Within The Depths

This is a little gift story I made for someone and they said it was okay to post so I'll share it here for anyone that wants it!

There was light in the cavern, finally - a faint shimmering glow reflected from the glossy surfaces of the hewn walls.  Dwarven, centuries old and abandoned with nothing left in the old mines.  Countless nervous expeditions made sure of it.

His hand slid against the wall, fingers trailing.  He had no idea how long he'd walked through the darkness, but his throat was dry and his feet ached.  The path before him was narrow, barely wide enough for him as it spiraled into the depths.  Massive ropes dangled from high above.  They swayed periodically and the metal bands encircling them thumped as if a slow, ancient heart.

Around and around and around, never speaking with his eyes focused on the ground before him.  His thoughts turned over, replaying his short life in a painful loop.

After countless steps, he stumbled when his distracted thoughts pulled his attention away from his feet.  Now he yelled, sure that he would fall to his death and he sank down to trembling knees.

The uneven ground no longer angled down.  He gasped, on hands and knees, staring at the cold dirt surrounding his fingers.

Warm golden light ebbed and flowed before him and he turned to see a great arch at the far side of the vast chamber at the bottom of the tunnel.  Wooden wreckage lay beneath braided ropes.  The eerie silence focused his ears until he heard the faint crackling of the fire within.

He pushed himself up, dusting his knees before straightening his trousers and tunic.  The dirt cushioned his steps as he moved through the room until he stood with his hand touching the stone.

A fire roared at the side of the inner chamber.  Coals, or something like it, fed the flames and they cycled through an ever changing pattern of white, red, and yellow and an infinite number of shades in between.

She lay beyond, curled into herself with her black wings folded flat against her crimson, glittering scales.  He'd expected bulkiness - a lazy weight that mirrored her greed.  Greed that was reflected by the room in which she rested.  Paintings, interspersed with arcane weaponry, lined the walls of the enormous chamber.  Statues littered the entire area in a nonsensical pattern.  Chests and treasure filled the remaining gaps.

He'd expected bulkiness but she was lean, for her gigantic size, with long limbs and a fanged snout tipping her curved neck.  In the fairytales, the dragons rested atop mountains of coins, yet she laid on the dirt floor in the center of the room.  Curved spikes lined her tail in two rows and he was certain he spied scars on flesh where scales were missing.

An elf passed by their village once.  The mayor and most others gathered and dark grumbling passed between them.  Talks of the war five generations ago.  Muttered threats with hands clenched against long knives and pitchforks.  He'd stood aside, as always, and watched.  The elf was effortless grace, lithe and long-limbed and completely fearless as she skirted around their low wooden walls.  Her own fingers loosely held the straps to her pack, never once straying towards the longsword gently bouncing against her thigh.

The dragon reminded him of the elf.  The tales were full of evil, fat dragons hoarding gold to sleep upon.  Legs like tree stumps with a broad, mottled snout.  Instead, he found the same careless grace.

Turning his head to stare at her face, he stumbled when he saw her open eye staring back at him.

Her irises were rings of molten gold cast into onyx molds.  A void that threatened to pull him in even with the distance between them.

She lifted her head before turning it to rest her chin against her front feet.  Both eyes watched him with what he hoped was curiosity.  Milky white translucent nictitating membranes swept up over her eyes a second before her eyelids blinked.

Every nerve screamed in his body.  He trembled and shivered and crossed his arms over his chest.  Despite the lack of aggression, fear gripped him in a vise that left cold sweat racing down his spine.  He felt real pain when he forced himself to walk into the chamber, as if tiny needles were piercing his stomach.  Despite this, he continued pushing forward until he collapsed down to his knees with his head bowed.  His pupils dilated and his mouth hung open.

Her very presence robbed him of his wits.

Why are you here? she asked and he swayed from the impact of the voice inside his head.  Are you here to kill me?

"Nuh- nuh- no, n- never," he stuttered while staring down at his hands.  The pressure of her voice was almost too much to bear.

What, then? she asked again.

"Can't- can't-" he groaned, hands against his temples.

