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Chapter Four

Once a good few paces away from that chamber, I came to a stop so that I could lift a paw and rub at my eyes. A few tears had slipped past my defenses and run down the black scales of my cheeks, dripping from the paler gray scales of my throat, but I didn't want to allow any more escapees. I wiped one eye with the back of my paw, and dug the heel of my paw pad into the other, grinding it a little. I set my paw back down, closing my eyes. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself, calm my pounding heart, and ease the tension still gripping my throat.

When I had relaxed a little, I let out a long sigh, and opened my eyes again to find Kylah standing just in front of me. Concern was etched across her soft-skinned face, pooling in her eyes like waves of worry in an emerald sea. She bit her bottom lip, hooking her hair behind her ears as she watched me in silence. I was startled by the concern I saw, I had no idea why she would care for the feelings of a bitter old dragon who only hours before she'd seen slaughter four men without mercy.

"Are you alright, Vraal?" Her voice was soft, with as much worry in it as I saw floating in her eyes. She reached towards my nose, and I pulled my head back, I didn't want to be touched by a human right now, even in comfort. But I didn't want to offend her either. Not when she seemed to be trying to help. It was hard for me to accept that, though. For all I knew she just wanted to gain my trust for some reason. I lifted a paw to scratch my chin as though that was the reason I'd moved my head.

"I'm fine, thank you," I lied as smoothly as I could. "I just got something in my eye. Alcohol vapors or dust motes maybe."

She smiled wistfully, nodding. I could tell she didn't believe my lie, but she had the decency not to press me on it, either. "I was a little worried. You knocked over one of your bottles. I hope it wasn't anything you were saving."

"I probably wasn't going to drink it anyway," I muttered under my breath. I could certainly use a drink now! Maybe if I drank enough I could just pass out instead of staying up all night thinking about my family again. "Come, I'll show you the rest of the rooms."

I led her through the rest of the chambers and tunnels with a little more haste and a little less enthusiasm then before. A few more rooms were mostly storage, one contained a bevy of extra sleeping furs that I no longer needed. That had once been the room my children had slept in, though most of their meager belongings were gone. Marks on the wall attested to their growth over the years, some carved by my claws, some by my mates, and some by my children. There were marks for the height of their heads, the length of their bodies from nose tip to tail tip, and even the span of their wings. I might have stared at the marks long enough for Kylah to figure out what they were, but if she did, she didn't tell me.

I finally took her to the chambers she'd asked about earlier. One of several underground streams and rivers that flowed through the mountains and their network of tunnels reached my home near the back of it, passing through two spots in twin chambers that were separated by an overhanging shelf of rock. A small river of steadily flowing, cold clear water ran through the rock floor of both rooms. On one side of the shelf, it had long ago formed a deeper basin, where the current slowed down a little bit, swirling and eddying in it's underground pool. Stalactites far above dripped a slow but regular stream of mineral tinted water down into the underground pool, creating a series of random yet beautiful ripples spreading across it's surface from several directions all at once. A long hanging shelf of rock that had probably once reached the floor until the river patiently knifed through the softest part of the lime stone divided the two chambers in half. It also squeezed the flow of water into a more narrowly confined canyon, so that on the other side of the low rock shelf the water was much shallower but picked up it's pace considerably. At the far side of the chamber, the river eventually vanished into a multitude of cracks and crevices at the bottom of the far wall and continued it's journey deeper into the mountains unseen.

The chamber on the right side of the shelf I used for bathing when I didn't feel like venturing out to one of the deeper meadow pools, or when the weather wouldn't permit it. I kept it well lit with several blue and green light stones and they cast an almost mystical glow across the gray blue limestone and the crystalline waters, and I could still clearly remember just how radiant and beautiful my mate had looked whenever she bathed there. I quickly pushed that thought aside for now. The chamber on the left I used as a latrine. The swift flow of the water served to flush everything away and keep the chamber clean at all times. Much more convenient then venturing all the way outside any time I had to go, and I certainly wasn't about to hang myself over the ledge the way I'd suggested she do.

Once I told her which chamber was which, and made sure she understood I'd be quite upset if she got them confused, I left her to do what she needed too, and returned to my sleeping chamber. I busied myself getting some things for her. I rather doubted she'd want to sleep next to fat old dragon, and I'd probably roll over and smash her, anyway. So I dug out the cleanest, freshest furs I could find, as well as a silky blue blanket and a creamy white pillow with a lacy frill around it. I set them aside to make a little bed for her, but she would be welcome to move them to wherever she wished.

When she returned, she gave me a thankful smile, and then went to investigate more of my belongings. This time she went to where several pieces of human clothing had been strewn across the floor, and where overflowing from a broken old wooden crate, as well as a large trunk that had long ago lost it's top. She began to dig through them, tossing a few articles of clothing on the floor. I was glad to see her add to my mess, because it meant it didn't bother her.

After a moment she seemed to realize I was watching her, and quickly straightened up, clutching her latest find to her chest. "Oh! I'm sorry...I just...well...would it be alright if I change into something else? If I can find something to fit me, I mean..."

I settled down on my haunches, curling my tail about myself. Grinning, I flexed my vast black wings in a shrug. "I certainly won't be wearing any of it."

"No, I suppose you won't! I just...I thought I should ask, at least." She looked over the red and gold tunic she was holding, and then tossed it down near the floor. She knelt down to better dig into the trunk and crate, and gave me a sly smile over her shoulder. "Did you steal _everything_you have from humans?"

"No, not at all!" I rolled my eyes, and flared out my spiny frills a little, feigning offense. "I have at least two or three possessions that I didn't steal from humans."

She laughed a little, and went back to her digging. After a few minutes, she had located a dark blue indigo tunic, or was that a blouse? I wasn't really sure if it had been designed for a man, or a woman, I didn't know human clothing that well. It was darker blue then the dress she had on, with golden stitching along the sleeves, and a few black laces on the front. She set it aside, and soon found herself a pair of black breeches that looked as though they'd fit her. With a little more searching, she found a cream colored nightdress as well, and pulled it out to add to her collection.

"Why do you wish to change your clothes?" I couldn't help but ask, flicking my tail tip back and forth. In an odd way, it was nice to have someone here, even a human, with whom I could distract myself from my usual solitude and occasional boredom. "Do you not like your dress?"

She responded without looking back at me just yet. "For one thing, because I don't like wearing something that has my blood all over it." She lifted her hand, pressing a few fingers delicately against her lip, then her nose, cringing both times. "For another, it's not my dress. I was trying to escape, they'd nearly stripped me down before they started transporting me. I got away for a little while, stole some woman's' dress right out of the back of her caravan, along with her boots. I hoped the clothes might throw them off, but I didn't quite get away fast enough, and they grabbed me again. That wasn't long before you found me. They...they were supposed to talk me further away before they killed me, I guess they didn't want to risk another escape attempt."

"Oh," was all I could manage to say. I still didn't know why they were planning to execute her in the first place. But she hadn't asked about my family when I'd clearly been on the verge of breaking into sobs, and I wasn't going to ask about her own troubles if she didn't wish to explain them to me. "Well, put on whatever you like. There are plenty of dresses in there. Think there's even one from a princess, or something."

Kylah chuckled to herself as she dug deeper, and eventually pulled up what I assumed was the dress of the princess. Mostly because, at least to a dragon, it certainly looked like something a wealthy person would wear. Bright green and colored with shiny stones and sequins, I had no way of knowing that to a human, it was quite possibly the gaudiest dress ever in existence. Nor could I have easily known that it was tailored for a woman several inches shorter then Kylah and several times her weight.

"I like that one," I said with a smile. "It's shiny."

"It...certainly is," she said, as politely as she could, setting it nearby. "Maybe later. I actually don't wear dresses that often, not since I was a girl, anyway."

"I thought human females liked dresses."

"We do. Some of us, anyway. But most of the women in my village don't wear them on a day to day basis, they're more of a formal affair, or a celebration sort of garment. My village does a lot of farming and hunting, and trading with the other villages, and a lot of the women do the same sort of work as the men, cause there's so much of it to be done. So we usually wear clothing that fits comfortable and lets us work."

"I see," I said simply, lifting a claw to scratch around the base of one of my ridged horns. I wondered if that was common among humans. I remembered the way she'd held that sword, when I first met, and how quick she was to attack me and try to press an advantage when she thought I meant her harm. "Do they also teach the women to fight in your village?"

"Of course," Kylah said, standing up with the blue and gold tunic, and the black breeches. "We had some problems with bandits in our area even before I was born, and our people thought the best way to deal with it was to take care of it ourselves, so we all learned to fight, and protect our village."

I bared my fangs in a smile. "I like that idea. I didn't think humans taught their females to fight."

"Not all of them do." She peered down a moment, and then gasped excitedly when something caught her eye. "Thank God himself!" She dropped to her knees as though struck by the greatest revelation of all time, only to emerge again holding an object in her hand that I'd always wondered what the use was.

"I can finally tame this beast," she said, draping her clothing over one arm, and running the brush through her hair with the other. It immediately caught, and when she released it, the brush hang suspended from her frazzled hair like an blood sucking insect clinging tenaciously to it's prey. "I...suppose I had better try and wash it. Well, I needed a bath, anyway. If you don't mind?"

I waved my paw in the air, gesturing towards the bathing chamber. "By all means. I may have some other human things you might like. I will look while you get cleaned up."

She headed off to the bathing chamber, and I passed the time digging through the other crates I had sitting around in the area she found her clothes. I'd taken a lot of things from humans over the years, as though in my youth I thought stealing shipments of their possessions might somehow make up for all the atrocities they'd committed against us. I didn't even know what was in half these crates any more, or where it came from.

