Declaration of Love to a Dragon

Part 2 - Kisses on the Dragon's Mouth

The chilly night that brought the first snow had only been the preamble to a string of increasingly cold days and even colder nights that followed. Derios tried to keep a fire burning in the cave at all times, but if it had already been difficult to locate dry firewood without an axe or saw at hand before, the layer of snow made it all but impossible. The smoke rising from the fire often threatened to fill the cave.

In the end, Derios had to make a difficult decision. He knew that he wouldn't survive the winter if he remained in the cave unless he somehow obtained supplies such as blankets, tools, additional food and something that he could use as a stove. With no money to pay for all that, his only remaining option was to spend the winter, at least partially, amongst his own kind. Thus, he had started preparations to seek out a settlement - any settlement, since he didn't even know where he was.

To keep him warm, he had salvaged a few pieces of doeskin from the dragon's meals, crudely cleaned by scraping the flesh off with bone splinters. But not only was he unable to cut proper straps and holes to connect the pieces, they also stank due to his inadequate tools and because he couldn't boil the hides. On top of that, whenever he brought his makeshift rags into the cave, the dragon would soon pick them up and dispose of them a good distance away while Derios had to run after her to rescue his work. A wonder she tolerated the fire in the cave, really.

Unlike Derios, the dragon seemed to react to the cold by sleeping more, almost the entire day by now. Sometimes her breathing slowed down to a level that, if Derios imitated it, made him feel like he was going to suffocate. He didn't know if dragons hibernated or merely held winter rest, but he didn't want to disturb her during this time, which was one more reason that had made him decide to spend the winter in the nearest village or town.

This day, the fourth day of snowfall, was the day Derios would depart.

Leaving

Kissing her muzzle a final time and vowing to her that he would return, he stepped out of the cave and just walked in a straight line. He tried to recall what he had seen whilst carried in her claws, but all he remembered was that they had flown over a large swath of forest and that the cave's entrance had been to the right when she had brought his bleeding and barely conscious body here.

The footprints he left in the snow concerned him a bit, but at least they helped him avoid walking in circles. To find his way back to the cave, Derios struck off the bark from trees at regular intervals, always pointing in the direction he came from. That, he hoped, wouldn't be too obvious to anyone passing through the forest and it would be hard to see the markers for what they were unless one was walking away from the cave.

Thus he marched, the doeskin rags slung over his chest and shoulders, across areas of dense shrub, colonies of pines and clearings. The coldness slowly receded from his legs as he sought to maintain his pace on the rough ground. All the while he continued to mark trees and in regular intervals check his footprints to see if he was walking straight until that, too, became a routine, leaving his thoughts to return to the dragon. Would she be wondering where he went? Was he allowed to leave?

In the months he had been with her, he had come to know her body, her character and her behavior quite well. She was a dragon alright, fiercely territorial, aggressive and sometimes easy to anger. But while those traits might as well be attributed to an animal, she often displayed a surprising ability to plan and to make decisions. Her saving of his life had been one such case.

Yet it made her even harder to figure out. The thing was this: if her intellect was as sophisticated as Derios believed - and by now he had little doubt about that - then her whole way of thinking had to be completely alien. Where humans helped each other, she relied only on herself. Where humans had ambitions, she just lived.

And where humans loved, what did dragons do?

Derios loved her so very much, without even knowing what facet of her his love had taken a hold on. Naturally, they hadn't held hands and hugged each other like a human pair might have. There was a different kind of closeness between them. But what exactly did he mean to her?

Back when they had become intimate, she hadn't shown the slightest reservation. Was that because they were... a couple now? Or was pleasure just a pastime with no deeper meaning to a dragon, something she could agree to on a whim, like a human eating an apple? For Derios at least, it had taken weeks until his hesitation had softened enough to seek her out.

All this circled in Derios' head while he marched for perhaps another two hours. He only became fully aware of his surroundings again when his steps led him into an area of the forest that had been picked clean of fallen branches, a sure sign that humans had collected their winter wood here. The snow looked like a tidy carpet, even and smooth apart from the chaotic lines of footprints that smaller animals had left in it.

A few minutes later, he reached the last line of trees, beyond which he could see a road that loosely followed the outskirts of the forest, snaking left and right along countless fields on the other side. In the distance, Derios could see a small hamlet unknown to him.

This was the moment when he had to improvise. He had pondered robbing some merchant or even peasant, or hiding his leather armor and claiming that he had been robbed himself, but now he had second thoughts. Besides the fact that this road was completely empty, he also didn't have any weapons. He decided to wait until the night and then steal some clothing from the hamlet, a plan that his conscience found much more agreeable than robbing another man face to face.

He would still hide his leather armor before embarking, he decided. If the worst happened and he was discovered, being a thief was still preferable to being an enemy soldier. The former would be lashed or put on the pillory, the latter would probably be killed on the spot - assuming that this was still Seliro and that King Hadric's campaign to conquer the country had been successful, of course.

After spending the better part of an hour unsuccessfully searching his surroundings for fox dens or rabbit burrows that he could use to hide the leather armor, Derios made his way to where the forest was closest to the hamlet. Should his armor be found, it would not be an immediate problem, he imagined, but he wasn't sure how the dragon would react to a man clothed differently, smelling differently and probably - hopefully! - having had enough food to properly sustain himself.

When finally he encountered a little brook that emerged from a slope, its water running through the washed out roots of several trees, he spotted several places the armor would fit into. The roots provided many cavities which were unlikely to be searched or revealed unless someone felled those trees.

But before exposing his body to the cold even more, Derios waited for the sun to set. It was a long wait, given that it was just past noon when he had arrived and he was forced to exercise his muscles several times to avoid stiff legs. When finally the night had come, he waited a bit longer yet until only few of the hamlet's houses still showed light through their windows.

Derios' tension rose when he stood up. This was it. The moment he would have to commit a crime. He stowed his armor under one of the roots, pushed a few leaves in front of it and walked to the edge of the forest, then out and across the fields. Most hamlets didn't keep a night watch, he knew, unless they had been given word about vagabonds or were robbed recently. Hopefully that was not the case now.

Criminal

Derios' hands shook as he reached for the door of the first house he had picked. He pushed gently, but it was locked. Should he break it? Too much noise. He moved off, carefully walking back across the brushed walkway to avoid the telltale sound of snow crunching under his shoes.

