With the start of a new year comes a new story that's been on the back burner for way too long in 2017. In this tale we have the first meeting between Azar and the tubby steam dragon, Verdori. A fun investigation into the disappearance of more food from a farming town than any one dragon could eat alone leads Azar to the one and only steam dragon glutton. It also helps explain why all the spare food Azar keeps at his workshop keeps disappearing.

A fun gift story for my friend cLx that I regret putting on hold for so long. But here it is, and I hope you all enjoy it!

Azar owned by
Verdori owned by cLx

---

Azar tapped his claws against his head for what must have been the eighth or ninth time in the last hour alone. Before him on his worktable were the blueprints and list of supplies necessary for his latest attempt at an airship prototype. Problems had plagued its construction ever since Azar had started working on it. The steam generators didn’t produce enough power to get even the test ships off the ground, the material needed to make the ship was too heavy for the balloon to get into the air, and the size of it might have ended up too small to actually make it worth creating in the first place. Dozens of other invention commissions finished, yet this airship remained the most difficult. Then again, he did hope that all the frustrations would help bring about something fantastic once all the pieces came together.

A knocking at the large metal doors to his warehouse was what finally tore him away from his work. The white dragon slid them open with a groan and looked down, seeing a familiar red-haired elven girl looking up at him. “Layla. This is one of your days off. What are you doing here?” he asked his occasional assistant.

“Sorry for the interruption sir, but I have a message for you from the Dragon Knights. Well, more of a mission than just a message,” she informed him. Azar moved aside so she could come in, shutting the doors behind her. “They have a mission for you.”

“Mission? What mission?” he asked as Layla made herself comfortable atop the collapsed hulk of what once was a large mechanized globe.

“Apparently there’s a wild dragon causing problems out at Kalor Town, about a two day’s flight from here. They’re specifically requesting that you handle it. This particular dragon has destroyed several homes, devoured enough livestock to endanger their food supply, eaten almost every game animal bigger than a rabbit from the surrounding woods, and a few hunters that were sent out to drive it away or kill it never returned,” Layla explained.

Azar snorted and waved a paw dismissively, even giving a soft chuckle. “While I appreciate them considering me, they should send someone else. Why not send one of the knights who haven’t dealt with a dragon before? Or one of the ones practically begging to be sent on a serious mission while it’s been so quiet. A single disruptive dragon doesn’t really seem to be important enough to send one of their highest ranking members on,” he told her. Azar had dealt with his fair share of fellow dragons before. Not all dragons were content to keep to themselves or live among the other civilizations. Some still enjoyed causing mayhem and destruction if they believed they could get away with it. Or thought they were powerful enough to stop anyone that stood up to them. Getting rid of one would consist of driving it away through any means necessary or putting it down for good should it come to that. As a proud member of the draconic species, Azar knew how difficult taking a dragon down could be, but felt it was a good challenge for both the dragon and non-dragon members of the Dragon Knights.

“They thought you might say that. But here’s the real kicker, sir. Apparently this dragon has some sort of apparatus attached to him on his back. Those that have gotten a good look at him say it looks like some sort of mechanical spine. Sounds like something right up your alley. Especially since I don’t think you’ve ever created a mechanical spine. Much less for dragons,” Layla said, looking thoughtful for a moment as she tried to remember exactly how many prosthetics Azar had created. Spines certainly weren’t on the list though.

Now the white dragon’s interest had been piqued. A mechanical spine was something he had never worked on. At least not yet. Prosthetic arms and legs were common and among his earliest working inventions. But spines were a whole new level of difficulty that he had never truly put the time needed into to develop further. For someone to create such a device and for it to be attached to a dragon? It was truly something worth investigating. Hopefully this mysterious dragon would be up for talking so he could find out a bit more about this strange new device. “And like that, they’ve got themselves someone who will go take a look into this dragon problem,” Azar said with a grin as he started hurriedly moving about to get a map and see where he was going to get to this Kalor Town. Now he had a more personal interest in this mission. Either he was going to find a fellow dragon that could invent (something that truly excited him) or he would get a lead to another skilled inventor that he would love to learn from.

Two days and a rather easy flight later, Azar was gliding over Kalor Town. The town prided itself on its abundant crops that supplied large amounts of food supplies to the city of St. Heimslef. Losses here could be recovered from by the city, but Kalor town itself would likely suffer from food shortages come winter. Worse yet, the farmers and hunters wouldn’t make profit from their efforts if it was all being eaten by a rogue dragon. From the air the damage was clear to see. Buildings along the eastern edge of the town had been smashed into rubble and the pastures for livestock were almost completely empty. Those few that remained were guarded by no fewer than ten men. It was good to see Kalor Town taking the matter as seriously as it was. Though the appearance of another dragon in their skies certainly sent up a bit of panic before Azar landed and explained why he was there. The locals were all too happy to have someone else, even if it was another dragon, taking care of the problem.

