The forest is pretty damn dark and sinister by now. There is almost no sound except for her own footsteps, and almost no light except for what comes third-hand through the layers of branches high overhead.

And then, very abruptly, she comes to a break in the trees.

The forest has led her to the top of a shallow slope. A magnificient palace, almost the size of a small city, nestles in the bowl of the valley below; it's stunningly beautiful, veined with streams and waterfalls, ringed by a tidy hedge maze whose arching flowered entrance stands not far from Ziasera. There don't seem to be any people in it, but perhaps from her point of view that's a good thing.

...oh, wow.

This feels very...traplike. Trap-adjacent. Nothing could possibly be this gorgeous and be abandoned for no reason.

But she was already halfway planning to get murdered in a dark and sinister forest, and getting murdered in a beautiful castle seems like a step up in the world. Also her feet are so tired and she would like to sit down on a chair, if possible.

She adjusts her pack and heads toward the entrance to the maze.

The hedges shuffle from side to side until the 'maze' is just a straight corridor from outer archway to inner. This is not normal hedge behaviour.

Whaaaat.

“Uh...are you sure you’re supposed to let me in?”

She peers around to see if she can spot anyone making magic happen in the vicinity.

The hedge corridor rustles invitingly. Absolutely nothing else moves.

Hmmm.

She steps halfway in.

There are tiny blue and white flowers growing from the branches of the hedge. It's very neatly trimmed for an abandoned hedge maze. The corridor doesn't shuffle around any further while she's standing in the middle of it, and there's still no sign of anyone nearby.

–okay! Sure, weird hedge not-maze. Hedge line?

She strolls down to the other end.

It re-mazes as soon as she's inside.

The palace and environs are even prettier up close. The closest outbuildings are a few minutes' pleasant stroll away, across a lovely field of wildflowers shining picturesquely in the afternoon sun.

Hmm.

Does she have enough energy left for a few minutes of pleasant strolling...?

Nnnope!

She flops down in the wildflowers.

After a minute or so, a delicate-looking wooden tray comes tiptoeing through the grass on its pointy wooden feet. On the tray are a cozy pillow and a neatly folded blanket.

...this is so strange. Is this just an incredibly convenient palace or is somebody watching her?

She watches it pick its way over the grass.

When it reaches her she pats it as she pulls the pillow and blanket off.

It gives a cute little hop and then traipses away, back toward the palace.

She's almost too curious to go to sleep.

–she would hate to waste the comfy pillow, though.

She curls up under the blanket to nap. Just for a little bit.

The blanket is very soft.

By the time she wakes up, afternoon has begun to fade into evening. There's a picnic basket settled in the grass nearby, wings of woven straw folded neatly to its sides.

She sits up, a little reluctantly, and leans in toward the basket.

...poke.

It opens its lid to reveal napkinsful of delicious food!

...are there tiny pies?

There are.

Tiny pies! How did it know?

She picnics happily for a while and then reaches out to pick up the basket.

It is a perfectly pick-uppable basket.

Well, then, she'll take it with her as she approaches the castle.

She's beginning to think that there's somebody in there who likes her.

It does seem plausible from available evidence!

The palace is really pretty. There's a lot of water, for some reason - fountains, aquifers, artificial streams, tidy little waterfalls. It's sometimes not clear whether a particular section is a single building with a lot of interstitial courtyards, or a cluster of buildings with gardens in between.

This place is mesmerizing. It's taking her a long time to get from place to place because she keeps stopping to wander through courtyards and dip her hands in streams and admire incidental features of the architecture.

Eventually she finds herself in a sort of grove or orchard, surrounded by huge old trees—

—and there's a rather large shadow moving amid the branches, high enough that she can't quite see any details beyond 'quick' and 'dark' and 'big'.

She freezes.

That was...large. And menacing. Maybe the lovely palace doesn't like her so much?

(Or maybe it likes her a lot?)

The large menacing shadow pauses, then circles back. A pair of blazing green-gold eyes peer down at her between the leaves.

She stares up, transfixed.

"...hi."

"What are you doing here?"

It—he—sounds surprisingly human, and more perplexed than anything. (Was that a flash of shining white fangs when he spoke?)

"Uh...I walked in, and...a tray gave me a blanket."

Did she just imagine the teeth...?

"You have really nice eyes."

...he blinks confusedly at her.

"...Thank you...? The valley's never done that before."

"Had somebody compliment you on your eyes?"

"...wait, nobody else can get in here?"

"Not since the empire fell," he agrees, to the second thing.

"...what."

There is a movement in the leaves which looks suspiciously like a long swishing tail.

"What part of that do you need explained?"

