Content
“Ahhh…” Rowen sighed with contentment. He stretched his legs out on the grass, and leaned back against a familiar texture: hard, but limber. He looked forward, off the grassy hilltop and toward the sunset, disappearing behind the mountains and painting the whole sky red and orange and gold. He took in the silence of the evening, feeling the wind blow gently, and felt content, as if he could sit there for days or weeks or even longer.
“This is a good one.” The voice rumbled against Rowen’s back almost as much as it reached his ears.
“Yes it is,” he agreed with an appreciative smile.
He heard a grand sigh, like a steam vent suddenly releasing, and from the corner of his eye saw the giant head come down to rest in the grass with him, a few feet off to his left. They laid there together in silence for a good while, watching as the bright disk slowly crept out of sight, the sky gradually darkening as fiery colors turned to cooler blues.
“This really is the life, huh Rem?”
“Definitely,” Remus replied after a leisurely pause.
“We should remember this spot, maybe come back to it someday.”
“You say that about half the hilltops I land on,” Rem joked.
“Well, you pick good hilltops.”
“Lots of practice,” he replied sagely.
There was a short pause as they watched a cloud fade into shadow.
“So, oh wise and mighty dragon, any deep thoughts?” Rowen asked.
“No matter how many beautiful sights I see, they never cease to satisfy me, and yet they always leave me wanting more.”
“And here’s to hoping they always will.” Rowen was almost sure his friend had been quoting some verse or text, but it was a good line nonetheless, and a sentiment well shared.
“…Here’s a thought,” Rowen said after a pause. “How many different places do you think someone can see in a lifetime?”
“Your lifetime or mine?” Remus asked. He made a good point; those were wildly different numbers between them.
“Let’s start with yours.”
“Oh, hundreds of thousands to be sure. As long as you didn’t settle down. For you, though… maybe five or six? How long do you humans live again?”
Rowen laughed. He’d walked right into that one, and it hadn’t been the first time.
“We’ve seen more than that in the past two weeks, let alone the past two years,” he pointed out. “Do you think there are even that many nice places to see?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” the dragon replied.
“Well,” Rowen began, speaking as if he’d found a great question, “would you want to see every last place, and realize there were no sights left to see? Or go out knowing there were still more beauties you hadn’t been able to reach?”
“Hm…” the dragon rumbled contemplatively. “I think I’d take the latter. It’d be sad to leave behind a world with no more wonders to discover. I’d be happy to curl up on my favorite peak after a lifetime of wandering, knowing that I’d seen all there was that I could’ve seen in my time.”
Rowen nodded thoughtfully.
“I suppose there’s no hope for me in seeing it all, and I suppose I already wasted too many years before we got together to say I’d seen all I could’ve seen… But I think I can bear that. I’d be content enough just to have you swallow me down and curl up inside your belly.”
“Well, if that’s all you want from life, I am feeling a bit peckish,” the dragon joked. And it was clear he thought his companion had been joking as well.
“No, it’s not like that. I’m in no hurry to go. But when it is my time, I think that’d be a satisfying end.”
The dragon raised his head slightly and eyed the man with skepticism.
“Now why would you want a thing like that? It’s not exactly pleasant, you know.”
“Not sure, it just feels right.”
The last bit of the sun disappeared behind the silhouetted mountains, abruptly darkening the shadows that had been growing around them. It drew their attention even more firmly toward the horizon.
“Another beautiful day, eh?” Rowen asked.
“It sure was.”
… Many beautiful days later …
“Happy to give your wings a rest?” Rowen asked, looking up at his great, brown-scaled friend treading slowly next to him.
“Not as happy as you are to stretch your legs,” the dragon replied.
Remus was right. After spending so long crouched on the dragon’s back, breathtaking as it was, it did him good to set his feet against earth again. Or rock, to be more specific. The pair were currently travelling over a long expanse of hilly, sunbaked stone, formed into flowing cliffs and valleys by centuries of wind and rain, with very little vegetation, say for small patches of grass and moss that clung to the hard ground.
“How’s your knee holding up?” Remus asked.
“Just fine,” Rowen replied with exaggerated pride. “Having trouble keeping up?”
“You have to walk ten steps for the space of one of mine,” the dragon reminded him.
“Ah, so you admit this knee of mine is your fault then? With all this walking you have me do.”
Remus snorted humorously, having been caught in the joke. He might’ve pointed out that they usually spend most of their time in the air, borne on his wings, but he felt that might only lead him into a further trap.
“Strange place this, huh?” the dragon remarked.
“Yes, can’t say we’ve ever seen anything quite like it. The stone here is so smooth.”
Remus had noticed he’d been using his claws a bit more than usual to keep from sliding on the uneven ground, but he’d been too well absorbed in the scenery to give it much heed.
The wind blew steadily, whistling around the rocky ground as it went. The sun was starting to get low, but they still had a good hour or two of sunlight. Plenty of time to rest or stretch their respective limbs, and then fly off to somewhere cozy for the night.
