Tama's Journey West: Crossing The Dragon's Bridge (Patreon)

One of those that laid idle for a couple months and then I suddenly wrote the entire second half. Something about these Mondays when I’m a little rested, prepped for work and got all the random fun out of me over the weekend that gets me really writey. Also a weird kick of listening to background Muppet music, but I’m not sure that’s directly related.

Anyway, more of the traveling monk and his monstergirl allies. I got some very early requests when I started writing this to include the dragon horse from Journey West. My reaction was “the what now?”, which sounds INCREDIBLY common. To the point where some people suspect the writer forgot that they were a character because they don’t really do much in the story despite being in the party for a bunch of the journey. I’d only read over the TV Tropes once out of curiosity, not planning to stick too closely to the original Journey West anyway. Basically, the heroes meet a dragon who eats the main hero’s horse. He gets beat up by Son Wukong and in apology, turns into a horse for the monk. Does a couple little helpful things here and there but for the most part, he’s basically a horse from then on. I clearly have no such intention on wasting “we have a super strong shapeshifter in the party,” though it took me a while to pin down the idea that she’s a very full of herself bimbo. The addition of the “I bet you can’t turn into a mouse” trick with a deeper twist was a super last-second idea that I just really loved.

No idea why I always lean towards making my dragons shapeshifters. It’s this guy’s thing in the original Journey West, but even in my modern monster stories I had the same idea for them. I guess because I’m not big on scales and writing a titanic beast gf is a lot tougher, so just leaving it as their true form while they’re powerful enough to become whatever makes them convenient but dangerous.

The journey across the Monster Territories was proving far easier than Tama could have imagined. With three unstoppable monsters accompanying him in his journey to Fu and addicted to sex with his purehearted body, they managed to scare off or decimate any threat that came their way.

That is, until they came to the gorge. It was nearly impossible to see the other side of the deep, vast crack, and it went so far into the earth’s crust that smoke and ash trickled back out of it. The band of travelers paused, looking across its dark depths.

“It’s not that bad,” Sonya scoffed. The monkeygirl squatted down to get a better read on it.

“How is this not bad?! How… how did the map not show this!?” Tama stammered.

“Maps of the monster lands are very…”

Wu paused. The blue-skinned demoness peered up at the sky with all four of her eyes, contemplating her choice of words.

“Temporary. The lands shift and will betray you whenever you turn your gaze away.”

“And if your order is like any of the monks I’ve known,” Zha-Ye chimed, popping out a paper fan to brush some of the molten air from her face.

“Then any map you’d have is well past its expiration date.”

“But… but there should be a bridge, right?” Tama offered hopefully.

“There was a bridge over my river once,” Wu said.

She folded her arms and frowned, as if remembering it with great displeasure.

“It was an offense to my sanctum and I tore it to splinters and pebbles.”

“So there’s not many like you three that I can count on out here,” Tama sighed. “It must be half a kilometer across…”

“Ah bullshit. That’s easy. Check this out!”

Sonya sat up and took a swig of her bottomless gourd of alcohol. She shook out her limbs, stretched out her fuzzy red tail, and took off at a full sprint at the gorge. She leapt at impossible speed and height, vanishing into the clouds of smoke overhead. They waited a few heartbeats before she went sinking back down, her leap falling a few yards short. Her shouts and curses could be heard echoing down its depths as she flailed around, barely grabbing a chunk of rock sticking out from the opposite cliffside wall. Wu rolled her many eyes and reached out, stretching her limb far enough for Sonya to leap onto and scamper back like she was a living treebranch.

“Okay. Not my best plan. Especially with no visibility and just as little air to breathe up there.”

Sonya coughed out a visible plume of smoke and shook some soot from her hair.

“But you were so close! Maybe give it another go,” her plump piggy ally insisted.

“Don’t encourage her,” the young monk sighed. “Can you reach across for us, Wu? Or does that violate some river demon's vow to become a bridge?”