A bit of investigating into the “attacks” and Azar quickly picked up on a common trait between every building that had been destroyed. Each one had held large amounts of food in them. A butcher’s store, a bakery, storage for fruits and vegetables, a granary, and even a novelty cheese shop. “So he’s just… hungry? That’s it?” the white drake thought out loud as he stood over the ruins of what had once been a rather popular bakery. It would explain why no homes were destroyed, or the small armory where the town guards kept their best weapons. Any dragon trying to cause chaos and terror would most likely have gone for those first. It also explained why the livestock had been taken in such abundance. But it still left Azar confused. A cow or two, maybe three, was enough to comfortably feed a dragon each night but the attacks had only been going on for a month. How could one dragon have gone through almost two hundred cows and other livestock in that amount of time? On top of all the food devoured from the town! Perhaps it wasn’t just one dragon he was dealing with, but a small group of them working together. The one with the mechanical spine was simply the one that grabbed the food and brought it back. If that were the case, dealing with multiple dragons could be more complicated and difficult. But he would deal with that problem when he came to it.

After a full day of investigating the sites of the dragon’s attacks and asking the people for what they had seen, everything matched what Layla had already told him. If there were multiple dragons out in the woods, it was only the one with the mechanical spine that was causing the trouble. Finding that one first was his top priority. But instead of waiting around for the mysterious dragon to show (as the attacks on the town were infrequent and Azar didn’t want to risk a potential fight taking place near the town), Azar headed off into the woods the next morning. The heavily coniferous forest would make flying from above to spot the dragon difficult so he’d have to keep to the ground. Much to his displeasure.

Thankfully, Azar’s quarry wasn’t trying at all to keep his presence a secret. There were tracks and signs to follow all over the place. Most notably was that the pawprints never left the ground as he followed them out of the town. The same tracks Azar was told that the hunters had followed before they disappeared. He would have expected the drake to fly from the scene of the crime, but this didn’t seem to be the case.

Yet what had appeared to be an easy clue to follow soon turned into a proper mess. The pawprints did lead deep into the woods. But they, in no way, lead Azar back to the dragon, or dragons’, lair. Instead, the tracks began wandering all about the woods, criss-crossing each other in maddening patterns. Every so often Azar would find a large divot in the ground where he could assume the dragon he was following had laid down to rest. Given what pattern (if it could even be called that) there was, he deduced that whatever he was following seemed to just move around the woods until it felt the need to rest. It was unusual but not unheard of for dragons to follow such a pattern, but the problem was that these tracks didn’t have any logic to them! A hunting dragon would follow typical prey paths through the woods and lie in wait where they knew their prey would come by again. That’s assuming that they weren’t just hunting from the air. This dragon, whoever it was, looked like they moved about until they happened to come across something to eat. But given how little large prey was left out in the area surrounding Kalor Town, the strategy was working. Somehow.

Azar spent the entire day tracking the mysterious dragon, and the sun was beginning to set. He sat and ran a paw down the length of his snout, sighing in frustration. An entire day spent tracking a dragon who made no attempt to hide his presence here, and yet he had found nothing. Not only that, he’d seen no sign of other dragons he assumed were helping eat through the massive amounts of food taken from Kalor Town. He was ready to call the search for a bit and get something to eat for himself before he’d continue the hunt into the night.
The white dragon moved deeper into the woods, past where the “dead zone” of prey was. He found signs of a few deer, and the mere thought of eating delicious venison put him right into the hunting mood. White scales were terrible for camouflage, but he was fast enough to catch anything that tried to run. Finding a deer trail nearby, he waited patiently for the deer he’d caught the scent of to pass by. As luck would have it, a doe went bounding right by him. Azar’s muscles tensed and he prepared to pounce on it, but he caught something odd before he jumped. The deer looked behind it and took off, but it hadn’t looked at Azar. In fact, it looked to him like the deer was already running from something. The sounds of a large, lumbering beast crashing through the underbrush was all the signs Azar needed. Something big was coming this way. Azar’s mind quickly went back into “detective mode”, wondering if what he was hearing was the dragon he’d been searching for all day. The sounds grew louder and he could hear the sounds of a tail sliding across the grass. An occasional grunt and growl signaled the mystery dragon’s approach. Azar hide himself amongst the trees as much as he possibly could, praying he could keep the element of surprise. Finally, after waiting what felt like an eternity, the mystery dragon stepped out of the trees.

