Settling down in the clearing on the mountain, the dragon laid the girl on a boulder and eased himself onto the ground. He rested his jaw on his right palm and cocked his head.
She was unusually pretty for a human, or at least for a peasant. Her hair was a dark mane of brown and it hung loosely over her shoulders and spread out on the rock. She wore a brown dress tinted with red trim and a black hood, along with a rope around her waist to hold the ends of the dress above the ground. A quiver of arrows hung over her shoulder and her bowstring ran opposite from the quiver-strap, holding the intricately carved wooden bow onto her back. In fact, had it not been for her disfigurement before, she'd be decent quarry for some woman-chasing nobleman.
But, the dragon noticed suddenly, she was missing her eye-patch. He resolved just as quickly that it must have had fallen off during the flight. She'd be a bit self-conscious when she awoke, he assumed.
He had thought about eating her. Or at least killing her for taking out his eye. Not that it had any long-lasting effect, but it had hurt. He had to transfer some of the pain, didn't he? It was justice!
But as he thought this, he noticed something. Her arms and legs were covered with old scars, probably from working day and night on that old Roman fortress that deceitful King Einon was building on the hill not far from here.
The dragon looked at her face as she began to stir. "Waking already, are you girl?" he inquired somewhat playfully.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes open. "Where…what in the…oh my god!" She took one look at the dragon and fell backwards off the rock.
He had started to laugh at her confusion, but his eyes went wide and his grin slackened when he caught a glimpse of her face now fully awake. He hadn't seen…did he?
He got up and walked over, peering over the side of the boulder. She was cowering behind it, her hands on her head and curled into a ball. She was muttering what he assumed to be a prayer.
"You…you…" he started.
She looked up at his voice and screamed. Clambering away, she tried to crawl over another rock and farther away, but the dragon grasped the back of her dress in his left claw and held her up in front of his face.
"What the…" he began. She grimaced and tried to hide her face, but she eventually dropped her hands and opened her eyes.
The dragon was amazed when he saw her left eye. It looked like…one of his! But how? No magic he knew of could transplant any dragon body part besides beside the heart into a human body.
"How did you get that in your head, girl?"
"I have a name, you know!" she spat at him, swinging her fists and trying to punch him in the face. But she only succeeded in spinning herself in his claw and looking rather foolish.
"I don't honestly care about your name right now, and I won't until you tell me how that eye got into your socket," he demanded.
"I don't know! I can't…I can't remember. But make these sights disappear, dragon! You were right… You were right about everything. I can't stand these new views! They make my head ache and my mouth sore and my back pained and every one of my fingers shake and tingle with pain every time I open my eyes. Please, dragon, make it stop!"
"I can't make it stop, you silly girl. To lose the sight, you have to lose the eye. Pluck it out yourself." The dragon dropped her unceremoniously on the ground and eyed her.
She saw his developing optic and cringed.
"I…I'm sorry for what I did to you… I just…wanted to see again so badly. When the wizard told me he could make it so, I-I lost control. Please forgive me," she implored, looking at the ground.
He was looking down the mountain, towards the village. For a long time, he didn't say anything.
"My eye will grow back," he spoke after a long while had passed. "You can see for yourself." The dragon turned to her and she took in the sight of his yellowing sphere. She nodded and remained tacit.
"You claimed your body hurt, didn't you?" he inquired.
She nodded again. "Yes, my mouth and back and fingers and head. It seems like they're burning alive."
He blinked and sighed. "I know why. But you'll learn soon enough. I won't interfere with divine retribution. You'll know why dragons cannot sacrifice more than half their heart to a human."
She stared at him. Why wouldn't he tell her? Was there some sort of horrible punishment that went along with seeing these terrible apparitions? She noticed he had a golden aura around him, floating gently about his person. It was calming, to say the least, but had with it such a feeling of intense power that she struggled to look at him.
"Half their heart?" she queried, struggling to keep communications open.
"It saves them from the brink of death and grants them immortality, so long as the dragon lives," he returned. The speech held a hint of depression, of regret, that only the most learned of people could detect. Crea, however, had yet to learn of these subtleties.
"Immortality…" she mused, not really considering the idea, but thinking all the same. "Well, I personally wouldn't want that. Worrying night and day of your dragon was locking in a life-or-death struggle, not being able to help the fact that you could drop dead any moment. Someone else sharing your life is a liability, not a strength."
"You may think that, but preach to a dying human offered a dragon's heart. See if they'll convert to your beliefs as they lie on their deathbed, staring up at the face of a dragon. Then you'll know which way the wind blows."
"But you have to agree, too! Why would you want to share your life with a human?"
Her words hurt him more than she knew. He hung his head and she wished to God that she hadn't said it.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, hurriedly making up for her ignorance.
"No…it's not you. Not you."
"But what of the pains? Can't you tell me?" she inquired desperately, dropping the previous subject.
He gave her a mean glare. "You'll find out once your soul is hurt. If you don't want to find out, I suggest you don't cry."
She was overwhelmed, and he could see she was close to tears. "I tell you, don't cry!"
But she was sniffling, failing miserably at holding the droplets back. He reached out and closed his claws around her, shaking her slightly. "For your own sake, don't cry!"
She collapsed like a rag doll in his hands, limp and exhausted. He lay her down and suddenly gasped when he saw two tears drip from her left eyes to the ground.