But I did eventually find what I was looking for at the bottom of one that was half filled with discarded clothing. Several vials and bottles of perfumes and oils, things that I'd been reminded about by her own scents. I didn't know if she'd actually want to put any of them on or not, but I might as well get them out just in case. It wasn't as though I was going to do anything with them after all.

I carefully pried the lid of one of them of them. It was a little golden bottle with a blue flower emblazoned on it, which I suppose was supposed to indicate what it smelled like. I held it to my snout and sniffed it, then gagged and coughed as I inadvertently inhaled half the liquid in the bottle. My muzzle burned and stung, and I coughed violently a few times. Even after the burn began to fade and I set it back down, for a few minutes all I could smell was the sickly sweet and overpowering scent of flowers.

My nose ran and I kept wiping it with my paw until finally I felt a little bit better. Perhaps dragons were not meant to get to close to anything perfumed. I found another jar with some kind of scented oil in it, and this time I was a little more careful. I only dipped a single finger into the jar, and then sniffed at the oil. Somehow, the scent of ripe fruits pushed through the floral haze that still gripped my sinuses. I liked that one a little better. Carefully as I could, I put the top back on. I decided I'd just leave them all out and let her pick which ones she wanted to wear, if any.

While she continued her bath, I cleaned up my sleeping chamber a little. And by cleaning up, I mean I pushed everything sprawled across the floor off to the sides to make a few more walking lanes for her. I gathered up the occasional coin and discarded scale on the floor, I picked up the colorful clothing that the two of us had discarded and piled it back atop the various already overflowing containers. I moved a sword and ax from the floor before one of us stepped on them and hurt ourselves, and tossed them over towards my shelves.

Then I went over to my little art section to arrange it. Everything had gotten jumbled together at some point, and so I rearranged it on my shelves. While I kept some of my art works in my collection room, a few I displayed with my trophies. One was simply a painting of a bright, beautiful full moon which I always liked. I kept it on one side of the marble dragon's head, and on the other side was a painting of the sun, brilliant and fiery in the blue sky. I'd painted that one myself to go with the picture of the moon I couldn't remember who I'd stolen it from. Elsewhere on the shelf were a few little statues and carvings I liked, a rather defiant looking human woman in a flowing dress that for some reason I'd always liked despite the subject's species. A very detailed and noble looking dragon roaring in fury, his claws unsheathed. That one actually came as part of a large carving, facing down a fully armored knight with a sword and shield with the two figures carved from the same piece of dark wood, affixed to the same base. I'd broken the carving's base in half and tossed away the knight and kept the dragon, then smoothed down the broken half of the base.

A little further down the shelf were more paintings I'd done myself, when I had the materials and the desire. I always had the time after all. I wasn't sure when I'd taken up painting, but it had been many years ago now, perhaps even before my children had hatched, though I'd gotten much better at it since then. I wasn't even sure why I'd first started. Perhaps some hopeless desire to prove to the humans that eventually tracked me down and slew me that dragons were more then mindless beasts, or wicked monsters. It was not that unheard of for our kind to undertake works of art, after all the statue's head I had brought home attested to that quite well. A few of the dragons from my clan had occasionally painted as well, and I'd picked up a few lessons from them while I was young.

Once, I'd painted all across the walls of my home alongside my children. My home had been a much more colorful place back there. Here and there vestiges of blue and red still flecked the walls, but the ceaseless damp and my own anger had gradually worn them away. I had no desire to replace the wall paintings, and in many places I'd simply scratched them away myself when they became too painful to look at.

And yet, here I was, looking at a painting of my family I myself had painted. Despite the heartache it sometimes caused me, it was still one of my favorite things in the world. I had taken my time with it, painting every detail as vividly and lifelike as I could, every image that was etched so indelibly on the fabric of my memory and my heart, I didn't want to forget anything. I'd spent months on that one painting, carefully scrawling lines and marks with my paw pads and claw tips dipped in paints and inks. I had no brushes, and would have trouble handling human made brushes anyway, but no matter, with enough care, pads and claws and in some cases large bird feathers were more then enough.

"Was that your family?"

Kylah's voice and her question drew me from my memories. She sounded hesitant, as though she didn't want to upset me, and wasn't even sure she should be asking such a question. I turned my head to look over at her. Her hair was still quite wet but at least it was now hanging down across her shoulders and across her back, it's feisty determination to look as wild as possible finally tamed by the water and the brush. She'd put on the blue and silver shirt, and perhaps done so a little early as it clung to her wet skin a bit more tightly then I imagined she wanted it too. The lean frame of her body and supple swell of her breasts were evident enough that were I a human male, I'd probably find myself quite attracted to her right now. The black breeches fit her much the same, clinging to the curves of her rump, and hips. She tossed the bloodied blue dress down near the clothing piles, and ran the brush back through her hair a few more times, working out the last of the tangles. Wet brown hair fell right back in front of her eyes again, and she quickly brushed it out of her way. Her green eyes searched mine, hopeful she hadn't brought up anything that was going to upset me.

This time, she hadn't. "Yes," I replied with a smile, and for reasons I wasn't quite sure, I handed her the painting so she could look at them.

The painting depicted my mate, and my two children, my son and daughter. The three of them stood on the shores of the biggest lake in our valley, the place we always used to go to bathe in the sun, and swim in the waters. My mate was in the center of the picture, with the sun shining on her resplendent, sky blue scales, her silver eyes glowing in the light. She was smiling, and had her wings spread, one wing draped across each of our children as they sat around her. Our son, the older of the two younglings, had taken a combination of our colors, though he leaned a bit more heavily towards her side of the spectrum them mine. He was darker blue then she was, and all four of his legs changed from indigo blue to black over the course of their length, so that while his shoulders were the color of the sky just before dusk, his paws were as glossy black as mine had been. His little muzzle was tapered in black, too, as was his tail and the edges of his wings. Our younger child took more after my mate. She was the same soft, sky blue with just a hint of my black striping her wings and her tail, and tipping her ears.

"They're beautiful," Kylah said, smiling up at me, holding the wood framed canvas in her hands.

"Thank you," I replied softly, pointing to each of them. "That's my mate, Niara'oraalous. Niara to you, I suppose."

Kylah laughed a little bit. "You dragons sure have complicated names."

"I suppose so."

"At least hers sounds better then yours. Vraal sounds like something a frog would cough up."

"It does not!" I said, giving the floor an indignant thump with my tail.

"Sure it does," she said, glad to see I took her playful insult as it was intended. "One of those big, fat, bullfrogs, he'd say vraaaaaaal."

"Right before I squished him under my paw."

"Eww, Vraal."

"That's what he gets for making fun of my name." I gave her a toothy grin, and licked my muzzle as though contemplating my next meal. "Something you might want to keep in mind."

She rolled her eyes, increasingly more and more unperturbed by me. "So, Niara is...or...was...your mate?"

"Yes," I replied, without clarifying that for her. Niara was no longer here, so I felt that should have been obvious enough. Though I did not want to go into the specifics of it if I didn't have too. Instead, I pointed to my children. "That's my son, Venargravax. He's my oldest. And that would be my daughter, Reenasarana."

Kylah scrunched up her face and furrowed her brow. "Beautiful children, Vraal. But I'm glad I don't have to keep up with those names! I think the most I could manage would be Venara and Reen."

"Close enough," I chuckled. "We don't often use our own full names, anyway. So I doubt that they would have minded. Then again, if they were still here with me, I never would have brought you here."

"I can't blame you. If I had children I wouldn't bring you around them, either."

I wasn't sure if she was joking or serious, but I was serious. Had my children still been with me I'd never have brought a human I'd just met here, no matter what. Even if Venaragravax hadn't been hurt by humans, I still wouldn't have wanted them around my children. Even if Kylah seemed as though she might be the one human for whom I might have considered making an exception, I wouldn't have know that at the time.

"So..." She started, then trailed off. I could see the question forming on her lips. She wondered where my family was now. She wondered if they were still alive, or they'd been killed. It was not a subject I wanted to get too far into right now. It would only bring up more painful memories for me. But as long as we were pretending to be friends, I was starting to feel just a tiny bit guilty about keeping her in the dark. Then again, perhaps I was just getting hungry. Dragons did have to eat a lot after all. "Are they..."

"They're gone," I said softly, realizing that didn't exactly explain anything. I took a breath, and let it out in a soft sigh. "Many years ago, Niara'oraalous left me, and she took our children with her."

"Oh..." She cast her eyes down to the painting, no doubt thinking she'd just asked a question she shouldn't have. Even if I'd answered her despite the fact she hadn't finished her own question. I could already see the next one roiling around behind her eyes, thrashing about in her mind like a wounded animal in an emerald cage. She formed the word with her lips, but no sound came out.

I answered her anyway. "Because it's not safe here, anymore. After Venara was hurt, she...we...well..." Damn. This was why I didn't want to talk about it. All those years ago, and I still couldn't find words to express it. Too many years of growing angrier and angrier at myself for letting it happen, I suppose. "We had a fight. Niara and I. A terrible, terrible fight, that I was...I was a stubborn fool...a stubborn, bitter, prideful old fool..."

My voice was shaking, and I forced myself to get composure. To my surprise, Kylah put her hand on my shoulder again. When she told me she was sorry, I believed her. I smiled a little, thankful for the simple comfort, and closed my eyes. The next thing I know, she was just rubbing my muzzle like I was a little lost puppy, and despite my pride demanding I bite her hand off, I found myself nuzzling against her palm, instead. It had been so long since anyone had done anything to comfort me, hell, since Niara left me.

