Morning Workout (Patreon)

A flooded salt flat stretched beneath Tiamat and cerulean pinions, its shallow waters reflecting the convulsions of the clouds until the entire basin resembled a vast and broken mirror. Rain cascaded down in a heavy torrent, nearly falling in horizontal sheets by the chaotic gales. And all the while, lightning flashed continuously through the heavens and illuminated the distant mountain ranges surrounding the plain.

Tiamat sailed through the heart of the storm, her gigantic sapphire body dwarfing even the tallest peaks as lightning arced along her scales, gathered around her claws, and leapt between the ridges of her immense wings.

Beyond her, a massive black dragon beat his four wings against her storm and held himself above the flooded earth.

He was large enough to loom over several houses, his long neck ending in a triangular head armored with a pitch-black hide. Golden flecks glimmered between the spaces of his scales and burned more brightly within the narrow gaps between his.

She snorted in contempt; she had flown into the skies of another world, stretching her wings and enjoying a morning flight. And yet, as was the norm when she ventured without her beloved at her side, some nameless whelp dared to court her, deluded into thinking he was worthy of siring her next brood.

But she was the Undying Storm, royalty amongst wyrmkind – and her heart belonged to another.

She let out a sky-shattering roar, a clear warning that she would not reciprocate the male’s advances

But dragons cared little for consent or opinions: and the black-scaled male’s lips peeled back from immense fangs as he opened his jaws, revealing a throat whose scales brightened like golden coals beneath the flesh. With a great swing of his neck, he unleashed a torrent of molten fire that flooded the sky, boiling the rain into an expanding cloud of steam and casting a golden reflection across the waters below.

She sneered in her mind; the other desired to take her by force? Very well then, she would kill him swift before returning to her beloved and their home.

Tiamat angled her wings and threw herself into the rising heat. The storm bent around her descending form as hurricane winds converged upon the torrent from both sides, compressing the flames into a writhing river before tearing them apart. She burst through the center of the disintegrating attack with her claws extended, crossed the distance faster than the lightning flashing overhead, and struck the black dragon hard enough to send a shockwave rolling across the salt flat. The waters collapsed beneath them, mountains buckled along the horizon, and entire slopes vanished beneath avalanches as Tiamat drove her claws into his shoulders and snapped her jaws toward his throat.

But the black dragon folded his upper wings around his neck, allowing her teeth to tear through their membranes before his lower wings hammered into her chest. Their impact ripped Tiamat free and hurled her backward, but she caught his foreleg between her claws as she passed and dragged him after her. The dragons tumbled through the storm in a frenzy of snapping jaws and raking talons, their tails whipping across one another’s flanks while their wings struck with enough force to pulverize the clouds around them.

Tiamat sank her teeth into the base of his upper wing and tasted burning golden blood, but he twisted his long neck and closed his jaws around her forearm. His fangs ground between her sapphire scales and scraped against the bone beneath them, sending pain surging through her limb. Rage tightened Tiamat’s jaws until the wing bones between them shattered, and when the black dragon refused to release her, she drew lightning into her throat and discharged it directly into his face.

Blue radiance swallowed his head and tore him from her arm. He fell burning through the clouds, only for all four wings to spread and arrest his descent before he struck the water. Tiamat plunged after him as he turned, and their skulls collided above the salt flat with enough force to flatten the flood for miles. His claws opened several wounds along her abdomen, while hers ripped through the scales covering his chest, and every fresh collision sent another shockwave into the surrounding mountains until the range began collapsing around the basin.

The black dragon lashed his tail across her jaw and used the opening to climb above her, golden fire leaking between his bared teeth. Tiamat felt the storm answer her fury before he could attack. She raised one claw toward the clouds, drawing every current of lightning toward a single point, and an immense bolt descended into her waiting hand. Thunder shook the continent as she closed her claws around the radiance and forced it into the shape of a writhing spear.

