Here's a story I've been working on for a couple of days now, for you F-lovers. It has mythic creatures in it and it's a little naughty, neither of which are things I've tried before. I'll probably go back to PG-rated mammals for my next story, honestly.
Hope you like it! Comments are welcome!
For centuries have the dragons of fire and the dragons of ice inhabited the far reaches of the world, neither group pleased at the other’s presence. The fire dragons, brash and fierce, have struck many times at their collected and calculating brethren, but never have gained more than a fleeting advantage. When the ice dragons strike, an occurrence with barely a tenth the frequency of their hotheaded foes, the attacks are planned and precise, but can only be imposed upon the indomitable will of the fire dragons with great difficulty. As both sides know that they are at a severe disadvantage in their enemy’s home climate, they bicker over the more temperate regions that lie between. So it was that two young dragons met a match in each other.
Seraphina was everything that a dragoness fresh to adulthood could aspire to be. She was strong, quick, keen of senses, and possessing both an unbreakable spirit and a most pleasing appearance. Her scales were the brilliant red of fresh blood, and her crest was a fiery orange shot through with yellow, proud coloring displaying her heritage as one of the hotbreaths. Her eyes were slit-pupiled and almond in shape, their color a shimmering violet, and she had a powerful snout, longer than the draconic average and somewhat broader as well for most of its length. From above, it clearly narrowed, like a stretched cone, as one proceeded flush from her face down toward her nose and mouth. Like all dragons, it was smooth except near the tip, where her almond-shaped nostrils protruded partially above the surface, two humps of soft nasal tissue that were the rims of the entrances to her nasal cavity. Her nostrils were large enough for her to inhale an acorn easily, and flared wider at each inhale. Large for a dragon, she stood ten feet tall, with a wingspan to match if she let the appendages on her back stretch out. But she was not just muscle; the dragoness boasted wide, swaying hips and a generous bust beneath her suit of form-fitting chainmail armor. With a longbow and a broadsword crossed over her back, Seraphina was, to all appearances, a force to be reckoned with as she swooped low over the forest treetops, searching for intruders.
As her wings carried her over the trees, Seraphina felt a faint, ticklish twinge dance around the edges of her cavernous nostrils. A quick twitch of her snout killed the sensation, but it was replaced by a twinge of irritation in her gut. Loath as she was to admit it, some of the plants in this forest triggered a terrible reaction in her snout if she got too close to them, and to make matters worse, she still hadn’t nailed down which they were. The slight tickle returned as her labored breathing drew a few grains of offending pollen into her nasal passages; she reached up with her hand to rub the itch away.
In the clutter below, another dragoness was preparing in a rather different way. Gwyneth was likewise considered an individual of talent beyond her years by her fellow ice dragons, but instead of the art of war, her abilities lay in the art of magic. Although she disliked being away from the comforting cold of her mountain home, the importance of regular sojourns into the wilds was not lost on her. The ice dragons were not ones for long, tiring patrol schedules, but rather fortified the wilderness by building hidden outposts and supply caches deep in the forests, canyons, and swamps. Gwyneth was in the latter environment, tending to a magical workshop and laboratory she had built in a small cave. She carefully catalogued her potions and reagents, and then readied her cauldron to a brew. Lacking the ability to breathe fire, she had to create the heat source in a more typical fashion, but before too long the stage was set for some magical experimentation.
Gwyneth cut a very different image compared to the draconic amazon in the skies above. At only eight and a half feet tall, she was on the shorter size of dragons, and much lighter in frame. This climate was far too warm for her liking, which was reflected in her choice of clothing—like any self-respecting mage, she wore robes, but her current white set was much thinner and shorter than most. Her scales were a combination of blue and slate gray, dark, but not deep in hue, and speaking to the chill that defined her species. Her crest was a stunning whitish silver, and her eyes, also slit-pupiled and almond-shaped, were a blue so light as to seem ethereal, the color of the purest ice. Her snout was of average length and quite narrow, with a more cylindrical profile for most of its length, and while like all dragons her nostrils rose above the otherwise smooth curve of her snout, they were average in size. She could fit an acorn into one, but only just.
Said nostrils flared noticeably as a tiny bit of smoke danced across them. Gwyneth meant to sniffle at the irritation but it came out as a snort, drawing in far more air than she had intended. Unfortunately, this caused the whole tendril of smoke from her little fire to get sucked up her right nostril.