Rowen began marveling at Remus’ shadow, naturally quite long, but now even longer with the sun at his side. It spilled over the man, down the adjacent cliffside, and up onto the next, projecting a silhouette many times the size of any creature he suspected might exist.
Unfortunately, on that fateful day, that long shadow obscured something Rowen would have been better off seeing: a little patch of moss, sprouting out of a small, dried up rivulet in the rock.
“Ah!” The man slipped, coming down sideways on the hard, sloped ground. The slope wasn’t horribly steep, but it was just steep enough that he started to roll. And disoriented, he couldn’t stop himself in time.
“Rowen!” Remus roared in alarm. But with his massive size there wasn’t much else he could do, and before he knew it, he saw his companion tumble over a sharp edge. He spread his wings quickly and flew after him. Gliding over the drop, he could see it wasn’t a sheer cliff as he had feared, but it was a very harsh slope. And laying at the bottom, against a pile of fallen rocks, was Rowen.
The dragon landed hastily, knocking boulders aside and crouched next to his friend.
“Rowen!” he called again.
“Er… Remus…” the man muttered. “How bad was it?”
“Are you okay?” the dragon asked.
“No joke, huh? Must’ve been pretty bad then. Ah!” It was clear Rowen had just tried to move- and failed.
The dragon looked down at him, his enormous muzzle painted with worry, but unable to offer any help. He was too big to move the human with any hint of delicacy. All he could do was watch as the man painfully turned himself onto his back with the reluctant use of a single arm.
“Remus, buddy, I don’t think I’m doing too well. I think that might’ve been my last fall,” he admitted with a few strained grunts.
In the rocky valley, the pair were already draped in shadow, as if the sun had already set. But Remus could still see the pain-stricken expression on his friend’s strong face, even as the man tried to keep it under control.
“Is there nothing your human doctors might be able to do for you?” he asked against hope, for he feared he could already see the answer for himself. The human’s body was clearly not in favorable shape.
“I’m- ugh- not sure I’d make it to a doctor, if I’m being honest.” Even now, he still spoke with a sense of levity.
“…I… I see,” the dragon said somberly. “Then… I will stay here with you, until you are gone.” Perhaps he could at least provide that comfort.
“Thanks.”
There was a moment of silence as Rowen caught his uneasy breath. Just enough time to let everything sink in.
“You’ve been a good friend, Remus. I’m glad I’ve traveled with you all these years,” he said weakly, smiling despite the circumstances as he looked back on his life.
“As am I,” the dragon replied earnestly.
“You’ll keep traveling, won’t you?”
“Yes… though I fear the sights might not look quite as striking without you.”
“‘No matter how many beautiful sights I see, they never cease to satisfy me’,” Rowen quoted. “And I hope they never do,” he added encouragingly.
“Thank you,” the dragon replied, taken by his friend’s kindness.
The man took a particularly heavy breath, though maybe it had been a sigh.
“So, feeling peckish?”
The dragon didn’t reply right away. At first he’d thought he’d misheard, then he was just confused, but then he remembered.
“Rowen… you can’t mean…”
“I do…”
“But… but why?” The human had rarely ever made him so confused, so unsure.
“Well, if I’m being honest- and this is a particularly good time for being honest- I always did imagine your belly to be pretty comfortable, certainly more than these rocks… And this way, maybe a little part of me will always be with you… tagging along to all the distant sights you’ll see… maybe even curling up with you on that favorite peak of yours… And… well… it’s one last sight for me to see.”
Remus couldn’t deny him that.
“O… okay, Rowen.”
The wind gusted, sending a loud whistle through the rocky formations.
“…Well, go on then, while I still have some breath left to enjoy it with,” he joked with a smile.
Remus nodded, and he lowered his head. Rowen turned his own head as best he could to see his friend’s great face come as close to his as it ever had. A single gust of warm breath washed over him from the dragon’s nostrils, and then Remus began to part his jaws.
The dragon’s long tongue snaked out slowly, vibrantly red, and glossy even in the shadowed valley. Remus gave his friend every opportunity to object, to change his mind, but he just looked on, almost longingly, the way he sometimes did when they would talk about places they had yet to visit.
Finally, Rowen felt the tip of that massive tongue touch ever so slightly against his arm. And Remus felt him along with it. The dragon pressed just a bit more firmly, and then a tad more, ever so gradually, trying to be as gentle as possible. Oddly, his tongue was probably the most delicate thing he could have used to move the man; soft and squishy and warm, unlike his claws or his tail.
Eventually the saliva-coated muscle began to squeeze underneath, slipping between Rowen’s body and the rocks, tenderly lifting him up. He felt the man quiver fiercely against the sensitive surface, but if the movement hurt him, he hid it well from his voice and his face.
