Destiny

CHAPTER 2: DESTINY

High in the peaks of the bordering mountains, ever-watchful eyes had followed the progress of wagon and riders after the warning from the crow. The eyes watched, piercing the great distance with a clarity of sight far better than any hawk. The eyes watched from both sides of the valley, waiting, anticipating, hoping that finally, the marked human female would come to them.

They watched as the human males mated with the female. They watched as she was used, even abused, in the activities below. They watched for a clear indication, a sign, a view that would tell them if this was the one. How long have they waited? Generations of humans are too long. Why had the humans rejected them and brought such suffering to themselves?

Then, one saw it. At least, it looked like it in that flash as the female was turned over and put on top of the male. 'There. I think I saw the mark. This might be the one.' The voice wasn't even a voice but a thought that crossed the valley and up and down the mountains to the others also watching.

* * * *

Two guards had fucked her and she knew the other two would do the same. She hadn't anticipated something she had never experienced before, though. She was again forced to straddle a guard, his penis sinking into her pussy as she mindlessly, resignedly settled over it. She then felt powerful, rough hands pressing her shoulders down to the man below her. She felt his penis move inside her as she was pressed down until her breasts were flattened against the guard's chest. She sensed another guard behind her but couldn't look back as she was pinned by arms, her ass lewdly exposed. It still meant nothing to her until she felt hands on her ass cheeks spreading the cheeks apart and another penis probing between her cheeks. She was confused. She already had a penis in her pussy. Then, the awful reality hit her. The penis was pressed against her asshole!

"NO!" She squirmed in the grasp of the man below her and the hands of the man behind her but for all her struggle she was a relatively small person compared to the bulky men she was against. She felt the penis at her asshole somehow force it open enough to begin entering her ass. She cried out as she felt a tearing sensation. Worse, she was dry there. With a mighty thrust, the man behind forced his penis head past the tight gripping restriction of the sphincter muscle. Her scream of shock and pain seemed to reverberate across the valley between the two tall mountain ranges.

The pain never stopped in her ass. She was being fucked by two penises at the same time in adjoining passages of her body, an act of defilement she would never have imagined. Her degradation, disgrace, and humiliation seemed now complete. It was an act that told her she was nothing but the lowest form of a woman to these men. The penises sawed back and forth in her body but, except for the searing pain in her ass, she was numb.

When the men came, pumping their semen into two holes that might now be used by others, she felt nothing as the one in her ass pulled out and the other underneath her pushed her to the side, his penis sliding out as she rolled to the side. The men laughed, commenting on the blood mixed with the semen escaping from her ass.

The flowing water of the river was nearby. She heard it before her eyes fixed on it. She crawled to it and entered the cold water fed by the melting snow from the mountains. As she lay on her back in the shallow water, she sighed at the cool water washing over her abused holes. She rose to her knees and splashed and rubbed water over her still aching asshole. She saw some blood mixed with the water as it dripped and flowed away from her. It quickly seemed to stop, though. The water felt good and she wished to stay there even though the temperature of it made her body shiver, quickly becoming covered by goosebumps. She glanced at the men and turned away, not wanting them to wrongly think her erect nipples might indicate arousal. She saw the men already dressing and assembling the swords and daggers that hung from their belts. She knew she would be called out of the water soon but she relished each moment the water gave her soothing relief.

Anticipating being called out of the water at any minute, she lowered her hips back into the water and closed her raised eyes as she again felt the coolness relieve the pain in her ass. The sun beating down from directly above against her closed eyes, she thought something caused a shadow pass over her and her bare body felt a swoosh of air, the water lapping against her thighs in the wrong direction from the current. A sudden scream from a man followed by shouts and urgent calls for help followed by more screams seeming to surround her with shadows passing rapidly over her causing her to drop her body into the shallow water. But as she lay crouched in the shallow water now fearing whatever caused the screams and cries more than the guards themselves, the only sounds she was aware of were the gentle motion of the water and the movement of leaves in the trees nearby as they fluttered from the breeze. It seemed utterly quiet, quieter than she had remembered it before. No birds were calling and singing, no sounds from the horses tied by the road. Nothing but quiet.

