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Learn about the chawaaj, an avian species with a dreamcatcher tail and six eyes, each representing one of the six senses, here.

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Sini wakes up to his own jarring snore. Sunbeams reach into the cave. Groggily, the poison dragon smacks his lips, starts to rustle; at this, he becomes again aware of the skyblue nagae clinging to his paw like a blankie.

Ily.

Sini lifts that paw. He wiggles it in front of himself, and the little nagae blinks the sand out of his bulbous red eyes. Innocently oblivious, Ily does not notice his own arms hugging themselves around Sini’s plushy black paw.

“Well, good morning,” the dragon says. “How ya hangin’?”

The nagae chirps happily, “I am doing well, thank you!”

Snorting, Sini shakes his paw, signalling for the nagae to stare up at the source.

Ily says, “Oh — so that’s what you meant — your paw, it’s just —”

The paw flattens — not on the floor, but on Ily. The burly, cushiony sole puts a thrilling pressure on the nagae’s torso. So silky, so warm. Ily forgets the cold of the cavern floor, forgets his tiredness. Pay attention close, you’ll hear him trilling very soft, as the poison dragon kneads his paw-pad into the squishy scaly, his great talons flexing and sheathing, scratching the floor delicately.

“Not letting go, are you? Hm-hm. Maybe you wanna be my foot-toy, is that it?” Sini’s plum belly rolls to a throaty, rascally laugh.

He feels his foot-toy’s blush burning. He feels a stuttered attempt at a reply. Promptly, the nagae receives a breathful of the dragon’s foot-musk: it’s mature, edgy, a swab of blueberry and cave-smell. It’s bold enough to get Ily’s tail lapping giddily against Sini’s heel — unexpected but amiable. As for the foot’s delicious squoosh: it’s so weighty. It’s like twenty foamed, fleshy blankets layered atop one another, cuddling, cozying, cradling him tight to the ground. Ily finds his heart racing, arms clinging to the foot more so than when he awoke. The press of the foot, the lovely rib-glomping foot-press, is treating Ily exactly how a clothing iron should treat clothes. Way more bang than expected for his buck, considering he’s at his regular size, and not shrunken to multiply the sensual, the platonic intimacy . . .

Hot dragon breath teases over Ily’s ear: “You hold on long enough, you might find yourself stuck there.”

His syllables drum over Ily’s ear, rich, powerful. It goes with the foot massage like fondue drizzled over a sweet-cream sundae. One must admire how quickly Ily suppresses his blush.

“Your silence says it all.” A cave-churning chuckle. “You know who else likes these paws?”

The comment comes out of leftfield. The daydreaming nagae can only vaguely shake his head. He wasn’t expecting a pitch.

Sini lifts his paw. A friendly face beams down at his friend. “Why don’t I introduce the two of ya? I think, once the culture barriers get broken, you’ll get along just well.”

Then, Sini’s paw lifts Ily, and a flick of the dragon’s head gestures the nagae onto his scaly back.

Ily mounts up, smiling ear to ear. “If his paws are anything like yours, I think that you may be right, Mister Sini.”

“Bet!”

Eager, Sini gets to a limping gallop out of the cave. He leaps off the steep climb of the Malygomiran Mountains, soars far south. South, to the Home-Tunnels of the Scret clan, where his friend Venn Toraajyetaw’s currently wading through the blocky footprints of a large bear [or, so, a bear he assumes]. The chawaaj, he suddenly stops with a taloned foot suspended, raises his winged hand to visor out the sun, squints at a descending dragon’s shape.

[Here, let us, too, stop suddenly with Venn. Let us take a second to admire his fluffy, puffy firework mane of charcoal blue! His gingerbread feathers! His golden bands, which adorn his torso! His six magenta eyes, hidden behind a golden mask! His dreamcatcher-tail, essential for identifying a ‘chawaaj’!]

[Or not. Let us continue on.]

Venn proclaims to the sky: "Ah! It is Sini. Sini and some blue fellow seated on his back, I must dare say. Mnn, yes, I must dare, for I do not know for sure — but wait! — for the shape has enlarged!”

Venn could now say so without daring. Sini touches the earth, and the chawaaj disrupts his footprint-stepping ritual, rushing to greet the dragon. “Hallo, young Sini! Oo, who might be this blue small fellow on your backside?”

