hungry enough… They may be normally polite to smaller folk but when half starved? All bets are off”

Yonah nodded, “I suppose so… Though I am only half giant.” He couldn't do more than suppose, as he did not know anything about giants of this world, though he remembered seeing one at Prince Nero’s castle. A little less than twice as tall as his own mother, and his mother was over 40ft tall! What he did know was that giants in his world would be tempted just like him, and while they were also normally polite… ish… their own survival was more important than the life of someone they did not know.

So why was he holding back? Well for one thing, she was out of reach. For another… He did not like the idea of being fed a person, it was insulting. The idea was nearly offensive enough to scare his hunger away. Nearly.

“Why you?” he hissed. Trying to chase away the remaining offensive thoughts. The mental images of grabbing her, sinking his fangs into her soft tasty flesh, and using his jaws and hands to rip her apart. The thoughts of how delicious it would be to finally satiate his hunger properly for the first time in weeks.

It took her a long minute to answer “I… keep escaping. I got out the door this time, nearly made it to the outer wall.”

“Ohhhh, curious” he breathed out, glad his ‘treat’ turned out to be interesting enough to distract his thoughts with. “You do not look like an escape artist. Or are you of hidden talents?”

She shook her head “The magic they use to… nullify the magic of others… doesn’t work on me. And my own magic doesnt like that im captive and kept… helping me escape”

Ohhhhh fascinating. He did not say out loud this time. “Sounds like you are a handful. Though perhaps you are rather, a mouthful. Or two in my case.” he smiled with all his fangs.

She swallowed nervously “Y-yes”

“Why don’t they just kill you? Are you important?”

She shook her head again “They are waiting for the execution order. That’s… why I’m here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She took a breath. “If another prisoner kills me… they don’t lose their capital funding for executing a prisoner without the proper paperwork…”

“That’s where I come in” and he snarled “I don’t like being used as a tool. And I don't really want to eat you”

She nodded “That’s… good”

“But I am hungry.”

“Oh…”

“Why are you in this prison?”

She looked away. “I… killed someone. With magic.”

More fascinating by the second. “Why, would you do that.”

It was an obvious struggle for her to answer “It wasn’t… it wasn’t intentional. He pinned me up against a wall and started tearing off my clothes. My magic just... reacted. The next thing I knew he was dead”

Yonah snorted again “Should have been intentional!”

“I haven't had any formal training! My magic just happens!”

“Shame” he sighed. “Do you know why I am here?” he asked, changing the subject.

“You’re… a mage. A rogue one. Like I am.”

That was new to him, “A rogue mage?”

“Practicing magic is highly regulated, don’t you know?”

“No.” Yonah saw that made her very confused “I am not of this world”

She seemed to accept this easily. This world seemed to be more comfortable with the idea of other worlds than his own, which had only started to make contact with new realities. He had also decided she didnt need to know his story yet. For he had not made up his mind on keeping her alive, or eating her. If he ate her, then it would have been a waste of breath to tell his own tale of woe.

He tugged on his chains to pile them up and keep them from getting tangled. And for the next few minutes he occupied himself with this task.

“They stop-”

Yonah looked at her so fast his neck cricked. She started again.

“They stopped using shackles on me because the chains kept breaking. Perhaps I could” she took a single step forward, and seeing that Yonah did not react, took another. “I’m sure you would appreciate more freedom of movement.” She took another step.

“Well not all of us are so damn talented now are we?!” he growled. She took two steps back.

“Im trying to help you! Maybe I can figure out how to get it to work on you too!”

“A self proclaimed untrained mage!” he spat “and why would you help a monster like me?”

For as much as he wanted to be civil, he was also a monster. And as much as he tried to fight the temptation to be monstrous, he did not know if he could succeed.

“It wasn’t being a monster that got you in trouble! It was magic.”

She sounded very sure of that.

Yonah snorted “That is your own assumption”, and turned around to lay his head on the chains, facing the corner.

After a few minutes he heard her soft footsteps, and he craned his neck to look. She had gotten a lot closer than he expected and was reaching for his chains. She was clearly in the mood to help him. Unfortunately he was in a mood to play with his would be treat instead, and he did not have any confidence that she could help, so why not have fun.

“Are you sure that’s wise little morsel?” he sighed with a fanged smile.

Amazingly she did not back up but touched chains by his ankles.

“No. But sooner or later they will get the execution order signed. So my odds of survival are shit. But they are better if I free you.”

Yonah made his eyes glow with what fire he had left “Are they better? You said you were untrained.”

