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Chapter One

When I was young, I was always told our kind once ruled the world. I was held in awe as my parents told me tales of our greatness. How we filled the skies with color and grace, and looked down upon the world from soaring palaces carved into the rock façade of the very mountains themselves. We were kings to some, and Gods to others. We were great once, and the world should have been ours to rule for as long as we wished to rule it. Then, humanity came, and took everything from us. Humanity took our lands, our lives, and our pride. Now we slink on our bellies like fearful snakes, crawling through dank caverns and dark tunnels just to try and survive a few more wretched years.

In my youth, I foolishly thought something great yet awaited us. That we would one day rise once more into the brilliant blue skies, soaring free and unafraid. As I grew, and the false invincibility of childhood was slowly wrenched away from me, I came to realize that no such resurrection awaited my people. Our time had nearly passed, humanity had twisted our great destiny from our claws and left us with nothing but a slow, lingering death. My people faded from the earth, driven from existence by cold steel and colder hatred. Hunted nearly to extinction until isolation and fear were all that kept us alive. To venture too close to the humans was to die.

Perhaps, in a way, it was our fault. Was it our arrogance in trying to rule them that brought us to our bellies below their boots? Or was it misplaced kindness? Were we not hard enough on them? In my younger days, I often wished we had simply ground them to dust beneath our paws while we had the numbers and the strength to do so. Instead, we sat on our perches, and grew fat and arrogant while their numbers grew by the day, and they forged their weapons. By the time they discovered they could shoot us from the skies, we were already in decline, and our reign had come to an end.

Yet this was all long before my time. I know of our past through the tales my family told me as I grew. Bedtime stories for a hatchling eager to learn his place in the world, longing to hear the glories of his people with no way yet of understanding how hard his life would be, how those glories would never again come to pass. I grew through my formative years with these tales, tales that even for my parents were nearly ancient history for our kind. It had already been generations since we'd dared gather in any kind of number. The more of us there were in any one place, the easier it was for the humans to find us.

My elders, the parents of my parents, by some miracle had survived till well after my own hatching. They were just old enough to remember the time when we truly did fill the skies, when the towering gray and brown mountains, the endless emerald forests and the indigo arctic lakes were all still in the possession of dragons, with nary a human in sight to spoil our beautiful home.

It was through their lifetime, I think, that the humans completed their advance across our world. They will claim that it was always their world, but the dragons are a far older race then they are. There are just so damn many of them, that the humans have to take every bit of land they can find just to fit them all in.

Though my parents told me tales of greatness, my elders told me tales of hardship. They were there when we began to fall from the skies. When the slayers began to apply their disgusting trade, fueled by profits earned from our corpses, by a religion which decreed us monsters, and evil, and by a growing fervor among the humans that because a few of us may have done terrible things to them, all of us must die.

Granted, I am sure our retaliation, while no doubt just, did little to protect us, and much to fan the growing flames of hatred towards our species. Perhaps it was always meant to be. Humans, much like dragons though I am loathe to admit it, always considered themselves the blessed of the Gods. Or is that God? I can never be sure. Just as we once ruled the vestiges of humanity like kings, so too did humanity feel a great need, a great entitlement to take control of the world. I suppose in a way, we were all that stood in their way. I would like to think that now they have driven the last few surviving dragons into hiding, their own greed and hatred will tear at them like the claws of every dragon they ever slew, and tear their species apart. Yet I am not foolish enough to truly believe that will happen.

I grew bitter, and hateful of humanity as I aged. Seeing those I cared for taken from me by human hands certainly helped nurture that hatred, seeing others I loved forced to flee in a vain attempt to escape that growing mass of wretchedness twisted what little optimism I had left by the time I reached my adulthood into anger, and bitterness.

They had shattered our species like beautiful crystal against the jagged rocks of their ugly sprawl, burned the delicately woven tapestry of our future as surely as they burned our once-beautiful forests to the ground to make way for their bloated livestock. And as our forests were cleared, and we had no more game to hunt, we turned to that fattened herd to feed ourselves, to feed our children. And when the humans came to attack us to protect it, we turned to them, instead. I take some small measure of bitter satisfaction knowing that at least a few hatchlings feasted upon wretched human flesh, though I pity them the indigestion and bout of the runs it surely gave them.

And so as I aged through adulthood and grew nearer to being an elder myself, my resentment deepened. I hated humanity for what they had done to us, I hated my own kind for doing nothing to stop it, and I hated myself for giving up the greatest thing I'd ever had in life simply because my own foolish pride wouldn't allow me to finally give in to the humans, and flee as the last of my kind had already done.

I was the only one left in what had once been dragon lands, and despite the fact that with each passing year I could see their settlements growing closer and closer to my mountains, I remained in my home. Long ago I had made a choice I was alternately proud of and tortured by, and yet I would not change my mind now. I would live here, in the dragon's lands, until I died of old age, or the humans finally found me and put a lance in my chest.

In the last few years, I had begun to fear it would be the latter. Each year my daily flights took me closer and closer to the brown smears of human cities, despite the fact I flew the same distance from home as I always had. Much like the gray scales that were slowly creeping down my throat, replacing my once resplendently glossy black, humanity and old age were drawing ever more near, and I could do nothing to stop either.

To this day I do not truly know what possessed me to actually stop and help a human. If I were given a chance to repeat my actions without knowing the outcome, I'm not sure I would go back and save her this time. With so much anger and bitterness bubbling inside me like a long-spoiled stew threatening to bubble over the side of a rusted cooking pot, I truly do not know how or even why I found it in myself to protect her that day. I sometimes wonder if I simply felt as though I should do one good deed in my life, in the hopes that when the humans finally came to wrench my life and my lands from my grasps, whatever God might exist would smile upon me. Perhaps I just felt it was the right thing to do. Or maybe I was just getting older then I thought, and slowly going mad. Whatever the case, that day changed my life in ways I would never have conceived of even in my vividly imaginative youth.

I soared that day, as high as I could. For days before the sky had been a dull, leaden gray. Bumpy, swollen low hanging clouds resembled pregnant beasts mourning the fate of my people as they hovered above my world. Cold, misting rains coated the landscape, and made my daily hunts a chore. Coming home cold and wet every day put me in a dismal mood. True, it is easy enough for a dragon to pierce the belly of the clouds like claws through the soft flesh of prey, and there is something beautiful and almost unexplainably joyful about erupting through the cloud tops, and emerging from a world of chilly white into a brilliant, sunbathed sky. Humans would simply not understand. And yet to fill my belly I had to hunt, and to hunt I had to descend back through the dreary gray sprawl and return to the mist-cloaked world below. To some, the gentle rains and swirls of fog drifting through the towering pine trees might have seemed beautiful in a strange, ethereal way. But to a dragon, at least this dragon, venturing back from the endless blue of the sky and the warm light of the sun into the chilly fog and gloomy sky was simply depressing. Like returning from a past where dragons had the world in their paws, to a present where we struggled just to survive a little longer.

Perhaps I exaggerate a little. And yet, that is how I always felt about our people. It was merely the burden of being hatched in the twilight of my species, when our hope had long since been extinguished along with the fires of our once glorious kingdom. The sun had set upon dragon kind, and all that was left was to see how far into the night we could stretch the final threads of our existence.

When the sunlight and the azure expanse of the sky finally returned after days of rain, I found myself in an excellent mood. Though I did appreciate the heavy clouds for the fact they let me fly much further than usual without fear of being spotted by the sour-smelling masses, they also obscured the view I enjoyed so much. Though I could only imagine what it would have been like seeing many dragons sharing the skies with me, I could at least see nearly the same unspoiled view they had all no doubt enjoyed so many ages ago. So long as I kept somewhat near the mountain in which I made my home, the outreach of humanity was kept from my view. Venturing a little further away and I could make out the troublesome brown and gray blotches of growing cities, the smoke of fires and the dull brown lines of roads and trails.

