#dragon posting

Dragons like treasure hoards absolutely but they also looove to eat the rich. Trying to hide your wealth in various smaller deposits and behind false identities and the like doesn't work because it's magic, the magic still knows you have wealth/power, and the dragon smells it on you and decides you are tasty.

Being magical themselves, dragons don't actually need to eat. If nothing arouses their hunger they will just sleep for however long in their lairs, with their previously accumulated treasures all heaped up around them, maybe coming out once every few hundred years to breed or move house. Brave adventurers can try and steal treasures from sleeping dragons, but it's a risky move not because it's hard to steal from the sleeping dragon, but because if you succeed too well you will immediately start to smell tasty in their vicinity and they will wake up. How tasty you smell depends on how good of a thief you are, so it's a major catch, and there is a lot of speculation on what the max upper limit of wealth you can take from a dragon is before they'll wake up.

Rational approaches often don't work, however, because treasure that's been exposed to dragons for any significant length of time usually gets cursed. You might embark on the quest thinking you'll only take one or two golden goblets and be able to retire comfortably off of the resale, but then you get into the dragon's lair and your brain fries at the mountains of treasure and the next thing you know you're trying to escape with a trunk load of rubies and strings of pearls all wrapped around you and golden coin pouches weighing down your pack, and the dragon's eyes are opening, and, well. That's you done for.

I dare not breathe as she drags her tongue, rough and wet, across bare skin, down my neck and across my shoulder. The lick is saturated with her magic, and it leaves a trail of tingling skin as her power seeps into my flesh.

"Do you still not yet understand why I might want you?" she asks me.

"N-no," I reply, my voice small and unsteady, barely more than a squeak.

She nips my ear, razor-sharp teeth pressing dangerously close.

First the voice; deeper, more gutteral, raspy and primal

Then the eyes; pupil and even iris changes, eyesight enhanced

Then the scales; freckling over cheeks and shoulders and hips, spreading slow but steady, unmistakable

Then horns; small and unnoticeable through hair, until a month later when they show like a crown above your head

Then the tail; small and unnoticeable for the first week, a small nub easily hidden under loose clothes, only to become long, thick, sturdy, powerful

Then, the feeling of wings growing in; it's uncomfortable, but you've waited so long for this that you wouldn't trade the itching and discomfort for anything else