Esmond ducked under an overhanging tree branch, then hopped the familiar stones across a gurgling stream. He gripped the rope hanging over his shoulder tightly as the dead rabbits bounced against his back, he didn’t want to lose his dinner! The rabbits were plump little beasts, being well fed this summer with no other hunters to prey upon them. 

The sun sparkled through the overhead foliage, gently warming the bare skin of his muscular chest. This far from civilization he didn’t bother wearing much, just some leather breeches and sandals to protect against the thorny brambles. His breeches had several patches crudely sewn on to cover past prickly encounters. As he walked confidently through the forest he glanced up through the trees, catching glimpses of a ruined castle tower encased in the tight embrace of ivy. The plant growth was so thick you could almost mistake the man-made tower for a tree.

Esmond’s path through the wild growth didn’t take him towards the ancient castle, whose crumbling walls and collapsed gatehouse were near impassible, he was heading down the rocky cliffside and towards the darker depths. The summer sun dimmed as he plunged deeper through the foliage, and for the first time today he felt a chill on the back of his neck. 

He substituted the fading birdsong by humming a cheery tune, a ditty he only vaguely recalled from his early childhood. The lyrics had long since been forgotten so he could only repeat the chorus notes.

Stepping around a granite outcrop, he approached a half-circle of darkness up ahead, the entrance of a cave thrice his height. The overhanging stalactites looked like the teeth of an enormous beast, and he danced to avoid the cold water dripping from the tips. Once his eyes adjusted to the dark, the interior wasn’t as foreboding as it’d seemed from outside. Thick clumps of blue moss gave off a gentle glow that led him inwards. As he went further, occasional gaps in the cave overhead let in sharp beams of light that pierced the gloom to illuminate glimpses of metal. Scattered across the rocky ground were several sets of knightly weaponry and armour. Snapped spears, melted swords, and blunted maces were common. The armour was in better condition, having only a touch of rust around the edges. They were without tears or holes, as if the wearer had carefully stripped of them. 

He winced each time his foot knocked a breastplate or shin guard and the clang echoed loudly around him. As he went deeper, the earthen moss was replaced by smooth stonework and heavy wooden doors hung half-open on either side. Esmond took each twist and turn without pause until finally heading up a staircase and emerging into a huge ruined entrance hall. The ceiling had long ago collapsed, providing a nesting area for birds who sang their courting to one another. 

Amidst the grey stone and green foliage, a shiny red lump that peeked from behind a rubble pile stood out. Esmond approached and the lump’s origin grew in apparent size as it stretched towards the adjoining chapel. As he continued to get closer, he could hear a deep rumble that rhythmically rose and fell. The red lump subtly slid back and forth in time with the rumbles, scraping across the stone tiles. 

Once he was almost within touching distance, he could see the red lump was a mesh of metallic looking scales, each locking perfectingly into the others. It was precision beyond anything even the most talented armourer could produce, only nature could be so exact. His gaze followed the scaly lump through the gap in the chapel doors, leading to an enormous beast that lay curled up around the chapel’s altar, using it as a headrest as it slept. A fully-grown adult dragon. It’s wings were folded around its plump body, with a belly big enough to stable half a dozen horses. A small fleshy pink frill ran up from midway down the tail, growing in size along the beast’s spine before unfurling around the dragon’s skull like a crown, as befit the queen of the food chain.

Esmond leapt over the tail to reach the dead campfire in the corner of the entrance hall. The ashes were still warm, and with the addition of a few twigs and puffs he roused it back to life. He laid the dead rabbits on his back down, then moved over to the weapons haphazardly stacked nearby. He picked out a stout looking spear, swung it around a couple of times, then laid it against his knee and snapped it in half. The crack of the spear echoed around him, disturbing the overheard birds. The regular rumble from the chapel paused for a moment, then resumed.

As Esmond searched for a second stout spear, the green wood he’d added to the fire began to smoke. The acrid smoke was pulled towards the chapel, drawn by the steady huffs of the beast within. A thin smoky tendril snaked its way across the room and into the dragon’s nostril. The snout twitched, then an eye cracked open, showing a yellow-slitted iris that scanned the room. 

Esmond loudly snapped another spear in half, then combined it with the first to make a crude tripod over the fire. 

The birds sensed the awakening dragon before Esmond did, swiftly taking flight into the summer sky. A few seconds later, an immense howl resounded throughout the castle, loud enough to rustle Esmond’s unruly hair. He poked his head around the doorway, seeing the dragon’s long neck unwrap itself from around the altar as its head tilted up with an enormous roar. Its open mouth was rimmed by a thicket of blunted fangs, each as long as thick as Esmond’s thighs. Unspooling from between those white teeth was a tongue that split at the tip and flicked at the air, seemingly tasting it. 

Once the roar faded, Esmond waved at the dragon. “Sorry Ma’! I didn’t mean to wake you.”

The dragon licked her teeth as she finished her yawn. “That’s alright dear, is it past midday already?” 

Esmond looked up at the clear blue skies visible above him through the wrecked roof, the sun was no longer overhead. “It’s more like late afternoon Ma.”

“Oh!” The dragon shook her wings, causing a cloud of dust to rise up around her. “It took me a while to find what I was after last night.” Her curvy body lifted up, twisting towards Esmond, and flopped down at the doorway. The ground shook and the tripod collapsed into the fire. “Oops! Sorry sweetie.” She lowered her head close enough for the campfire’s flames to reflect in her large slitted irises.

Esmond sighed in mild annoyance as he grabbed the broken spears before they set alight, then rebuilt the tripod. He tried to ignore the enormous head hovering near him, but he couldn’t help but crack a smile at how closely she watched his actions, making sure he didn’t accidentally burn himself. It’d taken him quite awhile to learn how to maintain a fire with Meredith, his adoptive mother, being unable to offer much practical guidance in her dragon form. He couldn’t spit out a ball of flame like she did. Sometimes he thought his burnt hands had hurt her more than he as she’d fretted and mustered up her arcane healing magic.

“I hope you didn’t forget what day it is today,” she teased, nudging his back with her snout.

Esmond thought about it for a moment before reply. “... the tenth day of summer?”

Meredith’s chest rumbled and her nostrils flared in a mimicry of a laugh. “No, sweetie. It’s a very special day, for a very special person…” 

Esmond’s brow furrowed in confusion. Who else was there other than he and Ma’? There was only Garrick the bard, currently locked up in the cage in the basement for the next time Meredith fancied a late night snack, but they barely knew him. He’d only been around for a couple of weeks now, since getting lost in the forest and stumbling upon the castle ruins. If Esmond hadn’t found him first and taken a liking to him, he’d likely already be slowly digesting alive in Meredith’s belly. But Garrick’s culinary fate was only postponed, not cancelled, as Meredith reminded him frequently.

Meredith waited a few more moments, but on seeing her adoptive son was clearly not going to get the right answer she continued “it’s your birthday!”

“Oh!” Esmond scratched his chin as he blushed. He’d never had much of a head for numbers, nor had he much need for them out here. “Um… how old am I now?” 

“Eighteen! You are now, officially, a man.” Her lips pursed together and came closer. 

Esmond got a brief whiff of charcoal and roasted meat as her mouth bumped against the top of his head. Even just the small gap in her lips she’d made for the kiss was nearly enough to envelop his whole head, and his whole body tilted from with the strength of her kiss before she pulled back.

“So does that mean I’m old enough to eat?” he asked with a bemused smile as he found a cooking pot and hung it off the tripod, seemingly unconcerned about the prospect of being lunch. 

Meredith thought about it for a few moments. “Technically… yes. But I’d never devour my sweetest little boy!” She sighed as memories flashed across her mind, of the young muddy child trampling through the woods on a rainy night. Unlike his fellow mammals who knew to flee a predator when they saw one, this one had cried in relief and run forward to hug her snout. He’d been wandering the woods for days, going in circles. 

It was Meredith’s policy not to eat human younglings, better to let them grow into nutritious adults before they descended into her gullet, so she’d let him shelter from the weather under her wing until his family came searching and took him home. But his family never came. Day after day they waited, with Meredith having to hunt deer to roast up for her little foundling.  

Meredith had eventually prodded the young child as to what he was doing in her neck of the woods as most humans kept far away from her domain. He said his mother had sent him out in search of a flower whose leaves glowed as bright as the sun, which she needed if his father was to ever return. Meredith was perplexed. She’d lived in these forests for centuries and never heard of such a flower. 

A couple of weeks passed as she watched over the curious child. She’d cackled in amusement as he ran after butterflies and made her a necklace of daisies which was barely big enough to slip over one of her nostrils. Later, as he slept one night, she used all her guile to slip away unnoticed. She flew over the forest in the direction she’d found the boy, seeking the small hamlet he said he’d grown up in. She identified it from the multiple daisy chains hanging limp across the front gate. 

Flying overhead, she saw a hooded figure exit the cabin and lock the door. The figure was loading up a wagon with valuables, or what counted as valuables for these short-lived mortals. She swooped down, using her enormous wingspan to glide silently through the night air, until she was close enough to scoop up the figure in her claws. The figure screeched in terror all the way to the secluded glade Meredith carried them to.

It took a while for the mammal to quiet down after Meredith explained she wasn’t planning to eat them. The figure pulled back its hood, revealing a young blonde woman with a buxom hourglass figure. She confirmed she was Esmond’s mother, and that she’d sent the young boy out to her woods on an impossible task. With her son out of the way, she planned to move to the town and find a new husband. She told Meredith this gleefully, like she thought Meredith would reward her for delivering a sumptuous little boy to devour. 

Meredith was not pleased. That such a loving and friendly young boy had been born of such a heartless wench struck at her sense of right and wrong. She generally wasn’t one to take sides in human conflicts, what did it matter why foodstock did what they did, but this irked her. Her reaction was simple, she plucked the woman off her feet with her jaws, flicked her deeper into her maw, sloshed her around, and swallowed her whole. It seemed only right, Meredith would become Esmond’s mother now, with his birth mother forming the belly fat on his adoptive mother. 

She never told Esmond what had happened, so when he thought she wasn’t watching, he’d sometimes go into the woods in search of that golden flower. She didn’t try to deter him, and she didn’t know what he planned to do if he ever found it, but she hoped he was happy with his life now. He’d grown into a strapping young man with bronzed skin and wide muscular shoulders, but had kept the same cheerful grin from his youth.

Meredith shook her head, bringing herself back to the present just as Esmond was dropping slices of rabbit into the pot. 

“I got you a present!” she said excitedly. 

She opened her mouth and Esmond looked deep into her fleshy maw. Thick strands of drool trailed down from her teeth, with her tongue looking like a pond that constantly undulated with waves rippling across its surface. He saw the back of her throat contract, and he barely raised his arm in time to protect himself from the spittle as she coughed something shiny up and splattered him with drool. The object rattled around on the stone tiles by his feet. It was coated in a thick layer of goop, but the shape was instantly identifiable as a silver crown in the shape of several crescent moons linked in a row together.

“It took me a while to find a suitable prince last night, but this one was out riding with only a couple of knights for protection.”

Esmond glanced at the bulge of Meredith’s belly and realised on the other side of those scales the prince and his two guards were being digesting right now. He wondered which kingdom they were from, then realised it didn’t matter, they were just dragon-chow now. He picked up the crown and shook it free of some of the digestive acid. “Ma, I’m not a little boy any more. I don’t want crowns to play with.” He sighed and tossed it towards the corner where several other crowns and tiaras lay stacked.

“But…” murmured Meredith softly. 

Esmond heard the enthusiasm drain out of voice. He got to his feet, turned towards her, and gave her snout a big hug. “Thank you Ma’. You’re all I ever want.” Dragons didn’t blush, but Meredith’s tail continued to twitch long after Esmond had finished the hug. He returned his attention to the rabbit stew and the two of them sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. 

Meredith’s nostrils perked up as the smell of the cooked rabbit started to spread. “Are you sure I can’t pick up a lamb or an ox for you? It is your birthday after all…” asked Meredith as she licked her lips.

Esmond shook his head. “I like catching my own prey, just as you do.” 

Meredith couldn’t argue with that. She hadn’t thought the young boy she’d adopted would want to stay with her indefinitely and had encouraged him to stay as independent as he was able. He had indeed become a capable hunter, fully capable of fending for himself, but still he remained by her side. 

Meredith’s belly grumbled as it oozed the half-digested prince and his retinue into her second stomach. 

“Could you be a dear and rustle me up something from the pantry?” asked Meredith.  

“But we’ve only got Garrick down there!” 

“That’s fine, he can sing for us as I swallow him down.” 

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” whined Esmond. “Can’t we keep him a bit longer?” 

Meredith rolled her eyes. “Well I suppose it IS your birthday… but don’t let his silver tongue beguile you! He’ll say anything to get out of being lunch.”

“I know Ma.’” Esmond had heard this many times before, and while he was sceptical of the bard’s tales, he couldn’t deny a certain curiosity about the outer world the bard spoke of. Talk of pretty maidens with loose morals in particular…

“I best go find myself some lunch then,” said Meredith. “Perhaps the lords sent out some additional knights to look for their prince?” Her tone picked up as she thought of picking up a couple of knights to toy with. 

“Have a safe hunt Ma’” said Esmond as he stirred his stew.

Meredith unfurled her wings to either side, then swept them down, lifting her towards the ruined roof. Esmond lifted his arm to his eyes as dirt billowed around him. Once the gusts died down, he lowered his arm to see the campfire had been extinguished. He sighed.

—

Esmond finished his lukewarm rabbit stew in peace, then poured a second portion into a wooden bowl to take down to the pantry. Before Meredith’s arrival it had served as the castle’s prison with several caged enclosures. All but one was empty, that with Garrick in it. The bard was skinny despite the regular meals Esmond brought down to him. He seemed to burn off the calories with the manic energy he manifested through his lute playing. The instrument was rarely out of his hands. His frail figure had been a deciding factor in Esmond’s argument for Meredith to hold off eating him, as Esmond teased the prospect of a meatier and more satisfying meal if he fed the bard every day. 

“Esmond my boy!” cried Garrick cheerfully, acting like he was Esmond’s senior when in fact only a couple of years separated them. Still, those two years could mean a lot in terms of maturity. He put down his lute and slipped his arms between the bars to take the stew bowl. “The mistress is away?” he asked, nodding towards the ceiling. 

Esmond nodded. “She’s off for lunch.” 

“Ah, another daring ballad in the making then! Will some daring knight save his princess?” 

Esmond scoffed. “No knight is going to stop Ma’, unless maybe if he was fat enough to lodge in her throat.”

“Maybe so…” replied Garrick with a chuckle before gulping down half the stew. His gaze was drawn to the sparkling hoop of metal hanging off Esmond’s belt. “What’s that you’ve got?”

“Oh this?” Esmond untied the crown from his belt and spun it around a finger. “It was a present!” Feeling guilty over how his sour reaction had hurt Meredith, he’d collected it from the heap he’d thrown it. Maybe he could use it as part of a rabbit trap?

Garrick licked his lips and reached out for it. “May I see?” he asked with a feigned casualness.  

Esmond untied the crown from his belt and tossed it over. Garrick nearly knocked it away in his haste to snatch it and pull it closer. His eyes went wide as he inspected the fine engraved metalwork, with the small studded gems along the rim. “This is… “ he whispered in awe. “Where did you get this, my boy?”

Esmond shrugged. “‘Ma gave it to me, and I’m not a BOY any more. It’s my birthday today!”

Garrick bowed from within the cage. “My mistake my good sir.” He idly tapped his finger on the crown as his thoughts raced as a plan came to mind. “We should celebrate! Do you know how much this is worth?” He held up the crown but kept it out of Esmond’s immediate reach. “There’s a fine brothel in Heidelberg with the finest courtesans you’ll ever see.” Garrick cupped one hand to his chest, mimicking a large bosom. “We could take a trip there and make a real man of you!”

“I’m a real man already!” snapped Esmond in a shriller tone than he’d hoped for. 

A subtle grin crossed Garrick’s lips as he realised his hook had snagged a fish. “You may be of age, but you aren’t a REAL man until you’ve known a woman…” 

Esmond scoffed. “I-I’ve known women!”