She looked embarrassed, “I’m hoping I can practice on these chains of yours. My magic does disable the nullification. We can work together to get out.”

“Untested magic is dangerous” yonah growled “Maybe I should just eat you!” he snapped his teeth.

Still she did not leave. Instead she stood up and glared at him “So what? I die and you survive another week until the next council meeting and your execution is approved?”

Yonah narrowed his eyes “Maybe I dont care about that anymore.” but he does not move either. “You dont know why im truly here. Maybe I deserve this!”

His fiery eyes still on hers, she retaliated “I dont care if you do! I need to get free, and I cant on my own. You want to be free to dont you? If I can use my magic, I can break these chains, disable the anti-magic on this room, save us both!”

Yonah rolled his eyes, losing their staring contest. He did not stop her from continuing her investigations of the chains. But his mind wandered, until he exclaimed.

“Maybe you’re a plant! Instead of using me to kill you, you’re here to kill me!” he jerked the chains away from her.

“I’m unarmed!” she insisted and scrambled forwards to maintain contact with the metal.

“You said they cannot chain you, that their anti-magic shit doesnt work on you, so yours does work, and it’s killed someone before!” He knew that this new panic was not helping him in the slightest, and yet he did not care.

“Most of my magic isn’t working! I just somehow break chains and disable the magic nullification! I don’t know how it works or how to activate it! But the fact I can means they want me dead so they stop having to catch me! And magic isn’t allowed and I definitely don’t have the indicator that I have special permission, those are super obvious.”

Yonah blinked “Could be lies! You could be spitting lies! Permission to use magic. How ridiculous”

“Everyone knows that the few legal mages have face tattoos to make them obvious”

Yonah breathed steam again and finally she backed away from the painful heat. “I dont! I don’t know anything about this world! You could say anything and I wouldn’t know if it was truth or lies!”

“Oh… right” she looked at her feet “You aren't from this world. That must suck as much as my own problems with my memory…”

She rambled a little more about how she was definitely a prisoner, it was obvious from her malnutrition, and that despite not being able to be kept in chains she had marks on her wrists and ankles from the failed attempts.

But Yonah was not listening anymore. Once again he turned away and was trying to cry himself to sleep.

So she took the opportunity to touch the chains near his ankles again.

“Careful now!” he hissed without looking at her. “You don’t want to get burned” Hearing her yelp as she touched the chains, which he had put his mind to pumping his fire into. Maybe he couldn’t melt them, but he could make them painful to touch.

He heard her curse, and then the chains rustled again as she grit her teeth and grasped the half giant sized links, whining in pain and holding back tears. 3 seconds were all she could manage before she had to stumble back, sitting on the ground and blowing on her burnt hands.

Yonah sat up and looked at the chains. He did not let his face show any surprise as he found rust and cracks that had not been there before.

“Wow. It didnt work. Big fucking surprise, some help you were, but I guess you were telling the truth about being being put here for me to eat.” he lay back down. “Maybe I’ll do that in the morning.”

Suddenly the pain in her hands was not as important as what the half giant had said.

“It started to work! But I couldnt hold on long enough!” she wailed, “I tried! I really tried, to help you’re sorry ass!”

“And you FAILED” he snorted back.

“Only temporarily!” she insisted

“And look where it got me. Nowhere. I’m going to sleep”

“If the chains were just a little cooler! Then maybe-”

“I told you to be careful. You have only yourself to blame for your failures and your injuries” he stated, fully aware it was his fault. And that he was sabotaging himself. And yet he couldn't stop himself.

“I was trying to help you. You don’t have to be so rude. We are stuck in the same situation and I am trying to make a difference.”

“I dont have to be polite either. Now you’re the one being rude, keeping me awake”

She crossed her arms in defiance of her own fear “You��re kind of an asshole. I thought maybe we could work together to escape but apparently you’d rather stay and be executed.” She stood up, glancing at her hands, “Guess I’ll just try to figure out how to disable the nullification and escape without you if you really are that opposed to working together.” She turned and walked back to the cell bars before sitting down again.

Yonah looked away, no longer amused by her company, for he was too tired, and too hungry, too angry. Mostly at himself for heating up the chains.

Of course, he couldn't sleep, even though he wanted to do so. After about 10 minutes he glanced at the human, who was making hand motions at the bars. He could just barely feel the sparks of magic failing to become embers at her will.

That got boring really quickly, and he noticed that, unlike earlier, she was shivering. Not with fear…

“You’re wasting your time, little one”

She gasped and jumped from her sitting position, nearly toppling over. He was not asleep like she had assumed. And now he was staring at her with those glowing eyes again, full of fire and hunger.

