Slowly, as if floating upwards from the bottom of a very deep lake, I regained consciousness. I realised I was lying on my back, my head propped up on something; I groaned softly – I had a splitting headache. What in the seven hells…?

Then the memory of what had happened flooded back into my brain.

My eyes shot open, and I found myself staring at the stars, filtered by the branches of the forest’s trees. To my left, the remains of a fire were slowly burning themselves out; only a few embers were left, shimmering with their red glow.

And behind the embers, outlined by the dim crimson light, the dragon was sleeping. He was curled up like a cat; a huge, scaly cat, trying to gain what heat he could from the fire. He was quietly snoring.

Slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible, I started to get to my feet. Careful now, Adrian, push yourself up to your knees, using your hands to keep balance; now, pull one leg out from under you, plant it to the ground, and–

My foot slipped, and I fell back on all fours, my plate armour – which I was still wearing – making a loud, metallic noise.

The dragon opened one of his big yellow eyes and looked at me. “Must you be so loud, human? I was trying to sleep.”

“Sorry,” I reflexively said. Then I blinked. Wait, why was I apologising to a dragon?

“How’s your head?” he asked.

“It hurts a bit. Well, a lot, actually.”

“Understandable,” he softly growled. “That’s a nasty cut you have there.”

A cut? Yeah, I remembered; it had bled quite a bit, and I passed out. Though it was probably the concussion from the fall that knocked me out, not the blood loss, otherwise I would’ve been dead by now.

I raised my hand to check the cut, and was surprised to find a large bandage hiding it. No, scratch that, a huge bandage, it was almost like a turban, wrapped all around my head; whoever took care of dressing my wound clearly didn’t know what they were doing.

Wait, hold on. Who had taken care of dressing my wound?

I looked at the dragon. “Did you bandage my head?”

“I did,” he replied.

“…Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The beast grumbled a bit, and the eye closed again. “We still have quite some time before daybreak. Get some sleep,” he said.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“One and a third fourteenths of a day after sunset,” was the answer.

I honestly had no idea what to make of the weird reckoning of time – I found it difficult to think properly, my mind was still a bit clouded – but the dragon seemed to think it wasn’t that late, and at that point I had no reason not to believe him.

I slowly laid back down, my armour making more clanking noises as I resumed my sleeping position.

The dragon cleared his throat.

“What?” I asked, turning my head to look at him.

“You’re going to sleep in that? Seems uncomfortable,” he said. “Not to mention loud and annoying.”

“It is,” I replied. “But what can I do? I can’t reach the clasps and ties on my own, and my squire isn’t here.”

My squire.

Silently, I offered a prayer to the gods: Please, let Edmund be alright.

“I could help,” the dragon said.

I blinked. “With the armour?”

“With the armour,” he confirmed. “I could take care of everything you can’t reach.”

I ran my gaze over him, especially over the huge claws he had on his front paws. True, if he’d wanted to kill me I’d already be dead, but I really didn’t like the idea of being completely defenceless in front of him.

“Look, no offence,” I said. “But I remind you that, earlier today, we were trying to kill each other.”

“I wasn’t.”

I gave a start of surprise. “What?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”

I was stunned into silence. I found myself just looking at him, until I heard him start snoring again. Then I sighed, adjusted my position a bit, and tried to get some sleep – which, surprisingly, came easy: I was out in seconds.

-----

When I woke up again, it was dawn; a pesky sunbeam had expertly found its way through the bushes, and landed neatly on one of my eyes. I groaned, shifted a bit, and blinked to clear the light from my vision. My whole body ached, as a result of the previous day’s fall, and of sleeping in armour. I briefly considered letting myself fall asleep again, but I was already properly awake, and I had things to do.

For one, I needed to figure out where exactly I was, and then find a way to get back to civilisation. The Western Reach was the largest province of the Empire, but it was rugged, mountainous, wooded, and sparsely populated: only a handful of towns and villages dotted the landscape, the rest was untamed wilderness. Best case scenario, I was only a couple day’s march from the nearest settlement; worst case, it would be several weeks before I managed to reach somewhere safe. True, I’d been in a village only a day earlier, but then I’d gone and fallen off a cliff, which meant I couldn’t just go back the way I came; it could be several days before I found a way to get around it. In any case, I had to assume this was a survival situation: I had to carefully manage my resources, maybe even replenish them by hunting.