Kylah set the painting down, and pulled my head against her, hugging me around the top of my neck. Now I was really getting confused! Why did this human care so much about me? Paranoia told me she was trying to gain my trust. My lost faith in the world and my hatred for her kind wouldn't let me believe she was simply trying to comfort me, though somewhere in my heart, in my soul, I hoped she was. She rubbed the scales of my neck for a while, and her touch was warm, and whatever her reasons where, it was comforting. I took a few deep breaths, and finally pulled my head back.

All at once, she seemed to realize what she'd done, and she took a step away from me, green eyes wide beneath thick lashes. "I...I'm sorry, I hope I didn't..."

"No, you didn't," I said, not letting her finish. "I've never been hugged by a human before, it was...nice."

She rubbed her hands together, then nervously adjusted her blue and gold threaded tunic. "I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories, I was only curious. You just seemed like...If you were a human, I'd have hugged you, and...just because you weren't, you were still in pain."

I dipped my horned head in thanks, smiling a little more. "...Thank you."

She smiled back at me, and reached out to rub me between my black nostrils, where the scales were finest, melting away into soft sensitive skin at the very tip of my muzzle. "You're nothing like I ever imagined from a dragon. Not since I was a little girl, anyway. I never thought dragons had families, or loved each other...missed each other when they were gone."

I eased back onto my haunches again, stretching my wings a little. "We feel everything you do. And we can be every bit the monsters you think we are. The monsters your kind are to us."

She fidgeted with her tunic a little more, tugging at it where the wet fabric clung to her skin a little too tightly. I didn't want the little pebble of discontent I was starting to sow between us to roll any further downhill and trigger an avalanche of anger on both our parts, and so I switched subjects away from our species and what we were capable of, and what we'd done to each other.

"So, anyway, that's my family."

She crouched down to pick the painting back up, and set it back in it's rightful place on my shelf. "They're beautiful."

I didn't mind hearing someone repeat themselves when it was a statement like that. "Yes, they are."

"Do you...know? Where they are?"

I slowly shook my head. "No. I don't even know if they're still alive. She left, hoping to find somewhere safe for our children." I left out the obvious, that by safe I meant safe from humans. "That was many years ago, and the last I ever heard from them."

I couldn't bring myself to admit that they were probably dead. Most of our kind was already gone, and my mate and children had probably joined those ranks. For all my stubborn heart knew, I was the last one. But I continued to hope for them. To hope that wherever they were, they were alive, they were safe, and they were happy. By now, my children were likely of the age to take a mate themselves, and I hoped that they had found a place the last of our kind could live in peace. Found somewhere to raise their own families and someone to raise them with. I knew the odds were against it, but I clung to that stubborn thread of hope anyway.

As if trying to keep me from dwelling on the subjects she'd brought up, she changed it. "Who painted this for you, anyway? I didn't think you'd ever done more then fight with humans until you met me."

Now that was a question I was happy to answer. I allowed myself a very smug grin, flaring my dark spiny crests to their full extent, and swiveling my ears forward. "I did. I painted it."

"You?" She gaped at me incredulously. The fact that she clearly didn't believe a dragon could paint made it all the sweeter that I had.

"Yes, me. I also painted this, and this, and those over there..." I pointed out a few more paintings including the sun, a painting of our beautiful mountain range, and another that depicted a scene from my dreams, from the tales I'd been told as a child. A sky filled with dragons of all colors and ages, dancing among the clouds. "That one is one of my favorites."

She went over to the large painting that showed all the dragons looping and swirling amongst each other in the sky, bending forward to examine it up close. "This is very good work! You really painted this?"

I rose back to all fours and followed her down to the single shelf displaying that painting, one of my proudest works. "Yes, I did."

"How?"

"I have a lot of free time," I said, flicking the tip of my tail in amusement.

She giggled a little, brushing hair from her eyes as she straightened up. "What did you use to paint it I mean."

"I lucked into raiding a shipment of art supplies. The human driving the wagon was too busy begging for his life to tell me all the details, but apparently some big name artist in some big name town had ordered a huge shipment of canvasses and paints and things. At first I was disappointed not to find something more interesting in his wagon, but I'd always enjoyed art, so I gathered up as much of it as I could. I still have a few blank ones, and a few pots and jars of paint left, but I may have to try and mix some more."

"You...you even make your own paint? You must be the only dragon in the world who's ever done that..."

"Hardly. It's not as high quality as some of that human stuff, but we use flowers and fruits and blood and all sorts of things that provided color. Mix it with other ingredients until we make something that will stain a wall or a canvas or our scales. We used to have festivals and we'd paint our bodies, it was one of my favorite things as a child. I used to think my black scales were so drab, I couldn't wait to make myself colorful like the other dragons."

That idea made her laugh. She probably got the image of her head of a little black hatchling painting himself up like a rainbow. Which wasn't far from the truth, at least in my earliest days. Later I was more elaborate with the paintings, trying to outdo the other younglings for the most elaborate designs and patterns painted across my body.

"Can you hold the brushes? Your paws are awfully big."

I lifted a front paw and wiggled my fingers at her, one at a time. "My hands are just as dexterous as yours." Or at least they were close. The paws of a dragon worked very well as hands, we even had an opposable thumb just the same way you humans do. "Besides, I don't use a brush for painting. I use my paws, mostly. My pads, my claws. Sometimes I'll use things like eagle feathers for certain details. But I use my claws to sketch with ink."

"Really? You don't cut right through the canvas or parchment?"

"I'm not entirely a clumsy oaf, you know."

"I guess not," she said with a little smirk, reaching towards my paw as I still held it in the air. "May I?"

"Go ahead."

She gently took my paw in both hands, rubbing her thumbs against the soft warm skin of my paw pad. It tickled a little, and my paw twitched as I fought back what would have been a rather embarrassing giggle. Dragons did not giggle. At least we didn't like to admit we did once in a while. Much as we didn't like to admit we were ticklish. But our paw pads, wings, sails and other soft spots were certainly susceptible too it.

"I hadn't even noticed your front paws really do look a lot like hands. Or how well hidden your claws are. Only the very tips are showing."

On cue, I unsheathed all five of my claws, quickly enough to make her yelp and jump as my dark gray talons suddenly emerged from the tips of my fingers and thumb. Dragons had claws that were almost fully retractable, just like those of a feline. They were naturally quite sharp, and connected to the same sort of muscles and tendons a cat had in it's paw so that we could extend or retract them on command, and to any extent we needed too.

I sheathed all my claws again but one, holding it up for her. "See? If I dip it in ink, or paint, I can scrawl and trace thin lines. And if I dip my paw pad in paint, I can paint bigger lines, or just dab and tap it for texture. It takes a lot of work, but it's always worth it for me."

She rubbed the pad of my paw a little more, then released my paw, and stepped back. "Your paintings are beautiful."

For some reason, that made me flush. I could feel the heat rising to my crests and ears, and I know they'd been darkening, a reddish purple hue tinting them in a draconic blush. I couldn't remember having anyone compliment my work other then Niara, and I hadn't done much serious painting till after she was gone. I tried not to smile like a dopey hatchling told how cute he was by the female he liked best, but I found myself doing it anyway.

"Aw, you're blushing!" She giggled, reaching out to scratch just under my chin. "Er...aren't you?"

Much like my attempt to keep myself from smiling, my attempt to keep from purring failed as spectacularly as a wingless dragon's attempt at flight. She'd read the flushing of my crests right, I was blushing. And as she rubbed along my grew scaled jaw, I was purring as well. "Yes."

"It's cute."

"Dragons are not cute."

"I wouldn't have thought so either, but it's sort of cute to see such a dangerous monster blush."

For once, I didn't let the casual use of the word monster bother me. I had a chance to enjoy myself for a few moments, and I decided to just take it. How odd it was, to find myself happy for a few wonderful moments with a human of all things. For those pleasant moments, I leaned into her hand, let her rub and scratch my jaw all she wanted. Before long I was purring loudly enough to vibrate the scales of my throat, and I decided that was probably enough for now.

"I've probably let you please me enough," I said, pulling my head back. She gave me an awkward look, and then started laughing, and only then did I realize what I'd just said. "Oh, that didn't sound right, did it."

"No, Vraal, it did not." She smirked, folding her arms under her breasts. "I suppose that would be one way for a human to earn a dragon's favor."

"It...what?" I blinked, my blue eyes wide, and my crests darkening even further. I forced them down against my head to try and hide my blush.

"Aw, now you're really blushing! I wouldn't think that would embarrass you, isn't that what all those stories about dragons and maidens are all about?"

"Those are only rumors!" I insisted, which only made her laugh harder at my embarrassed expense.

"Don't worry, Vraal. I'm not that kinda girl anyway." She smirked at me, tilting her head to the side a little bit. "But why do you smell like perfume all of a sudden?"

That was hardly going to help me stop blushing. "I, ah, got some things for you." I waved my paw at the selection of jars and vials I'd set out a little while ago. "I wanted to smell them and I got it all over myself."

She laughed at that and went to crouch down near the various glass jars and metal canisters containing the scented liquids and oils. She picked a few up and unscrewed their tops or removed their stoppers, sniffing at them until she found one she liked. She stood up and dabbed a little of it on her neck, smeared a bit on her fingers and ran it back through her hair. When she was done, she tossed it down into the pile of clothes so it wouldn't break, and then turned back towards me, sly grin still spread across her plump red lips.

"Now why would you have perfume in your lair?"

I bristled up, and not at the potentially insulting connotation, either. "It is not a lair! I am not some mythical villain plotting my next conquest. It is my home." I waved my paw through the air, gesturing in an overly grandiose manner at my collection of belongings, and at my bed of furs. "See? Home."