“I am not giving up” she yawned and shook even worse, “I have no desire to be executed, not by the prince, and not by you!”

Yonah’s eyes dimmed with compassion, “You can try again in the morning. You keep this up and you’re going to freeze to death”

To his surprise she snarled at him, “What do you care!? You obviously arent worried about execution, and I dont have much else to do at the moment!”

Yonah rolled his eyes “Do you want a warm place to sleep or not? I’m only offering once. Can’t imagine you’ve had a warm bed in a while”

“I- what?” she paused, processing what he said, “Warmth… sounds wonderful… But you talked about eating me in the morning!” so she did not step near him.

“I said maybe. So you don't have to worry about it until then” He considers for a moment “I’m still making up my mind. I dont want to be used as an execution method, but I am starving. However” he yawned, his fangs looking larger than before, “I promise not to eat you tonight, and I am very warm if you want to sleep in my arms.”

“This room is absolutely freezing…” she admitted, “But I dont like the idea of you waking up before me to have a snack!”

She still looked hesitant so he added “Tiddles won’t be able to bring anything with you still visibly uneaten”

Now her fear was replaced almost entirely with confusion “Tiddles?”

“One of the little guards who did this to us. Sneaks me food most nights. If he comes tonight, I promise that I will let you try again, in the morning, to break the chains, before I resume considering whether or not to eat you. How does that sound?”

“How… likely is this Tiddles to show up?”

“He appears most nights, but not the last, and he never skips more than one night in a row.”

“How about you promise to let me try again, regardless of if Tiddles shows up!” she was not about to take such a chance.

Yonah scrunched up his face “Fine.”

“Alright, that’s much better.” she took a step towards him again “It means you have to let me go, and you wont think about eating me until after I get to genuinely try to free us”

“If you’re not tucked out of sight soon, I dont get fed, and I’ll have have a much harder time not thinking about it” he threatened “Tiddles can’t claim he thought I ate you if you’re standing alive at the front of the cage!”

A few more steps, she was almost within reach… “Fine… I guess… I just want to try a couple more times, it will be quick”

His patience waring thin he made his eyes flash “but I want to sleep, and to get fed”

“It will only take a moment!” she stopped just out of reach.

“Tiddles often manages to get me an entire barrel of crap! I’ll be willing to share” his mind now on the food, he couldnt think of much else.

“Im starting to figure it out though”

Why was she so insistent! This was not the time! “You’re tired, and cold, and hungry. You try any more magic and you’ll just pass out.”

He had gotten to his knees but he deflated a bit, lowering down into a position not unlike a crouching dragon “So I offer one more time than I said I would. A warm place to sleep. A proper meal. Or you refuse, and I get angrier, I get hungrier, and you stay cold and my only option for dinner”

She hesitated and finally sighs, “You are probably right... I just got so close to escaping today... I was gonna use a wind spell to blast open all the doors when one of them tackled me...” She took the step forward that got her within reach, and Yonah slowly reached around her, stopping her rambles. “But maybe after a rest I’ll have better success”

Having held back long enough, yonah scooped her up and returned to his corner to curl around his new teddy bear, thin and cold as it was. In contrast, his own embrace is soft, pillow-like even. And warm. So very very warm. She tensed in his grip for only a moment before calming down and closing her eyes with a deep sigh.

“By the way, I didnt introduce myself. My name is Savina”

Not resisting the urge, Yonah nuzzled her with his face, his normally neatly trimed facial hair overgrown and tangled and in need of a wash. He was drinking in her scent, even if he was resisting getting a taste, “I didn’t introduce myself either. Now shut up or I’ll put your head in my mouth to shut you up. I hear Tiddles”

As he was facing the back wall, it appeared as if he was alone in his cell, as the footsteps got closer, along with scraping noise and soon, a jingling of keys. Unlike earlier, the screech of the door opening was not so bad, knowing what it meant.

“You awake big guy? Damn this thing is so heavy… I managed to get a lot of scraps so it’s not mostly water this time! Probably tastes just as bad as all the rest, worse since I couldn’t sneak any salt in... but better than nothing right?”

The only response Tiddles got was a slight movement of Yonah’s head. His bushy mane of unkempt black hair shifting. Then two orange lights appeared. The giant's eyes locked on him with anticipation and hatred.

The guard, Tiddles, who couldn't have been older than 20, dragged a barrel within reach of Yonah, though the prisoner did not make any move.

