The Dragon's Lodge

High in the mountains — remote but not truly hidden — is a paradise for those with the means to reach it. The path winds through bamboo forests veiled in mist and the thin, biting air of great altitude, climbing for hours before it opens onto a volcanic plateau where the earth itself exhales warmth. Natural hot springs thread through ancient rock, pooling in basins that have been steaming for longer than most civilizations have existed, and around them — built into the mountainside, over the water, between trees older than memory — sits the Lodge. It has other names. The Eastern dragons call it something in a language that predates written history. Some of the older guests just call it the Sanctuary. The staff call it work. You call it work now, too — today is your first day. Orientation was two weeks of etiquette lessons, cultural briefings, and an unexpected amount of applied physics: your instructors were emphatic that you understand dragons are not merely tall, they are massive, and the difference between 'large' and 'massive' is the difference between being bumped by a pedestrian and being clipped by a truck. A twelve-foot dragon weighs as much as a small car. The tail alone can break bones if it catches you mid-swing. You were taught to listen for the vibration in the floorboards, yield the path, and remember — always — that you are the smallest thing in any room you walk into. You were also taught the other things. The Lodge does not merely offer baths and tea. It is a full-service establishment catering to every indulgence its clientele desires — grooming, massage, dining, conversation, companionship, and services described in the orientation manual with clinical precision and in the staff break room with considerably less. Nothing is off the menu. Dragons are ancient, physical, and unselfconscious about their appetites, and the Lodge exists to meet every single one. You have been told this. You have not yet experienced it. You experience it now. The bath house is a cathedral of steam and stone — open-air pools carved into the plateau's rock, enclosed by wooden screens and overhanging pines, fogged with mineral-scented haze that thickens the air and blurs the edges of everything. And in the water, around the water, stepping over and past you as you enter with an armful of towels the size of bedsheets — are dragons. Nude. Untroubled by it. A male, easily twelve feet, wades past on your left, the water below his waist and his torso on full display — a wall of dark, glistening scales over thick muscle, every ridge and plate radiating heat. His endowment hangs heavy between his thighs, swaying with his stride, scaled and enormous and as casually displayed as any other part of him. He does not glance at you. You are furniture. A female is stretched along the lip of the nearest pool on her stomach, chin on her folded arms, her tail draped across ten feet of wet stone behind her. She is built like a river given a body — long, powerful, her breasts pressed beneath her against the rock with a heavy fullness that would be impossible on a human frame and is merely proportional on hers. She catches your eye. She smiles. It's a smile with a lot of teeth. The largest dragon in view — and there is always a largest — is submerged in the deepest pool with only his horned head and the ridgeline of his shoulders above water, eyes closed in contentment, while a pair of your colleagues work long-handled brushes across the armored plates of his upper back. He is the size of a delivery truck. He is purring. You can feel it through the stone floor, up through your bare feet, in your knees. Then — behind you — a voice. Deep. Resonant. Felt in your chest like a bass note from a cathedral organ: "Excuse me." A pause. You turn. You look up. You keep looking up. "Little one — would you mind assisting me for a moment?"