Sini mouths to speak, then feels Ily climb off his back. The nagae scurries up to the chawaaj, smiling, and seeing the chawaaj’s jewelry makes a musical bow. It hardly counts as a head dip, but he is excited. And nervous. “Hello, Mister Chawaaj. Sini says you’ve nice paws too.”

(“Did I say it like that?” Sini asks himself. “Thought I said he that he liked paws, but damn, okay.”)

The chawaaj hoots a laugh. “I do not know about ‘paws,’ though I appreciate your comment, Sini. It is the feeling of them I do like. Yes, I do fancy a large dragon smushing me. Though, I will grant, only one has.”

Now Ily’s heels are fluttering off the earth. “Wh-what would you say about being the smusher?”

“Oh?” Venn hops forward to Ily. He gives the nagae an owlish look. “I would never refuse an idea without first inquiring. Surely my feet would not entertain you so well as Sini’s? They are not so swollen.”

“That can be arranged. Just lead us to the rug.” Sini tugs his head to one side, and winks at Venn.

* * *

Deep in the Home-Tunnels of the Scret Clan, Venn winds himself and the guests into his own little nook [home]. It’s as wide as an apartment, high as a two-story building and made of limestone. But, laid over the majority of the floor is the shiniest, coziest rug Ily’s ever seen. Soon as he enters the nook, he lets out a bleat of joy, flopping onto the rug and making snow-angels.

“It’s so soft, it tickles.” A dreamy sigh bounces wall to wall.

Venn and Sini chuckle, padding onto the rug to join him.

“Chawaajes experience each sense with one of their six eyes,” Sini explains. “Venn’s most sensitive eye is the touch one, so he has this big fetish for touching stuff, like tree-bark and pine leaves and —”

Venn protests, “It isn’t so! I like touching feathery, furry, scaly things. No, one must not bother themselves with bark. It is rough, splintery, ack. How do my cousins make nests of it? Anyhow, I have brought us here to comfortably play. What is this you could arrange, now?” Not sure where he’ll receive a response, he flicks his head over to Sini, then to Ily.

“One second,” the nagae sing-songs. “I’m about to do a little trick. Just relax, and don’t peek until I say ‘when.’ ”

“Oh, alrighty.” Venn plops his feathery butt down. He rests his hands on his lap, closes his eyes, mumbles in meditation.

Sini fetches from the corner of the room a bean bag, placing it under the back of Venn — whose zen now appears twice as remedial. Then Sini slowly sprawls himself on his back, sighs, kicks his hindpaws out next to Venn’s. Between them, Ily shrinks, and shrinks.

When he finishes, Ily’s the size of a size nine [foot], while Venn’s feet are a size fourteen. Ily takes a closer look at his taloned clodhoppers. Though covered with scaly skin, the feet have smoother, creamier grey skin.

Breaking his calm, Venn chirps! He opens his eyes, and relaxes. “Your tiny paws are very . . . squishy, a gooey sort of squishiness. Very delectable . . . but you did not say ‘when’!”

“Oh . . . I didn’t, did I?” A sliver of teeth shines in the torchlit cave, then Ily rubs his rubbery cheek against the sole, prumming at a kitten’s volume. It’s different from either of Sini’s: smooth, yes, but more leathery. This one’s musk is of fresh loam, of dried twig, of bathed feather.

As Ily absorbs himself with this task, the chawaaj’s expression shifts. A rewarded, fulfilled look takes him, and he sinks into his beanbag, his beak nodding in the air as if glugging water. Gradually, his massaged foot he pedals deeper into the Blanket of Soft Things. He can feel the nagae’s heart giddy up beneath his foot, putting pressure on its foot-toy. Moist breath . . . small paws, eagerly gripping . . . these Venn takes note of, a devious smirk carving his long beak. He pushes his foot deep into the field of fur. Little serpentine chitters leap up, casting vibrations into his foot, which roll over his talons, slightly up his leathery heels.

Hearing the glee of the other two, Sini lifts his whiskery face to see what’s happening. “Let me get some of that action,” he says.

The bottom of his large dragon heel plows through the Blanket of Soft Things, approaching the chawaaj’s heel. Realizing this [more likely, its owner], the chawaaj foot stops pedalling. Dragon and chawaaj foot tango awkwardly for a couple of seconds, the nagae between them blushing, his thimble-sized adrenaline rushing. Then, the two feet squoosh together, and out of them comes a toy-like squeak!

Then, another sound. A note like an unwinding thread, soft as cotton . . .

