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Chapter Ten

I decided against telling Kylah I was going to try and help her people, at least for now. I had a lot of things I wanted to sort out in my head first, and I didn't want to get her hopes up in case I ended up tucking my tail and fleeing from the idea like a coward. I wasn't really sure why I was planning on doing this, anyway. Was it for Kylah? I'd grown to like her a great deal in a short period of time, and the fact that she came here hoping to sway me to her people's cause did not change the friendship that was growing between us. But I wasn't sure that I was going to do this for her, either. And I certainly wasn't going to do it for her people. If anything, I was doing it for myself.

When things were smoothed out between us again and we'd both calm down, I let her climb atop my back so we could go and get some breakfast. Kylah seemed to enjoy flying with him, and I was glad to get to share it with her a little longer. Soon I had reached my ledge and taken to the air again, and was flying wide circles above my valley. The sun appeared as though it had been up for some time now, and while the sky was mostly clear and blue, thin swirling lines of white curling back on themselves like alabaster feathers from some exotic bird's wing told me the weather was going to change soon. I sniffed the air as I flew, I smelt ice tinting the cold winds. It would snow on my valley soon.

I felt Kylah shiver against my back, and she leaned forward to press herself against the warmth of my neck. In our emotional near parting she had forgotten to bring the cloak she'd taken to flying with the day before. I quickly swooped low over the ground, and alighted in our usual spot, near the beaver pond and the thick grove of trees. The trees too seemed to sense the coming cold, the beautiful reds and yellows that had colored the leaves of the oaks and aspens already seemed to have faded to a dull, dying brown. A gust of wind swirled around us, and tore several of the leaves away from their precarious holds, where they eventually fluttered to the ground to join their fallen comrades in a leafy graveyard that spread beneath the forest. A few more of the reddish brown leaves now dotted the beaver pond, lazily drifting across it. Ripples emanated from one leaf as a fish curiously picked at it. Kylah slipped off my back, her boots crunching in the dead leaves and the grass that was beginning to fade for the autumn as well.

She gave a small smile, hopeful I was not still angry with her, and reached towards my neck. Her touch was unusually hesitant, like when we'd first met, and she asked if it would be alright to touch me. She'd been genuinely curious about touching a dragon then, and I had no reason to doubt her childhood fascination with my species was made up. She saw a chance to touch something that both terrified and fascinated her, and she took it. Trying to use me to liberate her village was likely an idea that simply came to her all at once, and had been growing in her mind ever since. But, angry as it made me, I truly did not believe now that her closeness with me was feigned. And I hoped to whatever God would listen that it was not. So as her fingers trembled, pausing near my neck as though she was unsure I still wished to let her touch me, I felt my heart sink. It made me ache to see her so wary just to touch me now, she knew she'd hurt me earlier, and she regretted it.

I didn't want that. I turned my self, and pushed my muzzle right into her hand, the soft leathers at the end of my nose pressed to her palm. I purred to her a little, and I licked her fingers. She gave a sigh of relief, and rather then petting my muzzle, hugged my whole horned head against chest again. I could hear her heart pounding away inside her, it sounded much faster then usual.

"I said I forgave you," I reminded her, nudging at her with my muzzle.

"I know you did, Vraal. But...It's just that..."

"Hush," I said just firmly enough to make sure she did just that. I pulled my head back a little bit to look into her beautiful green eyes. "You don't have to say anything else. I understand."

I was glad to see her smile a little, her smile always light up her entire, smooth skinned face, made it glow beneath the curtains of her dark brown hair. She took my muzzle with both hands beneath my chin, and gently lifted it. Then much to my surprise she lowered her own head a little and pressed her lips to the very tip of my snout. For a moment, her scent and her warmth filled me like sweet wine, and my heart skipped a beat then thumped thrice in quick succession. The brief kiss seemed to surprise her almost as much as it surprised me, her face flushed scarlet, and though she kept smiling, she turned her head away a little. Her fingers trailed all the way to the end of my chin as she turned away. Without a word she walked towards the beaver pond, and settled in the sun along it's grassy banks.

I was left confused, unsure, yet happy. When she sat she turned away from me, and after a moment glanced over her shoulder to watch me, her hair swaying. There was a moment of silence, but I wouldn't call it awkward. Unsure, perhaps, both of us were surprised by what had just happened but neither of us were unhappy with it. Besides, it was nothing, really, just a little kiss, a simple gesture of affection like a soft nuzzle, or a lick on the cheek. When she turned her eyes back to the sparkling, leaf strewn water, I lifted a paw to rub my snout. Was that really all there was too it? Something had slowly been growing between us, and though I wasn't yet sure what it was, or where it would lead, I understood why she was so worried about having hurt me.

I dug at the grass beneath my feet a little. The little green blades tickled at my sensitive paw pads, and my claws left ruts down into the black earth beneath the grass's roots. I coiled my tail tip in thought, and decided the longer I stood here, the more awkward things would get. I was better at sorting my thoughts in the air. I finally cleared my throat with a little growl that had her looking back at me again.

"I'm going to go flying for a bit," I announced, as though it would be of great concern to her. "I'll catch some breakfast and bring you some, and then I'm just going to fly around a little while. If..." I hesitated, swiveling my ears. "You don't mind?"

Kylah just smiled at me in that sweet way I was getting used too. I could see it in her eyes she was still mentally berating herself for hurting me, and questioning herself for kissing my muzzle. I didn't know what else to tell her about either of those things, but I hoped the time alone might help her sort out her thoughts as well as it might help me with mine. "That's fine, Vraal." She laughed a little bit, plucking some grass and tossing it into the wind to watch the green blades scatter and flutter down to the water. "I'll be here when you get back."

I chuckled a little at that, and leapt into the air. Normally I'd ascend in the opposite direction so as not to make her think I was going to knock her over, but this time that was exactly what I did. I leapt right towards her, beating my wings and playfully swooping right above her head. I even brushed her head with one of my fore paws, her hair flying in all directions at once as the wind swirled beneath my wings and all around her. She yelped in surprise and tumbled forward, almost into the water, and I couldn't help but laugh. As I rose higher, she got on her feet, her laughter falling me into the skies, and I believe she called me a "brat."

I was too old to be a brat, but I certainly knew how to act like one. As far as I was concerned, if she could ambush me in the waters with a mud ball, I could nearly bowl her over whenever I took the air. I circled a few times as I rose, watching her as she watched me turn. She waved at me, and somewhat to my surprise I felt the heaviness that had lingered in my heart for most of the morning starting to lift. The more time I spent with Kylah, the happier I felt. Part of me wanted to embrace that, accept it.

The other part of me was terrified.

Dragons and humans were not even supposed to be friends, let alone...well, anything else. And yet, why was that? It wasn't as if there was some great rule written on stone tablets somewhere that said dragons could not taken humans as friends. And there were enough nasty human rumors and stories out there about what male dragons did to the maidens they kidnapped to tell me that humans at least acknowledged the possibility of the two races becoming lovers. Then again, love was rarely if ever the subject of those stories, they were just another excuse to kill us. There was no rule that said we could not be friends with humans, it was just that we simply hated each other, and killed each other. Such friendship would likely be quite taboo for both species, but that didn't really matter, did it.

I shook my head. There was nothing wrong with being friends with a human. Beyond that...well...It was unlikely things would ever progress beyond that, anyway, and equally unlikely either of us would want it too. I was just happy to find myself enjoying someone else's company again. For a human, her presence had become far less irritating then I'd ever expected when I first agreed to let her come back. Even if she only wanted to come back at first to try and get me to go risk my life on her behalf.

I heaved a great sigh, climbing higher and higher into the sky. That was not worth dwelling in. If our friendship continued much longer, I might even be thankful she thought she could convince me of that. I'd never have gotten to know her if she hadn't tried. Just as I'd never have gotten to know her if I left her to her fate that first day. Those terrible men would have raped her, and they would have killed her, and they would have left her to rot.

The images that idea put in my mind were so vivid and so sickening I almost wretched. I actually felt my stomach contort, felt bile rise up my throat, and I clenched down on my innards to keep everything in it's proper place. I did not even want to think about Kylah suffering that fate. Initially deceptive or not, Kylah had begun to show me there was more to humanity then hatred, selfishness and murder. And she was starting to show me that my own kind were not much better, and that I had fallen into the same endlessly sucking mire that had drowned the rest of my race. I suppose it wasn't that I didn't know I was walking deeper and deeper into that very mire, I just kept denying it to myself. But telling myself I was safe was not the same as turning around and walking out while I still had the chance. I wondered, briefly, how many more steps I could take before I'd be in too deep to ever free myself again.

I hunted almost without thinking about it. I might have liked to brag to other dragons were there any left that I could hunt successfully with my eyes closed, and that was nearly what I was doing. Almost before I'd realized it, I had a deer in my claws, and just about the time I'd realized that, I had already dropped it off for Kylah and already climbed back into the sky.