“The others were laughing earlier about how you got a decent meal tonight… but I dont see any plate. Not surprised it was a lie. Im sorry again that this is not seasoned. But…” He left and returned before Yonah could investigate the food. Holding a large sack, the smell coming from which made yonah take a very intense breath.

“I did bring these… They were going to be used to torture other prisoners. Tested them on me. Just one bite and I thought my tongue would burn up in my own mouth, I drank so much water I thought I would throw up. But maybe it’s not as intense for giants!”

Through his dehydration Yonah started to drool, the spicy smell of the hot peppers filling his half FireWitch brain.

The display of hunger caused Tiddles to freeze up a moment “Um… I’ll take that as a yes to these. Great Goddess they make my eyes water!” he set the sack down and went to the other back corner where an empty barrel was on it’s side.

“I’ll take this one, yes?” Tiddles didn’t wait for an answer but said “you’re… not as talkative tonight. Usually you threaten-joke about eating me along with the slop. You alright?”

As soon as Tiddles had moved away from the full Barrel and sack of peppers, Yonah Sat up and scooted over with one hand. Revealing the reason he was not talking. Savina was tucked into his elbow, having fallen asleep.

Tiddles seemed briefly transfixed by the woman. If yonah had to describe the expression the closest would be reverence. Before cringing away.

“That’s what they meant by a good meal!?” He shook off his surprise “what a load of dragon crap. You’re not some feral animal”

Yonah didnt respond to this continued attempt to bond with him as he dragged the barrel back to his corner and stuck his finger in, building up his fire to warm up the cold scraps and water. Tiddles made no more small talk and left him to his pitiful “meal”.

Once the contents of the barrel started to steam, Yonah nudged Savina awake. She was not happy about that.

“I was actually sleeping well, what the fuck”

Yonah set her on his lap, the barrel in front of them both. “If you dont eat some of this now, I’ll eat all of it. You wont get a single drop, but if you eat now, you wont make a dent in it noticeable to me”

She nodded, understanding, and put her hands into the barrel. Yelping in pain as the hot slop made contact with her burnt hands.

Grumbling about how she was an idiot, yonah rummaged around in his chain pile for a flat piece of metal. It was a band from a previous barrel that he had broken. That was the only time he had gotten an earful from Tiddles about how if he continued to do that, Tiddles wouldnt be able to sneak him more food. He was able, with some effort, to heat it, pinch it, and bite it into a sort of ladle, which he used to scoop up the scrap soup and hold it to Savina who was very grateful.

Even with his encouragement she ate very little. Yonah had no idea how long she’d been here, but it was likely longer than himself, and it was very probable that her stomach had shrunken, so he eventually gave into his own hunger and stopped trying to get her to eat more and let her slump against his middle and fall back to sleep.

But before he ate any of it he took the peppers out of the sack and crushed them into the prison soup. It took all his self control not to just eat the peppers straight up. So he rewarded himself by licking the juice from his fingers.

He would have downed the contents of the barrel like a shot but resisted as it would have wasted all his patience preparing it for better taste. And even if it was literal scraps in unsalted water, hunger was the best seasoning. And the peppers, made this the best thing he’d tasted in the time since he woke up in this cell.

It made it much easier to not think about eating the woman in his lap as he too lay down to fall asleep.

---

He woke first, and during the hours of the night his stomach had become rather empty again. Though he kept his promise and resisted thinking about eating her. He did not, however, resist tasting her; he never made a promise involving tasting.

“NO!” she yelped and sputtered as he licked her face like a very large dog waking up it’s owner, clearly convinced he was going to eat her, panicking.

He stopped licking her, But he was not listening to her protests. The moment she yelled the world felt lighter. He felt… no, no time to dwell. He tossed Savina aside and focused on generating a lot of fire into his ankle cuffs. It wasnt enough to melt them, but it was enough to make them soft. Soft enough that he could pull and stretch them and get free.

And then the feeling was gone. Back to that soul crushing feeling that had been ever present, as if it was never gone.

“What did you DO?” he snarled as he rubbed his freed ankles, which were red and raw from the previously tight metal cuffs.

Savina got up, looking frazzled with one side of her hair sticking up and out at odd angles due to half-giant spit. “What I was trying to do last night! Hey!”

Yonah crawled to her and picked her up, putting his face close to hers to demand, rather loudly “Do it AGAIN”

Defiantly she took his gaze and his rank breath “I wish I could! Like I said before, and like you just saw, I can’t do this on purpose! It just happens!”

