"Dolphin Safe"
by Galis Slipscale
 
 
This wasn't the worst headache he'd ever had. Still, when Delruth cracked his eyes open, he could almost swear he was seeing that giant's club smacking off the side of his head again. Spots swam in his vision, every drip of water and soft rush of water echoing through his skull like an empty cavern. Might as well be empty too, as his thoughts chased each other like minnows in the sea; a school of concepts that never quite touched. Little by little things were clearing up, the cove fading into view as outlines resolved into proper shapes and colors.
 
 
Beads of water slowly collected at the end of a craggy rock formation, jutting out just inches over the gentle waves. Come low tide there’d be a decent drop, but at the moment the surface sometimes ran right up over the ledge, leaving it slick. The whole chamber was dimly lit by glimmers dancing off the water’s surface, where the nearly-submerged entrance allowed the sun to break into the large cavern-like chamber. Arches of stone met up overhead, a little more of the sun filtering in through narrow cracks. Just enough to see by.
 
 
Brown-leathered wings slowly lifted, sluicing water off their membranes - then dropped immediately back down. "Ow," He grunted; the muscles burning like he'd flown a thousand miles! His neck wasn't faring much better, with an awful kink in the long spine, not to mention all four of his paws felt like jelly and his tail a drifting length of kelp. At least he had the start of feeling back in them. What had he been doing last night? Why did he have this ache under his tail and what was this taste... oh. Right.
 
 
With a strained snort the dragon forced himself higher onto the water-licked rocks in the cove. Brownish-yellow underscales scraped the rock while his darker, frilled tail was left still dragging the currents, bumping large gray sleek shapes in the water. With another painful twitch, he pushed it harder against the closest one.
 
 
"Hey fishbreath. C'mon, I know how your sort 'sleeps'."
 
 
There was some whistling and clicking from the form, before the dolphin's head broke the water's surface and chittered at him in a high tone. "Good morning Delruth! Did you sleep well?" A few more dolphins stirred or swam in in response to the noise, while Delruth winced and his eyes watered at the pitch.
 
 
"Yeah. I just have two questions. Hey Crescent. Yo, Deeps. Anyhow, yeah, the questions," Delruth shook his head to clear it, while dragging his tongue against the crusted scales on his lips. "First, why do I feel like I'm half drowned and spent all night bouncing off rocks?"
 
 
The seven dolphins gathered all shared a quick glance. "It was a hell of a party," offered the one Delruth had dubbed 'Deeps'. And true, it had been - at least what he remembered of it. Lots of sea food, lots of rough-housing in the water; that he had to be careful with, he was big enough that he could hurt the ‘phins if he wasn’t careful. And singing, something they always did for him, though much of it was above his hearing. It always made him feel nice.
 
 
The dragon snorted. "Huff. Fair enough. Second question, why do my tail and groin feel so... why does the inside of my mouth taste like..." he grunted, flushing a bit. "Better second question. Which of you did I NOT have sex with last night?"
 
 
The rocky cove echoed with nothing but the splash of water on stone, and heavy reptilian breathing.
 
 
"...it was a hell of a party," squeak-sighed Deeps again.
 
 
Delruth put a paw to his head and rubbed it firmly between his horns. "Again?! That's the last time I eat a full dozen of those jellyfish all at once," he snorted, then paused and looked his paw over as he took it off his forehead. "I remember the food, I remember the singing... Hey. Okay. So I get why my body aches..."
 
 
"Yeah?"
 
 
"And I get why I still taste dolphin cum..."
 
 
"Yeah?"
 
 
The dragon squinted at his paw. "Where the hell did this motor oil come from? No, wait, I know. It was a hell of a party."
 
 
“You should stay!” one of the females, Tideslip, piped up, then made a click that functioned as a dolphin’s ‘uhmmm’ hesitation. “All the time I mean. We all wish you would.”
 
 
“I know. But I’m not a water dragon. I don’t belong in the ocean. Fun to visit, not to stay,” he huffed. “You fishfaces ask me that every time, since I did that week-long outing with you anyway.
 
 
“Pleeeease,” Tideslip squeak-pleaded. “You’re our favorite dragon. I wanna have your calf some day!”
 
 
That got a heavy flush from the dragon. “Ah, that’s extremely flattering, but it’s not just about being able to swim all the time, it’s...”
 
 
“So you totally could! Very good swimmer for a not-water-dragon,” Crescent interrupted. “Even after letting Deeps screw your tail for...”
 
