"'Turn left at the forked tree'," Alfred read aloud for what had to have been the thirtieth time, and sighed, "That's every other fucking tree in this forest!" But the one in front of him looked like it could be a landmark. It was huge and dead and looked like it had been the victim of a forest fire in the recent past.

But, thinking nothing of it, Alfred shrugged, turned left and dutifully counted out the sixty paces that the map instructed him to. So engrossed was he in measuring his footsteps that the man didn't notice as the grass died away around him, leaving spaced, blackened rocks. He didn't notice the lack of vegetation, of animal life, or even the piles of armour, soot-black and scattered around like the playthings of a carelessly spoilt child.

"'Go boldly into the cave, for none have yet returned'," Alfred read, snorted and looked up at the cave, silently judging the rocky crag. Shrugging, he made a face, "That cave is average," he said blithely, walking inside.

It wasn't dark, which was surprising. It was lit by flaming brackets that lined the smoky walls, glinting off abandoned weapons and flaming gold coins half buried in the dust of the cave floor.

But gold wasn't the only thing in the dirt, there was something else there, littering the floor. Jewel-bright and glittering in the flickering light. Picking one up, Alfred wiped the dirt away with his fingers and turned it in the light. It was reddish about the size of a golden drachma, but only as thick as his nail. Bringing it right up to his nose, Alfred scrutinised the fan-shaped piece of armour. It had tiny rings, semi-circular rings on it, like the trunk of a tree, or the scales of a fis-

A scale.

Oh.

Oh, shit.

Something rustled behind him and the scale fell from Alfred's numb fingers, landing with a puff of dust at his feet. Whatever was behind him chirruped and clicked, pacing around, brushing it's scaled hide against his back. Something large and heavy cuffed the back of his head and he doubled over.

The rest of his body frozen with terror, his eyes darted around the room. It was in front of him. Part reptilian, part humanoid, and Alfred had to force himself to keep from whimpering in abject fear. It seemed to slither as it moved closer. It looked so human, that Alfred was half tempted not to be scared of it. But then he remembered that humans didn't have scales, or wings, or tails or claws. And they certainly didn't have teeth that sharp or many.

The dragon looked curious as it approached him, pushing him over and climbing on top of him, trilling softly. Alfred couldn't move. His body refused to. He wanted to wriggle, and kick and go down fighting. He wanted to stab something into the creature's soft, unscaled underbelly. But he had no weapons, and he could barely blink as the creature cooed and chirruped, running claws through his blond hair with a wondering expression on its face. And the the talons were poking carefully around his eyes, it's face so close to his that panicked sapphire blue was barely an inch from slit-pupiled indigo.

The dragon pulled back and to Alfred's abject horror, it was smiling. It's lips were pulled back and it's too many teeth were gleaming in the firelight. Like a contented cat, it settled it'self on his chest, head pillowed by folded arms.

"Tuurr," it purred, "Teeru~ Tuureh~" Alfred gulped. Those fluting, whistling trills sounded almost like it was traying to-

"Treasure!" the dragon said happily.

~====o)0(o====~

Alfred had never given all that much thought to how he would die. Possibilities that had come to mind had been variations on 'gloriously, in battle' and 'peacefully, while asleep.' 'Eaten by a dragon' had never even made the cut, but now that there was something large and scaled curled up on his chest, it had somehow wormed its way up to the top of the list.

Strangely enough, being sat on wasn't unduly uncomfortable. Sure, he had the feeling that he was steadily being pushed through the dirt floor of the cave because the dragon was, frankly, weighty, and he did feel that after this dust bath he may never be truly clean again, but all this paled in comparison to the undeniable fact that he was not dead yet.

In fact, he was quite remarkably alive, and fairly at home with his surroundings. The dragon on his chest – and the rest of him, it was about the size of a horse – appeared to be drifting off. Which meant that it wasn't eating Alfred, which was good. On the other hand, it meant that it wasn't getting off either, which was not so great. The blond man could only guess that he'd been on the floor for about three hours now. If not that long, then long enough that he didn't tense up every time the creature above him refolded its wings, an activity that in the confines of the cave sounded very much like rock fall.

"Treasure," the dragon purred again, shivering happily. It had been doing this periodically ever since it had sat on him, and if Alfred didn't have just a smidgeon more sense, he'd tell the thing to shut up. Yes, it had declared him treasure, and yes, it was being a good dragon and sitting on its treasure. Because that's what dragons did.

But it wasn't just that that made him keep silent and listen to the even breathing of the creature on his chest. The dragon's language appeared to be made up of clicks, whistles and growls, put together to form words. So treasure (growl-whistle-growl) sounded a little like music. Turr-ee-shurrr.

"Treasure," it wasn't until the dragon perked up, looking straight at him, that Alfred realised it had been he who had spoken. Oh.

"Treasure!" it said again happily, shifting so that it could prod Alfred's cheek with its nose. Its slit-pupils gave the impression of its gaze being more than slightly unfocused and it was very disconcerting. But just because it didn't appear to be looking straight didn't mean that it was any less intelligent, because for a mythological creature, it had an alarmingly good grasp of Common, "Treasure talk!"

"My name is Alfred, not Treasure," the words just kind of fell out of his mouth before he could stop them, as often happened to him. Alfred wasn't overtly fond of this trait because it had gotten him into more than one sticky situation. Such as this one.

The dragon sat back on its haunches and wrinkled its nose as though it was trying not to sneeze. "Auh," it croaked, "Auhrlferrd," it sounded like it was trying to cough up a hairball. Scale-ball? Again it tried, rolling one growl into another, "Ahlferd. Alferd. Alfred!"

The human just stared. There was a dragon, and not only was it sitting on him, but it was so excited by the fact that it could say his name that it was going to squish his lungs out through his mouth.

"Alfred," it chirped again, beaming in satisfaction, "Alfred!"

"Yeah, buddy, that's my name," he wheezed, hoping that the horse-sized lizard-person hybrid would stop bouncing on his ribcage, "What's yours?" Alfred wasn't sure what possessed him to start up a conversation with the dragon, but it seemed to work, because the creature settled back down, curled up like a cat on top of him.

Shuffling its wings again, it let out a croaking growl and a fluting whistle, turning its face away, but keeping one eye trained on Alfred's face, watching him carefully to see if he would try and imitate the sound, it feigned mild disinterest. The human could have laughed, but thought better of it.

"Matthew," he said plainly, no trills or whistles, because that was what it had sounded like, and he wasn't about to embarrass himself in front of a lizard.

The dragon turned back to him, head tilted at a curious angle, it made the same sound, the trill rising questioningly at the end.

"Matthew," Alfred repeated, "Sorry buddy, my vocal chords are not cut out for that kind of crazy."

The newly dubbed Matthew snorted and twin jets of flame flickered from his nostrils. Getting up, but not off, it twirled around for a minute, kneading at Alfred's stomach with scaled hands before settling down and offering him a view of heavily scaled, spine-ridged back.

"Sleep, Treasure," the dragon instructed, spiny tail flicking back and forth like an irritated cat.

Great, the human thought, Of all the dragons out there, I get sat on by the passive-aggressive one.