"The...twenty centuries ago empire?"

"Yes. That one."

"And you've been alive all this time? –Who else is in here?"

"Just me and the valley."

"...can you get out?"

Snort. "No."

Oh. That's upsetting.

But...she doesn't know whether this is the kind of person who needs other people.

"I'm even more confused about why it let me in, now."

"It's pretty confusing."

"Is this the part where you tear me to pieces, or where you come down and say hi?"

"I'm not planning to tear you to pieces. That would be a terrible waste of the first visitor I've had in two thousand years."

He pauses for a moment, considering, and then shifts sideways and swings down and drops out of the crown of the tree onto a sturdy branch, still well over her head, but with no concealing veil of leaves.

In the sunlight, the dark shadow of his body is revealed to be... mostly human in shape, if you omit the long lizardlike tail; but covered in iridescent black scales, glimmering red-orange-gold over an elusive underlayer of blue-purple-green. The scales vary widely in size, from big sturdy plates over the tops of his shoulders to something more like a lizard's pebbled skin on his hands and face. And yes, those were definitely fangs, and he's got claws to match; and if the perspective isn't playing tricks on her, he must be more than twice her height.

She stares at him in awe.

“...oh.”

His tail, dangling from the branch, sweeps from side to side.

"Hello," he says, a little dryly.

“...You are beautiful.”

"...That's... not what I was expecting to hear," says the scaly apparition, blinking confusedly down at her.

“Well, there must not be many mirrors here, then!”

Snort. "I've made my peace with this form but I was human once and I think most people would say I was much prettier then."

"People have terrible taste."

"Except you, apparently."

"It's more fun to be the single person in the world who likes the best things than to be a sad lunatic."

He giggles.

"That sounds like you know what I'm talking about!"

"I just can't believe you'd call this," he gestures at himself with a glittering clawed hand, "a 'best thing'!"

"You're gorgeous and glittery and you could probably pick me up and throw me in one hand. What's confusing?"

He shakes his head and laughs again, and then drops from the tree to the ground. The thump when he lands is nearly seismic.

...he's even bigger up close. Definitely ten or twelve feet tall, and not much farther away than that.

She needs more words for "wow".

(She also steps forward, rather than back.)

"So...two thousand years...?"

He tilts his head and studies her thoughtfully. "Yes?"

"How'd you manage that?"

"Someone tried to kill me and it didn't quite work out how they expected."

"–yeah, that seems like it backfired pretty bad."

"Well, it did stop me being the emperor of the world."

"–the what."

Snort. "Don't they teach history anymore? Tarakova Imerin, Emperor of Artelindaion. I might not have had the entire world in my grasp, but I was very close to it. And then someone decided they were tired of watching me abuse all the power I could get my hands on, and tried to kill me, and succeeded in destroying my capital and trapping me in its ruin, and there went the empire."

Well, she might as well believe him.

“...were you as bad as they say you are?”

"Worse, if anything."

”...so, when you said you wouldn’t tear me to pieces...”

"I haven't changed my mind, if you were worrying." He tilts his head thoughtfully. "Or... not worrying."

“Well, I still don’t want to die...and they didn’t exactly teach us whether you were any good at torture...”

Snort. "A connoisseur, are you? I doubt you'd be disappointed."

“All I’m a connoisseur of now is broken bones from falling down hills. Torture’s hard to find!”

"Well, I've only just met you, I'm hardly going to waste you on torture immediately."

“I’d better practice, then.”

"Practice what, falling down hills? Are you that eager to leave?"

She snorts.

”Practice getting better. I’ll be more entertaining if I’m reusable, right?”

(She’s definitely scared.)

"I hadn't actually intended to hurt you at all, except you seem to have other plans."

–oops. That’s incredibly embarrassing.

(The torture emperor doesn’t want to torture her. She’s so disgusting that she’s not even worth killing.)

“Well–no. That’s good.”

—he gives her a considering look. "Most people would have found that reassuring, if they believed me."

"I don't actually want to die."

She looks like she's trying to meld with a tree as a means of escape. Unfortunately, that's not actually a thing she can do, so it is predictably not working.

"It's just...you know, when you meet Tarakova Imerin and he says 'nah, I'll pass', after two thousand years alone..."

"Two thousand years alone have successfully taught me the value of not immediately murdering the first person I see, no matter how pretty she is."

She relaxes, but she doesn't seem to recognize the implicit compliment there.

"...that makes sense."

What the hell happened to this girl...?

He studies her for a moment, but then instead of asking that question he asks, "What exactly did you mean by 'practice getting better'?"

"–Oh. Like this."