 
Delruth blushed! “Ahem!” he cut the dolphin off. “It’s not whether or not I could do it, physically. I’m a cave-dragon. I get agoraphobic if I’m out in the open too long, I’ve told you a dozen times already. That week outing was fun at first but by the end of it I would have stuck my snout in anything it fit just to get out from all that big, open... openy... openness...” he huffed. The dolphins were snickering with clicks and whistles!
 
 
“So THAT explains why you dove your muzzle under my tail last night!” Shadowdiver giggled, flicking her flukes about. “You know your tongue is always welcome there, you don’t have to make excuses silly dragon.”
 
 
Delruth tried to protest but by this point the dolphins were all giggling incorrigibly. Silly creatures. Delruth was immensely fond of the pod of course, but it could be so hard to get their attention to stay on anything serious sometimes. With a sigh, he shook his aching head and turned to climb out of the grotto, to get to where he could fly. His wings hurt, but not as much as the inside of his skull, and maybe that would clear his head.
 
 
It didn’t, not even after a good hour of sore gliding. At least the sunny beaches were warmer than the rocky cove, and softer to boot. Though not nearly as isolated, and sure enough, Delruth had only gotten a half hour of sunbasking in when a larger set of wings came between him and the sun. Squinting, Delruth saw a somewhat familiar blue-gold set of scales belonging to one of the older dragons in the region gliding down quickly: Cumulospex.
 
 
"So, how went the fishing?" the arriving dragon chuckled, kicking up a cloud of sand that whipped past Delruth. The brown dragon leaned back a bit, lidding yellow eyes to avoid getting the grit all in his face.
 
 
"Very funny, 'spex," he snorted out. "I've got an awful hangover. Or something like that. So if you could keep your voice low, and not land in my face?"
 
 
The other, larger dragon snorted as he folded his wings back down. "Whatever. You complain about that every time you go visit that pod of fisheaters. You really ought to grow up. Dragons are supposed to be living alone in the mountains, not spending all day every day swimming. Just because you have scales doesn't make you a fish."
 
 
"Har har," Delruth grunted, rubbing the top of his head some more and resting his scaled cheek against the sun-baked sand to soothe the throbbing in his temple. "It’s just more fun than being on my own all the time."
 
 
“You’re half-fish already, which’d be more understandable if you were an ocean dragon.”
 
 
“Funny, I just said something similar to them,” the brown grunted. “What do you want?”
 
 
“Just to point out you should give life more thought. You’re a cavern dragon. Why aren’t you in a cavern? Find a cavern dragoness, make a hoard. Hung over and partying is no way to be a proper dragon.”
 
 
“Like it was that easy,” Delruth grunted, pushing his muzzle down into the sand. “There’s a half dozen sky dragonesses within a week’s flight. I haven’t got a clue where to find another of my kind. Probably way underground. I don’t want to be underground all the time. I get all itchy in the open if I’m out too long, but being stuck in the gloomy dark isn’t a good alternative. I dunno what I want.”
 
 
The blue-gold shrugged broad shoulders. "If you want to stumble around for a few decades as some kind of dragon bum, well, you're not a whelp any more, it's not my job to look after you. I just wanted to drop by to offer some advice: Be more discrete. It's good that you're doing the raids at night and not hurting anyone, humans tend to forget about property damage pretty quickly. But you certainly didn't make any friends amongst them by driving that fishery out of business, and you know how they can be. A couple dozen is a joke, a couple thousand is a problem."
 
 
Delruth blinked once. "What are you talking about?"
 
 
"I do have to hand it to you. I get the fisheaters are your friends, and I suppose after they started getting targeted by the whalers and fishers, I mighta burned a few boats to scare them off too. But arranging the flaming wreckage into a giant obscene shape, I gotta say, you got a few chuckles out of us older wyrms. Frankly I didn't even think you knew what that gesture meant to humans!"
 
 
The brown dragon blinked, then got up. “I’ve got to go. I think I, uh, left my princesses untied, or something dragonish like that.”
 
 
A bit over an hour later, Delruth was back in the grotto. The phins were all there; some chirped at him but didn’t pay him a lot of heed. Irritated as he was, the dragon snorted and gave the rocky outcropping a heavy thump with a paw, sending splintery cracks through the stone - and a painful shock back up his forepaw. At least it distracted him from the ache in the front of his head, and it certainly worked to get the attention of the sleek gray shapes splashing about and roughhousing. "Hey. Hey, fishfaces. I need to talk to Subsidence." There was a brief bit of chittering, and he thumped the rock again; hard enough to crumble several feet of it into the water. That got their attention. "Now. I'm... ow... not happy, and my head is killing me."
 