Golden light poured from between the black dragon’s scales in response, streaming along his neck and gathering before his jaws. He compressed the radiance into an enormous sword, seized its blazing hilt between his teeth, and swept his four wings backward before charging through the storm.

Tiamat fell like a meteor and clashed with him midway.

Her lightning spear struck his golden blade, and the world beneath them disappeared within the resulting explosion.

The flooded salt flat evaporated, hundreds of miles of earth vanished, and the planetary crust cracked open around the point of impact. Molten rock surged from the exposed mantle in apocalyptic waves, hurling lava, ash, and fire into the atmosphere until a continent-wide plume swallowed both dragons.

Neither of the two retreated, and she felt a flicker of begrudging respect for the enduring male. A High-class dragon to be sure, but she could clearly see he had fallen into Outrage to match her strength.

But even then he was far from her match, and she still had oceans of power hidden away.

They hunted one another through the choking darkness, their positions betrayed by flashes of blue lightning and molten gold. Tiamat struck his ribs with the haft of her spear and drove him through a rising wall of lava, but he twisted within the incandescent stone and carved his sword across her shoulder. She answered by smashing one wing into his head, wrapping her tail around his hind leg, and dragging him upward as the expanding eruption carried their battle beyond the atmosphere.

The burning world receded beneath them while the three moons of this now burning world rose against the blackness of space. The black dragon tore himself from her grasp and swept his head forward, releasing a concentrated beam of golden fire narrow that pierced the void like a lance.

She easily twisted aside, allowing the beam to pass harmlessly by her flank, and she retaliated with a torrent of blue lightning that struck his lower wings and sent him tumbling toward the nearest moon.

He recovered before reaching its surface and discharged another stream of molten gold, forcing Tiamat to fold her wings across her face. The attack drove her backward, golden fire eating between her scales, but she pushed through the pain and opened her wings with enough violence to scatter the beam. The storm still clung to her despite the world lying thousands of miles below, its lightning answering her call across the cold void of space as she surged forward and buried both claws beneath the damaged armor of his chest.

The black dragon tore at her shoulders and hammered his tail against her spine, yet Tiamat tightened her grip, sank her fangs into his neck, and drove them both towards one of the moons. They struck its side in a tangled meteor of sapphire and black, shattering an entire hemisphere of the lunar surface upon impact. Mountain ranges collapsed into dust, enormous fissures raced beyond the horizon, and fragments of rock were thrown into space as the black dragon disappeared beneath her.

Tiamat rose amid the devastation and planted one enormous foot upon his chest and drove him further into the breaking celestial body.

As he writhed beneath her and snapped weakly at her leg, she reared upon her hind limbs and raised both claws toward the stars. From her wings, bolts of lightning, each hundreds of miles across, tore across the shattered surface of the moon until they fell into her outstretched claws and became immense spears whose violent radiance spread across the ruined lunar body.

Her roar shook the broken ground as she brought both weapons down upon his chest, one after another. And blue light gored the black dragon, racing through every fracture beneath him, and erupted from the far side of the moon until the entire celestial body disappeared within the brilliance of Tiamat’s thunderous, sapphire wrath.

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Ichigo was working at his computer when lightning flashed beyond the windows, followed by a peal of thunder powerful enough to shake the glass within its frame.

Expectantly, looked up and found Tiamat standing across the room.

Her white mane hung in a wild, tangled mass around her shoulders and cuts and bruises marred her usually flawless dark skin. Nonetheless, those ocean blue eyes had fallen into serpentine slits and he could see the savage and animalistic delight that shone madly within.

Ichigo raised an eyebrow and asked, “Enjoy your morning exercise?”

Tiamat crossed the room before he could blink. Both hands seized his collar and dragged him from his chair, allowing him only a glimpse of her bloodstained smile before she crushed her mouth against his in a fierce kiss.

I guess that’s a yes.

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A/N: Wisdom teeth succesfully removed and I'm loaded up on painkillers! This little side story was brought to you by large amounts of ice cream and Elden Ring in bed.