Garrick leaned back in his cell and looked sceptically at Esmond. 

“I know all about women and… their bits!” continued Esmond. “How their scales retract around their… fleshy bits, and the way the pink frill emerges when she’s excited!”

Garick raised an eyebrow. “Their scales huh?”

“Err… yeah?”

“You haven’t actually met any HUMAN women have you?” 

Esmond’s cheeks went a ruby red. “W-what difference does it make?!?!” He spun around and ran out the doorway before Garrick could reply. Garrick reached out between the bars to grab his soup bowl and sip the remains. He still had the crown. If only he could get out of here, he’d be rich…

—

Esmond went to sulk in his secret place. He crawled through a hole in the main hallway to reach a spiral staircase, then headed up to a long-abandoned royal bedroom. He shuffled past mouldy curtains to reach a standing wardrobe. He leaned his shoulder against it, grunted, and pushed it aside to reveal a small doorway hidden behind it. He slipped through the doorway into a smaller room. It was dimly lit through a small window near the ceiling, but felt cosy with a thick rug and several cushions. It had once been the queen’s walk-in closet, with dozens of small drawers and alcoves to store her shoes and fine silks. Now those boxes had been emptied and replaced with Esmond’s keepsakes. There were the melted glass sculptures that Meredith had made him many years ago with her fiery dragon’s breath. She told him they were animals, but the misshapen lumps were hard to tell apart. She’d made many such sculptures when he’d first come to live with her, perhaps thinking it’d ease his loneliness. She’d never quite understood that he wasn’t lonely, he loved her and his life here. Sure, he’d like more friends, but he had someone who loved and protected him no matter what. He only wished he could grow someday to protect her like she had him. With that goal he often practised with the leftover weapons, but he was as much a danger to himself as he was to any opponent when he swung them wildly.

He held his breath, listening for any distant wing flaps, before pulling open one of the drawers. He tossed aside a couple of rags on top, then lifted out a stack of parchments as carefully as he would a cauldron of boiling water. He spread the parchments on the floor around him, with the dim light illuminating a series of crude charcoal drawings. 

The oldest were little more than stick figures, showing human figurines falling towards a large round object. Later drawings showed more detail, with the round object elongating into a shapely chest, a long neck, and a fanged maw. More recent drawings showed a lot more anatomical detail, depicting the individual sinews in an open dragon’s maw, the closely knitted scales of its neck, and the feminine curves of its body. Many sketches included male figures wedged halfway within the dragon’s jaws, either with legs poking out the back of the dragon’s throat, or outstretched arms grasping for freedom from behind interlocking fangs. 

The sketches on the very top of the stack had a slightly different focus, moving down the dragon’s form from its drooling maw, past its snaking neck, its bulbous chest, its pudgy belly, to depict the spread hind legs and crotch area of the dragon. The otherwise uniform scales broke in two and a soft fleshy slit peeked out from the crevice. In one drawing the dragon was cracking the slit open with a claw, in another the dragon rubbed her slit against a treasure chest.

The only firm rule Meredith had for Esmond was that he couldn’t observe her feeding. Originally she’d eaten her meals in private so as not to frighten the poor boy, but he’d never seemed disturbed. He quickly accepted his fellow human beings as potential dragon foodstock, a part of the food chain rather than masters of it. He knew Meredith would never harm him so he had no fear of her sharp teeth or prodigious appetite. However that rule had turned her feedings into a taboo, and the forbidden tended to play heavily on a young man’s mind as he grew up. What started as idle curiosity turned to obsession, then lust.

Esmond untied the cord holding his breeches up and let them fall to his ankles. He grasped his awakening dick in his hand as it jerked upwards. He gripped it tight, almost like he was taming a wild horse as it bucked and reared against his palm. He stroked the shaft as he gazed down at the drawings around him. He stared at the drawings of Meredith’s open mouth and imagined himself looking down the dark depths of her gullet, with her throat quivering in anticipation of its meal and trails of drool hanging off her fangs to coat his erect dick. 

He groaned as he beat himself off faster and faster, thinking of the maw closing around him, squeezing him down her throat… He was about to aim his dick away from the drawings when he heard a distant boom. He froze in place as his ears twitched like a rabbit’s, listening to more booms, each louder than the last. 

Esmond leapt into action, pulling the curtains across the small window and cloaking the room in darkness. Using only his sense of touch, he navigated to the far corner where a dresser sat against the wall. He waited for a boom before nudging it, pushing it a couple of inches across the floor. He waited for another boom before nudging it again, and again, until a beam of light shot through a gap in the wall hidden behind the dresser. It was barely larger than a fist. 

The surroundings suddenly rattled and a gust of wind flowed through the gap. The breeze carried a faint masculine voice “unhand me you foul beast!” 

Esmond dropped to his knees and looked through the gap into what had once been the guard’s dining hall. It was smaller than both the chapel and main entrance hall, but still had a ceiling high enough for Meredith to stretch her neck. The wooden benches and tables had been pushed aside to make a roughly circular clearing in the middle of the room, Meredith’s dining area, the only forbidden part of the castle for Esmond.

Meredith bowed her neck to the floor as she passed through the wide doorway, crawling on three legs with her fourth clutching something shiny close to her chest. Her tail flicked the doors closed behind her, sealing her in with her prey. She strutted confidently around the cleared space, circling it before coming down to lie on her side. She unfurled her claw and an armoured figure clattered noisily down her chest and across the floor. 

Metal clanged against stone as the knight struggled to climb upright. The plume on his helmet hung forward like a unicorn’s horn as he swung around with his arms outstretched, seemingly blind with his helmet’s eye slit having been crushed shut. 

“Where are you!” bellowed the knight. His deep voice reverberated within both his helmet and the dining hall.

Meredith watched him with amusement. She swung her long neck around to hover behind him, then whispered “Over here!” 

The knight twisted towards her voice and his mailed fist swung through empty air. 

Meredith stifled a cackle as she swung her neck around to hover above the knight from the other side. “Over here!” 

Again the knight twisted towards her voice and attacked empty air. He wobbled on his feet and stumbled forward onto his knees. 

“That’s more like it,” said Meredith in a huskier tone. “You should worship me!”

The knight grabbed his helmet, struggled with it, and eventually ripped it off then threw it to one side. He was a young man with short blonde hair and sharp cheeks, giving him a regal look. His clean-shaven face suggested he valued his appearance, and with good reason, but it seemed he’d attracted the eye of more than the fair maidens of the court. He glared up at Meredith. 

“Oh my, you’re quite the pretty morsel!” Meredith’s eyes glittered with glee as she looked down at the handsome knight. There was always an element of luck in picking her meals. Sometimes she’d bring them back, strip off their armour, and be confronted with a sour-tasting unwashed brute. She’d been luckier this time. She’d found those knights with the finest horses and the fanciest plumes tended to care most about their looks, and hence were the most appetising.

A crack formed in the knight’s confidence as his fierce glare was completely ignored. This wasn’t like the fairytale encounters he’d read. Shouldn’t the dragon be roaring like a wild beast as he prepared to hack it to pieces? A sword! He needed a sword, that’s why she wasn’t treating him seriously! He patted his hip, confirming the lack of a weapon there. He must have lost it when the beast had plucked him from his horse. While keeping his attention on the dragon, he shot furtive looks to the surroundings, looking for a weapon.

“I’ve always been partial to that golden hair on you humans.” continued Meredith. “Maybe it’s all in my head, but I always thought you tasted sweeter than darker haired humans.” Her voice maintained such a relaxed tone the knight was unprepared for the flick of her tail which ripped off his rear chestplate. He jumped up and swung around to face the threatening tail just in time for Meredith’s front paw to rip the armour off his chest, exposing the sweaty skin underneath.

From out of the nearby wreckage beside the dragon, the knight’s frantic gaze caught sight of a sword handle sticking out. It was risky, but he had no other choice. He leapt into a sprint for it.

Meredith let the knight run for a few seconds before swatting him down with her front paw. She flattened him to the ground, with her forefinger claw positioned over the knight’s lower-spine, so as he squirmed forward he’d pull his own breeches down. She let him crawl out from under her claw, leaving him almost nude, having armour left only on his left arm. He didn’t seem to care as long as he could reach the sword, which she let him do. 

Meredith idly watched the knight’s rear as he struggled to pull the sword out from among the other wreckage, enjoying the sight of his sweaty posterior tiring itself out. She preferred to wear out her meals a little before swallowing them, it caused less indigestion.

The knight grunted as he pulled with all his strength on the sword handle, before finally freeing the weapon. He immediately swung it upwards and towards the dragon. 

Meredith’s pupils went cross-eyed as she tried to focus on the sword’s point hovering in front of her snout. “Are you going to clean my teeth with that little toothpick?” She opened her maw wide, showing the enormous wet entranceway down to her gullet. Any of her teeth would have been an equal to the sword, and the knight shivered in fear as he felt her hot and humid breath roll over him, leaving beads of moisture on his skin.

Esmond let out a small groan from his hidden vantage point as he jerked himself off at the sight. 

Meredith paused, then swung her head away from the knight. She scanned the room. She’d had to extract Esmond a few times when he was younger from her feeding room, but he hadn’t tried to sneak in for years.

“Y-you’ll never best me!” cried the knight, seemingly perturbed by her sudden lack of interest in him. 

Meredith swung back to look down at him. “Best you? Why would I want to do that? No… I don’t plan to fight you, I plan to EAT you!” She again opened her maw wide above him, letting the drool drip from her fangs and onto the near-nude knight. In a panic, he swung the sword and it clattered loudly against her front fang and bounced off. Before he could go for a second swing, Meredith lurched her head down and enveloped the upper torso between her scaled lips. She gripped him tightly as she swung back up, leaving his legs poking out the front of her maw like a boar’s tusks. The hand holding the sword was stuck outside her lips, but a subsequent swallow pulled the knight inwards but left the sword trapped between her teeth before dropping to the floor. 

Meredith slurped up the knight’s legs and sloshed him around her maw. Her lips occasionally opened just enough for Esmond to hear a muffled scream of terror. Her prey’s cries didn’t seem to bother Meredith, she only cared about his flavour. She slathered her tongue all over the knight, slipping the last remnants of his armour off his left arm and then spitting it out.

A bulge formed in her left cheek, then her right as the knight was toyed with. He’d occasionally get a hand or foot out between her lips, but it was soon slurped back inside. 

Esmond gritted his teeth as he tried not to climax, not yet… 

Meredith tilted her head up, then swallowed. A large lump moved down her throat, pushing out the lighter shaded scales covering her oesophagus. The lump shifted and twisted each time she swallowed, dropping an arm’s length each ripple up her neck as the knight fought against his fate to the bitter end.

Meredith closed her eyes for the final swallow, focusing her attention on the sensations inside as her belly accepted her latest meal. She felt the wriggling morsel fill her from the inside. She rolled onto her back and looked down at her belly. Bumps briefly formed each time he punched or kicked the stomach wall.

Esmond shot his seed onto the carpet he lay upon. He closed his eyes as he tried to commit those recent sights to memory. He’d want to draw them later.

Meredith smirked as she enjoyed the knight’s continuing struggles. Some prey gave up so quickly and were so boring. She idly reached over to pluck the sword from the ground. She pinched it around the blade and ran the rounded pommel down her bosom, then over her belly and towards her crotch. The closely knitted scales between her hind legs split as she brought the pommel closer, revealing a pink and fleshy interior. Two thin pink frills peeked out each side as the pommel nestled between them. She groaned as she thrust the sword hilt inside.

Esmond watched his adopted mother moan and play with the sword. He didn’t really understand what she was doing, but he knew she was clearly enjoying it. She only seemed to do it after a meal when he wasn’t around. It made him intensely curious. He’d only known the hard scaly exterior of his mother. How must that soft interior feel? He wished he could touch it, he wished his dick could touch it… He grabbed his flaccid dick and began pumping again, determined to get a second climax out of this. 

—

Esmond was the first to return to the campfire in the entrance hall. He was thirsty after a couple of hours sweatily masturbating and committing his memories to paper. He dunked his whole head in a bucket of cold water. He shook his head as he reemerged, whipping his hair from side to side and splattering the surroundings with droplets. 

The double doors leading to the guard’s dining hall creaked open and Meredith poked her head out. “Oh, there you are!” she said as she emerged fully, looking satisfied with herself. “I didn’t see you when I got back, were you napping?”

“Err no, I was just sketching some stuff...” replied Esmond with a blush. He’d never lie to his adoptive mother, but he also wasn’t going to volunteer the whole truth either. She didn’t need to know what else he’d been doing. 

“Oh! I’d love to see them,” cooed Meredith. Her head drifted upwards as she became lost in memory. “You used to do the cutest drawings of me.”

Esmond turned away, unable to face his mother while talking about his secret shame. “These, um, they aren’t very good sketches.”

“I’d love them all the same!” Meredith dipped her snout to hover over Esmond’s shoulder. She nudged her lips forward to give him a kiss with enough force to tilt him to one side.

Esmond batted away the kiss. He didn’t deserve her affection after what he’d been up to.

Meredith giggled. “Is my little cub feeling grumpy this evening?” She came in closer, bringing her shapely bulk to settle down around the campfire. The flames made her scales glitter like a thousand rubies. “I’m sorry, are you upset I went hunting on your birthday? I promise I’ll stay in tonight.”

Esmond’s shame kept him silent. 

Meredith curled her tail around behind Esmond and poked his ribs. Esmond’s stoicism didn’t last long before he burst into laughter. Meredith’s pleased grin mirrored her adopted son’s. “Come on, you can sleep with me tonight.” Her tail nudged Esmond backwards until his ankles bumped into her scales. He lay back against her, snuggling into her bosom. Her scales were interlinked so tightly it was like lying on a soft bed of puffy mushrooms.

Meredith raised her leathery wing, wrapping them around her bulk and covering Esmond from his chest down in a warm embrace. She laid her head down alongside him, close enough that he could feel her breath tickle his skin. 

“Isn’t this nice?” murmured Meredith as she closed her eyes. She always got sleepy after a full meal.

Esmond heard the gurgling on the other side of her stomach wall, and if he strained he could just make out the muffled yells of the knight within. He ran his hand down her belly and felt it shake as the knight continued to fight his digestive fate. He wondered what it must be like in there. It must be even warmer than it was resting atop her bosom, being wrapped in a fleshy cocoon and sloshed around in a pool of digestive acid. 

Esmond felt his dick harden and rub across the bulging scales through his breeches. He anxiously awaited any reaction from Meredith… Her nostrils snorted as she let out the first snore of the night. She was already asleep and Esmond sighed in relief. He wasn’t so bold as to grind his crotch on her belly, he was just content to lay his dick against her and feel the tremors within. He fell asleep imagining he was on the other side of that stomach wall. 

—

The next morning Esmond woke up with a wet patch on his breeches. He squirmed his way out from under Meredith’s cocooning wing and cleaned himself up before Meredith was ready to face the day. She tended to be a late riser given her nightly hunts. It was rather hard to hide her large silhouette in the middle of day, and rustling through undergrowth or haystacks for hiding peasants took more effort than she liked to spend. Ideally her meals came to her in the form of adventurers seeking treasure or fame and ending up as a steaming pile of dragon poop, but she hadn’t had any in months. Maybe her roost was too remote? Maybe she needed more of a lure? 

She spent the afternoon brooding on it while watching the rain splash down in the castle courtyard. She didn’t like being wet, and the knight she’d eaten the night before hadn’t entirely digested yet so she didn’t feel any urge to leave her cover. 

As the afternoon wore on and the rain showed no sign of stopping, Meredith got bored. She went looking for Esmond, and to make it more fun she tried to do it stealthily. Despite her considerable bulk, she was able to move covertly as long as she repositioned her weight slowly. Her long neck snaked ahead of her, weaving from side to side as she peered down the doorways connected to the main hall, but she couldn’t find him.

She took a few moments to clean herself, scraping her tongue across her hind scales, while thinking on where he could be. Surely he wouldn’t have gone into the forest in this rain? It was then that she realised exactly where she was. Humans were weird, they didn’t lick themselves clean, they used water. She laughed to herself at the strangeness of humans as she crept around the side of the castle, staying under the cover of the overhanging buttresses.