Time passed, I flew, and I thought.

What had Kylah said the other day? Some sort of ship analogy I'd used, that she'd turned back on me. She didn't want to see me run myself aground on the same rocks that had dashed my species to pieces. We saw our fate coming, and we sailed blindly ahead anyway, straight into our own miserable, lonely end. And ever since Niara left me, I was doing exactly the same thing. Rather then leave my old home and try to find the last vestiges of my kin, maybe even my own family, stubborn pride kept me rooted to my damp, dark, lonely home. Kept me clinging to my solitude. I had very much become the clichéd dragon all the human tales spoke of. Solitary and alone, high in the mountains, dwelling in a lair messily stuffed with a hoard, interacting with other creatures only when I hunted, and when I raided the humans I hated so much.

Kylah was right. But it wasn't as though I didn't know it. I'd set my ships course for those rocks a long time ago, and then I had simply turned away, and closed my eyes. I would stay here until my dying day, be it old age or the dragon slayers who would someday succeed where their companions had failed. At least I had Kylah here for a bright spot for a little while. I hadn't realized just how lonely I was until I was sharing my home with someone again. Once, I had cherished my solitude, but in the long years alone, solitude gradually melted away into loneliness.

Niara was right, too. Especially with the last thing she ever said to me. I still remembered that terrible day as vividly as when it happened, and the last words she ever said to me still echoed through my mind every night. You're a stubborn old fool, Vraal. A stubborn old fool.

She was right, of course. I told Kylah it was stubborn pride that kept me here, that kept me from ever giving into humanity as long as I drew breath. And it was stubborn pride that had slowly but surely transformed me into something very near the monster humanity always proclaimed me to be. And upon my death, the monster that all humanity would celebrate the end of.

Everyone but Kylah.

Kylah would...

Kylah would mourn me, wouldn't she. I thought she would, at least. Oddly, that made me smile. It was nice to be mourned by someone. To be mourned meant you were cared for, it meant you would be remembered as something more then a monster. There was only one human in the whole world who saw me as that, and when I was gone, I doubted anyone would even believe her if she tried to tell them so. They'd probably think I'd bewitched her. Every human in the world knew it in their hearts that dragons were monstrous beasts at best, evil demons at worst.

Everyone but Kylah.

Kylah who had seen in us a glimmer of kindness, a sparkle of hope, and a propensity for greatness. We had been great once, and she had seen that. And perhaps, she had seen it in my heart that we could be great once again, if only for a little while. Even when Kylah'd revealed it to me that she had wanted all along to get me to help her people free themselves, she had done so in a way that revealed that somehow she believed I had it in myself to be great. That somewhere within this battered, lonely old dragon was a spark of great light, the sort of light that could shine across one small part of the world, illuminate for those lucky few what we had once been. A light within me that could prove beyond a doubt, at least to a few humans, that we were more then monsters.

We were great once, we could make ourselves great again. If I truly wished the humans to give up on trying to wipe us out once and for all, I had to do something about it. I had to do something to prove to them that we were not monsters! That we were more then claws and teeth, more then fury and hatred, more then raids and fire and death. That we deserved a place on this world every bit as much as they did.

Kylah made it pretty clear that no one else was going to step up and help out her people. She was going to try and save them with or without me, because there was no one else to take her place. Or was there?

Do something great. I had been telling myself that all morning.

Forgive always. I had been telling myself that ever since I climbed up the cliff to read that old lizard's ramblings.

Perhaps it was time I did both. Sulking about in my cave, complaining to myself and the slime that crept across my floor that humanity had robbed us of our future would not change what had happened. And if I truly was the last one left, if I died today, I would not have changed a thing. We would go into history as a lost race of monsters remembered for nothing but wickedness and cruelty, and rightfully wiped out. But if I did as Kylah wanted me too, if I saved this town...then at least one small part of the world would remember us differently. They'd remember us as something we once were.

They'd remember us as something great. Something noble.

Something that had just maybe deserved the place in the world humanity had stolen from them. It would not bring my people back, and even if there were more of us left, it probably wouldn't stop us from going extinct. But at least I would have done something for us. At least in the end, we would seem great again. Better for our flame to flare out bright and shining and furious, then to simply fade away as dying embers.

That was it, then. I would save Kylah's town, or I would die trying. Not for the people who lived there, not for Kylah, not even for myself. But for my species, and for our memory. I had met Kylah out of some strange desire to do one good deed for a human in my life, and now, I would do one great deed for my people. I would prove to anyone I could that we were not monsters.

When I had made up my mind, and made my decision, I felt strangely upbeat. Much as I might have suspected deciding to throw myself into something that might cost me my life might hang an hang an anchor around my heart, it felt as though like the exact opposite. My heart felt lighter, my soul freer then it had in years, and I wasn't really sure why. Nonetheless, I took a deep breath of the cold, frost tinged air, and gave a great, sky-shaking roar.

For a little while longer, I simply relished in the pure joy of flight, roaming the skies and switching from simple circles into my complex and acrobatic loops, and barrel rolls. Such maneuvers were not exactly easy for dragons and even less safe, but I'd taught myself how to do them long ago, and accepted the uncomfortable strain that they placed on my wings and back as a reminder that I was not only one of the few creatures in the world capable for flight, but perhaps the only one with the mental capacity to truly appreciate it.

Still, it had been years since I'd danced in the sky this way. I was up so high my breath came in massive clouds of steam as my heart hammered away. I shifted my wings slightly, flaring my sails to alter my direction, and then pulled up until I was nearly flying straight up. Pushing my sails down a little, I looped back over myself until I could see my tail for just a moment before it vanished out of view again as I completed my loop, like a black serpent slinking into it's hiding place. I found myself staring at the ground, and folded my wings and sails, diving towards the meadow far below.

From so high above, I could see the toll autumn was taking. The grass that had been so verdant only days before was already dying off in increasingly large swaths. The speckled color patches of all the late season wildflowers were fading as well, winter was coming and the natural world knew it even before my nose informed me of all the ice starting to tint the air. It would snow soon, and once the white blanket was draped across my valley, winter would renew it time and time again until the warmth of spring once more embraced the mountains.

It was as good a time as any to leave my valley for a while, and put my life on the line in some unwelcoming human land. Human lands that had once belonged to dragons. I snorted, contemplating that as I hurtled towards the ground that rushed towards me as though eager to claim the life of the last dragon who yet dared to fly so high above it. I spread my wings slowly as I neared the ground, no sense straining them on a last minute ascent. Instead I arched gracefully back up away from the ground on a gentle upward curve. If I was to truly help these humans there was no sense in lamenting the fact I would be helping them protect lands they once stole from us, so I may as well put that out of my head right away.

I zoomed back towards Kylah, and had soon alighted on the ground near the miniature forest where she'd built her fire to cook her breakfast. She had already eaten and was busy cooking up leftovers to take back to the cave with her. How long had I been flying? I really did lose track of time when taken by the simple joy of flight and lost in thought. And even the rumblings of my belly hadn't propelled me back towards my breakfast the way they usually would. Though as soon as I'd landed and the scents of meat both fresh and cooked met my nostrils, my stomach growled louder then I myself could.

Nonetheless, I found myself practically prancing around Kylah and the fire before I settled down to eat. Prancing was not something a dragon usually did, but somehow I was in such a good mood I was nearly hopping from black paw to black paw and arching my tail and neck, my crests all flared up Kylah gave me a very odd look, and then laughed, twisting her head first one way, then the other to try and keep up with me. Dark auburn hair fell across her eyes and she had to push it out of the way to keep watching me.

"Someone's in a good mood."

"Is it that obvious?" I came to a stop across from her, near the remnants of the deer I'd been eating, and dropped down to my gray tinged belly in a heap of hungry dragon.

Kylah laughed softly. "You're dancing around like a hatchling waiting to get a present!"

"Oh," I said, feigning surprise as though I hadn't noticed my own behavior. I tilted my head to the side, perking up my ears, then swiveling them to the sides of my head as though totally uninterested in what that might mean. "I hadn't realized."

"Mmhmm." Kylah grinned widely enough to show me nearly all her teeth. They were not as impressive as mine, but her smile was. She carefully turned over the meat that was searing on a rock with her fingers, doing her best not to burn them. "So what's got you so happy?"

"Food!" I said, with enough enthusiasm to tell her I meant it. And I did. Though it wasn't what had me happy in the first place. I dropped my head down and had soon made quite a bloody mess of myself, as usual. As the venison finished cooking on the hot rocks around the small, crackling fire, Kylah gathered it all together in little pile atop another rock, juices running down it and sizzling as they burned away in the heat radiating from the flames. Fresher, bloodier venison was soon collecting in my belly, and the rich, slightly mineral taste had coated my tongue and all the way down my throat. When my hunger was sated, I pushed myself back to my paws, and announced my satiety with an unusually loud belch.