In a rage his eyes flash and he bares his teeth “Fucking useless!”. His urge to throw her against the wall lost out to his being touch starved and instead he sat back down to hold her just a little too tight.

He did not fail to notice that a small hint of the relief of pressure occurred when she gasped at his moment of rage.

“So. Did that count as your morning try? Should I start considering whether or not to eat you again?”

She stiffened in his grasp “that wasn’t intentional! But doesn’t it prove what I was saying, that I am too useful to consider eating, that with practice I can succeed?”

“I already got my legs free. I can reach the bars now. Reckon i can try smashing them… and if I eat you i may have the strength to do it” he huffed. With a small amount of food and a night’s sleep, what he had was the energy to be a massive dickhead again. “So you would be helping me.”

“Those bars are heavily reinforced with the prison magic! They’ve kept giants bigger than you in this prison!”

“I’d still like to try, so you’re lucky I want company more than a proper meal right now,” he chuckled against her. She was so skinny she wouldn't even be a proper meal, maybe half of one.

“Please let me try again later to disable the nullification. Then we can both get out and get decent food” she sounded both desperate and angry.

“I know exactly what I’m eating if I get out” his eyes flashed again and he licked his lips.

Savina shuddered but did not sound disgusted when she said “i think i have an idea of what… or who… that might be”

“So, are you going to try again or what?” Yonah was getting impatient.

“Will you be ready to break down the bars when the magic reinforcement is gone?” she asked.

Yonah backed up against the wall, bracing himself so he could charge. If she succeeded.

Savina went to the front of the cell, grasped the bars and closed her eyes, muttering. Occasionally she let go and made hand gestures.

Nothing.

Maybe she needed encouragement. Yonah growled at her. Low and threatening. Savina stiffened and he felt the pressure lift, very slightly, very briefly.

“Get on with it!” he hissed.

“I’m trying!” she shot back, walking to the center of the cell, it didnt seem to matter where she was.

Then she screamed, her whole body hitting the ground as suddenly Yonah was on top of her, having pinned her under a hand. He snarled in her face “Maybe I should just eat you then! At least my last meal will be a tasty one!”

This succeeded in having the desired effect. Whatever the nullification was, it lifted. However he could feel it coming back.

“NO! I’m trying, give me one more chance, I know I can do it!”

He was not listening to her. He had confirmed his theory. Without hesitation he took her left arm in his jaws. She started crying and screaming, Pushing at his face to pull away. “Stop Stop! You’re hurting me!” Her voice was shrill.

/That’s the idea/ he thought.

With a sickening CRUNCH and a shriek, it was Yonah’s turn to be thrown, against the wall.

Not that he cared. Not one bit.

The magical nullification was gone.

From the entire prison. With no signs of coming back.

Keeping his promise not to eat her, and extending that promise to any part of her, Yonah crawled over to Savina and opened his jaws to release the nearly severed arm, along with at least a gallon of bloody drool. Savina just sobbed. Hmmm she could bleed out. That would also be counter to his promise, in spirit, if not in word. He rubbed a thumb and finger together until they were red hot and pressed the tip of the finger to her shoulder.

The scent of burning flesh filled the air as he cauterized her wound. But there were more important things to take care of now.

Fueled by adrenaline, hunger, and literal fire in his veins, yonah gripped his prison bars, making them red hot. In a few moments he wrenched them apart and he was out. He barely noticed the flash of light behind him as he stepped out of his cage.

The alarms hadn't even started ringing by the time he ran into the first unfortunate guard.

----

It was the alarm bells that brought Savina back to earth. She sat up, and blanched as a sticky arm rolled off her chest and into her lap. She was still covered in blood but the wound had sealed. For all her lost memory she did recall something very important. She should keep her arm. Holding it kept her from trying to touch her shoulder. She had never experienced anything so painful in her life-

No… wait. She had experienced something more painful… Now her head throbbed too! Nevermind any of this! She had to find the half giant mage, he was her ticket out. Even with the magic nullification gone, she wouldn’t get far drained of her own magic and severely injured.

It wasn’t hard to find him. All she had to do was follow the trail of carnage and busted cell doors.

The first guard she found had no head, and a chunk of a shoulder missing. Blood pooled on the ground from the massive bite. Hmmmm. He had a nice sword. Putting her arm down momentarily, She took the sword and a belt to sheath it. It was a bit tricky to get the belt off the person and onto herself but she managed. Before she took her arm off the ground and continued on, not caring to avoid stepping in the blood. .

