Dragon Date (dragonfucking WIP)
Inspired by this post
hoards used as a site to impress mates (birds of paradise)
Male dragons singing to attract mates (humpback whales)
Crocodillian vocalizations, like hissing, bellowing, roaring, and coughing
Lekking “a bunch of guys arguing when a girl shows up” (black grouse)
building lairs that cause a domino effect of change in the land around them (beavers)
Extending their flame sac as a warning/mating cry (frogs)
Vihar was out hunting a wooded valley between two mountain peaks when she heard it. A strange, lilting song that carried on the wind beneath her wings. It was familiar in a distant way, like the vague shape of a swine on a hillside before you’re close enough to be sure it’s your next meal. This song brought memories of her younger years, of disappointment and dissatisfaction, of the dragons of her range who had come and sang and come and gone. They’d left because she’d driven them out, of course, but it was their own fault for being so lackluster.
The song she heard was a draconic mating song. The low, rumbling tones were made by a male deep in their throat and sometimes in their flame glands. They were always sonorous, sometimes gargling and kind of wet, and never actually communicative. No words were used, with some saying that the mating song was used before even the advent of language.
This was different from the ones she remembered. There was a strange dissonance to it. Every male had their take on the song, each similar enough to be recognizable but with their own unique flair to catch a prospective mate’s ear, but this was. . . bad. Muddled and confused to the point of being unintelligible. Because she didn’t recognize it at first, Vihar responded only subconsciously, with her neck and wing scales rippling in agitation.
Regardless of how unappealing his song was, she was obligated to tilt her wingtips and bank down towards the sound. Not to mate, but for something much more satisfying; to fight! This was her territory, clearly marked with scorched rocks and stripped trees. Any male foolish enough to sing his song in her domain needed to be taught a swift and brutal lesson.
However, what the copper dragon heard as she followed the siren call gave her pause. There was a reason why this song was so dissonant, so cloying, and so unpleasant upon the ear. As she approached Vihar realized that there were multiple songs.
A moment later she cleared the tall pines surrounding a meadow. No less than seven dragons were landed there, their scales a riot of colors. The largest was a brilliant red with an elegant crest that graced his neck and complemented his prominent horns. The second largest was ocher, with an impressive fanned tail that would be invaluable in water but probably cost him in the air. The rest were roughly equal in size. There was a blue, a gold, a white, and two greens. One was a solid pale green that blended well with the grass of the meadow and reminded her of the patina that was growing along the edges of her own copper scales. The other was dark green that blended haphazardly with large yellow-gold blotches and betrayed a mixed heritage.
Most were barely a century, with the large red one maybe as old as a hundred fifty. She had successfully defended her mountain range, which she simply called home but she knew appeared on human maps as the Apuseni, for longer than any of them had been alive.
They raised their heads to track her as one, their songs stalling in distraction, before all chaos broke loose among them. Seven gurgling songs all started at once, and their singers scrambled over each other just as unattractively to follow below her.
“Silence!” she roared above them. The noise dimmed but didn’t cease.
Once they’d followed her flight towards one end of the meadow, Vihar turned sharply, snapped her wings shut, and landed in the middle. The ground shook at the impact and a medium-sized tree that was growing at an odd angle at the edge of the clearing was jostled enough to crash into the dirt.
The rest of the ridiculous singing came to an end. The group of males approached, but more cautiously now, giving her a wide clearance in response to her flared crest and raised tail, which she kept a talon-length off the ground in case she needed to swing and strike with it.
“You have ignored my markings and trespass on my domain. Leave or I will make you.” Her growling voice made her irritation even clearer.
The gold and one of the green dragons’ heads recoiled in fear, their mouths opening and wings spreading instinctively to prepare for violence.
The red dragon, however, took a step forward. He kept his crest flared and the flame glands in his throat engorged. With tongues of flame and wisps of smoke escaping between his teeth, he said, “I am Vesuvius. We did not see the flows of melted rock that mark a territory where we come from-”
“You know the markings, wyrmling!”
The tension of the males behind him spiked, with the second largest dragon (the ocher fan-tail) beginning a growl deep in his chest. The difference between this growl and the mating song he had been singing before would likely not be discernible to a mortal, but was obvious to any dragon.
Vesuvius turned behind him and hissed at the growling dragon, silencing the fan-tail as sparks emerged from his still open mouth. Then he addressed Vihar again, his poise unshaken.
“You are correct, we did see signs that might indicate a territory, which is why we have not eaten since entering this range. But I am no wyrmling. As wingleader I ask that any bloodsport for this transgression be limited to me and not my wing, as it was my decision.”
At this the other six dragons began backing away, with the gold and green cowards making more haste than the others.
Vihar huffed. Her expectations ever since she’d heard the mating song had been for violence. First it was with an equally-sized male, as she assumed no one much smaller than her would see her marks and think this would be a good idea. Then she’d found this bizarre wing and recalculated, determining that a several-on-one brawl would be safer on the ground since they couldn’t use their agility and numbers to crash her and therefore had little among them that could actually cause her serious injury.
Now this impudent red had the gall to challenge her alone and call it ‘bloodsport’? He was the one in her mountains! Was his little trick with the fire in his mouth attractive? Well, maybe, but that didn’t change anything.
One leg clad in copper scales stepped forward. Vesuvius did not flinch, cower, or flee, despite being greatly outmatched. It must be a trick. He was baiting her, luring her in so his wing could surround her and get around to her neck. After that single step, Vihar hesitated.
“I will warn you,” the red dragon continued, his open maw still alight with flame that he perilously held at the roof of his mouth, “I have sparred with many dragons, some as much as twice my size. While I have not won every time, I have not always lost either, and I have never killed or maimed another dragon. Do not underestimate me.”
She knew he was taunting her (“Do not underestimate him!?”), but that simply could not stand.
Vihar lunged, closing the distance in two quick strides and snapping her jaw closed, but Vesuvius was faster and sprang to the side. He sprinted away from his wing across the meadow, then with two great heaves took to the air.
Knowing her mistake, Vihar snapped back at the six other dragons. She expected them to be encircling her by now but her teeth found nothing again; the wing was five or six wingspans away, all sitting on their haunches. They flinched as she swiped in their direction but once she saw they were in fact noncombatants she turned back to Vesuvius.
The ruby red dragon glinted in the sunlight, gliding in lazy circles above them as if he had not a care in the world. His arrogance was infuriating.
“You think I’m stupid enough to take flight against seven dragons? Come down here and see if your pathetic teeth and talons can even get through my scales, coward!”
From above he called down, “Heskan, make sure the wing stays grounded until I return! I think I see a lovely cave high up in that mountain. I think I’ll take a nap there. You’re in charge while I’m gone.”
With that, Vesuvius set off towards the mountain cave where Vihar kept her hoard.
Out of options, the copper dragon took to the sky, almost getting dizzy as she tried to keep watch on both the red dragon ahead and the meadow behind. It was soon clear both that the other six were not following, and that due to her larger wingspan she would catch the ruby menace long before they reached her hoard.
Halfway between the meadow and their destination, Vihar checked for pursuit one last time. The wing was still on the ground. Even if they were sprinting along the valley floor hidden by trees, they would never take flight and climb fast enough to interfere. It was just her and Vesuvius.
She rose above him to attack his neck and wings, but when she dove he tucked one wing in and rolled, planted his hind legs on her stomach, and pushed off her cleanly. It hardly hurt. He didn’t even seem to try using his claws, perhaps assuming (correctly) that they’d never pierce even the relatively thin scales on her belly. No, it felt like an evasion: He was showing off his aerial agility.
(WIP)