Before Azar stood the dragon that was the cause of the Kalor Town’s distress. Yet what caught the white dragon’s attention was not the odd mechanical spine that stretched from the bottom of the other dragon’s neck to the base of his tail. Nor was it the that the spine itself would occasionally puff out steam from the multiple arch-like joints that held it in place and allowed for flexibility. Even the odd glowing green sections between each arch-joint did not attract Azar’s immediate attention. The odd coloration of black scales with green scales on the mystery drake’s underside were unique, as were his solid green eyes, but in no way the most prominent feature of this dragon.

What surprised Azar the most was how unbelievably fat this dragon was.

Azar had known some dragons to overindulge a bit because they were well set in their lives. A little extra pudge here or there happened from time to time. Especially for dragons that did not need to keep a very active lifestyle. But never had Azar ever known a dragon to let themselves become anywhere near as overweight as the dragon he was looking at right now. The black and green dragon waddled along through the woods, swaying heavily from side to side to keep himself moving. With every step he took, the jiggle that went up his legs spread to his entire body creating what could be a hypnotizing effect if one watched long enough. His belly was down to his paws and the crest of it dragged lightly along the ground. Which explained where the odd additional track Azar found between the paws had come from. His legs pressed against his engorged stomach, making movement difficult. Almost painfully difficult to watch too. What had most likely been a strong and flexible tail now looked like a massive sausage hanging off the odd dragon’s hindquarters. And his neck wasn’t too far off from that.

Azar could only stare and gawk at what he was seeing. Upon seeing this overweight dragon it certainly explained where all that food and livestock had gone from Kalor Town. Yet despite Azar’s presence there the strange, fat dragon just kept lumbering on, without taking any notice to the white dragon despite his white scales standing out like a sore thumb. He just kept waddling himself in the direction the deer had run on by. There was determination in his eyes to keep going, despite the fact that the deer was certainly long gone by now.

Azar finally managed to get his wits back about him, and pick his jaw up from the ground to call out to the dragon. “Hey! You there!” he called out as he stepped out from the trees. Strange or not, this dragon had caused untold trouble to Kalor Town. It was time to get to the bottom of this. The other dragon gave a slight snort of surprise, and looked like he’d just come out of some sort of trance once his eyes were taken off of the deer. His head turned towards Azar but his body looked ready to keep going after that deer.
“Yeah?”
Well, it was at least a blessing that this dragon knew how to speak. There had been a few times that wasn’t the case and it made solving things “peacefully” beyond difficult. “Are you the dragon who’s been attacking Kalor Town and eating their… everything?” he asked. It was maybe too straightforward a question, but Azar was more interested in getting to the bottom of all of his as soon as possible.
“Attacking? Nah, they haven’t been attacked. And eating? I think you’re looking for that other fat dragon around here,” the drake with the mechanical spine sarcastically said, chuckling as he patted his girthy middle.
Azar was stunned for a bit. He hadn’t expected not only what he would consider a “confession”, but for the other dragon to not care about his body condition. It took a moment for Azar to get his thoughts back in order. “Who are you?”
The other dragon’s green eyes looked around for a bit, as though he was trying to think of an answer. “Verdori. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to catching that tasty hunk of walking venison,” he plainly stated as he started to turn away.
“Hey! We’re not done here! You’ve destroyed multiple buildings in Kalor Town, eaten through a massive amount of their crops and livestock, and there’s still the disappearances of the hunters that came after you,” he exclaimed, moving to step between the fat dragon and the deer that was certainly long-gone by now.
Verdori grunted and tried to waddle past Azar, but the white dragon merely stepped to stay in his way. “Ugh, what’s so bad about me having a snack or two. I was hungry.”
“You’ve caused a severe food shortage and they can’t sell anything they have left to the city,” Azar replied, raising an eyeridge.
“Yeah, but I was really, really, really hungry. I woke up out in the middle of the woods and I was just so incredibly hungry. I might have died if I didn’t get something to eat.”
“Eating four or five buildings worth of food, almost two hundred cows, and fields of crops is far more than any single dragon needs,” Azar said, now starting to feel like he was scolding a child rather than talking with a fully grown dragon. “And what about the hunters?”
“You’re just jealous I got to the good food before anyone else. If they really didn’t want me to eat it, they would have locked it all up better,” Verdori responded, one paw idly kneading into his massive green belly. “As for those hunters, they kept poking me with their weapons so I ate them too. It was rude of them. They got what was coming to them,” he added, looking rather proud of his “accomplishments”.
“You know all your success has made you really, really, um… fat.” Azar said, finally just getting to the point of it.
“Well that’s what happens when you eat lots, isn’t it? Besides, it keeps me comfy. I like to think it shows just how successful a hunter I am.”
Azar let out a soft groan. “Yep, a truly successful hunter. Those pastries and cheeses didn’t stand a chance of escaping you.
“You’re darn right they didn’t.”
“So where did that come from?” Azar asked, finally pointing at the fascinating mechanical spine that was attached all along Verdori’s back. Clearly his eating habits weren’t of any worry to him, so the spine was the very least Azar could focus on.
“That thing? I don’t know. I just woke up with it. No idea how it works but it keeps me moving I suppose” he said dismissively, shrugging his shoulder and once again looking around in the hopes of finding something to snack on.
“What?!” Azar exclaimed, the frills at the sides of his head flaring out. “You have the most advanced piece of prosthetics attached to you and you have no idea how you got it or how it works?!”
“Yep. Kind of a weird-looking thing. No idea where I got it or who made it. Actually, I can’t even remember if I ever didn’t have this spine thing,” Verdori explained, shaking himself a bit to show how the spine moved with him.
Azar sat down and rubbed a paw down his snout. His hope of meeting another fellow inventor seemed all but dashed. And yet, the spine was too intriguing a discovery for him to let it go by without study. “Look, here’s the deal. I can’t let you keep eating the food from Kalor Town. You’re going to end up destroying the place if you keep going like this, or some real dragon hunters are going to come by and kill you.”
Verdori rolled his eyes and let out a grunt. “Well I’m still hungry. So unless you know somewhere else I can eat in peace, I think I’ll stay here. I’m more than padded enough for those little weapons of theirs to bounce right off,” he said.
“And if a dragon that isn’t as diplomatic as me is sent to deal with you? Or one happens to come by and challenges you for control of the territory?”
Verdori paused at that, tapping one claw to his chin as he mulled it over. “Maybe I can convince them to go away with my dashing good looks. That or I can sit on them.”
Azar couldn’t help but chuckle a little at that. The image of this overweight dragon sitting on another until they submitted was actually pretty funny. Not that he ever expected to see such an event. “How about a different solution. What if I you came back with me to the city? I have a workshop there with plenty of room for you, and I can afford to get you plenty of food. I promise there’s a lot more variety of things to eat in the city than there are here in the woods. You won’t even have to go chasing after prey,” he suggested. Almost immediately Verdori began to drool as he imagined the sheer amount of food he could get, and his eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of never having to chase down food again.