I took to the skies that morning to enjoy the view, and to savor the simple pleasure of flying. There was little in life I enjoyed more than flying, though the same could be said for any dragon, I'm sure. From the first moment my mother and father took me into the skies with them, before my own wings were developed enough to hold my weight, I was enthralled by flight. I still vividly remember that afternoon when the two of them took turns holding me beneath their bellies as they flew, letting me spread my own wings and feel the wind rush across my scales, and my wing membranes for the very first time. It was exhilarating in a way I'd never experienced before, and that pleasure has diminished little throughout my life. The only way I can imagine flying to be even more satisfying would be back when there were no humans to fear on the ground, when I wouldn't have to worry about how far I flew or over what city I soared. These days, questions about the range of their archers, or if the city had ballista's deployed simply had to come into my mind if I was to be safe.

Yet despite the limits on my safe range, I simply loved to fly. I was once told by another of my kin, back when there were still a few of us around, that every dragon shared the same five favorite activities. At first I was dubious; surely some of us would like something more than these five things. Though when he explained to me what those five things were, I had to admit I found myself in complete agreement. A dragon's five favorite activities are sleeping, hunting, flying, eating, and mating. And I assure you, not in that order. While it has been an unpleasantly long time since I'd had the pleasure of mating, at least I was still able to experience the other four as often as I wished. Mind you, I am still perfectly able to experience the fifth, but lack of any local females makes it a moot point.

I suppose I digress. I am not used to telling tales.

That day I found myself flying as high as my wings would carry me. The air was thin, and cold, and scented with coming frost. Yet I flew and flew and flew until I feared I might pass out if I dared go any higher. Already my lungs burned with effort to draw in enough air to keep my body fueled with oxygen. The muscles along my back that powered my wings ached with the ceaseless beating, tendons along my wings stretched and burned. My massive heart pounded until it felt as though it would rattle the black and gray scales right off my body, and I could feel my blood endlessly pulsing through the chambers along my long neck, and in the minor-hearts near my tail and other areas that worked to properly regulate my blood flow through my body.

Up so high, cold winds rocked my body back and forth. The humans would not likely know, dragons are not true reptiles; rather, we are warm blooded like they are. So the cold air did not bother me, rather it was exhilarating in its intense chill. Each breath through my flared black nostrils sent ice deep inside my muzzle, where it was warmed long before it ever reached my lungs. My pale blue eyes were protected from the worst of the cold by a thin "flight membrane" that stretched across them when most needed. My vast black wings, now tipped and edged in gray, spread to their full extent when I felt a warmer current of air rising, tickling my wing membranes and teasing my belly scales like the playful caress of a mate. The thermal current lifted me even higher, and I spread my small, guide-sales along my tail out to take better advantage of it.

I was so wrapped up in the joy of flight that I almost didn't notice her scream.

Up so high, the sound reached me not with the piercing terror and anger with which it was given, but as a soft, fluttering sound nearly washed away by the great distance between screamer and dragon. As such it was curious noise, just enough to draw my attention. I dipped a wing and flicked a sail a little, and slowly began to turn to the right. The warm thermals beneath me were replaced once more by cooler air that no doubt made me appear as just a little less of a male. I told you, dragons are warm blooded. I beat my wings a few times to stay aloft, then spread them once more and began to glide ever so slowly downwards.

As I gradually sunk through the air, I surveyed all I could. Off to my right where the towering mountains which I called home. At the heart of the mountain range were snow-capped peaks that climbed so high into the sky that their range nearly exceeded my own. High enough that even in the heart of the relatively cool mountain summer, their white helms never disappeared enough to reveal their true faces. Just below them were a series of rugged, sprawling mountains of twisting gray and brown. There were few trees there, just an increasingly high series of naked rock ridges, folded up against each other. Here and there a few hardy, twisted trees had somehow taken hold in the sparse dirt between cracks in the rock like warts atop the back of some great plated beast. Come to think of it, the way the ridged brownish mountains eventually wrapped up in the more towering gray mountains made it look as though that very plated beast had long ago been petrified and locked together in un-ending combat with a taller, gray armored foe. Or when taken with the towering white crested peaks even further up, the mountains were like some great gray and white-ridged dragon had fallen to his death against an ocean of rolling, deeply creased reddish brown stones. Perhaps my imagination was still a bit more vivid then it should be.

Beneath the jagged gray peaks and the more weather-blasted brown slopes, the elevation grew gentler. From there the forest took full hold as if attempting to make up for its failure to claim the bare rock surface of the mountains above. The forest was a vast green ocean that spread out as far as I could see even from my great altitude, with the hills it covered forming the smoothly rolling waves of that emerald sea. Nearest the mountains the trees were mostly evergreens such as firs and spruces, and pines. Below them were trees just starting to change their color as autumn, like old age, was creeping ever closer. The roughly rounded leaves of white barked aspens were just shifting from glossy green and white beneath to a vibrant yellow. The yellow patterning emerging in the otherwise green forest looked like the warning markings on the back of a dangerous snake.

Oddly enough, it was within a clearing amidst those yellowing aspens that I found the source of the scream. The scent of wood smoke and cooking meats drifted up to me as I flew, and though it hadn't been all that long ago since I'd feasted upon a young buck with a broken leg, and bathed myself in the lake I found him near, the scent made my belly rumble. The others scents, though, made the spiny ridge along my neck rise, and the spiky crests behind my frilled ears flare out in fear and long dormant anger. Oiled leather, blood-caked steel, and the sour smell that always seemed to cling to humans whenever they were too hot, or too afraid.

I hissed through grit teeth. This was the closest humans had ever come to my home. The idea that they might have finally found me made me shiver far harder than the cold winds had done, my scales all clicked and rattled together. I was torn. I could simply fly away, and let them continue on their journey, hoping that weren't actually out here looking for me. Or I could land and strew pieces of them about the forest. That was my first instinct. But the risk might not be worth it. If they were not out here looking for me, their comrades might soon be when they discovered their friends torn apart and left to rot. I supposed I could dump them in the nearby lake, let their armor weigh them down. It seemed to have worked the last time humans came for me, though that was far from here.

Undecided, I dipped my wing again and circled the clearing to get a better look. I made sure to circle it as wide as I could while still being able to peer down into it. Humans rarely seemed to look up into the skies unless they had a reason too, and a vast shadow suddenly spilling across them would definitely be reason to look up. If the humans were not in fact out here to kill me, then there was no reason to give myself away.

There were five of them down in the clearing. From what I could tell so high above them, four of them were male, and the fifth was female. Three of the males were dressed in light armor, leather with studs of metal embedded in it, the fourth wearing some kind of chain mail across his chest, the little rings of steel glinted in the sunlight as he walked back and forth. One of the men was stoking a small fire; a crude spit with some kind of meat on it had been balanced on two notched sticks above the flames. The female meanwhile was on the ground. For a moment I thought she was resting.

I realized it was nothing so innocent when she struggled back to her feet, only to be knocked right back to the ground by the man in chain mail. This time she didn't scream, but I knew now what the sound I'd heard had been. The harsh laughter of the men drifted up to me, assaulting my frilled ears with its cruelty. For a little while, I lingered in the skies above them, lazily circling and watching. I didn't exactly pity her, she was after all a human, and she must have done something wrong. And though I hated humans, it had been many years since I'd had any contact with anyone else, curiosity compelled me to watch a little while longer.

The woman, dressed in a dirtied blue dress, attempted to stand once more. This time when the man tried to knock her back down, she caught him by the wrist and punched him in the throat. He stumbled back and fell to his knees, and I had to stop myself from laughing! That woman had some spirit, I had to give her that.

