Chapter 9

MAVLYNN

Mavlynn gripped Chariscora’s throat with every iota of her strength. She had had no idea that she could be this angry ... and a tiny, distant part of her realized that it wasn’t even Slake. Not really. She was furious about Slake. She was furious about being betrayed by Chariscora, a woman she had thought she could trust. She was furious about everything.

And that fury was making that tiny little dragon in her head panic. The tiny beast was running in circles, bonking against the inside of her head, grabbing and yanking at every part of her brain, trying to get her to stop. But there was something that Mavlynn had never known was possible until now, when she tried it.

It was possible to be too fucking angry to care.

Explosions of light burst from within her skull. Her tongue tingled as she tasted sound, and her heart thumped, stopped, started again and pulsed like a rabbit thumping its foot on the ground. Blood dripped down her nose and her ears.

Chariscora let out a choked, wheezing noise.

And Mavlynn wondered if maybe, just maybe, she was going to snap the old dragon’s neck in pure rage.

Then Chariscora reached up and flicked her finger against Mavlynn’s chest. Several defense systems that Mavlynn didn’t even remember getting implanted triggered at once. Underscales, kinetic redistribution via the creation of flash-airpockets, the inflation of a few liquid filled bladders that served as a way to even out the impact. All of it flicked on in the microsecond between wind up and impact.

It still sent her flying backwards two meters, straight into the wall and to the floor. Powdered stone exploded around the impact point and her entire spine felt as if it had been wrenched out of joint by one gigantic, vicious hand. Chariscora reached down and brushed some debris from her sarong and glowered down at Mavlynn. “Well,” she said, her voice even. “Either you are the most impulsive assassin in the universe, or my fucking rogue-”

Mavlynn tried to push herself to her feet, snarling. “You-”

“Or my fucking rogue didn’t catch that you are a Wyrm be damned plant,” Chariscora continued, using her to to catch and flip Mavlynn onto her back. She planted her foot onto Mavlynn’s chest, pinning her down onto the ground with enough force to drive the air from the kobold’s lungs. “And while I am always glad to rub Rouge’s fuckups in her nose, that doesn’t smell right.” She scowled. “Start talking.”

Mavlynn glared up at her. The tiny dragon bouncing around in her paused, panting softly. Blood dripped down her nose, tacky against her lips. She could feel the tiny dragon’s relief. She was no longer going so wildly against her constraints. But Mavlynn was still angry. And she had just been given a direct order.

Start talking.

She grabbed onto her ear, sticking her finger in. She just barely, barely, managed to catch onto the tail of the tiny dragon living inside of her brain. He squalled, grabbed onto a chunk of brain tissue that she was fairly sure was important, and clung. She yanked. Hard. At the same time, she slammed her head into the back of the floor. The wrenching feeling she felt within her brain left her feeling nauseous. Vertigo. Like she was at the top of a building that was spinning around and around, despite laying on her back, on the floor. But the tiny dragon dangled from her fingers, dripping with blood, holding a small bit of brain tissue like a guilty treat. He swung from side to side and looked exactly like a puppy that had been caught piddling on the carpet.

Chariscora pointed her finger at the blood soaked dragon. “What the fuck is that?”

“Control system,” Mavlynn said, panting softly.

“ ... ooh h-how ... did I get in there?” The tiny dragon said, slowly, shifting his tiny paws to hold the brain tissue behind his back. “This ... isn’t a hotel! Now, a lot of things are-”

Chariscora snatched him out of Mavlynn’s hand, her eyes flashing as she gripped him around his waist, squeezing so hard that his head started to expand like one of those stress toys they sold for deep-wasteland dragon truckers. He squeaked in alarm as she snarled. “Why are there two dragon-netic implants in my fucking kobold, you little piece of shit! Start talking!” She shook him back and forth and his head wobbled wildly.

“Choking! Choking!” he squeaked.

“Dragons don’t fucking need oxygen to talk, you shit!” Chariscora snarled.

“Y-Yeah, I wanna escape!” The dragon whined.

Chariscora turned to her desk, which was in ruins, and then turned back to Mavlynn.

“Kobold! Open your mouth!” Chariscora snapped.