The big blue woman shook her head. “It would not. However…”

She held up the arm she had been using to retrieve Sonya. It was a much paler blue with the ckin far tighter around the bone, and her notable muscle was shriveled up around the forearm. It almost looked like she was in her mummified state back at her shrine.

“My body does not react well to the heat as a water demon. I would gladly wither and die to serve you, master. May my husk serve as a gateway for your righteous journey.”

Wu bowed deeply at Tama, who blushed at the idea.

“That’s… way too unreasonable! Let’s just travel along the edges. I’m sure there’s a way across somewhere. It can’t go on forever.”

They ventured along the edge of the canyon, keeping eyes on the farside to look for signs of it growing thinner or some other way across. Sonya would occasionally swat a stone or stray branch into the pit, resulting in the much later little sputtering of flame and smoke. Wu dunked her hand into the water barrel she kept strapped to her back, quickly regenerating her withered hand.

“There!” Sonya suddenly called out, pointing straight ahead.

“There’s what?” Tama asked, squinting where she was pointing. He didn’t see anything.

“My my. I forget how weak human eyes can be sometimes,” Zha-Ye tutted.

“A tunnel, m’lord,” Wu said, nodding ahead of them.

“Thick stone and taller than a wagon. Too sturdy for the flames to wear down so easily.”

“Perfect!” he exclaimed. “Let’s hurry across and be on our way then.”

It was as they said; what appeared to be a large, natural length of stone crossing the canyon with a large portion of its middle carved out. They stepped inside and found it warm, but pleasantly so. More of a pleasant summer day than a scorching wasteland. They walked through as Tana admired the stone outcropping. It was smooth and largely natural, but every so often he saw a large groove chipped into it.

“Others must use this bridge too,” Tama observed.

“Though I’m not sure how they carved their markings so cleanly into the rock.”

Sonya stopped walking ahead of him and turned warily.

“How they what…?!”

It was then that a huge wave of silvery blue smoke poured into the tunnel. It came from several cracks in the walls and ceiling, blinding and choking the travelers. Sonya took a blind swing at the air and Tama tried to warn her against it. He didn’t want her smashing apart their only bridge they were standing on, but he quickly coughed on the smoke and felt himself grow dizzy before he collapsed.

—-

Tama awoke to find himself tied up with silken rope. It was surprisingly luxurious for being held captive, all things considered. His demonic comrades were still unconscious and bound nearby, though Zha-Ye was starting to stir. She yawned hugely before tugging ineffectively at the chains around her wrists and legs. They were made of gold and gems, matching the other countless treasures in the cave they had been taken to.

“My my… they certainly know what they’re doing,” Zha mused. “Magic bindings, magic smoke, realizing we’re tainted… more loot than I could spend in my life. This isn’t common bandit work.”

“Then who is it?” Tama asked.

With a great, slick sound like a weapon being unsheathed, he got his answer. A serpentine dragon emerged from somewhere deeper within the cave. It was at least thirty feet long, a silvery shade of green that shimmered across its scales. Six relatively short legs, each the size of one of the travelers, were scattered irregularly around its body. A mane of silver trailed several yards behind its long, fanged head. Narrow, golden eyes curled as it grinned at them.

“Well well!” the dragon noted in a deep but female voice. “An abundant crop today. I’ll be sure to fleece well tonight!”

She was met with silence rather than fear from the pilgrims. Tama cleared his throat softly.

“Did you say fleece well?”

The dragon raised its head and answered with more silence.

“I think you meant ‘feast well.’ You are going to eat us, right?”

“Yes… that’s what I said,” the dragon defended awkwardly.

“I mean if she was trying to con us out of our money, then she’d be fleecing us. That much I know for sure,” Zha-Ye said with absolute confidence.

“I said feasting!” the dragon boomed.

She started to grow larger still. Her back half was largely out of sight, but she grew taller and thicker as her serpentine body expanded. She blocked out the exit to the room, and fire rippled across her scales. They raised and grew into spikes that stopped a few inches short of her captives.

“I definitely heard feasting,” Zha-Ye promptly agreed.

“Me too,” Tama confirmed.

