~ 20 ~

The Swallowed Princess

What the fuck was I supposed to do? I limply charged at him with a raised fist, but I couldn't dare to strike it across his face. Another burst of rage billowed through me—but it was left without an outlet. As'gar held his mouth open, swirling the princess on his tongue, drenching her in spit.

"Whas tha mwatter?" As'gar spoke with his mouth still open, bathing the princess in his breath. "Unwable tu wtrike?" His tongue lifted and slipped the girl in the trench between his fangs and cheek. He swallowed, making a show of it. "Then I don't mind if I take that offer myself!"

He charged forward and discharged a fist into my face, sending me stumbling backward, as he overtook my step and delivered another punch. I I tried to catch it, but his knee rose instead, breaking into my stomach. I bent forward and stepped back, holding up my claws.

"Is this a plea? Are you seriously so scared that you might be the one to hurt her?" As'gar sniffed. "Much help that'll do her."

I cried, stomping forward, breaking a fist against his belly, feeling him recoil in a curve. I then snapped to his mouth, prying it open with my claw. His one eye flicked down at me. Inside his maw, his tongue darted to the princess, bulging her against his cheek.

"Back."

I had no choice but to obey, empowered by rage, but powerless to use it. That fire would burn out and, when it did, I wouldn't be able to recover for the longest while. Was this how it was going to be? Would I be forced to obey his every command from here on out?

Think! There has to be something I can do! Break his jaw? There's a chance she would get caught in the attack. Force him to cough her out? But he threatens to squish her with his tongue if I get too close. What is it then that I need? A surprise attack? Some sort of deal? There has to be something!

I tightened my fist to the point bones crinkled. She's going to die if I do nothing.

"There's nothing you can do," As'gar said. The moonlight from the cave's entrance accentuated his slimy, golden form. "Don't you get it? My purpose in life is to screw with you. With things like you. Your princess isn't getting out of this alive. Strike me, now. Be willing to squish her to knock me out. C'mon, now."

He held his claw as lightning struck outside. "Strike me! Do it! Just try to fucking kill me!"

I stepped forward with that cocked fist, stumbling with bloody tears leaking from my eyes, trying not to think. I reached him to strike, but as I tried to... my body wouldn't allow it. I faltered. Sinking in place. Know that I didn't have it in me to succeed.

As'gar huffed, dropping his arms. "I do not know why the Fates choose you to be a dragon—only that they choose wrong." He struck me to the ground, and I laid there as he climbed over me. His mouth opened over my face—revealing the princess. "Now her death will be without revenge."

I looked at Astria on the tongue. She had stopped fighting. No longer shouting or crying. She laid forward in the mouth of a beast, covered in spittle and humiliated. Barely more than a grain of rice to such a horrible, malicious beast. I'd been such a failure in all regards that there was nothing I could do to save her from such a fate.

We didn't share any words. Nothing like that at all.

But she smiled at me.

Even as the tongue undulated beneath her, and tears streamed freely from her eyes, the girl endured it all smiling at me. My breath halted and my heart stopped. Then, in the suction of a gulp, she disappeared—and was gone.

I heard the gulp. Watched the back of the throat compress downward. Forced to see a tiny lump travelled down the dragon's throat, disappearing into the deepest recess of his body. As'gar closed his mouth to a smile. His consistent chuckles returned.

"All... gone..."

His lips grinned.

"Thanks to you."

Something cracked inside of me. Thoughts and vision became non-existent. My eyes snapped half-opened, remaining that way. I grabbed his exposed throat, squeezing it, feeling talons tearing through the squish, yanking out the chunk of bloodied meat.

I knocked my head into his, forcing him off my body, as he rose and stumbled back, grabbing at the missing clump to his throat. I didn't let him escape as I grabbed his thigh, yanking it back, tearing off another mess of meat instead of pulling him closer.

As'gar fell on his leg, which buckled beneath his weight. His frame fell against the cavern wall, scraping across it. Coming next to him, I grabbed his head and, pulling it back, thrust it into the wall. He banged against it and fell to the ground. Without hesitation, I lacked any openings for him to take advantage of.

The golden dragon crawled forward on the ground, but I stomped behind him, crawling over his form, slicing across his legs, his back, nearly having half a mind to tear off his wings. When I reached his shoulders, I turned him around, and he slashed my face upon doing so.

I bore the pain without a flinch and, crushing his chest with a knee, whipped my muzzle into his throat, eating it, biting it, uncaring for the spurts of blood. I tore away at it, searching. Flesh and scarlet were all I found.

I stood over his form, looking down at his stomach. As'gar tried to raise his head, but I collected his face in my palm, raising it to smack it back into the ground. He stayed down that time—still, somehow, laughing. He laughed on nothing. No air, and only blood coming out.

“H-Heh... he-eh-he... h-h-ha!” As'gar eyes burnt yellow as his claw gripped his throat. He gulped at the oxygen—when he wasn't choking on thick, red soup. "Still... think you can save her? Think you can make me throw her up? She's already dead."

He rested the side of his head against the ground. "And you won't be getting her out."

I glared at him.

