Archive of Our Own

Alex sighed, tipping his head a little to the side as the game screen loaded up. World of Warcraft, of course, but he had been playing it for years already and he wasn’t so sure that he was used to all the changes in the game yet. The original, of course, was heralded as the best, classic, but he had liked Wrath of the Lich King rather a lot too. He had spent a lot of his teen years playing the game, but, well, real life, in the end, had served to get in the way. That couldn’t be helped, not then.

He'd had to take his exams and grow up and…well…he’d had to get work in his early twenties, after finishing his studies for the moment, he’d not been too sure about the newest expansion. He’d just played it for so long, done all the dailies, looked at the game and the detail of it in so much, hm…detail? He wasn’t even sure whether there could be anything new.

“This is dumb…”

Alex muttered to himself as he shook his head, sitting back in his chair, coming onto the loading screen of the game, everything synced up for the newest expansion. The last-minute updates that had had to be downloaded had come through and he was left facing the image of a dragon, though he couldn’t quite remember what the race was called. Like dragon but…

“Dracthyr? Ugh…”

Even the name sounded stupid, though he couldn’t yet say that he hated either dragons or the game. He just didn’t know what to think about it. Still, Alex had never been into dragons and never really watched anything about them when he’d been younger. Maybe that was what was missing, that he’d never gotten into dragons before his teen years and, well, he’d preferred the fighting games. Even the fantasy world of the game had offered him an escape from other things, finding a way to grind and make progress even though his grades had not been stellar in school. He’d just needed a different way to learn, though that had not come until he was a bit older.

He just couldn’t see the appeal in dragons! He growled and drummed his fingers, impatiently, on the desk. Why did they have to put them in? He loved the game, but he wasn’t so sure he could get through the expansion with dragons all over the place: dumb, brutal beasts that were only good for violence and beating other things up. There was the whole thing about them being mounts too, but that was kind of okay. Maybe.

Sighing at the screen, he tried to go to his regular character, not wanting to start as a Dracthyr. No, that would be too annoying. And yet he found that his fingers would not move, a yawn pulling at his lips, everything about him becoming heavier and heavier, as if he was sleepy, so very sleepy, so tired that he could not come back to his usual level of wakefulness.

“Just…play…to start…it…”

But he couldn’t and his head slumped forward onto the desk, fast asleep and snorting gently. Somehow, his arms had just about managed to fold under his head before he came all the way down, but it was not so bad. At least, he would find himself in a better place, in the end of it all.

*

Where… Where am I?

He groaned, trying to bring a hand to his head, though tiredness made his limbs dull and heavy, as if he was stuck to the ground with quicksand, though he did not feel as if he was being dragged under. Everywhere around him looked lush and green, blinking as the world around him slowly, surely, came into focus. He was on the ground, not in his bedroom or even in the living room of his house, though he felt like he had been there only a moment ago. Had he gone for a walk and gotten knocked out?

But nothing looked familiar… Nothing at all. There was rich, green grass, rounded hills under him, though mountains seemed to peer in the distance, over the tops of trees that could have been pine trees. He didn’t know, had never been all that into foliage and stuff like that, but the world was not the one he had known. A river rushed by not all that far away, even though he could not see it, his body settled in a small clearing with tree branches stretching overhead.

“Ugh…”

He grunted, licking his lips, though something about his tongue didn’t feel right. It was not as if it was thick and fuzzy with sleep or tiredness, kind of thinner… But that couldn’t be right either, it had to be something else, for his tongue could not be thinner.

Yet…why was he so heavy? Something sick and worried twisted in the pit of his stomach, dragging him down, making him feel as if he was so much more weighed down than he had to be.

Up… He told himself inwardly. He had to get up.

Alex may not have known what was happening, but…something was wrong. Something was different. He rolled onto his front, having been on his side, but could see that his arms simply were not there. He panted shallowly, feeling his lips part a lot more than they should have too, raking in what air he could as he stretched out a pair of long, red legs before him. Covered in scales, they were impossible to mistake for anything other than what could only be seen as reptilian, tipped with long, curved claws.

Uncertainly, he stretched out, making fully sure that those legs and claws were attached to him, that he could control them – they indeed were. Even though it had to be a dream, could not be anything but a dream, he tried to grapple with it, how his body felt, how he was no longer in the bipedal form that he had had before.

For he had four legs and not two, struggling to bring that front foot to his face to rub what was no longer flat there. He had a muzzle, the shape of it big and blocky – at least in comparison to what his face had been before, as a man. It was surreal, to feel his face like that trying to use the rounded, smooth back of one of those claws to trace the lines of it.

His heart hammered, feeling so much bigger in his chest, echoing throughout his ribcage. There was so much sense in his body, of how big it is, how round his chest was, as if there was a barrel there. There was a fine-like…thing…protruding from his chest, running from the base of his neck to the point of his belly, between his forelegs. Yet he seemed to be able to control it slightly, tensing his pectoral muscles, trying to work out where said muscles were on his body.

A longer neck allowed him to twist his head around and he gulped, licking his lips, that thin tongue snaking out once more. His face was big, too big, even the movement of his eyelids feeling dull and heavy, as if he had to exert so much more effort than before in the mere act of blinking. A bird that he did not recognise, red and black, landed in the tree above him, chirping and cocking its head back and forth.

“Whaaarrrewwww…”

Alex groaned. He couldn’t get that big tongue around his mouth properly, though his throat tremored with the pressure of forming words. The ability to do so was there, but the teeth too! He ran his tongue carefully around the inside of his mouth, feeling out the sharp edges of the teeth, trying again to speak but his voice only dropped to a growl that would not have been intelligible to any attentive ear.

I’m not myself… I’m…

Yeah. Yeah, he had to be dreaming. Even as he struggled to his feet, the weight of a tail and a thickly muscled hind end swinging him off to the side, he knew that it could not be real, not at all. And yet everything felt so solid, even the sensation of the earth shifting under him as he growled and swayed, the weight of his tail trying to balance him as he over-compensated with it. Even the grass tickling his large feet was a tiny sensation that remained poignant in a way, the smallest of things notable when he might not have before noticed them, not at all.

Yet he had to stand and had to get his bearings, his head feeling a long way out from his body. His head was heavy too, though he knew himself to be a dragon, at least there, at least in the dream. There was nothing else quite like that, the trees seeming smaller than they should have been around him. His head shoved out further as he growled and tried to talk, getting something of a word out, but, really, that was a lot harder than he ever could have realised.

This can’t be happening… Why won’t I just wake up?

He had to wake up, though he tried one, slow, lumbering step first. If he fell, surely the shock of his body hitting the ground in his dream would wake him again? He hoped so, for he didn’t want to be stuck like a dumb beast, one that couldn’t even get out any words, forever. Or maybe something dreadful indeed had happened and his mind was twisted, having fallen into a coma or similar.

No. No, that would not be a line of thought that he lingered in, nearly falling flat on his snout as he stumbled, wings flaring.

Wings! Oh, he had not even had a chance to take those in and he wiggled his shoulders back and forth, at least captivated by them, the leathery folds of them, how they had been lying down against his back before. They seemed to have their place, but the muscles that controlled them seemed to originate from his scapula, adding new muscles and bones that, for a human, did not have a name. If he’d been more into animal biology and anatomy, perhaps he would have had a name for them, but the details of that were not to be ignored, even then. He stretched out one wing cautiously, testing how far he could extend it, how he could flap them, though it was hard to cup and shape the air even then.

Flying… If he was in a dream, maybe he could fly? But his body felt so heavy and so ungainly that he barely thought he was going to be able to walk in a straight line, let alone anything else. Concentrating as hard as he could, harder than Alex thought could ever be possible, he took a tentative step, barely lifting his foot from the ground, claws dragging through the dirt. The rich red of his scales caught his attention once more as his nose tipped down, barely glancing up to see where he was going. If he dragged his feet, pulling them across the ground, it was not as difficult as it had been when he’d started.

Still, it didn’t feel at all like walking as a man, his attention focused on the rush of the river. The ground was soft and squelchy around it, nearly causing him to slip, though Alex growled and sat back on his hindquarters a little more, his body, very slowly, shifting into something like a better sense of balance.

The water rippled and churned with eddies and twists in the current racing downriver, but…he could see.

He could see enough.

A dragon’s face greeted him, the freshness of the cool river around his face, palatable even though there did not feel as if there was anything much of a breeze. The huge, blocky jaw was still, somehow, feminine, though Alex could not see his features clearly, not as if it would be if he was looking in a mirror and not a forever moving river. Four blocky horns adorned with gold framed his face, eyes brimming with golden intensity, intelligence and knowledge in them, even if the mind behind the eyes was not the same as the one that he had thought was behind them.

“Oh…”

He gasped, stuttering back and slipping in the mud, his claws digging into it for purchase, heart hammering. That wasn’t just any dragon, that was…

“I…” He tried again, talking, twisting his tongue around the words, though the voice was not his own either. It was hers. “I am… Alex… But… Alexstrasza?”

The pauses between his words broke them up, but his voice was more powerful, resonating, seeming to carry further than it ever had before. It was not the voice of a man, but was as strong as the queen whose voice it had proven to be, that of the Dragon Queen.

Alexstrasza. Alexstrasza, the Dragon Queen. She was powerful, ruler of the Dragon Isles.

His heart hammered, his stomach churning, though it felt like an awful lot more of his stomach and midriff was rumbling with anxiety than it would have if he had still been a human. It was then and only then that his mind let slide away the idea of it being a dream, a sick sense of reality gripping him. Faint, the world around him tipped sideways and he growled, shaking his head, trying not to let himself slide – but if he was Alexstrasza, did that mean that something really bad had happened to him, or was he just hallucinating? Or had he gotten really into the game?

None of those reasons seemed like something that made sense… But did that mean he was actually in the game? It sounded like something crazy that would happen, like in that anime he’d gotten pretty into, Sword Art Online, though he hoped very much that, if that was the case, things were not as extreme there.

Alex shook his head, not wanting to consider the true new details of his body, that it was Alexstrasza’s voice on his lips, panting heavily, sides heaving with stress. That would be set aside for the moment.

Alex swallowed hard and turned, laboriously, though it was harder than he thought to simply complete that action. He had not realised just how walking in a straight line had been the simplest of tasks so far, step by step, but getting back up the small, muddy slope from the river was a trial too. Not wanting to hang about down there for too long, not when there was too much, too many thoughts, racing around his head, he growled and struggled back up, slipping and sliding back.

“Ugh… This…body…”

He could form better words and sentences, though everything still sounded “off”. He knew that it was not his voice, though his brain still expected to hear Alex, not Alexstrasza – as well it should! Shaking his head, he yelped in a very undragonlike fashion, tail slapping down into the wet mud.

“Ugh!”

It was real, too real, so real that he couldn’t set it aside, couldn’t imagine that everything was just happening in a dream. And he didn’t exactly “live” his dreams either! He didn’t decide what he was to do in a dream either, had never lucid dreamed.