She came across a small grove nestled up against the rear castle wall, with several oak trees spaced around a small pond. The rain funnelled through the overhead battlements to come pouring out here in a heavy torrent. Through the wall of water Meredith caught a glimpse of tanned skin. She brought her snout up close, mere inches from the waterfall. She tilted her head to the side, opened her jaw… and in a flash she thrust forward to snatch Esmond between her teeth then pull him back through the wall of water. Her tongue looped around his waist and snaked between his legs, holding him in her maw as he hung between either side of her jaws, his arms flailing at one side and his legs at the other. 

“Cau’ht ‘ou!” said Meredith, struggling to speak around Esmond. 

“Hey! I was in the middle of showering!” yelled Esmond. 

“Oh ‘ou’re so cold,” said Meredith as she tasted him, feeling how chill his skin was after it’d endured the icy cold rainwater. “I should warm ‘ou up!” Her tongue pulled Esmond deeper into her maw so only his feet and feet remained visible outside. She felt him squirm within her mouth, but not the usual squirming of her prey, he was just getting comfortable.

Inside her maw, Esmond’s cheeks went a rosy red as he felt Meredith’s tongue pulsate between his legs and wrap tightly over his hard dick. He gasped each time she tightened her tongue’s grip as it squeezed his dick a little tighter. 

Mereith held Esmond in her mouth for a whole minute, ensuring his skin was toasty warm before tilting her head and spitting him onto the grassy mound. He lay nude with his skin shining with a mix of drool and rainwater. 

“Both warm AND clean now!” said Meredith smugly as she looked down at her beloved ward. Esmond kept his hands over his crotch and seemed reluctant to get to his feet. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Surely you can’t be shy?”

“But ‘Ma, I’m a MAN now!” yelled Esmond.

“Do you think I haven’t seen a naked man before?” asked Meredith with a coy laugh.

“B-but, it’s not the same! I can’t be naked around you.”

Meredith rolled her eyes. “You humans…” She twisted her bulk around to face the walls. “Come on back inside before you catch cold,” she said as she strutted back towards the castle, weaving her rear from side to side as she often did when in a good mood.

Esmond slumped back against the grass once she was gone, waiting for his erect dick to calm down before getting dressed. 

The rest of the afternoon was fairly docile, with Esmond helping Meredith to organise the gold-plated trinkets in her treasure hoard. The foul weather never let up and so she spent the night curled up with Esmond again. 

The following day was even worse. Meredith was awoken by thunder shaking the castle walls and Esmond cowering against her bosom. She cursed the sky and held him close until the worst of it passed. The rain never stopped and she again postponed hunting. She went to sleep with a belly that gurgled its protest at not being full. 

She dreamed of prying open a castle tower to find an orgy of princes and princesses, all so focused on their rutting with one another they let her have her pick of meals. She cradled each humping pair gently in her jaws, tilted her head back, and swallowed them together. She groaned in delight at how full her stomach felt with a dozen occupants all squirming around, pushing against one another and giving her an internal massage. 

She dreamt there was only a solitary prince left, a portly young man with a round belly and a friendly demeanour. He made no effort to flee from her and she nuzzled his thick frame between her lips, licking at his nude form to draw out the pleasure of her last meal. His skin was as salty as a slow-roasted pig, having worked up a sweat during the orgy, and she made sure she slathered every inch of him with drool. Using her tongue looped around his torso, she gradually tilted his upper body towards her waiting gullet and pulled him in. He tasted so good! He tasted good enough to be… real? 

Meredith cracked opened her eyes to the morning light with a pair of legs dangling from the front of her snout. Her tongue and jaws were wrapped around the large soft mass of an adult male, her Esmond. She immediately tilted her head down and spat him out onto the tiled floor. His saliva-slick body slid smoothly between her fangs to land on a curled up heap in front of her. 

“Oh my little Esmond! I’m so sorry! Are you ok?” asked Meredith in a breathless panic.

Esmond coughed out some of Meredith’s drool, then looked up at her and gave her a timid smile. “Mornin’ Ma’!”

“You aren’t hurt are you? I didn’t bite?” Meredith extended her neck and peered down at him from different sides, inspecting his skin for any puncture marks.

“I’m fine Ma’. I really thought you were going to do it this time…” said Esmond with an awkward laugh. He kept his legs folded to his chest, hiding his crotch.

“I told you to yell and wake me up if it ever happened again!” scolded Meredith. Her breathing slowed as she calmed down and saw her precious boy was unharmed.

Esmond shrugged then looked away, seemingly embarrassed. “You seemed hungry…”  

“I can survive going hungry; I can’t survive without my little Esmond!” Meredith dipped her head to nuzzle the top of Esmond’s head.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind…”  Esmond hesitated, then took a deep breath to steel his courage. “...if you really wanted to eat me.” The last words were spoken so quietly Meredith wondered if she’d misheard and it took her a few moments to respond.

“No, Esmond! I’d never…” She swung her head away from him without being able to finish the sentence. She didn’t want to ever put “Esmond” in the same sentence as “eat.” It made her slightly uncomfortable even to think of Esmond as the same species as those she preyed upon.

Her belly gurgled it’s complaint at being denied a meal. 

“Oh, er, where are your breeches?” asked Meredith, trying to change the topic. She scanned the surroundings. 

“You, err… swallowed them.” answered Esmond as he struggled to resist jerking his erect dick.

“Oh! Well… let’s see if we can find you some fresh ones. That last pair was getting a bit worn anyway.” Meredith rose up and headed back towards the guard’s dining room, also known as her dining room. She was eager to have something practical to focus on rather than Esmond’s offer. She was pretty sure the knight she’d stripped and eaten the other day had been about Esmond’s size. She checked the top of the pile of cast off armour and carefully tugged the breeches out from the armour with a claw tip. She tried not to damage it and was quite pleased she’d managed to extract it without tearing… until she saw the large bite mark in the thigh. It wasn’t perfect, but it’d do for now.

She returned to Esmond, holding the breeches in her jaws so as not to drag them across the floor and get them dirty, but also delicately enough that she didn’t further puncture them. She found him much as she’d left him, but with an additional damp splotch on the stone nearby. She loomed above him, then dropped the breeches to land on his head. 

“Get dressed sweetie,” she said before turning around and girding her rear haunches. She looked up through the ruined roof at the clear skies overhead. “I’m going out hunting, I’ll be back in a bit.” she said over her shoulder before leaping up and taking flight. Hopefully she’d find some careless traveller… 

—

Hours later…

Meredith extended her wings as she descended slowly towards the ruined castle, circling the gaping hole in the roof that she used as her entrance. She was in a sour mood. Hours of prowling up and down muddy roads had turned up nothing. It seemed she hadn’t been the only one reluctant to travel during temperamental weather and her favourite kind of prey had stayed home. 

She’d at least come across a young stag whose horns were stuck in a thick hedgerow. She’d pried him free with her teeth and gulped him down in a couple of swallows. She’d been spoilt on human meat though, and its mangy fur left a bitter aftertaste on her tongue. She wished she could defur stags as easily as she could unclothe human males. Human females were a little more effort, with the annoying elastic straps across their chest and hips, plus they made such a shrill racket while being stripped. 

She saw a thin tendril of smoke weaving its way out the castle roof and flapped her wings, slowing her descent further. She didn’t want to accidentally extinguish Esmond’s campfire again, he tended to get annoyed at that. She saw his tiny head look up through the ruined roof at her as she came in to land. He smiled and waved in her direction, nearly making her hit the side of the roof as she got distracted by a sudden surge of affection. No matter how pitiless the world could be, she could always rely on her little Esmond to greet her with a smile, and for a moment it was enough to ease the hunger in her belly.

She came down in the main hallway, causing the nearby campfire to flare at the sudden gust. Esmond was tending to a cauldron of stew, into which he was dropping chopped vegetables. Meredith winced as she realised she should have kept some of the stag for Esmond, maybe she could regurgitate it? Esmond tended to be oddly picky over eating her leftovers though. 

“Did your hunt go well?” asked Esmond. 

Meredith shrugged her large frame as she curled her wings close to her body. “I found a young stag, but he wasn’t terribly filling,” replied Meredith with a sigh. 

Esmond seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying “so you’d be looking for a dessert?”

“Oh yes! A nice plump prince perhaps, who’s never known a day of work in his life.” Meredith licked her lips at the thought of such a fatty meal filling her maw.

“I’ve been, um, wondering… what that’d be like.” said Esmond softly. He swiftly looked away as soon as Meredith looked down at him.

“Eating a prince? Well, they to talk a lot beforehand but-”

“No, I mean… what it’d be like… to be eaten?”

“Oh! Well, I’ve never really thought about it.” This time it was Meredith’s turn to look away from Esmond. “I don’t imagine it’d be very pleasant, being trapped in my mouth and forced down my throat?”

The sound of Esmond stirring the pot hung heavy in the air as neither spoke. 

Meredith sighed as she thought she knew where this was heading. “Look, I know you don’t want me to eat your bard friend, but you need to understand that he’s foodstock.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about-”

Esmond was interrupted by the deep growl of Meredith’s belly. Her minimal meal and talk of eating princes had her stomach eager for more sustenance.

“Time for dessert?” asked Esmond tentatively.

Meredith nodded. “I’m sorry to deprive you of your friend, but maybe another bard will come along soon?”

“It’s ok…” said Esmond. His shoulders remained slumped as he got to his feet and headed towards the dungeons. 

Meredith felt a sharp pang of guilt as she watched him leave. Perhaps this would be a useful lesson for him in not growing emotionally attached to food? But that didn’t negate the hurt he was feeling now, and by extension the hurt Meredith felt for him. She’d need to make it up to him somehow. What would a growing human boy, or rather a man now, want? She didn’t really know humans that well. Even if they weren’t screaming, yelling, or sobbing, they didn’t stay out of her belly long enough for anything other than some idle chit chat. But maybe she didn’t need to decide… 

“Esmond!” she cried before he disappeared into the shadowed doorway. He paused. “As a late birthday present, how about I give you one wish? Anything you desire that I can provide?” Meredith was quite pleased with her offer, she wouldn’t need to work out what he wanted. Whether it was a knightly sword, some animal skins for bedding, a new cauldron for cooking, she was sure she could threaten some passing merchant for it.

Esmond smiled. “I’ll think on it…”

—

Esmond did indeed think on it. It was all he could think about as he passed through the maze of corridors that lead down to the dungeons, stepping over broken masonry and avoiding thick cobwebs. He could ask for anything? Unlike Meredith, his thoughts didn’t turn to material goods, instead it turned to what his heart truly desired. Images of his dragoness mother rubbing herself on a sword hilt flashed across his mind, followed by Meredith’s open maw. Wet, warm, soft, and welcoming. His legs carried him onwards automatically while he continued to think. 

“Is that a key to release me in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” came Garrick’s lilting voice, piercing Esmond’s daydream. Esmond glanced down to see the bulge in his crotch. 

“Err, no.” Esmond replied as his cheeks turned beet-red and he spun away from the caged bard, tucked his hands under his pants and folded his dick flat. 

“Oh, err, actually kind of yes?” said Esmond as he walked over to the stone wall and plucked a heavy iron key from its hook. 

“Oh, which is it?” Garrick gave Esmond a coy smirk as his gaze jumped between key and crotch. 

Esmond couldn’t look him in the eye as he approached the cage and inserted the key. A metallic thunk shook the bars and echoed around them as the latch flipped open. “I’m here to take you to Ma’,” he murmured quietly. “Please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”

Garrick leaned on his side of the bars, reached out, and ran his finger down Esmond’s bare chest. “Are you sure we couldn’t work out another option?” he asked in a whisper. 

Esmond coughed awkwardly and stepped back from the cafe, out of reach of Garrick. “Sorry, I’m, um, not into that.” With Esmond no longer there to hold it closed, the cage door swung open. Garrick stepped out, yawned, and stretched his arms out to either side. 

“That’s a shame. I guess I should enjoy this freedom while I still have it. I don’t imagine Meredith’s belly is much larger than that cage.”

Esmond gestured towards the doorway and Garrick walked out with Esmond following close behind. 

“I-it’s not so bad,” said Esmond. “She’s very gentle with her meals, she doesn’t bite…”

Garrick laughed. “It’s not the swallowing I’m worried about, it’s what comes after.” 

Esmond’s dick juddered in his pants as he imagined cradling Meredith’s full belly tonight.

Garrick glanced behind him, picking up something in Esmond’s tone, and noticed the bulge had returned in Esmond’s breeches. He didn’t say anything, he just kept walking, but his mind raced. He’d thought Esmond was the dragoness’ pet, a mix of manservant and fuck-toy, but the boy was clearly not getting the sexual release he’d expect of such a pet. Did that mean the dragoness was also as sexually deprived as the boy? A smile crept onto his lips as a plan formed in his mind.

“I’m really sorry about this…” said Esmond. 

“This?”

“You know… being eaten by a dragon.” 

“Oh that’s alright, a dragon’s got to eat hasn’t it?” Garrick turned around and flashed Esmond a smile. “Besides, who knows how things might turn out…”

“I really enjoyed our chats, and hearing about the outside world.”

Garrick paused and laid a reassuring hand on Esmond’s shoulder. “The outside world is grand… if you have the gold to enjoy it. There ain’t a thing in this world you can’t buy with enough of it.”

Esmond was still confused by the concept of money, that those with surplus didn’t provide for others like Meredith did for him, but he nodded anyway, not wanting to seem like an ignorant oaf to this worldly bard. After a few moments of silence, Esmond tilted his head towards a side passage. “She’s just through there…”

A look of nervousness briefly flashed across Garrick’s eyes before his confident smile returned. He brushed down his silk shirt and strutted onwards, giving a backhanded wave to Esmond and yelling “See you soon!” over his shoulder.

Esmond watched him go with conflicted feelings. He was going to miss his friend and his tall tales, but the reformed bulge in his pants also told of his enthusiasm for what was coming. After a moment’s hesitation, he scurried away, heading towards his secret vantage point.

—

Garrick poked his head around the side of the door and into what had once been the guard’s dining hall. Nestled within a circle of upended tables lay the majestic curled up figure of the red dragon Meredith. Garrick gazed in awe at nature’s splendour in having created such a divine beast. The finely interlinked scales meshing together as elegantly as the finest works of arts a human hand could sculpt. The depth of colour in her scarlet scales seemed to shift the closer you looked, like peering beneath an ocean. And finally the rippling curves of her muscular figure, strong enough to defeat a whole cadre of knights, yet still agile enough to take flight.

Meredith continued to lick her upper hind legs for a few moments more before speaking. “Are you going to come in or am I going to need to chase you down? I can assure you both will result in the same outcome, but one will result in a more ravenous appetite.” 

Garrick boldly stepped through the door. “I am here mistress! I was merely so taken aback by your beauty that I required a moment to comport myself.” He performed a courtly bow, bending at the waist and tilting his torso horizontally.

“Oh yes, you’re a bard aren’t you. That silver tongue of yours must have served you well in the past…” 

Meredith’s tone sounded unimpressed, but under the impassive facade Garrick thought he detected a hint of amusement. He took another few steps closer, moving past the empty armour, and being especially careful to step over and not on Meredith’s long tail. “You are truly the pinnacle of nature’s design. The gods perfected their craft with you.”

Meredith laughed at the brazen flattery, but the scales around her cheeks also plumped up as blood under them. “Let me guess…” she murmured while extending her long neck to loom over him, close enough for him to feel the rush of warm air as her nostrils flared. “You want to talk your way out of this? Let me save us both some time and promise that you’ll be spending this night locked away in my belly no matter what.” She opened her maws just enough for a few dollops of drool to drip down onto Garrick. 

Rather than move back, Garrick took a half step forward, allowing the drool to splatter his shirt. “I would never seek to deprive you of sustenance, and if you’ll forgive the humble brag, but I do believe I’ll make for a highly stimulating meal.”

Meredith chuckled. “I’ll be the judge of that, I normally like my meals a little plumper, making you hardly worth the effort, but still…” Her open maw inched closer to Garrick.

