King of Seconds: a Sequel to This.
by Sini



And the Second World was before him. Dooriki was now and forever draconic. And all the dragons of this world and all the creatures of this world would bow to him. And thereon, the process would repeat in the worlds yet to come. But first he would explore this one.

He came down the mountain from the Dooriyohnnexxuss whistling. Autumnal leaves were scattered about on the trail he tread through the forest he crossed. The one thought on his mind was: Where’re the dragons?

Rabbits hopped into their holes, and raccoons too, as he passed by. Hummingbirds quit humming and quickly tucked their young away into the hiding of their breasts. Below, the dragon-lion and his long long shadow slowly slipped in and out of view. When they were gone, deep sighs were come from the forest-creatures.

Where’re the dragons? the dragon-lion kept on wondering; though his wonders were put to an end when the sign called “Dragons Thisaway” with an arrow pointing left drawn below its text of red came to view, at a two-trail crossroad. It was well to reckon the dragons were thataway. So thataway he went.

The sign had been struck with hammer, nailed with nail there by the humans who specifically meant to warn travelers, “Stay the Fuck Away From This Path. Don’t Go. We’re Not Joking.” The fearnaughts always struck the path regardless, though. And they were comprised of the bounty-hunters and novice-knights looking to prove themselves, and the ventureful-ones and illiterate-ones who were just very stupid. And now, the dragon-lions.

A dragon-lion.

The dragon-lion.

* * *

Fifteen miles up, atop the spire Dragonflock, the dragons danced. The dragons cheered. Flocks and flocks of dragons made round a great bonfire they called The Fire Vixen, circling it as brothers-and-sisters with their arms bound like the cranes’ were in King of Jungles; and this great gathering—this dragony fiesta—was held cliffside, beneath a grand arch in the mountain: a stadium overhang. And shadows and fire swirled and flashed and drank from shadow mugs and, intoxicated, laughed and cried and, after another few sips, did it all over.

See, men #1: were afeared of the dragons, and #2: thought the dragons were ill-behaved; so in dragonmerriment such as this they took no part. But if they did, they’d be eleven times happier and wouldn’t always be bitching about their wives and taxes.

See the difference? Dooriki was a dragon-lion and dragons were on his new diet, and he as well was ill-behaved; so dragonmerriment was his now officially his favorite sort.

He stopped and stood before the skyscraping spire. Its great shadow loomed. The forests were swallowed with darkness, emplaced with fear, and full of terrible terrible rumor of it; but he was outstretching his wings, ready to fly. Up he rose.

* * *

Fifteen miles up, atop the spire Dragonflock, the dragons currently were cracking jokes about humans. They sat about the fire, taking turns.

“Okay, okay. So guys! I got a real good one. How do you make . . . a human hide?”

“Show your teeth?”

“Breathe your fire?”

“Look at them?”

“You don’t make a human hide . . . you chew it off a’ their bones!”

“Ohh!”

“Hahaha!”

“That’s a goodie, Scel.”

“Old but gold.”

“Speaking of gold! How come the human couldn’t weigh his?”

“How come?”

“Why?”

“He hadn’t any scales to weigh it with!”

“Guys! How do you make a human disappear?”

Silence.

“You eat him!”

“Godammit, Percival; one-week ban from joketelling.”

Dooriki ascended the spiral of the spire ten stories down. The clouds were jagged and foreboding and shifted restlessly this way and that; and the sky boiled yellow-orange to orange to red. I smell dragonblood, the dragon-lion thought; for dragonblood was near and, if Sini’s old memories hadn’t lied, his fangs would procure a mean venom to draw it. Ever his wings unfurled to his sides, the more he mused over the thought; the more grew his grin and the more his dragon’s flame broiled in his belly. Salutations for my dragon friends. Charr-roasted scalehide on a spit should have the rest of their brethren cowering in no time and—violet eyes whirring inside like hurricanes—not to mention be a heavenly banquet. I must dine.

Slobber poured in gallons, curtains. The way rabid-dogs foamed at the mouth couldn’t contest with the way he drooled; he rolled out his own damn carpet of slather behind himself as he walked. Unfortunately, when it rolled out behind him it was always a tad too late.

He reached the end of the spiral’s pathway. And it edged the archway of the dragon-fiesta; so if he peeked around the corner he could watch them bask in dragonmerriment and drink their drinks and, now he noticed, compete.

