Small Talk.
The sun slowly rose into the sky over the mountain. Scarlet slowly opened her eyes to the small streams of sunlight that peaked into her cave, yawning as she stretched herself awake. In doing so her hand accidentally landed on the guest still sleeping beside her, waking up Cali as well.
Together the two slowly came to life, Scarlet standing up and staring over the calm lake, taking a deep relaxing breath only to gag at what she smelled, “Good god what is that?”
Looking back to the bed she realized just what it was. It was ruined, stained in several places from an assortment of different juices, she could even feel a thin layer of sweat covering her body.
Turning around immediately she shouted out to the cave, “Bria- Oh you’re right there.” Not expecting her golem to be kneeling at the foot of the bed, “Go get me another mushroom, quickly please.” Knowing she was far too dirty to simply take a light bath directly in their drinking water. As for Cali she had also noticed the smell, having covered her nose and taking a few steps back from the ruined bed.
Scarlet wondered just what to do with the bed, it was clearly far too gone to use again. For a moment she considered eating it, but the thought alone caused her to shudder, planning instead to toss it later.
That left the two of them there, standing awkwardly as they stared at one another. With a light cough Scarlet decided to break the silence, “So… how’d you sleep last night?”
Cali’s head briefly turned to face Scarlet, only to shyly look away as they were both still naked, “I slept fine Mistress.” Her words earning a laugh from Scarlet.
“You don’t have to keep calling me that, at least not until we go another round.” Scarlet told her, “That is unless you’d want to permanently be my little pet?”
The question hung in the air between the two for a few seconds as Cali’s cheeks reddened, before she finally shook her head, “So, if I don’t have to call you Mistress what should I call you?”
Scarlet tsked at her, “Already forgot my name, did you? I’m almost tempted to force you to be my pet.” Giving Cali a hard look before sighing, “It’s Scarlet.”
Cali tried to say something, but luckily for her she was interrupted by the familiar clicking of Briar, who had finally arrived with the mushroom. Scarlet quickly transformed back into her draconic form to begin her work, “So, are you going to join me in a bath, or would you like one of your own?” she asked, unable to stop herself from teasing Cali.
Again, Cali’s face went red, but she still kept to herself, “My own please.” Scarlet nodding at her answer and halving the mushroom. She slicked off the top, using her claw to hollow the halves into two makeshift baths, scooping up water from the lake to fill them. Gently she set them onto the ground, some of the water splashing out as Scarlet transformed back.
Unfortunately, neither of them had any soap, but it would still be nice to scrub and soak away what grime they could. The water was fairly cold, but Scarlet was more than used to it now, immediately slipping in without any fuss. As for Cali, while she was eager to bathe, she still slowly accumulated to the temperature. Testing it slightly before slipping her legs in, “So… why are you named Scarlet?” she asked, trying to make small talk of her own.
Scarlet gave Cali a look, having only just begun to scrub her arms, but she still answered, “I used to be a human.”
“Really?” Cali interrupted, “Well that would explain why you’re so different compared to other dragons.”
“Oh, you’ve met other dragons before?” Scarlet asked, that would explain both Cali’s panic and newfound comfort with her.
Cali gave her an awkward look, turning away and hiding herself slightly in the bath, “Well… no, just stories and tall tales from passing bards and the occasional book.” Earning a small chuckle from Scarlet, who could hardly believe how… unique her guest was being.
“Anyway, back on topic,” Scarlet said, steering the conversation, “As I was saying I was once a human. My parents named me Scarlet after my red hair, and for the most part I lived a perfectly normal life. Unfortunately, due to a certain accident caused by an unknown pair of gods, I along with many others died.”
Cali gasped about to interrupt her again, but Scarlet waved her down, “Don’t worry, I was asleep at the time, didn’t feel a thing. As an apology though I was given another chance, sent here to live out another life. It’s thanks to Amia’s grace that I’m now both a dragoness and her saint.”
The words hung in the air for a solid ten seconds before Cali stood up and practically screamed, “YOU’RE A SAINT?!” Water splashing over the side of the tub.
Scarlet covered her ears from the sudden noise, “Yes! Now could you keep it down? I don't want to have to clean up more ro-” A loud crashing sound interrupting her, “Ah great.”
“B-But, a saint?” Cali stammered, “And to Amia no less? Even in our small village we prayed to her, practically every woman I know dreams of receiving her blessing. Wait… can you grant blessings?”