This… This was different. Very different.

Still, it was kind of fascinating just how many more components there were to his body, from the wings to the tail, to feeling like he had extra limbs from the loss of his arms. Yeah, Alex didn’t consider that either, grunting thickly in the back of his throat. Even swallowing came more roughly, with a bit of acrid smoke in the back of his throat. Perhaps that was a dragon’s fire? He was just busy trying to make sense of everything, how even sensation licked through his scales, feeling like the edges were lifted slightly, or at least defined in a way that he could tell just where the edges of them all were.

So strange…

He stood on top of the bank, testing the swing of his tail, how it hung there naturally without dragging on the ground, as if it was suspended. There were muscles and ligaments holding it there and he was curious about that, for he most certainly could feel the weight of it. If it had just been him, as a man, he would have been hauling it about all over the place like a dead weight. There were so many more “things” about a dragon’s body that he had not recognised before, even though Alex was very much not at the point where he would have at all said that he appreciated them.

No, not really. Not when it was a dragon. Not when he was a dragon.

He grunted, trying to talk again, sheltering under a tree. For some reason, being close to nature, with something protecting his side if not his back, felt right, felt more natural. Maybe it was a dragon thing, something to do with their instincts?

“I…am…” He said slowly. “I am…Alexstrasza. I am…the Dragon Queen. I can…toorrrk… Ugh…”

He shook himself, trying again. That end sound had been harder to get his tongue around than anticipated.

“Toorrrk. Tork. Talk. Talk.”

There, that was better. He sounded as if he was deliberately trying to make his voice deeper than it was, but that would have to do, if he was there, if he had to do something. And what if he wasn’t the only one there? It must have been a dragon zone that he was in, if he was to go along with the notion that he was, ridiculously and crazily, in the game, maybe it was the new island where the dragons spawned, the starter zone? That had to be it…maybe. Or maybe not, how the hell was he supposed to know? He’d only seen bits of it in the trailer, no more than that, but it was difficult

“Ugh… I need…to get out…of here. This is crazy, everything’s crazy.”

The words sounded better, but his voice was trapped somewhere between Alexstrasza’s and his own, as if he was trying to apply Alex’s inflexions and nuances to his tone. But a voice in a dragon’s body and throat, seemingly, did not work like that.

“Pardon me…”

Alex jumped, trying to whip around, tripping over his own tail and snarling. Who was there? How had they snuck up on him? His heart hammered, pounding ruthlessly in his chest, aching through his ribs, every fibre of his being pumped through with adrenaline, though he tried to right himself again as quickly as possible. He hadn’t even noticed, however, until the splintered remains of the pine tree, not particularly old but a couple of metres tall above his head, came into view.

He'd smashed it to the ground, as if it was nothing at all, nothing more than a twig, or even kindling. He growled and shook his head, trying to push his tail down and his head up, appearing as if everything was as normal as it had ever been.

But it was not that easy, not as the blue Dracthyr stood before him, much smaller than him in his dragon body. Though they were both dragons, they were still very different, the Dracthyr taller than his human form would have been, yet still dwarfed by Alexstrasza’s body.

He gulped as the Dracthyr tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowed slightly, a slender tongue flickering within his mouth, as if he too was trying to source out something. He had to be roughly eight feet tall, though it was hard to judge it, with big, blocky shoulders and light leather armour. Yes, he definitely seemed like a spawn from the starter zone, though whether he was another character or an NPC was not something that Alex could truly determine.

Was he going along with the notion that he had been transported into the game in some way? As Alexstrasza, he lifted his head and tried to affect a haughty, all-knowing expression. Yet there was not much else that he thought he could do.

Whoever the hell the blue-scaled Dracthyr was, he seemed to know Alex – or Alexstrasza, to be precise. That made it all the more difficult for Alex to lift his head and growl, pretending to be her, despite how ungainly and clumsy he felt, even then.

“What is your business here?” He said, trying with all his might to sound as much like Alexstrasza as possible. “Who disturbs me?”

He wasn’t sure, not having paid all that close attention to the dragons and the like before, if that was the sort of thing that Alexstrasza would say, but, well…he had to try, one way or the other.

The Dracthyr regarded him silently, raising an eyebrow. Or maybe it was an eye ridge, with how his face was designed? He had smaller horns than Alex did, though he was not all that impressed with the body of the anthro dragon. If he had not been covered with the light leather armour, top and bottom, perhaps Alex would have been able to see more.

“I…am scouting.” The Dracthyr said, standing tall and regarding Alex. “But… No, no… That simply will not do. You are me… Hm, this is an unfortunate result indeed.”

Alex blinked. The Dracthyr didn’t sound like a playable character at all, or an NPC. Or it could have been the mumblings of a background NPC, to be fair, though nothing made sense. His jaw opened and closed, but no words came out. Damn it!

He stifled his frustration, only borne out of fear that something bad was going to happen here, that something was going to be pressed too far, that he was going to be caught out and everything was going to go wrong… Yet, even if things did go wrong, he had to admit that he was still a big, hulking dragon and, well, he was sure that he could crush the much smaller Dracthyr, especially with how they looked. If they had heavy metal armour, especially the kind with big spikes and the like, he would have been a lot more intimidating.

Something wasn’t right. There was something in those eyes and Alex kept himself quiet as he leaned in, inspecting the Dracthyr. That was surely something that Alexstrasza would do too, right? Take in one of her subjects, observing them, looking them up and down?

Eh… Alex was just winging it. A flicker of realisation drew on the back of his mind, the words on the tip of his tongue, though the man-turned-dragoness could not yet let them fly.

“Wait…” He shook his head, peering in closer. “You’re…”

“Well, I know you are not Alexstrasza,” the Dracthyr said bluntly, though the voice was rougher than the one that Alex expected to come from those lips. “Because I am Alexstrasza. And it seems that a new spell that I was working on has gone more than a little awry…”

He gaped, jaw falling slack. If he had not been there in the moment, it would have been comical, though how his heart pounded sent a rush of blood through him, heated and snarling. Adrenaline pumped and he dug his claws down into the ground as if preparing for an attack that he had not known had been coming, jaws agape in a low, rolling growl.

“Easy there,” the real Alexstrasza said, holding her hands up as the Dracthyr, though the body of the Dracthyr, at least to Alex’s eyes, was definitely male. “Relax… Dragon instincts are a difficult thing to get your mind around, if you’ve never experienced them before. That truly was a laughable attempt at impersonating me though, we’re going to have to work on that.”

“Work on…what?”

He spluttered, pulling back from her, though Alexstrasza calmly closed the distance, not at all intimidated by the body that should have been hers. She calmly regarded him and a twinge of frustration pulled at his stomach. Did she always have to look at him like that? And what of the body swap? Kind of? It was not as if he had been a Dracthyr before!

“What’s going on?” He demanded, as coolly and as levelly as he could, though that took a lot more effort even than walking. “How did I end up like this? Answer me!”

“You are not one to make demands of me, human,” she said, quieting him, even though Alex had been asking a very fair question. “Now… I was experimenting, one could say, with a new spell. My power, however, seems to have gone a little out of range, transforming you into my body and giving me the body of another also.”

He blinked. If he was buying into it, it did sound like a rather reasonable, kind of, explanation. Yet Alex’s mind still reeled, not knowing how to talk about it.

“The problem at hand here is that I do not know how to transform us back – not immediately, that is,” she went on, even as panic fluttered in his chest. “There will be a way, of course, for there are no possible means for me to remain stuck in the form of this Dracthyr, as fine as the body of a male is. But it will take some time. The male form is intriguing, but I am certain that I will miss both my human shape and my dragon shape soon enough.”

He grimaced, shaking his head.

“Yeah… I’m clearly more used to being a human being,” he confessed, a little more at ease with her, since they were, sort of, in the same boat. “Four legs… I don’t know how you can control all of them, let alone wings. And…”

He gulped and glanced back, but any heat in his face could not be seen through his scales. They were red already, however, so perhaps that made it a moot point.

He was not male. But he was still…male? He was a dragoness, but still a man. Alex didn’t know how the hell that worked, but wasn’t about to start unpacking it right away.

Even if he had Alexstrasza’s body, he did not have her mind. That, at least, was something to be grateful for. And the fact that he could hope to be transformed back.

“It must indeed be interesting,” she said, walking around him, taking her time with every rolling stride. “I’m used to a humanoid form too, of course, but you… You will never have had a body like this.”

“It’s completely new, so weird,” he said, dipping his head. “I can hardly lift the wings! They just flop against my back, not hanging behind like my tail. That bit’s easier, though barely.”

“And you are female.”

He bristled, his head snapping up. Was that a smirk he detected on the Dracthyr’s face? Alexstrasza’s face?

“No! Well… I…”

“It is my body, young one, I should know the intricacies of it,” she said, though the rough voice of the Dracthyr’s body that she was in softened, if only a little. “You are female, my real body is female. How do you feel about that?”

He growled and shook his head, trying to turn his head away. With his large eyes, however, he somehow still managed to keep Alexstrasza in his sights. Damn it.

“I…” He shifted his weight uncomfortably, tail swinging back and forth, roughly scraping against a tree. “It’s…uncomfortable. It’s…weird. I don’t want to have that part. I can’t feel it anyway, it’s easier to ignore it.”

“I cannot see why you would possibly want to ignore such a fine part of yourself,” Alexstrasza said easily, as if they were merely having a conversation over the weather. “Look at you… Look at me…”

She continued walking around him, eyeing up her quadruped body from every angle. Although Alex grumbled and tried to shift away, he had to admit that it was her right, after all, when it was her body. There was nowhere he could go in a hurry, despite everything, the piercing nature of her stare boring through his scales, as if Alexstrasza could see something beneath them that he didn’t even know was there.

“You should be enjoying such a form,” Alexstrasza said lightly, though he was more than a little surprised to detect a hint of a tease in her tone. “I know that I did, more often than not. There are many in this world and beyond, quite evidently, that would like the chance to settle into the body of the Dragon Queen, Alexstrasza. I have lain with my fair share of suitors in my time, some kinder than others, though it was always my own body from which I derived the most pleasure.”

He grumbled and shook his head, though that movement, at least, seemed to be becoming a little easier. The muscles in his neck more readily obeyed him, though it was still very strange to have his head out so far on the end of the…limb? It wasn’t an appendage…

“I don’t know what I’d think about it,” he said, at last, bristling slightly. “I don’t want to look like this, I want my old body back. Shouldn’t that be obvious?”

Alexstrasza nodded, the Dracthyr’s wings spreading a little as if it was an instinctive reaction, a form of communication that, even then, Alex did not understand.

“Of course. But the finery of a dragon’s scales is not something that you can merely ignore… No, young one, you should enjoy this. Look at the power in my hindquarters, those wings that can carry me to the heavens, the Draonflight in tow. Oh, I had not realised that the line of my shoulders was quite that fine either, this is quite different to observing oneself in a mirror…”

“Hey!” He broke, snapping at her with a swipe of his tail, though Alexstrasza jumped back easily, landing on two bare feet. “Stop saying things like that! I don’t even like dragons, so you’re not going to magically get me to like this body either.”

