Take to the skies with her.

Shoukyaku thrusts Tiela's arms out of his fists. She loses a hold of her bucket, and it clatters and rolls along the dirt. With one more step, he scoops his arm around her midsection and grabs her against his torso of solid scale. Bending to his haunches, he tenses his wings against his back and launches himself up off the ground. He careens through the canopy like a bullet escaping the nozzle of a gun. Tiela is stunned to find herself bursting through the treetops and to be so high up in such a sudden span of time. She clings to Shoukyaku's burly arm for dear life, but even if she could think to scream, she feels as if her breath has been knocked from her by their abrupt ascent. Her stomach lurches as Shoukyaku unfurls the full span of his gargantuan wings and descends at a sharp incline without warning to glide high above the lagoon. It takes immense muscle power to flap his mighty wings and hoist his body higher into the air, and this feat is no problem for him. She cannot hear her own scream over the buffering wind, and her entire body wants to cling to him for the rational fear of falling. Before too long, they have arrived at his destination.

Shoukyaku's weight slams onto the lip of his cavern's entrance, and he folds his wings up with one swift motion. The arms retract slightly into his back somewhere, and his wings clutch against himself so flatly as if they weren't there at all. He carries Tiela upright against his arm like a basket of goodies as he saunters into the dingy esophagus of his lair.

Leaving the antechamber, they find a larger "room" of hollowed out rock, spaced out almost twice as high as Shoukyaku himself, and with ample room to move around. In the corner, a ring of glowing fire burns a certain electric crimson pigment not found in natural flame. This lights the entire room almost as well as the outdoors at mid-morning, and the light glitters off of the forlorn piles of precious metals, coins, assorted treasures and jewels that hug the far wall. Two hallways descend into darkness to the west and east near this wall, and equidistant between them is a low throne-like chair carved out of the cave's rock, with a spacious enough seat to lean on the sides that form a C-shaped border. The treasure litters the area behind this throne, which faces the entrance they have just come through.

At long last, Tiela finds the words to speak, but her spirit buckles under the understanding she is talking to a predator of such fearsome power. "Please, let me go." She stammers, and gazing up at his face, she finds his features have softened. He looks at her with morose, half-lidded eyes, and she believes for a second that he has seen some folly in his impulsive ****. Her ears have been folded against her head this entire time, and now the pointed features twist upright in a hopeful fashion. Her sandals are allowed to touch the floor as his arm loosens around her.

His palm slaps against the flesh of her throat as he grabs her by the neck. Lifting her off the ground for a moment, his digits squeeze her neck, and his claws are on the verge of breaking skin. "Foolish cunt. Is that any way to speak to your superior? Allow me to show you your place!" His demand of her "allowance" is a sardonic jibe. Gripping her by the neck still, he slams her entire body against the ground. A jarring pain shoots along her spine to her shoulders and hips. Her breasts jiggle from the violent ****, and her entire body becomes rigid as if bracing herself like an inanimate object will really avert more pain. Her arms grab for his wrist and paw, but there's no mustering the strength to pry him away.

The dragon continues, still pinning her by the throat. His eyes, which had seemed so lifeless but a moment ago, now flare up like burning coals, his entire face grimacing in a look of unstoppable fury. "I am your king! I am this entire realm's king, whether you realize it now or not!" He pushes on her, withdraws his hand, and then steps on her body. His large pawfoot presses down hard on her abdomen and her upper torso lurches as though she expects to expel her insides. A bestial sole turns against her bare stomach, and though she flails, there is no freeing herself from underneath the looming reptile. "You may think you serve some higher power, but I alone have the ability to decimate the world you know in fire and brimstone." His expression turns from ferocious to sly, and a rightfully smug grin appears on his snout. He drags the talons of his toes along her body in a dangerous caress. "Now, you shall serve your majesty, whether it be in his lap or in his belly."