"Bowen, stop!"

The warrior balked and backed off.

"You know yourself how dangerous she could be!" Bowen yelled.

The beast shook his head slightly and sighed. "You can not be this cold-hearted. Let the girl live."

"Why? She'll ruin everything!"

"No, she will not. Your blade must defend the helpless, knight. She can do no harm. You cannot slay her with any weapon you may wield. Let her live."

"Draco…"

"BOWEN! You will do as I say this time. She will live, and you will let her go free as long as she gives me her word that she will never speak of this to anyone. Girl!"

Aster looked up at what she could only describe as her both her bane and savior. She cowered before him, her blood still running freely off her palms and onto the stones below.

"You must swear you'll remain silent about this. Do as we say, always, no matter what the cause or request, for what you do beyond this point in time is by my grace, do you understand? Do you promise?" the dragon demanded.

She nodded, shaking. "I swear it…"

The dragon eased back and gave Bowen a grin. "There you go, Bowen. Your very first indentured servant. Aren't you proud?" he asked playfully, resting his chin on his right claw.

"I'd rather she be eaten! I don't want a slave; I want Kara to stay in her village and I want this girl to be out of the picture! But seeing as what I'd rather is no longer an issue, I have no say in it and I'll remain quiet about it from here on out!" Bowen spat and climbed up on his horse. He began a trot away from the clearing and to the southwest.

"Fine then. That'll give her and I a chance to get to know each other," the dragon commented, standing up and walking behind him. Aster got up as well and followed, walking near the dragon's right rear leg.

"Come on up here a moment and let's talk, face-to-face," he requested, and Aster sped up her pace to reach his foreclaws.

"So, you've already met Bowen, and I'm Draco. Pleased to meet your rather petrified looks and your bleeding hands. Show them here a moment," the dragon, Draco, asked. He stopped a moment and his head came close to Aster's outstretched palms.

She watched as he placed a claw over each of the deep cuts and she winced when he sent a shock of searing pain across each of them.

"Ouch!" She pulled her hands back and opened on eye gingerly. She saw that a thin layer of skin was covering the wounds now! They were healing!

"Oh! Th-thank you…" she offered, unsure how to convey her gratitude to him.

"Not a problem, lass," Draco returned. "Oh, that reminds me. Never got your name, did I?"

She looked at his perfectly serious face. This was real…she was having a conversation with a dragon who did not intend to eat her, she was about to follow them on some mad quest to fool villages in the southwest, and the creature actually cared who she was!

"Aster…Aster Ravenson," she replied.

"That means 'star', doesn't it?" he commented, turning back and walking again.

"I suppose," was the reply.

"You know, dragons have a special attitude towards stars. I suppose that's why I objected to Bowen. He's not usually that unkind; it's just that the last time a girl got involved with us, she proved to be quite a nuisance to him." Draco chuckled. "Personally I found her quite charming, if a little shallow."

"Shallow?"

"Didn't seem to understand the relationship between me and Bowen very much. She keeps trying to throw us off and tell villages what we do as a team. Bowen doesn't outwardly like her exceedingly, and their personalities seem to clash more often than not," the dragon philosophized.

"I see. So why is she on your team?" Aster inquired.

"That's just the thing of it!" he laughed aloud. "I don't think she is! Between trying to expose our little game and attempting to rally her village against Einon, I believe she's more of an acquaintance we keep meeting over and over again than an actually teammate."

"Really?" Aster found herself laughing at this explanation. "So, why do you fool villages into thinking you're just some evil beast who wants to destroy towns and Sir Bowen is just some slayer who just shows up in the nick of time?"

"Well, Bowen is a little on the 'empty-handed' side, and needs to earn a little extra gold once in awhile. I personally don't gain anything, unless you count the fact that I'm not being continuously attacked by slayers who actually do want to kill me."

"Well, forgive me saying so, but you're a dragon! Isn't that your lot in life? If I'm being ignorant or rude, tell me so."

Draco chuckled again. His good humor seemed to have no end. "I won't tell you off, but being chased down by a bunch of ill-practiced humans expecting you to roll over and die is a bit on the boring side once you've gone through the motions as many times as I have. A little flame here, a swish of the tail there, and they're dead and you're tired. It's lost its interest for me."

"But then why do you fake death every time with Bowen? Doesn't that get boring?"

"Eh, it's a living. And one must live." Here Draco's voice became more serious, more personal.

Aster found that they had reached the edge of the woods. They were walking across an expansive wheat field, and she found that walking just next to Draco's forearm provided her with a clear path through the stalks as he knocked down the grain as he walked. It also could be dangerous, because she was in his blind spot. But that didn't worry her. She expected that he knew exactly where she was.

Something hit her. "Hey! I have another question!"

Draco's head turned to look at her. "Yes? What is it?"

"Why'd you kidnap me in the first place? I thought you'd eat me for sure, but then I woke up and I was still alive!"

"Eat you? Yegh!" Draco retched. "Never in my life would I eat something tied-up and defenseless!"

"So you cut me free? So I'd fight back?"

"No! I mean I wouldn't have eaten you at all! That's how we ended up with Kara, and let me tell you that I didn't want to go through that again! The girl's nice and all, but too bipolar. One moment she's walking with us and having a good time, the next, she's shouting to a town we're about to trick that Bowen and I are in league together. I can't ever figure out what's going on in her mind!"

"She was a sacrifice too? And you sang to her?" Aster was taken aback.

Here Draco grinned. "I may have given her a little ditty or two." She could tell that he knew she was interested.

For the next two miles, across the wheat fields, onto a huge stretch of grassland, and finally into the woods again, Draco sang what sounded like the happiest of dragon songs. It was jubilant and soulful and everything else that Aster loved about singing, magnified a hundred times.

When he had concluded, Bowen was rolling his eyes and pretty much getting sick of it. Aster, however, was bowled over.

"Bravo! Encore!" she raved, clapping.

Draco grinned and took a sidelong glance at Bowen. "Well thank you, but I believe our friend the knight is quite tired of it."

"Just tired of the three other encores you performed," Bowen replied, getting down off his horse. He set out his sleeping paraphernalia and gathered wood for a fire. Aster had gone off on her own, and brought back a pile of deadwood she had pulled from the topmost branches of a nearby stand of expired trees.

Bowen took one look at the pile and snorted. He took most of it, ignoring his own pile, which had a lot of still-green wood in it, and built a pyramid. Sitting back down, he looked to Draco.

The dragon winked at Aster and shot a spout of flame at the pit. Instantly, the wood was ignited and crackling joyously. Bowen produced a pair of rabbits he had shot while gathering wood and stuck them over a spit.