Scarlet shrugged, “Probably, but I haven’t been her saint for more than a week now, don’t know how to grant one in the slightest. Though if you don’t mind me asking firstly what are you, some assassin? Secondly, what exactly happened yesterday?”
Cali looked up to the opening in the cave and sighed, “I’m nothing special, just your run of the mill trapper really. I usually helped my father with his hunts, scouting for tracks, preparing bait, and skinning whatever he caught.”
She paused for a moment thinking back on the day before, “As for yesterday… it was an ambush. Some people had gone missing over the past week, we thought it was a simple beast and formed a hunting party, but it turned out to be a slaving party. We tried to fight back, but we had no chance.”
Scarlet didn’t know what to say, realizing that she had likely messed up bringing this back so quickly, “Well if it helps, you were the only one who fell in, I didn’t happen to see anyone else last night.”
Cali nodded, “Slightly.” Before looking back at the opening in the ceiling, “Are you really sure you can’t just fly us out of here?”
Scarlet shook her head, “As you now know I’m sort of new to the whole flying thing.” She pointed towards the ceiling, “If it was clear I’d definitely be able to fly us out of here given enough tries, but any time I attempt dozens of those come knocking down. Of course, if you’re fine with potentially being impaled I can give it a go.”
Cali quickly shook her head, “No no, I’m good.”
“Don’t worry too much about it,” Scarlet told her, “While there may be nothing we can directly do, it’s only a matter of time till we’re finally free from here. Just have to eat, sleep, and relax as my golems work on a way out.”
“Golems?” Cali asked, “I thought there was just the one.”
Scarlet shook her head, “Nope, I have three right now, four by the day’s end. The other two are working on exploring one of the tunnels as we speak. Oh, speak of the devils.” At that moment both Flint and Bell left the tunnel, walking to Briar before turning to Scarlet.
“So, what’s the result?” She was eager to hear the news, but when Flint and Bell crossed their arms, she knew it was another failure, “Shame, well why don’t you two take a break for now. I’ll create your new sister while you wait.”
She stepped out of the bath, not bothering to cover herself as the water dipped off her. For safety she transformed back into her draconic form, prepping to handle the numerous rock shards. Heading to the pile she went through the usual motions. Picking out a main shard for the body, a haphazard assortment for the limbs, and putting them all into place for the spell.
It was a quick process, while the spell still drained a majority of her mana Scarlet had gotten used to drawing in Mana. Slowly her golem came to shape, coming to life as the rocks changed.
Scarlet could see that her body was incredibly lean, the shards becoming more like sticks in how long they became. She also held a certain grace about her, standing and respectfully holding herself, unlike the others who were causally or freely moving their body around.
She was also tall, almost equal to Scarlet’s humanoid height, with her name quickly coming to Scarlet, “Welcome to the world Juniper. Now why don’t you go relax with your sisters for now.”
Juniper gave a gentle bow, taking small steps to slowly join her sisters as Scarlet decided to give the two sides proper introductions, “So Cali, you’ve already met Briar.” Signaling to her, "As for the others, our newbie here is named Juniper, Flint’s the gal with that small touch of metal, and then we have Bell, our dear forager.”
Her golems each gave polite waves to Cali, her awkwardly giving one in return. By now she had already finished with her bath, having instead stepped out to slowly dry under the warm sunlight. This view in question proved to be a particular perk to Scarlet as Cali was having to awkwardly cover herself behind her hands, leaving little to the imagination.
Within she could feel the usual heat begin to build, far faster and stronger than it usually did. Quickly different thoughts of play flashed through Scarlet’s head, smothering Cali in her breasts as she pounded her into oblivion, tenderly tweaking her nipples as she squirmed, or tying Cali up leaving her to beg for her touch, but equally quickly she threw those thoughts from her head.
She could see that Cali was still, recovering, from their previous night. Her body was obviously sluggish, while her ass had changed colors to slight purple, she needed rest. Scarlet ran through a few ideas before speaking up to the group, “Briar, once you and the others are done resting feel free to go back to exploring. If Cali needs anything, please answer her call. As for you Cali, you’re free to explore the cave as much as you like, just be careful, stay away from rock shards and don’t enter any of the tunnels. I’m heading off for a nap.”
With those few words she slipped away from the group heading around the lake to the shaded side of her cave and shutting her eyes, slowly waiting for sleep to take her.