I groaned and, quite unwillingly, pulled myself to a seated position, then looked around. The fire had gone out during the night, all that was left was a bit of charcoal and ash and partially-burned wood.

And the dragon was still sleeping soundly on the forest floor, curled up next to the fire.

Instinctively, my hand moved downwards and gripped the hilt of my sword, before relaxing again.

No. The dragon had saved my life, and that was a debt that had to be repaid. After that was done, I could face him in single combat and kill him.

Maybe. I’d been given the quest to kill the dragon by the Eternal Emperor, but that was because we’d all assumed he was a dumb, stupid, dangerous animal, which was putting the lives of the people of the Empire at risk. But recent events had proven otherwise: the dragon was quite intelligent, actually, capable of speech, and it was possible to properly communicate with him. Maybe we could just reason with him? Explain why he shouldn’t kill any human, why he shouldn’t destroy the people’s livelihood. Maybe killing him wouldn’t be necessary.

I would have to think about all of that, and very carefully.

But first, breakfast. I was quite hungry, actually: after all, I’d skipped the previous day’s dinner.

I carefully stood up, making as little noise as possible as to not wake the sleeping beast, and looked around; my saddle was where I’d left it when I’d unhooked myself from it after the fall, under a tree about a dozen metres away. I’d helped Edmund pack the previous day, so I knew there would be some food in the saddlebag; I made my way to it, the dragon mumbling and stirring at the clanking, metallic noise my armour produced, and crouched next to it.

The bag had been ripped open, the contents scattered all around.

I was stunned. How did that happen? True, I hadn’t been paying attention at the time, but I doubted that it could’ve been the fall. And I didn’t know of any animal that could damage leather so thoroughly, besides maybe…

I heard a noise, and turned around. The dragon had woken up and was stretching his limbs, arching his back like a cat to drive away the kinks of sleep. “Mmhmm… Good morning,” he said, when he noticed me watching him.

“Did you rip open my bag?” I asked accusingly.

He blinked. “What?”

“My bag,” I repeated, holding what remained of the leather saddlebag up for him to see. “Did you rip it open?”

The dragon looked at me for a moment, then turned his head away. “I did,” he said, sheepishly.

“Why?”

“Well, you’d fainted, and were bleeding pretty heavily from your head. I needed to stop the blood, and saw the bag,” he explained. “I didn’t mean to ruin it, I swear. I’m sorry. I just panicked.”

“…Oh.”

I just looked at him for a few moments, then I looked back at the bag. I was a bit upset about it having been destroyed, but then again, the dragon hadn’t done it on purpose? Apparently? And he’d done it because he wanted to help me.

I reached up with my hand and touched the bandage around my head. The huge, clumsy, turban-like bandage.

I sighed deeply. “It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

The dragon turned back to me. “Really?”

“Really,” I nodded.

“Oh, thank you. I’m so glad, I really felt bad about destroying something of yours,” he said. “Even though I did it by accident. I swear, I will get you another bag.”

My eyebrows rose in surprise. “Oh? And how will you do that?”

“Well, I will just find someone who has a bag like yours. Then I’m going to swoop down, roar a bit, maybe puff some flame, until they run away,” he said, matter-of-factly. “And then take the bag and bring it to you.”

I pierced him with a stare. “You’re going to steal it, you mean.”

“No, it’s not stealing, it’s more like…” His eyes caught my own, and he seemed to cringe. “Yes, it’s stealing,” he admitted, in a small voice.

“No stealing,” I admonished him, raising my finger in warning. “Stealing is wrong.”

The dragon sat back on his hind legs, his long tail coiled behind him, and looked down at the forest floor dejectedly. “It is. I’m sorry.”

“Good. Now…”

I stopped. What in the seven hells was I doing? Why was I reprimanding a dragon?

It was weird. I’d become so used to getting into the role of the teacher over the past few weeks, while travelling with Edmund, that I’d unconsciously slipped right back into it.

“…Just as long as you understand,” I said, turning away from him and looking back down at the ground. The items that had been in my saddlebag were scattered all over, but they seemed untouched. In short order I’d managed to locate the parchment wrappers which contained the salted meat and rye bread Edmund and I had bought – part of it, anyway, we’d spread the food and weight throughout our packs: my saddlebag, Edmund’s saddlebag, and the baggage which was secured to the horses’ backs. I would have to locate Ness’ corpse, I realised; there were many precious items in the bags that had dropped along with her, items which would be critical to my survival.