Some dragons spectated from the ragged rock-shelves at the height of the archway. Some were assembled around a duo of dragons near the bonfire. Little dragnets shot in swarms through the atmosphere, giggling, chasing each other, spitting up little cinders. Just before one chasing another leapfrogged off a dragon-in-the-clamor’s shoulder, he pecked his beaky snout into the dragon’s frothy glass, slurped loudly, then hopped off. “Watch it!” The dragon whirled, lunging at the little pest’s tail. The dragnet went tee-heeing dizzily in a squiggly flight about the air. A clump of froth masked his muzzle.

The little-lins are exposed to dragonmerriment while they’re still young, the dragon-lion thought, observing. All the quicker they’ll be bred into beasts fit for my belly.

A sky-blue dragon of dashing blue scales, gleaming magenta eyes, a softly smooth underside of light-blue scales, a tail fletched with untrimmed feathers of hot-pink and tips-of-mintgreen, and wing-leathers of color cotton-candy pink: he had came round the circle of the clamor and he had spotted the dragon-lion’s peeking head. When he blinked, it was gone. Puzzling was the sight. A creature of coarse mane and jagged whiskers he swore he saw. But draconic features had creeped out and complimented the lesser ones. The ale, this dragon, Venci, thought with a groan. Elders’ll singe me a new one if I let ‘em on about a drink. And if I bring up scaled felines? Done for. Done.

The dragon snarled at himself, squeezing his eyes shut. Internally, a draconic Avatar of Curiosity pounced his Engine of Sanity then went to work shredding its metals and gears and ripping its wires away with tooth-and-claw. Shit, he thought, exasperated. If I’m crazy, I need to be certain. Now.

“Where are you, you whiskery bugger?” he said as he stomped down the path of the spire, with bemusement.

His wings outspread. If he dropped down from the spire and glid around it, overlooking every bend, he could catch the whiskery bugger, were that the whisker bugger were there. If he galloped down the path he could catch up, pounce, ensnare. Interrogations would follow. His wings flared up and a snarl deepened as he descended. And then a crumble of rocks alerted him around. There it was—that whiskery bugger pulling itself up from cliff’s edge then softly bounding up, onto all-fours.

A scaled feline with hide-of-black and mane-of-pitch and a sheen rippling across it, defining impressively-chiseled musculature. Deep-set eyes which spoke of storm. Pulsating horns, wing-leathers and spikes of purple which spoke of venom. Teeth . . . teeth! Black lips unsheathed them: razors overgrowing the mouth’s capacity, lancing above it below it especially after they were shown. A bloodlust. Venci felt it in the trembling broil of the belly . . . of the throat.

Venci’s ears slicked back and he took steps back. Shit, he thought; I’ve shown my weakness already. You know what Father said about backing down. And worse, he has the high ground.

“You’re afraid,” it said—and Venci reckoned it was a he. The scaled feline approached, a repelling magnetic force. Venci was driven farther and farther back. Venci yelped; beneath his hind-feet the cliff’s gravel stirred, slipping away . . . “You’re afraid and that is your ruling emotion. Fear. The question, then, is Why are you afraid? What fears you so?”

The dragon stopped reversing. He planted his fores firmly in front of himself, took a forward step. But the scaled feline’s puffed his chest out, knocking Venci a-back. Ah! The scaled feline stood a height-and-a-half taller. And broader he was; so broad, his pecs measured the spread of Venci’s shoulders. And his breath stank. A purple fog of dank came rolling out of the black, yawning jaws, repelling Venci another three back paces.

He groaned, cringing. “Dude. No mints?”

The black mane exploded out like a firework. The feline’s claws, his jaws, they were all grinding now gleefully. Mints’ll be the least of your worries soon enough, dear dragon. Oh. He doesn’t like my hygiene. Mayhaps it’ll grow on him . . .

“Is it wrong of me to think my breath is all you fear?” said he, nearer prowling. “You’re troubled, little one. Tell me what’s on your plate. Perhaps I can tend to it.”

“Pretend to be a friend to me, more like,” the dragon muttered—then gasped, shooting off the spire beneath the dragon-lion’s shadow.

