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“I won’t live that long,” I say. “Humans get to, what? Eighty?”

“You will live long if you are here with me in this realm, taking my seed. The semen of the dragon offers many benefits to a human. Long life, eternal youth. As long as I breed you, you will never age, and you will not die.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I stare at him, more horrified than I would have expected to be. I know it is supposed to sound magical, like I’ve been set free from the worst of what life can do to a person. But it all depends on fucking Ornix, and also… thisis still a delusion. I have to remind myself of that. Whatever is happening can’t possibly be real.

“I am not kidding. I know I have taken you from a world you once considered to be everything, but there is so much more to being than what you have been made aware of. Let the weakness of your human existence fade into memory.” He strokes his hand down my back, claws scratching my skin lightly, dragging down my spine in a way that makes heat curl low in my belly.

He is seducing me into an abandonment of all I have ever known, drawing me into a set of possibilities that I know can’t possibly be real. But it feels real. The sex feels real, my body feels soft and tender and ravaged in the best way.

Still, there is rebellion left inside me. I know I am being manipulated. He wants me to listen to his words and accept his decisions without question. I have to cling to the semblance of independence that still lives in me. I can’t let it go. He’s the bad guy. The final boss. Even if fucking him feels good, that doesn’t mean I should let him define my entire reality. I need to get back home. That’s where I really belong. That’s where I will be safe and sane again.

“Get some rest. I will be back in a few hours with food for your next breeding.”

He leaves.

It takes me a few minutes to gather myself from the morass of post-coital bliss. It would be so easy to lie here and just let this all happen, to tell myself that is a dream and that I will wake up when I am ready and I don’t need to fight or explore, I just need to let the best dick of my life happen to me over and over again.

But that’s not me. Passive has never been my style. I am the sort of girl who makes her own path. Besides, the instinct to strive for freedom is innately human, maybe even native to Earth. I can’t think of a single creature you can put into a box and not have it try to crawl out.

I grab a few things from the room: a cloak to keep me warm, some coverings for my feet. They’re not exactly my size, but they’ll do.

This time I make for the stables. That’s one of my favorite entrances to the Golden Keep, and I’m hoping against hope that someone has left a low-level mount there.

“Holy…” The first thing I see is a head as big as I am, head to toe, belonging to a dragon in a stall. She leans over the barrier of her enclosure, a big, barred pen that I can see through.

There are scorch marks all over this room. I will have to be careful not to be burned to a crisp. This dragon doesn’t seem to think I am any kind of a threat, though. She makes a deep, rumbling noise in her throat, sort of with an edge and a trill. It’s a sweet sound, and as her head swings around, I see that it is not for me. It is a sound for her baby.

She has a tiny little baby with her, and when I say tiny little baby dragon, I mean something the size of an elephant. It somehow still manages to look cute, though. They are both green with gold tips to their scales, and golden eyes that remind me of Ornix’s.

I keep moving, not wanting to disturb them. I’m not riding a dragon. That’s level fifty stuff, and I am not level fifty. I am not even level five.

Dragon after dragon laze curled in their pens. Their bedding, I notice, is not straw like I thought it was. It’s finely choppedblades of pure gold. They bend softly under the weight of the beasts, shining gently in the low burning lights of the stable. I pick up a strand and it dangles from my fingers like a noodle that isn’t quite dry and isn’t quite cooked.

My imagination is incredible to come up with details like this. These definitely aren’t from the game. This is something else. Something disturbing and also a little fun? I’ve come to no harm. I’ve had some incredible sex, and now I’m going to go on the sort of consequence free adventure that only a complete disconnect from reality can provide.

I hear the unmistakable sound of a horse nickering. At the very end of the stable of dragons is a set of smaller pens with shorter gates. This is where I am hoping to find a horse I can ride.

They’re all bridled and saddled already. The way horses always are in video games, and never are in real life.

I pick a short, tank-looking creature with big soulful eyes, tan fur, and a black and white mane. It is round as a barrel and snorts softly through big, flared nostrils as I step into its stall.

“Okay, buddy,” I say. “Do you want to go for a ride?”

He turns his head toward me and nuzzles my side. He might be saying yes. He might be looking for food. Who can say. I take him by the reins and lead him into the stables. My plan is to ride out of here as fast as I can and hope that nobody knows I’m not supposed to be doing that.

It’s like the time I sneaked into the chancellor’s soiree. You put on the right clothes, you act like you belong there, nobody questions you. Hopefully if I am seen, I am not noticed. There must be riders coming and going from these stables all the time. The fact that they’re quiet right now doesn’t mean anything.

I mount the horse by climbing up on the door of the stable, and sort of flinging myself on, then I urge it forward with my legs. A light squeeze is all it takes for the beast to lunge forward into a fast pace. Canter? Gallop? I don’t know. What I do know is that I drop the reins almost immediately and instead grab onto the horse’s mane as we head out of the castle at high speed.

I thought I knew how to ride, but I am realizing that very much depends on the horse agreeing that I know how to ride, and I am not sure that this one does. He’s not trying to buck or throw me, but the constant rolling motion of his powerful body is hard to stay with.

I don’t choose the direction. The horse does.

Thwip Thwip Thwip

A volley of arrows lands around me.

Ornix