DRAGON! That is what the humans say when they see me. The way they say it I am not sure if it is a name or an expletive. Either way they do not seem to be happy when they see me. When I first encountered the humans I tried to make contact and start a dialog, but it did not work. They appeared unwilling to talk with me, or even to consider me to be sentient. They tried to drive me away like I was some kind of animal. It is a good thing my hide is so tough or they might have injured me. Well, I guess it has been for the best. Since I never had the chance to become allies with the humans, they have become another resource for me to utilize for my survival on this world.
My name is S'Fo-Bu and my species is called S'Tl'Det. We arose on a world known as Tl'Det-Ga where animals have three pairs of limbs. The humans apparently come from a world where animals have two pairs of limbs. The Animals on this world also have just two pairs of limbs. I think this explains some of the problem of trying to relate with the humans. They see the animals of this world to be like the animals of their home world, but because I am different, they see me as a monster.
In my interstellar travels I have visited many worlds. One of the striking things is to see the consistency of life on all of those worlds. The details very from world to world, but the underlying rules that govern life remain the same. All life is based on carbon and requires liquid water. All life uses the same amino acid building blocks. All life uses DNA. The list goes on. The chemistry of life, and the physical laws that drive it, is a constant, but the detail can very from world to world depending on the path evolution took. On my home world animals ended up with three pairs of limbs where as on this world, and on the human's home world, animals ended up with two. Regardless I still find similar looking animals. The ecology drives the form. For example, I find grazing animals here that look very much like the grazing animals on my home world, except for the number of legs. There are similar looking animals in all the various ecological niches. Animals that make a living in the same way and live in the same types of environments basically look alike no matter what world I am on.
I came to this world to explore. My ship, the S'De, is still in orbit, but I cannot reach it. The S'De is much too large to land. It remained in orbit while I landed in a small orbit-to-surface transit ship, the S'S'De-Qwu. I got a surprise on the surface. I had not been here long when the S'S'De-Qwu started having problems. The first problem began with a warning on the instruments that the pressurized fuel system was leaking. I found small holes in the fuel lines to the engines. While I was investigating the fuel line problems one of the landing gear collapsed, followed rather quickly by the other two. The craft was now on its belly with a worsening fuel leak, there was no way I was going to get the thing off the ground. I returned to the instrument console to contact the computer on the S'De to instruct it to transmit an emergency beacon, but the communications system was not working. System after system started failing. The metals and plastics of the ship started to become brittle and crumble. Before I lost all of my instruments I managed to discover the culprit. I have visited many worlds, but I have never seen anything like it. There is a bacterium that quickly corrodes and dissolves metals and plastics. After a while the S'S'De-Qwu just crumbled leaving me stranded with no one knowing my situation. I was going to be here a long time exploring so it will be a while before anyone notices I am missing and they mount a rescue mission. In the meantime I am going to do what the S'Tl'Det do: explore. I just will not be able to record my discoveries because all of my equipment crumbled.
During my explorations I discovered the humans. It was a rather unpleasant first encounter. As I continued exploring I found pockets of them all over one entire continent. The largest settlements are no more than about five thousand individuals. Not far from what looked to be their oldest settlement I found the remains of their ships. The humans had come to this world just as I had -- by starship. They, too, must have been surprised when their ships crumbled. It must have been devastating when all of their technology was destroyed. I think the only thing that saved them was their training and experience in living off the land. It appears the expedition had come to establish a colony. They came ready to make it on their own, they just did not expect to have to do it using stone-age technology. I am impressed with their success. The total population of humans on this world is nearly two hundred thousand today. I estimate they have been here for close to ten of their generations. They must have come here about the time I hatched.