Nigh on twenty seconds they fell. And fought. Grappling and rolling in wrestling maneuvers and a leathery-winged flurry. And through the forest canopy they fell in a poof of autumnleaf. Dooriki as they approached the forest floor, in a batter of wings, broke the velocity; and then to the floor he swooshed down, foreclaws pinning the dragon’s chest and hinds siding his tail.

Bloodred maple-leaves snowed down. All about the feline were vermillion splotches falling; but the closer and closer the feline’s quivering snarl came to the dragon’s face the less and less he saw his surrounds.

“I ask you again,” came a growl, “what . . . might . . . be . . . on your plate. But I asked the question incorrectly before. What I meant was, What have you to offer me.”

Venci’s beating heart was soon to leap out of his little chest. The pupils of his pinks sank far into the void. His trembling words came out dry: “I-I . . . I get it. I shouldn’t have drank. I’m a drakeling still. Another four years and I’ll’ve the dragonmerriment rights . . .” The Elders’re behind this. Done set fear into me as punishment.

“The fuck are you on?” the feline shook his head, scowling. “This isn’t what I want—fun facts about your drinking habits. I asked you of your worth. Powers. Skills. Knowledge. Tell me: do you thrive off venom like the dragon Sini? Have you other traits worthwhile?” rattling the drakeling in his grasp as easy as an Elder would a hatchling.

Venci screeched as response. He gave snaps and thrashes, and attempts to claw three scars down the black cheek diagonally.

Dooriki frowned. “Mayhaps I’ll force the answers from you.”

The dragon jaws shot open; and out burst a sherbet jet of flames, the dragon-lion’s skull a shadowy shape within it. When the jet ceased the dragon-lion blinked unaffected. Undamaged he looked. And unamused he yawned his own jaws open; and down came falls of drool; and out came a virulent fog, a fog of venom; and the dragon, stunned, sat back.

As it seeped over him . . . where did his energy go? the dragon wondered. Spores soaked through his scales. His neck twitched, and he suddenly lurched up, choking; and the sky-blue of his face and hide drained away. To where, he knew not. For a second he flashed albino; then some hue returned: a washed-up watercolor canvas he was.

A bubbling blight swept the forest’s flat. Decay’s tendrils leapt from blade of grass to grass. It drove into crags in the earth, and cracks in mossy stones, and set the petals of blooming buds down to dry and crispen and wither. The dragon, gaping as he turned his head either way to see, released a despairing moan. Then his and the other’s eyes met.

“Tell me now,” the dragon-lion said; “for I grow impatient; and so does my stomach. I’m assessing your worth. And if it seems to me you’re worthless you might not end up a meal to me after all.” (Flat-out lie, that was. But he wanted to hear the dragon say himself: was he nutritious or not.)

“My skills,” the dragon croaked. “My Father was a fire dragon and my mother a wind. I’ve got firebreathing and water-swimming and when I’m bound in the wind my wing-skill is just about flawless—”

(Phooey, your wing-skill. Not in that air-battle.)

“—and, and, I’m pretty fast in midair cuz of that. So in about four years I’ll be even speedier when windbound and soar right through the sky like, like the human thing on the stick . . . and, I mean . . .”

“Basically a firebreathing arrow with wings,” Dooriki said, eye-rolling. “I’d’ve thought you’d at least offer me some more poison or more wits. You’re half-the-wit of the last halfwit. A fourth-wit.”

Dooriki began to melt.

“Holy shit! What is happening?”

“Claiming.”

“You’re what?”

“You.”

“No . . . no . . . nonononono . . . sir, thing—please! You’ve gotta stop! Motherfucker—my Father’ll find you and flay you furless if you dare lay a finger on me!”

“Pity, it’s no finger I lay.”

This isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening, Venci willed himself to believe. Screams! Scratching and biting and kicking at the scaly feline—but every swipe went through the predator’s gelatinous-turning body; and every bite gave him a mouthful of black, sludgy goo he only spat out; and every kick pushed his hinds in, and out the lion’s back with only so much as a burble from it, like a low-pressured fountain. Venci gasped. His face sank through the scaly feline’s stomach. The feline dissolved over—no, submerged Venci in his body inch by creeping inch.

Fire surged. Claws clawed.