Kylah made a face and rolled her eyes, which only made me laugh. "You know you like it."

"You dragons certainly don't have very good manners, do you."

"I have perfectly good manners." I let my ears droop at the sides of my head as though insulted.

"Sure you do." Kylah rose to her feet as well and walked over to me. She ran one finger down the center of my snout, just between my nostrils, then held it up to show me the crimson stain that marred it. "Creatures with good manners don't get their food all over their faces when they eat."

"Dragon's do. It's considered impolite if we don't get blood on our faces and paws after hunting."

Kylah wiped her bloodied finger off on my ear, which up until then had somehow remained clean. Then she put her hands on her hips and simply stared at me, a bemused expression marking her face. Her crimson lips curled into a half smile, and her round, emerald eyes sparkled with clearly mischievous disbelief. Which was correct, dragons had no such rule of etiquette. I was just pulling things like that out from under my tail to try and get to her. She finally shook her head, and walked off towards the beaver pond.

"I'm going to take a bath before it gets too cold to do so outside." She pulled off her boots, and stuck a foot in the water, shivering. "It's pretty damn close already, but I might as well."

That gave me a wicked idea. I waited until she'd removed all her clothing, and had just begun to wade naked into the water, trying to adjust to it's chill temperature before completely submerging herself. Then I quickly trotted up behind her, and shifting my weight back to my hind paws for just a moment, snatched her up in my front legs. And then immediately hurled her out into the middle of the leaf-strewn waters.

Kylah gave a shocked scream which lasted only a second before she vanished into the dark, cold waters. A tremendous splash erupted in her wake, towering like a fountain formed spontaneously out of the middle of the pond. Cold droplets splattered against my muzzle, and I turned my head away, cringing. That was colder then I'd expected. She was gonna be angry! Ripples big enough to be called waves in their own right washed across the pond, picking up all the scattered brown and red leaves before dropping them right back down into the water, or washing some of them up onshore all around the pond.

Kylah came back up a few moments later, coughing and shivering, but laughing at the same time. I was somewhat relieved to see she'd taken my prank in the spirit I meant it, that was, the same spirit she'd had when she startled me with a mud ball the other day. She crossed her arms over her chest, shuddering and glaring at me as she rubbed just beneath her shoulders. "You scaly shit!"

"My shit is not scaly," I said, as seriously as I could.

"I am gonna get you!"

"Oh? How are you gonna do that?" A sly smirk spread over my face. "I don't think you're strong enough to toss me in the water like that."

She glared at me a moment, still rubbing her upper arms. "I'll drag you in by your testicles if I have too!"

"Ooh," I groaned, cringing at that idea, my hind legs tensing. "Not fair! Fine, here, I'll make us even."

"Wait, what are you planning to do?" Kylah started to ask, though it was a little too late.

Since she wasn't big enough to hurl me into the cold but sun-sparkling water, I was going to do it myself! I launched myself off my powerful hind legs and belly-flopped right into the pond, as close to her as I dared without accidentally landing on her. She screamed as I dropped into the water, the sound quickly washed out by the water that filled my ears and the waves that crashed over her head. I scrambled as I sunk, and as soon my hind laws touched the muddy bottom, I kicked off. The pond wasn't terribly deep, the flow of water that trickled through the beaver dam kept it from freezing completely through in the winter, but it was still a little over my head in the very center. I came back up coughing as well, and shaking my head to try and clear out my ears.

Kylah had moved to slightly shallower water so that she could get her footing beneath her, and as soon as my head came up, I was pelted right between my eyes by another very well aimed and very cold mud ball. Which happened to hit me just as my flight membranes pulled away, so while I'd managed to keep the water out of my eyes, I didn't keep the mud out of them.

"Aarrgg!" I stumbled back and sunk under the water again, only to come back up on the other side the pond, coughing and rubbing at my eyes with the heel of my front paw. "Graah!" I blinked frantically a few times, trying to clear the stinging brown mud from my ice blue eyes. "Truce! Truce!"

"Say I win!" Kylah said wit ha wicked grin and another sloppy pile of mud already sitting in her palm. "Say it!"

"Fine, you win, you win," I admitted, still trying to clear my eyes. "You sure are mean to defenseless old dragons, you know."

"You are hardly defenseless," she laughed, letting the mud slide from her hand back into the water where it sank beneath a slowly spreading brown plume. "First you hurl me into the water like some misshapen projectile, then you nearly belly flop right onto of me and try to drown me in your wake!"

"That was not a belly flop," I said, wiping at my face with the back of my paw now. "That was a very graceful, very elegant dive."

"I've seen dogs squat with more elegance then that," she said, grinning and folding her arms over her breasts.

"Not sure why you'd want to watch dogs do that," I muttered just loud enough for her to hear. "Humans are strange."

I waded around towards her, treading the mud closer to the edge of the pond, and she did the same. When we met, she gave my wedge shaped head a little hug against her body, and I was grateful to feel her warmth against my water-chilled scales much the way I imagine she was happy to feel my own warmth against her skin. The water was cold enough, the air outside felt positively freezing against my wet scales, and even colder then that against my wings and my other areas without scale.

"Perhaps a bath outside was not such a good idea," I said, chuckling a little, then nuzzling at her chest.

"Perhaps-Hey! Watch where you're nuzzling, Lizard!" Kylah laughed and gave my muzzle a shove away from her breasts.

"Oh, right...sorry." I gave her a playful smirk, and then nudged her towards the shore with my snout. "Come on, we've both gotten rinsed off and it's damn cold. We can get warmer by the fire, and if you want a more thorough bath you can take it back home. It'll be much warmer in my cave."

Kylah agreed, and we both made our way out of the water. Once she was safely out of range, I shook myself hard at the edge of the pond to clear off as much as excess water as I could. Little droplets flew in all directions at once, and as they caught the light of the sun they shone like tiny jewels, a very brief rainbow glittering all around me. I knew Kylah thought that made me look like a big scaly dog...with wings...and horns...but I didn't really care. It helped me to dry faster, so why not?

Kylah settled near the fire and was quickly rubbing herself down with her tunic, holding it out to the flames to warm it now and then. I stood near the fire, turning back and forth. I warmed and dried my head, and then the side of my body, then turned my rump towards the flames, though I had to hold my tail up and to the side a little to keep from scorching it. Which must have given Kylah quite an amusing view, as she suddenly burst out laughing.

I winced. Dragon or not, I didn't like hearing females laugh at me when I had my tail up. "Hush up back there. Look away!"

"Me, look away?" Kylah snickered a little more. "Like you've ever done anything to hide that particular area of your anatomy before. Though, it does look like you found the water as cold as I did..."

I gave a little yelp, dropped my tail and turned back towards her, laying down on the grass with a huff. "Oh, shut up."

Kylah did nothing of the sort. "Don't be like that Vraal. You tease me all the time, it's rare for me to get a chance to say something that actually gets under your scales."

"I suppose you have a point," I muttered, laying my head down near the fire, the heat warming the scales all across my face and down my neck. I flared out my crests as wide as they'd go to warm them up as well.

"Besides, Vraal," Kylah said, pulling her tunic over her shoulders once her body was mostly dry. "It's amusing to see that you dragons are as concerned with those particular parts of yourself as human men are."

I grumbled something incoherent that she was probably better off not hearing anyway.

Kylah finished dressing, and came around to sit next to me. She leaned against my shoulder, and draped an arm across the back of my neck. The little spiny ridge that ran down my neck didn't seem to bother her, and she was soon stroking the far side of my black scaled neck, across from herself. Her soft fingers felt good against my scales, warmer then I felt even sitting next to the fire. After a few minutes of quiet, she spoke up.

"You never did tell me why you came back so happy."

"What makes you think something made me happy?" I lifted my head just enough to smirk back at her, teasing her after it had been so obvious.

"After the morning we had? I was half afraid you'd come back here and demand to take me somewhere else right away..." She glanced down at the ground beneath us, anxiously licking her lips. "I was worried you might..."

I cut her off, deciding then and there to tell her my decision. "I'm going to help your town, Kylah."

Kylah jumped up so fast I half thought something had bitten her. "Vraal, you don't have-."

I cut her off again, simply repeating myself with a little more force. "I'm going to help your town, Kylah."

I didn't tell her what had pushed me to that decision. I didn't think she really needed to know, just yet. And she didn't ask either, which was just fine with me. She came forward to my head, and as soon as I lifted it, she wrapped her arms around my neck, and pulled my head against her chest. I closed my eyes to savor her warmth, her happiness, and only opened them when I felt hot wetness against my scales. I realized she was starting to cry, though she was doing so silently. For some reason, that made me smile.

"Thank you, Vraal" she whispered, her voice harsh, and chocked up. "Thank you."

