Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consentual or reluctant sex.
*
Elin, daughter of Eric, knelt on all fours, in the middle of the offering plinth that stood just outside the village of Delken. Her fellow villagers had fled into their homes, all but the village's chief and his son. Elin's mother had been the last to leave, but Elin had told her to go and look after Elin's young son.
"Elin, we are grateful for what..."
"NO!" bellowed Elin, interrupting her chief, "I don't want l hear it. You gave me no choice, now just leave."
The chief, clearly trying to assuage his own guilt, continued, "This could stop anyone else suffering the same fate as Rainer...'
Elin was wearing some leather padding; it covered her feet, her calves up to her lower thighs, forearms and her wrist, including the lower half of her palms. She was completely bare across her intimate areas and her chest. The villagers had believed they dragon may not understand the offering if she was not as bared as she was. She didn't argue as she felt exposing herself was the least of the indignities to come. Despite her nakedness, she was not ashamed to draw herself up onto her knees, exposing her generous bosom and smooth nether regions, and look the chief straight in the eyes.
She was shackled by her neck to a thick wooden pillar that stood upright in the middle of the plinth. The chain that tied her to the pillar was long enough that in theory she could walk anywhere on the plinth uninhibited. However, her limbs were also shackled. A chain running between her wrists was also attached, at the middle, to her neck collar; she could just about look up when both her hands were placed flat on the cold stone surface of the plinth. Her ankles were linked too, but they were joined by a steel shoulder-width bar, the ends of which were chained to cuffs, allowing her feet free movement, as long as she kept them spread.
The motion of raising herself up was naturally ungainly with her chains; such was the idea, so the villagers said. If Elin were to make run for it, like the horse, it would put the village at risk, as well as herself. The village chief understood Elin wished to interrupt him, so he waited patiently for her to get into a kneeling position, his expression plain as he watched her awkward motions.
"Don't you speak his name! Don't you dare! Please, just go! Go and leave me in peace before I am subjected to that," she snarled, head pointed at the growing form of the winged beast.
The two remaining humans, other than Elin, retreated to inside their huts, leaving her alone on the plinth. Roars and grumbles were got louder, as did the sound of beating wings. The noises frightened Elin but she took deep, slow breaths to keep herself calm. Though the monster already was easily visible in the sky, it was still quite a distance away. Elin rolled onto her back, groaning as the granite surface scratched her bare skin, and sat up, back against the pillar. Seeing the beast approach served to calm her nerves somewhat more, she felt more aware of what was coming, compared to disembodied bellowing.
She became uncomfortable with the wait, increasingly wishing the creature would hurry up and get it over with. Her inner thighs were cold, the wind whipping the witness between them where the dragon-bait elixir had been spread. She distracted herself by drawing her finger across the weaving tattoo that was etched across the outside of her right hip and thigh.
She could see the dragons features now, it's claws, and teeth, and even make out the red glints of its eyes. Trembling all over, she tasted bile in her mouth, which she spat onto the stone plinth before forcing herself to turn back round onto all fours again. She managed to control her sobbing to short gasping, but she could feel tears running down her cheeks. Elin dared not look back but she heard it was close.
The ground shook with two great thundering quakes and she knew the dragon had landed. She could hear the beast's deep angry breaths. She heard it inhale, a slow, calm noise, before it broke into a great piercing shrieking roar. It was the loudest noise she had ever heard, so deafening she hadn't even realised she was screaming in terror. She scrunched up her eyes and went down onto her forearms, burying her head into her hands. It took every bit of self-control she had not to try to run. She thought about the poor mare and understood how fear alone could kill a creature.
She heard the creature exhale again and felt the pain of heat on her back, she let out a sharp yelp, expecting to meet her end, but instead she realised the dragon had aimed its fiery breath high above her and not at her.
She felt an enormous weight pound down barely a few feet to the right of her, followed by about her pounding to the left. Shaking, she willed her head up, opened her eyes, and turned to see great three-clawed fists diagonally behind her. The fists were black and scaly and attached to long, powerful arms. Each arm had a folded leathery that would unfurl into those hideous, fearsome wings.
She could feel hot breath right behind her legs, it stank almost like the barn where they kept the breeding bull but there was another quality to it, perhaps like smell of a recently quelled fire. She buried her head again as she felt the creature stalk closer. She shrieked and let out a sob as she felt something slimy and coarse slither up the back of her legs and right up against her most intimate area. Helping her father on the farm she had seen animals do this. The bull was prepping his bitch. As intended, the elixir had fooled the dragon. It saw her as an animal, a feral creature it could mate with.
She raised herself back onto her hands; she was scared still, but knowing the creature was not intending to kill her, had relieved her of enough fear that she felt in control of her body again. She felt the dragon lick and salivate on her for a few more strokes, before she saw one of the monstrous reptilian arms come crashing down diagonally ahead of her, mirrored by the other one a few seconds later.