Garrick maintained his charming smile even as Meredith’s shadow eclipsed his body, with her maw stretching wide enough to swallow him whole. But just as her jaws descented to envelop his head, he reached up and laid a forefinger on the tip of her front fangs. “But before that…”

Meredith paused. She wasn’t going to retract her jaws from around this tasty morsel, but she’d allow him a few moments more to amuse her. 

Garrick gulped as he gazed down the gullet of the dragoness only an arm’s reach away. The fleshy pink tube, slick with saliva and twitching from the thick muscular rings awaiting their chance to squeeze him down into the dark pit of her belly. His nose twitched as he picked up the faint acrid stench of her stomach, which was already preparing to digest its imminent meal. He took a deep breath and prepared himself for the speech of his life.

“I’ve gotten to know Esmond quite well these past couple of weeks,” said Garrick. “I had thought him your lover at first, but I now see he’s… inexperienced in that regard.” A couple of small stones rattled down from a small hole in the wall. “So I offer you my services before you devour me!”

Meredith pulled back her jaws to look down at the tiny morsel. “Oh my, you are a clever one aren’t you?”

“I have several noble ladies who will attest to my talents in this-” continued Garrick before being interrupted by Meredith’s split tongue slapping against his face, looping around his neck, then probing at his shirt collar until it burst open.

“I kn’w what you’re after,” said Meredith with a slight slur. “You kn’w my… excretions serve as an antiacid.” 

The tongue snaked under Garrick’s armpits then tightened their grip. Garrick’s toes strained for the ground as his feet were slowly lifted off the floor. He scrunched up his eyes as he felt himself carried through the air, he didn’t want to see Meredith’s teeth close around him. He felt his face and chest laid against something warm and wet that seemed to split down the middle vertically. He anxiously awaited the tilt as Meredith prepared to swallow him, but it didn’t come. The tongue loosened its grip around his armpits and moved to press against his lower back, pushing him harder against the crevice. 

Garrick cracked open one eye to see the slippery pink flesh he expected, but not in an arrangement he expected. Rather than a funnel down down to a waiting throat, this was a vertical split bordered on both sides by scales. While it wasn’t entirely the same, this was a sight he was much more familiar with, the blushing petal lips of an aroused woman. Meredith’s pussy stretched from his knees to his head, with his face mere inches away from the round nub of her clit. He leaned forward and gave it a kiss, causing his whole world to shake as Meredith shivered in pleasure.

With a surge of confidence, Garrick slipped off his unbuttoned shirt and yanked down his breeches, leaving him nude as he stood facing the soft labia lips. Meredith gave him a few moments to undress before her tongue again prodded him in his lower back, thrusting his hips forward to be enveloped by her outer pussy lips.

Garrick felt Mereidth’s warmth envelop his whole lower body, supporting his weight and caressing both his legs and erect dick. He began swaying his whole lower body in and out in a steady rhythm while still keeping his hands and mouth free to caress her clit. 

Meredith’s breathing got steadily heavier, turning to moans that ended in a minor squeal each time he reached a new depth inside her and nuzzled his tongue across her clit. His proportionally tiny body was able to provoke convulsions that shook Meredith’s whole body as her arousal grew to new heights. 

Garrick suffered a moment of vertigo as Meredith rolled onto her back, making it easier for him to bounce his whole body up and down and letting him sink all the way to his lower ribs. She nuzzled at his shoulders with her tongue, encouraging him to go deeper. If it was a choice between Meredith’s sharp toothed maw and her soft labia lips, Garrick chose the latter and pushed himself deeper.

Garrick prided himself on always having his partner climax first, but this was proving more of a struggle than he’d expected. It was like he was getting a full body massage as he was wrapped up inside her tender inner folds. His skin was slick with the oils of her pussy, and his ears heard only squelching as he thrust in and out. He wasn’t sure how actively involved he was anymore, with the pussy lips clenching and relaxing around him rhythmically and pushing him deeper all on their own, he felt more like a sex toy than a partner. Still, Garrick didn’t forget why he was here and took the opportunity to delve his whole body within her, ensuring an even coating of Meredith’s fluids over his skin. 

Eventually only Garrick’s arms were left dangling from outside her pussy lips. He gasped for breath each time his head briefly reappeared before being sucked back inside. His whole body felt the tightening depth of her inner canal, sliding him back and forth like he was caught in an intense whirlpool. It was all too much, he was overwhelmed by the physical sensations. His coherent thoughts were lost under an ocean of bliss… and he shot his seed. 

But while Garrick may have been done, Meredith wasn’t. She continued humping his limp body. His softening dick flapped up and down, flattened either against his thighs or lower belly depending upon whether he was being sucked deeper or pushed out by the muscular walls of her pussy. 

Meredith continued to use him as her fucktoy for another couple of minutes until she tilted her head up and screeched with ecstasy. The castle’s roosting birds set off in flight at a cry that shook the walls, squawking their displeasure at being disturbed. The cry echoed around the hallways, then gradually faded to leave the sound of Meredith’s heavy breathing. A wet squelch followed as Garrick’s limp form glided out her pussy lips and he slithered down the scales of her crotch to form a tangled heap on the floor. His artfully styled hair stuck to his damp body as his chest heaved and he too took deep breaths. He’d never experienced an orgasm like that.

He lay in a euphoric daze as something wrapped around his ankles, then began lifting his legs up. He squirmed as he was gradually inverted to hang from his feet. He looked up his shiny body to see Meredith’s tail wrapped tight around his ankles.

“And now for dessert…” murmured Meredith as she lifted Garrick above her head, then opened her maw wide.

Garrick let himself be fed into her maw while as limp as a wet noodle. His arms and chest brushed against her tongue as his shoulders slid down the ridges of her hard palate. Her mouth was a funnel that scooped up his loose arms and directed them to her gullet. The muscular ring at the back of her throat contracted around him, squeezing his shoulders, waist, and hips through. His flaccid dick slid over the soft rear of Meredith’s tongue, wiping him free of cum, and then onto the stiff muscle rings of her throat. His dick flopped between rings, and was then sandwiched against his upper thighs as he passed through each ring, each one marking his slow descent into Meredith’s belly. 

Garrick’s legs twitched as Meredith delicately closed her jaws around them. Her tongue lapped at the soles of his feet as she slurped them up,  encouraging them to join the rest of him. The outline of his thin frame bulged out Meredith’s long neck as she repeatedly swallowed, moving him down a forearm’s length each time, until finally he passed her collarbone and into the bulk of her chest.

The scales of her belly trembled as Garrick slid into her stomach and curled up. He wrinkled up his nose in disgust at the foul stench. He didn’t fear digestion, he knew he’d pass through her system unharmed given the protective nature of her carnal juices, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant to be amidst the half-digested remains of a stag. He tried to look at the upside, he’d have a fine ballad on his hands if he ever got back to civilization. Not many could boast of being eaten or fucking a dragon. Although after how he’d been manhandled by Meredith at every step of the way, he felt he’d more been fucked than been doing the fucking. Not that he was complaining, it made a welcome change to his boringly passive noble ladies who seemed to think expressing any hint of arousal was unladylike, even while their dresses were upended and they were being rammed from behind. Maybe he could get used to this…

—

From his hidden viewpoint, Esmond shook with exhaustion. His half-finished drawings of Garrick disappearing into Meredith’s pussy were splattered with cum. He’d barely caught sight of Garrick getting eaten, he’d been too exhausted. He felt like a week’s worth of cum had ejected his dick, and still it remained partially erect as if calling for another round. He’d never imagined such a thing were possible, both that a human man might make love to a dragoness, and that it’d serve as protection from digestion. 

His heart jumped a beat as he realised he could ask Garrick what it was like in Meredith’s belly in a couple of days, once he’d been expelled from the other end. No second guessing or wondering, he could finally hear about it for real, and Garrick was always so descriptive with his recollections. 

A second thought nearly caused his heart to explode. Maybe he didn’t need to rely on others to tell him what it was like? What if he could experience it himself… firsthand? He still had his birthday wish, and he finally knew what he wanted with it…

After he’d jerked himself raw for the fifth time, Esmond was finally able to think more clearly about his desires. He collected and stowed away his sketches of Meredith swallowing his friend Garrick as he thought it through. The fantasy of being swallowed by his dragoness mother still appealed to him, but dying in the process did not. He still had so much to live for, so much to see, so many women to fuck… or more specifically, any woman at all. 

While Esmond might be of age, he hadn’t yet lain with a woman, as Garrick had painfully pointed out. He wasn’t even sure what kind of woman he’d be into. Living in a remote abandoned castle with only his adoptive mother and whatever prey she might temporarily cage until she was next hungry didn’t exactly introduce him to a lot of maidens, who Meredith tended to eat immediately given their screeching. 

His hormones were at the point where he could be turned on by two shapely rocks stacked side by side. But there was more to his love for Meredith than mere lust, he cared for her deeply, and she for him. She was his mother, his guardian, but also maybe more? Disentangling his feelings from his horniness was proving to be difficult. 

He decided to at least await Garrick’s eventual fate before bringing up his birthday wish. It’d be rather embarrassing to tell Meredith of his desire to be eaten, only to discover the claimed protective property of her vaginal juices had been merely a ploy to make her meal complaint, and that Garrick was no more than dragon poop at this point. 

Esmond had been unable to put such thoughts out of mind ever since he’d spied Garrick being slurped between Meredith’s glistening lips. His usual source of advice on troubling matters, Meredith and Garrick, weren’t available. One was eaten, and the other would make him die of embarrassment. So after a long night of intermittent naps and masturbating, he’d come up with a dubious plan, born of disrupted sleep. He’d check for Garrick’s remains in the guard’s training ground, now repurposed as Meredith’s litter tray. The loose gravel was perfect for digging up, then depositing on the remains of her meals. 

So while Meredith was out hunting on this fine morning, Esmond had stuffed his nose with crushed herbs, changed into his tattiest pair of breeches, and found a rusty shovel in the storeroom. He stood at the edge of the training ground, with the warm sun on his skin, and overlooked the vast courtyard. The formerly smooth training ground had become an obstacle course of haphazard mounds, the result of more meals than Esmond could count.

At this point Esmond realised the first shortcoming in his plan. How was he to find the most recent deposit in all this pile? He could dig all day and not find it. He scratched his head as he contemplated this conundrum. His gaze idly followed the shadow of a passing bird which rose and fell over the mounds, but over one such mound he noticed a slight shimmer. He walked closer, with his bare feet crunching on the gravel, and realised the shimmer was heat. That mound was warm, which meant it was fresh!

Esmond grinned at his own cleverness as he strolled over then thrust the shovel into the mound. He started haphazardly tossing aside the gravel. It only took a couple of shovelfuls before he broke through the loose stones into something soft, with the sharp clang of dry gravel replaced by squelching. He pulled back the shovel to see the blade tip caked in black sludge, dragon poop! It was both a joyful and disgusting discovery, and he was glad for the stuffed herbs in his nose as he sank his shovel back in and splattered the nearby ground with fresh dung.

Amidst the dark and fibrous mass of digested refuse, the white of bone stood out starkly, and it didn’t take Esmond long to find some. He used the tip of the shovel to scrape the bone clean, over a forehead and… horns? This was a stag’s head, not Garrick. He resumed his search, digging out another three shovelfuls before he found a human looking skull.

This is where the second flaw in his plan came to the fore. He stared down at the skull with a furrowed brow. Was that Garrick? How could he tell? He prodded the skull with his shovel a couple of times, as if that might somehow induce the skull to speak and reveal its identity. It did not. 

Esmond thrust the shovel deep into the gravel and leaned atop it. He sighed. This plan wasn’t working.

Back towards the main keep, he faintly overhead birds squawking. Meredith was awake! He jumped to attention and swiftly shovelled some of the dung back into the hole he’d dug and covered it with a thin layer of stones. 

“Esssssssssmoooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnd,” came a powerful cry that could be heard throughout the castle grounds.

Esmond wiped his sweaty brow, laid down the shovel, and started a gentle jog back towards the main keep. He climbed through a wide breech in the inner walls, and between the trees that had made this spot their home, then through the doorway whose oak door hung lopsided on a single hinge.

“Esssssssssssmoooooooooooooo-”

“I’m here mom!” interrupted Esmond with a wave as he emerged into the once-grand entrance hall. Meredith’s long neck swivelled around to face him as she stood in the middle of the large space, large enough that even her immense bulk seemed comfortable here.

“Oh, there you are!” said Meredith with a cheerful smile. “Do you recall where your old clothes were, the ones you grew out of?”

“Err… I think they’re in your orange chest?” 

“Oh yes! I knew I wanted to keep them safe somewhere…” Meredith turned her bulk towards the treasure room and disappeared through the archway.

“What do you want them for anyway?” yelled Esmond in the direction of several thuds and clangs as Meredith thrust her nose through piles of golden coins. 

“Oh, um, well…” Meredith’s voice trailed off into an embarrassed cough, much to Esmond’s surprise. He hadn’t heard his mother react like this since he’d asked her how baby dragons were made. Meredith cleared her throat before continuing. “It’s… um, for Garrick.” 

Esmond’s heart leapt at the name, not only at the chance of a reunion with his friend, but what it proved about his undigested state. He was glad Meredith had her head buried in treasure as he didn’t think he could have hidden his exuberance. He struggled to speak in a vaguely disinterested even-tone. “Oh? Didn’t you… eat him?” 

“Well, yes, but, see… it’s very complicated!” Meredith pulled out the orange treasure chest with her teeth, muttering “Oh thank the heavens,” quietly to herself over such a swift find. She flipped open the lid and used her lips to tenderly lift one of Esmond’s old shirts and breeches from within. She cooed when she sniffed Esmond’s scent on the clothing. “Do ‘ou remem’er these? ‘ou were so cute!” she asked while keeping her lips pinched closed.

Esmond rolled his eyes. “They’re just old clothes ‘ma.”

“But ‘ey’re YOUR ol’ clothes, ‘hich makes them special” she replied warmly as she swung around and headed back towards the main hall. It was only as her tail disappeared around the corner that Esmond realised she hadn’t answered his question. He decided to follow her. He expected her to go in the direction of the courtyard, where he’d just left, but she headed in the opposite direction. His journey was harder than hers, for while she could climb over the battlements, he could not. He had to use his knowledge of the underground passageways to swiftly exit the castle. 

He sneaked around the perimeter to an open glade where a small pond and a couple of trees sat nestled in the shadow of the wall, with Meredith perched at the edge of the water. This was a familiar spot for Esmond, he bathed here after long summer days, but what was unfamiliar was the large lump of steaming dragon dung at the edge of the forest. Esmond peered at it from a distance, excitedly wondering if he’d see an arm or head emerge from the gunk… 

The pond splashed, and out came a nude Garrick. He shuddered, shaking off the cold pond water as Meredith dropped Esmond’s old clothes on the grass in front of him. He grunted his thanks, then got dressed. 

Esmond waited for Garrick to finish before approaching. A smile stretched from ear to ear as he saw Garrick’s thin wrists and ankles poke out the clothing. Gone were Garrick’s fine silks,  the faint scent of expensive cologne, and his sophisticated allure. Instead he looked like a down-on-his-luck peasant, and Esmond couldn’t hold back a deep laugh. 

Garrick scowled in his direction, then cracked a half-smile, unable to resist the infectious laughter. He performed a half-bow, “the kingdom’s premier bard, at your service.”

Meredith beamed a toothy smile as she looked down on the two men. “See, good as new, just as I promised.”

Garrick looked over his figure, making sure everything was present. He flexed his slender fingers as if strumming an invisible instrument, ensuring he retained the dexterity required of his trade. He took a deep breath, tilted his head back, and sang an upbeat tune. He steadily rose his pitch, getting ever higher, before breaking into a coughing fit. 

“Your voice might take a day to recover…” said Meredith. 

Garrick nodded, he wasn’t unfamiliar with having a hoarse voice. He just wondered whether it was a result of the pre-devouring sex or passing through Meredith’s digestive tract. Both had evoked many groans and grunts from him.

Garrick looked across to Esmond. “I told you I’d see you soon,” he said with a wink.

Esmond bit his tongue to hold back the torrent of questions he had, instead just nodding an acknowledgement.

“So, what now?” asked Garrick. 