Sonya just giggled. Wu frowned but didn’t answer. The dragon seemed to calm down and settle back into its normal state. Her body shrank from there, approaching them as its rear retreated into her back. What remained was a short, thin woman in elegant, short hemmed robes the colors of the dragon’s scales. Fins grew in place of her ears while a long scaly tale emerged from the back as a reminder of her powerful true nature.

“You stand before the great Shimai!” the dragoness announced herself with a smile. It would have been stunning if not for the fangs behind the ruby lips of her painted face.

“I have kept my den safe and feasted on intruders for lifetimes longer than any of you. You are fools to enter the great dragon’s reach. AHAHA!”

Tama had once seen a theater troupe as a treat from his masters. The way Shimai laughed reminded him of the exaggerated villain’s laughter in the show.

“Let me down and I will show you how abrupt your life will be,” Wu threatened calmly.

“I am no fool! I am a master trickster! A wealthy mistress of treasures beyond compare! The most beautiful and powerful woman to exist who laughs at the gods!”

Just the fact that she thought all that made her sound extremely foolish to Tama. He was about to quote a verse from his temple scrolls about the fool and his wagon, but the mention of a trickster reminded him of another tale.

“Of course you are,” he began.

“You are a shapeshifter. It is well within your abilities to slay and eat us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sonya grumbled.

She had turned herself upside down, failing outrageously to pick her chains with her prehensile toes. Shimai positively glowed from the praise.

“Ah! Then I see there is one wise guy among you!”

Tama overlooked her misspeaking again.

“I’ve heard tales of dragons, but they pale to your greatness. Your mastery must be so great you could turn into anything.”

Shimai beamed wider, brushing her silver white hair back in a preening gesture hungry for more. As long as Tama was talking, he was alive.

“Why, I bet you could turn into an elephant.”

“One of those meaty beasts? Easily!”

Her body bloated and warped, turning into an elephant wearing her robes as a blanket across her back.

“You understand my power. I can transform well beyond a physical body.”

“What about… a storm cloud? Surely that’s such a difficult challenge…” Tama egged on.

With a roll of thunder, Shimai folded in on herself and turned into the very elements. A dark cloud pouring rain and lightning laughed at the captives.

“You have strange tastes in beauty, monk! But you surely grasp the greatness of Shimai now!”

“Ohh truly,” Tana bluffed. He was a lousy liar and a worse actor, but she didn’t need much to assure her she was great.

“In fact, I wonder if the great Shimai…”

“Bet you couldn’t turn into a woman that’s madly in love with him!” Zha-Ye blurted.

Tama turned and stared at the piggy woman. She shrugged in her bonds.

“What? I thought that was where we were going with this?” she whispered back.

“I was not!” he hissed softly back.

The cloud floated there for a moment. It somehow looked like it was concentrating before it started to shift back into the humanoid shape. The dragon woman stared at Tama with wide, adoring eyes.

“I… I… my good monk. I had not realized just how handsome you were. And… and such a wondrous smell.”

“Yea, he’s got that perma-virgin musk, alright,” Sonya grunted as she kept failing at her chains.

“I was so rude to try to abduct and eat you! I must have left such a poor impression on a soul that smells as sweet as thoust! I have dishonored you as my guest and simply must make it up to you!” Shimai went on, ignoring the other captives.

“Oh… it’s nothing, really,” Tama suddenly backpedaled.

“If you could just let us down we could just be…”

With a clear sucking sound, the dragoness pushed her mouth beneath his robes. It wasn’t only her face; her mouth extended into a tube-like shape, almost becoming a muzzle as she yanked down his underwear and formed a perfect slot for his erection. Tama gave a shrill gasp as her powerful mouth and tongue slurped noisily around his member. Shimai let out a long and hungry groan of her own as she actually tasted his flavor. Her tail whipped behind her, kicking up a small dust storm with the force of her excited wagging.