Two of the other man had soon grabbed her arms though, and as their leader rose back up, he gestured to the black scarred trunk of a large aspen tree at the edge of the clearing. Though my ears were sensitive enough to pick up her earlier scream and their laughter, I could not quite catch the orders he gave the other men. I circled once more, and watched as they pulled her up against the tree, twisting her arms behind it and holding her back against the trunk. I saw steel gleam in the sunlight as the man who seemed to be their leader pulled a knife from his hip, and pressed it against the struggling woman's throat. Her thrashing ceased for the moment, but I could see the defiance in her eyes even from my great height.

For some reason, it made me smile.

At first I thought they were going to kill her and be done with it. But with the knife at her throat, it seemed it was compliance they sought for now, not death. One of the men behind her took over control of both her arms, while the other knelt down and began to hike up her dress, pulling it all the way up over her hips. All four of them laughed at her as she struggled again, even against that knife's edge, and their laughter only grew when the man holding the blade put his other hand between her thighs.

My stomach twisted in revulsion. Human or not, that wasn't right. I had seen enough. My curiosity had turned to disgust, and I dipped my wing to turn away from them, and begin winging my way back home. Within a few wing beats guilt was already starting to eat at me. I tried to push it away. She was a human! She'd kill me if she had the chance. If those men where her friends and not her enemies and I landed, she would help them try to take my life. Why should I risk myself to help her? Even if I did help her, she'd tell the first soldiers she came across about the evil dragon who came and slew the men who...

Who were about to rape her.

Never in my life had I ever wanted to do anything to help a human. I hated them; I blamed them for our downfall, and for my own isolation, for the loneliness I had trouble admitting even to myself. For all I knew, this woman might be a dragon slayer herself. And yet, what had I done with my life? Here was a chance to do a good deed. Here was a chance to help someone.

I mulled it over a moment, and with a great sigh, I dipped my left wing hard, and spun back towards the clearing. I simply could not fly away and let them do that to her, human or not. It was strange for me to think about it. If they were only going to execute her, I'd probably have flown off and not given it another thought. But somehow, I could not let myself allow them to rape her. It was just too wrong.

"Vraalasothinox," I muttered aloud, using my full name. "You are going to get yourself killed, and for what, for a human? ...You stupid old soft hearted lizard."

I finished mumbling to myself just as I returned to the clearing. I was glad to see that my moments of self doubt had not given the leader of the men time to get started with her. Instead, he was fumbling with his trousers, trying to get his belt undone. Fine with me. Let him die with his mating tool out, it was still less humiliating then I thought he deserved. And much to my disgust, the man tending the fire was more concerned with turning the meat then he was with the fate of the woman about to be raped right behind him. Whoever she was, human or not, she deserved better than this.

She was going to get it.

I folded my wings against my body, and dove through the sky. Like a star of vengeance hurtled from the heavens I crashed into the clearing, landing with my full weight atop the body of the man crouched over the fire. Whatever scream he might have given was cut off immediately as his ribs splintered beneath my right paw, and his lungs were smashed through his sternum. My other front paw landed atop his head with the rest of my weight, bursting it like a rotten melon. The momentum of my dive carried us both forward a little bit, and while I hopped off of him, and over the fire, his corpse flopped right into the flames, igniting his hair and searing his leather armor to his skin.

Shaking his remains from my paws, I pivoted around immediately to face the other three men. Drawing a deep breath, I roared with more fury then I had ever imagined I held within myself. The terrible sound of my roar shook yellow leaves down from the tree above them, rattled the chain rings covering their leader's body, and shook the twigs on the forest floor. All my spines and crests flared up as I screamed my hatred at them. All three men clapped their hands over their ears in a vain attempt to drown out what I imagined as the worst sound they'd ever heard in their lives. As one, they screamed in terror. The woman would probably hear that sound in her nightmares for the rest of her life. So would the others, if I hadn't been about to kill them then and there.

Their leader was first. He would have been my initial target if he hadn't been so close to the woman I was trying to save. I didn't want to dive onto him and accidentally hurt her in the process. Now though, I had plenty of time and plenty of room. The man in the chain mail was suddenly struggling to button his breeches back up, backpedaling away from me. I was not about to give him that chance.

I bound forward, unsheathing my claws, and in an instant I had him in my grasp. He screamed as my talons broke through his chain mail and dug into the sides of his body, scraping his ribs. Rearing up onto my hind paws for just a moment; I hoisted him off the ground, and spun to the side, hurling him as hard as I could into the forest. He smashed into a small tree with a sickening crack. The tree splintered and broke, and so did his spine, leaving him a twisted and twitching heap upon the ground.

By now the other two men had the foresight to grab a weapon. They'd left swords and axes strewn haphazardly around the small clearing along with their other belongings. Apparently they were more interested in forcing themselves on a helpless woman then they were in keeping track of their things. One of them snatched up an ax as the other scrambled for his sword, and tried to get behind me. I didn't want to end up between them, well armored as I was I was not invincible and I knew it. Several old scars across my body attested to that. But I had no intention of losing my life to these scum among scum. If there was anything I hated more than humans, it was humans with enough cruelty to do what these men had intended.

As soon as the first man got near me, I spun again. Even as I aged, I remained a very agile dragon. This was nowhere near my first battle with humanity, and as a youth I had spent plenty of time wrestling and play fighting with other dragons. I danced around on my paws, whirling my body around and whipping my long tail out as swiftly as I could. By the time it hit the human's midsection it had enough force to shatter his ribs and send bone shrapnel shredding through his organs. The force of the blow sent him cart wheeling across the clearing in such a fashion it actually looked quite comical.

At least to me.

That left only one man, whom I half expected to take off running. Were I in his place, I imagine I would have fled from myself as soon as possible. But this human was either foolishly brave, or knew I couldn't let him flee to tell others of my existence anyway. He came at me from the side faster than I expected, lashing his sword out. I twisted my body, catching the blade sideways so that it scraped across my scales rather than getting a chance to bite into them. But before I could twist around again he stabbed at me a second time, this time driving his blade into the flesh of my foreleg.

Cold steel pierced my black scales and dug into my flesh. I screamed as the hot pain lanced through my leg, and stumbled away from him. Bright crimson dragon blood ran down my front leg, dripping off my paw. The human, thinking he had an advantage to press, came at me again as I stumbled to the side. As soon as he drew near, I stopped pretending to be more badly injured then I was, and turned on him. I saw the fear register in his eyes just before my claws caught the side of his head, and ripped his face off. He went down with a gurgling scream, and I quickly finished him off.

With all of them dead, that left just me and the woman I'd come to save. In a way, I felt good. Though I'd gotten my foreleg injured, I did not think the wound was deep, it would heal well enough. And I'd helped someone. That was rare for me. I had to admit, it felt good to do something kind for someone. To save someone from a terrible fate. Something told me that when those men had finished with her, they would have killed her. I'd saved her life. I'd...saved her life!

That made me smile a little more. And who knows, perhaps she'd even thank me for it, she might even tell her friends that a dragon, yes, a dragon, had saved her! I thought about that while I examined my injured front leg. The human's sword had pierced me just under my shoulder, but as I thought, the wound was not too deep. Painful, I'd limp for a little while, but in the long run, I was lucky to have scraped by with only one minor injury. Now, where was that human? I expected to get a "thank you", at least!

I turned my wedge shaped head back towards her just in time to see her swinging a rather large, sturdy tree limb over her head, and right down between my eyes. Pain shot through my head as the branch broke in half against my skull, and I cried out. I stumbled back a few steps as whirling motes of light popped into my vision, and I fell back onto my haunches with a groan. I lifted a paw to my head, thanking whatever God might listen for granting me such a thick skull.

"Oh, God," I moaned, leaning forward a little as I held my aching head, just below one of my elegantly arched horns. "What the hell did you-AWWWW!"