Steel screeched against steel, reverberating deep within his bones.  He cried out and grabbed himself once more.

She was shifting, shrinking in a fluid, impossible motion while pushing herself up to all fours.  Her body compressed and his mouth fell open as he watched.  When she sat back, twice his size and still shrinking, he averted his eyes.  Scales slid into slits scattered throughout her skin, leaving her bare.

Her wings unfolded, stretching against her back when she stood on two legs and she swept her arms out to the side.

"Look at me," she commanded, and he did.

She stood before him with pale flesh framed by ebony wings tipped by claws that hooked together beneath her throat.  Thin, scarlet scales lined the edge of her jaw.  The same scales circled her hips, around back to a thick, shortened tail.  Her ears stretched to sharp points matched by the claws tipping her fingers and the four fangs pressing into her full, red lips.  Tiny red scales were etched into the outer edges of her eye sockets and her golden eyes were narrow slits as she stared into him and through him.

Once more he averted his eyes when she began to walk and he swallowed, hard, while gripping his trousers.

Her image was burned into his mind and he felt himself stirring.  She was stunning.  Too perfect for someone like himself to gaze upon.

Warmth surrounded him when she approached.  His eyes, fastened to the floor, stared at her feet when she stood close.  Scars covered the top of her left foot and up to her shin.  A few more touched her left leg.  Tiny scales lined the backs of her toes and black claws curved outward to scrape the ground where she walked.

Her faint scent surrounded him and surprised him.  He'd expected the stench of sulphur, but instead was buffeted by the hints of a rare summer evening, just as the heat broke and night approached.  She was a pure, elemental force made flesh.

"Why are you here?" she asked, arms crossed beneath her bosom with a look of contempt crossed with curiosity.

The words wouldn't come easily.  He tried to answer but found himself suddenly overwhelmed by the emotions he'd bottled up.  It took several tries and he wiped his eyes before he found his voice.

"I've been cast out," he told her while turning his hands against his thighs to stare at his palms.  "I- no, it doesn't matter.  They've turned their backs on me.  No one will trade with me or help me.  I've- I've come to sacrifice myself."

"To what end?" she asked and he swore he heard a hint of amusement in her voice.

"The stories- they tell of dragons demanding sacrifices," he said.  Now he picked at a loose thread on his rough trousers.  "They all do.  M- maidens and- and others.  For good harvests or protection."

"They cast you out and you wish to sacrifice yourself for them?  Why?"

"I don't know what else to do," he replied. The thread slipped from his fingers.  "I can survive off what I grow, but living completely alone is-"

She knelt, touching her right knee to the dirt while reaching her hand out.  He almost jerked back when her claws touched his face, but the contact froze him in place.

He saw his life again, from his childhood and the loss of his parents to growing up with the few friends he had.  Lagging behind the other boys as they rampaged throughout the village with wooden swords, terrorizing the girls and loose animals.  His first crush, Anya, mesmerized by her beauty.  Finding excuses to be near her.  Watching her closely.  The way she dressed.  The way she moved.  The powders she used when her wealthy parents purchased them from peddlers.  He re-lived the pain he felt in desiring her while also feeling strange twinges of envy.  Envy that grew as he tried to suffocate it, only to feel the pull strengthen into adulthood.

The shame he felt, hiding away in his parent's home, huddled over a tin he'd purchased in secret.  Wetting his finger, dipping it and spreading it over his lips.  Sitting there, lips reddened with a simple blouse resting on his knees.  Caressing it until he gathered the nerves to try it on.  Slipping out of his tunic and into the blouse.  Heart hammering in his chest.  His anxiety reached a crescendo high enough that he worried, briefly, if he would be physically sick from it.

Until he looked down.

'Oh,' he'd said and his lip had trembled.  'Oh.' he'd said again as he'd stared down at himself through teary eyes while pulling at the sleeves.  He'd laughed and then pressed the butt of his palms against his eyes when the tears fell and he couldn't hold back his sobs.  Bending over as something released within - something he'd held onto so very tightly, coiled by those around him like a watchmaker tightening springs.