Meredith pursed her lips as she thought about it for a moment. It seemed rude to put Garrick back in a cage to await the next time she was hungry. Besides, she had *other* uses for him now. “Esmond… could you find your friend a decent bedchamber?”

Esmond’s mouth dropped open in surprise. He’d never had a request like this from her. Meredith saw humans as merely food, excluding himself. He was excited to have his friend back and to hear the details of his time within Meredith, but a sudden ache clutched his heart, an ache he was completely unfamiliar with. But seeing both Meredith and Garrick watching him expectantly, he silently nodded and turned away, hiding his pained wince. 

Esmond started walking back to the castle, not checking whether Garrick was following. It was only the rattle of stones and occasional curse as Garrick nearly lost his footing that confirmed he was being followed.

“Ah I’ll never complain about the skies again, rain or shine, it’s good to be free,” remarked Garrick loudly, seemingly in a cheerful mood. He waited for a response that didn’t come. “What a ballad that’ll make…” he added, and again waited for Esmond to respond.

“Mind your head,” murmured Esmond as they passed under a low-hanging archway.

There was a thunk behind him. “God damn it!” cried Garrick.

Esmond cracked a hidden smile, but it swiftly faded. It felt there was a void in his chest that sucked all the joy out of him, and he couldn’t understand why. He continued leading Garrick deeper into the castle, heading up a staircase into the keep, and on to one of the queen’s maid-in-waiting rooms. It was dusty, with cobwebs coating every surface and nibbled holes in the bed sheets, but with a little effort it’d be serviceable.

Esmond waited at the doorway while Garrick passed him. Garrick looked around, then kicked the closet. A small mouse scurried out from underneath and if Garrick were wearing shoes he’d have leapt out of them. The movement stirred up the dust, and Garrick sneezed. He sniffed, then brought his nose to his armpit and sniffed again. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get that stink off me…” He turned to Esmond, then looked puzzled as he eyed Esmond’s nose. He leaned closer, spotting the herb stems poking out from Esmond’s nostrils. “Oh, do I smell that bad?”

Esmond spun around, hiding an embarrassed blush. He didn’t want to admit why he had the crushed herbs up his nose. “Dinner will be at sundown,” he said over his shoulder before heading back down the staircase. 

“You’re not going to ask me about it…?” came Garrick’s lilting voice, teasing Esmond with knowledge he knew Esmond dearly wanted to know.

Esmond ignored him and continued walking. He didn’t have a destination in mind, he just wanted to be alone, with space to understand what he was feeling. He found a spot in one of the towers. He sat on the windowsill overlooking the forest, kicking his legs in the wind. He replayed the scene by the pool again and again, pinning down the exact moment his excitement turned to ash. It was seeing the expression on Meredith’s face as she decided what to do with Garrick. It wasn’t the usual nonchalant tone she had when talking of her future meals. Garrick had become something more than that.

Esmond hadn’t realised how special Meredith made him feel until he was no longer unique. The way she looked at him was unlike any other human. This had been his norm. Their world of two was only ever temporarily intruded by those soon to be digested, but with Garrick everything felt different. Was Garrick going to stay around now? Was he going to be Meredith’s favourite?

The ache in Esmond’s chest got sharper. He wiped a small tear from his cheek and climbed back into the tower. Maybe he could fill this emotional void with food. He headed back down to the main entrance hall and stoked the small campfire he had set up in the corner. He overheard Meredith’s snores from the adjacent chapel as she took a midday nap. He fed the fire a few logs, then popped into the pantry for some potatoes and onions, hearty vegetables to fill his stomach. He chopped them up and dropped them into a pot that he hung over the flames. He then sat in silence, watching the fire as he waited for the vegetables to cook.

A tendril of smoke drifted off and seemed to rouse Meredith, for the ground shuddered as she stretched her bulky form, then strolled on all four limbs into the entrance hall.

“How are you doing, my darling?” she asked as she dropped down lazily in the middle of the hall, with her long neck resting atop a claw.

Esmond shrugged. 

“Are you still feeling sleepy? You looked tired this morning,” she said. “Are those birds making too much noise again? Want me to chase them away?”

“I’m fine…” muttered Esmond while keeping his eyes on the bubbling pot.

“Maybe I could get you some additional furs for your bed? Make it a bit softer?”

“I said I’m FINE,” shot back Esmond angrily.

Meredith winced and went silent. She hadn’t much experience in raising children, but she considered the most important criteria in a parent to be patience, so she settled her head down alongside Esmond. Not saying anything, just letting him know she was there if he wanted to talk.

After a few minutes, Esmond was ready to talk. “So, Garrick… is he…?”

“Mhmm?” Meredith raised an eyebrow as she looked at her adopted son. Was this what his mood was about? Change was always hard, especially on those unused to it. She took a few moments to compose her thoughts. “I’m not sure what his role here is yet,” she said, deciding it was best to be honest. “I thought you’d be happy to have your friend back?”

Esmond shrugged. “I thought so too, but…”

“Is that lunch I smell?” came Garrick’s cheerful voice as he strutted into the hall. He yawned and stretched his arms high, seemingly still enjoying the freedom of being outside Meredith’s gut. He walked over to the campfire and sat down on the opposite side.

“Nice day, got to love those blue skies,” said Garrick, breaking the silence while glancing up through the ruined roof.

Esmond ladled out some of the soup into a wooden bowl and passed it to Garrick without comment. Meredith glanced back and forth between them, noticing Esmond’s inward hunched shoulders and his unusual silence. This wasn’t the loveable and friendly boy she’d raised, something was up. She’d thought he’d be happy to see his friend again, the two of them had seemed to get along, it was partially why she’d acceded to Garrick’s offer. She considered what to do. Her normal response would be to nuzzle her lips against him, tickle him with her tongue, and perhaps take a nap together. But she didn’t think that’d work now, not in front of someone Esmond respected as an adult. She reminded herself that Esmond was a man now, with a man’s pride. 

“This is really good, did you add some herbs to it?” asked Garrick. Esmond shrugged. “Not the ones from your nose I hope?” Garrick’s jest didn’t evoke so much as a twitch of a smile. 

Meredith wondered if she should say something, but would highlighting the awkwardness only amplify it? After thinking about it more, she decided to have faith in Esmond. “I think…” she murmured, before looking up to the sky. “I’ll take a little flight to stretch my muscles. You boys be good now.” She stretched her wings wide and pumped them down, smothering the campfire to near embers and knocking both men with loose stone fragments as she leapt up and took flight, leaving Esmond to deal with this himself.

Both men coughed as the dust settled around them, blinking as Meredith’s shadow passed overhead and disappeared. Esmond poked the campfire with a twig, reviving the flames. “I hate when she does that…” he muttered. 

Garrick laughed as he picked out a few stone specks from inside his soup bowl. “You’d think a race so attuned to the air realm would be more aware of the gust their wings create.” 

“Keeping a campfire going isn’t something dragons are used to worrying about, it’s not like she cooks her food.”

“Luckily for me…” replied Garrick. 

Esmond snorted, then looked away. Silence returned between them, but it was a more relaxed atmosphere than before. Garrick finished his stew before speaking again. 

“So, aren’t you going to ask me about it?”

Esmond tightened his grip on his spoon, but didn’t say anything. 

“It’s quite the tale, although my ballads might skip over the… method of departure.” Garrick sniffed his chest again, unsure whether the faint lingering odour was on his body or just in his head. 

Esmond burst into laughter as he felt a little less jealous. “I went looking for you in the latrine.” He blew his nose, dislodging the scrunched up herbs and splattering them onto the stone floor. He grabbed a nearby rag from under a pile of wreckage and wiped his lower legs, which were speckled with dragon dung, and were what Garrick had been smelling.

“Meredith was kind enough not to deposit me there, like a…”

“Pile of shit?” suggested Esmond with a grin.

Garrick coughed. “That wouldn’t have been my phrasing, but yes. So… what would you have done if you’d found my bones?”

Esmond shrugged. “Left them there. There’s plenty of others.”

“Oh…” Garrick looked a little deflated by that answer, seemingly not what he expected. He’d imagined his bones being carefully collected to be placed in a memorial casket, buried in a catacombs beneath the castle, perhaps in a tomb once planned for the king. Being left in a stack of dung with dozens of other skeletons wasn’t quite the legacy he’d had in mind. Garrick cleared his throat and tried to regain his dignity. He gave a sly smile Esmond’s way. “Aren’t you curious how I survived?”

Esmond buried his face in his bowl, hiding his blushing cheeks, but Garrick wasn’t fooled.

“You knew already?” said Garrick in surprise. “I wish you’d told me beforehand, I thought I was doomed when you led me to her!”

“I didn’t know…” murmured Esmond.

“Then how…?” Garrick looked back with a puzzled expression until Esmond tried to burrow his head  deeper into his bowl, like he could sink his embarrassment in stew. “OH!!!” cried Garrick, rocking backwards as he let out a belly-laugh. “YOU SAW!?!” 

Esmond’s silence was all the confirmation Garrick needed. 

“You sly little rascal,” teased Garrick. “You like to watch huh?”

Esmond slowly lowered his bowl but kept his gaze on his feet. “Please don’t tell Ma’.”

Garrick’s smile widened as he considered what he could do with this information. He didn’t only have some small leverage with Meredith, he now also had leverage with Esmond. He tapped his chin as he thought about it, before settling on a strategy. 

“Of course my boy, your secret’s safe with me!” said Garrick with renewed confidence. “So you like watching? There’s no shame in that, I too used to peek through the cracks in the wall of the local brothel before I was a man.”

Esmond noticed the dig at not being a man, but stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt Garrick. 

“It was truly a remarkable experience I must say. I tamed the dragoness’ lust, then went calmly into her belly, confident in the protective properties of her aroused excretions.” In truth, Garrick had been terrified and would have screamed as he was swallowed if he hadn’t been utterly exhausted from being rolled around within Meredith’s pussy like a dog with a rag toy. “It’s no small feat to pleasure a dragoness, but with my prowess, there wasn’t really any doubt in my success.” In reality, Garrick’s carnal contribution had consisted of lying limp as Meredith used him as a living dildo.

Esmond grew increasingly agitated as he listened to Garrick recall the events which had so enraptured his thoughts these past two days. He both wanted to hear more, but it also hurt to hear all this happen with someone else. He didn’t want Garrick to be close with Meredith. All other humans were meant to be food to her, only Esmond was meant to be special. 

“...it was a tight squeeze through to her second stomach, almost as tight as her pussy had been…” continued Garrick, but Esmond had stopped listening. He was too caught up in his own thoughts and rising anger. He grit his teeth and clenched his fists. Even a performer as self-involved as Garrick could tell when he was losing his audience, and his monologue petered out into silence. Esmond slowly rose to his feet, turned around, and walked away.

“Was it something I said…?” teased Garrick. His voice bounced off Esmond’s back as he marched out. 

---

Esmond headed to the one place he knew was still his alone, where he wouldn’t be disturbed. He took a more roundabout route to the spiral staircase, avoiding the hole in the hall which Garrick would have seen him enter, and instead entered from the other side. He climbed up into the royal bedroom, pushed aside the wardrobe, and entered the shoe closet hidden behind. The cosy interior retained a musky air from his earlier activities. 

He opened up the chest of drawers and took out his recent sketches of Garrick being eaten. He sat on his knees and laid them on the floor around him in a half-circle. A couple had damp splotches, but were otherwise quite well drawn. He’d developed a decent artistic talent with his highly motivated experience.

He pulled down the front of his breeches, gripped his flaccid cock, and began angrily jerking himself off. His breathing quickened as he went on, with his hand moving faster and his grip tightening. He looked down on the drawings and recalled the moment he’d seen them happen for real, with Garrick’s limp body hanging from Meredith’s tail as she lowered him into her open maw. He recalled how excited he was, seeing his friend become mere dragoness-chow. 

His fist got tighter, and tighter. 

It wasn’t working.

Esmond looked down at his dick lying limp in his hand like a dead snake with disappointment. Was his secret indulgence to be taken from him too? Was Garrick going to take his fantasy in the same way he’d taken his mother’s affection? He reached down and grabbed the sketches in both hands, then crumpled them up and threw them against the wall. He then bent over, lowering his forehead to the carpet, and punched the carpet. 

Again. 

And again. 

He let out his frustration through his fists, but at the end he only felt hollow and unsatisfied. He sat back up and picked up the crumpled paper, carefully unfurling them and flattening them on the floor. As he did so, he inadvertently smudged some of the linework, smearing Garrick’s exhausted looking face. 

Esmond immediately pulled another drawer and took out his stick of charcoal. He prepared to fill in the smudge while the memory was fresh, but his hand paused just above the paper as an idea came to mind. A few moments later, the light scratching of charcoal on paper filled the quiet space. It started slow, timid, but it gradually gained strength. The scratches became louder as Esmond grew bolder with drawing. He wasn’t filling in the smudged lines, he was changing them. Gone was Garrick’s long hair and slender face, replaced by Esmond’s shorter hair and rounder features. Garrick’s slim body was replaced by Esmond’s stockier figure. 

Beneath Esmond, untouched, his dick was surging to life. It grew hard and trembled in the air as he finished the revisions, with the new art depicting himself being eaten by Meredith. By the time he was done drawing, he barely had to touch his cock before it exploded its seed across the arrayed sketches. 

Esmond frantically grabbed a rag and dabbed at the drawings, removing the cum stains and preserving his altered art. He sat upright when he was done, feeling resolved. Yes, this is what he wanted, and nothing was going to get in his way.

---

Esmond’s resolve lasted as long as his march to the chapel, where Meredith normally slumbered. He gazed upon an empty room, he’d forgotten she’d gone out for a flight. He clambered onto the stone altar, brushed off some of the dead leaves, and sat down to wait.

His enthusiasm faded in the face of boredom. He kicked his legs against the altar and leaned back, gazing through the enormous hole in the roof to the blue skies above, and wondered what it’d be like to fly. To be able to go anywhere he wanted, to be able to travel further in an hour than he’d ever been in his whole life, it was both exciting and terrifying. There was a whole world out there to explore, but it was also a dangerous world full of folk who’d betray him. While he’d never spoken of it openly, a part of him had never forgotten his birth mother and the impossible task she’d set him upon. He wanted to believe in her, that it had been a true quest, but a whisper in the back of his mind told him otherwise. It wasn’t something he liked to think about. He’d always felt safe here under Meredith’s wing, and he didn’t want to go anywhere that Meredith was not.

Almost as if his thoughts had summoned her, Meredith’s silhouette blocked out the sun as she flew overhead, her immense bulk easily engulfing Esmond in shadow. It was a body so much larger than his, a body that could encompass him whole, and in thought Esmond regained a little of the enthusiasm he’d lost.

Meredith circled around the chapel with her wings fully extended as she gradually descended, then flapped a couple of times as she approached the ground, blasting Esmond with powerful gusts of debris and nearly toppling him off the altar. The ground trembled as Meredith landed and she folded up her wings, then circled around like a cat making a bed.

“Oh, hello sweetie!” she said after spying Esmond’s dusty body alongside her.

Esmond coughed before replying, clearing the last of the dust from his lungs. “Hi Ma’, did you have a nice flight?” 

Meredith nodded. “It was nice to stretch the wings.” She cleared her throat before ending the friendly chit chat to broach a more serious topic. “So, have things been alright here… with Garrick?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about!” replied Esmond with growing strength. “I want…” He choked before he could say it. 

“Want what?” 

Esmond took a deep breath… “TO BE EATEN!”

Meredith jerked her head back, like she was afraid to have her maw anywhere close to Esmond. “W-what?”

“I’m completely serious. I really want to be eaten! Not… digested, just eaten.” Esmond looked up at Meredith with the same pleading eyes he’d once used to ask for honey-sweetened pastries.

“Is this some kind of game, or… are you jealous of Garrick?” She took a deep breath and cracked a smile. “Don’t worry sweetie, he could never replace you in my heart!” This would be so much easier if they were hatchlings, thought Meredith. They’d perform some aerial acrobatics, carefully nipping at each other’s wings in a manner that would disrupt their flight but cause no injury, letting the shame of a wobbly descent determine their new hierarchy without any of this troublesome emotional rivalry. “I know it’s rather strange having someone new here, but that doesn’t change what we have…”

“No Ma’, you don’t understand, I’ve always wanted this! I’ve always wanted… to be closer to you.” Esmond blushed and was unable to hold his pleading gaze up at Meredith.