“You don’t like dragons?” She said, lips twitching as if Alexstrasza was holding back her laughter. “Now, that truly is a farce. I can already sense the kinship in you, young one, though you have much to grow into.”

Alex sighed and dipped his head to rub at his snout with his foreleg. Already, that was feeling more like a natural motion. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted that.

“Look… Please, don’t tease me like that,” he said, trying to be upfront, even though he had found it interesting just how she behaved, the way that she took in her own body. “I’m not comfortable with it. As the Dragon Queen, you should respect that…right?”

He was not as confident as he was trying to make himself out to be, though that did not make his words any less true. Even though she was more powerful than him, the Dragon Queen, he had to have respect too, not just one of her subjects to be used. He couldn’t honestly remember all that much about her, never being interested in the dragon parts of the story, so he had kind of whizzed by and not read much of that lore when he had been playing the game.

“Fair dealing, young one,” she said, though the regal inkling of her head looked out of place on the Dracthyr. “I understand your discomfort, but this should be something that we talk about more later. It is different, after all, on the inside. Between what has happened with our bodies, we should keep this all a secret between us, until I uncover the remedy to the spell, all to send you back to your true body. If my enemies were to find out that the Dragon Queen is not herself, well…I would not be able to properly defend myself, not with this amiss. We must keep this quiet, between only us. Then and only then will all this be put to rights once more.”

That sounded…very much like a good idea to him. He exhaled a sigh that he had not realised that he’d been holding in and nodded. She smiled at him, further relaxing him, the mere sense of someone else being in the know and in control putting his mind just a little more at rest. There was a lot of body to relax there, however, muscles losing the contractions that they had held without due need, tail lowering a little more too.

Everything would be okay, he told himself, taking solace in Alexstrasza’s command, her position of authority. She would put it right and then everything would be back to normal, in the end.

He only didn’t know how long that would be so for.

“I agree, to everything,” he said, though it was not as if Alex had much of an option in any of it. “I want to be changed back, as soon as possible. Please.”

She nodded, spreading her hands apart.

“Yes, of course. First, you must walk like the Dragon Queen. The lumbering gait you have now – yes, I saw you going down to the river, not quite like a queen – will not do. There’s no elegance about it, but you must look comfortable in your body. Not as if you have suddenly been dropped into it.”

He grimaced and rolled his eyes, though Alex could not be quite sure if they moved as he was expecting them to. There were so many new things to take in, when it came to being a dragon.

“Come on now,” she said, walking in front of him with an ease that made him jealous of her mere two legs. “One foot in front of the other. Keep a distance between them, of course, and the walk is a one-leg-at-a-time gait. There is no moment of suspension, like at the gallop for dragons – though most will choose to take flight if being forced to go that swiftly, of course.”

He didn’t understand the last part of that, but he could follow along with Alexstrasza at least trying to teach him how to walk. He knew that he needed that and gulped, head lifting, trying to think about that balance too. His tail swung with the roll of his stride, so he didn’t feel that that had to be something all that concerning, even though it was worrying to think that he was going to be stuck as a dragoness for longer than even he could have anticipated.

Don’t think about that. Just walk.

If he only thought about walking, as the day moved towards late afternoon, a hint of the late afternoon glow tinting the sky, it was better. He could calm his mind and take on something of the persona of the Dragon Queen, one foot moving at a time, his claws digging into the ground, though he tried not to bear down too heavily into them, for they could rake through and get stuck too. Toenails seemed like such a tiny thing in comparison, though he could pull them up slightly, only a little, offering him some flexibility in them. It looked like they could be curled from the toes too, muscles and a joint close to the tip of the toe giving him a chance there.

“That’s correct. Now, add a little more relaxation to your body.”

He tried to follow her words, feeling every muscle, how the roll of his gait carried him smoothly forward. The mud was less of a challenge now too as he moseyed down, carefully, to the river, taking another sidelong look at himself in the river, the full length of his body admirable.

He was powerful, he had to admit, briefly peering at the size of his wings, reflected in the rippling river. They were almost as long as his body was, easily big enough to take him aloft. He shifted his weight without even thinking about it, adjusting for the slip and slide of the mud, finding a greater sense of stability in his body than had been there before.

Maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad as he thought, being a dragoness… Being Alexstrasza.

“That is enough, for the moment,” Alexstrasza said, pausing him. “But we should re-visit that in the morning. Before the light goes, it is time to try out your wings.”

He gulped, but didn’t feel like saying anything against her, nothing about his nerves. Someone that literally flew into war was not going to listen to someone worried about flying and hurting himself – or so he thought. Alex truly didn’t know Alexstrasza, not really, so could not say anything at all about how she really was.

“Spread your wings wide,” Alexstrasza said, demonstrating with her Dracthyr wings, pushing them out fully, like sails. “All the way, you’ve got to feel that strain in the wing, as if it has gone too far. If you fold your wings when flying, it will affect your flight. You can soar with your wings like this, floating along the thermals and the updrafts, but pumping your wings is something you will have to be familiar with. If we are fortunate, instinct will kick in…”

He took a breath and steadied himself, flapping his wings, struggling not to be thrown off balance. It was hard to find the strength in them, even though, logically, he knew that the muscle was there. He only had to relax, to think, perhaps, a little less about what he was doing, to let instinct take over. Maybe Alexstrasza was right?

“Good… You are coming along well, hatchling.”

He rumbled a pleased growl, surprising even himself with the sound that purred from his lips. Did he like getting praised that much? She was the Dragon Queen, after all, a queen even though he had not paid much thought to her dragon form and all that side before. He could not help but be very slightly starstruck, feeling like a subject of hers, now that she had, at least, respected his wishes on not delving too deeply into his new body, that was.

Until later, she had said, a little voice inside his head reminded him. But Alex wasn’t going to let that worry him as she taught him up to lift off, feet dangling in the air, hanging as he pumped and flapped his wings frantically.

“Agh!”

“That’s it – stay there, stay there! You’ve got it!”

She practically cheered for him and he wondered if Alexstrasza was like those with her young that she had taught too, though there was something there in that story that he couldn’t remember too. She had to be a mother, yes, but…hm, yeah, he should really have paid more attention to that part of the WoW story and lore, after all that. But he couldn’t say that after all that had happened, for things would come through, one thing after the other. Even if he couldn’t say, not really, what those “things” were.

He sighed, landing with a solid thump that shook the ground under his feet, grateful to be back on it, but it had not been all that bad for a first flight. He felt like he should have been sweating, but a dragon’s body didn’t do that, which was a problem for him, fighting the urge to let his jaws hang open. It was the easiest way for him to let his body release excess heat, though he didn’t know that – not at that time. All Alex could do was allow instinct to, at least in some small way, guide him forward.

Like flying, one wing beat after the other. Like walking, one footstep after the other. Like breathing, one breath after the other.

Jeez, did he even have to think about breathing now too? That felt like too much, though the rise and fall of his massive sides betrayed just how large his lungs were, though Alexstrasza told him that there were no air sacs or anything inside him. For her dragonkind, of course, there was magic to aid them in getting aloft, the kind of magic that flowed through the veins of every dragon in her lands.

Neither of them said the obvious and it was that Alex now had access to that magic too. He could feel it under his wings, tilting them a little more in one direction while he struggled against it, how it pushed him higher for another test flight, flapping above tree level and gaping at just how much further he could see, even from that alone. The green, lush lands stretched out before him and he could see just as well, as twilight softly fell around him, as he could in daylight. He had wondered if his eyesight would be worse at dawn and dusk, being that he knew that was the case for some animal species in the world. But dragons were not creatures of any world that he could be familiar with, no… Not even from playing the game itself.

“I…” He gulped, his nerve failing him, dropping back to the ground. “Unnff… It’s so much harder than it looks. Well, no… No, it must be exactly as hard as it looks.”

She laughed at that, demonstrating in her Dracthyr form, flapping her wings and taking to the air, though there was a good amount of physical exertion going on for her as she dipped and looped. Shooting up higher than Alex had gone, she made it look much easier than he could have expected, his tongue sliding out to scoop up a faint bit of saliva from the edge of his mouth. His tongue seemed to know, without him even needing to think about it, where to go to avoid his teeth, as if his body knew the ins and outs of itself better than he ever could.

If he didn’t overthink things, things were easier. He wished, in a way, that he could do what Alexstrasza was doing, the dips and flips that she so easily pulled off as a Dracthyr amusing, at the very least. At their best, they were impressive, in a way that had him craning his head and neck back and forth, trying to catch just what was going to come next, what move she was going to pull out of her arsenal next.

“Oof… I must admit,” she said, as she set down more lightly than he had, her toes and claws curling into a tussock of grass. “It’s all feeling quite… Hmph… It is harder to do that in this body than it would be in my usual form, my natural form. It is wrong to be in the shape of a male, even though I’m intrigued, truly, to find out even more about this one.”

He cocked his head, a smirk pulling at his lips.

“Anyone would think that you will be testing out your temporary new body in your bedchamber tonight,” he said, testing the grounds of teasing her right back. “That’s bold to say…”

“I’m the Dragon Queen,” she said plainly, though there was still a smile on her lips, warm and confident. “I have no reason to hold anything back. That time is long passed.”

She turned to him, lifting her hand and crooking a finger, managing her humanoid-like dragon body a lot better than he handled the quadruped one.

“Come now, we’ve got to get inside. This is but one of my homes, but it will suffice for the time being. I like to see to it that the coming Dracthyr are well taken care of, of course, set on their course for this world.”

That sounded like a line that she should have been giving out as an NPC, but, well, there was only so much that she could do, he supposed. There was still a path that Alexstrasza was supposed to follow in the game, even though Alex did not honestly know how she was going to come into the new expansion. Maybe he was going to end up seeing that first-hand, which was ironic since he wasn’t all that interested in playing it for himself.

How things change…

Or maybe not so much. He followed behind her, enjoying the low, rolling power of his gait more than he had before, for he was more in control of his body. The power in his hindquarters and how he pushed forward with every step and stride was soothing in a way, more rhythmic than walking only as a biped. It was something that he had not known could be as relaxing as it was, the sway of his tail balancing him and swinging in the opposite direction to the hind leg that was off the ground at that time. It kept him in place and, as they walked, Alexstrasza speeding up so that she kept pace just ahead of him, leading the way with shorter legs, he flapped his wings experimentally, a lot more careful, that time, about knocking into the trees.

“Here it is…”

He parted his lips, awed, even though he should not have been. A giant tree stretched protective arms overhead, big enough for a dragon to roost in its branches, though her home there, even if it was just one of the places that Alexstrasza clearly resided, was within the tree itself. A grand set of double doors, embellished with gold, heralded the entrance, though he would soon see what grand rooms, fit for a dragon, resided within the massive trunk.