 
"Aww, headaches? Maybe dragon is hungry? Want some fishies?" giggled one of the dolphins. There was an air of nervousness amongst the rest, and more than a few furtive glances.
 
 
"Not funny, Splash. I'm a dragon, not some toy. You all have been jerking me around by the tail and..."
 
 
"Peace, youngling," clicked a larger form that slide in, pushing a crest of water before it. The other dolphins scooted sideways, as the pod's matron entered under the stone arch and into the private cove. "Delruth has good reason to be upset, and we do owe him an explanation."
 
 
The dragon curled his talons against eachother. "You've been using me after the parties to trash ships. Some of the other dragons keep nudging me to eat you all. I'm big enough to do it. Fires, I didn't even know I was big enough to drag a ship ashore, but apparently I can drag five.."
 
 
"That was my idea," piped up one of the females sheepishly.
 
 
"We're in no more danger from you, than we've ever been," the big dolphin clicked, getting Delruth's attention again. "You're angry because you don't understand."
 
 
The dragon slumped his shoulders and snorted out a hot ripple of breath across the water, steaming moisture off the rocks. "Yeah. You're still my friends, and I'm upset now, but... huff, I would have done it if you'd asked! I know you all have had problems with the ships, and at least I didn't hurt anyone, but... well, I would have done it anyway!"
 
 
"It wasn't about the ships," Subsidence calmly interjected.
 
 
"What?" Delruth blinked, dumbfounded. A couple of the dolphins seemed a bit surprised too, twisting to look at their pod leader. She click-whistled to them, and they fanned out into the water, in an arc against the back of the cove that suddenly made the dragon a little nervous, despite the size difference, and started up a bone-throbbing humming.
 
 
Subsidence flicked some water, and raised herself out of it a little more. "The fishers were a problem. We knew that ever since they took Windskirter from us." A pang of mournful clicking interrupted the growing cetacean song, though a splash from Subsidence's tail got the other seven back in tune. “But we could have moved, or as you say, asked our dragon friend for help. Having you handle that problem was just a side-benefit to the real goal."
 
 
The brown dragon rubbed the top of his head again. It felt... funny now. The ache was more of a vaguer dizzy feeling, and that faint humming from the chorus of dolphins was very distractingly all around him, echoing off the high rocks forming the sheltered cove. "Side benefit to what?" The drake paused, then snorted. "I know this song. It's the same one you all do at the parties. Always made me feel a little funny."
 
 
"Eight is a very unlucky number for a pod," Subsidence continued. "And you've been quite the good friend. More than that. The females tell me you're an excellent lover, and the males, well, they haven't been grumbling." Delruth could swear that beaky dolphin grin was more of a smirk at the blush he put on! "And you're strong; a good swimmer, can hold your breath near as long as we can, but you can also fly and you're bigger than an orca."
 
 
"I'm... I'm not sure where you're going with this..." Delruth huffed. The familiar song was both more and less audible now, the cove focusing the humming onto a shallow spot of water just in front of Subsidence, not far from where he was. He could almost hear the air vibrating, and even the distorted echoes felt like they were drilling into his head. "Isn't that where I sit when we have dinner?"
 
"There are many songs we can sing. Some take a great deal more time to fully sink in than others. And some take just the right theatre," Subsidence crooned. "Come down from there, our pretty dragon. You wonder where you belong? We know. There might be a few problems you have, with big wide open seas. We can make you forget allll about those problems, and everything else that might trouble you."
 
 
"I'm not going to until you... hey!" he huffed, grabbing his right forepaw with his left as the limb jerked forward without him. "Stop that!"
 
 
The big dolphin swam closer to the shallow spot, then tilted herself up, fins splashing some water towards the dragon. "Just relax, dear, and come closer." The dragon huffed again, but the song itself seemed to jerk his paws out from under him, the vibration in his bones making the muscles squeeze unbidden. Or was that something in the headache? Funny, he didn't feel it as badly now that they were singing again.
 
 
Talons scraped on rock, the dragon's steps stilted and jerky. "I..." he grumbled, stopping before biting his loose-feeling tongue. His feet were in the water now, looking down at the pod's leader. She was big, but not nearly so much as him. It just seemed funny, that here he was unable to move around these smaller creatures that didn't even have anything to grab him with.
 
 
Well, move on his own accord anyway. The song was so much stronger here, the acoustics of the chamber focusing the harmony the seven were singing onto a spot just before him now, and just above the matron. Who with what he could swear was a devious grin, rolled over in a light splash of water to her back, showing off a pale belly - and a pinkened slit!
 