Meredith unfurled one wing and stepped forward, carefully raising it around Esmond like a cocoon, shutting off the outside world so it was only the two of them. “You’re already close to me Esmond,” she cooed. “You’re my dear little foundling. There isn’t anything else in this world I love more.” 

“But… I want more. I want to be inside you.” Esmond kept his gaze on the scales over Meredith’s belly as he spoke, unable to look her in the eye and see that motherly warmth.

“But I can’t eat you, if I ate you then you’d die, and I could never allow that.” murmured Meredith softly, as if explaining a simple matter to a child.

“But Garrick didn’t die!”

“Ah, well…” It was Meredith’s turn to look away from Esmond. “That was a special case.”

“Aren’t I special enough to be a special case too?”

Meredith shifted uncomfortably as her cocooning wing inadvertently rubbed Esmond against her belly. “That’s different. What happened with Garrick… it isn’t something mothers and hatchlings do together.”

“But I want to be more than a hatchling to you! I love you Ma’!” cried Esmond, with his voice turning hoarse from the intense emotional strain.

“I love you too.” replied Meredith. She felt warmth flood through her body and she snuggled more with Esmond. 

“If you love me, then please eat me!” Esmond wrapped his arms around Meredith’s belly and pressed himself against it, with his hardening dick rubbing over the scales through his breeches. Deep down he knew it was wrong to hang such a request on Meredith’s love, but his hormones had taken control.

“But, the process… it’s… very intimate.” explained Meredith while shifting uncomfortably, and inadvertently rubbing her scales across Esmond’s dick. 

“But you love me, and I love you,” pleaded Esmond. 

“It’s… a different kind of love.”

“Please Ma’, didn’t you say I could wish for anything? My special birthday wish? I only got to turn eighteen once, it’s a once in a lifetime wish!” 

Meredith went quiet for a few moments as she thought about it. She’d initially believed Esmond didn’t truly know what he was asking for, that he was oblivious to the sexual nature of the act, but as she breathed in she detected the arousal of a human male, and she realised she’d been wrong. She’d still seen him as the little lost boy she’d found in the woods, but he was no longer that child. He was a man, a man who loved her as more than just a mother. She wasn’t sure where this would lead, how this might change things between them, but a part of her was excited to become emotionally closer to her little Esmond. 

“Ok,” she whispered. “But give me a little time to prepare. Meet me in my dining space this evening.”

On hearing those words, Esmond’s dick excitedly spurted its sticky seed into his breeches, but he barely noticed. He was running the same words through his head again, making sure he hadn’t misunderstood. “... really?”

Meredith chuckled, making her belly shake and nearly pinching Esmond’s dick between a pair of scales. “Yes, really. But I really must get ready first.” She unfurled her wing from around Esmond, with a rush of cool outside air washing away the musky air the pair had been cocooned within. She pulled her bulk away from Esmond, spread her wings, and took flight. 

Esmond gazed up in awe at the sight of her enormous figure eclipsing the sky above him, knowing that soon he’d be a part of that bulk. 

---

The next few hours felt like drifting through a dream for Esmond, where the material world around him didn’t seem solid, and he could only think about what was coming this evening. He desperately wanted to rush to his secret place and jerk himself until his dick was raw, but that seemed a waste. He wanted as much energy for this as possible, so he resisted touching himself and instead sat on the battlements to gaze across the forest, watching the sun slowly arc across the sky.

The world seemed so peaceful from here, but beneath that canopy of gently swaying leaves he knew it was a warzone of predator against prey. Countless animals were being devoured right this very moment, and soon he’d be among them.

Back in the main castle Garrick had nearly gotten lost searching for his former home, the cage in the pantry, to collect his lyre. After collecting it, with a shudder at the steel bars that could still so easily cage him, he returned to the main hall. He spent the afternoon sitting cross-legged while restringing it, then tuning it, and he was just practising his first tunes when Meredith returned. She gave him a guilty look as she passed him, which Garrick initially mistook as a commentary on his playing. His fingers were still a little rusty, having been locked up for a couple of weeks, but he was sure they’d soon revive their nimble talents. These fingers made him a favourite of the ladies of the court, but he wasn’t sure they’d make much of a difference to Meredith who needed an oar handle rather than a delicate finger brushing against her inner petals.

He put aside the lyre with a wry grin as he watched her approach the dining hall, expecting to be called inwards, but she closed the doors behind her with a flick of her tail. Maybe she needed to freshen up first? Do dragonesses freshen up? Garrick assumed there wasn’t much in the way of makeup for dragons. He returned to playing his lyre, picking a romantic ballad he’d composed to woo a princess. Or at least that’s what he told folk, the princess had actually been a merchant’s wife who was exceedingly generous with her material show of affection. He plucked at the chords and tilted his face to the sky, letting his voice echo through the desolate castle.

On the other side of the wall, Meredith was warming herself up for Esmond. She found a broadsword among the piles of knightly equipment, settled herself down on her side, raised her hind legs, and rubbed pommel down the length of her crotch. The bulbous tip pried between the layers of scales to the soft innards within, splitting them to slide through the pliant inner folds. 

It was too embarrassing to think of Esmond down there, touching her, so she imagined it was a burly, muscular knight in full plate armour. She moaned as the sword pommel did its work, teasing her sensitive inner petals. She felt every speck of rust on the handle, each ridge of the leather grip, and the exact curve of the protruding hand guard. It wasn’t enough to satisfy her, but it was enough to slather the sword in her juices and keep her on edge, awaiting her knight in shining armour…

---

Esmond picked his nose and flicked the snot flying from the battlements. Looking across the forest landscape at the sun low in the sky, he saw it was nearly evening. Was Meredith going to be picky about exactly when he turned up? He didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise this. He knew he was asking a lot of her, and the more he thought about it the more impossible it seemed that she’d agreed. Was this really going to happen? Maybe she’d flown off for good? Maybe she preferred Garrick?

He picked up a nearby rock and flung it towards the nearest tree, letting out his rising frustration. It hit with a satisfying crunch. This was it. This was his moment. He got to his feet, turned around, and started heading back towards the main keep. He wasn’t going to think about it anymore, he was just going to act.

He rushed down the battlement steps two at a time and navigated through the uneven courtyard, passing the heaped remains of Meredith’s past meals. As he approached the castle, he overheard a surprisingly rhythmic birdsong. As he got closer he realised it was music, not birdsong, and his mood sourced. 

He entered the entrance hallway to see Garrick sitting alone by the campfire, strumming a merry tune. Garrick acknowledged him with a nod of the head, but didn’t stop playing. Esmond’s annoyance faded as he came closer and got carried away on the rising notes, with the music filling him with resolve. Garrick’s vocals were too high for Esmond to catch every word, but the passion Garrick put into them was unmistakable. 

Esmond came to a slow halt. His foot began tapping in tune to the song as he watched Garrick lovingly stroke the lyre’s strings and seemingly give voice to his soul through his vocals. This was Garrick’s true love. He may play with fancy ladies and the occasional lord, but Garrick’s heart was already wed to his music.

Esmond left Garrick making love to his lyre to seek the love of his own life. He rapped his knuckles on the oak door leading to the guard’s dining hall, a.k.a. Meredith’s feeding room. His doubts about whether Meredith would be there had drifted off to the heavens on the backs of musical notes. 

“Oh! Esmond?” came Meredith’s muffled reply from the other side of the door. 

Esmond opened his mouth to reply but paused. With Garrick’s ballad in his ears, he felt like he should be introducing himself as a prince seeking his princess. He shook his head. “It’s me, Esmond,” he replied. He was who he was, someone who loved his dragoness, and who he hoped loved him. That should be enough, fairytales be damned.

“Just give me a moment…” came Meredith’s voice, followed by a rumble as her bulk shifted. “Come in…”

Esmond pushed on the door long forbidden to him, yet the object of his equally long desire. It opened. He stepped within and closed it behind him. He wasn’t sure if the door had muffled Garrick’s playing or if Garric had slowed his playing in surprise.

Esmond stood within a channel between discarded armour and upended tables and chairs, two rows leading inwards to where Meredith lay sprawled out on her side. Her tail looped around the cleared space then rose over her wide hips, dipped along her pudgy belly that sagged onto the cobblestones, leaving the tip flicking her shapely bust. He’d seen her like this many times before from his hidden vantage spot, but it was a completely different experience spying her majestic figure from a hidden angle compared with approaching her head-on. Her long neck supported her fawn-shaped head as it turned to look down at him.

“Come closer…” murmured Meredith, making Esmond shiver with a mix of fear and excitement. These were words he’d heard her tell many of her meals, sometimes the last words they ever heard before they were devoured. His legs trembled as he stepped forward. He was so intent on looking up at Meredith he nearly tripped on an uneven cobblestone. 

Meredith’s head lurched forward, her eyes widening in worry before he righted himself. “Are you ok?” she asked anxiously. 

Esmond couldn’t help but laugh, breaking the serious atmosphere. Meredith’s lips curled as she enjoyed his merriment.

“I’m ok,” he said, wiping away an amused tear from his cheek. This wasn’t how he’d imagined things going. 

Meredith waited for the laughter to die down and for her smile to straighten before responding. “Esmond, I’m going to ask you one last time. Are you sure you want this?”

Esmond nodded. He’d never been sure of anything in his life. 

“Ok, for your birthday wish, I will grant this. I will… take you inside me.” She couldn’t voice the word “eat” which sounded so final. “But! I have one condition…” Her tail lifted off the ground, and from the tip hung a black cloth. “You’ll wear a blindfold while I… prepare you.”

Esmond swallowed his disappointment. He wanted to see everything, but he also didn’t want to risk Meredith saying no, so he took the blindfold and tied it on. He instantly realised he’d been wrong to doubt the blindfold as it heightened all his other senses. He could hear the soft creak of Meredith’s scales as she shifted her position, raising her hind legs to show the rosy-pink split down the middle, with her pussy already dripping in anticipation after her warm up session. He could clearly imagine it, having seen it from a distance so many times before.

“First, we need to undress you. We don’t want your clothes to dissolve do we?” teased Meredith, using the same tone she’d taken when he was a child and pointing out which parts of the castle were unsafe to explore.

Even blindfolded, it only took Esmond mere moments to untie the rope serving as a belt and let his breeches slump down his legs. Being blind helped him forget he was now nude in front of his adoptive mother, with his hardening dick swinging between his thighs. 

Meredith’s tail twitched forward then stopped as Esmond stepped out of his breeches. She was used to undressing her meals manually and this was a surprise, not only in having a willing meal, but in Esmond’s physique. A part of her had still visualised Esmond as her little boy, but that was not a little boy’s dick. She rarely got to see them engorge like this, knights and princes were normally too angry or terrified to have much of an aroused response. She brought her head in closer, with her split tongue tasting the air around Esmond, flicking a mere hand’s width from his crotch. She couldn’t yet bring herself to taste Esmond properly, but she could detect his sexual scent in the air.

Esmond’s dick twitched upwards, barely missing Meredith’s tongue by a hair’s breadth before she instinctively pulled back. Her natural reaction to a meal’s movements was to that of an attack, rarely did her meals want to be eaten. After a moment, she relaxed neck muscles she hadn’t realised were tense as she leaned back in and lightly wrapped the tip of her tongue over the head of Esmond’s manhood. It jerked in her grip and Esmond gasped, but he didn’t move away, he let her taste him. Her tongue was enormously larger than his dick and she had to be careful, as each lick tended to bat it from one side to another. She curled her tongue back on itself, sandwiching the erect cock inside, allowing her to more thoroughly taste it. 

Esmond shivered as he felt the shaft of his cock cocooned by a slippery eel-like substance. It was as warm as summer sunlight and as wet as a ripe fruit. He wracked his mind, trying to determine what it was. It was soft and pliant, not like Meredith’s scales, so was this… her tongue? Was she going to eat him immediately? Maybe she wouldn’t bother with the protective coating, maybe she was going to digest him for real? He shuddered in excitement at the thought of becoming one with his beloved mother.

Meredith unfurled her tongue from around Esmond’s dick, leaving it standing lonely while drenched with drool. 

“Next, we need to protect your sensitive skin so you aren’t harmed in my belly,” said Meredith in a huskier tone. The dick licking had excited her more than she’d expected it to. It was surprisingly nice to have a prey that responded so positively to her touch, that wanted her. Dragons were possessive by nature and relationships between them rarely stayed equal, so emotional bonds were rare. It made her connection with Esmond special. 

Her tail curled up behind Esmond, then lifted up like a snake, with the tip nudging his butt to move him forward. Esmond didn’t need to be told twice, he raised his arms and started taking small steps closer to her. Meredith would lightly flick him with her tail on either side of his butt if he strayed in the wrong direction, ensuring he approached her spread hind legs. She raised her head up further to peer down at him, over her belly, as he passed her folded knees and came tantalising close to her crotch.

Esmond’s bare foot caught on a gap in the stones and he stumbled forward. Meredith nearly squealed and had to bite her lower lip as his outstretched arms fell against her pussy and split the outer scales apart. Esmond sank all the way to his elbows, enveloped by the twin flesh mounds of her inner labia lips while his face splodged against her clit, making her whole body shudder in pleasure. 

Esmond would have been entirely oblivious as to what he’d fallen against if not for his secret observations. Even without any prodding from Meredith’s tail, he leaned forward, with his chest pressing against the small scales of her outer labia while his arms and head explored the warm cavern within. He breathed in deeply, with his nostrils filling with Meredith’s private floral scent, a scent very few ever got the pleasure of enjoying. 

“Now… turn… around,” said Meredith between gasps. “Cover… yourself… with… the… fluid.”

Esmond was reluctant to move as he’d just shuffled close enough for his dick to barely brush against the underside of her pussy. If he just lifted up his knee he knew he could crawl inside and be fully cocooned within Meredith’s birth canal. 

Meredith’s hind legs juddered as she resisted the urge to close them around the intruder and locking Esmond against her pussy. Instead, she used the tip of her tail to thwack Esmond’s butt, making Esmond jump which in turn made her judder even more. “C-concentrate… Esmond! … Now… spin… around.”

Esmond shuffled on one spot, slowly turning his figure and pressing each part of his body in turn  against Meredith’s pussy entrance. It felt like rubbing against silk, as each roll of her folds had its turn swishing over his nude body. 

Meredith struggled to stifle her reaction to his wide shoulders, which opened her up as much as an engorged dragon cock would. She tilted her head up as she panted heavily and tried to remind herself that this was Esmond, not a sex-toy, and she couldn’t just push him inside her. 

After a couple of minutes, Esmond’s whole torso and head was glistening with pussy juice, and it dribbled down to cover his legs. He’d been fully coated for a while, but neither he nor Meredith were in any hurry to proceed past this. Both mother and son were left in a pent-up state, neither quite willing to take the final step they both wanted and indulge their carnal satisfaction.

“I… think… that’s… enough,” whined Meredith. 

Esmond stepped back from Meredith’s pussy lips with a wet squelch as her labia lips peeled off his sticky body. His bare feet left damp footprints on the cobblestones. He wished he could have seen her rosy-pink inner lips close up, but being blindfolded had made him all the more aware of how they felt and smelt. Besides he’d already seen them from afar, and having his head wedged between pairs of thick labia folds wouldn’t have left him able to see much anyway. 

Esmond heard a series of soft clacks as Meredith shifted position, with the shifting scales sounding like rain on glass as they rubbed up against one another. With his skin now damp, he felt the faint breeze her movement caused, making his cock twitch like a divining rod in her direction. He was intensely curious about what was happening, but stood still like a good boy. 

“Take off the blindfold,” came Meredith’s whisper, softer, and much closer than before. As she spoke, warm, humid air brushed over him. 