Small stones shifted around them as the dragon separated his friend from the earth. The wet, supple texture spreading beneath Rowen’s aching frame like a warm sea, until he was floating on it completely. Remus made sure that the man’s arms and legs were all resting securely against his support, before slowly raising his head. They were veiled in darkness at the bottom of that valley, but Remus was a large dragon, with a long neck. And for his dear friend, he could reach just high enough to catch the rays of the setting sun.
Rowen felt the sun hit him, but he did not look towards it. He had seen the sun, and while he would gladly have watched it rise and set again and again for another thousand days, at that moment he was captivated by a different sight.
Remus’ maw sparkled in the direct sunlight, illuminated in dazzling, fierce glory. The red ridges of his mighty palate were like the waves of a ruby ocean. His massive teeth hung like the stalactites of the great caverns they had visited, but these shone white as snow, outshining any dripping rock in a dimly lit cave. His tongue twitched and shifted like a field of grass in a breeze, and sparkled as if the red-tinted grass were covered in dew.
And far in the back, down the length of his mammoth muzzle, was his throat, and it was… well it was almost incomparable. Rowen could maybe liken it to the sun, or the moon, or an eclipse, but really it was in a league of its own, for it was alive. It undulated slowly, stretching and contracting idly as the dragon breathed over him, the short drop concealing a long, fleshy pathway down into the depths.
Rowen wasn’t sure how long he had spent staring. For a moment the wonder of it had almost been enough to make him forget his pain. But eventually his pounding heart reminded him of the little time he had left. He looked up at his friend.
Remus had been holding him there, tongue extended, watching the man gaze into his jaws with awe. He would have held him right there, not moving another inch, if the man had not looked up at him.
“Your eyes have been a sight unto themselves,” Rowen said, realizing this would be the last time he saw them.
Remus couldn’t reply, he could only give his old friend what he wanted.
He started by rotating the man. With a few odd undulations of his tongue, he turned Rowen from his sideways orientation until he was laying straight, with his feet pointing down toward the waiting throat within. And then, slowly, he began to lift.
Rowen felt himself begin to slide. It was almost like riding on a wave at the shore, but this wave carried him, rather than letting him sink below the surface. The smooth, sodden texture gliding against his skin was unlike anything else he had felt, somehow gentler than the simple caress of water, but too wet and forgiving to be anything solid.
He watched the teeth slowly pass him by without any effort of his own, like the trunks of trees when he would ride on Remus’ back, growing gradually larger and thicker as he journeyed deeper and deeper into the dragon’s reaches.
He wasn’t sure that he could feel it, but he knew when he had stopped at the end of the slope. Or should he say the beginning? Beyond his feet, the dragon’s throat awaited. A long, snaking passage that would ferry him off to his final resting place.
He took as deep a breath as he could, feeling the sun against his hair one last time, and then he shut his eyes and let himself go limp. It was the best signal he could give to his friend that he was ready.
*gulp*
Rowen did not relinquish his body just yet- not to death, only to Remus. He held on to life just a while longer, for he had one last journey to make, one last sight to take in, though it would not be with his eyes.
Rowen felt the wet muscle fold over him. He felt the texture of the tongue slip away from underneath, only to be replaced by an equally sodden, even slicker surface. He felt a pressure from above, but it did not hurt him, for he offered no resistance.
And he heard- oh did he hear. The meaty *glurk* of the dragon’s swallow, the constant crackle as the slime-covered walls parted and rejoined around him, the ever-present slipping, rubbing sound as his own body moved against them. And then there was something else: a whooshing sound, slow and steady, rising and falling and rising again. It was the sound of Remus breathing, from the inside. And soon after there was the deep, rhythmic thumping of Remus’ heart, pulsing so firmly that he could feel its drumming in the fleshy walls around him.
And then there was one final new sound. It was one he had occasionally heard from the outside, but admittedly he could never quite shake the curiosity of what it might sound like from within. In a human, it was high-pitched and brittle, but in a mighty dragon it was deep and resonating, like an iceberg shifting, or a boulder thudding at the far end of a canyon. And yet it somehow still retained its fluid texture.
*guuuurgle*
Suddenly he felt it. The texture changed again. The tightly pressed walls receded before him. He slipped into somewhere wet and warm, into a supple sac, with walls that held him loosely in their wrinkles. A small accumulation of liquids pooled around his limbs and lower body. And regardless of what they were soon to do to him, at the moment they were soothing and pleasant.
Remus moved, lowering himself, but Rowen was too distant to feel the broad motion. He was only aware of the liquid as it splashed around him, and of the stomach walls as they gently massaged at his skin and folded around him, and all the while of the symphony of the dragon’s inner workings. A sight that had been right with him the whole time, yet always hidden from view.
Remus brought his head around to his belly, a sad mournful look on his face.
“Rowen?” he said, though he almost didn’t for fear of the silence that might follow. But there was a response, so quiet and muffled that even his draconic ears almost couldn’t hear it over the whistle of the wind.
“Remus,” came the single reply.
“How was it, old friend?”
“… … …Beautiful…”