With her makeshift club shattered against my head, the woman turned to a new tactic. As soon as I'd flopped down onto my haunches she must have realized that I was in fact a male dragon, because she promptly kicked me in the testicles. I assure you that it is every bit as painful for a dragon as it is for a man. I cried out in shock and pain and hunched forward to clutch myself with a paw, my eyes crossing and tearing up. It was only the adrenaline of the battle that kept me from curling up on the ground and mewling like a hatchling for the rest of the afternoon.

That and the fact that while I was busy hoping I could still sire eggs, she was busy picking up the fallen man's sword. She came at me again, this time swinging not a club but a sword that was already stained with my blood. She was screaming incoherently, her face flushed scarlet, her emerald eyes shining with both terror, and fury. I supposed I couldn't blame her, much as I hated humans, she'd not doubt been raised to feel that way about my kind. I'm sure she didn't realize I had come to save her. Instead, she probably thought I had simply landed intending to slaughter and then devour everyone, including her.

Despite the fact that dragon pride demanded I bite her head off for what she'd just done, I didn't really want to have to hurt her. But I didn't want to get my head cut off, either! So as soon as she came near me, I lashed out with my free paw, making sure to keep my claws sheathed. Just before she could bring the sword down, I shoved her hard in the chest and sent her stumbling back. Rather like I had, after a few backpedaling steps she fell down onto her rump.

"Cut it out!" I snarled through pain clenched teeth. It took me a moment to realize that she probably didn't understand my growling and guttural syllables as words. It wasn't my fault that humans weren't smart enough to understand our language. Luckily, I had learned several of their languages long ago, thanks to well educated parents who wanted to ensure their children could negotiate with humans, should it ever come down to it.

Given that she was already picking up her sword again, it seemed as though it had come down to just that.

"I said cut it out!" I said in what I knew to be a human tongue, and when that didn't get much more reply, I tried it again in another language. This time I could see recognition dawn in her eyes, and I stuck with that language. In hindsight, it seems it was actually the common language of the humans of the area, though I hardly knew that at the time. "Stop it! I'm not here you hurt you, though I damn well want to now."

That might not have been the best way to state my case. Those admittedly striking green eyes widened with fear, and she stepped back, hefting her sword up into a combat stance. I had thought humans didn't teach their females to fight, but apparently I was wrong. Though I didn't want to find out just how good she was. I gave a pained sigh, and waved her off, lowering my head a little.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Then...then why..." She sounded confused.

"I saved your life!" I snapped at her, angrier with her then I probably should have been. I certainly couldn't blame her for thinking the worst. "I saved your life, and you kick me in the damn balls? Thanks a whole hell of a lot!"

Hearing that come out of a dragon's mouth definitely took her by surprise. She looked as though she couldn't tell whether she wanted to burst out laughing, or flee, screaming, from my eventual wrath. She slowly looked around at the dead men, making a face at the gruesome mess I'd made of them. I never claimed that dragons killed their enemies in a neat and orderly fashion. For a moment, I expected her to turn pale or even wretch from the sight of so much gore, and the scent of all the spilled blood that was now hanging heavy in the formerly fresh forest air, along with the smell of burned flesh, and hair. It was enough to make even my stomach heave a little...or perhaps that was just the pain from her kick. But rather then seem disgusted by it, she walked up to the nearest corpse, nudging it with a mud splattered boot. When the corpse didn't respond, she began to scream at it, calling it some rather creative names that made me laugh a little despite the pain. I decided that if she hadn't smashed a log over my head and kicked me in the last place a male dragon wants to be kicked, I'd probably like her.

For a human.

She slowly turned back towards me, still clutching the well worn hilt of the sword she'd taken off the dead man. Blood still ran down its length much as it ran down my front leg, though the flow had slowed down considerably. The realization of what had actually happened seemed to be slowly dawning on her. She didn't come any closer, and she pointed her sword at my muzzle as if threatening me to tell the truth.

"You...you saved me?"

"Yes," I repeated, growing increasingly irritated. "I saved your life. At least I think I did. I saved you from what they were going to do, anyway." I waved my paw at the corpses.

"You...you saved my life." When she repeated that yet again, I was starting to think she was a little slow! Had I just saved a dimwit? At least she explained herself eventually. "I mean, yes, yes...If you speak the truth, you saved my life. They took me out here to execute me. They...they wanted a little fun first."

"I don't care," I said bluntly. I hadn't exactly come down here to save her life, just her honor, as it were. Perhaps that sounded a little too cold, even for me. If she hadn't hurt me, I knew I wouldn't have said it.

She glanced down at her boots, and after a moment, she dropped the sword. I guess she must have trusted me at least a little, now. Either that or I was right about the dimwit thing. She slowly trudged over towards a tree, the same white barked aspen they'd held her up against, and as if the reality and gravity of her situation suddenly hit her completely for the very first time, she collapsed against it. She pulled her knees up to her chest, and buried her face in her hands, and started to cry.

For a little while, I let her cry. Eventually I pushed myself back to my feet, grimacing. Just my luck, as usual. I finally do one nice thing for a human, I truly try to help one of them, and what do I get in return? A kick in the balls. Literally. I decided that was the last time I was ever going to help a human. That was it, I was done with them. I never wanted to deal with them ever again.

How foolish I was to think that would be the end of it.

Chapter Two

I slowly picked my way around the clearing while she sat against the tree and cried. Over my long years I had developed a habit of taking something as a trophy every time I did battle with humans and triumphed. Usually a weapon, or a piece of armor, and in this case the sword that had pierced my front leg seemed appropriate for my purposes. I carefully picked the bloodied blade up in my paw and looked it over. It seemed like a well made enough weapon, not that I'd know. The blade was nicked enough to tell me it had been through more than one battle, the hilt and cross guard were simple steel and well worn, the hilt itself wrapped in leather. I set it down to see what else I could find.

While the woman cried, I did my best to ignore the rather grating sound of her sobs. I hadn't come down there to comfort her, I'd come down there to save her. And now that I'd done that, I was done with her. When I had finished searching for anything else I might want to take, I would return to the skies with my trophies and leave her to her sobs. Besides, she said they were going to execute her right? That must mean she was some kind of criminal, perhaps even a murderer. Maybe she'd go back and kill a few more humans, just for my sake. The thought made me smile, though I wasn't really sure I liked the idea of saving a murderer. Even I had never killed humans in cold blood, nor would I. Much as I hated them, I was not a murderer.

"You're not a murderer, are you?" I muttered just loud enough for her to hear before I could really think better of asking her.

She looked up at me with anger burning in her green eyes. For the first time I noticed she had blood on her face, trickling from her nose and lip where the man had been striking her. She immediately sought to quell her sobs, and pushed messy dark brown hair out of her face. She looked to have soft, fair skin, though it was clear she spent a decent amount of time out in the sunlight as well. From the disgusted look on her face, I could guess the answer to my own question, even though she didn't say a word.

"...Not a murderer, then." I licked my muzzle in amusement. "Well, that's good I suppose."

I went back to my looting. There were several packs laying around the camp, it looked as though the humans really had just tossed everything down randomly when they reached the clearing. Eager to claim their twisted prize, I suppose. I wondered briefly why they'd brought her all the way out here to execute her, and again I mused over what she might have done to deserve it. As long as she wasn't a murderer I didn't really care what she'd done. Probably just a petty thief. Easier to kill her then put her in a jail cell. Cheaper, too. Humans were like that I supposed.

I picked up the first bag and tore it apart to see what was inside. Nothing of interest to me, a blue tunic and some dirty breeches, a few stale smelling biscuits and a little dried meat. The next bag held more of the same, plus a few gold coins. Hardly of value to me, but I thought perhaps she might want them so I left them on the ground for her. By the time I'd emptied the third bag I was nearly resigned to not finding anything the least bit interesting.