She puts her hands out in front of her and bends her pinky backward until it

snaps.

—well that's. Something. That's a thing that just happened.

He is maybe looking at her broken finger in... a way.

She's trying very hard not to make too revealing a face.

As she watches the break and concentrates, her finger shifts slowly back into place, flesh shuddering and twisting a little before taking its normal shape.

"So...like that."

Her voice wavers a little.

"That's interesting."

Ooh. She likes being interesting.

"It's how my magic came in. My body does what I tell it to."

"How much can you fix?"

"...I have no idea. I've put some broken bones back together, um, lots of cuts and burns...I crushed my foot once, with a stone, not on purpose, but I could do that..."

She considers.

"And I can change some other things. Which gives me hints."

"I'm having all sorts of unwise thoughts right now," he murmurs.

"Yeah?"

She moves a little closer.

"Tell me about them."

"Part of me wants to find out just how much damage you can take, and part of me wants to just skip straight to fucking you even though I'd break you in half."

...ooh.

If everything's...relatively proportional...

(She might need a minute.)

"I think I might get fucked to death, if you tried that."

She doesn't sound entirely opposed.

He laughs softly. "You know what," he says, scooping her up with one hand, "I think you should read my favourite book."

–picking up!

She is distracted from the state of her libido for a moment by wheeeeeee!!

The valley provides a convenient door into a beautiful and well-stocked library, where Tarakova nuzzles her cheek, shifts her around so she's sitting on his arm and leaning on his shoulder instead of dangling from his hand by her waist, and prowls through the shelves in search of a book.

...well, this is fun.

She leans her cheek against his shoulder.

“You’re warmer than I expected.”

He chuckles.

There's the book! He picks it up and hands it to her. The title is Nimire.

Then he walks out of the library again, and through another magic door into a sitting room with a lizard-monster-sized couch where he can sit down with her in his lap.

...she can’t bring herself to object to this at all. She squirms a little as she looks over the book.

“Do I need to ask why this is your favorite?”

"Read it and find out," he suggests, nuzzling the top of her head.

She starts reading.

It’s fairly normal, for a few pages, at least, a little suggestive the first time they meet (she shivers a little at the description)...

Then she gets to the first real “scene”.

She starts to squirm in his lap again, not even very conscious of it, pressing her thighs together as she reads.

Tarakova, reading over her shoulder, is also having a reaction. There is something of a... lap-quake.

Oh. Good. All the better for her to grind against while she reads up to Nimire being raped in the emperor’s bed.

He carefully pets her hair with his huge clawed hands, because she is lovely and small and soft and fragile and pettable.

That’s very nice, actually.

She calms down, somewhat, until the first torture, though she still rocks a little in his lap.

When she does reach that, though, it’s impossible for her to stay still. It’s an effort to keep both hands on the book.

Mmmmmm. He makes a noise very much like a purr.

That’s actually an incredibly attractive noise.

She keeps reading, but her movements aren’t entirely about her own pleasure, now. Just mostly.

Having a pretty girl squirming in his lap while she gets off to his favourite book is amazing. He wants to snuggle her and pet her and kiss her and fuck her, and he cannot do most of these things because he is a scaly twelve-foot-tall monster. But he can carefully comb his claws through her hair, and nuzzle her, and run his hands along her thighs.

She’s very glad he’s inclined to do these things. It makes her much more aware that she’s grinding on an enormous monster who could tear her to pieces whenever he chose.

That, combined with the fact that she just turned the page and there’s a mace involved and she can’t help but draw some parallels...

He won’t mind if she reads one-handed. Will he?

He definitely does not mind. He the opposite of minds.

It’s hard to believe she met him an hour ago and she’s already doing this. Sometimes briefly fearing for your life unlocks some wonderful possibilities.

She leans back against his chest and reads while she fingers herself, turning the pages clumsily with the same hand holding the book. She’s read her share of smutty literature but she never imagined books like this existed, books that were clearly written for her.

An argument could be made that they were in fact written for Tarakova.

He holds her and pets her and nuzzles her and enjoys her very much.

“Mmh, is this...the kind of thing you-! -really did to girls?”

She’s close to coming already.

"I never had one who liked it this much. I don't think I'd have appreciated her properly if I had." He nuzzles the side of her face and very very gently scrapes his teeth along her jaw. "I'd love to fuck you up like this if you were going to live through it. I want to fuck you to pieces."

That does it. She can’t hold out any longer than that.

(She’s definitely a screamer.)

Mmmmmmm. That's nice. He snuggles her, very carefully.

“...mmyou’re pretty nice for a torture dragon...”

Nuzzle. "I like you. You're sweet."

