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"Ow! That hurts," The dragon snarled. The back of his throats lit up, a hint of the flames that I was sure could incinerate me if he chose to do so. However, he didn't. Instead, the dragon stayed still, only hissing and complaining as I stitched its torn paw back together.

I backed off slightly, my small set of tweezers still imbedded in the dragon's bloody paw. "Well, what did you expect?" I asked him and nervously went back to work.

The wound looked bad with lacerations and punctures going deep into the meat of the paw, but it was only bad in appearance. The bone was still intact and the tendons that were exposed appeared to be in good shape. It was just a flesh wound. It would heal if properly cared for.

"Your methods are primitive and crude." He looked off to the side and flicked his tongue. His one eye that was facing towards me occasionally glanced down to observe my work. Whenever I looked up to him, he'd huff and look away. Made me think of a teenager that had been hurt doing something that he'd been explicitly told not to do. Embarrassed, but too full of pride to admit being in the wrong.

Tommy was off in the corner watching very carefully. He had become uncharacteristically quiet, not having spoken a single word since I had begun to work.

I had expected him to chatter in my ear during the whole procedure that should have been done in a facility. The cave was not clean. I'd be surprised if some sort of infection didn't set in.

No, he was quiet and stayed respectfully out of the way. I was almost concerned. I mean... C'mon! There was a dragon. I was surprised that I was managing to stay so calm and focused. There were so many questions. Where'd this dragon come from? How many of them are there? How?

I worked slowly with the minimal light I had from Tommy's phone that was propped on an small ledge on the wall, casting light directly down on top of the paw. I slowly picked out stones and dirt that had gotten caught in the muscle and then began the process of closing it up, using sutures and hydrogen peroxide as needed.

The dragon winced a few times more, but no longer fussed and I was able to close off the wound with no complications.

"There!" I snipped the remaining thread of the stitch. "All patched up."

The dragon lifted his paw and inspected my stitching. He flexed his fingers, resting the thread that I had triple threaded. It stretched and strained, but held.

"Don't stress it too much or the stitches will come undone," I told him and began to put my tools away in my bag. I needed to make sure that I replaced anything that I used and made a mental shopping list. It was one of the worst thing to be caught without the proper sterile tools.

"No promises." The dragon gave his paw a few licks before setting it down. "But I must thank you, Doctor. I had not expected such kindness from a stranger."

"You should thank Tommy." I nodded in the direction of the still quiet man that was sitting in a boulder, holding his hands between his legs. "He practically dragged me out of my house."

The dragon grunted and with a slight wince and a few popping of joints, the beast stood up.

He wasn't as large as I originally thought he would be. The wings added a lot of bulk, but the body was rather thin and the way he moved, maybe even light.

Of course he would be lighter than he looked. The wings would never be able to lift him up into the sky. Then again, this was a dragon. Something that I thought only existed in fairy tails. It could fart rainbows for all I know and I shouldn't be surprised. I would be surprised.

"Hmm, yes..." The dragon purred. "I thank you both. I would not have expected such generosity from you humans."

"What does that mean?" Tommy finally spoke. I felt some relief.

Tommy sat up from his rock and came over to inspect the stitching as if he were the leading critic of my work. I would pass that honor on to the dragon.

The dragon licked his lips. "Humans and dragons don't have the best history. I'm sure that your diluted textbooks have some mention?" He rested his paw down, crossing it over the other and coming back down to rest on his haunches. Much like a cat, I must say.

"I wouldn't call it history." I scratched a nonexistent mosquito off my arm. I was nervous. Okay? "Tales of dragons fall under fantasy for us uhm... humans."

The dragon raised one of his bony eyebrows. "Fantasy? Am I fantasy?"

I shook my head.

The dragon mumbled something to himself before coming back to us. "Whether or not your own histories say. They're wrong. We are quite real."

"Of course yer real," Tommy said with enthusiasm. He reached out and petted the dragon's forearm. I thought that was a dumb idea, but the dragon showed no sign of annoyance by being touched. "I can feel you right now. Always said that it's real if you can touch it."

"Indeed." The dragon's tongue darted from his lips, tasted the air and then went back in. "Like I said before, humans and dragons don't have the best history. Wars had been fought, death, suffering. All of that unfavorable business. Then we got fed up with it and decided to leave you alone. You were hardly neighborly."

"Then that's where all of the fairy tales come from?" Tommy asked. His eyes were like giant marbles.

"We are not fairy tales my special child," the dragon chuckled. "We are not like pixies, goblins or wizards."