I finally found the pack that the leader must have been carrying. It had an insignia on the back of it, which glancing around; I noticed at least one of the men also had on the shoulder of the tunic he wore beneath his apparently useless armor. It was a red triangle, edged in gold, with a silver sword emblazoned on the center of it. Probably the symbol of some local baron or king or army, I hardly kept up with human politics and monarchies. Though it did raise a few more possible reasons they might have wanted to execute her.

"What are you, some sort of rebel?" I glanced back at her, perking my ears in vague amusement.

She had stopped crying, but her face still lay inside her hands, her knees up against her chest. Her answer was somewhat muffled, but not so much that I couldn't catch it. "You ask a lot of questions for a dragon."

"I save a lot of humans for a dragon, too." Technically, I did. Saving one human was quite a lot by dragon standards. "You should show me a little more respect."

She heaved a sigh, and I remembered I was supposed to be ignoring her. Still, curiosity prickled at the base of the small spines that ran down my neck, and at the spiky crests flaring out behind my ears. She didn't exactly look like a rebel, but she'd held the sword as though she knew what she was doing with it. And the men I'd killed did appear to be soldiers of a sort. Still, in the end it didn't really matter, it was hardly a dragon's business.

I upended the bag of the leader, and a few more interesting bits toppled out. Rolls of cloth bandages. A rolled up scroll wrapped with a ribbon, a broken wax seal indicated it had already been read. There was a silver flask that probably held some kind of spirits. A few more gold coins, though these had markings I'd not yet seen, and I decided I would add them to my collection. I set them aside, and rifled through the other things that had been stowed in his pack. More stale biscuits, but also a sweet smelling flaky pastry of some kind which I popped into my muzzle. Not as good as it smelled. An extra uniform that seemed to be wrapped around something. I unrolled it, and then gave a little coo of appreciation at what a saw.

Finally, something of value. A sapphire jewel set into a golden pendant, hung on a lilac colored ribbon. Not that I would have anyone to hawk it too, but it would look good adorning my shelves with my other various treasures and trinkets. I held it up to see it sparkle in the sunlight, twisting it back and forth as it dangled from my paw. Yes, I would definitely be taking that, along with the coins and the bloodied sword, as well as the bandages and the flask. Everything else I'd burn, and the bodies I'd drop in the lake nearby.

A gasp drew my attention, and I turned my head to see the woman had risen to her feet, and was staring at the necklace. Showing less fear then she initially had, she walked towards me, her eyes wide, face flushed. "Is this yours?" I asked her, still holding it up.

"It was my mother's," she said softly.

"Well, it's mine now," I said with a smirk twisting across my muzzle. I had saved her after all, didn't I deserve a prize?

"But..." She started, then bit her lip and lowered her eyes. She sighed gently, and turned her eyes to the ground. She sniffed once, and wiped her eyes again. "Alright."

That wasn't exactly the reaction I'd expected. And while I had meant it when I said it was mine now, my belly twisted to see how willing she was to give it to me, despite the sorrow it's loss seemed to cause her. Apparently she was willing to part with something important to her considering I'd saved her life. It seemed a perfectly fair payment to me, after all nothing could be as important as her life. She walked back to the tree, and leaned her forehead up against it. I watched her for a little while, dismayed to feel my previously well-hidden conscience prodding the back of my mind to try and get me to do the right thing. Hadn't I already done enough of the right thing? A lot of good it had done me so far.

"Here," I grumbled, standing on three paws and holding the pendant out to her. "Take it."

She turned towards me, caution etched across her face. She took a few steps and stopped, not trusting me enough to get any closer. Smart girl, I thought, even though I hadn't planned to do anything but give her the pendant. "Come on, I'm not going to hurt you. I wouldn't save your life just to kill you myself, after all."

She thought that over, and ever so slowly came towards me, one small step a time. She truly looked as though she thought I was going to bite her hand off as soon it came within range. And perhaps, for a moment, I was tempted. She reached out with trembling fingers, and gently took the ribbon of the pendant. She slowly slide the ribbon off of my black scaled fingers, careful not to brush me at all as though she feared that somehow being a dragon was contagious.

As soon as she had the glittering sapphire pendant in her grasp, she took a quick step back and pulled it over her head, then kissed the sapphire jewel. When she looked up at me again, I snapped my jaws together in front of her face as though trying to bite her. She gave a little cry and stumbled back away from me, and when I burst out laughing, she glared at me, hands on her hips, as though I was not a dragon but an unruly child. Then again, I was sort of behaving like one.

"What's wrong with you? That's not funny!"

"Yes it is. You thought I was going to bite you."

"Of course I did, you're...you're a dragon!"

I smirked, lips curling across the edges of my muzzle to expose my fangs. "Yes, I am. So that automatically means I enjoy eating humans, and burning their villages, right?"

"I'm starting to think it does! First you say you saved my life, then you give me my pendant back, and I would have thought maybe you were different from other dragons, then you go and scare the hell out of me! So now I don't know what to think, other then you're a big scaly ass!"

I pulled my head back, blinking and folding my ears. For a moment, I actually felt guilty. I'd almost shown her that dragons were more than child-devouring, maiden-kidnapping monsters, and then I'd gone and screwed it up by acting like an ass, as she put it. The guilt was short lived, though. I turned away from her, and began to place the spare clothing and packs into the fire to burn the evidence of my rescue.

"Think what you want about me. Humans are all the same, anyway. All you ever do is take our land and kill us, you all think we're monsters."

"Maybe you are monsters!"

That made me cringe. I put another bag on the fire as it began to consume the clothing, growing beyond the little ring of stones and the half charred corpse of the human I'd pushed it. Typical human attitude. We looked like monsters, there for we were monsters. Sure, I'd just ripped a man's face off, but I did it to protect myself and to save the life of another. I sighed, and shook my head. The good mood I'd spent most of the day in and the satisfaction and joy I'd taken in helping another was quickly ebbing away as she seemed more and more like another typical human.

"If I'm such a monster, why did I save you? I didn't have to do that, you know." I flicked my tail towards her face, and she stepped back. "Or give you that pendant back."

Though I wasn't paying her much attention now, I could hear regret start to twist her voice as I imagined it twisted her face. I hadn't really expected my words to actually mean anything to a human, but it sounded as though she had, as though she'd actually started to regret calling me a monster. That would be a first.

"Maybe you took a day off from being a monster," she said softly, trying to smooth things over with what I hoped was a joke. When I just growled in irritation, I heard her sigh a little. "Why did you save me?" She sounded almost as confused and uncertain as I felt trying to answer that question.

I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and it immediately made me pin my ears back in distaste. "Because you needed it."

She walked around the fire to stand on the other side of it, in front of me again. For the first time since I'd landed, there was a small on her lips. A small one, but a smile nonetheless. She tilted her head a little, emerald eyes sparkling in the sunlight, hair falling to the side. "You really just came to help me because I needed it?"

I gave a plaintive whimper and turned my head away. That sounded terribly un-dragon-like of me, especially when it concerned a human. Was that really the only reason I'd come down here? Would I have helped anyone who needed it, or was it just this one time, just because of the sick nature of what they were going to do to her? I wasn't sure, and I didn't respond to her question. To my surprise, she laughed a little.

"You really did, didn't you." She folded her hands under her breasts, still smiling. "Are you getting embarrassed because you did something nice, instead of something evil?"

"I'm not evil," I grumbled under my breath, busying myself by putting the last of the belongings on the ever increasing fire. Greasy black smoke was rising from the man's corpse that was still hanging out of the flames, and the acrid scent was starting to burn my nostrils. I turned away from her, careful not to knock her over with my tail. "I'm going to drop these bodies into the lake nearby, unless you have a better idea."

