Content
“So, apparently it’s this thing called cloudbloom, and it gets everywhere,” explained the red scaled dragoness. Her normal fiery form was dotted with dozens of little pinpricks of white.
“Cloudbloom?” echoed the younger dragon in the room. His black scales were free from this white pollution, and he’d been warned to keep a bit of distance to make sure it stayed that way. “Does it come from the clouds?”
“Actually, it’s a plant. Get this, so one day a year, when the winds are just right, every one of these little suckers lets go of this white fluff. Big groves of these little flowers, all at the same time, all around the mountains. So these big clouds of the stuff just come out of nowhere.”
“Whoa…” the black dragon breathed, imagining. This was the first time he’d been thankful that he was too young to fly. Otherwise, he might have been out there with the rest of his family when this happened. Instead, he just got to nap through it.
“They get stuck in your scales, and my sister said they itch for days if you don’t get them out.”
“Do they make you wet, too?” He noticed the little drips still falling from his red cousin’s sides onto the cave floor.
“What? No, Coal,” the dragoness laughed. “Washing under the falls helps get some of them out.”
“Oh,” Coal replied, slightly embarrassed.
“Only some of them, though. They stick in there pretty good.”
“What about fire? Has anyone tried burning them off?”
“Heh, I had the same thought. Mom said she tried it once when she was little, and it just made it worse. Makes them even harder to get out cause all the ends burn off.”
“Oh,” Coal said again, feeling some sympathy for his aunt.
“Yeah, there’s really only one good way to get them all out fast,” the red dragoness explained.
That’s when a third voice spoke up, tiny and tired:
“Asha, could you stand up a bit? I wanna make sure there’s nothing left underneath.”
“Sure, Toby.”
As the red-scaled belly lifted from the stony ground, little Toby looked with weary eyes along its smooth curving surface for any hints of white. He rubbed his arm absentmindedly with his blackened, ash covered hand as he searched. It was aching, but he was sure he could do just a little more.
The cloudbloom had shed halfway through the morning. Now the sun was almost gone outside, and Toby had been hard at work the entire time. Water, fire, snow, rushing air, tongues, teeth, nothing could get those pesky little white puffs out of his kin’s scales, not all of them. And any that stuck around would pester his family for days. Nothing could get them all out. Nothing except for his tiny, delicate, now ash-black little human hands. One puff at a time.
Toby spotted a clump of white near his sister’s chest and walked over to it, footsteps heavy. He noticed a few stray specks along the way and reached up as he went. He grabbed hold of one gently, wiggled it loose and then slipped it out from between the overlapping red plates. And then the next one. And then the next one. He reached the white clump and began to do more of the same, extracting each one, being careful not to leave any pieces behind, then balling them together and doing his best to chuck the airy things far enough away that they wouldn’t accidentally get stuck again.
He'd been doing this all day, for every one of his brothers, sisters, cousins, and other kin who had been unlucky enough to get caught out in the bloom. He was the only one in all his enormous family who could do it.
And he did it with pride. It was one of his most important chores. He remembered how grumpy everyone had been when the bloom had hit a few years ago. They had all been so upset. And when he’d started getting them out, they’d been so happy. He remembered the look his father had given him, that proud look. And then that serious look when he’d volunteered to do it again for the next year; serious because his father knew how big a job it was for his little adopted son. But it was his job, and he could do it!
Wiggle. Pull. Wiggle. Pull. Wiggle. Pull. Wiggle. Pull. Wad. Throw. Repeat.
Until finally, the red scales shone clean. The very last patch of white, wiped clean from the last of his afflicted family. His ash coated arms went limp, and he stepped out from underneath his sister.
“…All done, Asha,” he muttered with a weary smile. The edges of his lips hardly rose at all, as if even the muscles in his face were too tired to put in the effort.
“Wow, I think you’re getting even faster at this,” the red dragoness complimented.
“Geeze, there sure is a lot of this stuff,” Coal commented, peering over at the patch of white covering the cave floor like some strange snowfall.
“And that’s all just from me,” Asha pointed out. She turned to examine the pile of discarded fluff.
“Guess the cloudbloom really liked you,” the black dragon joked.
“Yeah?” The dragoness did not look amused. “Well let me show you what I think of it.”
She opened her jaws and bared her teeth down at the whitened ground, and out from her red maw came an even redder jet of flames. The fluffy tufts caught instantly, burning hot and fast, scorching the rock from white to black as the pesky things were incinerated. With no dragon scales to hide under, the entire batch was reduced to dust in a matter of seconds. The red dragoness looked at the lightly smoking scorch mark with a satisfied smirk.
Every one of Toby’s relatives had done that, burnt their share of white to a crispy ashen black. It was important, because it made sure none of the little fluffs managed to get stuck anywhere again, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t also very enjoyable. He’d liked watching the things burn at first, it looked cool, but at this point he stared somewhat distantly, the glow coming off his body dimmed by more than just the accumulated ash.
“Heh, that takes care of you,” Asha sneered. But she knew there was someone else who needed taking care of too. In a much more sincere, appreciative tone, she said, “Thanks Toby. You’re the best little brother there is.” She leaned in close, and gave him a big, firm appreciative lick, extra warm on account of the recent fire, wiping the majority of soot from his skin in a single saliva soaked stroke.