That only made my smile grow till it threatened to crack my jaw. I told myself I was doing this for my people, for the dragons. But now, awash in joy that was nearly palpably emanating from Kylah like warm sunlight, I thought that maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was lying to myself.

Maybe I really was doing this for her.

Chapter Eleven

It was going to snow, and soon. The ice that had tinted the air now hung heavy in it like the scent of smoke from a fire who's flames drew ever closer. Kylah remained ecstatic that I had decided to try and help her people, and though I probably should have been nervous about what that meant for me, I found myself surprisingly calm. Perhaps even a little excited as though her enthusiasm was being leeched from her body into mine. On the way back to my home I told her that the snow was coming, and when I pointed out that I could smell the ice in the air, she in turn pointed out the lacy clouds marking the blue sky higher then I could soar. They looked like elegantly curved white feathers, twisting tendrils that often preceded a coming storm. The two of us agreed that within a day or two, my valley would be hidden beneath a blanket of white, and we may as well prepare ourselves to leave it.

For a little while now, Kylah had been teasing me about making me a fully cooked meal, and she decided that now would be the best time to do that. Once the ground was cloaked in snow it would be hard for her to find the various herbs and ingredients she wanted to collect before hand, so if she was going to do it, she'd better do it now. I had no idea what she was planning to cook for me, and it soon became clear she had even less idea.

We wandered around my home for a while, moving room to room so that Kylah could dig through my collection and find both cookware and inspiration. With some intense searching she eventually found a deep cooking pot, an old cauldron that was probably once used to prepare soup for a whole platoon of soldiers, or perhaps to cook the stews at a tavern. Somehow she talked me into cleaning it out for her while she continued to search. By the time I had the old iron pot scrubbed out and clean, she had raided my collection of drink, and procured herself several bottles of wine. I told her she was welcome to drink them, but she informed me she was planning to cook with them, instead. An odd choice, I thought, but who was I to question the way humans cooked things.

When she had what she needed, we headed back into the valley to enjoy what was left of the warm sunlight. With her astride my back, I gently set the bottles of wine inside the pot, and carried it in my paws down to the valley. I dropped her off at our usual spot, and she asked me to go and hunt another deer for her. While I did so, she scrounged around through the little grove of trees, all around the beaver pond, and throughout the area to find what she needed. By the time I returned with a deer, she had already gathered quite the little assortment of fragrant herbs, leaves, berries, and some various potent smelling roots. I wasn't sure what she was after, but I had to admit the various scents already smelled intriguing together.

Though she had not yet even built a fire, she quickly went to work. She'd brought a real knife this time, no need make one from stone. She skinned the deer and began slicing off large chunks of flesh, and dropping them into the pot. When she had enough meat for the two of us she began to open the bottles of wine, a selection of rich, slightly fruity smelling reds, and poured them into the pot until the liquid completely covered the venison. Then she began to chop up some of the more potent smelling herbs, and two of the roots, telling me they seemed like relatives of onion and garlic, some wild mountain variety. I truth I had no idea what either of those things were. But Kylah at least assured me that she was fairly sure they weren't poisonous. I gave her a suspicious look, I wasn't sure if she was joking or not! Besides, for all I knew something that came from the ground might be fine for a human to eat, but poisonous for a dragon.

Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea after all. Ah well, no backing down now. I asked her why she hadn't started the fire yet, and she informed me that the meat took time to marinate in the wine, herbs and roots. We passed the time talking, and she showed me the other things she'd gathered. Some berries of various hues of red and purple, some of which she had names for like raspberries and blackberries, though the others she did not know what they were called. I knew them simply as berries, but I assured her none of them were poisonous because I'd eaten them many times. At least, they weren't poisonous for dragons I added with a smack that got me a playful smack across my snout.

Kylah eventually built a fire in the usual place, though this time she expanded her fire pit significantly in order to make room for the pot. She'd gathered a lot of branches ahead of time, and kept adding more of them to the fire. I wondered why she wasn't building the fire around the pot, and she explained to me that she wanted to build a good base of coals first, and then place the pot atop them to let it heat and simmer a while. That, of course, would be my job.

All this talk of food was making me hungry, and now and then I snacked on what was left of the deer, though I didn't want to fill myself up completely. But I was getting more and more curious about how this was all going to turn out, especially when Kylah began smashing some of the bumpy and just slightly fuzzy looking blackberries in her hands, letting the juice dribble down into the pot, her fingers stained a very deep crimson-purple. Once she'd squished enough of them, she took her knife and stirred everything around inside the pot. Big as the pot was, she had to lean over it and shove her whole arm down inside to really stir everything around. And when she stood back up, her entire hand was smeared red from all the wine and venison blood, liquids dripping from fingers and blade alike.

"See?" I smirked, thumping my tail. "I'm not the only one who gets messy when he eats."

"Oh hush, Dragon," Kylah said, laughing. "At home I'd have some long handled spoons and ladles and things to stir with. I should have looked for something like that when I found this pot in your pile of junk..."

"It's not junk," I pointed out, gnashing my teeth a little.

Kylah ignored me completely. "...But I didn't even think about it, so I've got to use my knife."

By now the aromas from the marinating mixture were starting to waft out from the pot even without the benefit of fire. My nostrils twitched, it was a very potent smelling thing, unlike anything I'd yet experienced. I stuck my muzzle into the put to get a better smell of it, all the way down until my dark gray horns got wedged against the opening. I pushed a little harder, but couldn't get my head down any further. I took a deep whiff of the stuff, and found the scent to be intoxicatingly good! I could already tell that somehow the astringent aromas of the roots she called garlic and onion would blend very well with the slightly tart, slightly sweet taste of the old red wine, and the floral, spicy scents of the herbs. Perhaps these humans were on to something.

"Don't get your head stuck, Vraal, I don't want to have to try and pull that pot off your head like a dog stuck in a chicken coop."

Ignoring her best I could, I decided it was time to taste what she'd put together. Stretching my tongue out as far as I could, I lapped up some of the liquid, savoring it. It had already taken on a surprisingly complex array of flavors, all of which were new and delicious. I managed to snag one of the pieces of venison in my teeth, and pulled it into my mouth.

"You had better not be drinking that, Vraal!"

I pulled my head back, half a slice of venison hanging from my black and gray tinged muzzle to show her that not only was I drinking it, I was eating it, too. I ate the venison, impressed to see that already the rich earthy taste of the meat was taking on the flavors of everything else in the liquid. When I swallowed, I stuck my tongue out at her a moment, letting it hang from my muzzle like a fat red slug.

"You are such a brat," Kylah said with a laugh. She crouched down to slice off some meat to replace what I'd stolen, and then a few more hunks for good measure. She dropped them into the pot and they splashed into the liquid. "When you're done trying to grate on my nerves, it's about time to move the pot over to the coals."

I twisted my head around to peer over at the fire, which had mostly died back to glowing red coals surrounded by a sea of black charred wood and gray ash creeping across it, like the gray scales slowly but surely devouring my once resplendently black coloration. The sun was already hanging low in the sky, and when it dipped lower I knew the orange and red hues of the glowing coals would stand out much more, washing away some of that flaky gray.

"Stand back," I said, and picked the pot up in my paws.

It was not particularly heavy for me, even Kylah could carry if when she wanted too. Though for her it was large and heavy enough to make carrying it awkward, and I didn't want her to accidentally injure herself getting too close to the coals, or being bombarded by the burst of embers that would fill the air as soon as the heavy pot was set atop the fire. I rose up onto my hind legs, and swung the pot around, moving it over to the fire, then carefully set it down atop the coals. I didn't want to crush them any more then I had too, but even so the once tall bed of coals collapsed beneath the pot like the fully leafed trees I'd once seen collapse beneath the weight of a late spring ice storm. Embers exploded into the air all around, whirling about me like a swarm of angry red bees. I hissed and turned my head away, a few of them alighted on my wings, stinging for a moment, but I shook them off before they could cause more then minor pain.

"There. How's that?"

I settled back down a little ways away from the fire, and Kylah smiled at me. "Perfect!" She patted my muzzle. "Thank you, Vraal."

Now that the pot was in place, Kylah gathered up a few more of the branches she'd assembled together and began to place them in the ring of outlying coals that now surrounded the pot. They were soon smoking and before long had caught fire as well, leaving the pot with white hot coals beneath it, and flickering orange flames all around it. Already black sear marks and smoke stains were creeping up the side of the dark gray iron. I snorted, flicked an ear to the side and shook my head.

"So glad I spent all that time cleaning that thing."

"I didn't want dirt in your food, Vraal. You didn't really need to clean the outside as well, that was nice of you though."

I flicked my tail tip. "How was I to know you didn't need the outside cleaned as well?"

Kylah folded her arms beneath her breasts and smirked at me. "Did you really think I was going to cook food on the outside of a pot?"