The land there did not look like a part of the Dragon Isles, but he’d only seen a bit in the previews and trailers, not going into any leaks. Still rich and fertile, the land streamed with a dragon’s magic, flowers springing up ahead of Alexstrasza in a myriad of colours, so many that he could not have possibly remembered the names of them all or even the colours. He didn’t think the colours had a name in the human language, not on Earth.

Alex’s heart panged for home, but there was only so much that he could do there, if he was to be changed back and sent to his home.

“Hey…” He started, a thought coming to him as they stepped through the doors together, the entrance chamber inside offering several large hallways to bounce off from. “If I’m in your body…and you’re in the body of a Dracthyr… Does that mean that the Dracthyr is in the body…of me? My body? Back home?”

She nodded, a small smile quirking her lips.

“Yes, I do believe so. I do hope he is doing well over there, but I am confident that any of the Dracthyr would be able to conduct themselves with grace and dignity.”

He wasn’t so sure about that, but was distracted by navigating the wooden staircase, wide and sweeping around the entrance hall to take them both to the next level. He had a sneaky suspicion that Alexstrasza could have just flown up herself, but stayed at a walking pace on the stairs to keep with him. That was appreciated, even though he didn’t want to think about the Dracthyr living his life and trying to fit in, perhaps not even pretending to be him.

No… No, that would be a problem that he could come to later, if at all. It was better that way, not to worry about what he couldn’t control.

Alex did not realise then that that was a very dragon-like way of thinking.

“These are my quarters, though, of course, the entire abode is my home,” she said, opening a door for him and gesturing him through. “In here, you will not be disturbed. There will still be staff around, Dracthyr and dragon-kind, but we will have to maintain the ruse that I am merely an advisor and you are Alexstrasza. I must say, it is almost a break from my normal duties!”

She laughed lightly, though he huffed, smoke curling from his nostrils. Alex only just about held back his surprise at that, not wanting to give her any other reason to laugh at him. There was still a sense of awe about being in the presence of a queen, despite everything, despite his natural inclination against dragons.

Or perhaps he was changing his mind on that matter too, like he was with so much else.

“I will reside in one of the guest rooms, but we should bathe first of all,” she said. “The bathing chamber is quite large too, obviously suited for my real dragon form. I think you will be most pleased by it.”

Alexstrasza had a way of speaking, even with the Dracthyr’s rougher, more masculine voice, that sounded smooth and velvet, if he ignored the male rasp in it. It was almost as if she was trying to seduce him, though he could not help but think that she had more than enough suitors in her world and lands. Maybe it was just how her voice was becoming twisted, like his was: trying to talk like herself when the vocal cords of the body she was trapped in did not work like that.

Still, it was one way for him to understand her voice, even though she was quite correct in saying that he was going to be awed by the bathroom – oh, wait, she’d called it a bathing chamber. For “bathroom” didn’t encompass the big, sweeping tub that filled almost the entire chamber. A waterfall spilt into the corner, which must have been funnelled there from magical sources, always ensuring a fresh bathing experience at all times.

“The water is forever changing, like a river, in here,” Alexstrasza explained, drawing her leather armour off her top half, moving easily as if it was something that she was, admittedly, already familiar with. “You may add oils and magical essences to the water, but it will only last for a time. More than long enough for a bath to be had, of course. I often have others come in to assist me in bathing and applying oils to the scales, particular the ridges along my back, but I think I should be the only one to assist you this time.”

He would have blushed at Alexstrasza stripping off right there before him, but it did not feel like it was really her body, not truly.

I can’t believe that I thought it was a dream…

For everything there was far, far too real for any bit of it to be a dream, rooted in reality, though it was not a reality that he was going to forget anytime soon. Alexstrasza removed the leather armour from her legs, where it was strapped on, and the loincloth spilling down over her crotch between her legs. If there was anything more for the Dracthyr that she had taken the body of, he did not see, turning from her and working out just how to slide down into the wooden tub.

It helped that it was set into the floor of the room, though he couldn’t imagine just how strong the magically enchanted wood had to be to bear that weight of water on top of it. Everything in there smelled lightly of cedar and something floral, a fruity bite of scent that had him inhaling again, more deeply that time.

“Um…”

Sliding his front feet into the water, he tipped forward, not even expecting it to be as deep as it was, and tumbled into the water with a loud splash, sending up a tidal wave. Dimly, he was aware of Alexstrasza crying out in surprise, but his head ducked under the water in a stream of bubbles, underwater sound pressing in on his ears.

It was not much different, in that regard, than hearing sound underwater as a human being, the sensation of the water pressing in on his ears making him feel like every noise, from the splash of his own limbs churning through the water to Alexstrasza slipping in herself, was too close, right up against him. And yet the water had a muting effect too, giving the impression that he was hearing everything from very far away, the two things directly contrasting each other. It was the muffling pressure that was difficult to bear and he lunged back to the surface with a gasp, breaking the surface in a shatter of crystalline droplets.

“Ugh!”

He shook off his head, water spraying from his horns, as if it had found every tiny crevice on his head and horns and scales to lodge itself into, though he could be grateful at least that he didn’t have fur there to become sodden. Alexstrasza laughed at him, nude and in the bath with him, though there was only enough space in there for a length and a bit more of Alexstrasza’s dragon form. Alex could not have turned around in there, despite the size, and lamented that, even if the waterfall was, very gently, caressing his tail as it fell. He was, however, close enough to the oils and potions to peer over them closely, though the words on them were written in a language that he did not recognise. Which was probably quite reasonable, considering he was in the Dragon Isles and World of Warcraft.

It was still crazy to think…

“I’ve never, I must admit, entered my bath quite like that before,” she said, teasing him as she swam closer, for the bath was better suited to Alexstrasza’s dragon form, coming up to the quadruped dragon’s chest. “That was quite entertaining, are you quite alright?”

“Yes,” he grumbled, turning his head away, though he did not yet know just how he was going to manage to get out of the bath after all that. “How do you even do that?”

“It is a learning experience, that one, but there’s a great, stone bathing pool at my main residence, when I am not travelling. It is hewn out of rock and steams, a natural spring. That is the easiest to slip into, as there is a slope that edges down into it, allowing me to slip in, especially with the heat. It is quite luxurious, however, I do miss it.”

He allowed himself to imagine that. The bath there was light and fresh and stimulating to his scales, rather than so warm that he could sink into the heat of it and almost fall asleep. Despite his less-than-graceful entry into it, he was able to follow Alexstrasza’s lead and turn his head to groom his scales, using his tongue around all that he could reach, while she emptied in what she claimed was a simple cleansing potion.

“It will help you feel clean again,” she said, explaining it when she didn’t have to. “Just allow this to flow over your scales and it will do the rest for you, nothing to concern yourself about.”

He smiled a bit. It was almost motherly just how she was taking care of him – but not quite. More as if they were closer than they were. Dimly, Alex wondered if he would feel even closer to her than he already did if they had directly body swapped and he was in her body, completely, while she had been stuck in his.

Even if it was not so, it was interesting to think about. He tried not to look at what the Dracthyr had between her legs, thinking it rude to do so, but, when his eyes did stray, it didn’t seem like there was anything down there. Maybe it was something more like a reptilian slit? It was not something that he would have to worry about.

Cleansing himself in the bath, however, did help him get more familiar with his new body, settled there and comfortable, though getting out was going to be an ordeal in itself. His tail was buoyed up by the water and he did not have to concentrate so much on his form and position, especially when the water helped support his body. If there had been a lake or some other deeper body of water, he imagined that that would help support him even more.

He shook his head, scrambling out of the bath and digging his claws into the wood for purchase. Every limb felt relaxed and his head and tail drooped as Alexstrasza led him, drip-drying easily, back through to her sleeping chamber, the Dracthyr only dressing with a towel around his waist. Alex suspected that that was more for his benefit than hers, though could not have said anything about the clothing habits of dragons like the Dracthyr.

Maybe he would find out.

“Take your time tonight,” she advised him before leaving, clearly to take up residence in her chosen guest chambers. “You will need the rest. But you are doing well so far.”

With that, he was left alone, back as if it was in the moments just after his initial waking and transformation. He groaned and stretched out first one wing and then the other, marvelling at the space in there. Of course, there had to be room in the bedroom, considering that it had been designed for Alexstrasza and her comfort, so it stood to reason that there would be more than enough room in there. But to be inside the tree, like in the Emerald Isles… It was something special, something that, even if he managed to see things on their way back to normal, he would always remember.

There was no bed, but more of a sleeping mat or a sleeping nest, the edge raised a little with a knotted blanket that denoted where the edge of the sleeping area was. It looked comfortable, plush and soft, though he did not adjourn to bed just yet.

A large mirror, big enough for a dragon but still not big enough for his needs, beckoned him and he stood there, looking his body over.

His dragoness body. For he was a dragoness, even if Alex was still a man inside, wanting to know everything about it. On the outside, it was still just the body of a dumb beast, even if he did honestly know that there was more to Alexstrasza than that, but there was more to being a dragon on the inside. It was horrific and, without something to focus on, he could not stop the frantic drumming of his heartbeat, how the blood roared in his ears.

I’m really a dragoness… A dragon… A dragoness…

Alex repeated the words, over and over again, to himself, as if saying them just one more time would make them just that little bit easier to understand. They did not and he turned, taking in with a stomach-dropping twist, to observe the spikes on his back, just how the leather of his wings still seemed a bit darker with the lingering water on them. He did not seem to have dried off completely yet, not even with the heat of his fire within, but that wasn’t what caught his attention as his tail curled back and forth.

Alex took a moment, the tip curling, testing its flexibility of it. It seemed to bend a lot more than he had thought it would, and he tried pushing it back towards his body, touching his hindquarters with it.

“Huh… That’s so weird.”

It was exceptionally weird to touch himself like that, not with a hand or a finger, not at all. A tail was foreign to him, something only ever seen on other things, creatures that were dumb and lacking in that human intelligence. Well, the game had changed there, completely…

He licked his lips, his mouth too dry for comfort. He was really a dragon, really a beast… Oh, how could he have forgotten anything about it? He shook his head with a low growl, though kept his voice low, not wanting to alert Alexstrasza to his distress, if she was even close enough to hear him. His heart pounded, echoing through the cavity of his chest, but he didn’t want to lose control, had to calm himself, had to concentrate on taking long, slow, deep breaths that completely filled and entered his lungs every time.

That was the best he could do, his vision swaying, but the stability of being on all fours legs and having his tail to balance too helped ease down his breathing. Alex groaned, hanging his head, feeling as if the stress of the day had laid upon him all at once, such a heavy weight that he seemed to have been borne down into the ground simply by it being placed on top of him.

“Oh, damn it…”

He sighed heavily and turned as if to go to the sleeping mat, but Alex would never entirely know what he had intended to do that night. All he knew was that something distracted him.