She peeked to the shore where the guards had been gathering their belongings and where the wagon and horses were tied. Nothing. The guards were gone, the horses were gone. As she rose higher on her knees, she saw the wagon bouncing and jolting across the valley away from the road, pulled by the horse in a panicked flight. She looked up toward the mountains to see dark shapes ... large birds? ... with something hanging in their feet below them. Her mind still not making a connection. When she heard the powerful beating of wings nearby, though, she looked up into the bright sun which became completely blocked by a massive shape with widespread wings beating against the air to slow its approach. When it settled softly in the shallow water directly in front of her, her mind was slow to acknowledge what had just happened.

She turned her head to gaze toward the mountains across the valley and the retreating figures in the air. Then, she turned her gaze back to the image in front of her. Her mind slowly adjusted to the change of events and the new reality of her condition. A dragon. A large, gray scaled dragon stood in front of her, its wings now folded against its body, its long neck and massive head stretching out toward her, its powerful legs and fearsome claws, its long tail slowly waving behind it. The shapes in the air retreating were dragons ... carrying the guards away ... away from her. Dragons. Dragons exist. They really exist. The myths are true. So, wasn't she afraid? Shouldn't she be afraid? But her mother told her to believe, that she was the only one who might still save the people if she believed.

This was her destiny ... for the people ... to be sacrificed for the people. She slowly stood on shaky legs before the dragon. "I am ready to be sacrificed," she announced. She noted the dragon's head turn to the side like she might have seen from a curious dog. It inspected her up and down. She stood naked before it but proudly with her mind accepting her fate in the belief that what she was doing was for the good of the people as her mother had explained. The dragon, though, splashed in the water as it moved around her, its head only a few feet from her body. When behind her, it snorted a powerful blast of air against her back causing her long hair to fly up. She flinched at the sudden sound of it loudly trumpeting, a sound that bounced from one mountain range back to the other until it seemed to fill the valley with the sound. In a moment, four additional dragons, all similar in their gray coloring and size were circling above her, their powerful wings moving the air around her.

What was happening? Did they return to join in feasting on her body? They remained in the air, though. They were watching her but also watching around them as if providing protection. The dragon in the water with her lowered its head to the water surface but not directly at her as if to bite but alongside her so its neck was near her. It wanted her to get on? It wasn't going to eat her? Maybe the sacrifice had to be accomplished somewhere else.

Her nudity no longer held any consideration to her. Yes, perhaps it normally should since she was in the countryside but she was, after all, with a dragon. Dragons, actually. Could anything possibly be considered normal in such circumstances?

Nervous, but resigned to whatever fate awaited her, she climbed onto the dragon's lower neck and slid back to its body forward of the wings. She found it surprisingly easy to hold on. It jumped mightily into the air and its wings beat powerfully. She was both shocked and in awe. It rose powerfully into the air and she soon found herself looking down at a receding image of where she had so recently been abused by the guards for their simple pleasure. She looked back up in the direction of the rising dragon to see it was aimed for the center of the other four circling above. As she passed through the others, she looked back to see them pull out of their circling and take new positions. One moved to the front, one behind, with the other two on either side. She saw them glance over to her and, if she could believe her eyes, it seemed they had smiled at her. This no longer felt like she was being taken to her death but as if she were being protected as she was being delivered safely.

Ariana had spent her life trapped in the castle. She had very infrequently even stepped outside and never outside the courtyard. Seeing the land her ancestors had once governed filled her with both wonder and sorrow. The land was so beautiful as it seemed nestled between the protective mountain ranges. She saw the farms with crops and animals, the fishing in the river, and the small towns and villages. But she was filled with sorrow and despair, also, at seeing how the King had taken from the people. Despite their hard work on the land their homes and land suffered visibly from the care and upkeep they could no longer afford after paying the King's taxes, which she heard cut into half of what they produced.