She scrunched up her face, and shook her head. "No. By all means, get rid of them. I just thought...well, I thought you were going to eat them."

"Humans don't taste as good as you'd think," I said, chuckling to myself, hoping that horrified her as much as I hoped it might. I was telling her the truth, though. I had eaten humans, and I had not particularly enjoyed them. At the time, I'd been badly wounded and unable to easily hunt, so it seemed perfectly fitting that the dragon slayers who had nearly taken my life should be used to sustain it instead. After all, I had to eat something while I healed! "Besides, I ate not long ago."

I dragged the burning corpse from the fire, and rolled it around a few times to put the flames out. I wanted it to cool down a little before I carried it off, I didn't want to burn my tender paw pads. I pulled the other corpses together, deciding which one I wanted to carry first. The lake was not far away, but it would be easier to fly there and back then to try and drag them through the forest. Already my shoulder was starting to hurt even more just walking around the clearing, and I didn't want to put any additional strain on it. I could carry one human at a time, and make a few short flights back and forth.

"You're hurt," the woman said as she walked up alongside me.

"Yes, you hit me with a stick, remember?" I chuckled a little.

"I kicked you in the crotch, too," she added with a little smirk of her own.

"Yes, that is rather hard to forget. What is your point?"

"Let me bandage your shoulder for you. It's the least I can do."

I glanced back at my shoulder. The bleeding that had nearly stopped had started again while I'd been dragging bodies around. I twisted my head around on my long neck and pushed my shoulder forward, licking at the wound as best I could. The saliva of dragons naturally helped to keep our wounds from getting infected and to slow bleeding, and I was used enough to the taste of my own blood from wounds in the past.

"It will heal," I said, turning my blue eyes back to her.

"It will heal faster if I bandage it," she said, her voice a little firmer then I would have expected anyone to talk to a dragon. She was nearly as stubborn as I was. If she hadn't been a human, I might have liked her just a little.

"Very well. Let me get rid of these bodies, first, because my shoulder's going to bleed again by the time I'm done."

With giving her a chance to respond, I took to the air, dragging one of the dead men up into the sky by his legs. The body dangled limply from my claws, blood dribbled and trailed back to the ground in macabre crimson streams that painted the forest floor, and soon drew crimson trails across the yellow leaves of the autumnal aspens. It wasn't as clean a battle scene as I would like to have left it. But finding a few weapons and trails of blood was better than finding dead men obviously slain by a dragon. Then again, if anyone did find the clearing, they'd no doubt find footprints, scales I'd lost, other evidence of my existence. Perhaps I was wasting my effort. The bodies would likely wash up, anyway. I could only hope that despite the fact this was the closest I'd ever seen humans to my home, should anyone find the remains of the dead soldiers they wouldn't be able to trace them well enough to send a legion of their kin scaling my mountain intent on my head.

I had soon reached the lake, and I circled around it a few times. It was a beautiful little spot, deep azure blue with trees all the way up around it's banks, surrounding it with eddies of dark green and pale yellow. I hated to spoil it with humanities' leavings. But old habits died hard, and any time I'd had to kill humans in the past I did what I could to hide the remnants of my victory, lest I draw the ire of their masses. I released the body and watched it plummet through the air, it spun lazily around as it fell, dark blood stained hair whipping behind it before it hit the water with a loud splash. The body vanished beneath the once-placid surface, waves rippling in its wake as fat droplets tossed up by the impact rained right back down to their source. For now, the heavy metal studs in the armor seemed enough to drag the body to the bottom, but I had no way of knowing how long it would stay there.

Before long I had completed four trips out to the lake and back. On the last trip I stashed the weapons and anything that wouldn't burn into the last bag, and dumped them all into the lake as well, saving the bag for my own trophies. I wished I could have done it in one trip, maybe two, but despite being much larger then a human, we are not as large as your legends often make us out to be. Yes, I am bigger then a horse, or a bear, but not ridiculously so. No, I am not bigger then a large house. Yes, I can crush a human's skull beneath my paw, but saw can a human with a hammer. No, I cannot swallow you whole, though I certainly wish I could. I can carry one dead human in my grasp, or I suppose, one live human. I could probably even carry one on my back, maybe even two if I wasn't flying. My wings were only designed to support my weight, after all, not also that of a few fat humans too lazy to use their own damn legs.

By the time I returned to the clearing, my shoulder was now aching worse then any other part of my body, and considering what else had happened to me, that was dismaying. The flight and the exertion of carrying bodies around had definitely worsened the wound. It would still heal up just fine, it would just take a little longer and cause me a little more pain. Blood already stained my black scaled leg in dry red rivulets, and more of it was starting to seep out now as well.

The woman had already laid out some bandages by the time I returned. Honestly I was a little surprised; I had expected her to leave while I was gone. I wouldn't have minded, I didn't exactly like the idea of letting a human do anything for me, let alone bandage my wound, but since she was still here, I wasn't going to refuse. I dropped down near the center of the clearing, and trotted to a stop, then folded my wings against my back.

"Let's get this over with, and we can both go our separate ways."

The woman approached me with a strip of bandage cloth, and the silver flask of spirits, which I had been intending to drink that evening. Before I could tell her I planned on consuming them myself, she was already pouring them out on the cloth. And before I could tell her that she'd damn well better not try cleaning my wound with the spirit-soaked cloth, she had already pressed it against my shoulder.

"GraaaAAAAH!" I screamed as fire erupted in my wound. It felt as though she'd poured straight lamp oil into the open muscle of my leg and lit it aflame. My claws unsheathed against the forest floor, I lashed my tail and squeezed my eyes shut. Gritting my teeth, I snarled as she started to rub the wound with the cloth. "Stop it, stop!"

Rather than stop, she actually dared admonish me! "Don't be a baby. I have to clean it, or it will get infected. How knows what kind of filth was on that blade."

She had a point, but I didn't like the way she put it to me. "I am not a baby, but that hurts, damn it!"

She turned her head to smile at me. "And I always thought you were supposed to be tough." Then she patted my shoulder above the cloth, softening her tone. "I know it hurts, but it could get dangerously infected if I don't do this. I'm almost done."

I noticed she had cleaned up her face while I was away. Her nose and lip had stopped bleeding, and she'd washed the dried blood and dirt away from her skin, possibly with some of the same spirits she was now applying to my wounded shoulder. For a human, I had to admit she had an odd sort of beauty I'd not seen in her kind before. Perhaps it was just that unlike every other human I'd met in person, she wasn't trying to kill me. Then again, unlike every other human I'd met in person, I wasn't trying to kill her, either. I couldn't help wondering if we were the first dragon and human to ever help each other.

"You don't seem so scared of me now."

She finally, mercifully, pulled the cloth away from my wound, and began to wipe off the rest of the dried blood from along my leg, polishing my scales without realizing it. "Honestly I am, a little bit. I came over here to clean your wound as quickly as I could because I knew if I spent too much time thinking about it, I'd have a harder time coming over here and touching you." She looked up at me, and then looked away again, I thought I saw a hint of shame coloring her cheeks, but I wasn't all that good at recognizing human expressions. "You were right about what you said, earlier. We _do_think you're all monsters. When you landed and attacked those bastards, it never even crossed my mind that you might be here to help me. I just thought you saw an easy meal, or easy prey to torment. It's just..."

"That's all you were ever taught about dragons," I finished for her. "That's all humans are ever taught about us."

Kneeling down to wipe blood off my paw, she nodded, unable to meet my gaze. "Right. I'd never even seen one up close, before. Only once, as a child had I even seen one, and that was at a distance, in the sky. I was fascinated, though. At least, until I was told what dragons really were."

"Monsters?" I guessed, with a bitter laugh.

She cringed, and I realized my laugh probably sounded like a growl to her. "We were taught that you...that you're evil. That those who kill you are heroes, doing God's work. I wasn't sure I believed it as a child, when I read storybooks with pictures of dragons, I felt bad when the dragons died at the end. But..."