Toby fell back onto his bottom with a tiny “oof”. Coal dashed closer over the blackened stone with concern on his face. Asha’s appreciative smile turned to a shocked frown when she realized what she’d done.
“Are you okay?” The red dragoness asked worriedly. She knew she had a reputation for being a tiny bit rougher with her little sibling than most, but she couldn’t remember him ever just tumbling over like a rock before! Had she really licked him that hard?
“…Yeah, sorry, I’m fine,” Toby muttered. He rubbed the palm he’d used to catch himself, now freshly caked with soot from the ground. “I’m just… really tired.”
Coal nudged him encouragingly and helped him to sit up straight, but the little boy made no move to stand. Asha stared down at him guiltily for a few moments; her poor, tired little brother, toiling all day to help everyone. It had been hard enough for her just to wait all those hours for her turn, with those stupid itchy specks all over her, but he’d been working all that time.
“Stupid cloudbloom,” Coal grumbled. He’d quickly gone from thinking it sounded cool to thinking it was nasty, seeing the effect it had on his little cousin. He gave the young human a sturdy shoulder to lean on. “At least you’re done now, right?”
“Yeah,” Toby breathed. Finally done. He rested against the black scales in silent appreciation. And he had a certain look on his face. It was dulled a bit by the obvious exhaustion, but it was there. A satisfied smirk, not too unlike the one his sister had flashed a moment ago; a little, accomplished grin. He had done it. He’d gotten everyone clean. Every last one. Now they could all sleep soundly and no one would have to be grumpy tomorrow.
Asha smiled a little too. He really was the best little brother. And she hadn’t just said that because she herself was a little sister and had no other siblings younger than herself for him to compete with.
“Well, if you’re all done, the hunt today was kinda ruined thanks to all this stuff, so I’ve got some room. Want to sleep with me for the night?”
Toby’s tiny smirk slowly grew bigger, his glow gently growing like a fire given some fresh kindling. “Yeah,” he said through his grin, tired eyes half closed but still smiling all the same.
Asha nodded and leaned in closer. She snaked her serpentine head around to the side and extended her tongue. Tenderly, she wormed the squishy muscle under one raised knee, and then the other, scooping his legs onto the soft pink, wiggling her way under his bottom until he no longer touched the cold, ashy ground. Coal stepped back as the dragoness’ tongue shifted and twisted, slipping its way up from underneath the little human to support his back so that the much harder black scales could depart.
She was usually pretty excited to have her little brother in her belly. Sure, it felt good and all, but really it was just that he was always so excited to be there, and she loved being able to share that with him. After all, nothing else she ate ever got excited to be in her stomach. And if all that enthusiasm translated into some… less-than-smooth handling of her special sibling, well, he never seemed to mind.
But this moment was different. She moved her tongue with a familiar verve, but it was measured, deliberate. She scooped him up briskly, but smoothly.
Toby felt the warm, soft muscle sweep in to support him, lifting him from the cold, hard ground. It arrived with a familiar, unassailable strength, a level of control and dominance that could only come from a creature so many times his own size, capable of taking him whether he wanted to be taken or not. He sank welcomingly into the soothing heat, letting his eyes fall shut as his smile grew, feeling his sister’s strength, trusting in it to carry and cradle his tired little limbs, giving himself over to her.
Feeling her little brother’s full, limp weight sagging the center of her tongue, Asha curled its tip and edges in tighter and drew him back between her jaws. The blackened ground danced with little shadows as his glow cast the outlines of her teeth across the ash-covered stone, as if he were another burst of flame waiting in her gullet.
She closed her muzzle with a quiet smack, feeling bits of her palate gently press against Toby’s form as he filled her maw. She wiggled her tongue just a touch in an affectionate gesture as she lifted her head and gradually tilted it back until she felt the little boy inside begin to slip.
*gulp*
*gulp*
*gulp*
*grk*
She took him slowly, evenly. Her throat was much tighter than some of the others he often traversed, but she sent him down it as smoothly as she could, squeezing him as little as possible. She often liked to give him a little clench while he was in there, really feel his form inside her neck, but this time she refrained.
Toby hardly even noticed the tightness in which he found himself. Far from any discomfort, the smooth, soft walls wiping the soot from his skin rolled by with peristaltic waves of relief. The muscles pressed into him with a sensation somewhere between a hug and a massage, completely encapsulating his weary little body, lifting the weight from his bones.
*sh-ploop*
He arrived in his sister’s steamy belly with the gentle rush of chyme, sloshed aside to make room for him, sending ripples reverberating all around the small, shallow stomach. Small by dragon standards, that is. For Toby, it was just the right size. He curled up voluntarily into a little ball, small enough that he didn’t even touch the walls anymore, and let himself sink deep into the hot, soothing stew. The belly gurgled and glorped, and he smiled again.
What remained of the ash on his skin quickly washed off him, taken to melt away with the remains of Asha’s last meal. The constant, pervasive heat soaked into his muscles, dissolving the tension and fatigue like the acids would dissolve any of the usual occupants passing through. And the steady, regular undulation of the cushy, yielding walls rocked him tenderly to sooth his weary mind.
He was asleep within a minute, smiling and snoozing to his lullaby of sloshes and gurgles.
And thanks to him, Asha and all the rest of their family would sleep soundly too.