Most ice dragons were sensitive to smoke, but a wisp of the black vapor was not usually enough to cause a sneeze on its own. Unfortunately for Gwyneth, she was one of the few ice dragons whose sensitivity to smoke was far more severe, equivalent to a serious allergy. Too late she realized she should have built her fire closer to the entrance for better ventilation. Her eyes watered and squeezed shut, her reddened nostrils flared, her mouth opened, and her head craned back as she took in a deep breath.
“HuuuhhhhAAAAHHHHHRRRAAAHHTCHOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
By ice dragon standards it was an average sneeze. A gust of icy wind exploded out of Gwyneth, quenching her fire, and a shower of tiny, needle-sharp shards of frozen mucous scoured her cauldron and the ground in front of her. Not as flashy as a sneeze from the rival species of dragons, but almost as lethal to anything lacking in armored scales.
But Gwyneth wasn’t finished. Her eyes cracked open for just a second before the rest of her sneezing fit overcame her.
“RAAAAHHTCHOOOO! RAAAAHHTCHOOOO! HURRRRAAAAAHHTCHOOOOOO!!”
Sharp, tiny ice crystals covered everything in one half of the cave, and the materials she was about to brew into a potion were ruined. Gwyneth muttered an ancient, universal draconic curse and began to tidy up her mess.
Seraphina could have sworn she heard something down below, and headed down to investigate. The fire dragoness landed with a surprising amount of silence and grace for her size, hoping to find it on the ground. It might have been nothing, sure, but it could have easily been just what she was looking for.
The entrance to a small, dark cavern caught Seraphina’s eye. She crept closer. As she did so, her ears picked up new sounds. There were wisps of what she soon recognized as draconic, and . . . sniffling? She ignored the latter sound, and a predatory grin spread across her face at the former. There weren’t supposed to be any fire dragons around here, and this coldbreath had no idea she was coming. The better to take him or her back for interrogation to find out just what they were up to around here.
Soon she was but a few steps from the entrance. Wanting to be sure of her quarry, she took a slow, deep breath in through her nose. The tactic let her pick up even faint scents without an audible sniff, and it worked. Her sharp senses picked up a female ice dragon, as well as what could only be magical supplies.
However, she could also smell something else, something stronger than any of that. A calm, sweet odor filled her nose. Seraphina opened her eyes, looked down, and saw a large bunch of white flowers at her feet. Simultaneously, a ferocious tickle dug into her nasal passages, causing her to stiffen and her eyes widen in shock and alarm.
No! Not now! Seraphina gritted her teeth and began to massage her wide nostrils with her hands, desperately trying to quell the sneeze. It was a losing battle, but she fought it will all of her will, holding out hope that she would be able to hold it back. Despite the fact that she was sucking in air to prepare for a mighty sneeze, her build-up was almost completely silent.
The fire dragoness was quite the sight to see, rearing back in a series of jerky motions, frantically rubbing, squeezing, and scratching at her snout as she slowly succumbed to a sneeze, and yet barely making a sound. Unfortunately for Seraphina, the volume of the release was something she had never been able to dampen, much less muffle.
A thunderous “RRRRAAAAAAAKKKSSSHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!” shook the swamp. Seraphina’s powerful body bent double, and the ground at her feet—including the offending blooms—was turned to ash by the jets of flame that shot from her mouth and nostrils, flame hot enough to heat her metal armor to a glow. A large gout of smoke follows, expanding in all directions. The tickle in her nose was gone—a benefit of being a fire dragon is that sneezes almost always clean one’s nasal passages out—but she knew that the damage was done.
Gwyneth was stunned by the sudden noise, and the rush of fire. She’d been discovered! Quickly she sprang to her feet, ready to do battle with the intruder, only to have a thick, smoky wind strike her dead in the face. Again the ice dragoness’s eyes watered, her nostrils flared, and she gasped with equal parts dismay and need to sneeze. Through her teary eyes, she made out the shape of a massive figure appear in the entrance and begin walking towards her.
Seraphina’s nose earned a bit of redemption as she caught sight of her quarry. Definitely an ice dragon, definitely a mage. The smoke coupled with the relative darkness of the cave would normally have made it hard to see in here, but her heated armor gave off plenty of light to counteract those factors. Sword drawn, Seraphina moved carefully closer. She expected any of a half-dozen spells the mage could use to try and block her path, and was surprised when she encountered none. What was this ice dragon doing? Seraphina moved closer, getting a better view of her quarry’s face. She felt another bolt of surprise, but also understanding, as she recognized the mage’s expression. It was one that had been on the fire dragon’s face just a few seconds before. Grinning again, Seraphina got in close.