Another reason I say the humans are not of this world has to do with their taste. They taste differently than the native animals. As I said before, the humans have become just another resource for me to utilize for my survival. They are a food resource. I should explain about the S'Tl'Det. We are carnivores. Not that we are bad or anything like that. We are not out conquering the universe to make it our dinner table. We just happen to only eat meat. I have noticed the humans are omnivores -- they eat both plants and animals. I just happen to eat only animals, although I admit I do occasionally have a piece of fruit or some vegetables, but please do not tell my parents. I was contented with eating the native animals when I first became stranded and lost all of my supplies. I would have never even started eating the humans if they had become my friends. But since it did not work out for us to be friends, they became a source of food, and they would not have became that if it was not for two things. First, they are really malicious. From our first meeting they have tried to inflict harm upon me. They are not nice at all. Second, they taste better than the native animals. The native animals have a bitter taste although they provide all the nutrition I need to remain healthy. They just taste a little disgusting because of alkaloids on the surface of their skin. The humans also provide all the nutrition I need, but they taste better. The humans have become my food of preference.
The first time I ate a human was a matter of circumstance. Up to that time I had observed and studied the humans, and learned much about them, but I avoided direct contact because of the way they struck out at me every time our paths crossed. I had never done anything to them that gave them cause to try to harm me. Then came a period of time where I did not find any native animals to eat. This was before I discovered the migration habits of the animals in the region I was exploring. They had left the area, but I had not yet learned about this behavior. I was really hungry and was preparing to travel to other parts to find food. I stopped by a stream for a drink before heading out when I heard a noise. I hunkered down. When I bunch myself up, tuck in my six limbs, wrap my tail around, and lower my head, I look like a large rock, especially in the poor light of a forest. I remained motionless. I was hoping some animal was coming to the water but the wind was from the wrong direction for me to detect the scent. If I had suspected humans I would have left to avoid the risk of a conflict.
Suddenly two human females came running out of the forest and down to the water. They were laughing and pushing each other and did not seem to have a care in the world. One had long golden blond hair and the other had long dark brown hair. Both wore simple clothing that was draped over their bodies and tied around their waist with a cord. They were talking about some sort of a celebration where one of them had been the guest of honor. The blond said she was returning to the party and went back the way she had come.
The female that remained stood on the bank of the river watching the water flow past. After several moments she untied the cord around her waist and pulled her garment over her head. I had spent time observing and studying the humans, but had never been this close to one that was nude. I was really impressed. Human females are works of art.
She stepped into the water and walked out into the deep, slow moving pool at the base of a large boulder. She swam around and dived under the water for several minutes before coming back to the riverbank. As she came up onto the grass I had a chance to study her.
The S'Tl'Det evolved as hunters with finely tuned senses and there are legends of a time when we applied genetic engineering to enhance ourselves. Regardless of how it came to be, I am endowed with sensitive senses of smell and hearing and remarkably acute eyesight. But a couple of my senses that give me such an advantage are my ability to see in the infrared and my ultrasonic imaging. I can see the heat radiated by objects, plants, and animals. This is very useful for hunting at night on moonless worlds. With my ultrasonic abilities I can create a pulse of sound waves that reflect back to me. From these echoes I get an image. By adjusting the frequency and power of the sound waves I can control how far they penetrate objects. The images from my eyes, my infrared sense, and my ultrasonics combine to give me a picture with indescribable clarity and precision. I used these senses to study the human female.
She stood before me with water running down her body. She gathered her long hair and start to wring out the water. Her flawless skin was a wonderful shade of tan. Her eyes were almost as green as the grass on which she stood. Her hair was the color of the bark on the trees and as she turned her back to me I could see it hung down to the tops of her rounded buttocks. She bent over to move the garment she had been wearing, because she was dripping on it. The cheeks of her buttocks parted giving me a view of her anus and the entrance to her reproductive organs.
This was a great opportunity to study a human in finer detail than I had had before so I started to scan her with my ultrasonics. As I adjusted the frequency and power of the sound waves I could see into her body. Under her skin was a layer of fat followed by her muscles. As I probed deeper I could see her skull, backbone, and ribs. The bones of her arms and legs were clear. I found the way her muscles covered her bones to be very exciting. I paid close attention to the curves of her buttocks and legs. The layer of fat that gave her buttocks such a tantalizing shape covered some large muscles that ran from the hip bones to the leg bones. Large muscles ran the length of her leg bones. As I studied her, my hunger became very strong and for the first time I thought of her as food.