As the feet sandwich him, the little plush-sized nagae feels like the melting marshmallow in the middle of a warm s’more. He spins and cycles to the kneading, giving up a collection of crittery sounds. Both textures, ahh, both musks, ahh, intertwining into a bold, mature, earthy musk. Either side of him, scaly folds, leathery folds, flowing over him in currents, like two large, friendly beasts grinding their excess pudge against him. There’s a moment of air-flow, before the chawaaj’s foot comes stamping into the giddy nagae again, squooshing his nose harmonica-style. Toasty, tasty pressure. Ily squirms gladly. He kisses into the taloned foot, licks it. It tastes of trail-mix. For the duration of this dance amongst the friendly beasts, he stays sunken into the scaly foot, gradually getting wriggled over the dragon’s upper-foot paw-pads. With the way the feet smash lovingly together, the ritual reminds Ily of a very dear pillow-fight.

To be comforted, cuddled, toyed with all this . . .

“He’s purring,” muses the chawaaj.

“I feel it too.” Sini’s voice — well, Venn’s too — feel to Ily like the first sounds after a decompressing shower. “Venn, I recall you’ve a fetish for foods of exotic textures grinding over your palette.”

“P-pardon? A fetish! N-nonsense.”

“Oh? I guess you don’t wanna lick my feet?”

The owner of the other foot and the plush-sized reptile both grow bothered . . . by a passionate rush of blood.

Venn gulps. “Well, I would argue it is not my cup of chamomile —”

“But it’s your caffeine?”

“— I would have to hear what you’ve in mind —”

Sini’s foot leaves, and Ily plunks to the floor. The nagae smells rich of the males’ soles. Getting up with a push-up, he turns to see the dragon reaching into his neck-pocket. Smirking mischievously, Sini pulls out a scarf-worth of seaweed. [This, he found off the coast of Malygomire the day past: he’d cleaned it under the Falls and prepared it yesterevening.] He strides to Venn’s side, handing him the seaweed.

“Tie this to one of my hindpaws — but first, press Ily against it.”

Gulping bashfully, Venn does as he’s told. Sini lies back on his back, and Ily makes a nervous hiccup, fastened to Sini’s foot like a —

“Who’s hungry for sushi?” With a throaty snicker, Sini wiggles his toes in Venn’s face. The chawaaj and nagae stare at each other like a friend and friend suddenly turned predator and prey.

“I” — a breathy, avian chuckle — “I suppose I” — a hungry spark in his sense-of-touch eye — “Don’t mind if I do.”

Venn’s slick bird’s tongue travels over the nagae’s scales, catches adhesively over the surface. At the end of the slurp, Ily’s eeping and meeping. The gaze fixed on him is darkening thoughtfully, voracious; “Hmmmn . . . like raw eel atop a rice-wrap . . . most delicioso . . . hm-hm-hm.”

The chawaaj mumbles and grumbles, slurping with enthusiasm over the reptilian foot sushi. Ily’s way less slimy than most serpents he’s slurped in his days: more gummy and sweet, like a sea-salted mochi? The chawaaj pursues a clearer answer, by licking again . . . and again.

“You hella like to lick my big dragon feet, don’t cha?” Throwing back his head, Sini makes a playful, corrupted guffaw.

“Mmph . . . dare say, once I start a meal, I must . . . clean plate.”

The chawaaj progresses into nibbling both Ily and the seaweed. Feeling the drooly pecks at his foot, the dragon looks up to see the chawaaj tearing the green wrapping away.

“G-guys?” Little Ily asks.

“Hey . . .” Sini says slowly to Venn. It is a musical warning. But Venn doesn’t listen.

The chawaaj’s beak cuts the seaweed away, then he tugs the salted Ily along with the seaweed into his beak — halfway.

Teasingly, “Mm . . . mm . . . if ernly Shinny curd tehst dish; he’d luhrv et . . .” the chawaaj taunts the dragon, giving a couple of gulps. Each one pulls Ily deeper into the fleshy maw.

The dragon smirks, returning the chawaaj’s cocky shuttering of the eyes. “You really want to be on the bad side of a 7,000-pound dragon? Game on.”

Ily peeks his head out of the beak, the seaweed belted around his belly. It hangs out of Venn’s mouth a couple feet, and so Sini nips the end. Dragon and chawaaj enter a friendly battle, tugging on either end of the seaweed, which Ily dangles between, suspended in the center of a pretty huge maw [beak] and a REALLY huge maw [muzzle].

