A graphite-toned shadow slunk through the chamber, myriad clinks and small glints of well worn gold fluttering down from piles beneath massive paws and weight, subtle, huffing breaths the only other shifting that broke the silence. 

 The dragon had come to her hoard room for a different reason today, basking in her great wealth while quietly hushing the torches that lit the space to a minimal glow, setting a warm dimness around the space. She’d come for privacy. Like any animal, she had needs, wants… carnal desires. Unfortunately, that was something that her assistant knew far too well, and often tried to share those feelings even when at inopportune moments, playfully mocking all the way. 

 Oh no, her desire today was far, far more personal. Private. Quiet. 

 Clutched in a single, stiff paw, was a wooden case, an assortment of vials hidden within, churning quietly. She’d come to indulge. 

 Finding a space towards the center, far from any entrances, and out of sight from them, Lizet settled quietly onto her haunches, the tittering of scattered coin echoing across the space as her damaged heart thumped in her chest, shuddering lung pulling excited pants from her slightly gaped maw. Her vision was transfixed on that small, innocent crate, shifting deftly with practiced motions to abuse her adoration of metal manipulation in magic to pull it open without having touched it. Pink ampules were cradled within below the lid, sloshing slightly from the jarred motion her excitement had wrought, clear crystal allowing a perfect view, no labels in sight. 

 She didn’t have need for any. She’d brewed them herself. 

 These potions would grow her hoard, bring something wonderful her way, something terribly addicting, a thought that clawed at her mind nigh constantly on heated nights. Gilded rings and scales flashed in the dim light as her head spun a careful, watching vigil around the space one final time. 

 Yip was a smart one, too smart for her own good. Too smart for her own preference, at times. It never hurt to be sure. Certainly not with that kobold given a cheery free reign around even the most personal of chambers in the masquerade. The situation could change in a flash. 

 Satisfied with her privacy, and motioning for the doors to close nearly silently behind her, and latch shut, the gilded glanced one last, fleeting fondness to the crystal below her, before pulling one into a paw. She turned it quietly once, then twice, eyeing the fluid ensconced within with an idle fascination. She’d only just brewed them, still warm, still thick with their magic. Their purpose. It pooled like a hot syrup, running slowly from the walls wherever it reached. 

 She didn’t hesitate any farther before pulling the cap away with practiced claws, the wooden cork that had kept the fluid contained popping audibly away from the bottle before it was tossed carelessly to the hoard, and the glass was tipped to her lips. She did her best to contain it all, a saccharine oil that warmed her tongue, then tickled her throat, and lead a constant advance further into her core. 

 Knowing better than to get impatient, even while her heart soared so loudly it caused her vision to vibrate, she laid quietly, settling fully into her hard-earned coins for what was sure to be an exhilarating wait. 

 Thankfully, her own work surprised her, her core warming quietly at first, then gaining pace and temperature by the second, a rolling thunder of heightening sensitivity that left her smiling even while her breathing started to grow more readily into a pant. 

 Warmth soon gave way to heat, to need, to arousal. To a animalistic glee that drew her brows and locked her jaw. A bubbling tap began to nudge somewhere deep within, her abdomen twitching idly every few seconds from her core. 

 And then it began. Something shifted, settling against her stomach, accompanied by a quiet grumble, another pulse of heightened arousal. Then another. And another. 

 Within the span of a few minutes, her abdomen was distending, a silent and fitful pressure nudging it wider with a small lurch every few seconds. An excited swoon ran through her scales, a small gasp of elation rocking through her as realization dawned. Confidence in your work only went so far, seeing it work, feeling it work, those were something else. Something powerful. 

 The potions were doing their job, and her wings unfurled in excitement at the fact.
 The distention continued to build upon itself, warmth and weight blossoming in equal measure as her scales spread, slowly nudging wider, pressing against her bed of gold, and a pleasured wink of clear fluid started to peek from her cloaca, hidden from sight. 

 She needed attention, the ticklish, vibrating desperation for pleasure spreading from her core to her cloaca, even to her thighs, and her body subconsciously drew her hind quarters high, forelimbs wandering back in an excited pull of selfish indulgence, hand-like paws spreading across her own quivering, heated flesh with a gentle motion, pressing slightly, hefting herself as each additional lurch built within, feeling a collection of rounded bodies insulated by thin fluids and her own scaled shielding in her palm. Hidden from view. Even as the growth pressed her own arms into the bedding of riches she let out an elated sigh, groaning while her tail lifted so highly that its’ tip flicked near her head, displaying herself, her growth, to the air itself. To any soul or god that dared to watch her triumph. 

 The pressure continued to build within, but something shifted, her stance widening with an awkward shuffling to give her body space on instinct, a lance pressing past her pelvis and snaking towards her cloaca with a desperately teasing, inching advance. With every new pulse of growth, every new fraction of an inch that her stomach built and pressed onwards, a hardened bulge advanced down her canals, pelvic muscles and abdomen alike tightening in waves as each new shudder of growth pushed its’ march. 