The next house was locked as well.

As he made his way to the third one, he heard muffled voices from another house across the street and decided to skip a few of the homes, both out of fear of being seen and because the talking would drown out the noises of someone moving inside the house.

His next try was, yet again, a locked door. Missing any other option, he continued, house by house, each time almost hoping that the next door he tested would be locked as well, postponing the scary part of sneaking around inside another man's house by one more door.

He had tried nearly a dozen doors when he found himself across the road from the rear side of the house with the voices. A coach was parked next to it and two horses had been leashed under a shelter. Derios' mind worked. There was no proper shelter for the coach. Which meant that the house was probably hosting a guest. A guest with a coach. Was all the baggage inside the house or had some perhaps remained in the coach?

Derios carefully crossed the road. The horses leaned against each other, sharing warmth and snoozing. He was sure that it would unsettle them, should they become awake while he tiptoed to the coach, so he pulled himself together and calmly walked over to the coach as if he had business there. The animals raised their heads, blowing to each other, then snorted a few times while Derios continued in calm, measured steps, making an effort to look as normal as possible.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog started barking. Derios tensed up again. He hadn't thought of dogs. At least it was not too close. Still keeping an air of normality around him, he reached the luggage space of the coach or opened it.

A whip. And an old, badly-worn pouch. He searched inside the pouch, but only found straw and two pieces of old wooden cutlery. Then he saw some kind of rag under the pouch that he first thought to be an old rag. He pulled it out. It was a perforated worker's cloth that had probably been used to wipe the coach clean, that much he noticed even in the dark. Derios dropped it again - even beggars had better clothes.

He moved around the coach to try the doors. The horses were still curiously eying him, so he chose the far side. With great care, he reached for the door handle. Locked. There was a square metal plaque with a keyhole, but in overall, the lock didn't seem to be very strong, given away by the fact that Derios could move the door forth and back by quite a bit. He pulled harder, hoping to silently force the bolt across the latch.

And succeeded.

Derios leaned into the coach. The floor was ruined and still wet, probably from when the coach's owner had stepped inside with snow on his feet. There was an old valise with many threadbare spots on the seating. It hit Derios like lightning. That was what he had been looking for. Derios grabbed the valise, closed the coach door and walked towards the house, watching the horses as if to say: "See, I'm just bringing the good man his valise."

Keeping close to the wall, where the snow was thinner, Derios went to the other side of the house and then hurriedly made his way out of the hamlet. He feared that any moment, someone might come out to check the horses or the coach. Once out of the hamlet, he sped up even more.

Only when he had put some distance between him and the crime scene did he dare to look back. The hamlet was as he had left it, dark and silent. Just in case, he crossed the field next to his earlier footprints - even if someone followed them, he hoped that they would be looking for the footprints leading away from the town, not towards it. Or at least that they wouldn't follow them all the way back. What would the dragon do if someone else came into the cave? They'd likely be dead the moment the dragon figured out they weren't Derios.

When he had reached the road, Derios' tension slowly ebbed away and was replaced by numb excitement; and maybe some guilt as well. He wouldn't need the entire valise and would have to get rid of it after he had his pick. For a moment, he pondered taking just a few pieces right then and there, so that he could bring the rest back to the coach, but he was too scared and wanted nothing more than to get as far away from the place as possible. Hopefully there would be some plain shirts and trousers in it and nothing fancy or unique that its rightful owner might recognize if he spotted Derios somewhere.

Aldgard

Derios wandered the road away from the hamlet for at least another hour and a half before he reached the next settlement. This one was much bigger with many lights still burning and a surrounding wall that protected the core of the city. Outside the wall, Derios counted rows of smaller houses that he couldn't clearly recognize as farms or workshops in the dark.

In his hand, he still carried the stolen valise. The cold gave him shivers, but the thought of opening the valise and ultimately dumping another man's belongings to rot still gnawed at him.

Unsure about the time that had passed, but guessing that it was well past midnight already, he retreated back into the forest and laid down on the valise in an attempt to get at least a bit of sleep for the night. His nerves, however, still hadn't settled as much as he had hoped and the nightly cold was even worse in the forest than it had been in the cave, so he kept thrashing around, facing this way and that way, until he decided to open the lid and make use of the stolen goods as a blanket.

At some point, sleep must have come over him for when he opened his eyes again, the sun was already a good hand's width above the horizon. He mustered himself. The valise was still under him and laid over his chest was a fine women's dress with green and white brocade stitched in an expensive pattern.

Derios gulped.

The thought had never occurred to him that the owner of the clothes might have been a woman. He immediately put the dress into the hollow of the open lid and looked at the other clothes. Those were a man's clothes, he saw with relief, but they had the colorful sleeves and noble-looking cuffs often worn by peddlers when they walked around the market place to draw attention.

Under the outfit, more clothes of lesser expense came to view, probably what the owner used to wear in his home. Derios dug through the collection in amazement. As a peasant, he had only ever possessed two sets of clothes and this valise contained so many of them. He picked some crumpled and torn trousers of brown color and a bland shirt that had already been yellowed by sweat.

For Derios, it was the kind of clothes he was used to wear, but the owner of the valise probably only wore them for the lowest of works. They wouldn't stand out in any way, but nevertheless, Derios resolved to improvise some dye at the nearest opportunity. Once he had slipped into the outfit, he stuffed the remaining things back into the valise, wondering for a moment whether the woman's dress might have been a present or just goods to sell, then bound the leather wraps tight and pushed the memento of his crime deep into the bushes.

After he had reached the road again, he noticed that there was bustling activity around the town. Smoke from a multitude of fires rose between the outlying buildings and people were carrying things back and forth through the city gates. When he walked past the first houses, he could see, and smell, what it was: all around him, men were boiling and scraping hides, tanning them and putting them out on stretchers. From the sheer number of tanners, this town could only be Aldgard, the place where much of the leather and cloth in the country originated.

Warily, Derios crossed the outskirts, then passed the city's main gate, large enough to allow three horse carts to go by each other. On both sides a guard kept watch, clothed in blue with three yellow swords - which his own country often derogatorily called feathers - painted on. Just as Derios thought: King Hadric had won the war. Thankfully, the endless come and go of servants, merchants and other people left them no time to check up on new faces. Most gate guards were useless anyway. They were either drunk, or arrogant, or both and could barely be trusted to close the gates, should the need arise.