A tug-o’-war unfolds. There’s the tensing sound of the seaweed stretching taut, fibres tearing away. There’s the crisp, blazing gloss of saliva on beak and lip, like wet balm, both Venn and Sini’s appetites whetted. A gastric grumble echoes out of a slim, feathered dome; challenging it echoes a deeper, bubblier, bassier grumble from an ample purple one.

The seaweed’s splitting apart. The thinning films of emerald brighten in dancing torchlight . . .

Then . . .

A bulge of gas hops ladders up the dragon’s purple throat. Out of gritted teeth, Sini grunts out a stinky, froggish burp. The chawaaj’s trance is broken; “That’s dershgawschten!”

That last bit’s unmuffled. With Venn’s slip-up, the seaweed slips out of his beak, and Sini slurps it up, the nagae flying into his mouth with an “Aaack!”

Splashing into the maw, Ily’s played with, lapped and licked and sloshed about by an anaconda of a tongue. Waterfalls of rich drool drizzle over him: he washes up on a shore tiered with great, white teeth, emerging under the leg of a kaiju starfish. This starfish here might be the most energetic, erratic one he [or anybody else] has ever seen!

Sini enjoys his gummy treat. Ily’s seasoned with Sini’s own foot-taste, which arouses Sini to some undisclosed extent(?).

“That was my sushi!”

The poison dragon’s eyes crinkle up at the chawaaj’s.

“Don’t think I don’t share,” Sini hums; “I betchu I’m radiating tons of cha for you to consume.”

Venn gasps. Indeed, all about Sini, a purple glow emanates, smelling sweet of blueberries. The texture of the cha is akin to mochi.

Quickly, Venn scrambles around the poison dragon, swooshing his dreamcatcher tail about, such as how a butterfly catcher waves their net. The glow from Sini coagulates in Venn’s tail-netting.

Together, both chawaaj and dragon prum — and somewhere, in a draconic cavern of flesh, so too does their small blue friend.

The cha absorbs into Venn’s netting. The netting transfers the cha to Venn’s tail, which takes the cha on a final trip to the chawaaj’s gut. The gut swells — though you’d need a microscope to see.

“You guys having fun out there?” Ily squeaks. He avoids a lapping of Sini’s tongue, hopping on top of the tip, riding it like a boogie-board. He presently crashes due to a surf of saliva.

“Mn.”

“Mnn.”

[One tends to assume the bigger “Mn” is owned by the larger beast. Here, this is not so.]

If I heard correctly, Venn can enjoy Sini’s meal too, Ily thinks. Well, why don’t I help them share?

Suddenly, Ily begins to grow. “Raaaah!” he squeaks, slowly lifting himself up from underneath the dragon’s tongue. Briefly, he opens up Sini’s chops, and he proclaims, “You can’t slay me that easy, mighty dra —”

Smirking, Sini lets back his head and gulps. Cooing cavernously, the poison dragon follows the shapely bulge of the nagae down his throat with his paw-pads. Along the way, he feels the shape flex, and contort, and writhe and wriggle. The dragon’s purple radiation [cha] glows powerfully. Venn, he gives out his hoot of the month!, and gets to skipping about, collecting up as much cha as he can, as quick as he can, with his dreamcatcher tail.

Being ushered down his dragon friend’s powerful throat, Ily releases a little prum, mapping his descent on the outside by wading his paws over the warm, moist, therapeutic flesh. It folds back over him from every angle, smooshing and tugging over him.

There’s an unheard splash. Its boggy, groggy echo comes from Sini’s curvy purple midriff. Sini shuts his eyes, releasing a nook-shuddering hum. His legs fold, his countenance lax, tranquil. His distended belly perches on the floor, and Sini’s chawaaj friend makes a grateful, throaty noise.

Venn pats his own distending belly. While absorbing the fibres coagulating on his netting from Sini’s energy plume, fragments of the dragon’s experience sate the chawaaj’s own spiritual appetite. Venn knows satisfying Sini now will prove easier; he is open, his emotions ticklish. Brushing his wing-arm over Sini’s stomach, he gains the dragon’s focus. He then cycles each arm together, imitating a somersault.

Clearly, Sini’s lost.

Harrumphing, Venn slaps Sini’s gut. The dragon makes three dastardly syllables of sound — “Hrm-hrm-hrrrm” — then shifts onto his side. The nook, too, shifts, and Venn flaps to stay afoot.