"You believe what you're told."

She'd stopped washing my leg and paw now, and was just staring at the bloodied cloth in her hands. It must have been very strange, for her. Only a few hours ago, she had a knife to her throat, and men about to take turns forcing themselves on her. She'd heard her entire life that dragons were creatures of evil, and yet, here was the first one she'd seen in person, shedding blood to protect her. If I had much concern for irony, I might have smiled at that. But I didn't. Besides, it wasn't like it mattered if one human came to see that maybe one dragon wasn't quite as bad as she thought we were. Our race had already overstayed it's time on this earth.

"We traveled through a village, when I was very young, in the spring. Traveling to a summer festival. It was a beautiful little vibrant village. I remember thinking it has the most beautiful windmill I'd ever seen! When we came back a few weeks later, the village had been burned to the ground. The windmill toppled over into their little church, and most of the people died. They said a dragon had done it, and we were told that dragon slayers had cornered and killed the dragon nearby. My parents took me as far from that village as fast as they could, and...I didn't feel sorry for the dragons anymore."

"Was it true?"

"What?" She finally looked up at me again, as if she didn't understand my question.

"Was it true that it was a dragon?"

"I have no idea," she said softly, standing back up. "I always thought it was. I have no reason to believe it wasn't a dragon. After that, whenever I heard stories of dragons doing terrible things, I believed them."

"Why wouldn't you. You hate dragons, don't you?"

"I..." She didn't seem to know how to answer that question. Finally, she gave a little sigh, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. "Let me get those bandages."

I stared at her back as she walked away, then crouched down to pick up the bandage roll. "It's alright if you hate us," I said softly. "It makes no difference to me."

She walked back towards me, unrolling the bandages as she approached. "Do you hate humans?"

"Yes," I answered honestly. No reason to lie to her.

"Why?" She asked, apparently not the least bit surprised by my response.

I thought about the question as she began to wrap the bandages around the top of my front leg. I cringed a little at the pressure on my wound, but it was hardly as painful as having the wound cleaned with those damn spirits. I was starting to wonder if there was anything left in the flask. After the day I'd had and the turn this conversation had taken, I was more then ready for a drink. Still, considering I'd never before had a conversation with a human that consisted of much more then "Die foul beast" and various insulting references on my part to various parts of my anatomy, I supposed the conversation could be going worse. She seemed surprisingly intelligent and open minded for a human. That was a trait I'd honestly not expected to find.

"Because you wiped us out," I finally said. "In another generation or two, we'll be gone, and you'll declare a moral victory over our species. You'll celebrate for a little while, and then we'll be forgotten. All our grand deeds and accomplishments and everything we ever were will be gone from this world for good, and humanity will celebrate that. And then, they too will forget us."

She was silent as she wrapped the bandages around my arm. I wasn't really sure what I expected her to say. If she was any other human, I would have expected her to laugh at me, or to tell me the world would be better off without us. But as she seemed to be the first human I'd met with genuine intelligence, maybe even compassion, I didn't really think she'd say anything like that. Instead, I thought perhaps she'd tell me she was sorry. Apologize on behalf of her species for what it had done to mine. But she didn't say that, either.

Instead, she remained totally silent while she wrapped the bandages around my shoulder, and finally tied them off. They were a little snugger then I would have liked, and already they felt itchy against my scales. Unlike a lizard that sheds his skin, dragon's scales are more individual then that. While we sometimes lose them, and they grow in again, they are not interconnected and shed-able the way a reptile's are. Rather they are each connected to our skin by tiny bits of flesh and nerves. When we get too hot, they separate and rise slightly to allow our skin to cool. If we're cold, they are pulled more tightly together. And because a tiny bundle of nerves helps connect them, they transfer sensation nearly as well as I imagine a human's skin does. Not quite as well as the tender skin of our paw pads, but quite close. And the bandages were already making them itch.

Finally, when she had finished bandaging my leg, she spoke. But it was not the answer I had expected. "I don't hate you."

I wasn't sure if she meant she didn't hate dragons, or she didn't hate me, individually. But I took a guess that it was the latter. A small smile creased the fine, pebbly scales of my snout, and my eye ridges lowered a bit I glanced away in embarrassment. I felt as though I'd made a fool of myself ranting about why I hated humanity, when she didn't even hate me, but it was too late for that. "I don't hate you either."

"Even though I'm a human?" There was just a hint of sarcasm in her voice as she examined the bandage job she'd done.

"You're the only human I don't hate."

"Well, it's nice not to be hated."

I finally turned my head back to her. "Yes, I suppose it is."

She smiled at her, tilting her head. "May...may I touch you?"

That request surprised me, and I pulled my head back, my neck curling into an S shape. Her eyes widened a little, she probably thought she'd offended me by asking. She hadn't, she'd just caught me off guard. I tilted my wedge shaped head a little, swiveling my ears forward, spiny crests rising. "You just did touch me, didn't you?

She rubbed her hands together, giving me a surprisingly shy smile. She tucked her hair back behind her ears on both sides of her head. Hair must be very annoying at times, I thought, before she explained herself. "If you don't mind, I'd like to touch your face. You're not what I expected from a dragon, and if I ever meet one again, it will probably be as enemies."

To my surprise, my heart sank at that. It almost seemed as though we'd made some sort of minor breakthrough. You know, by not trying to kill each other at first sight, the way dragons and humans usually did. It saddened me some to think our little revelation here would be lost amidst the long river of time, washed away by all the blood both our species had shed on each other's swords and claws. No sense in letting the moment go to waste.

"Yes, you may touch me."

She slowly reached out, and gently touched the tip of my nose, resting her hand just between my nostrils. Her fingers were warm, and soft, her touch very gentle as though she feared she might hurt me. She began to gently rub the tip of my black scaled muzzle, all around my nostrils. The small smile that lingered on her face slowly grew wider as she touched me.

"You're soft, and warm." She sounded surprised.

I imagined she must have expected me to feel cold, and rough like a true lizard. I chose my words carefully, not wanting to insult her as I tried to explain. "Dragons aren't lizards, we're warm blooded, just like you are. And yes, the area near my nose is very soft."

It was actually one of the softest parts of my body. Though the scales that covered my back and sides were much broader, and rougher, the scales that covered my face and all down my muzzle were much finer and softer. Further up my face they were more pebbly textured, but towards my nose they grew soft and pliable, and my nostrils themselves were nearly as soft as well worked leather. The exact patterning and texture of each dragon's face was slightly unique, I suppose the way humans all have individual fingerprints. Up close, she could probably see my face was far more expressive them she might ever have imagined.

I found myself enjoying her touch despite my attempts not too. I'd never been touched in a gentle way by a human before, and it was far nicer then I'd expected, comforting in a strange way. She moved her soft fingers up my muzzle, towards my eyes, and soon she was gently rubbing the fine scales of my cheek. Since I didn't stop her, she continued her explanations. She ran her fingers along the frilled edge of my pointed black ear, all the way up to its gray tip. Then she moved her hand behind it, to the spiny crest the lay just past my ear.

"What's this? Do you have four ears?"

"Four ears?" I blinked, and shook my head, but didn't pull it away from her touch. "Of course not. We call those our crests. We all have them."

I flared my crests to show them off to her. A dragon's crests consisted of three rather mobile spines attached to our heads behind our ears with a thin membrane connecting them together. A little like the membrane of our wings. "They react to our emotions," I explained, spreading them out as far as I could. She ran her fingers down one of the spines, touched it's rather sharp tip, and then gently rubbed the membranes. I couldn't help but shiver, like the surface of our wings, our crests were quite sensitive. She laughed at the way my shiver caused my scales to click together, and I folded my crests back against my head.

