"So eat me already," she demanded
"Why?"
"Because I'll be a nuisance."
"All I have to do is fly away."
"And where will you fly to? There are people after your hide. I just want…" Here she stopped, not willing to go on.
"Want what? What?" he inquired, then demanded when she wouldn't answer.
"…I need…your eye."
"My what?" The dragon was stunned, almost to the point where he might have let go. But at the last second, he jammed his claw back down on her, knocking her breath away.
"Y-your eye!" she struggled, trying to regain her composure. "A magician in a town near here said that a dragon's eye could be bewitched to become smaller, and someone who has lost theirs could use it. I need it."
The dragon's face was slack. He was amazed. Never before had he heard this!
This news was of black magic, then. Some sort of witchcraft used to manipulate gullible humans into slaying a dragon for a warlock's evil purposes.
"Listen to me, girl, and listen well. No dragon's eye can be used by a human. We see too differently. Dragons see…what humans can not. What humans can't see without unmaking them. For to be human is to not know the divine things that we dragons know.
"A human cursed – yes, cursed, not blessed, for a dragon's eye in a human body is naught but a bane – by such a thing would no longer be human. They would be an abomination, sought to die by humans and dragons alike.
"You don't know half of what you speak of, maid. Go back home and be thankful you have one good eye to see by. No dragon's eye can help you."
He released her when he saw that she had stopped struggling. Turning away, he stared at the stars.
"Then…the wizard lied, did he?" she said, shaking.
"Yes. The wizard lied."
"Then…you are just some big, hulking, useless beast. Unfit to curse the countryside. I'll kill you!"
She immediately strung her bow that she lifted from the dirt and released an arrow. It plunged into the spot on the dragon's back that was just above the heart and he gasped for breath. Falling to the ground, he shuddered in pain and groaned.
The girl stood above him, one of her arrows glinting in the moonlight.
"An eye for an eye. Fare thee well, dragon."
With that, she plunged the arrow into his eye socket, aiming to cut the yellow ball loose. The dragon cried out in pain over and over again as she fought his whipping head. Finally, he was about to pass out from the pain.
His right eye watched a blurry figure walk away, holding what looked like a shining, golden orb.
The girl walked on eggshells until reaching a small village at the foot of the mountain she had attacked the dragon on. Searching the roofs of houses, she picked out one that sported a red weathervane and made for it.
Entering the confines of the hut, she realized how much all the whatnots inside of it made the room seem smaller. All the cups and bowls and vials of powders and liquids pressed in on her, driving her towards the back and up to a man who was in his middle-aged stage of life. He wore a brown and black cloak and had a full head of black hair matched with a goatee.
"So you were unsuccessful?" was his first comment to her.
"I brought my end of the bargain. Now you have to uphold yours," she returned, gingerly placing the eye on the table. The pupil had gone so thin, it was naught more than a black line stretching from the top to the bottom of the orb.
The magician started when he saw it. At first, he peered at it, trying to decide whether to touch it or not. Then, very carefully, he probed it with his index finger. Finally, he smiled darkly and turned to the girl.
"This is no dragon's eye, Crea. This is a ball of mangrove fungus, painted with black ash-water. Be off with you and leave the ball here. I need something for my supper, after all."
The wizard turned his back and grinned. Surely she would be off soon, and he could take the eye!
Finally turning back, he watched her retreating figure leave the hut and he looked instinctively at the table where the eye had lain. However, all that was left of it was a moist spot where it had sat.
Crea fought tears as she went, carrying the eye. The magician had lied! He had wanted the eye for himself, with no intention of giving it to her at all! Sending her to do his dirty work and fight a demon, just so he could do some kind of spell! He was a warlock!
She collapsed on the dirty ground, starting to cry. She would never see wholly again! She would wear this ugly eye patch until the day she died; she would never marry, never have children! She could never hope for grandchildren even if she lived long enough! No man would look twice at such a disfigured woman!
Her knees gave way and she fell over the eye, still clutching it for dear life. Tears ran off her cheeks and fell onto the golden orb.
Suddenly, a bright light shone from the pupil of the severed eye. It widened, making the optic look surprised. Crea mirrored its reaction as she scrambled away from it.
The eyeball rose a few inches off the ground and began to spin. As it did, Crea could have sworn that it became smaller. But she did not have long to examine it, for it suddenly stopped gyrating and it shot towards her face, slamming through the eye-patch and implanting itself in her socket. Crea felt an unholy pain behind it and began to pass out, screaming like a banshee.
Her cries echoed up the mountain to a clearing, through which a very angry dragon was stomping. He blinked his right eye and winced as he felt the slimy goo, seeping from behind the thin membrane that had grown over the empty socket, leak into his one present optic.
"…Thing should grow back faster!" he demanded, rubbing the right eyelid. "I want perfect vision when I find that girl and-…"
But his voice was almost drowned out by the cries now reaching his ears. He perked up and listened silently. Grinning, he realized he recognized the voice.
"I hope someone else didn't beat me to her…" he mused as he stretched his wings.
Crea twitched. She rubbed her head and opened her eyes.
Her reflection in a small pool of water next to her startled her. She had to take a moment to focus on it.
She had two eyes! Not a patch over the left one but two eyes, staring back at her two eyes in the reflection!
She almost shouted for joy, but her face fell instantly when she saw that the left one looked like. It was yellowish orange, and the pupil was a slit, like a cat's. It was the dragon's eye she had gouged from that monster!
She gasped and fell on her rear. She blinked over and over again, trying to understand. The wizard didn't do this to her, and she couldn't remember anything before falling to the ground sobbing after realizing the warlock's dirty trick.
Suddenly, she stopped thinking. Something was wrong with the world around her. She saw things she didn't think to be real.
Trees and grass had far more detail than she remembered. The sky was alive with moving color. Even the very air around her seemed to twist with vibrant spectrum that wasn't there.
She blinked hard and tried to focus on it, but she realized she was seeing this new view through her left eye. Straining with her right one could not help ease the issue.
Suddenly, she saw something horrific. A man walking by with a pile of wood on his back had some sort of red cloud hanging about him! Crea closed her right eye and looked at this cloud without interference. It contorted and billowed and floated with him, like a visible aura.
Crea realized what the dragon had spoken about. Humans shouldn't see this sort of thing. It was too much, too deep and intense for her mind to take. The truth hit her like a rock and she screamed and passed out.
The dragon eyed the village below. He rubbed his left eye and realized how much had developed; the membrane had grown thicker and the liquid had stopped oozing. He hadn't seen a reflection yet, but expected the eye to look a milky white with a thin, vertical black line running through it.
Diving, he looked around for the escaped attacker. Noticing her lying on the ground, he smiled and swooped down amongst shouts of "Dragon!" and "Help!" from the villagers. Reaching down and clutching the unconscious girl in his foreclaws, he used his powerful hind legs to push off from the ground and soar into the sky once again.