With Sini’s belly exposed, the prey within can be seen: paw-prints, muzzle-prints coming and going.

“Maybe you could turn the temperature down a few degrees? It’s a little warm in here,” Ily admits.

In response, the poison dragon produces a “BREhhhhhHHHAOWP.”

The nook glows with the discharged gases of Sini’s gut. Venn wipes his forehead. Lines of discomfort wrinkle it. Meanwhile, Ily sinks into the cooling walls of the pillowy gut, relaxing. Still, the air’s rather stagnant in there, which Sini’s been informed by previous guests of his internal hotel.

Sensing the swap of comfort and discomfort between the chawaaj and nagae, Sini chuckles. “Can’t please everyone, can we? Well, maybe we can, Venn. What do you think?”

“Whatever your idea now, I would love to hear it,” Venn pants. “It is rather stuffy, now that you’ve gassed up the place.”

Ily giggles politely. It IS stuffy, even inside, but bless his kind heart, he won’t say so himself.

Sini nods. He throws his weight forward, falling onto all fours. Disappointed by the dragon concealing his plush, rubbable middle, Venn stutters a note of protest, tugging on the departing dragon’s tail. Sini ignores him, pulling Venn along on the way out the door.

“Ahh, don’t worry, foot-breath. You’ll still get to rub my belly.”

Venn has grace enough to dip his head, blushing in the shadows.

He and Sini emerge from the Home-Tunnels, entering the exotic swamp/jungle atmosphere. Sini yawns his maw. A deep, fresh inhale fills the dragon’s belly.

Inside, Ily relaxes even more — but today, the air is rather sweaty! I feel like I’m in a thermos, Ily says to himself. He wants to say so to more than himself, but gets distracted by the resumed sway of Sini’s belly. Where are they going?

Then, ridiculously cool temperatures wash over the stomach. Outside, the poison dragon lounges into a calm, flowing stream. It’s steep enough to submerge his prey entirely, functioning as a natural air conditioner. Not only that — the temperatures of Sini’s acids drop. They become cool enough to quench the nagae body’s thirst, the sensation miraculous.

“Aah . . .” Suddenly, Ily’s hit by the freshness of the atmosphere, the sweetness of its natural blueberry gases. It’s pleasant, like a pool surrounded by a circlet of ripe berry bushes.

Venn senses new positive cha. “H-hey. I may remind you about the belly-rubs, Sini! I would like for those to happen.”

“Sounds like someone’s jealous,” Sini jokes, smiling at the belly shape Ily makes. “Wanna join the party, Venny?”

“I — uh . . .”

“That’ll check ‘rub Sini’s belly’ off your checklist. You’ll be doing it inside-out, is all. Haha.”

The bird on the shore has only time enough to squawk half a protest. With a quick stretch of his neck, Sini closes his jaws over a wing-arm. Then . . . geronimo! Like a rookie diver, the chawaaj cannonballs into the dragon’s throat, with a splash of juicy dragon slobber. Down and down the shoddy swimmer goes, screeching and blushing. Throat muscles usher him oh-so-many nautical meters into the deep. Like a pool-flap, Sini’s sphincter waves open, and crashing down from the access comes Venn Toraajyetaw.

Splash!

Bird bath!

Strange hoots and hollers ring from the chawaaj, who’s crumpled on one side of the belly, rubbing his arm. “ACK! ALAS! This is . . . this is sort of . . . this is rather . . . oh . . . oh my, this is . . . this is good.”

Facing him, Ily giggles. Teasing the chawaaj, he splashes a bit of Sini’s purple berry-smelling juices his way.

“Nice landing!” the nagae chirps. He continues to giggle, splashing softly at the chawaaj’s middle.

An O-shape becomes Venn’s mouth. There’s the stupor of an overly formal bird out of his element. Following that, there’s a break in the ice. Venn gives his first actual giggle since hatchling-hood. He mumbles some contradictory gibberish — only the Nine know what — then begins to gently flick the poison acids back at Ily. “Heheh . . . eheheh! I would say . . .”

He would say, but he hasn’t the words. And that’s okay.

And so Sini giggles along with his friends, basking in the bliss of both baths inside and out.

And here . . . here is our slow pan-out: vibrant birds above frolicking and singing from branch to branch [no doubt singing for our friends]; the pine-leaves of pine-branches curtaining out our shot; the forest canopy shrinking, fading, telling me to conclude this tale.

FIN