More dead guards lined the halls as she progressed. Most of them were missing their heads, some of them burned to a crisp. But many were only missing their limbs, or had a bite taken out of the side. Some of those were still living. One in particular had been bitten from the hips down, their guts spilling out onto the floor. She decided not to use her sword to put them out of their misery. Her excuse being that it would be too much effort to put her arm down every time.

Finally she caught up to the large mage. He was in one of the storage rooms where the more dangerous items confiscated from mages were kept. He was ransacking it, shoveling items into something, but finished as she entered and stood up, putting a hat on his head. If he wasn’t so large and didn’t have such a distinct physique, she might not have recognized him.

Dressed in a stunning outfit of mostly blues and golds, with a massive wide brimmed pointed hat to match, his hair now shining and tied back in a segmented pony tail, standing up to his full height and holding a majestic wooden staff, the once brutish creature from the cell was looking more like a person. Except for the fire in his eyes and blood and viscera hanging from his jaws.

With misplaced confidence she walked right up to Yonah and holding the shoulder end of the severed arm she swung to smack him in the ankle. He had on boots now and she wasnt sure he felt that until he looked down at her.

“You FUCKING ASSHOLE!” She bellowed “You TORE my arm off! Why would you do that?!”

He looked at her angry and quizzically “The anti-magic field is gone. It worked.”

She did not back away from his gaze, since he was not currently trying to eat her she figured he wasn’t going to. Clearly he had not hesitated with the guards. She waved the arm around in frustration "you didnt have to BITE IT OFF"

Yonah crouched down to snarl “Clearly I did. You weren’t in enough… danger to disable the field. I’m rather clever you know.” Without asking he scooped her up to hold her up to his face with a cheeky, blood stained grin, “After you told the story of your assault, I started to put the pieces together. Mortal peril seems to do the trick nicely”

“I still dont think you needed TO BITE MY ARM OFF,” she repeated.

Once again she used the severed arm to slap him, now in the face.

He blinked in a kind of shock and then bared his teeth “I think you’ve lost your arm privileges”

His first instinct was to get the wrist between his teeth and gulp the arm down. But… he still felt like he should keep his promise. And now that his belly was half filled with chunks of prison guard he could think clearer.

“WHAT THE FUCK YOU BASTARD!”

Savina shrieked as the giant man pinched her arm, the severed arm, plucking it from her weak grasp. His eyes flashed and it was lit up like a match.

Lost for words she watched as her arm burned into ash before her very eyes, the giant man grinning once again.

Now she was shaking with rage “I COULD HAVE RE-ATTACHED THAT”

His grin became a scowl “How in this reality was I supposed to know that?”

“Weren't you listening, you didnt even need to bite it off in the first place! My magic was starting to work!”

He talked as he placed her onto his shoulder, securing her to the harness he had found with his belongings.

“Didn’t I? We dont know that. Guess we will have to experiment later” he smiled wickedly, marching out of the room “But right now, I’m still hungry and there’s still more guards left alive.”

As he said this a guard rushed around the corner with a crossbow and fired. Yonah, having heard the footsteps just jerked his staff and the bolt exploded. He snatched up the guard, put the poor fucker’s head in his mouth and bit down, while pulling the body away. The sound was similar to when he’d bitten her arm, and blood spurted from the neck onto his face, and Savina’s entire person.

Yonah swallowed the head and tossed the body aside “I can’t eat them all at my size even if I only eat pieces. I can burn them, or crush them” he explained as yet another guard appeared which he simply squashed by slamming his staff down upon, “but I think we need some help. The human prisoners do not seem so eager to get back at their tormentors as I had thought.”

“They are running away from you. If you weren’t on a massacre they would probably be taking the advantage to riot and get revenge.”

“So we need more monsters.”

As he continued through the prison he broke every occupied cell, letting the prisoners run, and killing every guard with an intense savagery. But the most horrific thing, in Savina’s opinion, was when he picked up whole and alive guards and tossed them into his hat.

Eventually he broke into a cell and the prisoner inside did not immediately cower or run, but stood up, eyes reflecting in the darkness. A tall pale man with dark hair smiled with sharp fangs.

“That’s a vampire!” Savina informed him. The vampire bowed.

“A very blood starved vampire, and I could smell the flood coming from the other side of the prison, yet I was too weak to break myself free once I felt the magic nullification just, go away. Was that you?” he stared at Savina, not Yonah.

Savina gingerly touched the raw, burned flesh of her shoulder and looked very annoyed, “Yes. it was me.”

“I’m going to feast now, as I see you have been doing, mysteriously small giant”

“Don’t fill up on the ones I’ve killed, take out the ones still alive” Yonah instructed.