I scratched around the base of one of my ridged horns, grunting. "I suppose not."

"Silly beast," Kylah playfully called me, rubbing my neck.

Soon the liquid inside the pot was starting to bubble. Steam rose from inside it in curling tendrils reaching towards the sky in ever twisting coils that gradually dissipated and faded from view. Kylah collected more berries and herbs from her pile, and began dropping them inside one by one and handful by handful. Once she'd added enough, she went to stir it again, only to realize she couldn't do so without scorching her hand. She searched around a little bit, and eventually settled on a long, sturdy branch. She held it over the flames for a few moments, slowly turning it over. Just enough to scorch it and sterilize it, and when she decided it was good enough, she used it to stir her bubbling concoction.

A concoction which was starting to smell quite delicious. It already smelled good before, but now as the flavors began to come out and meld through the cooking process, the aroma began to change as well, growing sweeter, and thicker, with just a hint of earthy tartness. I wasn't sure how she'd done it, but she'd made deer smell even better then usual. I was ready to eat it right now, but I had to wait as she assured me it wasn't ready yet. Worse, I realized that even when it was completely cooked, I was going to have to wait even longer. Since neither of us had remembered to bring a ladle or a bowl or anything, I'd have to wait until the pot and it's contents had cooled significantly for us to reach inside!

I decided that simply wasn't going to do. As the food cooked, I took to my wings and headed home. After a little searching a found a long dragon drinking bowl that would serve well enough as a ladle of sorts, and two rounded bowls that would hold both meat and liquid. I had no silverware, as she'd called it, so she'd have to make do with her hands. By the time I landed again it was nearly ready, and I was nearly drooling. By now the pot was too hot for me to move it again, and so Kylah was letting the fire die off as the food finished cooking.

Impatient, I began to ladle myself some up right away, and almost immediately burned my paw. I yelped in pain and yanked my paw back, dropping the ladle-like bowl into the stew in the process. Ears drooping, I realized I was going to have to wait for it too cool now anyway. With Kylah both laughing and trying to comfort me, I went to stick my burnt paw in the cold water to wait. It wasn't that bad, I might get a blister on my paw pad at worst, and I'd certainly had far more significant injuries then that.

When the searing sting of burned pads finally eased up, I limped back to Kylah, who gave me a sympathetic hug around my neck. The fire had died down again, but the coals beneath it were cooking the pot quite hot. I finally had an idea, I took the cloak that Kylah had brought for the cooler evening and wrapped it about my paw, then grasped the pot and quickly dragged it away from the fire. The heat spread through the cloak swiftly, but not so swiftly that I couldn't accomplish my mission before I had to let go. With the pot now off the source of heat, the cool winds that had began to blow across the valley helped to cool it. Kylah built up the fire a little more with the coals that still remained and hadn't been dragged halfway across the grass. I'd left a bit of a blackened trail in the wake of the pot, though I knew in a few days it wouldn't matter anyway. Snows and frozen nights would kill off the grass for the winter before long.

Soon the fire had risen once more to warm scales and skin, and the food had finally cooled enough for me to safely eat it! I retrieved the dropped ladle, and quickly filled up bowls for myself and Kylah. I handed her one of them, and then dug straight into mine. In no time at all I'd emptied it and gone back for seconds, and then thirds. I'd never had deer like this before! The richness of the red wine perfectly complimented the natural richness of the deer itself, and the slightly sharp taste of the garlic and onion had cooked down a little so that now it simply added a beautiful counterpoint to the sweetness garnered from the berries, and herbs. I sounded like some sort of gourmet, describing the food to myself.

Pity I couldn't put it so eloquently when Kylah asked me how I liked it. "Good!' I exclaimed through a mouthful. "Real good!"

Kylah laughed, her green eyes sparkling in the firelight. "Good! I'm glad you like it. Though, it's amazing how messy you can get yourself even when you're eating from a bowl."

I chuckled and pulled another chunk of rich tasting wine marinated venison out of the bowl, trying my best to chew it slowly and really savor the deep, complex flavors. Savoring was a hard think for a dragon to do! We loved to eat, but we so often gorged ourselves on freshly killed prey it was only natural for us to devour it as swiftly as we could till our bellies were bulging and full.

Kylah set her bowl down on the soft grass beneath our feet, and walked over towards me. I lifted my muzzle from the bowl I'd been eating from, simmered wine dribbling off the gray scales of my chin. Kylah smiled at me and shook her head. Without a word she reached out and wiped off my muzzle with the sleeve of her blouse, staining the dark green material something closer to purple. Not that it did much good, as soon as she pulled her arm away I had buried my muzzle right back into my bowl, licking it clean, and coating the end of my snout in the juices once again.

"Just like a little child," Kylah said, clucking her tongue and rubbing my muzzle clean again, this time with her other sleeve.

I licked my muzzle a few times, my pink tongue curling across black and gray scales. "That tunic was a lovely green color before you decided to cover it in stains."

"Someone has to you clean you up," Kylah said with a smirk, peering into the cauldron. "You've eaten nearly all of it!"

I blinked, flicking my tail tip against the grass. "Is that bad?"

"Not at all! I'm glad you like it so much. I was afraid you wouldn't really enjoy human cooking."

"On the contrary. I've discovered humans aren't terrible at everything after all." I tilted my head to the side, grinning. "At least you're good at food preparation if nothing else."

Kylah reached into the pot to pluck a morsel of wine soaked garlic out, and popped it into her mouth. Softened from all the simmering, she easily chewed it up and gave a little moan. Then she wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, and chuckled. "Never said I was the most lady like lady in my village, anyway. Though I have to admit, I do know how to cook some damn fine venison don't I. I think I impressed myself, that time. Not bad for foraging for wild ingredients."

I set my bowl down and gave a loud, lingering belch, flaring my wings a bit. Kylah shot me a dirty look, which I ignored as usual. "I think I'm actually quite full, now."

"For once," Kylah muttered. "What should we do with the rest of this? There's probably not enough left to make you a full meal, but I'd hate to throw it away."

I flexed my wings in a shrug. "Bring it back with us. I'll just carry it back in the pot. When I get hungry later I can finish it off, or you can if you want." I turned my head towards the horizon. Though the skies were mostly dark now, I could just make out the outlines of swirling clouds in the far distance. I suspected they would advance across the mountains over night, and likely be covering my valley with snow by late morning, if not sooner. "You should probably cut up and cook the last of that deer before we go. I don't think we'll want to come back down here to build a fire again tomorrow, it's going to be too cold."

Kylah surveyed the horizon a while as well, and then stoked up her fire a little more. She piled rocks around it, and I used my claws to help her cut up the remaining deer into good sized chunks. As she began to cook the leftover meat, she told me she'd also planned to make me another meal out of the entrails, but if it was going to snow, I'd have to wait. Instead she promised that when she had the chance, she'd cook me something special out of the liver, heart, and other organs including something she called sweetbreads, which seemed a very misleading term to me. Considering we planning to attempt to re-take her village by force and we might both well end up dead, that seemed a very optimistic promise to me. Yet one I was happy to accept, and would eagerly hold her too if things did work out well for us.

I decided not to dwell on what would likely become a fierce and dangerous battle for the moment. We could plan and deal with all that while the time came. For now, I wanted to simply enjoy what might be my last few nights in my valley, and my home. When the last of the food was cooked, Kylah simply dropped it into the pot as well. There was too much for her to carry, and soaking in the wine marinade wasn't going to hurt the meat any after all. She climbed on my back, and I took the pot in my paws, and leapt into the air. It was getting cold out, but Kylah had brought a warm woolen cloak, and I was used to soaring in cold winds, so we took our time circling my valley.

It occurred to me that Kylah might never see this place this way again. By this time tomorrow I knew it was going to be covered in snow. And even if we both surveyed the liberation of her town, I imagined she would have little reason to ever return her again. It was getting too dark to see it well, so I flew lower then usual and let her soak in her last glimpse. The coming of night had painted everything in shades of dark blue and purple that gray darker and darker with each passing moment, and eventually it was time to return home.

Thankfully the icy winds that stirred and swirled around the landing ledge of my home were unable to penetrate much deeper then the first few body lengths of the tunnel leading into the mountain. Before we'd even reached my primary chamber we had both warmed up considerably, save for the paw I was using to drag the pot down the tunnel. There was not enough room to safely fly, so I hobbled into my home on three paws and used the fourth to drag the cook pot. On the long flight, the once heated iron had exchanged it's warmth for a bitter, paw pad numbing chill that I had to work back out of my fingers once I'd set the pot near my bed of furs.

The day's emotional beginnings and my hours of flight had taken a toll on me, and Kylah as well. We stayed up only a little while after returning home, and then we both curled up within my mountain of warm animal furs, and went right to sleep. For some reason, I slept very deep that night, unlike the night before. Much as I'd early felt as though deciding to help Kylah's town had somehow removed a weight from my heart rather then placing on around it, that decision also seemed to help me drift into a quicker and deeper slumber then I'd experienced for the last few nights.