His eyes slid back, his back to the mirror, widening slightly. His tail was lifted enough to reveal what lay beneath it and he licked his lips, a reflexive action, fire crackling in the back of his mouth. He didn’t want to say anything aloud, for fear of letting forth a streaming jet of dragon fire and revealing that he had been in distress, but he would have to hold back then.

For there was a slit of a female rather than a male sex under his tail that revealed his truth. It seemed separate from his anal passage, for which he was grateful. Honestly, Alex didn’t quite know what he would have done, needing to feel cleaner than ever, if he had had a cloaca rather than just a slit of a pussy.

Was that what dragons called it, he wondered? A pussy? It didn’t feel like the right word for a dragon, but all that was more than by the by. He held his breath, waiting for the right thing to do to strike him. Yet, nothing came. He didn’t know why he had expected it to come.

There was a strength in that body, yes, not entirely something to be shocked and horrified by, he thought, yet it was hard to get those words into his head. If he explored it more, maybe he would become even more in tune with it than he had become, under Alexstrasza’s guidance and teaching.

That was the lie that he told himself, allowing himself to explore his body. His tail was the best tool for touch that he had at his disposal, sliding over his hindquarters, the tip probing and teasing. It found the edges of the scales, pushing high, the tip of his tail coming around to the root of his tail, where it looped into his body, an extension of his spine. It was a strangely long curve to it that left it pointed back on itself, his breath hitching and catching as he tried to take everything in, grappling with the reality of his situation.

But a mind could be distracted with pleasure and he found that out for himself as the tip of his tail quested in closer and closer to the slit of his sex, teasing those so very sensitive scales. He wasn’t really thinking about what he was doing, merely following the push and pull of his new body, how it wanted something from him. He wanted it, aching for it, grunting thickly in the back of his throat even as his head rolled. He could not roll his head back on his shoulders anymore, being that his head was posed so far out from his shoulders on the end of his neck, but the sentiment and sensation was still there, tension lining his much longer neck.

He needed to get something…yes. Something, even though he didn’t know what was happening, why those fiery, biting tingles were shooting through him. If it felt a bit more like touching himself when he’d had a cock, perhaps it would have been easier to lean into, but, as it was, his tail pressed in closer to his slit, teasing the edges, and withdrawing. Repeatedly.

“Oh… Fuck…”

Alex wasn’t usually much one to swear, though he drew back and away from the notion of being a beast, of being a monster. He didn’t want to be like that -s o he instead thought about the power of his new form, how he could challenge it, how he could use it. It would not be like that forever, after all, so he should well enough use it while he could, appreciating the strong lines of muscle, how they bunched, readying themselves for more.

And yet that “more” was just the pleasure of the body. He knew what it felt like, to be aroused, as a man, but it was entirely new to him, as a dragon. All in a way that he ground his teeth together, clenching his jaw, teeth locking together so that he could barely move his jaw at all, tongue flickering up against the inner cage of his teeth.

“Mmmph…”

Alex moaned through his teeth, but had to part his jaws to gasp a breath, tail pushing in – and catching in his sex. If that had not happened, a mistake of the best kind, he would never have realised just how that jab of his tail, only a couple of inches, into his pussy felt, the spike of heat lancing straight through him.

“Ohhh…”

Alex panted and rocked his weight from side to side, legs trembling as if they were going to buckle at any moment. He wanted something, yes, more of that pressure, and he moved more on instinct than any conscious thought as his tail slid further into him. Even though he could feel the edge of every scale all over his body, they did not catch in his sex, the heat within building, blossoming, like a spark of fire that burned through kindling, flaring up into a heated blaze. The scales covering his tail only added to the deep, burning sensation, as if something even greater than his tail was spearing into him, thrusting and grinding, giving him every little bit of that pulsing pleasure that he longed for.

“Mmm… Ohhh…”

He hoped no one was close enough to hear him, though Alex did not honestly know where Alexstrasza was. If she was near, she would likely hear, but Alex could not stop pleasuring his own body, not now that he had begun.

His position, with his back to the mirror, allowed him to look around, his eyelids fluttering as if he wanted to close them, a body that he was not familiar with longing for things other than what he was offering it. If he perked up his tail just a little higher, he could see just where a few inches of his tail slid inside him, pulling back a little with a gleam of his arousal clinging to it.

It was wrong, yes…in a way…to have a pussy there, not a cock. Of course, a cock should have been under his belly and that dragon slit was very different, but he still saw one thing as replacing the other. The feeling of being stretched open, his tail thickening up more as he pressed down the length, easing more into his body, was incredible. He’d never experimented with backdoor play and, frankly, had no interest in it for himself, but a pussy was different. His slit grasped it tightly, pulling back around the girth, but he was able to stretch himself out more and more as he worked his tail in and out, trying to mimic thrusts.

Truthfully, all he did was follow the lines of what was the most pleasurable right then and there. His tail curled inside him without Alex even actively thinking about it, pressing up against his inner walls, hot and wet, practically dripping with his arousal. It was so much more obvious like that, more so than even an erect cock, but he longed for more, grunting, bearing back as his hips rocked.

More… He’d never thought like that before, the want to be penetrated, how his tail twisted and pushed inside him, almost as if it had a mind of its own. The scales raked beautifully over the edge of his slit, right where the nerve endings seemed to be the most sensitive, though the pressure of a good, sharp thrust was not to be denied either. He felt so tight around his tail, but he couldn’t stop, watching in the mirror as heat simmered through him, fucking his own pussy with his tail. When his body ached with a deeply seated need, he drove on, thrusting harder, faster, following the whims of his body wherever it was that his body and instinct wanted to lead him.

“Mmph… Yes… Please…”

He didn’t know who he was begging, only that the words felt right in the moment, right at that time. It didn’t have to be anything more than that, not at all, not as he found a greater sense of stability on all four legs, spreading them apart a little more. As heat crawled through him, flooding his veins as if it was following the network of them through his body, he fought to even shuffled a foot across the wooden floor, the weight of his own body bearing him down, locking him in place.

Alex was not to know that all that was a part of instinct too, the holding of oneself in place for such pleasure. His body was already imagining the weight of a drake on its back, even if a drake was not what Alex wanted. He didn’t know what he wanted, licking his lips frantically, trying to find a way to bear through the strung-out tension pulling taut within him, like a cord about to snap under the heat of the flame intent on gnawing away at it.

His breath caught, tightening in his throat as if something was closing around it, but that was merely just him unable to hold it back, panting and heaving, finally letting it fly free. With a flare of burning heat sweltering through the pit of his stomach, he swallowed his bellow and let his orgasm, finally, soar. It powered through him, as if it was not going to be held back, one way or the other, his pussy contracting while his tail was forced to press down on that one so very sensitive spot, again and again.

Alex heaved, flanks shuddering for breath that didn’t do anything to ease the tightness in his lungs and loins, letting it ache through, again and again. It had to come and it took him well and truly for a ride, huffing and panting, heaving bodily, his tail jerking and twitching even as he strove with all his might to keep it as deep inside him as possible. He moaned, unable to keep that sound back, head hanging, even his wings drooping, slumping down to the ground.

Yet he would have to learn just how passion was to come, as a dragoness, for his fate there was not to be reversed quite that quickly, even if Alexstrasza was just as intent on him being back in his old body as he was. His jaws hung open, dragging in every last little scrap of air that he could, huffing and panting, the flow of breath cooling across his tongue. Everything came together as it was meant to be, or so his body told him, grumbling and rumbling through his body, not entirely sure just where the sound was coming from.

It did not matter, not even as he slumped down to the sleeping mat, trying not to be too turned on by the slickness remaining on his tail. He even brought it, curiously, around to his mouth, tongue twining around the end and the thicker tip, cleaning off his own arousal from it. He laid his head down eventually, not knowing what else to do, sleep clawing at him, gently but surely pulling him under.

There was nowhere else for him to go, after all, letting rest overcome him.

Maybe things would look different in the morning.

*

Huh? Where am I?

The dragoness started awake the next morning, fumbling and twisting, raking his claws through the cushions under her, before realising that he was not human again. His body had expected to find itself back in a human form, despite not having any evidence to the contrary, tongue flicking out anxiously against the side of his muzzle as he tried to get his bearings. He’d done that many times before, as a man, startling awake in the morning and not knowing where he was at first. With a new body and a tail that swung out suddenly, striking the wall, it was even worse.

He tried to struggle up, still only half awake, but his forelegs did not act like the arms that he expected, huffing and grunting, eyes wide, shoving himself back in horror.

A dragon… I’m still a dragon!

He knew it to be true, but that did not stop his heart from pounding, driving through, adrenaline coursing. Cursing, he fought to leap to his feet, but crashed down a moment later on his snout, muzzle crumpling where it crushed into the floor, not really knowing how he’d gotten there. Pain radiated through him and he snarled, hissing and squirming like a hatchling onto his side, every fibre of his being screaming at him to run, to get away, to flee the situation.

Yet things were not always that easy, even as twisted human instinct clashed with that of a dragon’s instinct, readier to fight than a human was. He’d never been the aggressive sort as a human, never wanting to clash with anyone, as difficult as all that was.

Slowly but surely, he panted and took deep, steadying breaths, trying to tell himself that everything was fine, that everything was going to be okay, even if it was not going to be fine. He shamefacedly shook his head, tucking his nose down under his tail as if to cover his face, for it was not as if he could easily put his foot over his face, where he would have used a hand before.

Oh, everything was so confusing… Why couldn’t things be simple?

He, more slowly, went to get up for a second time, thinking about his limbs, how the muscles in them worked, how he had to think about taking his weight back on his hindquarters, using his tail for balance. That time, getting up was a lot easier than it had been before, unfolding himself from the bed and peering despondently at the shredded parts of the bedding. Hopefully, that was nothing of a real worry to dragons and those with claws sharp enough to cause such damage regularly.

A rap on the door gave him pause and he straightened up, shuffling his wings into place and, carefully, thinking about how to complete the motion, sitting in the centre of the receiving chamber. Large and open, the main chamber of the dragon’s quarters led on into the bathing chamber and the bedroom – and a couple more rooms that, honestly, Alex had not yet had the thought to explore yet. It was nice, at least, that it was designed for dragons as big as Alexstrasza, which meant that he still did not have to concern himself about his wings knocking into the walls or his horns raking the ceiling.

He should not have been surprised to see Alexstrasza enter, but, with the dawn light streaming through, it seemed that she was an early riser, whereas Alex had merely been startled awake by something. She looked more comfortable in her Dracthyr form, the blue scales polished and clean, her horns white and dominant, though the masculine lines of her jaw were still evident as a male. He wondered just how Alexstrasza would look if she had been a female Dracthyr, though he doubted that that would have been as interesting to him. The jury was still out on his opinion of dragons still, the Dracthyr included…

“I see you are awake already,” Alexstrasza said pleasantly, her hands moving over her light metal armour, in a pearlescent shade of blue-gold. “I have rectified my situation, for the moment, and have ensured that those here know me to be one of Alexstrasza’s advisors… It is truly interesting to consider just how I would advise myself, but, well…”

Even she laughed at that, though Alex pressed his lips together. Who knew what was going on in her head? He stiffened and nodded, trying to appear normal. What would Alexstrasza say if she knew what he had done with her body the night before? Not that there was anything that he could do about it in the golden light of dawn…

“Are you quite well?” She asked, shrewdly observant, as always. “You appear uneasy. Your tail is twitching.”