Derios strolled through the streets, which were much busier than even the streets of Kilgard, Seliro's castle city. He inspected the houses, trying to find some place that might take him in as a servant or maybe just as a day laborer, but he had to pass long lines of ordinary homes before he even found a store. It was a pottery, filled with jugs and cups of all sizes, but when he asked for work, the potter was quick to point Derios to the door.

Next he entered the house of a carpenter, the odor of freshly cut wood a welcome change from the tanning smells that enveloped the city. The carpenter wasn't as harsh as the potter had been, but explained that he, too, could not afford another hand, at least not during the winter.

Outside the carpenter's shop again, Derios noted the regular cling-clang of a blacksmith at work some distance away. Horseshoes, handles, keys and nails were needed all year round, he mused, aiming for the direction he could hear the noise coming from. As he rounded the corner, he saw the smithy, looking more like a city home with an attached chicken house than a place fit for working metal. The blacksmith stood in front of it, holding a battered hammer in his hand which he used to deliver measured blows to a piece of red glowing iron that was likely to become a door hinge. When Derios stopped in front of the smithy, the man looked up.

Derios recognized him at once as Gustoph, the badly mannered blacksmith from castle Seliro. As quickly as he could, Derios turned away and walked back down the street. He passed one house, a second house then another house before he noticed that the hammering still hadn't resumed.

In midst of a few passers-by, he risked a look over his shoulder and felt his pulse quicken when he spotted the blacksmith still robed in his leather apron coming after him. Should he run? Was there a hiding place? Derios walked faster still, then, behind a group of people, steered into an alley between two houses.

Gustoph

Derios counted the seconds and just as he was about to peek his head out, Gustoph stepped in front of the alley. "Watcha doin' here lad? Dashin' around like some do-no-good!" he baited. But Derios kept his wits together - barely: "I'm... well, the winter, I mean I'm looking for work to get over the winter, because... my farm was taken."

Gustoph wasn't impressed: "Aye, they took ye farm and put ya'll in the castle. Rumor's goin' everyone donned armor and was sent out with tha knights. But that was the summer, lad."

The man looked seriously concerned, but somehow not like he wanted to placate Derios. There was benevolence in his rough voice. Derios took a moment to consider, then put his cards on the table - all but the black, dragon-shaped card, of course: "That's right. We lost. I survived. 'Hid in the forest. Then... well, I tried to wait it out. But winter came."

"Hush boy. We talk at ma place. Us plain people ain't bothered, but fightin' men, they send 'em away as slaves." Gustoph replied, the invitation confirming Derios' hunch that the gnarly man had other intentions than to deliver him to the guards.

Derios was led back to the tiny smithy and Gustoph showed him inside. The place was empty save a bench built into one of the walls and a big and sturdy table in front of it. Either Gustoph or the previous owner must have removed every last bit of furniture. Wooden cutlery and cracked plates lay on the table in disorder. Gustoph resumed the discussion: "Lookin' for work, are ye?"

"Looking to survive the winter," Derios replied matter-of-factly.

"Dammit, what's ye thinkin', me some fool to feed ya until yer belly bulges?" Gustoph reprimanded him immediately.

Feed him? Derios' eyes widened. The blacksmith was actually talking about providing him with work. "That's not what I meant. I'm willing to work," Derios retorted quickly, but Gustoph still wasn't happy: "Not good enough, lad, not good enough." He then mustered Derios and went on: "I was thinkin' of takin' you in. Could really use someone fetchin' coal an' iron. But I need no lazy twat not pullin' his weight!"

Derios knew that game. The man was trying to make him promise an arm and a leg, probably just for the enjoyment of nagging him with it should Derios not work hard enough for his liking. Derios thought it best to reply in kind but without promising anything out of the ordinary: "When I do work, I'm in it from head to toe. I farmed all my life and I'll be damned if I didn't know hard work!"

Gustoph laughed at the response, seeing himself beaten. "I know ya do," he replied. And with that, Derios was the blacksmith's... worker? Apprentice? Partner? Gustoph not once formally told Derios his position, but it was clear then and there between the two men that Derios wouldn't have to worry about surviving the winter.

"So, hidin' in the woods since the invasion. What shit idea is that then?" Gustoph wanted to know.

Derios explained, evading direct mention of the dragon: "I had company," then noticed that he should better not have told of any company at all.

Gustoph pressed on: "Company eh? More survivors I take it? Maybe yer whole company 'survived' before reachin' the enemy?"

That bastard was accusing him of deserting! Derios pulled his shirt up to show the wound in his side, red and still partially scabbed. He didn't wait for a reaction to put Gustoph in his place: "I'm the only survivor and it was not by running."

That was the first time in their discussion that Gustoph just stared, the wound being of the kind that might have killed or crippled a man even with proper care. The blacksmith took a few seconds to regain his balance, then acted his old self again: "So what's yer company? Roaming bandits? Pixies?"

Derios wasn't sure if Gustoph simply found enjoyment in putting him on edge or if it was the blacksmith's way of testing him out, but it was clear that the man took careful note of everything Derios said. There was no way, however, that Derios could talk about the dragon, so he evaded: "Just animals... one animal actually; that tolerated me in its cave."

He could see in Gustoph's eyes that he didn't believe a word of it, but after scratching the leathery skin on his forge-scarred arm, he simply nodded. Before Gustoph changed his mind, Derios tried to lead their talk in another direction: "So what are you doing here? What happened to your smithy at the castle?"

"Damn Prince is what happened. Baboon got gifted the whole darn castle by his fat old man. Brought his own 'smith with him. Castle's cooks, bowyers and folk got the boot, too," Gustoph blurted out. He sounded angry.

"Hadric gave the castle to his son? Which one?" Derios wanted to know.

"Phineas. Brat fears me makin' brittle weapons on purpose. Took ma armorer's license away and sent me off with 300 shillings," Gustoph spat out, quite literally at the end, his spittle forming a small wet spot on the floor next to the table.

300 shillings. Derios could have gotten a small herd of cows for that, but even he guessed that the blacksmith's stake in the castle smithy had to be worth several times as much.