"Mm." She pursed her lips and put her hands on her waist. "Looks like a hoard of stolen treasure to me."

"That's a dirty rumor. We do not hoard stolen treasure."

She quirked a brow, staring at me. Then she pinched her tunic between thumb and fore finger and plucked it out a little bit, showing off what was in fact, stolen plunder. I suppose she had me there. I grunted.

"You're the one wearing it. Besides, less then half of what I have is stolen. And it's not as though we all have some giant mythical hoard of treasure filling our lairs." Bah! I winced, and quickly corrected myself. "Home! It wasn't as though we all did this when there was a clan here. But as they left, I helped myself to what they left behind. I gathered things for my family, and when they were gone, for myself. Besides, if humans can take our lands, I can take their possessions if they appeal to me."

She smiled and came forward to rub a perfume scented hand across my muzzle, filling my nose with the heady scents of forests and flowers and fruit. "It's alright, Vraal, I was only teasing. I actually rather like your home."

I blinked a few times, nostrils twitching beneath her soft fingers. "You do?"

"Yes. I mean, it's nothing like a humans home, but it's actually surprisingly cozy and inviting." She scratched under my chin, and as I tilted my head back, she couldn't help but tease me a little more. "Other then all the slime and everything."

I snorted, pulled my head back and shook it, flaring my spiny crests in an odd sort of irritated amusement. I wasn't used to getting teased, but in a way it was nice to have someone to verbally spar with a little. "Oh, get mounted."

"Get mounted?" At first she didn't seem to catch on.

"I couldn't say go lift your tail, since you don't have one."

After a moment of thought she quickly caught on to both dragon expressions. I'm sure humans had a similar expression, but I didn't know what it was, and ours meant the same thing. As soon as she realized what I told her she may as well go and do, she started laughing, and swatted the side of my long neck with a hand.

"You dirty lizard! I most certainly will not!"

I chuckled to myself a little bit, idly rustling my wings. I lifted one up and shifted it forward to scratch at a little itch along my neck with the small claw at my wing tip. There was a question that was nagging at me much the way that itch was, and I wasn't sure I wanted to ask it. I was afraid she might take it the wrong way, that asking it might offend her, but I also felt I needed to know so that I could plan for our future. I had become a solitary creature by nature, and I wasn't sure how long I was going to want her around. I felt the presence of a human in my home might soon shift from novelty to irritant. Then again, I had to admit, I was enjoying her company more then I expected.

Of course, I'd expected her to drive me mad until I got fed up and tossed her off the ledge like so many well gnawed bones, so perhaps that wasn't saying much.

"How long are you planning to say?" She furrowed her brow, and rubbed at her face with a hand, and I thought I may have just asked that in the most direct, and offensive way possible. I quickly tried to make amends. Having a grumpy human here would be even less fun then any other human. "That is, I mean...how long do you think you will need until you are safe? Until I can return you to your home?"

My attempt at smoothing things over seemed to have the opposite effect. Her expression darkened, and she turned away from me, wringing her hands together till her knuckles were turning white. It was an odd look, and it didn't look healthy, but what did I know about human hands?

"You can't return me to my home. I don't...I can't...If I ever go home, they're going to kill me." Her voice trembled a little bit, and she took a moment to collect herself. "But in a few days...three or four, I'd think, maybe a week, hopefully they will have given up looking for me in the other villages, and I can at least pass through them without trouble. I'll have to make my way out of the whole region, I think, though."

A week? I had not planned on sharing my home with a human for more then another day or too, much less a week! I needed a drink. Why the hell had I agreed to this, anyway? It was bad enough I'd saved a human's life, how had I let her talk me into taking her back here to stay with me? I should have just flown her back to her village, and...wait, she said she couldn't go home. I should have just taken her to the outskirts of wherever it was she _could_go and be done with it!

"Where ever it is you want me to take you when you think it's safe, that's where I'll take you." Beautiful. I cursed myself for a little while. Way to present your case and tell her she needs to leave as soon as possible, Vraal. Why don't you just roll over and do tricks for her like a well heeled puppy, you foolish old lizard.

She gave me a thankful smile that made me feel at least a little better about my decision, and reminded me of why I'd helped her in the first place. "I'm going to go and get a drink, and something to eat. I'll bring you something as well, and when I return, you're going to tell me why you can't go home."

She frowned a little, folding her arms. "I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about it."

"It's not a request," I said, walking off towards the back of my caverns.

"I didn't ask you to tell me all about your family when you didn't want to talk," she called after me.

I paused to glance back at her, a wicked grin revealing many of my very sharp teeth. "Which I appreciate. But it's my home, and if you're going to stay here longer then a single night, you're going to tell me who I'm harboring and why you're a fugitive."

She didn't seem to have a reply to that, and so I left her to think about what she wanted to tell me. I may well have been a little too harsh with her, but I meant what I said. It was quite obvious she was a fugitive of some kind, though whether for murder, treason, political reasons or other human crimes I had no idea. I knew I had no way to make her tell me the truth, so I simply hoped she wasn't going to lie. I had no reason desire to keep her around if she was the murderer of human children, but I rather doubted that was the case. I got the feeling she was some kind of rebel, and little as I cared for human affairs when they did not concern dragons, that was fine with me.

I just wanted to know.

And I wanted to make sure she was not so hunted that they'd track her all the way here. Bad enough that anyone searching for her might well stumble upon dragon tracks, human blood and battered weapons scattered about her last known location. While I doubted they would know it was me, specifically, there was really only one dragon who could have been sighted over the last decade, or so. And while they did not yet know where I lived, exactly, they did know that dragons once dwelled in this mountains.

In the end, it was only a matter of time till my mate's predications came true.

I went to my pantry and helped myself to some of my aged elk, after slicing off the outer most layers with my claw. I'd almost forgotten that I hadn't eaten since that morning, and my belly was suddenly painfully empty. The sudden influx of food triggered the production of a little fire bile, a substance produced by special glands in a dragon's mouth. Or just above it, rather.

Fire, unlike most of the rumors related to dragons, was actually in some part true. We certainly could not "breathe" it mind you, not without scorched lungs and an agonizing death. But we did have the ability to produce a limited amount of fire, of a sort. Whether it was an ability gifted to us by the gods or something our kind had developed over generations and generations as some theorized was well beyond me. What we called our fire bile was a sort of acidic acid produced by a gland in the roof of our mouths that helped us to digest especially tough foods. One of the reasons we'd been able to survive so long in such harsh conditions was our ability to make the most of whatever we ate. Our fire bile helped us to digest the toughest parts of our prey, or the toughest parts of plants we might eat. While we preferred meat, we were omnivorous, and even had a selection of flatter teeth at the back of our jaws as if to prove that fact.

Now that I was finally eating again, I could feel a few hot drops of fire bile hit my tongue. Acidic as it was, the fire bile could also be used as a defensive weapon, of sorts. With practice, we could squeeze the gland in the top of my mouth, and spray a limited stream of the bile at an enemy, say at his eyes. Rather like certain snakes are able to spit their venom, I suppose. The difference being that ours is closer to flammable acid then venom, and that ours is available only in limited supply.

The other half of our so-called fire breathing ability comes from a gland deep within our chest. As a byproduct of powerful digestion, a secondary gas of sorts is created and stored near our lungs. Normally it is kept separate from our lungs and eventually reabsorbed into our bodies. But we can forcefully expel it if we must, and as it happens to turn out, this gas tends to ignite our fire bile. Needless to say, should we spray a stream of fire bile and exhale a lungful of flame gas, we end up "breathing" a stream of liquid fire.

Usually right across whichever dragon slayer is foolish enough to try and, well, slay us.

There's nothing magic about it, though. Nor is there anything evil, or demonic, nor does it mean we were crafted by the devil, or any other such non-sense. We are, like you, merely biological creatures. It is simply a chemical reaction that we occasionally use to defend ourselves. Or, I suppose, burn down an offending village. It works best after a good meal, though there are certain plants we can eat to help produce extra flame gas and fire bile if we must.

Once I'd cut away the outer layers of the elk I helped myself too all the juicy aged goodness within. I feasted, bloodying my muzzle and my claws in the process, and hopefully wiping away the smell of flowers that still clung to me. Though, to Kylah, it would probably smell as though I'd been rolling those very flowers around in rotten meat, perhaps not the most pleasant scent for her.

When my belly was full, I dropped my muzzle into a nearby bucket of water. I lapped up my fill, quenching my thirst and washing down my dinner, and when I was done, I washed over my paws and muzzle until I was relatively clean again. I'd take a full bath in the morning, but for now this would do. I kept several buckets of fresh water around often to drink from. The underground stream was perfectly safe for drinking, but it had a mineral taste that clung to my tongue and throat long after I'd lapped up my fill, and I much preferred the fresher tasting water I got from the streams down in the valley.

After eating, I picked up another bucket that was empty, and dry, and filled it with some dried hard tack and biscuits, and some dried meat and fruit. I didn't feel like going out and hunting her anything fresh, but I wasn't going to starve her, either. I took the handle of the bucket in my jaws, and went back to my collection of spirits and wines. For a little while I poked through everything, looking for something that hadn't gone bad, and eventually a very strong and rather large bottle of spirits from somewhere east, as well as a bottle of dark wine from a human country not as far away. I put them both in the bucket as well, and after digging around, located a wooden cup. It had a crack near the top of it, but it would do well enough. I dropped it in the bucket as well, and finally returned to my sleeping chamber.