He muttered something and shook his head.

“Didn’t think I’d wake up as a dragon,” he grumbled. “When are you going to be able to fix the spell and put me back, anyway?”

Alexstrasza’s lips twisted lightly, as if they were pressed together in sympathy. On a Dracthyr’s muzzle, it was hard to tell one way or the other.

“Soon, I assure you. I have risen many hours earlier already, though this form still requires an adequate amount of sleep, it seems…”

She smiled, winking at him. On her Dracthyr form, it just seemed unnerving.

“I trust that you are finding your movement as a dragon comfortable now?” Alexstrasza smiled. “You must get used to your wings soon. With this form being able to fly, I will be able to guide you from the air.”

He gulped and shook his head.

“Oh… No, I don’t think… I’m not ready for that.”

But she ushered him from the room, moving more quickly than he felt himself capable of, getting him moving even when he was not ready to.

“There’s no time like the present. And, sometimes, there is not even the present to contend with.”

“What does that even mean?!”

He snapped at her as he was ushered out and higher up the staircase – to what he would have said was a balcony of some kind, on the exterior of the tree. Alexstrasza, however, called it a flight platform.

“There is no one else around,” she said, though Alex didn’t find that all that reassuring, as if there would be no one around there to catch him if he was to fall and crash back down to the ground. “You have to flap your wings, take flight, use all that power in your muscles, the span stretching into your back, your scapula…”

Yet it was not something that a dragon could teach every note and intricacy to someone who was…not a dragon. Even though Alex was in a dragoness’ body.

He gnashed his teeth and Alexstrasza softened a little, something about him pulling at her heart. He was like one of her young ones, all brawn and brash, trying to press on urgently in life, though lacking in direction. Yet she could not treat him as one of her own, even if the urge was there, all the same, to take him under her wing, to nestle him in against her side and tickle the itch that had risen deeper within her.

Alex did not notice just how the Dracthyr shook herself off, too busy concentrating on flapping his wings, building up enough power. It was like jumping off a cliff – no, it was exactly like jumping off a cliff. He groaned and clenched his teeth, cursing Alexstrasza inwardly…

And then he made the leap.

Air rushed past him and he fumbled, pumping his wings frantically, beating the air into some semblance of shape. It was enough to stop him from plummeting to the ground, though he let out a shriek as he tilted shockingly from the left to the right and back again, overcompensating as he fought to right himself. It was far from easy, the dead weight of his body more easily felt when he was struggling to get aloft.

And then his wings caught the right amount of air, powerfully pumping down to send his body flying upward. He caught himself, barely, for another wing beat and another, even though he was wobbly and not quite going in the direction that he had intended.

But…he was flying! Like a hatchling just out of the nest, but he was doing it, doing something, was flying, even though he still did not feel that he quite had the hang of it yet.

“You are flying!”

Alexstrasza roared as she came up alongside him, the Dracthyr flitting ahead, much lighter and more nimble than Alex, though he could barely care. His heart hammered, the cold chill of fear striving to dampen his flames, but the tingle of exhilaration was still there, tingling like a bright breeze across his scales.

Above the top of the tree, he flapped again, going higher, more and less confident as he swept away from the ground. He parted his jaws, heaving for breath, not even daring to cry out, his nostrils flaring for every needy suck of air. For air and breath were very much needed up there, flying, his wings spread to their fullest extent, cupping and shaping the air with them, just as Alexstrasza showed him.

She said something, but the wind whistling by his ears made it so that he could not catch it, shuddering bodily, his tail swinging back and forth behind him. The push of it to the right tipped him off-course again, but he understood what it was that he had done that time, his tail acting more as a rudder and to balance him in the air than it did on the ground.

Flying was not all about the wings. Things that came naturally to a dragon, such as using his tail, once the strength had developed in it, was something that Alex had to think about. All because he had not been born a dragon.

Not that he would have wanted it…

No… But his human body had never been further from him than it was, thinking more like a dragon, letting the updraft, finally, aid him in going higher. It was only to be a short fight, but, once he was able to put the sickening churn of fear aside, glad that he was not afraid of heights, he could see why Alexstrasza liked it so. It was likeable, kind of, the sort of thing that he was unsure about, because he knew too that he didn’t want to come back to it. He had to, one way or the other, get Alexstrasza to work out how to do the spell, though that too meant going along with the things she had planned too…

Landing was difficult, to say the least, though he managed to follow her lead, snapping out his wings with a bellowed grunt as he set down. His landing was a lot heavier, rocking the platform that he had not thought would move at all with how it was a part of the tree, though he seemed to be able to prove himself, one way or the other, the exception to the rule. Alex grunted, relieved to be back on solid ground, though his legs quivered, as much as he tried to hide it.

One thing, however, stood out to him.

“Why did we have to come back so quickly?” He said. “Is it a dragon thing to not be able to keep flying after a while? Like, was it supposed to be such a short flight?”

She grinned toothily at him.

“Did you get a taste for it? You will be up in the air again soon enough, Alex.”

That was one of the first times that she had used his name and it drew him up short, tongue brushing against his lips.

“That said, there are meetings that I must attend today. Silvest is attending my abode here for a meeting on how to progress the training of the Dracthyr and you are required to pose in my place.”

“What?” He yelped, shrinking back. “I can’t do that – you can’t possibly expect me to pretend to be you?”

“I shall be right there beside you,” Alexstrasza said, though her words were not as reassuring as she intended them to be. “As an advisor to Alexstrasza, as far as Silvest knows, I will be able to at least ensure that that plans progress as meant.”

“Great,” he muttered, trudging along with his nose lowered, a decidedly grumpy twinge across his muzzle. “I don’t even know anything about the Dracthyr, I didn’t even watch the trailer properly for the game.”

“Hm,” she said, studying him with a sly little smile. “Yes. Because you do not enjoy dragons. Perhaps the spell did not fail, after all, and your time here has a purpose…”

He wanted to ask her what that meant, but Alexstrasza strode ahead of him, on the bottom floor of the tree abode, opening the doors to a chamber off to the right of it for him. Of course, he had to walk through, posing as Alexstrasza, gulping hard as the lump travelled down his throat, feeling like it took a very long time to get to his stomach – or at least the bottom of his neck. What was a quick movement for a human being was very different for a dragon, the mere act of swallowing something changing the game entirely.

Inside the chamber was a silvery dragon with tendrils dangling from around his muzzle, though there did not seem to be a sense of old age about him. He was of a dragon form like Alexstrasza’s body, not a Dracthyr, though he wondered just what relations between dragons and Dracthyr were. Alexstrasza ruled over all, for it was her right, amongst the others… And yet he knew no more than that.

Maybe, like she said, there was something there that he could use to deepen his understanding of dragons, even though he did not want to. He would, most likely, never think about them again once he was home and himself again.

“Ah, Alexstrasza, right on time,” Silvest said, inclining his muzzle respectfully. “I am here, as requested, to go over the plans for the Dracthyr. The new recruits are coming along…slowly, with their training.”

Alex grunted, clearing his throat. Oh, hell, Silvest was expecting an answer from him! At his shoulder, Alexstrasza nodded encouragingly, though he didn’t know what was expected of him.

It was not that easy, licking his lips, though Silvest tilted his large, blocky head, as if trying to further consider what answer would be required.

“Um…” He tried, though no words leapt to mind. “Yes, I hear that…they are remaining in their training camp for quite some time?”

He floundered, pulling on his recollections of the starting zones in the game, though he was unsure if others there, even if Alexstrasza had hinted at it, knew that they were really in a game. Regardless, their world was real to them, if he was to be real in it too.

Silvest nodded.

“It is quite unusual,” he said, seeming a bit unsure himself. “They are…jumping all around and flapping their wings, bumping into each other. A lot are beginning fights too, though they are all meant to be training together, building the new community.”

Alex stifled a laugh. Yeah, that sounded like new players in a starting zone alright. Though more like the ones that were engaged in the player-versus-player element… He’d have been doing all sorts of silly things to see what his new character was able to do too, if they had not been a Dracthyr…

“Alexstrasza, my queen,” Alexstrasza said, respectfully interjecting. “I believe it was the weapon allocations too that were an issue. My lord, Silvest… Here.”

Alexstrasza proffered a scroll, though the penmanship was not quite smooth on it. Silvest peered at the scroll when it was unrolled for him.

“Ah, I understand,” he said, though the dragon seemed a little confused at the lack of communication between them, not as used to writing and the like as Alex was. “Their missions to train and learn the ways of the isle can be amended, in that case…so they are not given weapons so quickly?”

Alex nodded, going along with it, glancing at Alexstrasza out of the corner of his eye.

“Yes… If we focus on building their social relations too, the matters between them should not be as contentious. It is time that they learned just how they are to fit into our society, expanding their lands and exploring.”

Yeah… Alright. That sounded rather like something that Alexstrasza would say and, from how the Dracthyr was nodding very faintly, it seemed that he had said the right thing.

Phew…

“There was also the issue of those seeking to change faction, though we should have less of a hand in that,” Alexstrasza said, the Dracthyr nodding sagely. “My kind are fickle, my lord and my queen, but there is strength to be had in close relations and bonds. When they change their faction between Horde and Alliance, not sure which side to go…”

“Indeed,” Silvest said, agreeing with a frown. “It is a wonder that they still need to choose at all, yet it seems to be the way for them to progress in our world here. Dragons are above such matters.”

Alex rolled his eyes, earning him a strange look from Silvest. He hoped that Alexstrasza had not seen it, though was not quite sure why he was still trying to impress her, in a way, going out of his way to do what she wanted. Surely the meeting could have been put off? It didn’t seem, at least to him, that it was concerning anything all that important. It was all the little detail and stuff that shaped the Dracthyr race for the players, or so it seemed to him. It was not that simple, not even then, but he couldn’t imagine spending so much time on things like that.

He didn’t have to talk much after that, giving his approval or disapproval on matters from that point on, following Alexstrasza’s lead. He had to take his cues, of course, from little twitches of her tail and the quirks of her lips, a slight incline to her head. Sometimes, the Dracthyr shuffled his wings, though everything seemed to be intrinsic to draconic communication. Maybe they should have come up with a code for arranging things between them beforehand.

Either way, it did not look like Silvest suspected anything, not then.

“That appears to all be agreeable, Alexstrasza, thank you for meeting with me here today, I understand that you have many matters to attend to,” he said with a smile, his jaws slightly agape. “It is good to see you so well, it seems that matters with the Dracthyr and the progression of the Emerald Isle are suiting you very well.”