Slowly, awkwardly, I tried to bend over, to try and pick up the food, but I found it exceedingly difficult; my armour was hindering my every movement – it had probably been badly bent out of shape when we’d crashed into the ground the previous day.

I looked up at the dragon; he’d settled back on his four legs, and was wandering around our makeshift camp, looking critically at my possessions scattered on the forest floor, giving some of them a tentative sniff. I could see his wing was still bent at an awkward angle, clearly broken, and I felt a bit guilty about it. Had he not decided to save me…

I sighed. “Hey. Dragon,” I said. He looked up from a sheaf of crossbow bolts, and glanced at me. “Is last night’s offer still valid?” I asked.

“What offer?”

“To help me take my armour off.”

He blinked at me, then nodded. “Of course.”

“Let’s get to it, then.” I turned my back to him. “See those clasps? Where the leather straps join the sections of the armour together? You need to open those. That will loosen the breastplate and the backplate enough that I can slip out of them.”

“Alright,” I heard the dragon say. With surprisingly light footsteps, he approached me; I could feel his breath tickle the back of my neck as he looked closely at how my armour was held together.

“Hmmm,” he mused. “Okay. I’m going to need hands for this.”

I heard a popping sound.

“Hands?” I asked. And that noise…

I turned around, and found myself looking at a man. He had a pair of captivating hazel eyes, pointed ears, sharp fangs that just poked out of his mouth, and tanned skin which appeared to be rough and almost scaly; his hair was black, and reached his shoulders.

And he was completely naked.

Unconsciously, my eyes were drawn downwards, past his toned pecs and his well-defined abs, towards his shapely thighs and his huge–

I staggered backwards, looking back up into his eyes, blushing furiously. “What in the seven hells?” I shouted. “Who are you? And why are you naked?!”

He blinked, seemingly surprised. “What do you mean? It’s me.”

“Me who?” I insisted, trying desperately not to let my eyes wander again.

“…Are you serious, human?” he said. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I paused. There was a tone in his voice…

“Dragon?”

“Of course,” he nodded. “Who else would I be?”

Yes, when he put it that way, it was the only thing that made sense, wasn’t it? But still, my mind refused to completely comprehend it.

“How…?” I asked.

“A simple shapechange,” he shrugged. “I don’t do it often, only when I need to, but sometimes I look like this.”

“You can change shape?” I said, bewildered. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” He tilted his head to the side. “What, can’t you do the same?”

“No, humans can’t do that.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“Never mind that, though. Why are you naked?” I asked.

Again, he shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m naked when I’m big, so I’m naked when I’m small. Is that a problem?”

My mouth, which had been hanging open, snapped shut. “Yes, it’s a problem.”

“Why?”

Because looking at your body makes me feel things that–

“Because people don’t just walk around buck naked,” I replied. “So I’m going to have to insist that you wear something when you’re like that.”

He looked at me for a few seconds, then said, “You seem uncomfortable. Will me wearing clothes make you more comfortable?”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes it would.”

“I’ll wear clothes, then.” He paused. “But I don’t have any.”

“I’ll give you some of mine,” I answered; then I realised my spare clothes weren’t in my saddlebag, but rather in the larger pack that had been tied to Ness’ back. Suddenly it had become of critical importance that I find my horse’s body.

“Later,” I continued. “First, please help me with this armour.” I turned my back to him again.

I felt him fiddle and tinker with the clasps for a while, and then finally he got them open; my armour loosened and, with the dragon’s help, I was able to wiggle out of it. Then I bent over, and unhooked my greaves and thigh guards, letting them drop to the ground. I stretched my body, moving my arms and legs; it felt very good to be finally out of that tight, heavy armour.

“Feel better, human?” the dragon asked.

I glanced at him. “Adrian,” I said.

His eyebrows rose questioningly. “Adrian?”

“My name.” I smiled. “So you don’t keep calling me human all the time.”

He nodded. “Kyros.”

“…Dragons have names, too?”

“Of course we do,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we?”

Yeah, why wouldn’t they?

Just a day earlier I’d thought dragons were just beasts, driven by pure instinct, but that was clearly not the case.

“Okay. Kyros.” I sat down on the forest floor and picked up the package of salted meat and rye bread. “Want something to eat?”