Dooriki purred. Powerful enzymes leeched the strength and the will and the matter from his prey per second. Globs of mass in pulses raced across the surface of his form. Broader his shoulders became. Thicker his pecs tore out. Every swoosh of his tail, the tail flashed bigger. Horns burst huge. And curling, curling, curling down at the ends like handlebars, they burst along their undersides with toothlike stubs that too curled.

Venci screamed. Ringing was in his ears. Harsh lights surrounded him and ebony bubbles ebbed throughout the predator’s body, breath adding to the predator. If I die now I die tipsy. Will my bones stay behind? Will Dragonflock even notice I’m gone . . . Thoughts assailed him at the speed of light. The dragon concentrated on the “now” and forgot the “then”. Then strength he willed into claws. Claws became fists. Fists became fiery. An aura of pink flames flashed out, radiating round his body. Blazing tendrils sprung up, cocooning the feline in ellipsing bands. The dragon cried out: “Mother and Father, hear me if you will: and if you will, will me your fires! your air! Your heir speaks!” Overly dramatic, that last bit, since Venci was no prince. His wings beat up gales of inferno, though, setting the surrounding radius in a spinning trap-of-fire, and the cotton-candy leathers in the whip of the wind flapped like capes.

* * *

Damarcus’ temple throbbed. A paw he put to it, hard lines creasing his forehead.

Alele, the cotton-candy pink dragon, cut off conversation with the flock of dragonnesses and curtly excused herself from their circle, maneuvering deftly to the mintgreen dragon’s side, on the less-busy edge of Dragonflock. “Are you alright, Damarkie?” She palmed sweat off of his forehead. “One drink too many? One drink not enough, dehydrated?”

“Where’s Venci.”

“Excuse you?”

He scowled, with a head-tilt meaning “follow” leaving her for the crowds of laughing, cheering, and stumbling drunken dragons. She with courtesies shoved her way through them. Damarcus’ tail was slipping too far ahead into the clusters of them. Sweat, scale, and body-heat surrounded her. “He’s with Elric and Ijah. With the rest of the drakelings!”

Damarcus stood on the edge of a ring of tweenage dragons telling jokes. The lines on his forehead deepened, and his head he bowed, shadows coming to it. No he’s not.

* * *

Curious, his powers should arrive to him now, Dooriki thought, imprisoned by the ellipsing firebands. Should I press him any more, shall he reveal powers greater? The sweltering heat had his black fur dripping all down him. If he melted anymore, he’d lose all shape and look like gelatin left out of the fridge too long. Would I die, then? Dooriki in that moment decided he’d hang in there, pressuring the dragon, and if the benefits were there he’d reap them. If they weren’t, well, Regardless, what would living be worth without power absolutely? His brow hardened.

Venci and the gelatinous feline stared off into each other’s gaze, hard. Venci’s ellipsing firebands clenched and squeezed, making the feline’s gel froth out of the bands like pus. One band scrunched the feline’s snout into his face and pushed his eyes outwards, swelling them up. And the eyes, which were before calm, fastened on the fireband as trembling dots. The feline hissed! The fireband hissed, scouring through him; the stench of burning fur and scale billowed up in black steam. All about, the gelatin smoked. An odor similar to overcooked human flanks filled thickly his lungs. Catlike snarls rang out; lunges of teeth and snatches for Venci’s neck came close: well, the snatches actually came, but the cat’s solid form wavered and began to liquidize; and the claws splashed through him, puddling round him. The cat’s spit foamed and crackled on the wincing dragon’s nose. Opening his eyes, he inspected his light-blue underside. From neck to tail, flesh wounds expanding open in fissures glowed a fierce orange, and around the edges hot red. But their rate of growth had slowed.

Shocked Venci thought, He’s losing fight. He isn’t strong as a true sky dragon. Not as strong as the winds or the flames. He is a sham. His strength resurged, and he leaned up; and, foreclaws bound with the feline’s, he forced the feline back. The feline’s hinds buckled.

“You don’t dare?!” Dooriki spat. He and the dragon got snout-to-snout, snarling from their drawn-up lips. This is directing strength from somewhere outside of himself. How—else—could he—? The dragon Sini. The aspect Poison! They are mine, and yet they aren’t enough. His hind soles flattened on the ground, smoothing down dirt. Still he was slipping.

“I don’t?”