 A pleasured, cooing whine pulled from her chest as her cloaca began to shift, deflecting increasingly and pressing forwards as the hardened ball of pressure continued to crawl towards an exit. Within a few more pulses of filling, it began to spread her cloacal opening, a glint of innocent, slick white peeking from her depths, spreading her increasingly wide with every new nudge forwards. 

 The foreign object advanced farther by the second, her lips caught in matching teeth while it spread her wider, before falling to the ground, having finally cleared its’ equator. A wet thud and the tumbling of coins announced its’ birth even as another spread her inner walls in joining the journey. 

 An Egg. She’d added one of few things a lone dragon couldn’t have to her hoard, one of many, her body promised as her chin ground into the glinting gold below with the next lurch of growth. 

 Her eyes landed once more on the chest. 
 One of many to come, indeed. Her eyes focused with renewed intent, a struggle of desperate desire against herself as she wrenched her paws free from her burgeoning middle to reach for the case of potions. 

 She’d brought them all here for a reason, after all. They were a full batch, and it would be a such a shame to separate them. Even though her want clawed for her to return her paws to middle as the process slowed, to feel it wane and the weight finally settle with finality, to feel every nudge of her abdomen against metal, she pulled crystal ampule after crystal ampule to her muzzle, and crushed them without hesitation. 

 Her stomach rumbled in reply, rolling and halfheartedly cramping as the sugary sweetness poured into, and partially out of, her muzzle. A small groan of self-satisfaction was her only reply, reveling in the mild discomfort. Her paws once again found the swell of her abdomen, hanging lower than ever before, pressing solidly into the coins below her as eggs gently fell away in a constant trickle, mere droplets against the reservoir steadily building within her womb. 

 The heat was returning as the new portions of the potent mixture worked their magic, warmth building to a burning flame in her core as her stomach rolled and gurgled once again, more threateningly. This time, she felt it through her scales, felt every new egg as it slid into place, poured into her cavity and spread her abdomen wider. 

 Within minutes the increased flow was forcing her arms out from beneath her own bloat, concern rising for them being pinned. Instead, her claws ran comfortingly across quivering flesh that increasingly peeked from between scales, soothing skin that bulged and shifted with every shuddering breath as it brought yet another addition to her burgeoning clutch. 

 Her stomach was truly starting to fill now, pressing forcefully into the coins even as eggs fell from her cloaca in a steady rain, her body languidly dropping eggs to vent pressure that was rising more quickly than she could lay. 

 It only dawned as she found her forelimbs lifting from the coins, her hind quarters starting to strain to stay rooted firmly as the bloating spread, filling her abdominal cavity in its’ entirety, and beginning to spread life-sustaining fat through her broadening hips, tail, and thighs. She was getting so large she couldn’t stand. Her brood was standing for her. 

 Elation and pride rose in reply, even as the barest twinges of tightness started to build, her tongue falling from her muzzle as she lovingly caressed the growing internal hoard through thinning skin. Feeling every lump of a loved egg as it pressed her wider, shifted beneath her claws, bulged more pronouncedly from beneath her scaled walls. 

 Any signs of the additive effects crossing what might have been too much for her body to handle went summarily ignored – to be this full of brood was markedly unnatural, after all. It was nothing to be concerned about when scales spread, or oblong shapes shifted and pressed outwards at odd angles, clear enough to be seen and not just felt as the dragoness’ body struggled to produce enough insulating material.

 Her spine was bent out of shape, her thighs pressed apart as her rear paws finally left the ground, outpaced by untold numbers of eggs, a hoard she refused to release fully. Small lurches of increased runaway production causing incoherent growth began burning at her body, demanding more oxygen, more space by the moment. Ragged panting turned to huffing, overheated ventilation, a pronounced wheeze returning to her breathing as drool began falling from shining, soaked teeth. Hanging from her tongue in webs, it started to run over her chin and the grotesquely swollen expanse of her stomach to the hoard below in crack-like rivers and a soaking puddle, lost rapidly between multiple feet worth of coin.

 A different sensation was starting to build past the point of ignorance within, however. A rising tension, a pressure that had been building from the very center, forcing increasingly outwards at her hide like unyielding tide. It was becoming a threat as her scales spread wider by the moment, small shivers of confused, incoherent cramping and shuddering contractions lashing out across the increasingly overloaded orb of her stomach as she groaned with increasing strain, a dark corner of her mind starting to wonder if she’d maybe overdone it. Her body was starting to reject the load she’d placed upon it, was still placing upon it more by the moment, and had left herself no way to stem the flow. 