After they had finished talking, Gustoph showed Derios around the smithy and explained the situation to him. The city already had a major blacksmith, Macgowan, but Gustoph wasn't willing to settle for a quiet place in a far-off settlement, so he had bought a house in Aldgard, reinforced the cellar and put a forge, grindstone, anvil and storage on top of it. A small smithy, even if it didn't look like it.

The neighbors weren't happy about the noise and Aldgard's resident blacksmith had ensured that Gustoph had a hard time getting iron and charcoal from anywhere, but Gustoph had fought and clawed his place into the city and was now well on his way up again. His old workers still remained at the castle smithy and he wouldn't be able to properly pay them anyway, Gustoph had explained, dropping the first hint as to what Derios' payment would look like.

Winter

Derios' days at the smithy saw him fetch coal to keep the forge fired, wrought iron where it could be obtained between the huge deliveries from the smelters, and water, sand or dirt as it was needed.

The city's colliers had all been bribed or pressured into giving Gustoph unfavorable offers, so the blacksmith had developed ways to circumvent them: he bought his coal in small amounts from several tanners and farmers who had taken up coal-making as a side job. Missing a horse or mule, Gustoph had resorted to a hand-pulled cart. Which, it goes without saying, was now Derios obligation to pull and fill several times a day.

Whenever the coal heap was big enough, Gustoph let Derios heat the forge and place irons in the embers, scolding him if he forgot the order in which to remove them. The temperature seemed to be one of the most important aspects of forging and indeed, Gustoph could tell how hot a piece of iron was just by looking at it. Once he had described all the different colors that iron glows at and in which order they appeared, but Derios had already forgotten again.

And just as well, since he neither wanted to become a blacksmith nor did Gustoph seem to be willing to properly teach him. The work was hard enough as it was and before long, Derios had a daily schedule that was just as busy as Gustoph's.

When in the evenings he could finally lay down to rest on some furs in the smithy's backroom, he often thought of the dragon. His own actions seemed more distant now that he was amongst humans again and sometimes, he even questioned his decisions. Dragons were creatures of great evil, yet he had bedded one and had left her with every intention of doing it again. Did he really want to live with a dragon? Could their relationship even endure?

He knew that she would never behave like a human lover, never hold him in her arms or whisper sweet things in his ears, but whenever he remembered her beautiful head and her clear eyes, Derios had to smile. Could it be that he had just embraced her to end his solitude? Or could it really be love?

When several weeks had passed by, Derios dared for the first time to ask Gustoph for a short leave. Derios needed to see her again to make sense of his feelings. Convincing Gustoph to let him off was not easy and when Derios had finally gotten the blacksmith to release him from work for a weekend after the turn of the year, he still had to listen to a lot of sharp remarks and do extra work until that time.

Gustoph had looked at him with suspicion when he found out that Derios had invested nearly all of his earnings at 3 pennies a week into a coat and prepared to leave the city, but a done deal was just that and Gustoph had to see him off.

The coat might not even have been necessary. Most of the snow had melted away in what was an unusually mild winter month. The landscape was a wet and muddy mess, as was the street once Derios reached the end of the cobbles. He thought long about whether he should take the leather armor with him - after all, being seen with it could still spell his demise - but the dragon only knew him with the armor on, so he thought it too risky to make his first appearance after several weeks in an entirely new coat, so he fetched it.

Finding one of the marked trees proved to be difficult, but when he finally did, he jogged to look for the second one in giddy anticipation. Several times, he had to backtrack until at last, after two hours of marching, he was on familiar ground again, crossing the small creek he had sated his thirst from and the clearing not far from the cave where she had tried to chase animals towards him in a thoroughly failed attempt to aid him hunting.

The cave was silent and Derios was very careful when he approached it, not entirely sure if he was acting silly or if he was indeed risking his life. When he stepped into the entrance, looking at the corner in which she always slept, he noticed that she had already spotted him, her yellow eyes tiredly mustering him before closing again, returning to sleep. At once, Derios felt happy and privileged at the unintentional show of trust from the dragon.

Derios hadn't expected her to have finished her winter rest, or whatever it might be called in dragons, but he wanted to spend some time by her side. He had, after all, made a declaration of love to her.

Originally, he had only sought to spell doom for the enemies that had slaughtered his division of innocent men turned into soldiers when he had freed her, but he had ended up not only freeing her, but unintentionally saved her from an axe swung at her neck.

There was no question that he would now do both deeds willingly and for her alone.

When he looked at the dragon's intimidating body in front of him, he felt his love for what lay behind it, a character alien and unlike any human, but dear to him in its every aspect. In those months he had spent with her, he had learnt that while she probably understood concepts like friendliness and hostility, her mind was very different from his own.

She hadn't made any attempts to stop him from going to see other humans. Did her trust run so deep or was it beyond her to reason that he might bring other humans to her cave? Derios wasn't even sure if a dragon was capable of love or if his credit with her would eventually run out.

Dragons were supposed to be aligned with the devil, common wisdom told. They brought death and destruction. How could he fall in love with such a creature? The idea that she might have put him under a spell of loyalty or love had crossed his mind, but the mere thought of a dragon wielding love spells against humans seemed a tad silly.

Derios spent the entire afternoon with her, watching her sleep while his mind ran in tireless loops. But his love and trust for the dragon remained, unaffected by all his ponderings.

When the sun already hung low over the horizon, he departed, leaving the broken and dirty leather armor in her cave as he was sure that she had recognized him before he had even stepped into her view. When he reached the last marked tree and the road to Aldgard again it was nearly dark.

The smithy was still emanating heat and he could see that the coal cart was partially filled with fresh coals. Gustoph must have been pulling it himself like in the time before Derios had become his helper. Inside the house, he found the blacksmith slightly drunk and holding a wooden mug of beer in his hand, evidently filled from a small keg that was standing on the house's only table.

Derios spent the next day resting, enjoying rare treats one only bought at special occasions and thinking about presents he could offer the dragon upon his return - which was now as final a decision as any. It would not be easy to convince Gustoph to let him go again come spring, but the dragon was what mattered in Derios' life now and if necessary, Derios would just disappear in the quiet of the night.

Rekindling

It was spring when Derios heard that a dragon had been sighted at Innsborough, a hamlet that was described to him just like the one he had stolen clothes from. The locals and some of the farmers around Aldgard seemed to know the dragon already, for it was known to come by once in a while to carry off a sheep or goat and had done so for many years.

