Solar Dragons Need Love, Too! 2: a harem lit slice of life, page 1
BOOK 2
By Virgil Knightley
Copyright © 2022 Virgil Knightley All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Welcome Back
Chapter 2 – Harem Dynamics
Chapter 3 – Valestrian Satyrs
Tahini’s Interlude
Chapter 4 – Telling Fortunes
Chapter 5 – A Simple Meditation
Chapter 6 – Exploding Raccoons
Chapter 7 – Basilisk Burgers
Chapter 8 – Reading Blood
Go’Urden’s Interlude
Chapter 9 – The Loyal Assistant
Blossom’s Interlude
Chapter 10 – Doubling Up
Chapter 11 – Gamer Girls
A Harem Interlude
Chapter 12 – Saving a Life
Chapter 13 – Such Bad Liars
Chapter 14 – Rooftop Rendezvous
Tahini’s Second Interlude
Chapter 15 – Copycat
Satina’s Interlude
Chapter 16 – The Charity Tournament
Chapter 17 – Goat and Unicorn
Chapter 18 – Team-Up or No?
Another Harem Interlude
Chapter 19 – The Void Cartel
Chapter 20 – Daughter and Daddy
Chapter 21 – Under the Bridge
Chapter 22 – Placating Eppy
Chapter 23 – Until Next Time
Chapter 1 – Welcome Back
T he cityscape below twinkled a prismatic array of colors up at me, every light glowing in the streets or buildings with its own distinct flavor. Some of the lights on building exteriors were magical torches that hung below shop signs, sconced onto the front doors of small business offices. Others were electric bulbs, no different from any of the incandescent or fluorescent lights from my world and time. Still others were glowing orbs or lanterns that hung over the streets, illuminating the roads for evening drivers. All these lights came in a variety of colors, strengths, and qualities, each suited to its own purpose—which never was that different from the others.
People were like that, too. Some of the denizens of Meteoropolis traipsing on the ground below me were businesspeople. Some were parents. They came in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes, to be sure, but there were ties that bound us all together.
Many of Meteoropolis’s citizens were common workers trapped in the lower echelons of society, whilst others had less traditional jobs, or even none at all. In the end, however, we shared a similar purpose—to enjoy our lives while doing our part to make it possible for others to do the same.
I don’t mean to wax poetic or claim myself to be some sort of guru perched on a mountaintop with a flowing white beard denoting my wisdom. Still, if my rebirth in this city bestowed one lesson upon me, it’s this: there is no real meaning to life. That might seem unsettlingly nihilistic, but I found it liberating—if nothing mattered, then only we do. One could interpret that as a license to a life of hedonistic pleasures, selfishly pursued at the cost of others, but I preferred a more optimistic mindset.
Tonight the Sylvan District looked as awe-inspiring as ever—a skyscraper ahead of me was constructed from the husk of an ancient silver tree that seemed like it must be thousands of years older than this city itself. It begged the question of how it got here, but I almost didn’t want to know. These little mysteries gave me something to ponder as I flew all over my part of the city, looking for crime to stop or people to help.
Sometimes, though, I just liked to fly. I wasn’t the only one who did so, either. In a city brimming with magical creatures and folks, many of them also descended from dragons or pegasi or other mythical creatures, quite a few could fly. Of all the things that made me special, my wings weren’t necessarily one of them.
Stone-skinned gargoyles and griffinkin men in black business suits made a shrill whistle in the wind as they flew past me. Winged succubi and angelkin soared even higher than I liked to fly, so I could occasionally spot some of their tummies when I glanced upward. Sometimes there was even a little light traffic up here in the sky, but we flying types were rarer than groundlings after all.
I chuckled at myself for using that term, adopting the lingua franca of Meteoropolis’s people. I was one of them now. There was nothing separating me from anyone else in this city, in reality. Half the residents were former capsule puppies, and half of those had Splice Partners like me. It wasn’t all that unusual to see a man murmuring to himself as he waited to cross the street. Back home on Earth, you might think such a person could be unhinged or mentally unsound. Here, you just figured they were conversing with their Splice Partner.
No, in the end, I had to admit that I felt at home. I quickly became possessive of this domed city soaring through space on the back of a wizard-piloted meteor. At one point, that premise sounded insane to me. Now, it was just one of the many facts of life.
The dome was dark tonight—darker than usual, even. I worked hard to make out the stars as we soared in and out of range to see them. Some smaller meteors would occasionally pelt themselves into the dome, exploding and being reabsorbed into the mana tapestry. I enjoyed that brief splash of color they created.
It was hard to make out anything like that going on tonight. Usually, that meant that we were traveling through a particularly dense asteroid belt, and the constant barrage that we were currently under would either worry or distract people if they could see it. On such nights, the Arcane Council of Meteoropolis turned down the glow and cranked up the opacity on the dome so as not to trouble us.