Such a small thing.  A plain blouse worn by any of the other women in the village, but it was his and he was wearing it now.

And then the dismay of being found out.  It happened when an old friend snooped through his room while he finished making a meal to share.  It started as a light tease until the friend realized how embarrassed he was.  How he yelled and snatched the hidden items from the other man's hands.  Old behaviors connected and the friend confronted him, growing more and more direct, shouting and pushing.  His boot crushing the tin while tearing the blouse into smaller and smaller strips.

He'd locked himself away until he'd found the nerve to step out, only to find everyone against him.  Whispers and stares and hard glares.  They turned away from him until he stopped speaking to everyone.  Half a year went by until he could no longer stand it and he made his decision.

He gasped when she took her hand away.

"They fear you," she said.

"No, no, they just- they don't understand why-" he tried to tell her.

"No," she said softly.  Despite the single word, emotions boiled beneath the surface.  Anger, sadness, pain.

"They have lived their lives exactly the same through generations," she continued.  "They keep to the roles they've assumed since before your kind first clothed yourselves.  The men fight, the women raise children and toil in their homes.  Both work the fields, but the men command authority.  They rule their tiny domains and anything that threatens their rule must be destroyed, whether a true kingdom or a simple farm.  You represent something new.  A change they cannot fathom.  It threatens to disrupt the order they've created."

"I- I can fight!  And work the fields!" he said defiantly, as if taking his anger out on her.

"So can the women," she replied serenely.  "And yet, seldom are they allowed. To do so elevates them and they cannot be seen as equals.  By challenging their worldview, you threaten their society.  Your very being creates discord and gives rise to new ideas in others.  Change terrifies them."

"So- so kill me and be done with it," he said.  "I'm tired.  I can't live alone.  I can't live with them.  I've just- I've just been so confused.  Since I was a child.  Nothing seemed clear to me.  The others lived their lives exactly like they should.  Trousers and swords, dresses and looms.  Knowing exactly where they fit and I- I- I don't even feel right in my own skin.  I hate myself for it. I tried to ignore it, but-"

"It's who you are," she told him.  "Why ignore your nature?"

"I can't live like that," he whispered.  "They won't let me.  They'd cast me out and stone me if I tried to return."

"Then, live elsewhere," she said.  "Build a dwelling away from everyone and live out your years as you would.  Your own domain."

"You don't understand.  You-"

"Don't I?" she asked and now there was anger in her voice.  "I am alone.  In this country, I am alone.  Hunted by many, barely given time to rest.  Centuries pass and I remain.  I gather works of art from lost civilizations to save them from destruction and they're my only companions while the others forget even the names of the famed creators."

"I- I could live here," he said, quietly, with his head bowed.  "With- with you.  If you have no others."

"Your kind cannot live without sunlight," she told him.  "I know.  I've met those in the past, delving into dungeons, lost without a way back.  Gaunt and pale and crazed with rotting flesh and teeth."

"Maybe- maybe I-" he tried to say but tears overwhelmed his eyes.  He wiped them with his forearms.

"There is another way, if you're certain this is the path you'd take," she said carefully.  "Most see it as a curse.  I've used it as such in the past, but perhaps you won't see it as such."

"Anything," he replied.  "I was ready to face death.  Anything would be better."

She knelt, then, before him with a curled finger beneath his chin.  Thin scales rasped against his skin when she raised his head. Her eyes were beautiful and clear.  He remembered that while she leaned in until he closed his eyes, ready to accept what would come.

Her lips touched his.  He opened his mouth in shock.   Liquid fire poured into his throat.  His screams were muffled.  He tried to pull away, but she held him tightly.  Sweat beaded his body while smoke wafted away from his clothing.  Tiny flames burst along the edges, burning them away without touching his body.

When she pulled back, he knelt and panted with sweat pouring over his body.

"What- Argh!"  he gasped, grabbing for his neck.

The bulge at the front of his throat crunched when it melted away to leave his throat smooth.  He could feel the skin become smooth beneath his fingers and it spread, upwards to his chin and down to his chest.