A devious grin spread itself on the dragon cheek to cheek. In his hot-pink eyes, wild currents flashed and crackled. Mintgreen. A lighter pink. Reflections of dragons with their backs turned: mature wyrms approaching their third centuries. Dooriki gazed, dumbstruck.

“Me, my Mother and my Father. Three dragons you’re dealing with, sham!”

There came a quake leveling tree-branches and bark and leaves, and with a flash there came tiny screeches; little treescape critters found themselves flung to the forest floor, and in all ways they scattered. Broad crags were ripped open, and small veins dispersed from them; and then from them jetted up hot pink sheets of auroras seen up North. Booms rolled. The dragon was rolled atop the dragon-lion, now. And the scales weighed in favor of the 100% scaled.

* * *

“He said he’d be right back after he did a thing,” said Elric the tan, looking away and shifting his shoulders uneasily.

“Yeah, he forgot something,” agreed Ijah the brown, turning to face the circle of other drakelings, opening his mouth and lifting a claw, as if he’d an urgent joke to tell.

Damarcus grumbled, “Funny no one remembers what this ‘thing’ was. When we were your age we at least had the grace to hide our glasses when the Eld came around to bother us.” Elric and another drakeling paling in the faces—then disposing their liquors as if he hadn’t already seen them—stifled from him an amused harrumph. (Elric dumped his glass behind himself, soiling his own underscales with rum. The other drakeling swigged the rest of his.) “Young ones, I don’t give a shit. I just want to know, have you seen my young.”

“And my young,” piped up Alele; “I’m so worried sick, oh, my gut fire aches me raw! It’s a mother’s burden. None of the hangovers you juniors’ll get’ll be anything near as bad as, as bad as this! So I suggest—if any of you know what mischief that Vincent is gone into and don’t fess up about it, I’ll! I’ll have your damn birth-scales!”

The whole circle of drakelings froze. It was as if she said “your mother’s a man: a male human”. No one just out and threatened they’d have your birth-scales! Unease rolled like a tide from scalehide to scalehide; then a maroon drakeling (Alele recognized as one of Baracwa’s young, who never hung out with Vincent except in groups like this), perked up and said:

“Mother of Vincent, ehem. I don’t know that it was him. I do know I saw one of the dragons circling with us earlier make down the spire. Sky-blue scales. Eyes like yours. Arrow tail. That the one?”

The drakelings turned to him, looking wide-eyed; and when they returned their focus to the spot Damarcus and Alele had stood a second ago there was no one. After a pink, a mintgreen tail disappeared into the crowd. Then, farther off, off the ledge of the Flock two dragons bounded; and two vast sets of wings spread to the sky, then dropped below the ledge, out of sight.

* * *

Whether or not Venci had summoned the strength of his Mother and Father into himself, Dooriki didn’t care. The little drake has threefolded his power and, if I could absorb the powers of the summoned as well, well, three dragons with one stone. All the more for me. However, he was in a rut. The dragon’s power kept multiplying (good if he won it), but he was gambling with high stakes, here. The dragon shouted self-empowering shouts and said words of dragon-prayer, and Dooriki’s sweat already drenching his fur came in the bucketfuls, now; and he felt himself melting like a wax candle, beginning to resemble a putty attempt at a dragon-lion more than an actual dragon-lion. The prophecies blast it: is he killing me?

It was a sensation numb as his mercy. Sweating he groaned, and heaved against the palms out-strengthening his, his arms turning to butter. Need to think. I’m but a lion and a dragon and he is a dragon, a dragon, and a dragon. Can’t fight force. Can’t redirect force. Cut it off instead. Again he dove into the memory bank of Sini.

He stood in abyss. Blackness.

Pieces of memories. Of the Poison Aspect’s adopted mother and first hatchday and adventures in a snowland and ridiculously huge libraries. They came as colorful, blurry film frames on a projector screen before him. Useless. He shut his eyes, strain on his face; then he swept his paw across it. The image flipped like the page of a book. Then he saw the switch to cut it off.

The dragon saw the feline’s eyes shut and face strain and whiskers wilt. A sneer came from him then, followed by “Embrace the fires, sham-dragon” whispered into the feline’s ear. And the dragon’s jaws yawned open. The rows of teeth and tongue and maw flesh (of a smaller creature, of all things) extended over the muzzle of the dragon-lion. But no chomp came. No swallow came.