"What about the werewolves?" Tommy leaned against the dragon's paw. He traced the scales with his fingers.

The dragon remained silent, his eyes studying Tommy.

"You're not serious?" I asked. "Are you?" Of all the things that would be real on top of dragons. It would be werewolves.

"It's not something you should concern yourselves with." The dragon shrugged.

What else was there in the world? Trolls? Vampires? Almost made me regret this whole ordeal. Ignorance really is bliss.

No matter how much I asked, the dragon refused to answer anymore questions about what else existed. I got the feeling that he had already said to much to us. Probably did too much revealing himself to us as well. What he did tell us, was his name: Tarragon. Just like the herb. I suppose that even dragon parents named their children after random shit as well.

He told us a little about himself and it turned out that his mother had a fascination with plants. She had cared for plants in a small valley in Afghanistan of all places. She then moved her nest to the states once the whole Soviet invasion occurred and the valley became a battleground.

Here he stated, only ever occasionally going north to Canada or south to Mexico. He never left the continent. Supposedly the flight across either ocean is extremely taxing and not a journey that many dragon take.

It was very nearly sunrise before the dragon had to leave. Again, he thanked us and promised to find a way to repay us both. He limped out of the cave, spread his wing and then took off. How could no one ever notice dragons. He wasn't exactly stealthy, flapping his wings and slow king ascending into the sky.

"He's gone." Tommy finished waving once Tarragon had vanished into the clouds. It was the last thing he said before we headed back to our homes. He insisted on walking, saying that he wanted to enjoy the fresh air.

I drove back home and kept the radio silent. I had my thoughts to keep me company. What had happened really sunk in right then. I had just befriend or at least become an acquaintance to a dragon.

I thought about when I would see him again and about the chances of meeting another dragon. I came to the conclusion that it wasn't very likely. I still secretly hoped to meet another. They seemed very well mannered. Unlike cats. Cats are assholes. Cat back home is my wife's and takes pleasure in terrorizing me.

I got home as the sun was just peaking over the hills on the horizon, illuminating the sky in fiery orange and yellow. It was a reminder of just how little sleep I was going to get with work in only six hours.

I didn't shower. Instead I just crawled under the covers, having taken off everything but my boxers. The bed was like a cloud of... uhm... cloud? Dunno. It was so soft.

"How's Tommy's pet?" Meredith rolled over and wrapped her arms around my chest. She kept her eyes closed and her hair was a mess, covering her face. She would spend an hour just on her hair. I set my alarm a few minutes before what I knew was when she would monopolize the bathroom. Needed to shower before she got in there since she claimed the steam frizzed her hair.

"He's okay," I answered and took her hand lightly into mine. "Just a small cut on his paw."

She frowned, her eyes still closed. "You were gone an awfully long time for a... what kind of animal was it?"

"It- it was a cat." What's with me and cats this night? "It wasn't that bad. Tommy and I just ended up talking and lost track of time." Am I a bad person for lying to my wife? I just felt that the dragon should stay between Tommy and me. Plus, she wouldn't believe me. She was no fan of fantasy. She read spy thrillers. James Bond and such.

"Well, do be careful." She scooted closer to me, pressing her smaller form against me. Her meticulously maintained skin that had no hair on it against my mountain man back that would scare off any body waxer. "You have work soon." She kissed me on the back of the neck. "G'night."

The next day was exactly how I expected it to go. I was tired and there were a lot of appointments. Ms. Beaver's dog had eaten a roll of quarters, but wasn't showing signs of distress and the X-ray was showing that the coins were already moving through the digestive tract. I just kept the dog on observation, keeping it hydrated. That was just one appointment. I had seven more to go.

By the time the day was over, I was just about to pass out. I almost diagnosed a simple flea problem as a full blown case of mange. It was enough for the rest of the staff to tell me that it was enough for today and we would push the rest of the appointments to later days.

Time goes by then. Months upon months. At first I thought about the dragon every day. I would look up to the sky in the evenings and try and search for him. Then I began to stop thinking about the dragon less and less. I still hung out with Tommy, but he never showed any hint that he had ever met the dragon and I never asked either. Soon I began to wonder if I had ever met Tarragon in the first place. It got to the point where I couldn't recall what he looked like and my life returned to a state that resembled what it had been before Tommy dragged me out of my house.

It was about a year later that I got to see Tarragon again.

I was on vacation this time. Off into the mountains with Tommy, Morrison and a few of the other guys. We had all crowded into two trucks along with camping gear and driven for hours until there was no longer any sign of civilization except for the dirt road and us.