Mavlynn, who had not yet gotten her limbs to work properly, did manage to open her mouth obediently. Laying on her back, and seeing how pissed Chariscora was, this seemed like the best choice at the moment. Huh, she thought. I can say anything I want too now. The realization was still dizzying and almost terrifying. She blinked, while Chariscora dangled the dragon from his tail, her fingers gripping him tightly enough that even as he beat his wings, he couldn’t get away.

“Now, listen to me,” Chariscora said, her voice a quiet snarl. “Either you begin to talk, tiny dragon, or else I am going to feed you to my fucking kobold dick fucking first!”

“B-But vore is my kink!” the tiny dragon chirruped.

Chariscora grinned at him, slowly. She leaned in and her eyes flashed with draconic fury.

“Is it, now?” she whispered, very sweetly.

The dragon was still.

“ ... okay, it might be some day!” he exclaimed. “People develop new kinks in all kinds of-”

Chariscora lowered him an inch and Mavlynn, realizing when she was being prompted, opened her mouth wider and unfurled her tongue. The dragon meeped and flailed his tiny limbs. “I-I’m a control system from the House so you don’t know that Mavlynn was kidnapped and changed against her will ahhh please don’t vore me! I don’t wanna be in someone’s tummyyyyy!” He whimpered, and flailed more.

Chariscora shook her head. “Little dumbass,” she said, sounding half affectionate. “Dragons can teleport.”

“ ... oh yeah!” the tiny dragon said – then vanished with a crack of displaced air, appearing five feet to the left and starting to wing down the corridor. “I’m free! I’m free! I’m – ack!”

“Got him,” Rouge’s amused voice came around the doorway.

“I’m a tiny dragon! Release me from this flypaper!” The tiny voice was sounding more distant. “I demand respect for being both a dragon and small! Mewww!”

A door closed, cutting him off.

Chariscora glowered down at Mavlynn. “So,” she said. “Why did the House decide to try and kill me?”

Mavlynn blinked up at her. “A-actually, that was kinda unrelated,” she said.

“Was it now?” Chariscora asked, narrowing her eyes. “Why don’t you start from the fucking beginning then.”

Mavlynn gulped, and considered getting up. Just in case Chariscora still turned out to be evil. Before she could even consider doing it, Chariscora turned from her elfin form to her quadrupedal dragon from, and there, she lay across Mavlynn, tucking her legs such that Mavlynn was trapped but not squished. Her heads swiveled around on a pivot to glower down at her with even more intense disapproval. So, Mavlynn sighed and then started to tell her every single detail she could remember.

She started with her money troubles. Her dead brother. Her roomie, Razor. She told her about the job that had gone bad. She told her about the House, about being turned. She told her about dating her daughter online. She even told her about finding Slake’s corpse, and the realization that Chariscora had to have had her killed.

“And why the fuck would I do that?” Chariscora growled.

“ ... I mean, who else would do it?” Mavlynn asked.

“Darling,” Chariscora said, tilting her head back the other way, then leaned slowly forward, bit by bit by bit until she was able to almost bump her nose against Mavlynn’s snout. “Did you think, maybe, the House might have done it?”

“Why wou- she recognized me,” Mavlynn said.

“The House probably does not often expect people it brainfucks into being kobolds into running directly dick first into the people they used to know their old fucking life,” Chariscora said, pinching the bridge of her snout with her fingers. “This cockup is ... is...” She hesitated a moment. “And that’s why the attacks ... but why sell me a kobold at all if- oh fuck me!”

“What?” Mavlynn asked, blinking. “Attacks? ... right, the attacks on CSI, you mentioned those, right?”

“They’re attacks on my doners, Mav, on my political fucking power base,” Chariscora said. “Do you know what is up in voting for the Council this month?”

Mavlynn shook her head, mutely. “I’m a two-legger, we don’t really have ... votes.” She blushed.

“It’s an act that will guarantee rights for kobolds,” Chariscora said, her voice a quiet growl. “It is an act I’ve worked sixty years to finesse through the courts. Why do you think you’re the first kobold I ever bought?” She shook her head. “We never needed one before – and why partake in the trade if you don’t need one.”