I slept straight through the night, and woke up feeling surprisingly rested and refreshed. Peering around, I saw Kylah was still asleep, snuggled up beneath a rather large bear hide blanket, and I decided against waking her. While she slept in, I decided to go and see if my prediction about the weather had turned out to be true. By the time I had nearly reached the end of my tunnel, I could see it most certainly was.

Snow swirled and danced in the shafts of light shining in through the opening of the tunnel, some of it collecting in little mounded drifts against the tunnel walls and floor where the icy winds had chilled them significantly. Though I sometimes grew weary of the long winters and the seemingly endless snowfalls that came later in the season, I'd always enjoyed the first few snowfalls. Early in the winter, they were beautiful, peaceful and serene. Later, when the snows grew deeper and the nights grew colder, I often wished I had the luxury to descend somewhere warmer, wished that humans had not yet taken that right away from me. Ironic now that I would be spending the early part of winter down in just such a place, fighting for a people I hated.

I walked out onto my ledge to see just how much snow had fallen, and into a world of stark white. High as my mountain perch was, cloud bottoms drifted across my ledge, and obscured the very peak of the mountain I called home. Fat clumps of fluffy white snow danced and darted all around me, the winds blowing them straight into my face one moment, and far away from the next. I peered up, and though I could see little more then white, when the winds abated for a little while, the snow falling towards me looked more like beautiful gray clumps of ash drifting lazily through the sky. Strange how the snows seemed darker when you peered straight up at them.

I walked to the very edge of the ledge, trudging through several inches of snow that had accumulated atop the craggy stone slab despite the winds that kept blowing it off course. The snow chilled my paw pads, but for the moment I did what I could to ignore it. I was careful not to step too far, or to slip on the snow that melted beneath my paws, quickly shifting back to ice in my paw prints. Though a fall probably wouldn't kill me, after all I could fly, with my luck I'd slip and bang my balls on the ledge, and have to explain to Kylah why I was limping when I returned.

Down in the valley, everything was white. The hold that autumn had already taken on the valley was quickly being accelerated into winter's icy grasp. All the grassy hills and patches of wildflowers were completely buried in snow that would no doubt last long enough to freeze the remaining life out of the plants too stubborn to easily yield to the changing seasons. The trees that had not yet lost their leaves were now beginning to regret it, from my high vantage point I could see several places where snow had collected across leafy branches, and the extra weight proved too much for the tree to bare. Large limbs lay scattered beneath a few of the bigger trees, and in many cases they were already mostly obscured by the freshest of the snow.

Across the entire valley, the only areas that were not yet completely white were the ponds and streams that dotted it. It had not yet been cold enough long enough to freeze the surface of the waters, but snow had collected on a few floating leaves in the middle of the beaver pond. With the sun so deeply veiled, the pond had taken on a dark blue-black coloration, an oily looking blemish in an ocean of white, freckled here and there with snow coated leaves.

It was a beautiful sight, made even more peaceful by the complete lack of any sound. Only the wind that rushed across my body broke the silence, along with the occasional rustling and rattling of my scales as I shivered and clicked them against each other. All other sound was muffled and absorbed by the cushion of snow that coated everything from my mountain side ledge all the way down into my valley, and back up into the mountains across it. The snow was still falling, drifting across my valley in layered curtains of cold flecks, now and then driven by a gust of wind like icy bolts biting into my sensitive wings.

I shook my wings, they were a little warmer then the rest of my body, so snow melted upon instantly, rather then taking a moment or two to melt as it did when it fell upon my scales. But my wings were also among the more sensitive parts of my body, attuned to sensing air currents and other minute changes. Flying in cold wind was one thing, standing in the driving snow was something else entirely, and they were quickly getting painfully cold. Deciding that perhaps humans didn't have entirely the wrong idea when it came to clothing and the elements, I turned back around and trudged across my snow covered ledge back into my home.

Once out of the snow, I shook myself off, watching a few white flakes and a lot of water droplets spray off of me to splatter the walls of my tunnel, and wondered how long it would take for the trail I'd made on my ledge to be completely obscured by the snow once again. I pondered that on my way back to my sleeping chamber, and wondered if the water in my bathing chamber would be as painfully cold as I imagined it would be. Perhaps I was clean enough. I was a cleanly dragon after all, but even I had my limits. Freezing my testicles off was one of them.

I walked down my tunnel a little bit, shaking my paws every few steps, trying to get a little feeling back into them. Though dragons tolerated and resisted the cold well enough, it was hardly the sort of weather I thought we were designed for. While a creature like an arctic fox had tufts of fur between it's paw pads to keep them insulted, we had none. Just soft, sensitive skin that I had come to realize was not unlike that of a human's hand. Then again, I had spent every winter of my life in this place, and in my youth I'd loved romping in the snow. I hadn't yet lost any flesh to frostbite, so what did I know. We had built cities and citadels high up into the mountains even before the humans chased us away from our ancestrals homes after all. Perhaps I was just a grumpy old lizard who didn't like the cold anymore.

I pawed to lift a my front foot, and lick at my snow crusted paw a few times. The heat and moisture of my tongue quickly melted away the last of the stubborn snow, and brought a little warm back to my chilled paw. I lifted my other front paw, licked it the same, and settled a moment to warm up my hind paws as well. I was glad Kylah was still asleep, I was sure she'd give me a hard time about licking my feet. No doubt she'd once again remind me I resembled a dog in so many of my habits, and I doubted she'd bother to listen to my explanation that I had no other way to warm my paws!

Once I could feel the stone beneath my feet again, I went back down my tunnel, into my sleeping chamber. At least the cold had not yet settled into my bones the way I expected it would anytime now. In my youth I'd often heard my parent's elders complaining about the cold so high in the mountains. That the chill winds and the snowstorms that came with them made their bones ache even when they were curled together, deep in the warmth of their mountain homes. They longed for the days when they could fly south in the winters to lounge in the warm sunshine on the colder days. Though in truth, I wondered if even my parents elders had been alive when we were free to travel that far.

As if just to spite me, I had the sudden urge to stretch my wings. They both ached deep in the bones of my wing joints, where they joined my back. I grumbled and stretched them both out to their full extent. Spreading my ebony sails as well, I found myself yawning, and soon I was in a full stretch, paws extended as far as I could reach, claws unsheathed and dragged back towards me along the floor. When I finished my stretch, I shook myself. I felt better, and the temporary ache was gone. I glanced back at my vast black wings, their gray tips and edges folded against my back again.

"I'll thank you to cut that out immediately," I muttered to them.

"Are you talking to your wings, Vraal?"

I snapped my head back around to find Kylah standing amidst the messy sprawl of my sleeping chamber. "Of course not," I said, lashing my tail a little. "That would be crazy."

"Mhmm." Kylah was busy buttoning up a dark green blouse that looked nearly identical to the one she'd worn the day before, only without the wine stains on the sleeves she'd gotten from wiping my muzzle. "But then again, old people do crazy things. I'm sure old dragons do as well."

Though she kept the smirk off her ripe red lips, I could hear it in her voice, and see it glittering like mirthful stars in her splendid green eyes that matched the emerald color of her shirt. "I am not old."

"I know," Kylah said with a teasing smile. She walked over to me after straightening out her sleep-wrinkled black breeches, and scratched at my chin, fingers gently rubbing the fine scales there. I had just started to purr when she added, "You just look old because your chin and the tip of your snout are turning gray."

I grunted and pulled my head back as though offended.

"Oh, and don't forget your wings. They're all edged in gray too."

"I hadn't noticed," I muttered, folding them a little tighter to try and hide the gray edging.

"And the tip of your tail."

I snapped my jaws, and she just stared me down with a smile. After our fight of a sort days earlier, she was quickly growing accustomed to me, and learning just how far she could twist my ears without getting her fingers bitten off. She knew I wasn't really angry, and she knew I was old. She also knew she could push me quite a bit further without truly angering me, but that didn't stop me from playing the role just the same.

"Make one more remark about my age, and I'm going to throw you in the snow."

"Snow?" She perked up immediately, teeth glittering in the pale blue light as her smile unveiled them. "There's snow? That's even sooner then I expected."

I nodded, grinning as well, swiveling my ears forward in shared excitement. "Not only is there snow, there's a lot of snow."

"Really?" Kylah sounded delightfully excited. She fetched her brush and began to try and undo the damage a night's worth of sleep had done to her hair. "How much snow?"

I searched my mind a moment for an appropriate word. There was one she'd used the other day to describe an excessive amount of something that had struck me as amusing. It was two different words in her tongue, both of which I knew, but used in a way I'd never heard before. What was it again?