The trip had been planned out months in advance and we were all excited. Most of us never got the opportunity to get out of the city and also with out various job schedules and obligations, we rarely had the chance to all get together.

Most of us, me included, knew each other from high school, so we all knew each other pretty well and it wasn't long before we all became school children again. No job, no wives, nothing. We could be ourselves again.

Needless to say, there was a lot of alcohol involved and before too long, I had to take a piss. I excused myself from the group of laughing and sometimes even crying group of full grown men to relieve myself.

The mountains were a beautiful place. Tall trees spaced apart enough so the woods weren't crowded with dense growth, I ended up walking for quite a bit before stopping to relieve myself of the night's load.

I listened to the woods as I emptied my bladder. There was a squirrel somewhere to my right, hopping from branch to branch, occasionally chirping. A few birds were about as well, but it was mostly calm and quiet. A lot different from the hustle and bustle of the office. No yapping dogs, hissing cats or the incessant chirping of birds. At least wild animals appreciated calm and quiet.

I was zipping up my pants when a hand grabbed my shoulder. I don't think I ever jumped so high or ever got so close to decking Tommy in the face than right then.

He looked at me with the scariest look I had ever seen. He seemed so certain and focused. The laugh lines on his face were smoothed over and his lips pressed together tightly creating a thin line.

"Jesus," I slapped my chest to try and restart my heart from the scare. "Don't sneak up on a man while he's pissing." Truer words have never been spoken by me before.

Tommy just continued to look at me. "He's back." Then his eyes looked up at the sky. A smile crept to the corners of his mouth, bringing back the Tommy that I knew.

"Who's back?" I finished zipping my pants and wiped my hands off on my legs.

"Tarragon."

Now, like I said, I had pretty much forgotten about the dragon at that point. He simply hadn't been relevant to my life in a while, so forgive me.

"Who?" I squinted at him.

"The dragon." He grabbed me with his other hand. I could feel his whole body shaking with excitement.

I stared at him for a bit too long and he got a concerned face before it all came back to me.

"Oh, right. Uhm... Ta-Tarragon."

Now Tommy was always a little off. That was to be expected. He was a bit slow and his personality could swing a little, however, he just felt different to me, like it wasn't all him. It's hard to explain.

Before I knew it, he had my hand in his and was tugging me into the forest. I tried to pull back, but his grip was suddenly much stronger than my pull. I had no choice but to be dragged along to wherever he was taking me.

"Tommy! Tommy!" I screamed, partially hoping that someone at the camp would hear and come to see investigate.

There was a bit of an unspoken understanding that Tommy needed more attention and that he could get into trouble. The guys would surely understand something had gone wrong if they heard me screaming out his name.

"Shhhh." He squealed, while still pulling me. He had a wide grin across his face which gave me the creeps since I could only see parts of it illuminated from the little moonlight we had. "No one else can know where he is?"

"How can anyone else know where he is?" I asked and gave a hard tug to stop him in his tracks. "I don't even know where he is. We haven't seen Tarragon is ages. I'm not even sure if he's real any more. Do all I know, you got me to eat something you found and that whole night was just some crazy drug trip."

I instantly regretted yelling at Tommy. His face fell and he looked at the ground. The death grip on my hand was released.

"You think I'm a lyin?" He sniffed. He might have been crying. I don't know. It was too dark. "You know that I don't lie to you or the others."

I sighed and patted him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, Tommy. I didn't mean it that way. It's just that I don't like being dragged along like this." He had a way of drawing up guilt. He was simply an innocent man with no bad intentions. You just couldn't blame him for anything.

"Now, what if I were to just show you. No tugging?" He looked up to me.

Again, I couldn't really blame him. C'mon. How could you fault him for getting excited over a dragon?

"Lead on."

We walked for what felt like miles, but was only a few hundred yards up a steep incline.

The woods got thick with heavy undergrowth. I got covered in those little burrs and no matter how much I pulled them off, more appeared. I began to worry about ticks more and more as I followed Tommy's spritely steps. He was having no trouble, seeming to know exactly where to step to avoid slipping.

"Not much longer," Tommy called back, having answered my question before I even asked. Was I getting predictable?

So, what's with dragons and caves? Because Tommy led me to another cave, again, shrouded by plants so that I couldn't see it until I was right at the entrance.

The mouth was wide and tall with roots hanging down from the ceiling and a moist breeze coming from inside. It smelled of mildew and bad breath.

By the time I was done staring at the dirt hole, Tommy had already meandered in.

"Well," I sighed, feeling a sense of dread. "Better go after him."