“Wait, you don’t support the kobold trade?” Mavlynn asked. “And you bought me anyway?”

“I’m a dragon, not a saint,” Chariscora said. She snorted, loudly. “But the thing is, I didn’t know who or why the attack was being held. Could have been to hit my donations for any number of reasons. But now, it all becomes clear. The kobold act.” She nodded. “It has to be.”

“Then why let you buy me?” Mavlynn asked. “You’re, like, the dragon most likely to find out about me being, you know, like this?” She wriggled, trying to gesture to herself with one arm, but both of her arms were pinned do either side of her by the huge claw clamping her down. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes perfect fucking sense,” Chariscora said, leaning forward, her voice a low, low growl. “If you plan to fucking reveal to the city that I have a brain fucked slave in my house while I’m trying to pass a law that gives kobolds rights.”

Mavlynn was silent for a long moment.

“Ah,” she said.

Silence hung between the two of them for a few moments longer as Rouge returned to the room. She had her arms crossed over her chest.

“Is it done?” Chariscora asked, while Mavlynn thought intently, her brow furrowed, her lips pursed.

“It’s done,” Rouge the Rogue said, her voice grim. “He’s been dealt with.”

“ ... did you kill that tiny dragon?” Mavlynn whispered.

“No, I gave him some milk and fucking cookies,” Chariscora snapped, standing up as she did so.

“Om nom nom!” The tiny dragon said as he chewed onto a cookie the size of his entire body. He lifted his head, his throat distending as he slowly swallowed the huge chunk that slipped down to his belly, ballooning him a bit more. “No idea!” He said, cheerfully, looking from the plate he was slowly demolishing to Chariscora, Sand and Rogue, while Mavlynn shook her head slowly.

“Well, then!” Chariscora said, rubbing her chin. “It makes sense he doesn’t know much more information beyond just keeping your tongue tied.”

“I’d never give up information that easily,” Sand said, frowning.

“You’d give it up for a minotaur with a big dick,” Chariscora said, absently.

“Well, I...” Sand paused. “Okay, how big a dick are we talking here? Like, this big?” She held her palms to a womb-destroying distance. “Or, like, bigger?”

Chariscora ignored her. “Rouge, what do you think?”

“Well, it’s evident that any actionable intelligence is going to be in the House proper,” Rouge said, her voice grim. “But the problem is that its an underground operation – it could be anywhere. We’d need to find where it is, then we need to hit it either fast enough or subtle enough to get the intelligence before they shred it.” She shrugged. “The main thing we have going for us right now is they don’t know that we know that they are actually bad actors.”

Chariscora sighed. “Do you report in?”

“Bublbubbublbuble,” the tiny dragon said, having climbed up onto the lip of a cup and stuck his head into the milk. He lifted his dripping head, licking his chops slowly. “ ... yup!”

“Can you keep reporting in?” Chariscora asked.

The tiny dragon blinked at her slowly. “ ... can I have a gold coin? Like, do you have any?”

“Yes!” Chariscora snapped.

“Yay, then yes!” The tiny dragon said, his wings fanning out – before he yelped and fell into the milk.

Chariscora sighed, leaning back in her seat. She rubbed her temple with two fingers, her elfin eyes narrowing as she looked at Mavlynn. “Wyrm save me from tiny dragons,” she said, her voice quiet and long suffering. “Rouge, options.”

“We can trace his report,” Rouge said, unsure.

“No we can’t,” Mavlynn said. “If you could trace his reports, you’d have noticed them when I was living here for the past few days.”

Chariscora shot Rouge a look. The elf shrugged. “Fuck my donkey,” Chariscora muttered, angrily. “Why did you even fucking bring it up then?”

Rouge sighed, then crossed her arms over her chest. “If I had said I can’t think of any ideas, you would have asked why you pay me.”

“Why the fuck do I pay you?” Chariscora said, rubbing her temples with both fingers now, on either side of her head. She glowered at the tiny dragon, who had stuck his head under the milk again.

“Why don’t we, like, uh, send Mavlynn out while the dragon is reporting, so the House’s agents see that she doesn’t have the tiny dragon in her head, but she’s not here, so they decide that she has to have run away, then try and kidnap her, then we follow her back to their base!” Sand said.