Kylah had made herself comfortable on the furs I'd set aside from her, and was sitting cross legged on them, half bent forward. Too me, it looked like a very awkward position, I didn't think my own hind legs would do that, and I imagined if they did they'd probably cramp up so badly I'd never straighten them out again. She glanced up in time to see me carrying the bucket by it's handle in my teeth, and she started to laugh. It seemed a perfectly normal way to carry something to me, after all I didn't want to hold it in my paw and have to hobble along on three legs. But it must have been a rather comical sight to her because she kept laughing about it until I set the bucket down in front of her.

I made myself comfortable as well, laying down atop my own furs and sprawling out a bit with the bucket between us. "You don't have to sleep that close to me if you don't want too." I pulled out the cup, and the bottles of drink. "I just separated those furs and things out so you'd know they were yours."

She patted the soft blanket I'd set out with her furs, as well as the lacy pillow. "This is fine, thank you. I don't mind sleeping close to you if you don't."

I shook my head, and pulled out the food I'd brought for her. "So long as you don't snore," I said with a small grin. As took the tack from my paws, I added, "I'll try not to roll over and crush you in your sleep."

Kylah gulped, unsure if I was joking or serious. I decided not to tell her it was a little of both. She arranged her food in front of her, and took a bite of what I thought was a dried apple. Before she even finished chewing it up, she added a bite of dried venison, and then chewed both together thoughtfully. She opened up the bottle of spirits, it was a large, slightly rounded bottle of bluish glass with a faded label in a language I'd never learned. She sniffed it, and scrunched up her face in a way that made it all the more surprising when she poured some into her wooden cup, and gulped it down.

From the way she started coughing right away, I could tell I'd chosen well.

I reached for the bottle as well. There wasn't much scent, but it burned my nostrils all the same. I tipped my muzzle back and poured some of the liquid onto my tongue, swallowing it down. It burned my tongue, and my throat. My eyes watered; and I thought fire bile was acidic! But I quickly took another drink, longer then before, and set the bottle down. Aside from the tongue numbing burn, it wasn't that bad, really. It had a faint, woody sweet flavor on the very end. Not the best human spirit I'd ever had, but not near the worst, either.

"What is this?" I asked her, setting the bottle back down.

"I've no idea, but it's nice and strong." She poured herself a little bit, and gulped it down in a single swallow.

She opened the wine next, and poured herself a full glass of it till the red liquid trickled down the crack in the wooden cup. She took a long drink and I took the bottle and poured a few mouthfuls of it into my muzzle. It was rich and fruity, and hung for a long time on my tongue like the kiss of a mate. I knew little about human drinks but I had come to appreciate their subtleties in ways I imagined other dragons and even many humans had not. I sighed in appreciation, and purred a little as I set the glass down.

"So. Are you drunk enough yet to tell me why you can't go home?"

"Almost," she muttered. She leaned forward, and dark brown tresses fell across her face, obscuring her expression, which at the moment I imagined was probably a good thing for me. She was probably shooting me one hell of a glare right now. She picked up the last of the dried meat, and sat back up, gnawing on it the way I'd gnaw a large bone after a satisfying meal, though the dried meat had no marrow for her to suck out and savor.

"Tomorrow I'll get you fresh meat," I offered, hoping that would please her the way it would please me when I was grumpy.

"I hope you've got somewhere I can start a fire then," she said, glancing up at me. "I can't eat raw meat like you can."

"You can't?" That was news to me. I scrunched up the end of my snout in thought, drawing my eye ridges a little nearer each other. I knew humans liked to cook their food, but I didn't realize it was because they couldn't eat raw meat. "Why not?"

"Because it will make me sick," she said, laughing softly.

"I'm not fond the idea of having a fire inside my home," I admitted, folding my ears up and glancing towards the ceiling of my sleeping chamber. Much of it was too high for me to see very well, it was well past the glow shed by my light stones, but I knew that somewhere up there, tiny shafts and tunnels snaked there way through the rock, eventually reaching the surface of the mountain in various areas. Air shafts that kept my home supplied with enough fresh air to ensure that any number of dragons could have stayed here without suffocating. So I knew the smoke would eventually go somewhere, but I couldn't help thinking most of it would linger and sting my eyes, seep into my lungs, and damage my precious paintings.

"We can go outside, and build a fire there, if you like. Roast all the meat you want. But I don't want one in here."

"That's fine," Kylah said, nodding. She'd nearly finished her food now, and seemed to be chewing what was left of the hard tack as much to buy herself time as anything else. Her glass of wine was nearly empty as well, and I hadn't even noticed how fast she'd been drinking it. Maybe she was hoping to drink herself into a stupor before she had to answer my questions.

Already her face had taken on a noticeable reddish hue, and I was sure she must be feeling the warmth, if nothing else. Hell, my body was many times herself and I was feeling the warmth already. I always felt the warmth of the alcohol first in my crests, and ears, and at the tip of my snout. My black crests were probably flushing scarlet already, and while my body size meant I'd probably have to drink the entire bottle of spirits before I was literally stumbling drunk, I was definitely starting to feel the warmth.

I took another drink of the wine, and as I set the bottle down, savoring the warm fruity aftertaste, I couldn't help but belch. That made her laugh a little, which surprised me as I would have suspected she'd be offended. But I took her laughter as a chance to prod her for the answers to the questions she was still dodging.

"So? Why can't you go home? Why do they want to kill you?

"Because I raised my voice against them!" What started as a muttered reply quickly grew louder, and angrier. "Because I stood up against them! Because I tried to get my village to do the same, because I tried to cast them out, and because when they tried to stop me, I killed some of their soldiers."

Somehow, I imagined it was probably that last one. "So, you're a rebel then."

"No! They're occupying my village. They're killing our people!"

"Actually, I think fighting back against that sort of thing is the very definition of rebellion."

"Fine!" She snarled at my with more vehemence then she'd yet shown. "Then I'm a damn rebel! Happy, Dragon?"

"Not exactly, no." I tilted my head a little, and took another drink from the now nearly empty bottle of wine. Perhaps I should have brought two. Or three. "So, these people conquered your village, and...you tried to get your people to fight back?"

She sighed, and looked down at the last of the wine sloshing around in her cup. Now she sounded defeated, all of that momentary fire already burned out to smoldering embers. I knew it was still there though and would be easily stoked back into furious flame. "Yes, and I failed. They cut some of us down, and arrested the rest. Since I had tried to lead them, they wanted to make an example out of me. But they were too damn cowardly to execute me in the village."

"They were afraid that witnessing your death might inspire more anger then fear."

"Right." Now, her voice oozed with bitterness, a sentiment I was very familiar with. "So they dragged me off, supposedly to their headquarters to be tried for treason against them. That way they could assure my people that I was going to get a fair hearing, show them how "kind" they were. They never even went that way, never went towards their home. I knew it was all a shame. I knew which way their headquarters was and I knew which way we were going. They just...they took me off into the wilderness to rape me, and... and dump my body somewhere no one would find it."

That gave me pause. It seemed my timing had been luckier then I thought. Somewhere in my deeply buried heart, hidden beneath the mountains of built up anger and hatred for her species, I was glad I'd come along in time to save her. Just a short time later, and I'd likely have spotted nothing but a corpse with a cut throat. I'd never even have known what terrible humiliations they heaped on her in the end. For just a moment, I thought perhaps fate, or God, had guided my wings in that direction at that time for a reason. I quickly brushed that possibility aside.

"I'm glad I could save you from that." I tried to give her what I hoped looked more like a warm smile then a sign I might want to devour her.

Kylah looked up at me, and for a moment, thankful warmth flickered in her beautiful green eyes. It was enough to make me glad I'd turned around that morning. "So am I. If I hadn't tried to escape earlier, hadn't bought time, you probably never would have flown over that clearing in time. Strange how things work."

She swallowed the last of her wine, and quickly refilled her glass with what was left in the bottle. I thought over her words, unsheathing a single claw to trace it in small circles against one of the furs beneath me. I did not cut through the hide, just drew little circles and looping patterns by ruffling and smoothing the fur with my single claw.

"Yes, it is."

"I wouldn't have been the first woman they did that too, though."

Kylah took a sip of her wine, and then stared into the cup, as though the glistening red liquid could somehow provide all the answers to the mysteries of life. The way she kept drinking it, she was going to think she was seeing those answers first hand before long. It dismayed me a little to think of the women in her village. Where all the men occupying it like those I'd killed? Where they daily taking what they wanted from the females, whether or not those females wished to give it? Where they beating their mates in front of them, to make them submit? What a terrible thing, and yet I had no trouble imagining these soldiers, if they could be called that, doing so.

"I'm...I'm sorry," I offered, not sure what else to say.

"It's not your fault," she said, still staring into the wine. Now and then she swirled it around in the cup a little, as if hoping the miniature maelstrom she created would somehow drain away all her worries. "I thought I could help stop it, but I was wrong. Now I can't even go back there. They'd put an arrow or a sword in my chest the moment they saw me, and drag me away before anyone in town ever knew I'd returned. And if anyone in town saw me first, they'd kill them too."

"They sound like terrible people," I muttered, not really intending her to hear what may have been the greatest understatement in all my many years.

"They're parasites. They're slowly bleeding our village dry. Torturing our people, taking our money, eating our crops, siphoning off everything we earn in trade and sending it home to their master like lap dogs bringing him someone else's scraps. The other villages in our trade alliance will be next. They already have a presence in most of them. It won't be long before they take control of them, as well."