"Does that tickle?"

I blinked. That wasn't the way I would put it, but it was close enough. "A little bit. It feels nice, though." Almost too nice. I used to tease my mate's crests that way when we were alone, though I didn't think this human needed to know that.

"What about the one on top of your head?"

"That's a crest as well, though it forms more of a spiny ridge down the back of my neck. All three of them are sensitive, so are my ears, and my nose. And the very base of my horns, where they come out of my head."

"Here?" She moved her hand to the base of one of my two elegant, dark gray horns. My horns sprouted from the crown of my skull, arched away from my head, and eventually just began to turn back inward before they end in sharp points. They were not smooth like the horns of a bull, rather somewhat ridged and spiraled like those of an exotic goat, though I felt dirty making that reference.

I murmured a little as she began to scratch around the base of my right horn. The scales there were very thin where the horn sprouted, and susceptible to itching. Before I could stop myself, I was leaning my whole head into her touch, and a velvet rumble began to creep up my throat and ooze out of me. Damn it, I was purring! I had never purred to a human for, and I was damn well not going to start now. Only, I already had.

"Is that..."

"Yes," I said with a resigned sigh. "It's a purr."

"I didn't know dragons could purr."

I wouldn't think that any human knew that. I finally pulled my head back from her touch with a little chuckle. "Don't go spreading it around. I have a reputation to keep up, you know."

She let her hand come to rest at her side, still smiling just a little as my purr trailed off. "So you'd rather people think you're just as evil as the stories say then let them know you purr when someone pets you?"

"Yes, I would. And you did not pet me. You only imagined it." Finding myself entirely too playful with this human, I turned away from her, careful again not to smack her with my tail. "Well, you've had your chance to touch me, so...we should go our separate ways before we remember to hate each other."

She was silent for a little while, and I finally glanced back over myself to see her nudging a little pile of dirt with the toe of her boot. When she realized I was watching, she looked up, met my eyes, and glanced away. "You have beautiful eyes."

That caught me so off guard I nearly swallowed my own tongue. No one had complimented me on my eyes since my mate, and I had never expected anything like that from a human. I coughed a little, cleared my throat with a growl, and tried to find words I couldn't quite grasp now matter how many times I snatched at them.

"I never knew dragons had such beautiful eyes. So clear, and blue. I...I hope that's alright for me to say. I just thought...well, you deserved a compliment from a human, at least once."

I was starting to get uncomfortable. She was making it awfully hard to hate her species right now! And strangely, some part of me liked getting that compliment from her. Stranger yet, some part of me wished to return the compliment to her. My own eyes were so icy pale blue that my parents had once compared them to the deeply buried ice of a glacier, hidden away in the highest peaks of the mountains we shared when I was still young, and still with them. My mate once told me they were like the midday sky viewed through a pale filter of sleep. I'm still not sure what that means, but I always liked it.

"Thank you," I said softly, casting my gaze down to my paws, and taking a few steps away from her. I had spent enough time in her company, I thought.

"No, thank you, for saving me."

Soft as her voice was, I could tell she truly meant that. It occurred to me then that she hadn't thanked me for saving her life until just now. Perhaps she felt she should wait until she realized I was sincere in my desire to do just that, and to make sure I did not expect anything in return. "You're welcome," I replied just as softly. "You should go home now. I'm going to do the same."

"I can't," she said, walking to another tree. She sat down and leaned back against it, closing her eyes as she rested her head against the papery bark.

I slowly turned back towards her, lashing my tail. I wasn't sure where this was leading, and instinct told me I should just get the hell out of there and away from her while I had the chance, before I dug myself a hole so deep even my wings couldn't carry me out of it. What did she mean, she couldn't go home? I thought again to the emblem the men I'd killed wore on their clothing, and the emblem on the bag I'd kept for my trophies. I walked around the clearing, gathering them back up. I stuffed the coins into the bag, as well as the leftover bandages, and the silver flask. I shook it, it still had a little liquid left. I found the stopper and twisted it back on, which took a little effort as it was definitely not made for dragon paws. Then I dropped it into the bag as well, and finally found the blood-stained sword I'd decided to keep. When everything was ready, I looked back over at her, resting against the tree. If her breathing was a little more even she'd have looked as though she fell asleep.

For a moment I just watched her. I noticed for the first time that the faded blue dress she wore, now splattered with a little of her own blood as well as mine, was an odd match for the roughly weathered boots she wore. They looked as though they didn't even fit her well. I thought back to my question earlier, when I'd asked her if she was a rebel. She certainly wasn't dressed like one, but then again, it looked as though she'd changed her clothes in a hurry, not that it had helped her in the end.

"Even if you can't go home, you should go somewhere. You don't want to linger here anymore then I do. The soldiers might think you were responsible for what happened."

"There's no where I can go they won't find me. They'll have guards on all the roads, and send soldiers to all the villages to make sure I don't escape."

"You are a rebel, aren't you."

She finally opened her eyes to glare at me. "Something like that, yes."

"Why were those men going to kill you?" I padded a little closer to her, cocking my head in growing curiosity. I know I shouldn't give in to my curious nature, it was only going to get me in trouble. I was sure I'd heard somewhere that humans had a saying about curiosity and cats, but I couldn't for the life of me remember it. Dragons had a similar saying; curiosity sent the hatchling tumbling down the cliff. I think, for once, humans said it better.

For a moment, she looked as though she didn't want to answer. She turned her head and let her dark brown hair fall across her face as she stared off into the forest. Birds chirped, insects buzzed, and the breeze rustled the yellow leaves and green needles above us. I wasn't going to press her if she didn't want to tell me, I'd simply fly off and leave her here to whatever fate she'd made for herself.

"Because I resisted them. I don't...I don't really want to talk about it right now."

Somehow I doubted she meant she'd simply resisted their advances. "Very well." I turned, walking back into the clearing, and spreading my wings, completely prepared to leave her there to whatever fate awaited her. I grasped the trophy bag in a paw, and took a breath. Just as I was tensing up my muscles, shifting my weight back onto my hind legs in preparation to spring into the air, she called out to me.

"Wait!"

I let that breath right back out in a long sigh, turning to look at her over my wings. "Yes?"

"Could you..." She slowly rose to her feet, and I could see the question burning in her eyes even before it crossed her lips. No, I thought. No, no, no, and no. "Could you take me with you? Or take me somewhere I could find some shelter for a few days? Once those men don't return, they're going to be looking for them. They'll think I killed them and escaped, they will want to make an example of me. ...Again."

No, I thought to myself, shaking my head a little. No, no, no!

"Please, I don't want to have to ask you, but..." She came forward, her voice trembling. "I really have no where else to go. You could just take me to a cave, or even...if you could point me in the right direction, just somewhere I could hide out and rest a few days. I've been on the run for over a week now, before they finally caught me. They'll give up, soon, they'll think the forest claimed me."

No, no, no!

"You really can't go home?"

She sniffed a little, vulnerability glinting briefly beneath her defiant armor. She didn't answer, instead she just looked down at the ground, and shook her head. If she went home, they were going to kill her. If she traveled alone and they caught her, they'd kill her. I would have saved her life for nothing if she had no where to go that wouldn't lead to her death anyway. I had a place I could take her, that would be safe...

No! No! A thousand times no!

"You can come home with me, if you want," I said, completely ignoring my instincts, and bowing once more to my irritatingly vocal conscience. I quickly added "But only for a few days..."

What the hell was I doing? ...I just kept digging that hole deeper and deeper.

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Thus ends the first two chapters of my ancient tale. If you've enjoyed, please Fave, and please leave a comment with your thoughts. Let me know what you think of it, what you enjoyed, the reflections in my later stories, you know, fun stuff. And absolutely let me know if you want me to post more of this unedited monstrosity...if you want to see where Vraal's story leads.