 The growth showed no signs of slowing, let alone stopping, even while she found herself bent increasingly over the top of the swell of a hoard that was increasingly too much for her hide to contain, idle shudders turning to genuinely painful spikes and tugging waves of discomfort with every new batch added to her unnatural brood. A single potion would have been more than a large brood, naturally. 

She couldn’t remember how many she’d downed with racing heartbeats and steaming breaths. 

 The flow of eggs tumbling from her body increased, a steady trickle of fluids running down her straining skin in small branching rivers of merciful soothing coolness, evaporating the heat away from white-hot scales on a stomach tonally darkened by winking bruised skin criss-crossed with veins strained and bursting both. Her illusion had fallen in her panic, leaving the scarred albino entirely herself – and for once, it wasn’t the chief concern. 

 Stretch marks had long since started to arc from between the rivet like scales that dotted her skin, arcing in itching shots of lightning across an ever-expanding canvas with increasingly thinned armor. Whines of growing concern echoed from her muzzle, quiet coos of comfort, unsure of it was more for herself or her growing hoard of life, rattling from her chest and throat, even while the pressure began to encroach on her ability to breathe. Her spines raised in reaction, a threat display to no other than herself as instinct began to win over reason. 

 Stretching hide let out increasing groans of rising strain even while her wings stretched to hold it, falling and clinging tightly as her brain rose to alarm. Even with the wide span of her wings, she couldn’t contain herself. A reach that was only diminishing by the second. Every new shell, every new life spread her almost imperceptibly wider. Each small lurch signified by the sliding of a wing-tip claw across terrifyingly vulnerable skin, immediately backed by the rock-hard form of an egg pressed far too tightly to the surface. 

 It was too much, and her body was giving every sign of things being exactly that, had been, of a hoard growing too large to contain. Of a form which could not contain the brood. One she had thoughtlessly brought to be, and that none of her magic could stop, even if parts of her brain were screaming with the intrusive call for more. 

 She begged quietly as a dull ache began to spread, a groan like that of a ship’s hull echoing across the halls of her hoard-room from a stomach larger than the rest of her, and many magnitudes heavier, twisting her body at off-angles as it bulged across its’ surface with countless eggshells driven by an unending and still budding pressure. The brood demanded more space, more than she had to give. 


 Her illusion long since failed, blacks and grays had given way to white and pink and gold, even as the pace of growth began to slow, the deluge falling to a steady flow, then a trickle, her cloaca finally beginning to be able to birth as quickly as she could fill, a strained groan of relief meeting the new development.

 Shaking wings and limbs soothed the overloaded, shivering mass of her own bloat, chewing at her lip as every new egg made its’ way out, spreading her cloaca painfully wide at its’ apex only to tumble from her exit with a resounding clack upon arrival on the ground, every single one pressing intimately along every inch of her sensitive flesh and opening. Whether or not nature intended for laying to be enjoyable – especially in this scale, masochism had its’ uses. As did the sensitivity of millions of frayed nerves struggling to hold together. 

 Unfortunately, not all was done. 

 Eyes flew wide, entirely wild as she yelped and kicked in alarm with the arrival of a massive shudder that ran through her body, tightness spiking suddenly. Her body lurched outwards painfully, groaning as though steel were about to give way with thunderous roar, scales spreading until her expansive midriff resembled the night sky more than a dragon. With each new lurch of nausea and growth, her hide spread feet at a time as tens of eggs joined a brood of hundreds, if not thousands, hide letting out a high pitched creak atop its’ deeper, more threatening protests. 

 Cold gold clung and then released in alarm as artificial claws threatened to dig into dangerously pressurized skin in her panic. Panting turned to hyperventilation and begging as her clinging renewed, desperate to stem the swelling, untrusting even in between the overwhelming bursts of bloating, every calm before the storm only promising more strain, more eggs, more growing she wasn’t entirely sure her form could handle. 

 The waves gained pace and became erratic, magic fizzling and flickering with overcharge as her overdose made its’ true risks far more terrifyingly apparent. Within seconds she’d nearly doubled in size, and the comparison was only growing more extreme by the second. 

 And then, as quickly as it had begun, it ended with a whimpering, shuddering bloat, a final push of growth that stuttered with inconsistent production. Left to her own devices, the overloaded broodmother left to whine and gasp with a mixture of fear and exhilaration, unsure of things truly had settled until the burning heat and warmth began to fade, magic seemingly finally spent. 
 She’d messed with a blend of magic she didn’t fully understand, and, seemingly, come out the victor. If admittedly with wild eyes and so desperately overfull that she could barely breathe. A smirk graced her scarred muzzle as she looked across the hoard-room vault. She’d never been this close to the ceiling by anything but wing. 

  Even as the groans and pulsing aches of over-stretched hide and parted scales licked at the back of her mind and senses, Lizet couldn’t promise herself she wouldn’t do it again.