“Wise words,” said the vampire, “though I will take a little of this one, just to gain back my strength.”

Before leaving yonah sniffed at the vampire. Then reached up into his hat and pulled out a fancy, though sadly wrinkled and dirtied, suit. And tossed it at the vampire.

“Smells like you”

The vampire stood up from taking a drink of blood from the guard who Yonah had decided to merely kick against a wall.

“My clothes! You are a gentleman monster!” And with a snap of his fingers swapped out his prison outfit for his old one. “I feel more like myself already!”

Done with the small talk, Yonah moved on. It was time to get out of this place, with hopefully minimal distractions. He would still make a snack, a charred corpse, or a bloody pulp out of any guard he came across.

But it was only a few cells later that again, the prisoner did not immediately scream or flee. Yonah could sense a very eerie magical aura from her, she was pale like the vampire but he suspected she was not one. She smiled at him like the vampire but her teeth were flat.

“My dear emancipator, did you come across a spider necklace during your rampage? I would very much like to have it back.”

That was odd enough that Yonah decided not to ignore it and instead reach into his hat. He did not recall a spider necklace so he could only think the words. An object indeed fell into his hand. Which he tossed to the woman who squealed like a giddy teenager as she caught it.

Putting it on she rubbed the shining black thorax of the obsidian spider inlaid on the silver medallion.

That eerie aura from before increased 100 fold, followed by the chittering, skittering, buzzing of millions of tiny legs and wings. Unlike Yonah’s cell, this woman’s had a window. And through it marched or flew an unimaginable number of insects and arachnids.

Yonah took a step back. But the plaque of bugs was swarming into the prison from every window, every crevice, every crack in the wall, every broken pipe.

“My children will clean out this place” she giggled, though it was closer to a witch’s cackle.

Yonah backed away from her. Deciding that it was now time to leave this wretched place, confident the bugs could take care of the rest. It was by her merciful magic that the bugs avoided him entirely, and seemed to be able to scramble away from his footsteps even as he started down the corridor.

Ah, another guard, coming out of a nearby door, a good distraction from the creepy crawlies. He rushed and shoved the guard up to their torso into his mouth and got ready to bite down. As the ribs started to crack between his teeth the taste of this guard matched up to a familiar smell.

Releasing his jaws he held a gasping, screaming Tiddles.

“If you dont want that one, my babies will happily take him!” The bug witch called from behind him.

Ignoring the creepy aura yonah wheeled around snarling “He’s MINE” and he secured the flailing young man to his shoulder.

“Suit yourself” said the witch, “but he seems to not like you very much, and I am not overly fond of him myself”

Tiddles was indeed trying to free himself, earning him a swift flick to the head. “Probably hurts with those broken ribs to struggle like that, little one. I will keep you safe.”

Without another word Yonah turned back. Enough of this. He pointed his staff at the wall and blasted a hole through, stepping outside. Still in the walled compound he did not take a fresh breath of freedom just yet. He ran for the walls.

Arrows and crossbow bolts rained down at him. Fine. It was time for some big magic. Yonah stopped and took his staff, raising it into the air he found in it the perfect spell. He swirled it around and chanted. The morning sky, which was clear, crackled, and a swirling storm cloud gathered overhead.

The guards on the ramparts screamed as bolts of lightning struck them, leaving Yonah free to take down a section of wall and flee into the forested mountains.

It was after he had been half running half jogging for 15 minutes that he stopped and sat down against a cool boulder shaded by the trees. Or rather he nearly collapsed. One big gorey feast after weeks of starvation would not immediately restore him. That would take time. He had been running on the reserves of his magic, adrenaline, and a bloodlust.

The moment he closed his eyes to rest however, he felt Tiddles renew his struggling.

“Why do you keep this up” Yonah mumbled, not looking at Tiddles, but feeling him freeze.

“I dont want to die!” the young man squeaked. “I saw you eat the other guards!”

“Well then aren’t you in luck that I filled up on them? I had enough to be satisfied for a while.”

That did not calm Tiddles down any more, the struggling was back “You kept me as leftovers!” he shrieked.

“Naw” Yonah said and reached into his hat to draw out an intact, but dead, guard, “I already did that.”

He felt Tiddles faint at that declaration. This did not bring Yonah any joy, as Tiddles’ terror had done before. Being so full Yonah just returned the corpse to the pocket space that was his wizard hat.

“So, where to now?” Savina said after five minutes “We need to get going, surely someone will try to follow! There is more than one shift of guards and they will be looking for all the escaped prisoners, especially you, who was responsible!”