I still knew precious little about the Arcane Council, or the Founders, or any other specifically important individuals in this city’s history, but it was on my short list of things to research, somewhere between ‘maximum flower sprite heights’ and ‘male birth control options.’ The latter in particular was a rather pressing matter for reasons I won’t go into at this time.
As I soared from my place in the sky, a distant cry invaded my awareness. I locked eyes on its source—I didn’t have eagle eyes, not quite, but my vision was damn good anyway.
I flew lower to get a better look and realized that the sound was coming from a cul-de-sac situated in front of a tin-roofed warehouse.
An elven woman was fleeing from something—that much was easy to comprehend with even the most cursory of glances. Her waifish figure attracted my eyes first, dressed in stark whites that contrasted against the brown dirt road. Her feet kicked back and she sprinted at a surprising speed to get away from—something. My eyes darted to discover what had her in such a flurry, or where she might have come from, but the only obvious answer was the warehouse.
“Ma’am!” I shouted, dipping downward and plucking her from the ground into my arms. To me, her body was featherlight, her scent like sweat and honey intermixed in a pungent but not unpleasant cocktail. She shrieked at first, not understanding why she was suddenly flying in the air, her feet kicking the wind—until her eyes landed on mine.
“It’s you!” she gasped. “I’m saved!”
“Saved from what?”
“There’s a xenobeast in the laboratory!” she screamed, burying her face in my chest.
“How important is the stuff in that laboratory?” I asked. “Does it need to be saved?”
She looked at me in wonder. “Are you going to take care of the monster yourself?” she gasped, her face contorted at the insane prospect.
I smirked at her and flashed a cocky draconic grin. “I’m a grown boy, ma’am. I can handle it.”
“It’s big,” she warned me.
“So’s my courage,” I grunted.
That seemed to press the pause button on her. “Sorry… your courage is… big?”
“My courage and other things. Where should I put you down?”
“Can you take me to Wildberry Street?” she asked. “That would help a lot.”
Now it was my turn to scrunch up my face with surprise. “That’s, like, thirty blocks away.”
“You asked,” she grumbled.
“I didn’t think you were going to direct me across town while—”
My statement was more or less finished by the xenobeast as it burst through the tin roof of the lab and expanded past its walls, reducing the structure to ruins. It was huge—easily the size of half the building on its own.
“Holy fuck,” I muttered.
“Ugh, you swear?” the elven scientist said with disgust.
I shot her a look. “I’m just going to put you down over here. Try to get a cab while I fight the thingy. How did that big dude fit in there, exactly?” I asked, pointing back at the building and the unspeakable monstrosity that was ripping it to pieces.
“I don’t know!” she said, her head in her hands. “My colleagues and I—”
“Where are they?” I interrupted her, my eyes wide. “There are more people inside?”
“There were,” she moaned despairingly. “I’m afraid they’re probably dead now.”
“How did you survive?”
“I ran across the street to use the bathroom before it started to expand like that—we have the squatting kind of toilet, so I use the Quickie Stop one when I need to tinkle.”
“Oh, God, I hate those squatting toilets,” I muttered.
She nodded profusely, her eyes lit with the flames of passion. “Me too!”
Another monstrous bellow came from the wreckage that was once the warehouse laboratory. I set her down on the ground a few blocks from the warehouse, then flashed back to face the xenobeast man-to-monster.
“Listen up, evil scum!” I shouted. A news van was peeling up across the street and its team was unloading their equipment. I would have to drag this out a bit so they had time to set up. It’s always good to get press when you can.
The monster faced me—I think, anyway. It was so disgustingly alien and freakish that I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain either way. It rebutted my jeering shout with its own clicking gurgle. This xenobeast was a building-sized, pink, fleshy mound, teeming with red, blue, and black veins. It had dozens, if not hundreds, of mouths—some of them were bigger than me, while others were perhaps the size of a man’s mouth, making them nearly imperceptible from a distance. In addition to the many monstrous maws mulling over making me a meal, there were easily a thousand eyes—but only one big eye. That one was staring at yours truly.
“That’s right, you ugly son-of-a-bitch bastard. Look over here.” I focused on my capacity to breathe fire, building the solar heat inside my core. As the power mounted, shafts of light glimmered through the cracks in my scales.
Those wriggling things I mistook for veins beneath the fleshy surface of the grotesque xenobeast shot out of its skin in an explosion of fluid, a hundred grasping blue, black, and red tentacles reaching out for me. I dodged each lashing strike by flashing away at light speed to another location around the creature. With its multitudinous eye count, however, I couldn’t ever quite sneak up on it.