"What did you-" his voice was softer, feminine.  His eyes widened in shock.

Bones shifted in his face.  The fire returned, this time throughout his nasal cavity.  His nose popped and shrank.  The pointed tip pulled back while becoming rounded and his cheeks raised.  Dimples appeared when fat redistributed.  Stubble wafted away from his face.

He reached up to touch himself, exploring his soft cheeks and slim chin.  His fingers traced over his lips as they filled out, curving away from his mouth.  He moaned at how strangely sensitive they were.

'Oh!" he gasped when hair tickled his neck.  His hair curled as it lengthened, tracing down his back to rest between his shoulder blades.  His eyelashes fluttered while lengthening and curling over his eyes.  "I- Oh! Oh!  GODS!"

Tissue formed in his chest.  Ducts burrowed through the flesh as they connected to his nipples and the nipples themselves expanded atop broad, dimpled areola.  Bones popped in his spine, forcing him to place his hands against the ground to support him.  His ribcage folded while fat developed beneath his nipples, straining against the skin.  Blue veins stood out against his swelling breasts.  They shook when he shivered and gasped.

His nails scraped the ground as they lengthened.  He focused on them, marveling at the way his fingers grew thin and delicate, but he could see the expansion of his breasts in the corners of his eyes.  They weighed against him, dangling beneath him until he sat back.  He desperately wanted to touch himself but cramps seized his waist.

More fatty tissue grew within his ass and his cheeks swelled against his heels.  His hardened muscles, built by years of working in the field, melted away to leave his plush, round ass.  Already he could feel the same happening to his thighs - an itching sensation that was impossible to scratch, despite his efforts.

His narrow hips widened.  The cramps continued to pulse as bones shifted and his uterus took root.  A strange sensation bloomed within his waist -  a faint tearing mixed with an unusual rippling that he found he could almost control.  He tensed new muscles and moaned.

He sat back while spreading his legs to stare at what was happening.  His cock bounced as it shrank.  His foreskin tightened while the rounded tip grew even more smooth.  Excess foreskin slid down to create the hood that enveloped the shrunken head of his new clit.  His heart pounded beneath his breasts.  He touched himself gently and then wavered when a dull pain lanced through his belly.  A second similar burst followed and his scrotum deflated.  It tightened against his crotch with a small slit in between.

Clear liquid welled from the slit while his outer labia swelled.

"How-" she coughed and massaged her throat.  Her voice sounded alien to her - sweet, but nothing like how she sounded before.  She'd never let herself dream that it was possible.  "How is this a curse?"

She scarcely believed her eyes.  She'd always felt wrong in her own body.  She'd been envious of the girls - their bodies and their fashion and the way they were able to live their lives in seemingly separate realms with different expectations that left her angry at the lot she'd been given.

"To many, it would be, but that's not what I'm speaking of," the dragoness said.

The fire returned within her core, building and building until she thought it would destroy her.  Veins stood out on her slim body and she raised her head high with her eyes bulging and her mouth wide.  Red touched her cheeks and throat.

A gout of flame issued from her lips.  She choked, gagged and coughed and a larger lick of red fire roared into the cavern.

Pain exploded in her back, pushing her to all fours.  Her spine curved, stretching the skin until it split and short black spines emerged in a rippling wave down to her tailbone, wrenching it free.  She screamed from the agony of it.  The red tinting her throat spread down her body, eating away at the rosy pink and pale white until her entire body matched the bare skin her mistress showed..

Her tail swiveled in her hips.  It pushed against something within that made her moan and bite her lips but sharp fangs tore into the sensitive flesh.  She ran her tongue over her teeth, bumping over every new fang that lined her maw.

Soft black scales grew from the lines in her lips while her cheekbones throbbed with pain.  They dragged her face forward and more scales emerged from the stretch marks caused by the rapid growth of her snout.  She touched her face just as her nails began to lengthen once more.  They curved while growing dark until her claws overwhelmed the tips of her fingers.  A tiny screech sounded when her nails scraped against the scales on her cheeks and jaw.