Derios had of course inquired if anyone had ever done something about it, but, he had been told, while the loss of an animal was a great tragedy for its owner, nobody wanted to anger the great beast, for it had not demanded a virgin or other tribute so far. That explanation almost made Derios smirk.

The return of the dragon was the signal for him to gather his belongings and prepare to leave the city. Gustoph, although aware of Derios' plans since the turn of the year, was pretty angry and forced him to stay for another week to finish up orders he had accepted and to scale down his business accordingly.

Although the wage paid to him by the blacksmith had not been much, Derios had managed to buy some tools - a bucket, an axe, a knife, a flint and a bedroll. His clothes now included the coat and another shirt with matching trousers. He planned to keep the second set of clothes safe in his bedroll so that he might look presentable should he have to return to the city.

He crossed the forest in happy excitement, walking from marked tree to marked tree, through the clearing, past the stream and to her cave, no longer asking himself why he loved her or whether she did love him -­ all he needed and wanted now was to be with her.

As he closed in on the cave, just a few steps ahead of him, her head emerged from the mossy rock. Whether by smell or sound, she had noticed him coming and, had she not recognized him - Derios was suddenly acutely aware - her next action would have been to burn him or tear him to shreds.

Instead, she just watched him approach, until he was right beside her, marveling at her shining yellow eyes. The area around the cave was littered with bones and pieces of hide. Maybe it was good the he hadn't been available when she awoke, for she seemed to have been very hungry.

He was sure she wouldn't really have eaten him, given the chance. Quite sure.

Derios knelt down and kissed her snout. At first he was unsure, fearing she might see him as no more than a pest that had returned to trouble her again, but then they touched and it felt wonderful. Soon her tongue replied his advances, flicking against his own and entering his mouth like he had hers. Derios could have melted right there, melted under the once fearsome, now lovely head of a dragon that had by the tangles of life become the object of his love and his lust.

Now, as he had before the winter, he felt reassured that he meant something to her, too. Her eyes calmly rested on his own, as if telling him that it was okay to do this. After long moments, their kiss broke and Derios simply spread out on the floor, smiling as he watched the clouds wander in the sky. All was well with the world.

It took him a few days to accustom to life in the wild again. He braided grass and set up snares during the day while during the night, he slept in her cave. His cloak and bedroll made the still icy nights bearable, if not enjoyable knowing her next to him.

He also noticed himself attentively watching her movements again, following the sway of her hips and tail when she walked past him, her gait so very different from that of a human, yet gracious and alluring. The memory of the carnal act that had taken place between them was still firm in his memory. This time, his internal conflict was considerably smaller and he did not try to stop himself from watching and thinking about her hidden treasures. He even hoped that she would notice his gaze.

One morning when she had just walked out of the cave, catching the morning sun, he couldn't hold back anymore and came after her. His hands carefully reached under her tail, two arm's lengths from her hips, to be safe of her hind legs, then he used all his strength to lift it high above his head.

That caught her by surprise and he cursed his impulsiveness as he saw the tail twitch towards him in preparation for the strike. She stopped just short of smashing him into the wall, her hind legs already braced for the jump that would have wheeled her around. Derios' heart pounded, his hands still on her tail, now a mere finger's length from his head.

Slowly, the tail's weight increased again as she relaxed it onto his hands. Then her hind legs returned to their normal standing position, as if reoffering him to do what her shock reaction had interrupted him at. Her willingness would have heightened his arousal had he not just narrowly avoided his untimely end.

"Here lies Derios, crushed when he lifted a dragon's tail to look at its goods," his headstone would have said, if a particularly ballsy individual would have observed his death and paid for the burial.

Stopping now wouldn't be right, he decided once he had gathered some of his wits again and pushed her tail upwards - carefully this time. Even though her back was facing the cave, the low morning sun provided ample light and he lustily surveyed the valley under her hips, the inside of her powerful hind legs and the small scales that framed her sex.

He had looked at her before, in the light of the fire, had licked her folds and spread them with his hands. She had let him do all that, just as she let him bare her most vulnerable spots now.

Her tail felt strong and muscular in his hands and despite not knowing why as a human he could even appreciate it, holding it like this was an arousing thing to do all by itself, like holding his hands to a woman's buttocks maybe. He excitedly moved towards his goal, using his hands, like a man walking under a carpet would, to keep the tail above his head.

Naturally standing, her hips were at the height of his chest, forcing him to duck a bit and to hold her tail slightly upward as he reached her back. With care, he released one hand from it and ran it along her left hind leg, starting at her calf and tracing the inside to her haunch in a slow but forceful stroke so that she could feel him through her scales. Her legs were exquisitely shaped, strong and curved to put any woman to shame, though of course they were attached to her flanks, like it was in lizards. Then again, unlike a lizard, she passed them under her body when she walked, making her hips sway and rotate at the same time in an exotic, yet somehow familiar movement.

Without hesitation, he touched her sex, a long slit framed by smaller scales that felt incredibly smooth. They yielded to his fingers and her tail raised a bit further in response, another sign to him that she was willing to let him touch her this way again. He began to softly rub the two sides of the slit against each other with his fingers, seeking to arouse her for what was to follow.

In quiet amazement, he watched his hands play with her folds, the small scales on the outside driving the movement of the flesh within. Sometimes he altered his technique, twirling them around each other or pressing them down alternatingly, always watching her body for clues as to what she might like best. Soon her hind legs began to stiffen and he smelled her arousal, a musky and strange scent he still remembered from their last lovemaking.

This time, he had different plans, though, hatched when in long quiet nights his hand had found his loins in the smithy. When he believed that he had sufficiently wetted her appetite, he gently released her tail and walked around her body, ducking to pass under her folded wings. Her eyes beamed at him, restless with arousal, but her body remained still, available for him to do as he please.

Derios knelt down in front of her. Her head moved into just the right position for a kiss, expecting him to do the same, but having other intentions, he just softly kissed the end of her snout and licked across it once before he straightened up and released his manhood from his trousers.

She had seen it before - tested it with the tongue even. Would she understand this dirty game? In his fantasies, he had often imaged how her sleek black tongue would run along the underside of his shaft until he had spilled his seed in her mouth, the numerous teeth only heightening the excitement of the act.