It just wasn’t fair, Gwyneth lamented mentally as her body prepared for another sneezing fit. Why did such a promising wizard as herself have to have an allergy to a substance so closely related to her enemies? Even this dragon’s mistake wouldn’t be enough to save her. That she didn’t fancy being a prisoner in a raging volcano was the last thought that went through her mind before more sneezes wracked her frame.
“HURRRRAAAAAHHTCHOOOOOO!! HURRRRAAAAAHHTCHOOOOOO!! RRAAAAHHHHTCHOOOO-CHOOOOO-CHOOOOO-CHHOOOO-CHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!”
Again, thousands of tiny frozen needles were ejected from Gwyneth’s nostrils, hitting the fire dragon before her and scattering off of her scales and armor. But the maelstrom of ice coupled with the burst of flame from earlier was too much thermal stress for the rings in the chainmail to take. One by one, they shattered, sending little metal shards in all directions to join the tiny fragments of ice. By the time Gwyneth was finished sneezing, Seraphina’s armor had been completely destroyed.
The fury of this little wizard’s sneezing fit caught Seraphina off-guard, making her drop her sword. She closed her eyes and held up her hands to try and block the flurry of darts, but this did little to block the stinging pain that she felt all over her frontside, including more than a few stings in her nose. As the wind died down, she felt something slide off her shoulders. Upon opening her eyes, she was stunned to see that it was the last of her armor, which appeared to have exploded. Tiny bits of metal were all around her, and she was immediately both grateful than no metal or ice hit her in the eyes and mortified at her sudden nudity.
Suddenly, an all-too-familiar sensation called her attention forward. Sure, nothing had gotten into her eyes, but Seraphina quickly became aware that a fair amount of ice and metal had been deflected into her regrettably large nostrils, and it was going to make her sneeze. Again. She felt a rush of panic as for the second time since she landed she began to inhale deeply, over and over again.
“RAAAAHH . . . RAAAAAAAAAHHHH . . . RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH . . .”
Gwyneth felt a sense of smug satisfaction as she saw the results of her sneezes on her enemy’s armor. It certainly showed that arrogant hotbreath! Then she saw the fire dragoness flare her nostrils and throw her head back. Her feeling of vindication disappeared as she realized her back was against the wall, she couldn’t get around the intruder on either side, and she had no time to cast a protection spell.
This was not going to be a pleasant experience.
“RRRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHKKKKKSSSSSHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”
White-hot flames burst from Seraphina’s face in all directions. The ice dragon mage took the brunt of the blast, and the remainder went into the magical supplies to either side. Both the supplies and her quarry’s clothes were incinerated by the heat, barely leaving behind any ash or smoke. She sniffled and after a second pulled herself up from her doubled-over position. The ice dragoness didn’t appear to be hurt, but Seraphina could tell she was just as embarrassed as she herself felt. For a moment, the two of them locked eyes, in silent acknowledgement of what had just taken place.
After an indeterminate amount of time, the mage broke the silence. “Let’s make a deal.”
“What?” Seraphina didn’t know what she had expected to hear, but that was not it.
“Look, you’re out what I can only imagine was quite an expensive suit of armor, and I’ve just lost all of the supplies I’ve been stockpiling here for the last three weeks. So let’s call each other even, go home, and never speak of this again. What do you say?”
Seraphina was stunned. This went against everything she had been taught—everything that they both had been trained for! She knew she should apprehend this wizard and take her home; as the stronger one, she was confident she would be able to do so. And yet, if she decided to take that option, she would have to give a full report to her superiors, detailing exactly what had happened here.
No. She was embarrassed enough as it was—there was no way she would let this incident go on the record. Better to sneak home, get some clothes, and figure out a lie later.
“Alright,” she said simply. And not knowing what else to do, she grabbed her sword, backed out of the cave, leapt into the air, and set course for the southern volcanoes.
Gwyneth poked her head out of the cave enough to be sure that her foe was really leaving before allowing herself a sigh of relief. She had talked a powerful hotbreath warrior into not taking her hostage. She was still a free dragon!
A faint odor of char in the cave tickled her snout, and she let out a final “RAAAAHHTCHOOOO!”, this time catching it a hand. The sneeze served as a reminder that she really should get out of here. At least it wasn’t a total loss, despite what she had told the fire dragon; she still had her cauldron. Taking it in her arms, she too took to the sky, heading in the opposite direction, toward the northern mountains. If anyone asked what had happened to her, she would just claim a spell went wrong. Certainly such things happened to mages often enough.
With a final sigh of relief, she headed for home.