A fire bolt spun itself into existence, snug in the back of the throat; but soon its radiance lit the jaws entire, as soon it expanded. Dazzling bands of fire skirted over the sphere, shading Dooriki’s face a hue of pink.

Venci lurched back to spit the fire bolt up when the feline’s eyes shot open. Black paws thumped down on the back of his neck neck so fast, he wheezed the fire bolt up as a depressing smoke-ball; Venci gasped terribly. The feline had dunked his head into the gelatinous goop. Wheezing and paws flailing and nostrils inhaling. Oxygen had been replaced by gel, gel, gel. He cackled. His nose stung. His eyes burned. Burned, burned. The bands entrapping him . . . How had the feline bypassed them? The black paws grew and grew and grew with every push, shove, pull on the dragon. And with them the feline grew.

A loud croon came from Dooriki as new strength surged through him. “Embrace my belly, little drakeling.”

He crooned with increasing vigor. The dragon slapping his paws into his chest cast ripples across his body, tossing up goop, like a little tyke splashing in a pool. The dragon’s firebands and trap-of-fire were sifting, sifting into the dragon-lion, smoothly as sand. Flame and wind reformed him. Flame knotted itself into the composition of goo. Tight. His black goo surface simmered with flames. Wind shot down funneling jaws and funneling throat. Fast. His belly bloated up like a bubble ready to pop. But the buoyancy of the dragon was zero; and fast he sunk, sunk, sunk into the stomach. A scream sent up bubbles. They only added to Dooriki. For Dooriki is my name: for all the worlds I shall unlock, and all the kingdoms conquer, and all the creatures overcome. Every kick and struggle whisked up bubbles, adding to Dooriki. He grinned, getting a good look at his prize, his dragon prize: the puny little drakeling flailing for dear life in the solidifying gel stomach. Dooriki became less and less see-through, losing his translucence. So the dragon eventually vanished.

“Can’t be . . . he can’t have . . .” Venci whimpered. No one heard.

Dark fleshy stomach walls . . . slimy coating fluids . . . coating him and the walls . . . stomach fluids purple and glowing and sticky, hot, and nasty and up to his chest, now up to his neck, now up to his muzzle now up to his horns now . . . now . . . nnnnnnnnoooooooowwwwwwww . . .

The dragon-lion kissed his stomach, his paws rubbing it lovingly. And then he groaned sickly: for his stomach was tasked to dissolve a heavy prize indeed. He lay back. He continued his stomach-stroking and listened to the great stomach enzymes awaken; listened to the churns and long, crackling croaks of his digestive juices; listened to (and felt) the pat-pat against his stomach walls softening over time; listened to (and felt) his stomach rumble. And then the gurgling of the gasses quieted. And the dragon-lion leaned up. Two hard slaps on his gut. And then he groaned out a wet, booming belch. “Brrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrruuurrrp!”

It felt half-real and half-dream. Venci seemed to see his own paws melting in slow motion. He brought one paw to one of the stomach walls, balling it into a fist, but his claws melted into his palms and, almost apathetic, he looked at it. And he eased it down. And his wings, he eased them down. Sleepy, he thought, sleepy, so sleepy, hangover . . . punishment . . .

In truth, he had never had a drink. He’d stolen from an abstinent dragon a non-alcoholic ginger ale.

* * *

Damarcus and Alele glid around and down the spire. Each of them spiraled in opposite directions. After the third full circling, the green dragon crossed her a musket’s shot off, returned a blank gaze, shook his head. They glid on.

When they had reached polar opposite sides of the spire (Damarcus north, and Alele south), a low-frequency growl rumbled the forest. Curious, that Damarcus got shivers. Small earthquakes had bass like that. Not growls. Bass rarely reached as far as the sky. He and Alele crossed flight-paths easterly, then he called out:

“West?”

“Yes!”

No more was said. They both let loose their wings to their full widths then kicked off, zooming westward.

* * *

Night fell. Dooriki lay on his back with his belly so shrunken, he could (and he had) wrapped his arms around it. The belly expanded and contracted to his sleep respirings. And as he slept, curious, curious changes came to him. And he dreamed of these changes. Dreams so vivid, they seemed as though they were real. And they were. Now and then he would purr and scratch himself and roll onto his other side. And as he did, he dreamed this:

First there were soft burbles. The prey had long stopped kicking. But burbles and gurgles and long, rolling growls came from his stomach. Deep growls. Growls that set the fur on your ears straight. Growls that uncurled your tail and straightened it stiff. Growls that turned dragon into dragon-lion nutrient.

