The dragon Acorax has had a morning she wants to forget. Good luck with that.
Loosely inspired by The Sacrifice by  userjaikr

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Vocem Interiorem

Things got rough between the hares and the dragons. A border incident became a ruckus became another incident, then evolved (thanks to a panicked lieutenant) into a treaty breach. The dragons demanded restitution. The hares offered compensation in sapphires and scale-lacquer, but the Council of Talons were grandstanding and would have nothing but a Live Sacrifice.

It was performed on a border hill at a gray dawn. Present were the Hare Queen; the dragon Acorax; the Queen's moon-chaplain; and six guards, one of whom briefly clasped paws with her neighbor and then stepped forward and shed her armor. The Sacrifice went without struggle down the dragon's gullet. Her Queen and fellow-guards stayed with her to the last, exchanging quiet words with her disappearing head. The Queen appeared passionless, face calm, ears high; but the dragon could smell the tears in her cheek-fur. The guard who had clasped paws was weeping openly. Acorax lay on the hill afterwards, alone and sullen. The business had left her with a bad taste and a sore throat.

“Thank you for indulging me.”

“Uh...?” Acorax started at the voice from inside her. She had assumed the Sacrifice already on her way to pudge and poop.

“It was a great feat, swallowing me whole. Your throat control must be amazing. But to slow it all down, stretch it out just so I could say my goodbyes and take a last look... you must have been really uncomfortable, with me half-in half-out like that. It was a huge kindness.” Acorax had been swallowing as fast as she could, but uncomfortable was correct. Dragons are not snakes.

“Mm... dunmentionit...” She did not want this conversation. She wanted the Sacrifice gone from her gut and memory.

“Ah... I have no manners. Sorry. Private Sensel, Palace Guard, East Wing Attic and Gazebo Division. Honored to meet you.”

“Acorax... dragon. General Council dogsbody, no rank as such.” Sending her as Sacrifice-Taker had been a deliberate insult to the hares, but she doubted the hares knew one dragon from another.

“Could have used a few more days to show Bayzin round my old duties, but he should do fine. Quick study.” Maybe a very faint sigh. “Bayzin...”

“Are you... you... okay in there?” Oh Garyx of all the stupid stupid but there had been no good thing to say, nothing good in this whole bloody bloody...

“I've had harder beds.” She did feel something move now, as if seeking a comfortable position. “Won't be here long, and I'm used to damp. If there's no leeches I'm snug.”

Don't want to hear her, don't want her to stop. If she's talking she's not digesting. Safe topic need one Now... “Your Queen, is she a good... queen?”

“Yes.” Conviction. “She's just and wise and kind... well, kind as a queen can afford to be. She has to make very hard decisions. I sometimes wonder if it's fair putting that on a person.” Standing up close as I ate Private Talkytalktalk, all calm and regal but her tears stank of grief despair rage shut in and held and hidden. But if she's told to eat someone at least she can say No.

“Was she, um, fond of you?”

“She doesn't play favorites. She cared about me as she cares about all of us.” Nice plaintive passive-aggressive past-tense there well done soldier. “I've always liked to think of her as friend as well as chief. Ah... should say she didn't send me to you. I put myself forward for this. Better that than her having to choose one of us.”

I couldn't say No. I was under orders by the Big Folk I couldn't not swallow her and now I can't... I can't...

I can't digest. Compliance not possible. Consequences irrelevant. It is not a thing that will happen.

“Private Sensel.”

“Still here.”

“You are either a very good person or a shameless manipulator and it doesn't matter which because you have just won. Congratulations and screw you.” And the wet darkness jolted and Private Sensel's difficult day got rougher.

***

Hares can tell one dragon from another, sometimes. The Queen recognized the executioner crouched in the palace courtyard, as did the five angriest of the guards surrounding it. She wanted it dead and skinned, or skinned first and then dead, but the dragons were too powerful; and in any case you don't kill someone who carries the blue truce flag, however crudely fashioned. The executioner had stripped a small pine tree and found a blue blanket and managed somehow to put them sort of together.

“State your business.” She no longer bothered to keep the hate from her voice.

“Help... her...” The dragon looked crazed. Eyes wild, foam and spittle round mouth, several broken claws, an ugly tear in the right wing that must have given it a hard flight. “Can't vomit. Frakkin' Council must've put a spell on me didn't trust me and I can't get her out do something she's gonna die!!!”

***

It was not a very good spell. The palace mages tore it apart and Sensel was coughed up, suffering from very mild start-of-digestion burns and extreme travel-sickness but in the same number of pieces she'd gone in as. Acorax' wing (torn by pine-martins avenging the truce-flag tree) was stitched at the College of Veterinarians. It healed well; dragons have evolved to take a lot of violence.

The problem would be the other dragons. The spell had been more than an anti-emetic: it would have monitored the condition of Acorax' stomach, calling home to report the Sacrifice's entrance and eventual demise. Its destruction would have signaled that the treaty restitution was off. The hares would get through the consequences somehow. There would be no second run of the offering; the Queen already considered her consent to have been the worst act of her reign.

It proved a non-crisis. The Council's belligerent faction had overreached; too many dragons saw the Live Sacrifice as a return to the barbarism they thought they'd outgrown when the moon was green. The storm had been rising even as Sensel's ear-tips slipped from view. Acorax, furious at herself for having been the Council's goon, plunged in. Her gastric rebellion had given her cred among the Tough Guys' opponents, and with her came a partner: amiable, charming, conciliatory, maybe a little innocent but sharp and quite painfully cute. It was clear to most that Diplomat Sensel's devouring had been a jerk move.

Bayzin had no trouble with Sensel's old work. Acorax flew Sensel back to see him every few months, and the dragon always teared up a little at his joy; she remembered him in the dull dawn light, weeping and weeping as he struggled to stand to attention.

A few years later the Tough Guys were gone and the two nations had a stable relationship. Their ambassadors held a summit one summer evening on a certain border hill. The dragon diplomat sprawled on the grass with the hare diplomat cloud-gazing between her shoulders. A dragon's back would not be comfortable to most, but Sensel had known harder beds. It was a very quiet summit.

“You have not clarified one point, Ambassador,” said Acorax.

“Mm?”

“Are you a very good person or a shameless manipulator?”

“Does it have to be either-or?”

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