Ah, yes. "A shitload," I announced with a fang-exposing grin. "A shitload of snow."

For some reason that made Kylah burst out laughing so hard she doubled over to hold her belly, dropping her hair brush in the process. It clattered across the floor, and I snatched it in a paw so it wouldn't get away from her. I wasn't really sure why that made her laugh so hard, but I was glad that it had. I was able to keep my joining her in uncontrollable laughter, for the most part, but it didn't stop me from grinning like a hatchling getting his first peek under a female's tail. When she'd finally stopped laughing, I handed her the brush back as she wiped tears from her eyes with her other hand.

"Oh, Vraal, thank you. I needed that!"

"...You did?" I wasn't sure what she meant. "Why? Oh, did you mean the brush?"

Kylah gave me an odd look, and patted my muzzle. "It's an expression, you silly lizard." She went back to brushing her hair, tilting her head to the side to let it spill down over her shoulder like an auburn curtain so she could brush it all out. "Does it look like it's going to keep snowing for a while?"

"Probably for a few days, at least." I settled back on my haunches, yawning again. Good night's sleep or not, I was still tired. I rustled my wings a bit, getting comfortable, and thinking about going to sit on my furs. The stone floor felt cold against my black scaled rump and tail, to say nothing of other parts of me that touched the floor when I sat. Either the cold had permeated my cave more then usual, or I really was getting old. Well, I knew the answer to that question, didn't I. "Maybe longer. A big early winter snow storm like this usually lasts for a while."

"A few days?" Kylah, asked, incredulous.

"Yes. This high up in the mountains, when it snows, it snows a lot, and for a long time. Last year, the first big snow storm of the year dumped so much snow over a couple days that by the time it was finally done, I went down into the valley to see how deep it was, and when I landed, the snow came all the way up past my belly."

Kylah whistled in appreciation. "I've never seen so much snow all at once before. We get plenty of snow over the winter in my village, but never that much in a matter of days."

I shrugged my wings. "It's not that uncommon up here. Makes hunting interesting in the middle of winter. It's usually not that bad down in the valley, that storm last year was unusual. This one may end up being about the same. I'd expect a foot or two at least when it's all done."

"Are you going to be able to find enough food?"

"I always do. I just have to fly a bit more, travel further down into the other valleys and places the prey goes to find food where the snow is thinner. Besides, I have an entire pantry full of food, remember?"

Kylah made a disgusted face, scrunching up her nose. "Unfortunately yes, I do remember. I think I'd sooner take my chances cooking that slime in your tunnel and seeing how edible it is."

"It's not as bad as it looks," I mentioned off hand. I'd never so much as tasted it, but the shocked and horrified expression Kylah gave me was well worth pretending I had.

Kylah didn't seem to know what to say about that, and instead she went to fetch her boots. She settled down onto the furs to pull them onto her feet, one at a time. It looked like quite an effort she was making just to get them on, and then to get them laced up properly. I looked down at my own paws, wiggling my toes and unsheathing my claws a little. I was certainly glad I didn't have pull annoying bits of leather and skinny rope over my paws every time I wanted to go outside. Though I had to admit to myself, as cold as that snow felt under my paws, I wouldn't have minded wearing them so much right now. Not that I'd tell Kylah.

"You know," I said, a little nervous about broaching the subject. "As long as I'm going to be attacking your village..." I paused, that didn't sound quite right. Kylah smirked at my over her shoulder as she pulled on her other boot. She knew what I meant, and so I went on. "This may be as good a time as any to leave. It's only going to get colder and snowier. Your village is far enough from here it probably won't be cold enough to snow, and if it is, it won't be this heavy, I wouldn't think."

Kylah shook her head, lacing up her boot. "No, it's probably raining there right now, but we probably won't get snow for a few more weeks, maybe longer. Though I suppose it wouldn't be a complete surprise if we got snow early, either." She stood up, brushing herself off as though my bed of furs had gotten her all dusty. She bit her lip, glanced down at her boots, appeared to be wiggling her toes inside them as I'd wiggled mine against the floor. "Vraal...are you..."

I could almost tell what she was going to ask even before she could get herself to spit the words out. "Am I sure I want to do this?"

Kylah licked her lips, and then simply nodded.

"Yes, Kylah, I'm sure." I rose back up to all fours, and shook myself a little, my scales all clicking together. "I'm a stubborn old beast, remember? Once I make up my mind about something I rarely change it."

I could see the next question forming behind her eyes, like frost gradually forming across panes of beautiful green glass. Her lips parted just slightly, and hung there. She wanted to ask me why, and she couldn't quite find the breath and the will to do so. I imagined she was afraid to offend me, or perhaps if she asked me to put my reasoning into words, the illusion would be shattered, I would realize what a foolish and dangerous decision it was, and I would come to my senses.

I turned away from her, and walked to my many shelves. I took a breath, filled my lungs as deeply as I could till my black scaled flanks were stretched and my many ribs felt as though there pushed as far from my heart as possible, and then I let it all out in a long sigh. I picked up the picture I'd painted of Niara and my children, and for a little while I just stared at it. I knew in my heart I would probably never see any of them again, just as I knew they were probably not even drawing breath anymore. After a moment, I set the painting back down, and turned towards Kylah who'd been watching me in unsure silence.

"Because you're my friend, Kylah," I said, and simply left it at that. There were of course, many more reasons then that. If all she said was true, then her people, her village, deserved better then what was happening to them now. No one else was coming to help them, and they would not get help without me. More so, because I wanted to prove to humanity, even a small portion of it, that we were not merely monsters, that we were not evil. I wanted to do something that would have made Niara proud, if she were still here. She fled because the humans had nearly killed our son, and I was too stubborn to leave with them. And yet I couldn't help but think that she would be proud of me for trying to help those in need. Beyond that, I simply wanted to help Kylah.

Kylah surely knew the reason I gave her was only a small part of my reasoning, but she was kind enough not to press on my reasons that even too me were still complex and nebulous. Reasons I hadn't entire sorted through on my own, and certainly wasn't ready to explain. She put her arms around my neck, just behind my wedge shaped head, and hugged me. I smiled, and rubbed her back with a paw, purring against her chest. For a few long moments I simply enjoyed her company, her presence, her embrace. Maybe the reason I gave her really was the only reason that mattered.

When we parted, I turned to more serious matters. "I assume you're not going to sit idly by and let me do all the hard work myself?"

Kylah folded her arms beneath her breasts, a half smirk crossing her lips. "Absolutely not. I'm not letting you have all the fun and risk your life by yourself."

I snorted, scratching one of my frilled ears. "No, I thought not. Very well then. You'd better raid my collection for all the weapons you can carry and any armor that fits. I'm sure I've got something in there that should prove useful to you."

"You sure any of that stuff still holds an edge? Most of it looks like it's been sitting around rusting since before my grandparents were born."

"Oh, very funny Miss I'm-So-Young." I walked over to an old sword jutting out from beneath a tumble of clothing Kylah herself had strewn about while looking for her current green blouse. I grabbed the well worn hilt and pulled it free, only to have the rust-pitted blade snap off and clatter to the floor. I stared at the broken hilt a moment, and tried to ignore Kylah's howls of laughter. Finally, with a growl, I tossed it aside.

"Oh, don't be grumpy just because you're old," Kylah teased, patting my haunch from beside me.

I glanced back, a half grin twisting at my muzzle. "If nothing else you could always use the sword that gave me this," I said, jerking my head towards the fat pink scar across my shoulder.

Kylah smiled, and moving closer, traced her fingers gently across the sensitive, healing flesh. The touch made me shiver just a little, scales softly rustling. "That seems quite appropriate, actually. But I'm sure I can find some more, you've got so much stuff some of it has to be useful. I know I saw at least a few other weapons there were still in good condition."

Kylah walked along my many shelves, towards the far end where a jumbled assortment of armor and weaponry lay scattered about the floor, and piled along the shelves. Once, there had been order there. Once, I could remember where each and every piece of steel came from, whether it was from a soldier who tried to take my life, or a coward who dropped it as he fled, or from the dragon slayers who tried to kill my son. The last one...The last one I still clearly remembered.

Some of their armor was still relatively intact. The rest of it had gaping holes from my claws, or was sheared in half where I tore it apart in battle, and later, again in anger. There was little left of their armor that would suit Kylah without serious repairs, though I doubted armor made for a large male would have fit Kylah's form anyway. Their weapons, though...their weapons might work well for her. They were well maintained and I hadn't done anything with them except wash the blood from them before claiming them as trophies. Though when I looked at them now, I still saw them red and stained, running wet with the blood of an innocent young dragon. The blood of my son.

I closed my eyes and shook my head as if the physical motion would somehow clear the mental images. It was still a terrible, lingering memory for me. I remembered it vividly to this day, and I remembered it far too often. I told myself the important thing was that he survived, that I was there in time to save his life. And yet, what if he had never healed properly? What if his wing never worked right again? He had only begun to fly, and a dragon's greatest gift, that of flight, might have been stolen from him. All I could do now was hope for the best. Hope that wherever he was, he was able to soar.