“Ahhh~! Not like… ngh… that. I mean to let me off these…”

Tama’s plea broke into mindless babbling as Shimai nodded rapidly. It pulled his dick along for the ride, tightly gripped in her mouth that seemed to also shapeshift along to match its shape perfectly. She withdrew her mouth just enough to run a long, forked tongue up beneath his balls for another parting taste. The flash of her massive maw full of knife-like teeth and her serpentine tongue of matching size gave the monk another reason to shudder.

“Ah yes,” she said, smacking her lips.

“I shall let you off, good monk. I am family with this term from my centuries of research.”

Shimai was rapidly confirming his suspicion that her faked elegance came with a surprising amount of stupidity. Zha had been capable of feigning being a leader in her old village. The dragon’s pretense of being a noble over her part of the Monster Territories was accompanied by mixing up a word every other sentence and her falling for every slight prod and provocation they threw at her. It hand left her as mindlessly horny for the monk as the rest of the girls she’d captured.

“I understand if that is not your favorite method! May I offer my other maliciousable bounties?”

Shimai cupped her breasts, pushing up the plump c-cups. They quickly swelled like balloons, shifting them into a larger state until they squashed Tama’s exposed, wet shaft against his stomach. She smiled widely with her eyes even wider, the gleaming gold still shining in them as she looked adoringly at Tama for his approval. She kept pushing them from below, bouncing and jiggling the ridiculously fluid jugs around his shaft. It was quickly lost inside her growing rack until it was simply swimming between the steadily growing tits. They soon pushed out through the middle of her robes, letting her big bare breasts rest warmly against his lap. They reached a point where they were the size of beanbag chairs when Tama gasped and nodded.

“Yes, they are wonderful! That’s big enough!” he insisted.

Shimai stopped inflating herself around the time she was starting to crack the stone walls of her cave with their weight. She smiled and bobbed in place, her jugs jiggling up and down to pump his shaft around. The grinning she-dragon cracked her lips apart, letting her tongue slink out and stretch down between her cleavage. It joined Tama’s cock, licking it lovingly with long wet strokes and tickling flicks of its split tip. Tama panted and sweat as precum leaked out of his cock, and the sticky appetizer only seemed to excite Shimai even more.

“Oh how silly of me! You humans show your love through your loins! I have been so greedy! Wicked, silly Shimai!”

The dragon scolded herself as she started to grow larger. Tama was dangling off the wall in his chains, leaving his erection conveniently face-level with her humanoid shape. Shimai let her skirt close around her legs, reforming a snake tail that extended and boosted herself up. As the garment fell away to merge into her scales, the change left her top half human and exposed her pussy to him while her tits had long since overflown past her top. She gave a complex gyration of her hips with her lengthy tail, she ground her slit up against his member, easing him inside her. Tama panted in short, husky breaths as Shimai gave a long, throaty moan. She slithered in closer, fully taking him inside her with a higher, thrilled cry.

“Ahh~! You’re perfect, my love. Like I always dreamed,” Shimai praised the young monk she’d just met.

She kissed him hungrily, though the monk was happy that she left the fangs out of the embrace. Tama fell limply into her grasp, letting her drink from his tongue like she was dying of thirst. Her tail writhed to grind herself at seemingly impossible angles, stirring his cock inside her pussy. It sloshed with an incredible wetness, splashing out in small bucketloads at random intervals. Her massive breasts kept him pinned to the wall while she had to add a second set of hands to reach beneath them, stripping off his robes and rubbing his body all over. Tama felt buried in her affection, barely able to think between the stone and the dragon’s lusting body. She parted the kiss just to nuzzle at his ear.

“Is my pussy tight enough for you, master?” she purred needily.

“Loose enough? I can be anything. I’ve become a woman who loves you and I only need you to love me back. It is my only wish, my beautiful and delicious master~! Use me however you wish and know that it gives me pleasure beyond limits just to turn myself into anything that pleases and cums for you…”

She really had changed her mind and soul out of the dare. Tama almost felt guilty, if he weren’t so intensely aroused. He was feeling so many stimuli he could barely track which was which. The closest he could manage was to reach out and stroke Shimai’s long, silky hair.

“You are… worthy of love,” he gasped out a slightly fractured but assuring verse from his scrolls.