“No, that’s a shit idea,” Chariscora said, glowering.

“Aw,” Sand said, her ears drooping.

“Why?” Rouge asked.

“Because-” Chariscora started.

Mavlynn, who realized that if this plan went forward she’d be the one thrust directly into deadly danger, held up her hand. “Uh, I can think of some reasons.”

“Quiet, Mommy is thinking,” Chariscora said, rubbing her jaw, her eyes narrowing. “We’d have to be ready to dive and hit within minutes of tracking down the location – can our household troops manage it?”

“No, I don’t think so, not without tipping our hand,” Rouge said, sighing. “Your troops are good, but any major movement from the assets we have is going to be noticed, even with our best efforts.”

“Fuck, don’t you have any good fucking news to give?” Chariscora snapped.

“You remain immensely attractive even into your current age,” Rouge said, her voice bland.

“Damn straight,” Chariscora said.

“ ... why do we have to use troops at all?” Sand suggested. “We’re dragons?”

“Well, because-” Chariscora stopped herself.

“Oh gods no,” Rouge said, her voice soft, her eyes widening in the first actual display of emotion that Mavlynn had ever seen on her face.

“We’re dragons!?” The tiny dragon exclaimed, jerking his head out of the now empty milk cup, gaping up at Rouge, who sighed and quietly upended it, trapping him under the glass, where he started to scrabble against the glass and mew in quiet alarm, his voice muffled by the thick restraints.

“Rouge, what if I took an evening constitutional flying around town,” Chariscora said, her voice dry. “Then attacked the base myself?”

“I would tender my resignation, ma’am,” Rouge said, her voice flat. “You hired me to keep you and your daughter and your household safe. Diving directly into the base of the House, an underground faction that has been supplying military grade kobolds to the dragons of Wyrm City for years and years, without any backup or knowledge of their defenses, is completely fucking insane.”

“What if I gave you a raise?” Chariscora said.

“Well, it’s your funeral,” Rouge said, shrugging and sighing softly.

“I can help too!” Sand said.

“Absolutely not,” Chariscora snapped.

“Actually...” Mavlynn said, biting her lip. Rouge, the tiny dragon, and Chariscora all looked at her – their eyes narrowed, wide, and impassive in equal measures. Mavlynn grinned and then explained what she was thinking.

Sand started to buzz in excitement.

The elf twins Spark and Socket flanked Samwynn as bone-cycle that Mavlynn rode squealed to a stop next to their meetup spot. Mavlynn kicked the kickstand down, swung off the cycle and gave each of them a solemn nod.

“So, your revenge go well?” Samwynn asked.

“Kind of,” Mavlynn said, grinning at the other elf. “I got paid at least.”

“Hell yeah you did,” Socket said, walking around the bike, then looking up and down Mavlynn’s back. “Is that an energy sword?”

“Fire, mostly,” Mavlynn said. She had taken it from the armory – knowing that while it looked impressive, it mostly existed to make her fighting seem like she was actually trying. “Now, this mission ... it’s going to be a bit different from what you expected. We’re going to be attacked while I head for the train station out of Wyrm City.”

“Whose the bad guy?” Samwynn asked.

“The House,” Mavlynn said.

“Hah, right, and we’re all going to get a free kobold from this,” Samwynn said, chuckling. “Seriously, who is it?”

“ ... the House. I’m serious,” Mavlynn said. “I’m a kobold.”

“You’re a kobold?” Samwynn’s eyes widened in shock. She grinned at him and then let her eyes relax – their slitted pupils coming into place with a soft squish noise. Her tongue flicked out, then showed the forked tip she could have, if she wanted. “Holy hells, you’re a kobold. And you’re running away from your dragon master?”

“Nope,” Mavlynn said. “It’s kind of a long story.” She hesitated. “And I’m not sure exactly how much of it is safe to hear.” She shook her head. “People might come after you, if you know, you know?” She shrugged, then blinked as Spark and Socket both pressed to her sides. Spark’s hand caressed along her belly, while Socket reached down to caress her rump through the silky hose she wore, the two of them nuzzling against her eagerly.