“Gonna come to my senses any minute now and...do...something.”

Nope. Still sitting here. Sooo warm.

"If that something involves leaving my lap, I might have objections." Nuzzle.

"Oh no...guess I have to stay forever..."

He hugs her. Even his attempt at a gentle hug still makes her ribs creak.

She shudders a little.

"–oh, you can't do that when I just took care of this..."

He laughs. "Sure I can," he says. "You're—someone I can touch—even if I make a mistake, you're not going to die as long as I was being mostly careful—of course I'm going to hug you when I feel like hugging you." Nuzzle. "If it turns you on that's just a bonus."

Well that's an attractive attitude.

"...well. I might need to...practice. Fixing that."

He playfully bites her shoulder. It bleeds. Kind of a lot actually.

She laughs and moans at once, feeling her heart start to pound. It doesn't help the flow of blood.

It doesn't matter all that much, though – the teeth marks start to twist up and close, one at a time at first, and then in clusters, and then the entire upper row is gone at once.

He laughs, and licks at the blood, and hugs her again. This time something cracks.

–oh ❤︎—

She breathes deeply – except she doesn't, because there's a problem there already. 

There's some odd squirming under the skin of her chest as the broken ribs reattach to heal.

"Pretty," he murmurs, and he slides his hand down to her thigh and squeezes hard enough to snap the bone.

The scream from earlier was nothing.

She doesn't try to heal it right away, this time, just shakes in his lap panting and moaning.

"Oh I want to fuck you," he breathes in her ear. "Want to make a mess of you. Split you apart and watch you come back together again. Do you know what a treasure you are?"

She considers for a moment that she might be dreaming, might be passed out in the woods somewhere hallucinating the emperor of the world in his lizard-skin telling her how beautiful she is and breaking her bones.

She tries to move her leg and the wave of agony reassures her.

"Mm–I'd die–"

It sounds like she's reminding herself, more than him. Her hands move to the bulge pressing between her legs.

"You'd tear me open, you'd bruise my heart with this thing..."

Now she's fantasizing, more than anything.

He laughs, and drags his claws across her upper chest. Blood runs down between her breasts.

"I want to kiss your heart," he says. "I want to rip it from your chest and eat it."

"Ohh, I...wouldn't mind being part of you..."

She reaches down for her broken leg.

"But I'd need to–first, you'd have to–"

She yanks the limb up all in one to set the bone back in place, to help it twist together right.

It is not quiet.

"You're beautiful," he tells her, when she's done screaming. "You're amazing. In two thousand lonely years I never dreamed I'd meet anyone like you."

Clearly she is wearing far too many clothes. He starts shredding them off her, not particularly careful to avoid letting his claws catch skin.

That's...that's so many things she can't even begin to think about, right now, especially in a situation like this, and so she just laughs and laughs even as she feels his claws slit her skin and the sound takes a slightly different tone.

Mmmmm she's so pretty. And she's even prettier when she's naked and bleeding. The bulge in his shorts has gotten really emphatic.

...oh. That's distracting. She forgets temporarily about all the bleeding and the feelings and strokes him through the fabric.

He caresses her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Sweet thing, pretty thing. You're so lovely."

That's much easier to hear, when it's like this.

She pets at him for a while and then tugs a little impatiently at the fabric with one hand.

He laughs, and nuzzles her shoulder, and licks some blood off her neck, and claws open his shorts because he can't be bothered to take them off the normal way.

There is... a lot. He probably couldn't actually split her open all the way to her heart, but it's big even in proportion to his body size and he is twelve feet tall.

Oh.

She leans down and kisses the tip.

He pets her hair, very carefully.

She can't actually fit his cock in her mouth with her jaw in one piece but she can kiss it while she strokes it, at least.

He purrs again. The tips of his claws score shallow scratches down the back of her neck.

She kisses everywhere she can reach, glides her lips over his skin, touches him with her tongue.

(She’s never actually done this before. What a bizarre first experience.)

Purring intensifies.

"You're so pretty," he murmurs, petting her some more. "So precious. I want to keep you forever." His hands are warm, and his claws draw ragged red lines across her shoulders.

She moans at the touch of his hands and the cut of his claws. She has blood pouring over her back, now, but she can’t bring herself to close the scratches. She just wants to bleed and lick and rub against him as long as she can.

He is on board with this plan! Very much so! He keeps petting her, scratching lightly with his claws, running his hands over her shoulders and down her back.

"I want you to split me in half," she murmurs.

He laughs softly. "Yes, I want that too. But only if I get to keep you afterward." His arm snugs briefly around her waist, giving it a rib-cracking squeeze.