Esmond eagerly reached up and tugged the sodden blindfolded off. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the bright overhead light and the tunnel looming in front of him. Wait, no, that wasn’t a tunnel! He was gazing into the fleshy maw of Meredith, who had lowered her head down to his height and opened her mouth wide a mere arm’s reach in front of him. He looked down twin pairs of blunted teeth, each one the length of his forearm, with them serving like arrows to where he should go. The ribbed roof of her mouth got gradually narrower deeper in her mouth, ending in a dark hole the width of his shoulders. Every part of her mouth glistened with drool and shifted as he watched, every part was alive, every part a piece of Meredith.   

Meredith’s tongue flicked up to tickle his outstretched dick. “Wh’ don’t ‘ou crawl in?” she teased, with her words slurring as she kept her mouth open. Esmond saw the back of her throat flexing to pronounce each word, like he was being called from deeper within.

Esmond reached forward to lay his hand further up Meredith’s tongue, then paused. This felt like a dream come true and he was scared if he touched it then he’d wake up. The tip of Meredith’s tongue curled around his dick and squeezed, lightly tugging him forward like a leash. This definitely wasn’t a dream. He leaned in. His head passed under her upper teeth, obscuring the sunlight overhead. He laid his hands down on either side of her tongue. It was slippery, but he was able to grip her gums as he brought up his knee and laid it down against the inside face of her front teeth.

Meredith’s tongue tip moved back with him as he crawled within, keeping its grip around his dick. The undulations in her tongue’s licks caused alternating squeezes around his shaft, like he was pounding a virgin pussy, and he struggled to concentrate on where his limbs went. He lifted up his rear foot from the cobblestones and realised he was now completely supported by Meredith’s maw.

With Esmond safely inside her mouth, Meredith gradually closed her upper jaw so her teeth formed a cage around him. She raised her head to a more comfortable height as she felt him wriggle within, while continuing to caress his dick with her tongue. She wasn’t ready to swallow yet, she wanted him to finish first. 

Esmond gasped as he felt the continued squeezing around his dick tighten. It felt like the head of his cock might pop off under the slippery pressure on his shaft. Meredith’s tongue was in constant motion, simultaneously rubbing the entire length of his cock and balls. He told himself he couldn’t cum in his mother’s mouth, but he didn’t have much choice about it. He lay down on Meredith’s tongue, straddling the slippery mass, with his head peeking down the back of her throat as his shoulders nudged the back of her throat. His thighs wrapped around the tongue curled up around his dick, squeezing it just like it squeezed him.

Meredith’s hot breath rushed over his skin as she panted, and he could tell she was as excited as he was for him to cum. He was completely at her mercy, and if she wanted him to cum then he was going to cum. His cock juddered, then shot its sticky seed onto Meredith’s tongue. The whole maw tightened around him as Meredith swallowed, but his shoulders remained lodged against the back of her throat, unable to proceed. She was only tasting his cum. From the subtle moan he heard coming up her throat, she liked it.

Meredith had tried to hide her excitement, but with Esmond this deep in her mouth, he could feel every twitch and tremor in her. She enjoyed his salty flavouring, but now it was time for the main course. She slowly tilted her head back and loosened her tongue’s grip around Esmond’s dick, letting him slide down the back of her tongue and into the tight confines of her oesophagus. It was a tight fit, with Esmond’s shoulders pushing through each ring of muscles as he descended her long neck. It got steeper as he got deeper, with his bulging outline visible on her long neck. He felt each muscle ring contact and squeeze him on his one-way journey. He winced each time his sensitive dick scraped over a ring, causing another small spurt of cum each time and smearing his thighs with semen.

An acrid scent tickled his nose as he approached Meredith’s first stomach. He gradually approached the end of the tube he was sliding through, moving a hand’s length for each swallow, until his head bumped against the flap that opened up to deposit him into Meredith’s belly. His arms remained pinned to his side as he slipped through, and he slid head-first into the shallow pool of digestive fluid. He held his breath as he waited for the rest of him to pass into the stomach, with it taking a few more swallows, then spluttered as his head emerged and he looked around. The interior space was around the size of a wagon bed, not quite enough to lay straight in, but close. The walls were a burnt orange, with veins of deep-red that pulsed in time with the rhythmic thud of Meredith’s heart.

He splashed around the acid pool as he got himself comfortable, settling on his back with his legs bent above him. He reached between his legs to grip his flaccid cock and began pumping it. “Come on,” he muttered. While he’d enjoyed ejaculating in his mother’s mouth, he was almost disappointed to have prematurely ended his self-pleasure. The stomach rolled around him and he rolled with it while still pumping his cock.

“Are you ok in there?” came Meredith’s muffled voice. 

Esmond froze his dick stroking, afraid she’d heard. “Err, yeah, I’m fine!” he called back. 

“Oh… good. You’re comfortable? It isn’t too tight in there?” 

“No Ma’, it’s fine!” he replied with a hint of exasperation. He wanted to get back to masturbating. 

“Ok, well, let me know if it gets a bit uncomfortable. I can still puke you up!” 

The stomach again shifted as Meredith changed position to lie on her back with her hind legs in the air, a mirror image of Esmond’s pose in her stomach. Her maternal concern had been sated and now she could finish off what Esmond had started in her. She curled her tail around a nearby broadsword, then carried the pommel over to her wet pussy lips and plunged it deep inside. She groaned as she rapidly slid the sword handle in and out of her inflamed labia lips. 

Meredith tried to keep her moans quiet, but Esmond could hear the rapid heartbeat of her excitement. Her stomach quivered each time the sword hilt knocked against her clit, jostling Esmond as he resumed stroking his dick. At least with Meredith’s activity, his own masturbation was less obvious. If he hadn’t watched her eat in private before he might have thought she was just stretching her limbs after a satisfying meal, but he’d seen her do this many times before, finding the nearest vaguely-phallic looking object and using it to stroke the split down her crotch. He wasn’t entirely sure why she did it, and it wasn’t a question he could ask her, but he assumed it felt similar to him stroking his cock.

Esmond felt a deep sense of satisfaction that Meredith was treating him like her other meals, and that she was enjoying it nearly as much as he was. It seemed her stomach agreed, as a spurt of fresh stomach acid erupted from a fleshy nodule overhead, followed by another spurt from a second nodule, then a third. The acid began to rise around him, over his hips and then gradually enveloping his cock. He splashed the acid around as he continued to pump his dick until his crotch was entirely under the acid. It was surprisingly pleasant. It was warm, thick, and made his skin lightly tingle. It was especially pleasant on heightening the sensations of his dick.

Meredith’s whole body shuddered as she finally climaxed, rocking Esmond. A few seconds later, a creamy splotch popped up on the stomach acid in her stomach as Esmond cummed again. The cum sizzled, then melted in the powerful digestive fluid. 

Esmond watched with wide-eyes, developing a greater appreciation for the protective qualities of Meredith’s pussy juice. If it wasn’t for that, the rest of him would be melting as fast as his cum. He sat up so his chest was out of the acid and wondered how long it’d take before Meredith’s stomach gave up on digesting him. 

Outside the stomach, Meredith’s breathing took a while to calm down. She hadn’t had an orgasm that intense in… longer than she could remember. It wasn’t just the carnal enjoyment of having a human male cum on her mouth, then fill out her belly, it was in knowing that it was her little Esmond that she’d pleasured. It brought her joy to know her adopted son had so enjoyed himself. She smiled as she looked down at the bulge in her stomach, knowing that he was in there. She laid a clawed hand across the bulge, feeling the outline of the trapped occupant. 

“Are you still doing ok in there?” asked Meredith, partially out of concern, and partially because she wanted Esmond to move around a bit. She got her wish as she felt a wriggling in her belly. 

“I’m still fine Ma’!” came his muffled voice. 

“How do you feel about a little nap?”

“I’m not tired yet, but you go ahead Ma’.” 

Meredith curled up and rolled onto her side. Her belly plopped onto the stone floor more heavily than she intended as she felt her full stomach slosh around, followed by a series of spluttered coughs.

“Sorry!” cried Meredith, before cradling her belly in her clawed hands again. She laid her long neck across her upper chest and rested her head just above her belly where she could hear the gurgles and groans inside. Her eyes fluttered closed as she drifted off, but her lips maintained a satisfied smile. 

---

The next couple of hours were fairly idle for Esmond. He lounged in the stomach acid like a bath, taking his time jerking himself off slowly so as to ration his dick’s energy. He thankfully got used to the acrid stench quickly, leaving the interior feeling warm and cosy while illuminated by a faint pink glow coming through the stomach wall. Meredith’s heart was a regular thrum, whose consistency became a source of comfort, and if Esmond were inclined he could have easily fallen asleep, but he didn’t want to miss a single moment of this experience. Everything was calm here.

He therefore jerked in surprise, pinching the head of his cock in his fingers, when a series of large bubbles erupted in the acid between his legs. He initially thought it was a submerged nodule spurting fresh acid, but instead the level of the pooled liquid seemed to swiftly drop, leaving a greenish tide mark on his skin as it drained away. 

A few seconds later the stomach clenched around him. Esmond forwent his masturbation to spread his arms and legs like a starfish as the surface beneath him quaked then opened up. The acid flowed swiftly down through the gap that was barely wider than his hips, pulling him with it. He tucked his feet up, then pushed them within, feeling the suction pull the rest of him inward. He took a gulp of air before his whole body was fed into the fleshy tube. 

He kept his limbs relaxed as he was bent and twisted down the tubing, before his feet emerged into another larger space. The rest of him soon followed and he dropped into another round circular space much like the stomach he’d just left, being about the size of a large hammock. In fact it was nearly identical, for this was Meredith’s second stomach. He again settled down in a pool of acid, and as he sat up the liquid came up to his waist. The acid was thicker and dark coloured here. After initially breaking down her meal into its largest components in her first stomach, this second stomach digested it down into a sludge.

As Esmond ran his hand through the acid, he bumped into something hard. He gripped whatever it was and pulled it out. He came eye to eye with a human skull. It still had a small tuft of blonde hair at the back, marking it as a fairly recent meal. A knight perhaps, a prince,  a princess, or just some unlucky peasant girl? It didn’t matter anymore, they were just sustenance for Meredith now. 

Esmond rooted around the rest of the pool, finding a few more bones, some human and some not. He also found a mangled iron helmet. How long had this been down here? Weeks? Months? Years? Esmond poked at it and his finger went right through the domed cap. He tossed it back into the pool just before the whole world shook. 

“Whoa,” cried Esmond as he spread his arms to the opposing stomach sides, trying to hold his position as the acid sloshed around him. 

Meredith unfurled her long neck, tilted her head upwards, and opened her maw wide for an enormous yawn. Her jaw stretched wide, with her twin rows of white fangs poking out either side. For a moment she looked like the terrifying beast of legend that haunted many a bard’s tale, before she closed her mouth again and blinked her sleepy eyes. She shifted around, rolling onto her belly and rising to her feet. Her stomach scraped across the stones then swung loose beneath her. 

Her lips twitched, followed by a sudden loud burp that echoed around the chamber. Her eyes suddenly shot open as she recalled why her stomach was gassy. “ESMOND!” she cried while swinging her head down between her front legs to check her belly. “Are you still ok in there?” 

“Yes Ma’, for the third time today,” came an exasperated reply from within.

Meredith smiled. “I’m just checking on my little boy, I can’t let you come to harm now can I?” 

“I’m not a little boy,” snapped Esmond. 

“Oh, right. Yes, you’re my handsome grown man. So big that you fill out my whole belly!” She pressed her cheek to her stomach, listening to the gurgles within. Esmond didn’t reply, but there was a faint rhythmic sloshing sound as he again started stroking his dick.

“I have another treat for you,” murmured Meredith to her belly. 

“What is it?” 

“It’s a surprise~” teased Meredith.

---

In the adjacent hall, Garrick was still trying to put words to his new ballad. How could he make being eaten sound heroic? He repeated the same chord he’d strummed a dozen times already when his tune was joined by the creak of a door. He looked up to see the double doors to the guards dining hall swing inward, followed by Meredith’s head poking out. 

Garrick’s heart skipped a beat on seeing Meredith. He hoped he was safe now, but whenever he looked at her he recalled the sight of her gaping maw opening up beneath him. He shuddered and tried to focus on his music.

Meredith’s bulk barely made it under the doorway as she came through. She looked around and her gaze settled on Garrick. One side of her lips curled up in a wry grin. 

“I was just looking for a snack, and here you are…” growled Meredith with an air of menace as she came closer towards Garrick. 

Garrick’s music came to an abrupt end. He gave her a half-hearted laugh like she was joking while covertly shuffling around the smouldering campfire to position it between him and Meredith. “I t-thought you liked keeping me around?” 

Meredith stretched her neck forward, so her snout was lit from underneath by the campfire. “Maybe I like keeping you in my belly?”

Garrick gulped and shot a brief glance from Meredith’s looming head to the doorway behind her. He told himself he could make it if he sprinted, but he knew it was a lie. “B-but then who would compose songs in your honour?”

Meredith pulled her head back. “Of course my little poet, I’d never digest you, but don’t forget your place. I’m going out hunting.” She unfurled her wings to either side, briefly forming an arched cathedral roof, before swooping them down and blasting Garrick with a wave of dust. He spluttered as Meredith took flight, leaving him in the dirt. 

Once the dust cleared, he looked over to the open doors of the guard’s dining hall, Meredith’s feeding pit. He expected to see Esmond emerge as it was nearing dinnertime and Garrick was getting hungry for whatever soup Esmond could scrounge up. He would be waiting a long time…

---

After the initial lurch downwards, causing Esmond to bounce within the second stomach like it was a springy bed, his surroundings seemed to settle down. At least in Meredith’s stomach, Esmond’s stomach was still doing flips at the thought that he was flying right now. He’d begged and begged Meredith to take him flying, but she’d always said it was too dangerous. Despite the fables of folk riding on dragons, in reality it was extremely precarious to perch on the slippery back of a dragon that constantly undulated and shifted beneath you, and it only took one slip to result in a long fall and a messy splat of a would-be dragonrider. Therefore Esmond was expressly forbidden to ever ride on Meredith, but here in her stomach he was safe.

“What does it look like?” he yelled, hoping to be heard over the wind rushing over Meredtih’s scales.

“What does what look like?” replied Meredith.

“Everything!” 

Meredith chuckled, shaking Esmond in her belly, and began describing the landscape beneath her. The shifting tree canopies formed an ethereal green mirror to the drifting clouds above. The meandering path of streams seemed less random from this high up, looking more like delicate  penmanship, while the rise and fall of hills looked like the curves of a sleeping giantess.

Esmond was mesmerised as he listened to Meredith’s vivid description. But even the most miraculous sights eventually turn mundane, and after a half-hour the topic of conversation petered out. Mother and son flew together for another few minutes before Esmond finally voiceed a niggling worry. 

“So, why are you hunting?” asked Esmond. “Aren’t I enough?”

“You’re always enough!” replied Meredith. “But while you fill my belly, you can’t fill my hunger. You aren’t being digested, and my body needs to digest a meal.” 

“Oh…” Esmond bit his lip as he was about to offer himself for digestion, before recalling that Meredith would never accept. She never wanted to lose him. He settled back into silence for the rest of the flight as Meredith sought fresh prey. 

Just as the sunlight was beginning to disappear, she sighted a thin plume of smoke coming through a picket of trees. There seemed to be a clearing, and Meredith spread her wings wide to glide down silently. She was nearly atop the clearing before she had to flap her wings and make a noise. The heady gust of wind was cut by a shrill scream. Meredith appreciated prey who made noise, it made it so much easier to find them. She poked her head through the cloud of dust to find a slim woman dressed in leather straps that seemed to leave more skin uncovered than it protected, with metal guards over her shins and bust. She had a slender sword in hand, which she swung in the air in front of Meredith’s nose. 

Meredith scrunched up her lips and blew, which knocked the sword away into the grass. The woman looked from Meredith to her empty hand and then back with rising terror. Meredith was ready to pounce if the woman made a run for it, but she didn’t. She curled herself up in a ball and screamed “Please don’t eat me!” 

“It’s nothing personal, but we all need sustenance,” replied Meredith matter-of-factly as she lowered her head to the ground, opened her jaws, and carefully scooped up the woman head-first. Her fangs scraped along the leather straps, snapping several and leaving the trembling woman half-nude. 