Shimai’s eyes went wide. She gasped as he felt her pussy tighten around him like an internal hug on his cock. Just as it milked the last of his willpower out of him and he launched his seeking seed into the dragoness, he saw her golden pupils turn into bright pink hearts of adoration. She shuddered and in exchange for his cum, she gushed a strong mix of her own juices over his lap. She gawked and drooled over his shoulder, mixed with her hot breath as her cum ran down his lap. She squeezed him tightly with all four of her arms, hugging him tight enough into her tits to bury his face between her cleavage and rip his chains from the wall. Milk gushed from her nipples, drained from her massive tits as if she was cumming from every hole for him in her intensely howling pleasure.

The half-snake finally eased herself down to the floor, sighing contentedly. She wiped some sweaty hair from her face as she turned herself back into her human shape in her fatigue. Even then, her reformed robes were loosely hanging off her mostly naked body.

“Sir monk… or should I say, my love? No! Master! I have never known such pleasures as this love I feel for you! You are perfect! Please say that you can stay with me! Forever and ever?”

Tama’s head was spinning enough that he almost considered it. He’d live like a king, but it was far too lofty an idea for a monk. He shook his head and checked his pockets, making sure his maps and messages were intact.

“I couldn’t. I have far to travel on my holy mission. My friends were helping to guide me… but just like them, you could join us! I really would need you to let them go though…”

“Of course! Anything, my master.”

Shimai snapped her fingers and the chains unclasped themselves. Tama’s companions dropped to the floor of the treasure trove, and after a moment of testing out their muscles, Wu expanded herself into double her size. She raised a watery blue fist as she turned it into an ax head aimed at the dragoness.

“What? I thought that was where we were going with this?” Wu quoted Zha, looking as confused as she was angry.

“Whoa, whoa! She’s on our side!” Tama defended her as he hurried between Shimai and the others.

“She won’t harm any of you just like you won’t harm her… right, Lady Shimai?”

“Of course! Anything you wish, my love!” the dragon woman gushed, squeezing him around the arm.

Wu grunted but shrank back to her normal self. Sonya and Zha traded brief glances but shrugged it off. They had clearly gone through the same arrangement with each other and Wu herself.

“Well we would love your company. And I’m sure my friends would too,” Tama assured the clingy dragon.

“And gifts! His friends sure love gifts!” Zha-Ye added, eying up the treasure around them.

“If that is my true love’s wish, I would gladly!”

“I’m sure there’s some poor folk in need of this wealth much more than we need it…” Tama started, but the other three were already rooting through the gold and weapons.

“Er… well, just one, okay?” the monk offered meekly.

“I can help you find the perfect gifts then! And carry all the donations you wish me to, since our love is worth far more than any gold!” Shimai chimed.

She did seem happier than she had been, even when she was gloating over her captives. The legends did describe dragons as cursed by wealth and power, so perhaps this was for the best…

Shimai turned into her massive dragon form again, grabbing a large chest in one mighty claw. Tama winced as her great tail wagged and barely missed his face.

“Though… perhaps we should be more discrete with your shape. My friends aren’t subtle, but I don’t know how well we can work with a form this big,” Tama admitted.

“I see. Then this?”

Shimai turned back into her small, finned and tailed noblewoman form.

“I think a noble with horns would be almost as eye-catching…” the monk winced. “At least while we’re on the road.”

“You know what we need with all this stuff?” Sonya called over her shoulder. She seemed to have found a new staff with mystical-looking markings along it. She gave it a firm smack against the wall and smiled at the large dent it left in the stone.

“A horse and carriage. Shame to leave all these ‘donations’ behind. Right, chief?”

Shimai tilted her head, thinking for a moment before she shifted again. Soon, a silvery white mare stood among them, and a large wagon grew out of her before wrapping itself around her body.

“That’s… kind of perfect,” Tama laughed awkwardly. “Thank you very much, Shimai. We are very grateful.”

“And I love YOU, my master~!” the horse said, baring its large teeth in a gummy smile.

Tama winced. “Maybe… don’t say that in that body either…”