"You're not a killer..." As'gar closed his eyes. "...much less a monster."

I dropped straddled over his form, pulling his claws away from his throat, diving my muzzle back into it again. The dragon screamed and cried in agony as my fangs bore into his flesh, yanking and pulling, left and right, tearing and loosening the batch of flesh from the rest.

I tore out his throat, feeling the red rivers gush down my chin and throat. Spitting the piece aside, I dove back in, biting through the barrier, severed veins squirting his life's essence. Finding a fleshy tube that pulsed, I tore my claws into it, opening it, prying it down the middle.

As'gar struggled beneath me, convulsing, but I was beyond that.

I tore down his throat in my search, clawing out all that blocked my back, following the tub from his throat to his chest, digging out patches of scales, heaps of flesh, and dressing the walls in splatters of blood. I continued to bite through the flesh, to tear it out with my claws, delving inside the body of the beast. Scooping into the corpse without remorse as its remains splattered onto me.

Power pumped through me. Lust suddenly enthralled me. The invincibility of victory tickled every nerve of pleasure inside of my system. But I ignored everything primal. Past the dragon's belly, there was a pouch within. Pausing before it, I collected myself.

Then, in lowering a talon, I carved through the pink flesh, a gust of air releasing from it. Wet sloshing slowed inside. Then there was a scream. A flimsy one; a tiny one. Something raw and scared. Little... and human.

My heart stopped. Everything sensation dulled at that moment. All that there was in the world focused itself into this one moment. I saw her inside the pouch, half-submerged in terrible waters, chunks settled around her.

With a swallow, I loomed over the lake she'd found herself in and, reaching my claw it—heard her scream. A terrible, active scream, directed at me. Her screaming continued. Horrible, throat-cutting yells of frenzy and panic. Sadness stole over my expression at once as I retracted my claw.

My confusion lasted only a second, swept away, by that which dripped from my claws. I lifted the pair to my face to find them covered in the slickness of blood. They shook in the air, barely a trace of green beneath the covering. Destroyed fleshy tubes, veins like strings, all strung around his digits.

Previous elation died to my current realization.

Despite the pleasure that came from killing As'gar, the influx of power from tearing his body apart... the euphoria to fuck, kill, destroy and dominate—I had to deny those flux of feelings. It caught my breath, ignoring the goodness flooding through me.

Because I knew exactly what the princess saw at that moment.

Swallowed by a dragon, stored in an ocean of darkness inside a monolithic beast, knocked around, hearing viscous sounds all around—only for something to open above. To see me then, a blooded dragon, reaching a claw covered in guts toward her.

It hurt to think like that... but I had to see it from her view of things. I breathed, brushing my claws across my arms, removing the bits caught across my scales, wiping off as much blood as possible. I shook my claws after that, trying to remove as much excess as possible. However, no matter how much I shook, some red remained stained to my scales.

"H-Hey... hey..." I tried to speak, both for myself and for her, wondering if I still had a voice. It was like my human soul had been discharged from the dragon within. "It's me. It's me. You know me. C'mon, now. You know me."

The shrieking inside of the stomach slowed, the woman catching her breath, a sudden scream still slipping from her. She had crawled to a corner in the stomach, curling herself against it. Looking up, though the opening into the stomach, to my mighty form looming over it.

You have to do better.

"It's me, Cole, remember?" I chuckled. "The dragon with the stupidest name possible? I'm not going to hurt you." I swallowed, something welling in my eyes. "P-Please. You were never afraid of me when you entered my cave. I need that princess again. I need you not to be afraid of me."

My claws collected between my legs.

"Please don't be afraid of me."

The pain raised suddenly as I had become afraid of myself. I knew I had to do what I did. That I had to tear that dragon apart to get Astria out. What had scared me during that... was the enjoyment that came from ripping him apart. The sole goal of devouring. Of losing all thoughts and feelings.

The voice within had wanted me to become a proper dragon. As'gar wanted much the same of me. But I had lost myself so easily. What if I lost it again? Lost it in a place worse than this? What if I had never came back to? What if I tore apart the dragon all so I could devour the princess myself?

"C-Cole?"

I blinked and snapped. Looking back inside of the stomach, I saw the princess there, wading through the swamp waters. She peered up at me carefully—still very much afraid. But she was giving me a chance, now.

"Y-Yeah." I wiped my eyes. "It's me."

Astria smiled. "H-Hey..."

"H-Hey yourself..." I smiled back at her, sniffling. "So... do you come here often?"

"You mean the inside of a d-dragon?" Astria couldn't complete the joke without stuttering and shaking. "N-No. And I... I take it back." She crossed her arms, rubbing her shoulders. "I wasn't prepared to be swallowed by you when we first met. Being locked away is a lot less scary than this."

I weakly chuckled. "That's how it goes, sometimes. You think you can handle the worst... until it comes, and you actually have to go through with it." I looked across the corpse of the serpent, the dragon that I had killed. Murderer. "You can think it through. Imagine it. Know every ramification around something... but when it comes to actually going through with it..."

I shook my head. "Do you mind if I help you out from there?"

Astria chattered and nodded. "Please do."