She soon found the mountains rising before her until she felt the dragon gliding, no longer trying to rise any further. She craned her neck to see beyond the massive head in front of her and found a large, level ledge before what appeared to be a series of massive caves. The dragons tilted their wings and slowed their approach and when they touched down it was smooth.

Again, the dragon dipped its head and neck. Ariana slid forward and off the beast. "Pull your hair away and show us." The voice came from no place in particular. She looked around. Dragons were coming out of the caves and others landing nearby. All seemed curious. "Princess, pull your hair away and show us."

The second time was when it hit her. She couldn't tell where the voice came from because it wasn't a voice. She heard it in her head. Nonetheless, she obeyed. She pulled her long, golden-colored hair to the front. It served to cover one breast but also exposed her neck. She held it that way as she slowly walked in a tight circle inside the crowd of dragons while others circled in the air above them. She saw dragons on perches on the mountain as the ledge was already too crowded. She saw gray colored and brown colored dragons. There were maybe dozens. The browns were slightly smaller than the grays. She thought the grays were large but they suddenly parted from the mouth of the largest cave and a huge dragon immerged. It was a tarnish gold color and there was something about it that indicated great age.

"You are the Princess! But you are almost too late." Neither its mouth nor lips moved as the words were 'heard' in her head. "You were taken from those human males. They were abusing you?" She was stunned by everything happening, her rescue, that dragons exist, standing in the midst of them, the voice ... all she could do was nod her head in reply. "Are you here willingly, though? Are you ready?"

She gathered up all the strength and resolve she could muster. This was the moment. For the people, as her mother encouraged her. "Yes. I am ready for the sacrifice."

His laugh was booming and surprised her. "Sacrifice? Do you think you come here to be sacrificed? That's why Princesses stopped coming?" He lowered his head to a foot from hers. "You humans can be so arrogant, so conceited. You think you know better than traditions of hundreds of years that held this region together in peace and prosperity when everything surrounding it might be in conflict and hardship." He straightened to his full height. He towered over her. "Why do you come now?"

She was truly intimidated. He had a low opinion of humans, yet they, the humans down in the valley, needed their support, needed to return to the old ways. She decided her only and best option was complete honesty. She was shamed by the actions of her ancestors but, if she was the Princess as they believed, she must take on that shame as her own. She explained what her mother had told her over time and at the end. She told him about her great-grandmother's decision. She told about the army that invaded, the King that took control and subjugated the people. She told, regretfully, how she only just recently learned of all this, learned of the mark on her neck, learned of its meaning, and was told of her destiny. She hoped it wasn't too late to make amends for the terrible decisions her ancestors had made.

The old dragon considered her. The others stood still. Clearly, they all deferred to this one dragon. He turned back to the cave but spoke over his shoulder, "We will see if you are ready, if you are truly willing to serve your people ... and us. Come."

Serve us. It said 'serve your people and us'. She followed behind the giant dragon while very wary of the twitching tail she was sure could flip her dozens of feet with ease. She was overwhelmed but encouraged at the same time. The stories her mother told and reinforced as they parted were true but had elements very wrong. The Princesses all left and were never seen, again. It came to be assumed they were being sacrificed to the dragons for protection. But there was no 'sacrifice', not in the death way of thinking, anyway. There was something else. There was something that involved serving the dragons that in turn served the people.

The cave was indeed massive. The entrance was large, obviously enough for this largest of dragons to easily walk into. But the interior opened into a cathedral-like chamber that towered up and opened into a wide space. A separate passage led further into the mountain and Ariana followed the great, old golden into that passage. Soon, it stopped at a ledge. Ariana cautiously stepped up alongside it and peered over the ledge. About 20 feet below was a chamber with a floor of sand. This chamber was very warm, heat radiating up from below. She looked up and found narrow shafts in the ceiling where most of the heat seemed to dissipate. Below, walking in a circle around the outer rim of the chamber, was a brown dragon that appeared to be very swollen.