Right now, those teeth looked pretty dangerous. But she had never hurt him, never even pushed him aside, he reassured himself. He gently pushed her head to his hips, then rested his maleness against her muzzle. Her tongue darted against it once, driving a jolt of excitement through his body. She didn't know what he wished, however, and just calmly waited for him to make his next move.

He held up his finger in imitation of his own erection and flicked his own tongue over it a few times. She didn't react. Then he used the same finger to stroke across the underside of his member, like a tongue lapping at it. If he had any doubt about her capability to think, it was washed away in an ocean of enjoyment the moment her tongue darted against his offering, first with hesitation, then firmer and then she lashed against it in regular quick and smooth strokes, stimulating the sensible flesh in just the right way.

Derios put his hands on the ground behind him and pushed his hips forward, boldly offering himself to her tongue. She had no experience and didn't know how to work a male, but just holding himself into this beautiful and deadly muzzle sensitized him so much that it felt more intense than anything else he had experienced. From his position, he could see her neck and even her back undulating slightly as her mouth worked him to incredible bliss.

This was even better than his fantasy. Derios dared not to disturb her in any way from the pleasure she brought him until he was already nearing his release. With great restrain, he bent his hips backward again. At first her head followed, then she understood he wished to stop and remained.

He immediately reached for her muzzle and kissed her as deeply and completely as he could. She should under no circumstance think that he might have stopped because she did something wrong. His thumbs stroked along the sides of her mouth and along the lines of teeth peeking out to its edges while his tongue traced the smaller teeth inside the end of her snout.

For a long while he remained thus, even when his kiss was finished he rested his forehead on her nose and closed his eyes, still running his hands along her head and neck.

When he got up and walked around to her backside again, their eyes rested in each other's, glazed over as if love-struck, until he had to duck under her wing. When he reached her flanks, she raised her tail into that up-and-slightly-sideways position he had seen before when she had invited him for the first time after he had fondled her.

He pressed his face between her hind legs until his lips contacted her sex. It was wet and protruded slightly, letting his tongue easily push between the folds when he alternatingly placed kisses along the outside and tasted her from the inside. She was ready.

Grabbing her hips, he pushed her rump down to the right height and she followed his guide, bending her hind legs until it looked as if she was kneeling. Derios was still strongly aroused from her tongue, but when their bodies had been in union in the past, he had driven her to the peak twice before he had reached his own release, so he hoped that they could now enjoy each other on equal terms.

He entered her slowly, guiding his member between her folds with his right hand. Her insides were already pulsing aggressively, showing him that their previous play had aroused her more than he had expected. There was no reason to doubt that she had known exactly what he had made her do with her tongue and why, he thought.

He initiated their dance by first easing out a bit, feeling her smooth inner flesh slide along his length, then pushing deep once more, advancing into the tight canal he knew was there from when he had explored her with his fingers in the past.

For a time, he kept that slow pace, ignoring their needs and only gliding his tip in and out of that hidden passageway to hold up their excitement, enjoying the expectation and longing he knew they both felt at this moment. Despite his deliberately slow pace, he could feel her spasms and the pressure of her walls around his member as well as the twitching of her muscles deep inside as they massaged its head. A feeling that would, if nature ran its course, only ever be felt by a male dragon.

All the time, the indescribable smell that enveloped her sex so strongly now and that he had learned to associate with desire coaxed him to increase his pace, but he only allowing himself to pick up speed very slowly, feeling her progress as well as his own until they both lingered near the edge of that blissful abyss, where he held them both with enduring patience.

After a while, she even started shifting her body forth and back to meet his pushes. It was so very different from relieving himself in a quiet corner. This was another living, feeling being. She was sharing and returning his pleasure. Her spasms acknowledged and gave back the enjoyment she was receiving and the mere act of dealing out pleasure returned an equal amount of satisfaction to his mind. They were both tensed, cramped even, and the world around them had for the moment ceased to exist.

He quickened his thrusts just a bit, enough to slowly, very slowly steer them both towards release. Each of them could completely feel the other now, each knew how close the other was, their rhythm no longer distinguishing between the two bodies. Her rump moved against his hips as if they were a single being, perfectly synchronized and knowing exactly when to stay or make a deeper push to ride the small peaks of arousal as they approached.

Their breath came hard and forceful as their bodies rocked against each other, still much slower than they would have, had they just sought for a quick release. The dragon's folded wings had raised almost behind her back and her head was pressed against the ground, curled to the side in passionate delight while her hind section kept dancing their slow dance. Derios' mind, too, was clouded with pleasure, all his had concentration focused on the point of their union.

Then he felt the shudder of release approach and he came, as she came around him. It was glorious, her tail shivered and the muscles inside and out twitched wildly, inviting him to spend all of his seed in her madly pulsing sex. Spurt after spurt he released and still he pumped into her slowly, until both had ridden every last wave of their ecstasy together and nothing was left in him.

Blank in mind, his body slumped onto hers, resting half on her tail and half on his arms that were now lying on her back flat on their elbows.

They remained like that for a long time before she eased forward, giving him time to shift his weight back to his own feet, and turned her head around to look at him. "I love you," she would have said if she could speak, he thought. And he loved her.

Farming

Having been a farmer before his life was turned upside-down, Derios knew that it was imperative to begin preparations early in the year and that in autumn, he would need a dry, dark and cool environment where cabbage, potatoes and carrots could be kept in sand beds to remain fresh during the winter.

Derios thought long and hard about how he could obtain plants and seeds without stealing them. One option was to sell the animal hides left over by his love - after cutting away the telltale claw rakes, of course. After all, Aldgard was a city full of tanners and he already knew many of them from his coal fetching work.

He could also gather herbs in the forest, since he knew a lot about them from his mother who had taught him their uses. Selling works of wood like small shelves, cups and trays would also be an option, but he only had a single knife and axe. Farming animals next to a dragon was probably not a good idea and he didn't have the money to buy even a hen, anyway.

It would be hard, but at least he could avoid taxes and tithe.

The equipment he had brought with him already made his life much easier. He could carry water into the cave in his bucket, use it for cooking and chop wood with his axe. The cooking was especially important to him because, as experience had shown that after weeks of grilled meat, even a watery stew of roots and mushrooms had its own appeal.