Next, his stomach shrank and shrank until it left the littlest of pudge. And as it did, he recalled later:

My tail. This curious feeling in my tail. It tingled. Reflexively I curled it. Again it tingled. And so I looked down on it and marveled. The tingles thereafter came in pulses. I sat up, sweating, moaning, feeling, smelling. The sweet scent of the dragon I’d taken, my tail was discharging. I’d this urge, veritably. This urge to clench my tail to keep the pulses from coursing down it to the tip. They were so ticklish!

And oh! Then I howled loud enough to wake the ‘sleep jungle, as my tail had an itch, a queer itch, as if a slithering snake were under my skin and wouldn’t settle in a spot, just kept slithering.

And then lo! Feathers, darling, feathers! Ebony were the feathers and thick as the fletchings of an arrow, as if my tail were an arrow-shaft, and purple were the dashed ends. They shot up, up! In glee I swung my tail. And on the second swing, the subtle-most shudder came to it. And when I looked again, the tail had broadened, shaft and fletchings, all . . .

And after his tail transformed, he blacked out.

Slow changes took him in his sleep . . .

If he only King of Jungle,
why they call him King of Beast?
Cuz they only scour the vine and
swing the tree, and see the lion.

A shudder came to his paws; and then in a sudden jolt, the stubby lion’s claws shot out, becoming dragon’s claws. And underneath his paws the pads melted away; and soft purple skin-of-dragon became the soles of the feet, running underneath the toes.

Never see the King of Second,
why they not be please to meet?
Cuz it mean they need to find him,
leave the Kingdom, see-a’-sightin’.

Dreaming he cried out, clutching his chest. A pressure seemed to build and build beneath it; and then thoomph-thoomph-thoomph his chest went beneath his fingers, his pecs exploding out, broadening, thickening with scale, and thumping with dragon’s heat. And a sweat broke down his brow. Venci’s muscle intertwined with his. Resounded his tightening sinew, and groaned his growing chest, farther separating his shoulders as it stole more mass.

They no go to seek the Second
cuz the First e’ be so sweet:
cuz the Second where the dragon,
King of Beast, gon’ eat the lion.

All down his biceps there came came quivers; the dragon’s mass said “Hello!” In rhythmic pumps it pumped them up, making the musculature rippling and beefy, so much as to make taut loose-hanging sleeves (were that he were wearing a tee-shirt). All down the calves bulk came.

Wingy, horny, scaly creat’
of maw of fang, of fiery passion;
only thing to beat the dragon
is the King who dragon-eat.

And then his wings tore out: farther and farther they stretched. Muscles groaned, in pulses rippling downwards to the sharp ends of each wing-finger. And a sheen much like the sheen of Venci’s wings glossed over the leathery membranes: though still they stayed purple. A shine skipped along them.

If you want be King of Beast
you prolly need be King of Second.
Never happen: need a dragon teeth
to dragon-eat, I reckon.

And then draconic shape twisted his muzzle. The lion’s snout cracked, twisted, distorted. Bursting outwards the same way the paws did, it retracted its whiskers; and then the whiskers were gone. Thereafter a snarl drew up his upper lip. The already-monstrous teeth scored a bonus: they quickly elongated; and sharp, sharp as to make human steel look like wooden stick, they became. At this point they resembled some shit you’d see in Edward Scissorhands.

Holy mackerel! He grew. The night creatures felt the sudden shake of the lands from their dens and, deciding not to chance a thing, took off. He grew and grew and when he was the size of a two-century-eld dragon (which happened to be the size of thirty feet) he suddenly woke.

And then he looked himself proud, his claws and his muzzle and his fangs. Curiously, he poked at them. And the devious-most grin came to him. Winds and fires. Inside him they churned restlessly with the want to escape; with the want to wreak havoc. You’ll have your turn, he thought . . .

He looked up. Two sets of dragonwings were circling overhead. One was pink. One was mintgreen. Dooriki smiled. You’ll have your turn very soon.

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