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Dean collapsed onto his bed in his quarters. It had been a long day, only made longer by the meeting in the great hall of the colony. There had been no new eggs at the hatching grounds again. This made three full years with no new dragons. The human riders may generally only produce one infant at a time instead of a clutch, but even so, there was a growing group of children training to be riders but without any hatchlings with which to bond.
Dean got up and removed his heavy riding leathers. He pulled up the bottom of his linen tunic and stared at his flat abdomen. Recently he had been feeling an odd sensation deep in his belly, almost like a squirming, and he wondered if it meant what he thought it did.
He remembered flashes of moments from his young childhood, of his father with a big, round belly, firm under the skin. His father had stayed home in their quarters with him and his mother for a long time.
“This is your brother,” his father had told him as they both felt what his daddy assured him was an egg. “You grew inside your mom because I’m your father, but your brother is special--his father is a dragon.”
“Singer?” Dean had asked, eyes wide.
“Yes.” His father’s dragon mount, Singer, was a big, brown dragon. He wasn’t the fastest or the strongest in the colony, but he was a part of their family because he was bonded to Dean’s father, John. “I’ve only got this one, but a very strong dragon could sire a whole clutch.”
“Strong like Impala?” Dean asked of the hatchling he had recently bonded. Impala was a black dragon, a rare thing indeed. Many in the colony saw it as an omen, though whether good or bad remained to be seen.
“Someday, you too may bear this gift for the colony, but it is a closely held secret, Dean. You must never tell a soul, unless you have a blessed child of your own.”
Dean had promised to keep the secret. A few days later, his father had disappeared in the night, only to return the next day, belly flat once more. When the hatching grounds were next checked, a single egg was present. It hatched into a bronze dragon that bonded with a little girl named Jess. She said his name was Sam, and Dean knew that this beautiful little dragonling was his brother.
There was a trumpeting call from the ledge outside Dean’s quarters and the sound of scrabbling claws. Dean walked over to great his dragon.
My bonded, Impala greeted him, nuzzling his rider with his large, wedge-shaped head. Then his snout moved down to prod at Dean’s stomach, and he felt that strange squirming again, this time accompanied by a sudden dampness in his trousers. Soon. The dragon hummed approvingly and inhaled deeply.
Dean was nervous. A strong dragon could sire a whole clutch, his father had said, and Dean knew eggs were desperately needed, but he was a little, no a lot afraid. Impala was the fastest and strongest flier the colony had seen in decades. Dean kept his scales carefully polished and they shone myriad colors if the sun hit them just right. He knew Impala would sire quite a clutch indeed, perhaps more than one, but Dean didn’t know if he was ready for that. He liked his life the way it was.
He couldn’t be selfish, though. The colony needed him, even if most of them would never know of the gift he was fated to give them.
Days and then weeks passed, Impala’s “soon” echoing in his mind. He started to believe nothing would happen, until one night he woke from a dead sleep, sweating profusely.
He felt like he was on fire, and there was an empty feeling in his gut that he knew it was now time to fill.
He removed his nightshirt and stumbled out to the ledge, where he found Impala waiting for him. He slumped to the ground, instinctively raising and presenting his rear to the dragon. Impala’s long, hot tongue swiped over him and he shuddered.
Be calm, my bonded, the dragon urged in his mind. There will only be pain for a short time.
Dean felt his body go limp as the dragon slithered forward on top of him, his warm, smooth belly scales caressing the skin of Dean’s back. He felt pressure at his hole and did his best not to tense, even though he could picture in his mind the hot column of dragon flesh that had unsheathed from the dragon and was about to be re-sheathed by his own body.
He felt another gush of the strange liquid warmth from inside himself, and then Impala was pressing in and in and in, impossibly far it seemed, the stretch intense and painful, but somehow wonderful as well. Dean slid a hand to his lower belly, and if he pressed in the right place, he could feel the dragon inside him.
Impala thrust forcefully, and Dean was forced to bring his hand back in front of him to brace himself against scooting across the rough stone. His breath was pushed out of him in panting grunts. The pace increased and then Impala reared back and roared into the night sky as a flood of dragon seed poured into Dean. That aching, empty place was filled to bursting, and Dean bit his bottom lip to stifle his own cry of ecstasy as he spent himself on the stone beneath him. The world went black.
Dean woke in his bed and wondered if it had all been a vivid dream until he sat up. His lower belly curved outward slightly, as though he had eaten a very large meal, and he felt something warm and sticky-slick leak from his hole. His palms and knees bore slight abrasions from the stone ledge.