Thus, the deal was made. Azar made the announcement to Kalor town that their dragon problem was dealt with, and that the city would send what aid it could in rebuilding and recovering what had been lost. He then escorted Verdori out of the woods elsewhere where the town wouldn’t catch sight of him. The white dragon feared that the people of the town would want more retribution for what happened if they caught sight of the dragon that had caused them so much grief. It was only a day’s flight back to St. Heimslef from Kalor Town but there was no possible way Verdori was flying in his condition. Azar wondered when the last time the “steam dragon”, as he now liked to nickname him due to his spine puffing out steam every once in a while, had flown. A day’s flight turned into a four day walk, slowed by Verdori’s near constant need to stop, rest, and get something to eat. Or more appropriately, Azar had to go and find something for him to eat. The white dragon was beginning to think that getting him more food in the city was a good idea after all. How big might this dragon grow in girth.

When they finally made it to the city there was no shortage of eyes upon them. It wasn’t a common sight to see one dragon leading another through the streets at such a slow, waddling pace. Nor had anyone ever seen a dragon as incredibly rotund as Verdori. At least, not as far as Azar knew. By the time they reached the workshop they had gained a small following of curious people (and at least two other dragons) who had to see this blimp of a dragon for themselves. Once they were past the gates of Azar’s workshop, Verdori collapsed onto his side and begged for something to eat, his green belly sticking into the air like a small grassy hill.

Days passed and Azar made good on his promise. Vedori was treated to so much city food that his eyes almost bulged out of his head the first few times he saw the carts of food being brought to him. Hi gluttonous lifestyle did only encourage his body to fatten up more and more, and over time Azar was beginning to doubt if the steam dragon would be able to move more than the small trek from where he liked to sun himself to where the food was placed for him. But Verdori made good on his promise as well, letting Azar study the mysterious spine. Even though Azar never found a reliable way to track down the spine’s creator, he was able to find out plenty more about the device. It did run on steam, but the steam itself wasn’t like the kind produced from heating water. It was lighter, hotter, and appeared to run through Verdori’s body without causing him harm. Azar took samples to see if this strange steam could be replicated and perhaps could be used for helping power his airship prototypes.

Overtime, Azar treated Verdori as more of a friend than a test subject or as a dragon that happened to be living outside of his workshop. He even shared meals with Verdori but had to be careful not to pick up on the steam dragon’s eating habits. He could only imagine what would happen if he ended up as fat and round as Verdori. Verdori enjoyed sticking around for the food and appeared to enjoy Azar’s company from time to time. It was an odd friendship to say the least, but one that was sure to last a long, long time.