Some dark, bitter part of me was glad to hear that humans didn't reserve their cruelty for dragons, that they could be every bit as wicked and destructive to each other as they had been to us. That same part of me hoped they would wipe themselves out the same way they wiped us out, but I doubted the fates would be so kind. And on the other paw, some recently re-awakened, warmer part of myself was hurt to see the one human who had ever treated me with any sort of kindness was a victim to the cruelty of her own people.

"I think you said it best. Humans are parasites, monsters. They destroy everything. They're destroying your village the same way they destroyed our people."

"You know," she said, leaning back a little, and I thought I detected just a little bit of a slur starting to take hold of her speech. "For a big, tough dragon who didn't seem to have any trouble killing four trained soldiers, you sure talk a lot about how much your people have suffered at the hands of humans."

I wasn't sure where she was going with this, and I knew inebriation was just starting to get her in it's grasp, but a prickle of cold anger trickled along my spine. I flared my crests a little. "That's because all my life has been spent watching your kind tear my people from the skies, and grind our future beneath the heels of your boots. We were great, once, and your kind destroyed us. Ruined us!"

"Then maybe," she muttered, and I knew that more and more it was the drink talking, "Maybe you should have spent more of your life doing something about it, instead of just watching."

Drink or not, she was starting to make me angry. Which wasn't helped by the fact that I'd been drinking right alongside her. She was starting to tread on dangerous ground. I raised my neck spines and hissed. "And what would I do about it, hmm? Fight them? Lead them back to my clan, and get us all killed? Or maybe I should have done like you did, lead the last of my people against their superior numbers, and watch us all get "cut down" as you put it. That seems to have worked out well for you, didn't it? You can't even go home now!"

She dropped the cup and staggered to her feet as the red liquid spilled across the floor, staining the furs I'd picked up for her. "You shut up, lizard! At least I tried to do something with my life! What have you done, but sit up here like a coward and complain about what humans do to you?"

I pushed myself to my feet as well, growling angrily and flaring out my wings. "Watch your tongue, human! Had I done anything of the sort in my younger days, I'd have lead them back here and they'd have sent an entire army to fill these caves with the blood of dragons! And then I had a family to raise, anyway."

"You don't have a family now, do you?" She snarled at me, swinging her arm around at the empty chamber around us, throwing my own words back in my face. "So that seems to have worked out well for you!"

I almost killed her.

It was not my intention, and she probably never knew how close I came to taking her life that moment. But she had brought up the worst possible topic to bring up with me in anger, and I roared so loud she stumbled back, clasping at her ears. And I took a swing at her, I lifted my paw and drew it back, and I swung it straight for her head. My claws unsheathed in anger, and whistled through the air, and I almost killed her.

Somehow, I stopped myself. I had not wanted to kill her, but I was so angry at that moment I wanted to slap some respect into her, I wanted to hit her, I wanted to fight her! If she'd been a dragon, I would have. If she'd been a dragon, we'd have trashed my home because I would have struck her, and she would have struck me back, and we'd have fought until one of us was bested or we were both too out of breath to keep fighting.

But she was not a dragon, and if I'd landed that blow, I'd have killed her.

Somehow I stopped myself just in time, and my paw ended up inches from her face, my claws still unsheathed. In that moment, I realized what I'd nearly done, and it sickened me to the very pit of my stomach. She turned her head in time to see my slowly retract my claws, and set my paw down. She lowered her hands, and stepped back from me, whimpering.

I think she could tell she hadn't just made me angry, but that she'd hurt me very deeply. Deeper then she meant too, she may as well have picked up the sword I'd brought home and plunged it into my chest, all the way into my heart. I knew then that I was about to start to cry, and I probably wouldn't be able to stop it. I had almost killed the only human to ever show me kindness, and she had brought up the most hurtful, agonizing memories she could without even realizing it.

And yet, as I quickly trotted up the tunnel that lead out of my home, all I could think about was that I'd nearly killed her in anger. I heard her crying out behind me that she was sorry, and I think she meant it. But as I leapt into the cold night time air, my black and gray body bathed in silver moonlight, all I could think about was how sorry I was. Maybe I was a monster, after all.

Chapter Five

I flew, and flew, and flew. In the darkness, I was little more then a silhouette against the blanket of stars that stretched ever onward above me. Night was always a safer time for a dragon to fly far from his home then day, thought I had no intention of flying anywhere near humans this night. Yet I flew faster and faster as though I hoped to somehow escape the flood of worry and fear tearing down the canyons of my mind. Yet it was not something I could escape, and I knew it. Even as I looped around my meadow valley again and again, beating my wings harder and faster each time, the thoughts would not leave me. Kylah had brought up something I tried very hard to forget these days, the fact that it was my own foolish pride that cost me my family, and the thought that try as I might to differentiate myself from the image humans had of me, I may be little more then a monster.

I could only remember one human showing me kindness, and I'd almost ripped her head off for one angry remark about my family. What right did I have to rant about the cruelty of humans when I myself could control my violent impulses little better? And yet I knew that was not me...was it? It was just anger, just my temper flaring up. She had no right to bring up my family like that, not after she'd seen me nearly lose it over them already. Maybe I was just too used to dealing with other dragons, all these years later. I'd struck dragons in anger before, and they'd simply struck me back. It just wouldn't work that way with a human, though.

I already regretted it. Though she might not realize how close I'd come to taking her life, I had scared her nonetheless, and I'd never wanted to do that. And as I'd stormed out of my home, I heard her calling after me how sorry she was. I heard real guilt in her voice, and somehow that made me feel worse, not better. I thought knowing she regretted what she said would make me feel a little better about it, but it didn't.

And so I flew. At first I cried, and I cursed myself for it. A grown dragon should not weep like a little hatchling, but I suppose even a dragon could bottle a little too much inside himself that would sooner or later come pouring out. One way or another, it would all come out eventually. I decided it was better to shed my tears over my beloved valley, then to explode in anger against someone who I could maim without ever meaning too. So I let myself cry, working my sorrow through my tears, and my anger through my wings.

When I was finished, I felt little better. In fact, I felt much the same as when I'd left, only now my back was getting sore from flying harder then usual, and my throat hurt from sobs. What a foolish old beast I was. How could I have let her leave like that, on that note? She was right about me. I could not blame her, it just wasn't safe anymore for our children, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. I would never forfeit this land to humanity while I still drew breath. And yet, I so often wished I had, wished I'd simply gone with her.

I wondered where she was.

Wherever she was, I hoped she was alright. I hoped my children had grown up strong and healthy, and had found friends and lovers among our kind, somewhere safe the humans could never reach. In my bitter old age, I had long ago given up hope that such a place truly existed. I knew our time was nearly up, and wherever we yet lingered, unwanted by the world, we were forced to slink and cower in wet shadows and foul crevices, trembling and sheathing our claws like weak little younglings afraid of their elders. Sooner or later, humanity would drag us writhing from those hidden places like diseased vermin, and put an end to our species once and for all.

Yet, I had never quite given up on the hope that somehow, my mate and children had found a place for themselves. Even if I'd given up on my race, even if I'd given up on myself, I had not given up on them. Niara was always a better dragon then me, smarter and wiser, and ferociously protective of those she loved. She would do anything to keep those hatchlings save, and she already had. She had given up the company and the love of her mate, given up the sanctity of her only home, and taken her children away to find somewhere the humans would not be able to reach them.

I hoped to whatever God existed that she had found that place.

Without realizing it, I had flown to the Moon's Glow Cliffs. I back-winged a little, and landed gently atop familiar flat surface of one of the many ledges that marked the sheer cliffs. Just beyond the northern edge of our valley, where the mountains rose sharply from the earth like broken bones erupting from body of our prey, there was a series of cliffs unlike any other in the area. The stone here was bright, stark white like alabaster that had somehow withstood the weathering of the years. Each white cliff rose up a little higher then the last, and each was marked with a series of ledges. Even the lowest ledge provided a beautiful view of the valley below, but from the tallest ledge the view was utterly breath taking. And on clear nights when the moon was at it's fattest, the silver light it shed caused the white stone to glow like the eyes of an angel.

On one such night, I had mated Niara for the very first time. It had not been my first time mating, but it had been the first time it had truly meant something remarkable to me. Beyond the simple and clumsy pleasures of youthful romps with whichever female was interested, past the foolish swagger and bravado of young males bragging to each other about which female would lift her tail for them, this was the first time I had mated with someone I truly loved. Slow, loving, intense and passionate, it would have been among the most memorable mating of my entire life even if I hadn't asked her to spend her life with me after we finished.

I sighed, and ran my paw back and forth over the symbols we'd carved into the soft white stone that night. We hardly the first to do such a thing. Even if it did not hold such personal memories for me, I would value this place for it's heritage of our species, like an archive of dragon names and loves, messages passed down through the ages. I imagined that dragons of all ages had come here with their lovers to share the gorgeous view, and the awe-inspiring silver glow that overtook the entire area on the nights when the moon was fullest. Dragon symbols and sigils marked the entire area. Names, and dates, and expressions of love, of hope, of anger and hatred. From the time when we were many and man was few, all the way until the time when men was many and we were nearly gone.

I lashed my tail, rubbed my paws against the cool stone. In the sunlight it would heat quickly, and it was a nice, relaxing place to lay and warm one's body and scales in the colder days. At night the heat seemed to dissipate quickly, even quicker then it left the other sun warmed stones. I unsheathed a claw, and traced through the symbols that made up my name, and hers, and the messages we'd left for each other. After each of our children had hatched, we had marked their names down here as well, near our own. And after they were gone, I had returned to add another message of my own, as if I expected more dragons to some day find this place.