 
"You're... nfff... enjoying this!" the dragon accused, stumbling a bit forwards. The melodic vibration in his bones was making his head ring, but at least ringing was better than aching. This close to the acoustic focal point of the room, the combined song was strong enough to make a visible distortion. It had to be in ranges far beyond his hearing, and despite himself, his neck was going limp and his snout was drooping towards that belly. They'd sung this song before for him at the parties, but it was much stronger now, gone from background noise to grand symphony, for all that he could barely hear it.
 
 
"Of course I am. Nine is a much better number than eight," the dolphin agreed with a clicking giggle. "Now relax. The song won't hurt you. We made it just for you, in fact. Spent no small amount of time tickling that pretty scaly head with sonar, trying to map you out perfectly. That's it, come a little closer," she cooed, the drake whining a bit as his snout dipped into the distortion. "We've put a thousand little hooks into you, my dear, but now it's time to reel you in, to use one of the fishers terms. You’ve been like a member of the family for so long, we didn’t intend on letting you be the ‘one who got away.’"
 
 
The cove's colors were... blurring. The strong sonic vibrations in his jaw rattled the whole of his skull, and Delruth really wasn't sure about this! His neck ached, half the muscles trying to go one way, half trying to go the other. The headache had become something else; a powerful, pulsing beat. Was it his heart? Hers? She was so close to him now, and then he felt the smooth damp skin of her pale belly cushioning his lowered chin, while the crest of his skull slid further still into the focal point of that sonic distortion.
 
 
The muscles in his neck went taut, his body freezing in place as the muscles spasmed. It was like touching a live wire, though the sensation passed quick as it'd come. "Subs..id...ence... I feel funny. I see..." the drake whined. He couldn't tell where the water ended and the air began any more, everything smelled like metal, and his mouth tasted like copper.
 
 
"Hush now, pretty dragon," the dolphin encouraged, flukes brushing his throat while his head rested there on her belly. "Just relax, empty your mind." Her voice was about the only thing he could hear distinctly - or see, taste, smell or feel for that matter, the drake no longer sure which of his senses was which! It felt like all his wires were crossed and firing all at once, his brain scrambled by the morass of sensation. The dolphin’s suggestion was relatively easy to follow, as coherent thought was growing terribly fleeting.
 
 
"I... just, I..." Delruth growled, blinking vacantly. He could hear the song, much clearer now including the pitches he hadn't heard before now. Little else besides that; everything else just felt 'elsewhere'. Seven voices, each pitched slightly differently, the dissonance between them pressing against his head from all sides. And the eighth, pushing him between them somehow. He'd not even realized Sub... sub... that dolphin, she'd been singing too until just now.
 
 
That fluke gently dampened his neck again, though by now he couldn't feel it. "There, that's not so bad. I know how you weren't sure where you fit in. You've always been welcome amongst us, really, this is just coming home.
 
 
"Home?" the dragon asked, staring off into distance space. The headache was gone, but so was his entire grip on what was real and what wasn't. And yet, it didn't feel bad, or scary, not any more. He'd be okay... he'd be taken care of...
 
 
"Yes, pretty one," she lilted at the drake, gray body rippling upside-down under his chin a few times, splashing. "We're not just your friends, we're your pod-brothers, pod-sisters..."
 
 
"Brothers, sisters...?" the dragon repeated the only thing he could distinguish, all he could understand.
 
 
"...your mates and lovers," she continued, chittering approval at the repetition, her tone soft and coaxing.
 
 
"Mates and lovers...." Delruth huffed out, stumbling on his forepaws. His head, lightly resting on her belly, suddenly pushed her into the water, and it took a moment for her to lift it back up again. He was a heavy boy! By now though, he'd been so sonically scrambled the brief interruption didn't even make him blink.
 
 
"Mates and lovers," she agreed in a husky tone (for a dolphin!), squirming at a tightening in her own slit at such. Of the pod, she'd been the only one to refrain from 'sampling' the friendly dragon. That would soon change, of course, and she was eager to see what the fuss from the rest was all about! "Your family now." The song was starting to settle down, its work done. Each note had been a painstaking work to make sure it would have exactly the right effect, but then, the dragon was a good friend, and good friends deserved the best.
 
 
Especially when you planned to keep them.
 
 
"Come along now. We'll have to teach you to hunt for fish properly now," she giggled, twisting out from underneath him. The rest of her pod slouched into the water, then pushed out from the cove with shoves of their tails. They were a tired bunch, that was hard work, but already they were chitter-giggling amongst themselves and making plans about how they would share their new brother..
 
 
"Yes, podmother, of course!" Delruth grunted, slipping into the water after his pod.