The great dragon sat and began explaining the real story of the dragons, the humans of the valley, and the Princesses over their long, shared history. The long history was broken by Ariana's great-grandmother. Not even the dragons with their long, shared memory knew how the amazing relationship was formed. Or, why. They believed this was one of the last strongholds of dragons remaining. They were, are, hunted by monster hunters everywhere else. This was their last refuge and they thought this one was lost, too. If Ariana was indeed committed to rebuilding the alliance between them, there could be hope for both the dragons and the people of the valley.

The brown circling below was a female. All browns are female. It is swollen because it is due to lay its eggs. The few browns remaining are expected to lay only a couple eggs each. The warm chamber with deep sand is their incubation room. Barring intercession by a Princess, all dragons hatched are gray or brown. The grays are hunters for the pride. He was quiet for a long moment as if considering if he dared believe in Ariana's intentions for a shared future. Finally, he continued. Only a committed Princess, a human female marked by some ethereal realm of destiny, might have influence over the clutch of eggs.

It all seems surreal to Ariana. This is nothing like the sacrifice she was led to believe it was. Over the next days, she continues to receive a crash course in what is about to happen. Dragon roles are established by their color. The browns are females, give birth, and attend to the young communally. The young have an amazingly fast cycle to maturity of one year. At that time, the browns could begin the cycle of birthing, if the conditions were right. The grays are hunters who have the primary responsibility of finding and bringing food back to the browns and young. The silvers, of which there were none presently, were the only fire-breathers for warring needs. Then, the gold. The Gold was the leader of them all. There was only one gold who was matched to one Princess. It was rare for a gold to live as long as this one had and why it was almost too late. Only the old Gold can teach the new Princess what it is she must do to continue the cycle.

Ariana was having trouble with all this sinking in and accepting it all. It seemed that the Gold was the only one to be able to communicate with the human. But once the commitment was complete between the new Princess and new Gold, she would gain the ability to communicate with all the dragons. She asked why. She was told because she then would be in the leadership of all the dragons alongside the new Gold, her mate. That was the connection, then. That was the connection between the dragons and the people. The Princess could wield influence to help the people in times of need. The people never again saw the young woman who became Princess once she left. They misunderstood what happened.

There was one word in all that she didn't focus on, though. Mate.

Ariana not only spent her time with the old Gold to learn everything she could, but she also put it into practice. She spent the rest of her time in the incubation chamber with the browns. They seemed to be in physical distress and the circling in the warm was indicative of that. Ariana began walking beside them, touching their bellies. Finally, one stopped and allowed her to stroke and massage her distended belly and soon the others allowed the same. She heard movement above on the ledge and found the old Gold. Again, it seemed weird, but it seemed like he was smiling.

If this was intended to be her destiny, it would be what she would do and do it with her entire dedication. The dragons brought her food, though she had to cook the raw meat chunk presented to her. Thus, her time with the dragons passed and she found herself in peace and serene. Though she was free to go anywhere and periodically even took flight with one of the grays along the mountain range, she mostly spent her time with the browns. Her nudity, once a source of anxiety, humiliation, and shame, was now merely a matter of course. The dragons were also attentive to her. She loved sitting on a ledge overlooking the valley below, especially at night. The night sky was filled with stars on moonless nights and the valley where her people lived looked peaceful and serene, though she knew it wasn't for them. She was surprised by the presentation of a blanket by one of the dragons as she shivered one night. Blankets had no purpose for the dragons so she knew it was something they had sought just for her. But except for the chill of the night high in the mountains, she was content to remain naked and part of nature in a natural way.