I found myself here often when I went flying. If I ended up too lost in my thoughts, or my heart grew too heavy in my long days of solitude, I found myself landing here before I even realized I'd neared it. Despite the ache in my heart our old messages left, it was still a place of comfort to me. Perhaps it was just simple foolish nostalgia that brought me back. I could hear her voice calling to me that first night, and every night after that. I could hear her beautiful laughter, and the gleeful giggles of our children when we brought them here to see the place. I laughed to myself, remembering the first time we'd come here with our young, when there were still a few dragons left. I had to chase off a poor unlucky couple in the throes of their pleasure, lest our young should see and start asking questions I'd not quite been ready to answer yet.

Somehow, the place still brought me comfort, even in silence. I wasn't sure why, exactly, it made me feel like an elder curled in the sun, gray wings half draped across the ground as he lamented the way things were, and how wonderful the old days used to be. I had once scorned such bitter old elders, and yet, now I found myself quickly becoming one. And here I was again, another sleepless night and again I found myself alone on the Moon's Glow Cliffs. I took a deep breath, and held it as long as I could, till my lungs felt ready to explode through my scaled chest and the stars in the sky were outshone by those dancing in my vision. Finally, I exhaled with the loudest, longest roar I could manage. Loud enough that it hurt even my ears, and as I folded them back against my wedge shaped head, the length and ferocity of the roar tore at my throat. But I did not stop screaming until at least my lungs were emptied, and I was left gasping at the high mountain air in a desperate bid to rejuvenate my body with fresh oxygen.

I caught my breath in a few moments, faster I imagine then a human would have at such an altitude. I was told once by an elder who considered himself an expect on dragon anatomy that a dragon's blood and lungs was far better at using air then those of a man, that we kept oxygen within us longer then humans did in order to help us fly. I've no way to know the truth of that, but I am partial to believing anything that makes us sound stronger and better then humans.

The roar made me feel a little better. It usually did. I wasn't sure why, but often after I'd exhausted myself flying as long and hard as I could, a tremendous, lung stretching, throat scraping roar would leave me feeling a little better. Catharsis, I suppose. In my youth, a roar would always be answered with a roar, but there had not been anyone here to answer me in many years. At least the mountains and the valley below were decent enough to acquiesce to my desire for an answering roar, as my own roar soon echoed back from them a few times, fading slightly on each return.

When the echoes died down, I smiled to myself, and prepared to return to the air. Just before I did so, I noticed an inscription on the far edge of the upper cliff I hadn't noticed before. As many generations of dragons had left names and messages here I was sure I had not yet read half of them, and probably never would. But for some reason this one drew my attention that night, and while I wasn't sure why, I decided I wanted to read it. It was at the very edge of a cliff above me, and someone had obviously gone to great effort to inscribe it there, possibly even hanging over the edge above them. As if they wanted everyone who peered up at the moon to notice what they'd written.

I turned around on the ledge I stood on, and began to climb up the cliff. There were many claw holds and foot holds along the cliff itself, it was not as sheer as the cliff beneath my home. Generations of dragons daring each other to scale the cliffs without their wings or in the hopes of impressing the other sex had helped carve plenty of niches for feet both front and hind. I reared back onto my hind legs and grabbed the two highest paw holds I could reach, and then lifted a hind foot, bracing it against a bump in the rock. And soon like a cat scaling a tree I was climbing the side of the cliff. It was not the most natural position for a dragon, but I suppose that was what made it so satisfying to do, to overcome our natural limits and do something our bodies were designed for it. Now, as long as I didn't slide all the way down the cliff with my belly pressed to the stone and scrape my sheathed maleness and testicles off, I'd be just fine.

Before long both my front and back legs were burning like mad. While I was not really the fat old beast I often called myself, I still had a lot more weight then my limbs were used to moving in this manner. Supporting me as I walked was one thing, literally hauling my weight straight up a stone wall was something else entirely. But I pushed through the pain, using it to distract me from my memories and thoughts for a little while. Finally I had reached the upper ledge, and crawled up onto it, sprawling out for a few moments.

While I caught my breath and waited for the fire burning in my limbs and along my back and chest to recede, I rolled over onto my back. There may be a common misconception that due to our wings, we cannot roll over or sleep on our backs, and that is quite untrue. We enjoy sunning our bellies just as much as we enjoy sunning our backs, but don't let that lull you into thinking we're lizards. You know how I feel about that. Nonetheless I spread my wings out beneath my and rested my horned head on the stone, bathing my belly in the brilliant white moonlight.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I remember, I woke with a stiff neck to find sunlight creeping across the white cliffs. I think it was the sunlight that woke me. The sun was just sending the first tendrils of fiery orange to streak up from behind the mountains and stripe the dark blue western sky with shafts of gold that would soon bathe the valley in morning radiance. With the sun just about to crest them the mountains were silhouetted like ominous jagged shadows, as though the dawn sky had been torn in half, and beneath it's ragged bottom edge was only darkness.

I rolled to my belly, and yawned, my pointed pink tongue curling inside my black and gray muzzle. I stretched myself out rather like a cat, dropping my chest to the cool white stone and raising my hind end in the air. Unsheathing my claws, I stretched my front paws out in front of me, arching and stretching my tail as well. Then I pushed my chest up and lowered haunches back to the ground, curling then stretching my long serpentine neck in an effort to work out all the kinks. Some of the stiffness eased, the rest I hoped would work itself out with flight.

I took me a moment to remember where I was and why I was asleep in a white cliff in the cold mountain air, instead of curled up warm and cozy amidst my ocean of furs and hides. The ethereal mist of strange and fleeting dreams was gradually pulled from my mind, like gauzy bandages sliding across my eyes. I'd had an argument with...Kylah. Who was...a human. Right...right. Oh. Right.

I heaved a sigh, shaking my horned head as I pushed myself the rest of the way to my feet. I wished my first night playing host to a human had gone better. I had given her my word to let her stay until she was safe, and as a dragon of pride I would not break that word to her, no matter how much she made me angry with her, or with myself. With a chuckle and a flick of my ears, I wondered if I pissed her off enough if she'd ask me to take her home sooner.

Then I folded my ears to the sides of my head in irritation as I remembered she could not go home. Without conscious effort my tail began to twitch and flick back and forth as though it too was irritated with my situation. I glared back at it, hissing at my tail as if it would actually listen, and was not merely another part of my body. "No one asked you, Tail."

If it wouldn't have hurt me, I would have bitten it.

I walked to the very edge of the cliff to peer down in the valley. The sunlight that was just erupting from behind the mountains began to pour down the serrated mountains like golden magma flowing down to pool in the valley below, and melt away all trace of our former clan. Thankfully, it was just sunlight, and the golden tone it covered the valley with gave everything a strange, honeyed hue.

The thought of honey made me lick my muzzle to keep from drooling, and I pressed my tongue to my fire bile gland and swallowed. Now there was a treat I hadn't had in a long time. I'd stolen some from humans before, and I'd claimed some from bees. I'd also found out the hard way that while bees had trouble stinging dragons through our natural armor, it was a very bad idea to break apart bee hives with my paws, as the bees inside immediately seemed to congregate across my very sting-able paw pads. To say nothing of seeking out the other areas of my body without scales. There had to be a better way to claim the honey for myself that that. I stowed the idea way in my mind for later consideration.

For a moment, I wondered why my legs were so sore, my paw pads scratched up, and then I remembered that like an idiot I'd climbed up the cliff. When I finally remembered what had convinced me to do such a thing, I stood at the very edge of the ledge and stretched my long neck to peer over it. From below it had been distance and hard to read, and also upside down. From above, I could see that there were several dragon's names, written in the ancient form of our scripted language, and they seemed to be having an increasingly heated discussion. Each had left several messages and from what I could tell they were angry about a fight over whom a female had chosen. The messages stretched over the edge of the ledge, and when it seemed as though it would lead to a challenge to fight to the death, it abruptly ended with the very message I'd noticed from the bottom.

It simply read, Forgive always.

Hmmph! I snorted loudly, and stomped a paw against the ledge. A lot of good that did me! I don't know what I expected it to say, but somehow I felt oddly disappointed at first. I'd come all the way up here, and what did I find? Some cowardly dragon backing out of a fight with some half hearted sappy drivel about forgiveness! The other male had taken his mate and what did he do? Forgive him and walk away to avoid a fight? If that dragon were still alive now I'd have gone and punched him in his balls for making me drag myself all the way up here just to read that.

I bunched up my hind legs, and leapt off the ledge, thinking about what a bitter old cretin I'd become. Poor dragon was probably just trying to do the right thing, and yet I couldn't stop thinking he was just trying to avoid a fight. Forgiveness? Had that gotten him his mate back? I sincerely doubted it. Though, I suppose blaming a long dead dragon's woes for my own decision to climb up a craggy cliff at my age was hardly going to do me any good.

I had not yet opened my wings, rather I folded them against myself and dove towards the valley below. The further I let myself dive, the faster I went, the harder my heart hammered, and more my stomach churned and twisted with fear and excitement. If I opened my wings too late, I would die. That was part of the thrill of diving, I suppose, flicking my flight membranes across my eyes and watching the ground rush up to meet me, eager to climb the life of what may well have been the last dragon alive. The white cliffs rushed past my belly, each ledge just a little closer to my. If I'd misjudged my leap I'd shatter myself against the edge of one of those ledges. My heart leapt when I felt the faint brush of cold stone against the tip of my tail, and I decided perhaps I'd dived far enough.

