Dragon Days MxM (Staten Krown)

1

It comes a time in every tavern boy's life where you contemplate the meaning of life. Usually, that time is now. When the lazy fuck who owns the taverns looks you straight in your eyes and tells you to clean the "PIT!" I imagine telling him there's no way in all 7 hells that I'd degrade myself by going to the outhouse, scooping out traveler's shit for him because he was too cheap to move the outhouse. I imagine telling him I quit and running off with one of the bands of mercenaries who were going off to rob fucker's like him blind.

I had quite the imagination.

Because shortly after, here I am, hauling shit from the outhouse into the fields...with a smile on my face. Nair was hot this time of year and the mix of sweat and shit wasn't at all ideal. See the thing about me is that I didn't have much when it came to pride. Maybe it had to do with the fact that my family died when I was really young and I'd spent the first half of my life begging for food and the second half of my life serving it with a side of "boy ass" when the mercenaries coming through got too drunk and couldn't make it down the road to brothel. I wasn't an idiot. Castor, the tavern owner, did it on purpose. Usually, after a good pounding, he'd scream at them, "Don't drag your armor on the stairs. The buckles gauge the wood!" right before he got some extra money on the side. Soon, I think I was posted on the goddam welcome sign. 'Castor's Tavern: good ale and good boy ass.'

Truth-be-told, I'd rather be riding on one of those mercenaries' dicks than hauling away their shit, any day. Mercenaries may have been a bit filthy. They dragged in all types of blood-stained clothing and mud on their boots and they spit in your hole before they fucked, but a lot of them really knew what they were doing back there. I guess they had a lot of experience.

I should be thanking Castor though because if it wasn't for Castor I wouldn't have been in the field. I wouldn't have looked up and seen the sky blotted out.

"Shit!"

I thought it was daytime but almost immediately it seems to turn into night. I'm sitting there in the middle of cleaning shit and thinking that it's about to rain when I hear the crackling of thunder. But this is no rain. And that is no thunder.

Dr---dr---dragon!

I fall on my ass. My eyes look up and see it overhead. The black dragon is a large, thickly-built creature with a massive chest and a long, sinuous neck. From its throat, it in inhales this deep sound, exhales black smoke, that makes me imagine what an active volcano would sound like, only with lava brewing right underneath its tongue. Its hide is a rich, lustrous black with large scales that are supple yet hard as a rock. A shimmered jewel toned crest made of peaked dragon bone spikes runs from its head and down its back, and bristles as the beast flies overhead. Its fangs shine a coppery-red, and deep inside its mouth, a constant sulfurous light emits a faint glow. It has a cruel, almost callous look to its serpentine grey eyes. It looks at me.

It fucking sees me!

"This way!" a voice states.

I don't see where the voice is coming from. It echoes like a grainy, etched out afterthought through my earlobes. I'm so in shock as I look up in the skies as this immense titan minimizes the sun.

That's when I see the hand grab me, pulling me up. My legs are too fragile and the person assisting me seems to realize that. That's why he scoops me up like a fucking newborn babe. I've never been big. I was 17 years old but so short that the other tavern boy named Tuti, who was 13, had me by a few inches. It takes nothing for this stranger to sweep me off my feet.

Before I know it we are indoors. We're in a local barn. I feel this heaviness in my throat when I'm placed down.

"You were just going to sit there, huh?" he asks, "Look up at it like you're watching a juggling show. You do know dragons burn right? As in fire---right? As in, get the fuck up and run when you see one of them. Genius."