Pounding pain in her temples caused her to reach up.  Her knuckles, covered in scales, cracked against the twin horns growing on either side of her skull.  They swept back through her long, curly hair, ringed in pure obsidian as they continued to grow and her hands rasped against them when she touched them.

An intrusive thought filled her mind and she nearly laughed, despite the pain racking her body - pink ribbons.  The girls in her village wore ribbons during the spring festival and she suddenly wondered what she would look like with fine pink ribbons wrapped around her horns, trailing behind her as she moved.  The mental image was powerful and she knew she would try it when she had a chance.

She stared at her trembling hands.  Scales covered her fingers and the backs of her hands and up to her wrists and forearms.  She watched her skin open to emit more.  They started as flexible gray diamonds before cooling and widening into dark scales.

"Ah!" she cried out when her tail thumped heavily into the ground.  She reached back to grab it but her hand could barely wrap around its girth.  Unlike her body, it was completely covered in dense scales and was already as wide as her larger thighs.  It slid against the dirt while growing, swiping back and forth behind her.

Her pupils trembled.  They bulged outward for a brief second before squeezing into vertical slits while red lines fractured her brown eyes, turning them into a bright copper with scarlet veins.

When the scales reached her shoulders, they softened and spread down her chest in increasingly wide bands that covered her torso.  She touched her breasts carefully with her strange new hands and a large part of her was relieved to feel how soft they still were.  Soft and so sensitive.  She swallowed a moan as she hefted them and rubbed a clawed thumb around to her flat nipple.

Cum dribbled from her pussy.  Her soft pink inner lips were streaked with black.  She watched as more and more of the dark lines appeared until the pussy lips were as dark as the scales covering her body.

Cramps seized her feet, forcing her attention outward when her toes curled against the pain.  Bones cracked, pulling her feet apart.  Tendons stood out against the backs of every toe while muscles built beneath and bones grew bulbous and thick within her toes and forefeet.  Her heel pushed back - or, her toes pushed forward as they continued to be forced apart while her nails grew dense.  She felt something like a sharp pinching bite against every toe when her claws latched onto the bones beneath her skin and they curved outward into finger-thick deadly claws.

More scales spread down from her hips and over her supple, red thighs.  She hissed and clawed at herself, falling to her side while rolling and scratching and moaning with her tail thrashing.  Something was building.  Something monstrous and beautiful and-

"GODS!" she screamed while kicking at the dirt.

Creamy white cum dribbled down her black pussy lips.  She lay there, panting with her breasts shaking as her chest heaved.  Bright green dots bloomed on this tongue.  More and more appeared over the pink surface until green was all that was left.

"Is- is it over?" she asked after a few minutes passed.  Her legs quivered.

"You are reborn," the dragon said.

She reached a hand out to the prone kobold.  The slim dragonkind took the dragoness's hand carefully, anxious over her new claws.  When her weight shifted, her massive, spiked tail moved to balance her and she stood on the broad forefeet of her new paws.  She was taller now, almost at the height of the dragon standing beside her in her human form.

Her ears folded against her head.  She hissed again and pawed at them as they shortened and bent.  Black scales emerged over their edges when the delicate ears began to stretch into petite points.

Sounds faded in and out before intensifying.

"... sure... down...?" a woman's voice asked.  She recognized it but it took a few seconds until she realized it was her friend's sister.  A shy young girl now at the edge of adulthood.

"Course... sure..." another voice - a man - answered.  She didn't know this one but it was vaguely familiar.

"Worried... him..." the woman said.

"Me, too," the man replied more clearly.

"And perhaps," the dragon said with a slow smile.  The dragon reached a hand out to the kobold's breast, lifting it while smoke curled from her scaled nose.  Her delicate, red tongue lapped at the kobold's nipple.  A clawed hand slid down the panting kobold's chest until it slid between her legs to rub her slowly.

"M- mistress," she moaned, squeezing her thighs together.  Her slim, pointed ears trembled as they lay back.

"And perhaps you'll have some sisters to join you soon," the dragoness groaned between licks.

"Y- y- yesssssss Missssstresss," she moaned as her orgasm began to build.