Alex hid his grimace.

“Yes, it has certainly been a much-needed change of scene.”

Whether that was true was another question, but it seemed to be enough to satisfy Silvest, which was good, very good. They inclined their heads, bidding one another farewell, though Alexstrasza stepped back to allow a little too much space for the silvery drake to leave, lumbering with a smooth, rolling gait on all fours. Despite his weight and the solidity of his body, he moved with a graceful ease that Alex, in a way, could not help but be jealous of.

Only when the door closed behind him did Alex relax, huffing a pant, his nose tipping down.

“Jeez, that was hard…”

Alexstrasza laughed.

“For you, perhaps. For me, it is just an everyday matter and we are fortunate that there were no decisions of grand importance to be made. There are many mundane matters, however, amongst the Dracthyr…”

And likely many more, Alex thought, even as they headed back into the tree abode, though Alexstrasza had more in mind for him, seemingly. Whereas he did not need to pose as Alexstrasza more than in passing to a few other dragons and staff members, a couple of Dracthyr, he still had to eat. Glad, at least, that she offered him cooked meat, baked in dragon fire.

It was rich, rich enough with dripping fat that he could not help but sink his teeth into it, again and again, the meal laid out on a massive, silver plate for him. Dragons did not drink from tankards, but huge dragon-sized flagons that they could either pick up in their teeth, tipping it back to drink all down or suck the liquid within into their maws. He tried both, though splashes of water still dripped down his jaw and neck and chest. Not that anyone looked twice at him for it, following Alexstrasza’s lead.

The Dracthyr handled her hands better than him, reminded that they had had a human form too, as Alexstrasza. He grumbled about that, but, somehow, the day moved to learning how to fly better, soaring high above the clouds, spreading his wings so that he could soar, no longer needing to keep pumping his wings to keep going forward.

That was better, feeling stronger, more powerful, grunting thickly, even though Alexstrasza finally struggled to keep up with him. A Dracthyr’s body was less well-designed for soaring and, as Alex’s confidence in his new wings grew, he left Alexstrasza behind, just a little. He didn’t want to get too far away from her, though he no longer needed to stay close either.

Maybe this is what dragons are really about… It’s different when I’m in the body of one, even if it is still huge and lumbering…

But he couldn’t call himself a gross beast anymore, not when he was living like that, laughing with Alexstrasza as they dipped and swayed, tails brushing in mid-air.

He’d never felt so free.

However, after that, he was left alone in her chambers again, back down on earth with his blood still singing, need coursing through him in a way that he didn’t want to think about.

That made him pace, grunting, turning back and forth, though he was sure he could have gone anywhere that he liked. It was not as if the Dracthyr, Alexstrasza, was going to have any trouble finding him as the Dragon Queen anyway, with enough of a presence around him. But he didn’t feel confident enough to go out without her, knowing that there was still a pretence.

And, alone…he couldn’t keep his mind off what he had done the night before. It ran through his mind, though Alex didn’t dare start anything with himself there either, considering that she could walk back in on him at any moment. She’d said that she was investigating the spell further, which he didn’t want to drag her away from, but there was no telling whether she would be an hour or longer or even just a few minutes.

With a full stomach, he lay down in a room that looked like a library, though the walls were set with scrolls in slots to hold them, instead of books. It was soothing, allowing him a view out through the canopy of trees, eyelids half-closed, but not asleep.

In such a state, the hours passed until evening, softening, soothing, relaxing where he could. Until, of course, Alexstrasza came for him again, showing him something that would allow him to be a little more comfortable.

He raised his head, suspicious, tongue flickering back and forth against his teeth.

“A human form…” He said slowly. “But still you? But you haven’t learned how to change me back to a man yet?”

“A human form would suit you better even if it is not the body you were born into, yes,” she said with a smile. “And that is simple to change you into, now that I have amended the spell for your human mind. Repeat these words, in your mind, and think about my human form, the form of Alexstrasza.”

Oh, that was something, the body of the Dragon Queen with flaming, red hair, that many had considered many times over in the community, everyone having the hots for her, or so it seemed. Still, that was one thing that Alex kept to himself as he did as she asked, using the words to focus himself as his body tingled and shifted as if he was being pulled from one form to another.

Oof…

That was weird, very weird, but he opened his eyes once more to see the world shifting before him, his point of view lower than it had been before. Trembling, he rocked back on the heels of just two legs, though he was nude from head to toe.

And he was still female… A woman!

“Agh!”

He grabbed at his body, trying to cover up even as Alexstrasza laughed and shook her head at him.

“Are you so shy?”

Alex blushed heavily, trying to look at his new body, shocked and turned on, curiously so, without making it look all that obvious. Yet her gaze clung to him like a second skin, something that pulled over him, stopping him from exploring, stopping him from running his hands over a new body again. He would have done that, as a dragon, if he had had hands, and hands were such a revelation right then and there that he ached to use them.

And yet…

He gulped.

“Alexstrasza, come on…” He grunted, trying to slide his gaze away, tipping forward, mostly having his privacy covered with his hands, though his eyes shone with accusation. “You can’t just stand there looking at me like that, that’s all kinds of weird, don’t you know that?”

But she didn’t seem to understand, even if he had to say that at least he could stand and move more comfortably on two feet than four. The problem was that, being a dragon, he had not worn any clothes. So, the spell, or at least in how Alexstrasza had showed him to shift back to her dragoness body,

“Why should you be embarrassed about being in front of me like this?” Alexstrasza said with a laugh. “Come, let us bathe. I am more than used to my own body. And this Dracthyr’s body was naked around you the other night too.”

And yet it was different that time, her eyes lingering on them as, more easily, Alex slipped into the water, using the body of the woman, the body of the Dragon Queen. He was glad, very much so, that he did not have to clamber down in dragon form that time, glad again to have two legs. It was interesting, however, to see how a female body moved – the body of a woman. Though Alexstrasza was not wholly a woman either, not when she was truly the Dragon Queen.

The water swilled around him, though Alex could not shake the feel of Alexstrasza’s eyes locked onto him, roaming his body, though he sank into the water so that only his head remained above the surface. The water itself, however, was quiet and still enough that he could see down through it, his cheeks warming in the form of the woman’s body, trying to protect his modesty even then.

“Alex… I have seen my body so many times over. It is no shame to me.”

His cheeks burned, but he didn’t want to consider the true meaning behind what she was saying, how his heart was pounding, aching for more, wanting to know what she meant behind that. It was easier, now that he was not in the form of a dragon, as Alexstrasza swam up to him, the Dracthyr smirking with a wide grin that pulled up on more on one side than the other.

Alex gulped.

“Uh… Alexstrasza…”

He did not like the body of the Dracthyr. Yet he was a man and, well…he had needs too. He had needs that he had started exploring as a dragon, testing out his new body and female sex, and he could not deny that. That was why he did not move, not as Alexstrasza put her hands on his shoulders, easing in closer, and closer, and closer…

And then their lips brushed one another, pressing in close together, all in the moment. Alex whimpered, too confused by himself to know, honestly, what to do. He was a little aroused by his body, not seeing Alexstrasza’s body as his own, but confused by kissing the Dracthyr, though the dragon seemed to know more than well enough what to do with his lips and tongue.

What was he doing? His mind was all over the place, darting from one thing to the next, back and forth, wanting to think about his body, yet knowing that it was still, technically, Alexstrasza that he was kissing. It didn’t feel wrong, not really, but good, very good, warming him through…

Like when he had been in his dragon form, Alexstrasza’s dragoness body, heat warmed him, tingling deeper, pulling up from his loins. It was only slightly more familiar to him than it would have been if he was in a man’s body, his body, but…still strange. Still heated, still as if something was pressing up inside him, a swelling of need, blood rushing to all the right places.

Alexstrasza broke the kiss, her lips parting in a soft smile that did not match the eyes of the Dracthyr.

“Sweet, Alex,” she breathed, her voice taking on a different tone, one that he had not heard in any of the trailers, or in the game itself. “Perhaps you may like to explore a little more? I did so wonder just how my dragoness body would feel, with a little exploration, if you are willing to see just what these bodies can do.”

He gulped, shaking his head, dizzy with something that he could not name.

“I… Uh… Do you mean…” He blushed hard. “Sex?”

It seemed like the wrong word, though her eyes softened at the corners, the Dracthyr lifting their hand to stroke her cheek and the line of her jaw, strong and yet feminine, gently.

“If you are agreeable to it, Alex. There is no sense to be had in not taking all that these bodies hold for us and I can assure you that pleasure is quite different for a woman, if you are bold enough to take it.”

He scoffed at her teasing, heat in his cheeks, heart pounding. Yet it was he that closed the distance between them again and initiated another kiss, lips parting to invite the more experienced flick of her tongue into his mouth. Alex trembled, unfamiliar with the slenderer tongue of a Dracthyr, though Alexstrasza handled it well, not giving him more than he could handle as they explored one another’s mouths.

“Take on my dragoness form, Alex,” she invited him, breaking the kiss briefly. “Think… Change… Let me show you how wonderful it can feel.”

He did it without thinking, pulling the form of the dragoness back into his mind and muttering the incantation, which focused his mind. The water shifted around him, dispersing to allow his greater size into the pool, though he could not help but feel that he dwarfed the Dracthyr. It made him bolder, to be bigger, purring and rumbling a growl as he blinked down at Alexstrasza.

“Uh… Hey, where are you going?”

He grunted, surprised, when Alexstrasza disappeared, the Dracthyr sliding through the water around him. He tried to turn, but the limits of the bath stopped him from having quite enough space to do so, Alexstrasza coming up around his haunches.

“Ohhh…”

He groaned, tail lifting, the tip curling back and forth. Inadvertently, his body exposed the silt of his sex, what he had explored in such detail the night before, Alexstrasza running her hands over his scales.

“Relax… Let everything come, young one.”

He wanted to mutter something about not being as young as she thought he was, though it didn’t matter, honestly, when they were both mature adults. His breath caught and hitched like his wings meeting a gust of wind, spreading his hind legs a little more, unconsciously. Without thinking, he braced, inviting her in under his tail, though Alexstrasza let him get used to the feel of strange hands running over his scales first, massaging tight muscles, down the backs of his legs and the hamstrings.

Still, it all fuelled the heat in him, swallowing hard, her fingers, finally, ghosting over the slit of his sex. Alex groaned, embarrassed to be so vocal, yet the need in that body was so much greater than that of a man, as if something was going to come to a head if he didn’t get what he needed.

And what was it that he needed?

Alexstrasza allowed it, sliding her fingers inside, her head at a good height, in the bath, to at least nuzzle up around Alex’s slit. He huffed lightly, fighting the urge to dig his claws down, for there was no ground suitable for him to sink them into at that time. Even greater, as her breath tickled his sex and her fingers gently probed within the wet heat, was the desire to spread and flap his wings, aching as if they had been bound to his back and restricted for months on end.

“Mmmm, stand fast.”