“I think the bug witch will make sure no one does” yonah said, though it was more likely that at least one idiot would manage to slip away. “But I am tired, We need to find a cave or something to hide out in to recoup my… I mean our strength”

“I can help with that”

As if on cue the bug witch stepped out from behind a tree. Yonah eyed her suspiciously. Savina was too hurt and too exhausted to do the same.

“Oh really? And why would you?”

She just laughed “You saved me? And you returned my amulet to me! I owe you big time. By the way, you look just awful. Would you like my children to clean you up?”

“What do you mean?”

Before she answered there was more buzzing in the air as wasps swarmed around her “these little gals are very efficient! I promise they will not sting”

“They cannot hurt my humans either!” he said, nervous about what was about to happen.

“Of course”

He still held his breath as the wasped charged at him and his companions. Savina screamed as well before she smartly held her breath too. Tiddles was the luckiest, unconscious for the whole thing.

It was over in just a minute, thank the gods, as Yonah would have to take a breath. Still, he sneezed and a few bugs flew out. Savina was breathing heavily.

“So, bug witch,”

“Cait!”

“Cait… What’s a nearby place for a big monster to get some rest?”

The woman considered “Hmm… The woods that way are decent. Bears will be scared off by you. Humans should leave you alone. There’s a cave in those woods if you want extra shelter. I want to get back to my home but I can have one of my babies guide you there”

“That would be much appreciated” Yonah focused and gathered up more strength to stand up. And then froze in place as the largest drider he had ever seen came into sight.

“Babe!” he called, ignoring yonah and scooping up the witch into a hug that transitioned into messy kisses.

“I got out of the prison!” she declared, “this nice big fellow helped me! Got my amulet!”

The Drider was a full head taller than Yonah and eyed him over with all 8 eyes before nodding. From between all of his feet a smaller, but large dog sized tarantula, scampered up to Yonah.

“Charlie here will lead you to shelter!” said Cait, “Now I haven't been home in a long time”

And with that, the witch and the drider left.

Charlie made a hissing sound while scraping her feet on a rock to get Yonah’s attention. She led Yonah to a large rocky incline and eventually to the mouth of a cave.It was large enough that if he crawled, he could get in. Which he did without hesitating.

The cave was larger in the inside and he probably could have stood up but he stayed sitting.

The spider stayed at the entrance of the cave, made a little dance, and then disappeared.

“Seems safe enough…” Yonah said. He unharnessed Savina so she could sit in his lap. “Guess what, I was lucid enough during my rampage that I picked up food that wasn’t dead guards!” and from his hat he got out some bread and cheese, and even a barrel of water.

“Um… no thanks” she said.

“You must eat, Savina”

“Im too nauseated from the pain.”

She did look a little green now that she said it.

“I have a healing potion… it should numb the pain a bit.” This he took from a sleeve. A small vial. Just a single ounce. It was like a grain of rice in his palm “It will even help with your shoulder, to at least regrow the flesh around it and stop infection”

She took it, and still looking like putting anything in her mouth would make her vomit, she downed it like a shot.

30 seconds later she felt much better. Or at least, felt less pain… She still felt like complete shit. But took the food with her good arm and started eating.

“I dont know why you brought him along…” she said, referring to Tiddles through a mouthful of bread.

“I doubt someone as kind as him works at an evil prison if he has a happy home to return to. Plus if i had let him go.. The other prisoners might not have been so kind to him. He was still a guard.” Yonah yawned, “Fuck. Im tired. Didnt we just wake up like, an hour ago?” he asked.

“Sure but you just broke a prison” Savina pointed out.

“I did… didn’t I…” Yonah tried to lay down but found that didn’t work with Tiddles on his shoulder. So he resigned himself to sleeping upright for now.

Still half starved, Savina did not manage to eat much. So yonah put the food back. He found a outcrop of rock that he could lean against and put an arm protectively in front of Savina. She put her own remaining arm over his. And they both fell asleep at the same time.

Even through the exhaustion of his over half a month in prison, and the torpor his kind got from a full belly, Yonah HaEsh heard the quiet footsteps of someone entering the cave.

Yet his brain was still slow to react. He opened his eyes and stared down.

Kneeling in his lap, holding Savina’s arm to his fanged mouth, moments away from biting down, was the vampire.

----

[FIN]

UHHHH thanks for reading. If you liked this please let me know. If this fits your blog theme please reblog it!

I hope you enjoyed this. and I hope to have more of it for you in the future. lots more adventure to come!