Just so you all know, this is the reason I probably shouldn't stay up ridiculously late at night watching movies. Hope you enjoy anyway. No, I don't anything (except my ideas).
...
Humans are stupid. At least, the ones around here are. No one with any brains at all would settle so close to the Nest, do next to nothing to protect their sheep, and build those ridiculous things they live in out of wood. No matter how many times they would burn down, the humans always rebuilt them out of the same flammable material. The only smart thing they did was build big nasty rock throwers, the sole use, I'm sure, being to bring down us dragons.
I don't know why the humans are so obsessed with killing us. We steal food because we have to. The Green Death eats a lot, and when it doesn't get enough, it eats us instead. If the humans wanted to keep their livestock, they should have moved. I'm sure there's nothing keeping them there, nothing like the pull that keeps most dragons close to the Nest. We attack them for two reasons: to get food for the Green Death, and to defend ourselves. Humans have been killing dragons since the day they first sailed here in those ridiculous things they call ships.
We Night Furies are rare. I believe it's because of our superior abilities. Because of that, we tend to be solitary and rarely help attack the humans, though some say we are selfish and arrogant. That, of course, isn't true in the slightest. Well, maybe a little.
I was only helping in this particular raid because I felt like destroying some of those rock throwers. When I said humans aren't smart, I meant it. They have never caught or killed a Night Fury. In fact, I don't believe they've seen anything but a black streak and fire. I waited a while to attack, letting the others get the humans distracted. A Monstrous Nightmare had lit a rock thrower on fire. Perfect target. I enjoyed the humans cowering at my cry probably more than I should have. With one hit, the humans jumped. With another, the thing was destroyed. I veered around the human settlement, taking my time choosing another target. The one I picked was not currently in use, standing alone in the middle of nowhere. What was the point of it? Well, it wouldn't be a problem for much longer. It blossomed into flame as I soared past, feeling unconquerable. That feeling halted abruptly as, from out of nowhere, something hit and wrapped around me, snaring my wings so that I couldn't fly. Still carried by my momentum, I began falling. I was a good distance away from the humans when I crashed into a tree and skidded through the dirt. The ground ended abruptly, and I soared for a second before bouncing off some boulders and finally coming to a stop. Dragons are tough, and Night Furies are the toughest of all. Never the less, I hurt. A lot. Well this sucks, I thought before passing out.
Something was touching me on my foreleg. I shook it off. Frankly, I still hurt, but not quite as much as when I had crashed. I opened my eyes and saw a human, still young by the looks of him, holding a small knife. I was too tangled up to move. The human said something about cutting out my heart and being a viking before raising his knife. To be perfectly honest, I was frightened. I was completely at the mercy of this human, and I could do nothing but watch. He paused and looked at me before readying his knife again. I closed my eyes and lowered my head in defeat, waiting for the blow. The human said something that sounded like, "I did this." I felt my bonds began to come loose. I opened my eyes. The human was sawing away with his knife. When the ropes were loose enough I burst through and pinned the human against a boulder. My first instinct was to blast him. As my eyes met his, though, I saw that he was as terrified as I had been. And he had spared my life as well. With a roar to make sure he wouldn't forget, I turned and tried to fly off.
Night Furies are extremely swift and agile. This is, for the most part, because we have two sets of fins in addition to our wings: the upper fins at the base of the tail, and the lower, or tail fins, located at the end of the tail. The problem with them is that, should we lose one, we can barely glide, let alone fly. Sometime during my crash I had lost my left tail fin, though I didn't learn this until I tried to fly away. After running into some large rocks I half fell, half glided into a hole. It was enormous, more like a hidden cove than a hole. It had trees, water, fish, and absolutely no way for me to get out. I know. I tried. Half the day was spent recuperating and the other half was devoted to trying to find a way out of the cove, to no avail. I was surrounded by rock walls with ledges too small for me to use. I tried flying, but every time I would lose control and crash. The sun set, and I resigned myself to a night in the place.
The next morning I began exploring the cove more thoroughly. Most of it was water, with a small waterfall at one end. Huge tree roots protruded through the wall in some places, but offered no way out that I found. When there was nothing left to investigate I tried again to fly out, as if by some miracle the next time would work, even though the last ninety-eight million times hadn't. Again and again I tried, flapping, scrabbling at the walls, and again and again I fell, gliding or crashing to the ground, occasionally both. I blasted the ground with my fire before trying one last time. Once again I crashed, this time at the edge of the water. A movement caught my eye. Wearily, I got up. There were fish swimming close by. More in frustration than anything, I snapped at them. I was going to be stuck here for the rest of my life! Something clattered at the other side of the cove, causing me to look up. The human from the day before was on a ledge, staring at me and looking nervous. How long had he been up there? What really surprised me was that he wasn't screaming bloody murder and trying to hack me to pieces like any other of those idiot meat heads would do. I owed him my life. I decided then that I wouldn't hurt him. Not unless he asked for it.