Meanwhile, the dragon seemed to follow a daily routine of hunting, flying and sunbathing on the rocks around her cave. Sometimes her hunts took place in the woods close by, but usually, she flew out of sight and came back carrying a deer, boar or even a wolf.

When it rained, she sometimes left the cave and bathed in the rain, spreading her wings and throwing the collected water against her body. Derios loved to watch this, as it looked almost like a dance when she angled her body this way and that way to splash the water against different places. Following each splash of water, she had to rebalance her body with the sudden movement of her wing muscle.

Upon her return from such a dance, she was often greeted by Derios protruding arousal, his mind no longer blind to the beauty of a dragon's body. Then, and at countless other opportunities, they found each other again, sating their needs in long and intense embraces of their bodies until each had given the other everything he could.

As the weeks turned, the ground slowly warmed enough for Derios to begin tilling the earth in a clearing not far from the cave. It took a long time to clear and prepare a sufficient area with only a digging stick, but the ground was fertile and most of it received enough sun to grow some basic plants once he would obtain them from the city.

It was a happy life, their love expressed so differently from a human pair, which would stand close together and share their time, but while Derios would once have deliberated about the difficulties of such a relationship, now he felt elated and alive like a young teenager in love. What he felt for the dragon was love, love like nothing else. If it meant turning his back on the world, that would be an insignificant sacrifice compared to what she was giving him simply by being there.

One day, Derios had just returned from a clearing he had marked for the planting of potatoes, he spotted a huntsman running away from him. Derios was immediately worried that he might have been found out and ran after the man, but eventually the huntsman reached a horse he must have arrived on and galloped away. Thoughts had raced in Derios head once again when he had walked back to the cave completely out of breath. In the best case, it was just some vagabond, but those didn't travel alone and on horses. Had he seen Derios' tilled field? His traps? Catching wild animals without permit was a serious offense.

Derios had a hard time sleeping that night, fearing that more people would be sent to inspect what the huntsman - if that's what the man had been - might have seen.

The next morning, after Derios had filled his bucket with water from the stream near the cave and sated his thirst, he began to feel very sick, a cold numbness spreading through his body that restricted his throat and made it hard to even walk back to the cave. When he looked for her, the dragon had already left for her usual morning hunt.

Derios sat down in front of the cave until it became too taxing to even sit and he laid on his back. He was on the verge of losing consciousness when after a loud thump and the sound of breaking branches, the dragon came out of the trees with unsteady steps. Her movements showed that she was likely affected by whatever had befallen Derios as well.

He tried to crawl over to her, seeing her shivering and greatly exerting herself to pull her weight towards to the cave. She looked at Derios and understood at once. They crawled toward each other, each step harder than the last, when horses and shouts sounded from another direction: "It's come down over there!" and "I think I can see it besides those rocks."

With all the might he had left in him Derios stood up, his whole body trembling, and tried to reach the dragon, to pull her into the cave somehow. He only stumbled and fell.

Moments later the riders rushed towards them, jumped from their horses and with lances and huge shields in their hands jogged to where Derios and the dragon lay. "What do you want?" Derios tried to shout but his throat barely let him breathe. He heard the dragon strain herself pulling in air to the depths of her lungs. Derios knew what would follow and pushed his head against the ground.

But instead of burning heat washing over him, he only heard the dragon make a coughing sound and as he lifted his head with tremendous effort, he saw dark liquid run from the corners of her mouth like tar. One of the men, who had taken momentary cover, shouted in excitement: "It worked! Signal the carriage!"

Someone stepped right behind Derios and shouted: "There's some poor fool lying around here" and got a reply from out of the bigger group of men: "Pick him up."

Derios felt himself being lifted by his arm. He pleaded with the man, his throat nearly blocked, whether by swelling or numbness he did not know: "Leave us alone! We'll go away!" but didn't receive a response. He saw the dragon try to snap up the men now surrounding her, but they kept their distance and it cost her visible effort to even move her head around.

When she tried to pounce forward, two of the men behind her drove their lances into her backside and she yowled.

"Noooo!" screamed Derios, his panic forcing the shout from his lungs. He threw himself towards the dragon, knocking the man holding him upright over and managing two steps before falling to the ground.

Then on his hands and knees, he tried to crawl forward to do something - anything - to help her. Once more he shouted: "Leave her alone!" loud enough to make a few of the men turn their heads.

Then he felt the man behind him put a knee on his back to constrain him. Derios tried to plead with the man to let him explain, to let him free, but his throat turned everything he said into a hard to understand whisper and the man holding him down either didn't understand or didn't care. When the effort of keeping his head up to watch the men standing around the dragon became too much, Derios rested it on the ground, still watching the men out of the corner of his eyes.

They didn't seem to be doing anything for a while and the dragon had lost her will to fight, too, at least for the moment. Eventually a carriage could be heard approaching, crushing twigs and branches under its wheels to the thumps of hooves hitting the ground. It came to a halt not far from Derios.

Someone shouted: "Muzzle it!"

Another group of men warily approached the dragon with a construct of leather straps, but she snapped at them, then tried to claw at the men on the other side of her head when they came nearer. She slowly crept forward, but like Derios, she was far too weakened to provide any resistance.

Now the men in front of her stabbed her with the lances and she yowled in pain. In tears Derios shouted: "No! Don't!" and desperately tried to worm free of the man holding him down.

Someone shouted the men off: "Put it on later! Pull her with this!"

Derios only saw what this was when the men let go of the leather harness and brought what looked like a large ox yoke. With dread Derios saw blades like knifes catch the light in the yoke's inside.

Now Derios really panicked and forced his body forward, shouting: "Bastards!"

The man behind him dunked Derios face into the dirt and called for his friend: "Hey Ulric. Help me hold this idiot down!"

"Pin its paws!" the monstrosity that had commanded the usage of the ox yoke instructed. Derios tore his arm free and punched his captor against the head. His weak legs turned what should have been a jump into a slow push forward. He howled at the men, dug his shaking hands into the grass and forced his body to crawl toward the dragon.

The men were driving their spears into her paws. When she turned to snatch away the lances, others pierced her neck and mouth, bloodying her beautiful head.

And Derios screams became even more desperate. He still could not make the men listen to him and his body was not responding.

