"Okay, so according to this map, the dragon is just through here. Just let me handle it, okay?"
"You are our wise and fearless leader."
"Exactly! So I'll kill the dragon and we can go back to the queen, easy!"
"As you say."
Now, normally, one wouldn't consider killing a giant beast that can breathe fire and fly and possibly tear you to shreds with its teeth would be anything approaching easy. This knight however, had a rather inflated sense of self-importance and ability that his undead companion had chosen to ignore for the time being, as she knew nothing would convince him that he could not in fact, kill a dragon single-handedly. She was aware that had the dragon actually still been living in the sanctuary on top of the mountain, they would have seen or at the very least heard it before now. A fact which had completely escaped the knights rather limited view of their quest.
Regardless, the lack of dragon did not mean they would be leaving empty handed. The two had more than enough gold to justify the trip from their lengthy fight through the hordes of draugr populating the ancient burial crypt that led to the summit. The blood-drinker was quite pleased, actually. Ser Karkat would not be.
When the knight pushed open the carved door, there was no sudden roar, no flood of fire, nothing at all to suggest that a dragon was habiting on the other side after all. There was a flood of bright sunlight though, and so Ser Karkat would be having his tantrum alone. Whenever he finally realized there was nothing else to kill.
Which would apparently take quite a while longer. The knight in question had slipped out the door, as much as one wearing a full set of steel plated armor can "slip" anywhere, and proceeded to head towards the sanctuary's center. He hefted his sword above his shoulder, diligently prepared to meet an attack that anyone who had been paying attention, or rather, anyone who was not him, would have already realized would not be forthcoming.
The exact moment when Ser Karkat realized his quarry was not going to attack him, or even fight back, could be pinpointed by the abrupt change in his eyes from wary and alert to absolute rage. Or, for those who cannot be concerned with minute changes in his eyes as most of the knights expressions do in fact look as though he is furious with something, we could attribute that realization to the second he saw the large skeleton of a dragon, completely picked clean and sunbleached in the middle of the sanctuary.
Sitting underneath this rather less intimidating version of a dragon, was a young man wearing red mage robes and calmly sharpening half of a sword. Now, by this one may infer that this young man was a mage who had killed the dragon and was now sharpening one side of a complete blade. This would however be an absolutely idiotic conclusion worthy of our knight. When a sword is described as half of a sword, it does not mean that he was sharpening only one side of a sword, but that this young man in red mage robes was sharpening a sword that had been broken in half and was by all normal means of interpretation, absolutely useless against such a large and well protected creature as a dragon. Furthermore, to assume that this young man was the one who had killed the dragon when it was already described as being picked clean and sunbleached, a phenomena that only takes place after a long length of time far longer than this young man could have survived up here with no viable shelter and hordes of draugr just under him, is a sure sign that Ser Karkats inauspicious methods of reasoning are perhaps contagious.
Due to as-of-yet unexplained events however, the second assumption would still be correct.
Ser Karkat had stopped thinking after reaching the conclusion that the mage was the dragons killer. The knight approached the young man, fuming and fully prepared to berate him for stealing his glory, despite the dragon obviously being long dead, and not the sort of thing one could exactly call dibs on anyway. The young man was not at all bothered by the sight of an angry knight in full armor stomping towards him with sword hefted. Honestly though, he may not have seen him. He hadn't looked up from his sword once. Which, of course, made Ser Karkat even more furious with this impudent and glory stealing stranger.
"I HAVE SPENT THE LAST TWO FORTNIGHTS HIKING THROUGH SNOW AND WOODS AND FROZEN TUNDRA AT NIGHT WITH A VAMPIRE TO KILL THIS DRAGON AND YOU'VE ALREADY GONE AND DONE IT. THIS HAS BECOME A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME AND WHAT I HAVE I GOT TO SHOW FOR IT? SOME ASSHOLE SITTING ON A MOUNTAINTOP SHARPENING A SHITTY USELESS SWORD. JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STEALING MY DRAGON?"
Had said vampire known that there would be anything living on top of the mountain, she may have braved the sunlight just to see Ser Karkat lose his cool in the loudest manner possible. Although, she really could see that at any time. It doesn't take much. The strange young man had no desire to see the knight so furious and put-out, and indeed, seemed to have not noticed at all. He merely continued to sharpen his sword.
It would appear then that he had in fact noticed the knights shouting, as just before Ser Karkat began to demand a response, he responded, though not in a manner that the knight would have considered acceptable or expected.
"Yo. The name's Strider. If you want the dragon haul take it man. I just wanted the mountaintop. Killed that thing weeks was keeping the place locked up tighter than the gates to Oblivion, like you gotta make a sacrifice and summon a god to get through that shit, only it turns out all the stuff on the otherside of the gate is the same and you've already got ten of everything you could find there so its full of worthless junk that you're going to sell to the village general store and no ones ever going to buy from him so it was a worthless sacrifice in the first place but now you've been to Oblivion."
"WHAT THE FUCK"