The next afternoon I was sunning myself on a ledge when a fish flopped out from a crack in the rocks. No guess as to who it was. There was a soft thunk and a slight scraping noise. The human came out, picked up the fish, and began walking cautiously. He didn't even notice me until I began coming down from my ledge. When he saw me he gasped and took a step back. I got on even ground and faced him, watching him carefully. He gulped and held out the fish. I came closer before remembering that humans always carried at least one weapon of some kind or another. I pulled back and growled. Sure enough, he showed me his knife. Slowly, he reached for it. When his hand touched it I growled. He took it out and dropped it before kicking it into the water. He was either stupid, crazy, trusting, or a combination of all three. Maybe he wasn't as bad as I had feared. He held out the fish again, and I approached.
An interesting and little-known fact about us Night Furies is that we have retractable teeth. No one really knows why, but it's very entertaining to startle others with them. Apparently the human didn't know about the whole retractable teeth thing. As I opened my mouth to take the fish, he said, "Toothless? I could've sworn you had..."
My teeth popped out and I grabbed the fish, eating it with pleasure.
"...Teeth."
I decided to see if he would accept the dragon way of becoming, if not friends, then at least good acquaintances. To tell the truth, it was partly to see how he would react, not being a dragon and all. His first reaction was unimpressive. As I approached he backed up, tripped, and pressed himself against a rock.
"I don't...I don't have any more."
This stupid guy thought I wanted more! I guess it was to be expected. I spit up the tail half of the fish—in my opinion the best part—into his lap. He looked thoroughly disgusted. This was going to be more fun than I thought. I sat like he did and watched. We stared at each other for a bit. He looked rather uncomfortable. I looked at the fish, then back at him, to see if he got the hint. He did. With a sigh he bit off a mouthful before holding the fish half out to me. I swallowed, and he gave me an, "are you kidding?" look before obliging. I had a hard time keeping myself contained at the faces he made while trying to swallow. Maybe he wasn't as stupid as I thought he was. More to mess with him than anything else, I licked my lips. He bared his teeth in a strange way that I have since learned is called a smile. It was quite interesting, so I mimicked it. Laying the fish half aside, he stood and reached out to touch me. I showed him my teeth and growled before running off and gliding awkwardly to the other side of the water. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone tries to touch me. Either I touched it first, or there was no touching. I was going to take a nap anyway. I torched a patch of ground and laid down on it, enjoying the warmth. A small bird chirped and flew off. I actually kind of liked songbirds, though I'd never admit it. When it was out of sight I looked down. The human was sitting there. OK, this twerp was starting to get a little annoying. I shifted myself so that my tail was between us, with my one tail fin blocking my view of him in hopes that he would take the hint and go away. Apparently he didn't, because I could hear him scooting closer to me. Sure enough, when I looked his hand was close to my tail. He stood, looking shamefaced, and went off. For heaven's sake, all I wanted was a nap. I got up and found one of the huge roots that protruded from the wall. With a small amount of climbing and maneuvering I managed to hang by my tail. Not the most comfortable position, but definitely not the worst. There was no way he could touch me up here.
When I woke up from my short nap I saw the human sitting on a rock, facing away from me. He seemed to be focusing on the ground. Curious, I got down and went to look over his shoulder. Strangely enough, he was using a stick to draw lines in the dirt. He glanced at me before continuing. Well, if he could do it, I certainly could. Finding a large sapling, I broke it off and began drawing my own lines. Mine were much bigger and, in my opinion, better than his. He looked around, seemingly as impressed as I was. Still looking, he stepped on one of my lines. I growled, and he stopped and lifted his foot. I stopped growling. He put his foot on the line again, as if he was checking to see if that was why I had growled. I growled again. He lifted it up, and I stopped. He did it again—just to annoy me, I'm sure—before stepping over my line. When I didn't growl he smiled before stepping over my lines and looking around. Right as he was about to back into me he stopped. Why couldn't humans walk normal like everyone else? Oh well. Whatever. He turned around. I watched him. He was pretty OK, for a human. He reached out to touch me, and I growled. The no touchy rule applied to OK people just as much as everyone else. He got the message. Looking away, he held out his hand, palm towards me, and held it there. Maybe it meant that he trusted me enough to risk me biting it off. After a moment of hesitation I pressed my nose slightly against his hand. He sagged for a moment like he was going to have a heart attack before looking at me. I withdrew and snorted. There, he should be happy now. I went off to think about what had happened and about what I had just done.