She turned to face me. I continued scanning her body. I could see that her brain was relatively large for an animal her size. In her chest I could see a pair of lungs and a beating heart. Her abdomen held a liver, stomach, long, coiled intestines, and various other organs. In the lower reaches of her abdominal cavity I could see her reproductive organs.
I stopped the ultrasonic scanning and just admired her. She had breast that stood out with nipples that pointed slightly towards the sky. I could see the outline of her lower ribs where the met with her belly. There was a slight indentation that ran down her sternum and belly to her belly button. Between her ribs and pelvic bones, just above her belly button, her waist reached its narrowest point. Below her belly button, her belly curved slightly out then back to her crotch. Between her legs I could see a slit. Above that was a trivial patch of hair.
The sight of this beautiful creature standing before me made my hunger worse than I had ever felt it. I decided this human female was to be my next meal.
I stood up and spread my wings for balance. Judging from the human's reaction I was an impressive sight. From the tip of my snout to the tip of my tail I was six times her height. My head towered over her three and a half times her height. My wings spanned seven times her height. Even though evolution has created a marvel of engineering to keep me light enough and powerful enough to fly, I was still at least fifteen times her mass. My dorsal skin is mottled with browns and greens of various shades that help me hide as I was when I was acting like a rock, but my anterior skin is brighter and bluer to help me hide in the sky. I think my physique and coloring is quite handsome and, considering the look on the human's face, she must have agreed. She looked up at me with wide-eyed awe and her mouth hanging open. Then in an unsteady, squeaky little voice she said, "Dragon." She was so choked up she almost did not get the word out.
I opened my mouth and reached for her. She lifted her arms as if to block me with her hands, but her arms just went into my mouth. I closed my jaws around her chest with the tip of my snout reaching about half way down her back. Her wet hair felt cold against the roof of my mouth, but her body was warm. Her ribs helped my teeth hold her firmly as I lifted her into the air and gave a little flick of my head that caused her to slip further into my mouth. The tip of my snout was now at the top of her pelvis and her arms were extending into my throat. She kicked wildly and struggled with an impressive amount of strength. This is when I realized how she tasted. She was not bitter and might even have been considered sweet. What a refreshing taste, after eating nothing but the native animals for so long. With my tongue I savored the sweet firmness of her breast and the sweet smoothness of her belly. I could feel her heart beating rapidly, much more rapidly than I would expect for a creature of her size.
I gave another flick of my head and she slipped in further. I could feel the rounded hemispheres of her buttocks just inside my mouth. With my tongue I could feel her little patch of pubic hair. Her hair tickled my throat as her head slipped into the opening of my esophagus. She continued to kick and struggle. I got the impression she did not like what was happening. I could feel her hands and elbows pushing and hitting against the inside of my throat. Another flick of my head and her hips and buttocks were at the back of my mouth ready to go down my throat. She still kicked and struggled with incredible determination, and I think her heart was beating even faster.
I swallowed a little and felt the tenderness of the cheeks of her backside slip a little further and start down my throat. A little more swallowing and the widest part of her hips and buttocks slipped past the narrowest part of my throat and she started to easily slide down my esophagus. She kept kicking as her legs and feet slowly slid past the tip of my snout and towards the back of my mouth. One more swallow and her feet gently slid into my throat making little kicking motions as they disappeared. I could feel her struggling with all her strength against the sides of my throat as she slid down. Her movements were clearly visible in the bulge in my neck as she moved down my esophagus. She passed into my body where my neck meets my shoulders. I could feel her movements as she entered my stomach. Her struggles became even more violent. It was a good feeling having her struggling so strongly in my stomach. I could see her movements on my belly. She continued to struggle violently until I felt the start of a little burp. She had been holding her breadth and had let it go. I burped the air she had just expelled. Her struggles became very violent then subsided. I felt wonderful. I was full and contented. She had tasted so sweet and had felt so good as she slid down my throat and into my stomach. This human female had been the best meal I had ever had and I was looking forward to my next opportunity.
I hope no one was waiting for her at home because she did not come back. When I had the bowel movement from that meal it had tangles of hair and some teeth in it. Hair and teeth are such hard things to digest, but the hair does add much needed roughage to my diet.