“Pleasssssssssssse, spare me!” whined the woman as Meredith tilted her head back and her meal slid up her tongue to the back of her mouth. Being curled up, she got jammed at the entrance to Meredith’s throat. Meredith kept her head vertical, ensuring the woman couldn’t climb out, before flipping her tongue around to slather the woman in more drool and probe the tightly bound mass of limbs. 

“W-what are you doing?!?!” cried the woman as the tongue thrust between her folded up legs, probing the sensitive nethers deeper within. It only took a dozen licks for the woman to instinctually spread her knees with a sensual whimper, at which point Meredith swallowed, forcing the woman’s torso into her throat. She jerked her head with each swallow, dislodging what minor grip the woman might have had as she worked more of the shapely figure down her gullet. The woman’s bust and hips bulged out Meredith’s long neck as she finished swallowing the woman and finally deposited her in her stomach. 

Meredith sighed with satisfaction, then belched out a couple of the metal guards that had covered the woman’s bust. With one last smiling look down at her full and wriggling belly, she spread her wings and took off again, flying back towards home. 

Down in Meredith’s second stomach, Esmond had his ear to the stomach wall, having intently listened to each swallow while jerking off. Despite knowing what was happening, it was still a surprise when the veiny ceiling bent inwards as the female adventurer entered her new home. 

Esmond held his breath, trying to be quiet as he listened to the muffled whines of the woman in the stomach above him, while the outline of her ass and legs stretched out the elastic fleshy ceiling. He could hear her sloshing around in the same acid he’d been in, but where he’d been fine, she would not. There was a faint hiss as the acid was already getting to work with digesting her. 

With a trembling hand, Esmond reached up and gently cupped the outline of the woman’s ass. There was a muffled yelp of surprise as she jerked away, but then settled back into the base of the stomach. Esmond started gentle, then gripped the ass tighter, pinching the woman through the stomach wall.  

“Please, mother of maiden’s, hear your acolytes’s prayer,” came the shaky voice of the woman. “Save me from this fate. I don’t want to die here, in some dragon’s belly. Please, my fate must be more than this?”

Esmond continued to caress the feminine outline above him with one hand while jerking himself off with the other, listening to the woman’s last pleas as she was digested alive. Her voice gradually got weaker as time went on, and so did her reactions to his pinches. It normally took hours to digest a meal, but Meredith’s stomach already had a bath of acid waiting after failing to digest Esmond.

Esmond masturbated knowing that the woman above him was being turned into mere dragon-chow, and he loved every moment of it. He was almost done when the stomach walls clenched around him and the ceiling shook. He let go of the woman’s ass as her outline was pulled away. He listened to the gurgles as she was pushed through the tubing between the stomachs, moving away then coming back like the meandering streams far below them. The flap above Esmond’s head flipped open and a wave of thick digestive fluid erupted, followed by the limp figure of a nude woman.

Her head barely missed knocking into his, landing on his chest then sliding down his body, past his crotch and into the acid. Her bare breasts slid over him, with only a couple of leather straps remaining beneath her bust, followed by her narrow belly and hairless crotch. 

Esmond struggled around the figure intruding on his space. With the interior being little larger than a bath it was impossible to avoid being in contact, leaving her laid out mostly on top of him. Her skin was as red as a beetroot and looked burnt in several spots, while her long golden hair seemed to be coming out in patches, but she was otherwise in one piece. 

Esmond’s stomach felt like it was full of butterflies as he got to admire the feminine figure he’d been caressing through the stomach wall. He’d never been up close to a woman before, let alone a nude one. He peered between her thighs, which were currently straddling his upper chest, leaving her pussy a mere hand’s length from his chin. He recognised the same rosy-pink folds as Meredith, but this woman had a fatty slab of skin on either side rather than a protective covering of soft feather-like scales.

He struggled to lift his arm up from underneath the woman’s leg, before eventually resting his elbow on her thigh. It left his hand free to reach up to those folds and ever so gently explore them.

“W-what…. W-who?” spluttered a weak voice as the woman mustered enough strength to pull her face from the acid. 

Esmond jerked his hand back in surprise, which made the woman’s legs slide further down his chest until her crotch rested on his midriff. Her smooth skin rubbed over his flattened dick, which was trapped beneath her belly, and he bit his lip to hold back a moan.

“I’m so sorry!” he cried. “I didn’t know…”

“That I was still alive?” The woman slid down the last of Esmond’s chest and she curled herself up at the other side of the stomach, covering her bust with her knees while the stomach acid reached midway up her shins. 

Esmond folded up his legs to cover his erect dick. His cheeks turned as red as the woman’s dissolving skin.

“H-how are you still in one piece?” asked the woman with a hoarse voice. Her vocal chords were digesting along with the rest of her.

“It’s, um… complicated.” replied Esmond. 

“Is it a magic spell? Can you cast it on me? Please save me!”

“I’m sorry, it’s not something I can cast…”

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” shrieked the woman in a sudden burst of fury. Her fists pounded the acid. “I can’t believe I accepted this quest. ‘Find a dozen jackroot flowers. It’ll be easy,’ they said. ‘There’s no goblins in these woods.’ They didn’t tell me that was because a goddess-forsaken dragon had eaten them all!” Even in this dishevelled state with barely a scrap of clothing, the woman’s fiery anger was intimidating.

“I’m sorry…” is all Esmond could think to say. The words attracted her attention, interrupting her rant. She looked Esmond up and down and Esmond had never felt more naked. She spread her legs and leaned forward, with her breasts squeezed together under her arms as she crawled closer. 

“Fuck it, there’s no way I’m dying a virgin for the maiden goddess that led me to this fate,” she muttered as her arms came to either side of Esmond. She climbed up his chest and straddled his hips. “Fuck me!” she demanded while tilting her head back so her long hair cascaded down her back, with her pert nipples a finger’s width from Esmond’s face. 

“Err… sorry?” murmured Esmond, still unsure what was happening. 

“I said fuck me! It was a command, not an exclamation!” She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him forward, with his cheeks burrowing deep between her soft breasts. Her skin had a slimy feel, having been coated with a mix of acid and her own semi-digested body. She rocked forward, lifting her hips from the acid so Esmond’s erect dick rubbed down her midriff to her smooth crotch. He didn’t know whether she diligently waxed or the acid had digested any pubic hair she’d had. She swiftly dropped down onto his cock, with the head pushing apart her outer labia lips and thrusting into the warmth inside. The acid sloshed around them as the woman humped Esmond’s cock. Her pussy lips got a little lower down his shaft with each jump she made. 

“Fuck me harder,” she moaned before nibbling the top of Esmond’s ear. Any reply he might have uttered was stifled under the breast she pushed into his mouth. “No more studying, no more farmwork, just fucking,” she continued in a higher pitch, interspaced with sudden gasps.

Esmond couldn’t help comparing the feel of this woman’s pussy to Meredith’s. Where Meredith’s was like an ocean, an endless expanse of soft folds to embrace his whole body, this woman’s was as tight as a fist. Where Meredith’s pussy was like a motherly embrace, supporting, welcoming, and loving, this felt like wrestling with a tight muscular grip around his cock shaft. He wasn’t in control of the pace, she was, and she continued to ride him. She bounced on his lap and her cries grew steadily breathier.  

“Fuck this dragon, fuck you, fuck me, fuck the goddess, fuck quests!” gasped the woman. Her whole body shuddered as her inner pussy clenched around Esmond’s cock, driving him to climax too. He shot his seed inside her just as she slumped against him, with her head rolling forward and her long hair draping down his spine.

Esmond gently tried to peel her sticky breasts from his face, and she slowly toppled backwards, landing back in the acid with a resounding splash. Her legs drifted up to either side of him as she floated just below the surface, with the only thing still holding them together being the head of his cock still trapped between her labia lips.

The stomach walls shuddered as if it too were undergoing its own orgasm, and Esmond felt some suction beneath him as the acid began draining out. He was tugged downwards, with his legs going through a round sphincter that was barely wide enough to fit his hips. To make matters worse, it  wasn’t just his hips fitting through. He was jammed against the comatose woman. The narrow tube they were sliding down forced them back together, pushing her pussy lips back down the full length of his cock.

He again came face to face with the slack-jawed woman, whose tongue rolled out her mouth. Her eyes had rolled into the back of her head and he couldn’t feel her breath on his cheek despite them being within kissing distance. He felt his butt inch through the twitching stomach exit. The muscular ring around the exterior stretched taut to fit both him and the woman through. He embraced her limp body in a hug as they were swallowed whole, with their limbs bending to follow the snaking path of Meredith’s guts. He soon lost track of which way was up or down as he succumbed to the whim of Meredith’s digestive system. 

The tubing abruptly jerked down, then up, bouncing him like he was laid out on a trampoline. Each bounce pulled then pushed the woman against him, with her pussy sliding up his shaft then back down it.

Outside the twisting guts, Meredith folded up her wings as she came to rest in the main castle hall. Garrick was in the corner, seemingly struggling to keep the campfire lit. She nodded politely in his direction.

“G-good hunt?” he asked with a note of uncertainty.

“Very! I found a lone adventurer who proved very tasty. She barely wore enough to warrant undressing, my favourite kind.” replied Meredith smugly.

“Oh…” Garrick winced as he wondered how many pretty adventurers he’d inspired to brave the wilds with his ballads, only to end up in a beast’s belly.

“I’m off to bed, sleep well!” said Meredith as she strutted past him and into the chapel. She rested her bulk against the altar, curled her tail around her body, and laid her head on her gut.

“Are you ok in there Esmond?” she murmured. 

“It’s, um, a bit of a tight fit!” grunted Esmond as he unsuccessfully tried to push the half-digested woman away, instead her body broke up in his grip and turned into a thick sludge that enveloped him. He wrinkled his nose in disgust as a nipple riding a lump of gunk that had been a breast pushed up past his face.

“Don’t worry, it’s only for one night,” cooed Meredith. “I’ll let you out tomorrow, and we can enjoy the sunrise together.”

From his prison of dark sludge, it was hard for Esmond to imagine the sun on his skin. 

“Sleep well Esmond.” Meredith closed her eyes and focused on the wriggling in her gut, reassured that Esmond was close by and safe. 

“Hey, Ma’? I wanted to say… thank you.”

One of Meredith’s eyes popped back open. “Thanks for what?”

“For this… for everything. You’ve taken care of me all these years even though you could have just gobbled me up, or abandoned me like… my old mother.”

Meredith shuddered in horror as she imagined her little Esmond left to the wolves, abandoned and alone, wandering the woods until he met his end. She took a few moments to compose her words, knowing they were important. “Esmond… you’re my little dragonling now. You’re ever so dear to me. I could never abandon you, you’re a part of me.” 

“... literally true right now” teased Esmond. Meredith’s guts trembled around him as she giggled. Despite all the nights he’d spend cuddling with her, he’d never felt closer to her than right now. It wasn’t just being physically inside her, it was that he was currently being protected by the carnal juices she’d covered him with, a vivid demonstration of her love. “I love you Ma’.”

“And I love you,” replied Meredith warmly. 

Esmond mustered his resolve. Perhaps not needing to look Meredith in the eye reduced his embarrassment, maybe becoming a man had made him bolder, or perhaps his horniness had overwhelmed his doubts, but he was going to speak from the heart. “It’s more than just loving you as my mother,” said Esmond, starting quietly then growing in strength. “I love you like a man does a woman! I’ve felt this way for a long time. You mean so much to me, you’re my whole world!” The silence in the seconds that followed seemed to stretch an eternity as Esmond worried he’d said too much.

“You mean… ever so much to me too,” said Meredith slowly. “I had always thought you’d want to move back to be with your kind once you’d grown.” Meredith struggled not to choke up as she opened up about her suppressed feelings. It was natural for dragonlings to form their own independent roosts from a relatively young age, and she’d tried to emotionally prepare herself for Esmond doing the same.

“I never want to leave you!” cried Esmond forcefully. 

“... and I never want you to leave,” replied Meredith with a wide smile. She curled her clawed hand over her guts, giving it a slight squeeze.

“So… Garrick isn’t going to replace me?” asked Esmond, with his voice suddenly growing quiet. 

Meredith laughed. “Of course not!”

“But he…”

“He’s a toy, an amusement I’ve dallied with. He means nothing. You’re the one I love Esmond,” she cooed.

“... oh.” Esmond couldn’t help wriggling with delight in Meredith’s intestines as his heart filled with joy.

“Now I think we both need some sleep, and we can see where the ‘morrow takes us.”

“Good night Ma’.” 

“Good night Esmond.” 

Their voices faded into the night, under the twinkling light of the stars.

---

Esmond slept surprisingly well over the next few hours as his body was eased through the extensive tubing of Meredith’s intestines. He rose, he fell, he twisted and turned, giving him a full-body massage that gently stretched his limbs. Meanwhile, the digested remains of the adventurer that clung to him continued to break down, with the familiar feminine outline of her body turning into unrecognisable sludge. Her hair helped provide fibre and helped compacted the liquidy mass into more cohesive dragon dung. As Esmond’s body approached Meredith’s rectum, he was compacted against thicker clumps of dung, and he breathed through the profuse cracks in the crumbly mass.

In the morning Meredith was the first to wake, being woken by the early morning light coming through the roof. Edmond, still in darkness, continued to sleep. She tenderly unfurled her figure from the chapel altar, being as careful not to jostle her guts as if she were pregnant. She walked rather than flew through the castle, her belly swinging from side to side beneath her, gently rocking Esmond like he was in a hammock.

She passed Garrick in the main hallway, who looked chilly as he lay curled up next to the dead campfire with a few drops of dew in his hair. She passed him and out the front doorway, then through the gatehouse. She strutted along the exterior wall of the castle until she came to the small glade with a pool in the shadow of the castle walls. The sun was just peeking over the treeline, with its light making Meredith’s scales glitter as she positioned herself next to the pond. 

She raised her hind quarters, with her tail curling upwards to show off the wrinkly pink asshole hidden underneath. She swayed her hips a couple of times, then grunted as she pushed out the mass within. 

Esmond stirred from his sleep to feel the whole world pushing down on him like he was at the bottom of the ocean, but it wasn’t water around him, it was dung. His muffled cry of confusion was stifled by the fibrous mass as he was forced out through Meredith’s rectum. 

Clods of dung broke up as it left Meredith’s widening asshole to fall to the grass and roll away. From the brown and black came some cream, a pair of wriggling feet, followed by legs. 

Meredith’s brow furrowed as she pushed hard, struggling with the larger mass than unusual. Her anus flexed around Esmond as he exited. His legs dangled from between her ass cheeks, and he kicked the empty air. For a moment Meredith had a naughty thought of sitting down and pushing Esmond back in, but didn’t follow through with it. She continued pushing as Esmond’s hips then chest emerged from her rear. 

With the majority of him out, Esmond fell to the ground, briefly getting out a squeal of fright before landing in a soft pile of dung. He coughed up a few clods of dung as he rolled off. He left behind more dung, some of which stuck to him. An especially large chunk remained locked against his crotch, and as his fingers pushed into it he felt the hardness of bone. He pulled it away and the dung fell away from a female pelvis that had remained hooked around his cock. He tossed it aside, with it landing amidst the other bones poking out the dragon poop. 

“Good morning Esmond~” sang Meredith sweetly. 

“Good mor-” Esmond’s reply was cut off by another dollop of dung on his head. He spluttered and stepped away from Meredith’s rear as she laughed. He shook himself off then took a deep breath of clean air. He stretched his arms to either side, enjoying the freedom of movement he had again, before leaping head-first into the pond.

He swam its length then back while Meredith watched. A few minutes later he reemerged, clean, wet, and nude. Meredith’s gaze dropped down Esmond’s figure to the dick swinging between his legs. 

“Shall I warm you up a bit?” she asked, flicking her tongue in his direction.

“Please do!” Esmond had barely finished speaking before Meredith’s large tongue was already lapping at his chest and down between his legs. Her open maw hovered above him, with her stretched jaws eclipsing Esmond’s vision of the sky. 

“Isn’t it a lovely morning?” said Esmond as he was slathered in drool.

“It is in’eed,” murmured Meredith as her tongue teased Esmond’s cock back to life. The day was fresh and full of possibility…