He went about his day as usual, leading patrols and training with Impala, and he wondered if perhaps he had not taken with a clutch.
You will bear, Impala broke into his thoughts. Your gift is bountiful, my bonded.
Dean went to speak with the clan leader, one of the few others who knew about the true origin of the eggs that appeared in the hatching ground.
“So,” Charles, please call me “Chuck,” the clan leader said, eying Dean’s once more flat belly, “we will be blessed with new eggs once more?”
“Yes,” Missouri, the colony healer agreed with a nod, “I can sense the change in him.”
“I’m sorry,” Chuck told him sympathetically, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to seclude yourself. The secret of the eggs must be kept.”
“What will you tell the others?” Dean wondered. He couldn’t remember what his father’s excuse had been.
“You contracted a wasting sickness while on patrol,” Missouri told him. “Very contagious. I will come to treat you, but all others must be kept away.”
“How long until I...lay?” He couldn’t remember that, either.
“About the same as a human pregnancy,” Missouri told him. “The warmth of your body will nurture the eggs until they are almost ready to hatch, and then the hot sands of the hatching ground will finish the work.”
Dean remembered how large his father’s belly had been with a single egg. “How do I... The eggs are quite large.” He blushed at his own question.
“It is my understanding,” the healer soothed, “that a transformation occurs when the time draws near, to allow safe laying of the eggs.”
That was small comfort to Dean as he returned to his quarters, one hand absently rubbing his stomach.
He passed his days re-reading the history scrolls he had once read as part of his education, as well as anything else he could get Missouri to bring to him, and napping. Time dragged on slowly, and it seemed as though nothing was happening, until suddenly, the muscles of his abdomen gave up the fight against the pressure within, and then it was as though Dean could almost watch his belly growing.
By the time two months had passed, his belly rivaled that of a woman of the colony that had born a large set of twins. Dean’s back ached when he tried to walk around, the eggs within him growing heavier and heavier, his appetite growing to match. Missouri ordered him to bed rest. Soon, as his belly continued to grow, he would have been unable to move around anyway, and still it continued to grow.
Dean’s flesh stretched taut, veins clearly visible beneath the taxed flesh. He looked as though he might explode and felt it, too, and yet the growth went on.
Patience, my bonded. Impala remained almost constantly on the ledge outside, comforting his rider as best he could. The hatchlings will be strong, just like you.
Then one night, as he was feeling this couldn’t possibly go on much longer, he woke in a sweat again. He felt like his whole body, bones and all, was shifting beneath the skin. He tried to cry out, but no noise came form his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Be calm, Impala’s soothing voice advised, the change is upon you.
In a sudden, overwhelming rush, he felt his body stretch and grow. The bed creaked beneath him, and he rolled off onto the floor. He had barely been able to move before, but now the weight seemed much less.
He opened his eyes again to see the world from a strange and new perspective. He looked down at himself and gasped. He was a dragon! What had once been pale, freckled flesh was now covered in shining scales of deep green and accents of gold. The belly that had been so insanely huge on his human frame remained large, brushing the ground as he stood on his four new limbs and bulging out to the sides, but the strength of this new form let him carry the weight. His new serpentine neck let him look at his own back, and the new, large, folded wings resting there.
Come, my bonded, Impala beckoned from the ledge. It is time to fly to the hatching grounds.
Dean could feel the pull of the ancient place of dragon egg laying for generation upon generation, and he dragged his gravid form out to the ledge. Will I even be able to fly? he wondered.
I will help you, Impala promised.
The trip took far longer than it ought, the dragons having to stop for frequent rests. The clutch was heavy, and Dean was eager to discover just how many eggs his mighty dragon had sired.
When they touched down on the sands that were almost too hot for human feet during the day, the warmth was soothing on Dean’s taut belly. He had only just caught his breath when he felt the muscles of his abdomen seize and cramp. It wasn’t terribly painful, and with the warmth of the sand and Impala’s comforting presence beside him, the laying proceeded quickly.
Slowly, a pile of eggs the size of large melons formed behind Dean, and in the moment he forgot to count them.
Twelve, Impala proudly informed him.
Dean felt the strange sensation he had before his transformation, only this time it went in reverse, and he shrank once again to his human form. He sighed and reached a hand down to his belly, only to find it still swollen. “What?” was all he could manage before he was struck with another cramp, stronger than before.
Twelve eggs, Impala repeated as Dean strained, pushing as his body demanded, and one special child.
Dean cradled the unexpected baby boy in his arms as he rode Impala back to the ledge outside his quarters, and he couldn’t help wondering what possible explanation Chuck and Missouri could devise between them to explain his son.