"You should use these," I said softly, as Kylah was picking her way through my other weapons. I pushed aside a rent breast plate. It was once gleaming silver with a dragon's skull outlined in gold, but now what was left of it was tarnished, rusty brown color. That blood was not my sons, nor mine, and I had not seen fit to wash it off. Beneath it, more shattered armor, a half crushed steel helm, a dented shield with some strange symbol on it that likely meant death for dragons, and some of the finest weapons in my collection. I tossed aside the ruined armor fragments, cursing myself for being so prideful as to keep such things as trophies. Not that I would have forgotten that horrid day without them.

Kylah crouched down, and examined some of the weapons. She wrapped her hand around the hilt of a long sword, and slowly stood back up. She walked to the nearest light stone, and held the blade up to the pale blue light. The sword she'd selected was much different from most of those in my collection, and as far as I knew, of far superior quality. Kylah peered at it a moment, unsure what to make it of. The blade itself was unlike the blades of other swords I'd seen, including the one that found it's way into my shoulder. The steel was unusually dark, little eddies and curves and swirls could been running the length of it in the right light. And as I recalled, it was ridiculously sharp. I vaguely seemed to recall it cutting through my scales as easily as it had cut through the softer flesh of my son's wing joint. Though in truth, I had been so consumed with fear for his life and with adrenaline and fury that I barely remembered being injured in that battle. Only later did I realize that after I'd carried him home not all of the blood that coated me was his, or the blood of men.

Kylah walked back towards me with the sword in her hand, still turning it over, back and forth. "Vraal, do you know what all these eddies in the steel mean?"

"I've no idea. That it's sharp?"

Kylah chuckled a little. "Yes, if you want to cut right to the heart of the matter, it means it's sharp. Those are formed because the smith who forged this kept folding the steel over onto itself, again and again. It's a very rare, time consuming process and it makes a sword incredibly sharp, and strong."

"Good for killing dragons then," I said, a little bitterly.

Kylah ran her fingers down the flat of the blade. "I hadn't thought of that, but yes, I imagine it would be. Good for killing anything! I've never actually seen a blade like this in person, before."

"Then how did you know how it was made?"

"I've seen drawings of them, though the design is usually a little different. The smith in our village traveled to quite a few cities and even some far away countries to learn different smithing and forging techniques. This is one he learned about, and brought home some books about it, though I don't think he's ever attempted it. It sounded as though it was a specialty of the smiths in some far eastern country, making weapons like this. This probably isn't quite as good as the real thing, but it's still an incredible sword. Is this...Is this from..." She paused, glancing back towards the three human skulls still hidden beneath the animal fur.

"Yes," I said, and licked my muzzle. "It's from the dragon slayers. Is it good? You can use it, if you want. It seems only fitting it be turned against it's creators. Humans, I mean." I paused. Perhaps that didn't sound quite right. I hadn't intended to say I wanted to see it used to kill humans, specifically. Kylah just smiled and patted my muzzle. "If you want too, that is."

"If you're sure, I'm certainly going to take it with me. It has incredible balance."

"I don't think I need it around here, anymore. If you can put it to some better use then what it was made for, all the better."

"I think the liberation of a village would be a far better use then anything those monsters could have had in mind, even when they weren't after dragons."

Kylah lifted the sword up and held it in front of her face with the blade pointing down towards her feet, examining the hilt. The hilt was a dark color, ebony I thought, but I wasn't sure, patterned faintly after dragon scales, though the gentle roughness I imagined was both for better grip and to indicate their chosen prey was slightly smoothed out by years of use, and we could both see faint grooves where the man's fingers had gripped it. The cross guards were patterned after their prey as well, like dragon wings spreading out just below the blade as though it was erupting from the back of some unfortunate dragon. The wings were faintly gilded on the edges in gold, though the color was fading and I wasn't sure it was real gold. Even the very bottom of the hilt had been carved into the shape of a dragon's skull. Though tarnished, the skull was paler in color then rest of the hilt.

Kylah prodded the dragon's skull with a finger. "Is this..."

"Dragon bone? It might be. I'm not sure, I can't say I've never cut one of us open and examined our bones. But it does look a bit like bone, doesn't it."

Kylah made a face that told me she was more unnerved by the thought then I was. Maybe I was just used to the things dragon slayers did to us, after they'd taken our lives. "You don't have to use it if you don't want too. They had other weapons too, and I've plenty more in my collection."

Kylah took a few steps back, and spun the sword around her hand. She passed it to her other hand, spun it around that one, and then turned herself in a quick circle, whirling the sword around her body. It shone just enough in the pale blue light to look some flickering spirit arcing back and forth around her in intricate patterns as though it were casting some arcane spell. When she came to a stop she gave me a little smile, and then gently set the sword down.

"No...No, I think I'll use this. I'll see what else I can find, but I'm probably going to bring the sword you took from the soldiers you killed as well. I saw a crossbow, not sure if it still works, but I thought I also saw a longbow in one of your other rooms. Maybe I can find some arrows if it's still in good shape."

I thought back to the last few times I'd encountered humans before I'd met Kylah. I seem to remember bringing that longbow back as a trophy not that long ago. "I think some fool guardsman tried to shoot me in the eye with it. Got lucky though, the arrow whizzed right over my head. I took his arrows, too, and left him cowering in the forest with wet breeches. Should still work, I would think."

I laughed to myself, flaring my wings and perking up my ears. I had to admit, that was one of my favorite recent memories. Damn fool tried to kill me, then pissed himself when I came after him! I let him live, he was too pathetic to kill, but I took his weapons. The worst part of it was that the wagon he was guarding wasn't carrying anything but clothing! If I'd known I was going to have a human guest maybe I would have taken more of it back home with me, but it seemed she'd done a good enough job finding plenty to wear on her own.

"If they both work, I'll take the longbow and the crossbow. I'm a decent shot with each, and with any luck we'll get some of the villagers to come help us as soon as they realize what's going on."

I smirked at her, scratching my gray smeared throat with my claws. "You mean as soon as the realize the big black dragon is only slaughtering their enemies, and not everything in sight?"

Kylah laughed, hoisting up a battered old shield to test it out. It was somewhat small, and circular, and one of the two straps on the backside was missing, but she slid it onto her arm anyway. It was made of some kind of thick wood, with a band of iron circling the outside and a few more bands across the wood of the shield itself. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Hmm, I'm not sure, this is nice and light, so I could still be quick, but it's a bit small. I'm not that used to fighting with a shield anyway. I'll give it some thought."

Kylah set the shield back down and I rolled my eyes. "Are you talking to me, or yourself?"

"Both of us, I think," she replied, grinning and pushing back the hair that had fallen in front of her face when she bent over to put the shield down.

"Have you done a lot of fighting, then?"

"A fair amount," she said, nudging at the broken breastplate with the toe of her boot.

"Killed a lot of people?"

Kylah bit her lip, then grunted, a rather dragon like sound. "More then I'd like to admit. Though, truth be told I'd rather I haven't had to kill anyone."

"And why have you?" I flicked my tail, curious.

"I think I already told you. We're basically on the edge of no where. Which means, no real central authority outside each of your villages. That gives bandits and thieves and the like plenty of room to operate without anyone coming to stop them."

"Until you come to stop them."

"Basically. Once you start having travelers robbed on your highways, or worse, murdered..." She trailed off a moment. "Well, obviously you can't let that go. And when there are bandit camps that are used to the way they do things, like having their camp out in a place where there's no one to arrest them..."

"They don't like it when some local village takes it upon itself to put an end to their thievery, and they fight back, and they try and scare the village into submission." I grinned, though it faded after a moment, and I hoped my jumping to conclusions wasn't out of line.

"Right. So when they attack you, or they attack the traders you rely on, you have to do something. You have to fight back."

I rubbed my muzzle with a paw, trying to hide a yawn. I wasn't bored, I was just tired! "It seems being so far from anyone's authority doesn't just mean bandits like your lands. It sounds as though these mercenaries do as well."

"They may as well be the same damn thing, now." Kylah held up a hand. "Not that mercenaries are bad themselves, they're perfectly respectful, as a person. But these ones in particular..."

"It sounds to me as though a group of soldiers has simply decided to steal your lands for themselves, by taking all these bandits and training them to fight."

"That's about the gist of it, I think."

"So," I said, a smile spreading over my muzzle, my fangs no doubt gleaming in the pale blue light. "That's where we come in. Kick them out of your village and make sure they never want to come back."

"That's the idea."

I rose up to all fours again, stretching out a little, another yawn taking me. "That and try not to get killed."

"Yes." Kylah chuckled. "That's the other idea."

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