I spread my wings and immediately pulled out of my dive. The sudden influx of air against my wing membranes and sails jolted them painfully, stretching the muscles that worked them and the tendons that bound them to my body, and my bones. A poorly executed dive could lead to torn muscles and ruptured tendons, but thankfully the joy I took in flight had made me an excellent diver as well. I knew just what speed I could reach and still safely stop my dive, I know how much time and space I needed to avoid hitting the ground once I'd opened my wings, and I knew how much strain my old body could take from spreading my wings in full dive.

The sudden burn of stretched tendons and taut wing muscles was just another part of flight, and I relished it all. It simply meant I was still alive, and I was still able to fly. In my darkest hours, I had once thought how nice it would be to die in flight. Not to fall to my death, mind you. Uncontrollable falling was one of a dragon's worst fears. As much as we loved to fly, there were few deaths more terrifying then falling from a high place in the sky, seeing the ground rushing towards you, and for the first and last time in your life, being unable to do anything at all to stop it.

I had never known anyone who had actually died from falling, but one of the other youths came close. He had attempted to execute some maneuvers that he was in no way ready for, and torn many of the tendons in his right wing. He'd dropped from the sky like a bird shot through with an arrow, spiraling towards the earth in the most gut wrenchingly and oddly graceful thing I'd ever seen, screaming his head off all the way down. Somehow, a couple of the elders reached him just in time, and together they caught him mere wingspans above the ground. Thankfully, his wing eventually healed enough for him to fly again, though he was never as graceful in the air again. The important thing was that he survived, and he could fly. A dragon who could not fly was no dragon at all.

Yet, I could not help but wonder if death in flight would be the best death at all. Simply flying along, happy and content, and then...dead. I supposed it would be hard to achieve, even if your heart burst in mid flight, you might live just long enough to feel the terror of the fall. I had heard of dragons struck dead by lightening in mid flight, but by no means had I ever risked that. I never flew in storms. I supposed a human's arrow straight through the eye into the brain, or perhaps through the chin would provide an instant, painless death in mid flight, and perhaps in death I might even get lucky and fall upon the very humans who had shot me!

It was not as though I wished to die, mind you. I went very far out of my way to avoid it, in fact. But there had been times when my emotions had taken control, especially in the first few years after Niara left me, and I was the only one left, that I had considered it. I had thought I could simply fly until my wings would no longer carry me, and let the world take me away. The terror of the long fall at the end had thankfully kept me from carrying out that plan, even if I had spent a few days flying as hard as I could. I had also considered simply diving, and never opening my wings. That seemed like a good way to alleviate the terror of the fall. I loved to dive, it was exhilarating! And I thought I could simply dive, close my eyes, and never open my wings.

Thankfully, I had never done it, and in time, things did not seem quite so bleak to me. It was only a small difference, mind you, but I had opted to remain, even if I was the last dragon on earth, for as long as possible if only to spite humanity with my lingering presence. Like a boil on their nose they simply could not rid themselves of, I would fester and spoil their little party with my mere existence as long as I could. And in the process, I would enjoy myself at their expense, and do all the things a dragon loved for as long as I could.

I winged swiftly over the meadow, and thought about hunting some breakfast. My belly was already rumbling painfully loud, but I had promised Kylah that I would get her fresh meat this day, and take her down into the valley to build a fire to cook it. It sucked my limbs up against my body, my tail streaming out behind me, and I began to beat my wings harder. I ascended swiftly, cold wind swirling around my body as the sun fought to warm the cool autumn morning.

Soon I landed on the ledge that hung beneath the opening to my home, and made my way down into the light-stone illuminated tunnel. This time I managed to avoid putting my paw in slime, and before long I had returned to my sleeping chamber. It was still early, and Kylah was still asleep.

Kylah was curled atop the furs that I had provided for her, her head on the lacy cream colored pillow and the pale blue blanket draped across her. Her hair was spilled across the creamy white pillow like a fan of autumn brown, half hiding her face. With her green eyes closed, and her breathing so slow and even, she looked positively serene. I had never seen a human sleep before, and I suppose I really should not have been so surprised to see how peaceful she looked. I imagine to a human even a dragon would look peaceful in slumber. Niara certainly did.

I decided not to wake her, and carefully crept through my sleeping chamber, and into my bathing chamber. I took a long drink from the underground stream to quench the burning thirst that had built up over night and through my morning of flight, and when my tongue and throat were no longer parched, I eased myself down into the cold water. I shivered a little at first, my black and gray scales rattling against each other, but my body had soon adjusted to the cold.

I bathed myself best I could without the sands I usually liked to use to scrub my scales. Down in the valley there was a deep pool in the largest of the streams with a coating of fine sands along it's bottom. As many of my kind did, I used the sands to scrub my scales and help remove any lingering stains and dirt. Sometimes I brought buckets of sand up here for such a purpose, but without them, I picked up a porous rock I kept near by, and used it to gently scrub myself from the tip of my muzzle down to the very tip of my tail, and everywhere in between I could reach. Then I rinsed myself off and just soaked in the cold water for a little while, easing the many aches in my body.

When I'd had enough and my paw pads had began to tighten and wrinkle a little, I climbed back out of the water, and shook myself, spraying a fine curtain of mist and droplets in just about every direction. I stretched out and shook each wing separately, as well as each of my paws. Then I shook my entire body once more, and padded back into my sleeping chamber.

Kylah had awoken, and was busy working the brush through her hair. She was facing away from me, watching the tunnel that lead out of my home as if worried I was about to return. Or perhaps worried that I wasn't yet back, I thought when I realized she didn't know I had come home yet. Much as I would have liked to think she was actually concerned about me, I couldn't help but imagine she was only worried about how she would get down the mountain if something had happened to me.

"Good morning," I said softly, not wanting to startle her.

I startled her anyway. She whirled around to face me, dropping the brush. It clattered across the floor and she took a step back. I saw she was still wearing the blue and gold tunic and the black breeches, but she'd not put her boots on for the morning and was standing on the furs, bare foot. I hoped the stone floor itself was not too cold for her. For a few moments, we stared at each other, her green eyes boring into mine. I knew she was going over everything she'd said to me the night before, just as I was going through everything I'd said back to her.

Everything I'd almost done.

"I'm sorry," I said, which much to my surprise came out in unison with her own apology. It made me smile a little bit, and I tried again, lowering my head till my muzzle touched the floor in the most apologetic gesture I could make. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to frighten you like that, I wouldn't hurt you." I didn't need to tell her that I almost had. "I...I simply overreacted. I...I have trouble when people bring up my family, or...use them to insult me, or hurt me."

As if anyone else had been around to do just that since Niara left.

Kylah touched her hand to her cheek, where perhaps it was starting to down on her that I could have literally torn her head from her shoulders if I was so inclined. I half expected her to scream at me, or tell me that I should be sorry, or tell me she knew why my mate had left me. But she did none of those things. Instead, she crept forward towards me, and as I lifted my head again, I could see a little of the previous morning's fear and hesitancy had returned to her eyes, replacing some of the progress we'd made before we'd both gone too far. For some reason, seeing that fear in her eyes hurt me more then I'd expected.

"No," she said, coming to a stop just outside of my reach. "No, you didn't. Over react, I mean. I..." She glanced down at her hands, wringing them together in apprehension and shame. "I never should have said such terrible things. It's just...well, I don't know why I did. But you brought up my home like that, and..."

"I know. It was over the line. I'm sorry."

"It was," she said, a bit more fire creeping into her voice if only for a moment. "But so was I. I never would have thought a dragon would...well, even have a family! Let alone love them, miss them, and long for them when they're gone. You're nothing at all like I thought dragons would be. I could see the pain in your eyes when we talked about them, when you shared your paintings with me, when you told me she took your children and left you...I could see pain as deeply in your eyes as I ever saw it in a human's, and I never should have used it against you. But, when you brought up my home, you hurt me, and...I just..."

She wanted to hurt me back. I could understand that. Before she could continue, I cut her off with words I had honestly not expected to hear myself say, especially not to a human. "I forgive you." Damn that old dragon and his smarmy, sappy nonsense! How did he get that into my head? I shouldn't forgiven her, I should bite her head off for hurting me like that.

"Wh...what?"

And yet...I didn't really want to hurt her. I wanted to do what I said, I wanted to find it in myself to forgive her, and I didn't even know what. But I did. I smiled at her, just a little, and repeated myself. "I forgive you." This time I meant it.

A beautiful smile slowly broke across her lips, like the sunlight spilling it's way through the clouds after a long, gloomy day of rain. She came forward again, and I could see her struggling to fight her own hesitancy, to force herself to treat me like a human, not a dragon. As if to prove to herself she could, she wrapped her arms around my head, and for the second time since I'd met her, she hugged me. "I forgive you too, Vraal."

For the second time since I'd known her, it made me feel a little better.

Something was happening here, and I wasn't sure what it was. Nor was I sure if I liked it. In a very short amount of time, it was starting to seem as though Kylah and I were becoming friends. Or something close to friends. Was I really so desperate for companionship after all these years that I would cling to the first non-hostile sentient creature I came across like a drowning dragon clinging to a floating log? I was drowning in solitude and Kylah almost seemed to be trying to pull me out of it. I just hoped I wasn't going to drag her down with me.

Or was there more too it then that? What if she was just trying to gain my trust to betray me later on? That had happened to me once before, and paranoia now cautioned me to watch out or it would happen again. Warned me that no human in their right mind would ever befriend a dragon, especially this swiftly. Unless they meant to use him later on.

Or could Kylah simply be that desperate for a friend now that she was alone in the world, as well? Maybe that was really all there was too it. I was the only one left in my home, and she had no home at all to go to. My kind were all scattered, and maybe all dead, and her people were slowly being ground to dust. Maybe that was it. Maybe we were just two drowning rats clinging to each other as the ship sank around us.

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