He didn’t know what she was asking him to do, but he tried to listen to her anyway, even as heat swilled through him, as if he was being filled up with potent arousal. His scales prickled and tingled while the heat within burned, as if it was going to sear all the way through, lift his very scales from his body with the warmth that filtered through.

Her tongue, oh… Oh, it was divine, there was no way to describe it, stars dancing behind lowered eyelids as Alex could not help but shudder back against her. Dimly, he realised that she had started lapping at his slit, easing her tongue inside along with her fingers, but he couldn’t keep all the specifics straight in his head at that time. All he could draw on was sensation, the pressure, the long, slow lap of something curling up inside him, testing out his body.

“Mmmm…”

Alexstrasza moaned against him, pressing in closer, a gentle hand rubbing his scales, soothing him. Not that there was anything, truly, to be soothed as the dragoness trembled, aching deeply, wanting more, letting her body guide the way. In a way, it was just like catching an updraft of wind, powering her body and wings higher and higher, finding the beauty in nature to stimulate her in a new way.

Alexstrasza had never done what she was doing, though she knew what her own body liked, what her body could do. She mimicked what she had liked best from drakes before, those that had been kind partners to her, though that ill-fated time would never again come to pass. Her Dragonflight was strong, able to hold its own, to stand up against any war.

After the dark times, however, came the sweetness of deep, intrinsic pleasure as she teased her body to orgasm. The muzzle and tongue of a Dracthyr was not all that far removed from what she was used to, the Dracthyr form a good blend between humanoid and dragon, useful for more things than she had anticipated. Still, the paws and claws gripped and massaged, applying pressure to the erogenous spots close to Alex’s slit, stimulating him to the point that his great flanks heaved and puffed with every breath.

Alex didn’t know that she was deliberately trying to get him off: all he could do was ride it out. And, so, he did, all as Alexstrasza pressed him nearer and nearer orgasm, tightness spreading through his loins, feeling as if he was going to topple down into the bath at any moment. Outside, there was birdsong, but none of that existed for Alex as the heat within him twisted and coiled like a dragon’s tail, building to an aching crescendo. The bath water swilled around his legs, lapping up against his belly, though he could not think of that, the heat of his own body warming the water around him.

He didn’t think, only felt – all as orgasm blasted through him, tearing his body into the jaws of pleasure and letting him hunger for it. Pulse after pulse of deep ecstasy, much more potent than what his own tail had brought on, slammed him, and he roared, the sound echoing off the walls, water slopping over the edge of the sunken bath. Still, Alexstrasza kept lapping up deep inside him, pulling her tongue, again and again, over a certain spot inside him that brimmed over with raw, virile need. It was sensitive, too sensitive, and his juices slicked down against the tongue of the Dracthyr.

Alexstrasza, of course, only lapped it all up with relish. Oh, that was different, so very different, all when she had only been able to lick up her own arousal from her tail before. Males sometimes offered a taste to her on her cock, but it had been a long time since a relationship like that had come to her bedchambers – or even out on a flight. She needed that closeness too, though the dragoness’ body was oversized for her, her shaft aching, throbbing and thickening. It could be kept within a slit at the base of her belly, close to the join of her legs in that form, but could be kept out too, the slit softening and parting to allow it out very naturally, appearing as if there was no slit there at all. The balls, however, were held internally, which she was familiar with already: it was, after all, more aerodynamic.

“Come with me, Alex,” she murmured, her need high, though she dearly hoped that she too would get her satisfaction, if he was agreeable to that too. “Perhaps my human form would be better for this… If you would like to return to the bedchambers too?”

He panted and nodded, head still spinning. Frankly, he didn’t think that he was going to be able to climb out of the bath in the dragon form anyway, his legs still shaky from the brutal power of that orgasm, so he slipped down easily into the body of Alexstrasza, the human form with fiery, red hair. His hair had remained dry through it, though he didn’t know how the mechanics of shifting from one form to the other worked for her.

His eyes, however, did drop to the cock of the Dracthyr as she helped him from the bath, a much larger hand closing over his. It was reassuring, as long as he considered that it was Alexstrasza and not a random dragon leading him from the bath, water dripping from him as they made their way back to the bedroom.

The bed was oversized for creatures of their size, the body of Alexstrasza in human form against the Dracthyr. One thing that she had not considered, however, as they tumbled down gently to the soft, plush bedding, was the horns. They were one thing that denoted that Alexstrasza’s body was still that of a dragon, despite her humanoid appearance, shedding one skin for another. Large and chunky, they took up a good portion of space on either side of Alex’s head, though Alexstrasza slid a pillow under his head, helping him keep them raised, a little, so it was more comfortable.

“I learned a few little things, over the years,” Alexstrasza said, by way of explanation, heat in the Dracthyr’s cheeks that Alex could not see. “These bodies, changing shape… You become accustomed to change, like that, young one.”

Alex grinned up at her, finding a bit more confidence in himself. The human form, however, did feel a bit like being squeezed into a suit that was another body…though that barely made sense even to him. The dragon, whereas the shape was difficult for him to move around and deal with walking differently, felt more natural to him, a pressure on the back of his mind urging him to shift from human shape to dragon shape.

Yet, he would not, looking down at his body, the soft firmness of the breasts on his body, nipples perking up in the comfortable cool of the bedroom. True, Alex was far more turned on by the body of a woman than he ever would be by a dragon or male of any kind, but he was still turned on. Something in their sex, straight, still, in a way, made him want more, aching to spread his legs, even to roll the Dracthyr over and ride him. If he had been a bit more familiar with sex with males, even in adult movies, he would have seen that the Dracthyr’s length was quite sizeable and thick around.

Fortunately for Alex, that would not be a problem at all, not when he was taking it all into Alexstrasza’s body.

“You seem to know more about this than me,” he said with a grin. “Not in experience…but about bodies like this.”

Alexstrasza smiled, moving over him, the hardness of her shaft rubbing lightly over his hip. Against himself, Alex let out a breathy little moan.

“Mm…”

“Yes, I have had many partners over my time, across many races,” she breathed, using her sharp teeth on his neck, bringing another whimper to his lips. “And I know, intimately, just what this body likes. I almost believe that pleasure for the male Dracthyr, however, is a given…”

He blinked up at her, grasping her arms even as she encouraged him to lift his legs around her hips, lightly wrapping them around the Dracthyr’s waist. It was not easy, for the Dracthyr was still larger, even as Alex nodded permission, heart pounding, breath catching in his throat. Every breath came with a little more difficulty, but that was merely the nerves twisting together with excitement in his chest.

Alexstrasza took it slowly, the rounded, smooth head of the Dracthyr’s cock pressing into him lightly, easily, using the natural lubrication of pre-cum and Alex’s arousal to slide inside. It was still a stretch, but it was still Alexstrasza’s body and, thankfully, a body that knew how to relax, how to take a shaft. Alex whined and tried to roll his hips up, but she kept him in place, all so he would not take too much too soon.

“Mmm…” She breathed, shuddering, her wings unfurling and spreading, trembling with desire. “My body… It’s so tight! And warm…”

It was nothing like sliding her fingers into herself, feeling the hot clasp of her pussy around her Dracthyr member. No… It came with a rush of need, the urge to thrust, to claim, to breed, something more feral than even inciting a male to take her, though Alexstrasza had done her fair share of taking in her time too.

He moaned, the need to climax building inside him already, even as Alexstrasza built up her thrusts to a steady pace, every one driving deep inside him. It was strange to be with someone that, quite clearly, knew the body he was in far, far better than he did, nuzzling over his chest, her tongue flickering out and curling around a nipple. A shot of electric pleasure zapped through him as he whined and arched his back, head spinning, too lost in the moment to care about anything else at all, just letting it come, all of it to come.

“Ah… Ohh…”

“That’s right…” Alexstrasza grunted, her breathing harsher than it had been before, hips grinding in close, using the full length of her cock. “Relax into it… Mmmph… This body…”

Yet Alexstrasza clenched her jaws and seemed to be holding back from something – not that Alex was in his right mind enough to care. He did not know that she was trying to make it last, all for his pleasure, on that such pleasure swarmed him, crawling through, demanding that every nerve ending in his body prickle with illicit fire.

The demanding strokes of Alexstrasza’s cock stimulated his body, making his pussy clench and squeeze around that driving cock, though he didn’t know what he was doing. Everything that rose forth was instinctive, coming without him thinking about it. In that situation, he didn’t have to think and every action came naturally, following the rising throb of pleasure, heat pooling in his crotch, slickness around his pussy lips. Every thrust of the Dracthyr had him clinging more and more forcibly to Alexstrasza, breath raking through his windpipe, knowing exactly what it was that he wanted and unable to take any less than that at all.

“Oh… Ohhh…” He trembled, trying to spread wings that he did not have, at that time, in that form. “I… Ohhhhh!”

But the blistering wave of orgasm in the body of, for all intents and purposes, a woman was not to be held back as his vision whited out with lust, ecstasy rolling through. He lost his sense of self, hips juddering up anxiously to meet the Dracthyr’s thrusts, forgetting where he was, what he was doing, everything that had come to be. All that mattered was how his pussy contracted, rippling erratically, nothing as he had expected it to be, though Alex had, admittedly, had very few expectations.

And it was not as if Alexstrasza either could hold back from such lust either, driving in, the rush of arousal around his cock slickening the way as she ground in. She let out a breathy growl that spoke of the true desire within her, deep down, relishing in every throb of her cock, the sense of tightening in her loins. Yet she would not hold back again as she hissed out her pleasure, letting the driving, claiming throbs of male orgasm take her, shooting her load deep into Alex’s pussy – the pussy of her human form and body.

It was twisted, in a way, but it was right, oh so very right as she stayed deep, letting every throbbing spurt of cum leave her, head hanging, wings drooping. No wonder males wanted to sleep after sex, she thought dimly, though she didn’t feel that she needed to go anywhere, at that time, for a little while still. No, all was as it needed to be, resting there, her body protectively covering Alex’s, enjoying the new Dracthyr instincts rolling through. The motherly instinct had drawn taut into fierce protectiveness, wanting to stay with what that body thought was “her mate”, even though Alexstrasza had no intention of leaving Alex there at all in a hurry.

No… She thought, slumping to the bed and pulling Alex with her, rolling onto her back with her wings neatly folded in, her cock still driven up inside his pussy. No… I will stay here, with him.

Though, if she found a way to bring Alex back, in whatever form, she would not have minded at all, her work on the spell and changing everything back to normal begrudgingly slow. As Alex groaned and shifted on top of her, rocking his hips back and forth, adjusting to the remaining thickness within his sex, stretched and lusciously so, she ran a hand down his back, eyes glinting with a sense of need that she had not anticipated.

Something had awakened inside her and Alexstrasza was loathe to let it go without exploring its full potential.

With Alex seemingly just as eager as her, however, if a little less experienced – and much less so with a body that she, of course, knew intimately – limitless possibilities stretched out before the Dragon Queen.

Together, they would explore them.