I still needed time to charge, so as I noticed reporters wielding their cameras from a safe distance away, I decided to absorb one of the lashing strikes, taking whatever damage I had to. I wouldn’t be able to charge up the full power of my fire breath without being able to stay still and out of my lightform for at least several consecutive seconds.
“Solaris!” a reporter shouted below, right as I was taking a big breath. Flames spewed out of the corners of my closed mouth and I made a ‘huh’ gesture down at the guy right at the moment one of the tendrils struck me.
It… didn’t hurt. It kind of tickled, really, so that was a nice surprise. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it was more than that.
“Come down here and pose for SDNN when you’re finished!” the man shouted. With my dragon cheeks puffed, I tossed him a thumbs-up followed by a ‘just one second’ gesture.
I breathed out a pillar of light and fire, so bright and all-encompassing that the news team members shielded their eyes with their arms, wings, tentacles, and other appendages they had to do so.
My powerful beam of draconic fury struck the xenobeast in its gigantic central eye, and it exploded with an eruption of nastiness. I seared right through the thing, then adjusted the angle of my neck to drag the beam across its body, making sure I cooked as much of the creature as I could.
By the time I ran out of breath, the vicinity surrounding the warehouse it had destroyed smelled like burnt meat. It made me hungry.
We could eat the pieces, the dragon suggested.
“We could,” I admitted, “but I don’t wanna get that kind of rep, especially with the cameras around, y’know?”
Would people not like that?
“Pretty sure they wouldn’t, my man.”
“Solaris! Please! A photo for the station! A quick interview, if you got the time!”
You are a god to them, the dragon side of me bellowed. Make them bow to you accordingly.
“Nah, that wouldn’t go over well,” I muttered as I brought us down to the ground, making sure my wings were outstretched as much as they could be for the effect.
“Solaris! One sec!” The reporter, some kind of satyr-like deer person, stood beside me, comically juxtaposed against my huge body. He pivoted toward the camera and grinned a pearly white smile. “That’s right, I’m at the scene of the incident with the one and only Solaris.” He turned to face me. “Solaris, how does it feel to save the day yet again?”
“Feels good,” I grunted awkwardly. What kind of question was that?
“And what’s the story behind the new chestplate? The dragon symbol on your chest, does that carry some special meaning to you?”
I blinked at the guy. “I mean, I’m a dragon. So, yes.”
“Incredible.” He took the microphone back for a second. “The people of Meteoropolis have got to know, Solaris—are you single?”
“Uhhh—no,” I replied.
“Wow wow wow!” He pumped his fist and adjusted his bowtie like that was the revelation of his career. “One last question—maybe two more. Do you have time for two?”
“I mean—”
“Okay, two more,” he murmured excitedly. “If you could be any kind of animal, what animal would you be?”
At that moment I noticed even the cameraman looked embarrassed by the reporter’s questions.
“A rabbit,” I said, just picking the first thing that came to my head, willing with all my heart and soul that this interview would be over. “I need to get back on patrol—”
“One final question.” That stupid grin was still plastered on his made-for-TV face. “Do you have a message for the people watching at home?”
“Oh,” I muttered, surprised that this question was actually one worth answering. I wanted my response to be profound, but I was caught so off-guard that I could barely come up with anything. “Kids, don’t do drugs. And everyone, be good to each other.”
“Unbelievable,” the man gushed, looking back at the camera. “Well, folks, you heard it here! Solaris’s message for us all! Don’t do drugs, and be good to each other.”
My stomach growled—loudly, extremely audibly. It was such a powerful sound that the camera crew, the mic guy, and the reporter all turned their heads to face me. I laughed awkwardly and got ready to flash away at lightspeed.
The dragon inside let out a monstrous groan directed at me to announce its irritation. I told you we should have eaten the thing.
Chapter 2 – Harem Dynamics
S leeping arrangements had gotten a bit troublesome, and I mean that in the best of ways.
It had started out simple enough. The night after Pinky and I hooked up for the first time, effectively solidifying and officiating the now three-way harem truce between all the girls living under Pinky’s roof, I slept in the unicorn girl’s bed. That was nice for a lot of reasons. Breathing in her aroma, like freshly picked strawberries, was soothing enough, but that was also the first time I’d slept in an actual bed since Mamba moved in.
Gone were my days of crashing on the sofa like a couch-surfing bachelor. And that was kind of the problem. That’s how we ended up here, in this predicament, just a few weeks later.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you sleep with Brock last night?” Mamba asked bitterly, her devious, sexy reptilian eyes staring down the unicorn elf in front of her.
“I fail to see your point,” Pinky Peach retorted, crossing her arms and raising an indignant eyebrow at the hissfolk beauty.
Scenes like that one played out on repeat until Blossom cracked a joke about making a calendar. The idea struck a chord with the other two girls, and next thing you know, it was happening. This was the harem drama that I was afraid of, but it wasn’t so bad.