Then, when she had turned her head to the right, one of the men ran up from the left and struck the bladed ox yoke onto the base of her neck. She tried to shake it off just as Derios tried to shake the two men from his back who were now kneeling on his arms. Tears streamed from his eyes while he cried and cursed the men, his mind clouded with pain and fear.

The spears pushed her bleeding head away and another of the swine clasped the ox yoke shut around her neck. They then used horses to pull her towards the carriage.

Derios' tortured screams rolled through the forest as the horses pulled. She tried in vain to push against the force, sending blood flowing down from her neck and was eventually forced to drag herself onto the carriage.

Someone bound the ox yoke to the front of the carriage while others put lances against her throat. The entire carriage was smeared with blood.

And still Derios trashed, flailed and screamed.

The carriage was driven off and someone finally freed Derios from his pain by knocking him unconscious.

Glory

Derios awoke in chains. No sooner had he opened his eyes than he did scream in bitter rage. He found his movement restrained by chains that bound his wrists to the wall. The room he was in had been turned into four cells by iron bars affixed to the floor and the ceiling, but that was all he allowed himself to observe before he tore at the chains like a madman and yelled insults at the world and everyone in it.

After a while someone entered the cell. Derios hissed at the man, swearing to kill him and everyone he held dear. He was promptly backhanded by an iron glove.

Derios awoke again the next morning, his cheek crusted with blood. Someone was lightly slapping his other cheek.

"Finally awake, are we?" a man in a black robe said with a soft voice like a mother would to a child.

"Where is she?" Derios spat in anger.

"And who would 'she' be?" the man replied.

"Where is the dragon?!" Derios screamed.

"That is none of your concern," the robed man explained, grabbing Derios by the throat before he could hurl insults at him.

"You'd do well to listen. The men told you were screaming for that dragon like a father whose child was taken away," Derios heard him say in a more serious voice. The man continued: "It is good that we have found you. I have seen many a man who was tempted by evil. But your soul may yet be saved."

He released Derios' throat. Derios did the only thing he could and shouted the man down, cursing him, wishing him to die while he tried to rip the chains from the wall.

The man just exaltedly turned around and walked away. At the door he spoke again, giving Derios two options: "You can either admit to communing with the devil and be cleansed by a tribunal or you can have your soul sent to your master on a pyre, after we have tortured the confession out of you." Then he was gone.

Derios sobbed in his cell. He was left alone for hours, until he heard a yowl from the dragon. She was close. And they were hurting her.

In blind rage he slammed into the chains holding his wrists again and again until his arms were bloody. And still he pulled and tore, shouting at her captors, his jailers and wishing them all to die a miserable dead. Over time he was reduced to a sobbing shadow only held up by the chains on his wrist again.

Late in the evening, the man with the iron gloves came back with a bowl. He stood in front of Derios and gave him the choice of letting the man feed him or having to suck the soup from his own clothes. Derios screamed at the man with renewed rage and was promptly splattered with burning soup. It tasted like rotten food cooked in dishwater.

Derios didn't know if he slept that night. He had heard them hurting the dragon several times more and he couldn't take it. His mind couldn't bear the world any longer and his tears ran freely from his cheeks.

When the black-robed man appeared again the next morning, Derios tried to bite his hand off. The man held onto the bite wound and left the cell with quick steps.

Moments later, iron glove came into the cell and punched his belly a few times. Then he whispered to Derios: "You'll have a much easier death if you just tell him what he wants to hear."

Derios accepted the soup that evening. He had pulled on his chains until his arms were burning and the pain in his wrists became too strong. The dragon could still be heard at various times, somehow muffled now.

The third morning, he just stared through the black robed man, ignoring his words, ignoring his presence, ignoring his existence.

The third evening, he asked iron glove if the dragon was still alive. Iron glove looked to the door, then told him: "Let it go. I don't care if you summoned it or pacted with it, Phineas will soon deal with it."

"Why?" Derios asked weakly. It was no specific why. Why do this to her? Why destroy their life? Why think she is hell spawn?

"Glory," iron glove simply said.

Derios pondered this word for a long time until finally it dawned upon him. Phineas wanted the title of dragon slayer. And doubtlessly, he would have the dragon drugged like before, leaving her no chance. Or maybe he would just deliver the final stroke to a carcass only still considered alive by the chest raising and lowering with its breath.

And like a bladed flower of invincible steel the determination to safe her, no matter the price, grew in Derios' mind. He would do whatever it takes, he would escape from this cell and free her at any cost and if he died he would come back from hell to save her.

Each day he pulled on his chains. Each day he listened for his love, her steps, her voice, anything.

After a week, they came to chain him to the floor, believing his hungering body to be too weak to offer much resistance.

When they had fastened the chains around his feet and removed the ones on his wrists, he slammed his fist into iron glove's face, breaking the man's nose. He elbowed the helper's stomach, kicked him to the ground and stomped into his neck. When the two guards outside tried to open the cell door to help their colleagues, he swung around and kicked the door as hard as he could.

The steel that had formed in Derios' mind drove his body, flawless and allowing no mistake, diving for the key that had fallen out of iron glove's hand, unlocking the chain on his foot and sprinting for the door just in time for the two guards to get up and come at him again with their maces.

With cold precision he ducked the first guard's swing, then broke the man's elbow and pushed him into the other guard. Without a moment's pause, he picked up the mace and smashed it into the fallen guard's face.

Then he ran for the door. Outside, a corridor and more cell doors. Derios made for the door at the end of the corridor. A storage area. And a surprised guard. The mace sank into the guard's belly.

Ignoring his own breathlessness, Derios ran on. Shouts came after him. Where was the dragon kept?

Stables. Horses. Another door.

Guards were running after him into the horse stable. He ran for the big double doors and rammed them open. Suddenly he stood in the inner ward of castle Seliro.

There he heard her muffled scream.

It came from the gated basement windows. He ran.

Before he had crossed the ward, he was slammed into the ground from behind. He immediately rolled around and tried to get his foot under his attacker.

Two more men reached him. He punched his attacker hard into the face, but the two men caught Derios' arms. He screamed like an animal. When the punched man had recovered and tried to return the favor, Derios used all his force to spin around. The men cursed and secured his arms again.

More men seized his feet, then Derios was knocked out once again.