What goes bump in the night

IGGY'S POV

Max woke me up for my shift around 3am two hours later then agreed.

I love taking watch. It's calming and quiet. I can listen to all the nocturnal animals scampering along the ground and in trees. A nesting bird, a hungry spider, a scared rat or two.

We had camped like this so many times before, beneath the stars, trees and in caves. I've got so used to it over the years trying to survive, to be the best at surviving.

Two hours later when hints of orange streaked across the sky, a small chirp came from the where max and fang had put the strange thinking rocks. Stiffening I want on alert. The rocks chirped again it sounded like a strange baby bird. Slowly I leaned over max and gave her a small shake. Her fist shot up breaking my nose.

"ow! Max!"

max's eyes shot open "sorry ig-" my hand cupped over her mouth cutting her off in mid sentence. Making a shushing motion with my finger I released max.

The rock chirped again.

MAX'S POV

Someone shook me awake I instinctively retaliated with a powerful punch to who ever was unlucky enough to wake me.

"ow! Max!" came a voice from above me.

"Sorry, ig-" his hand clamped onto my mouth hard, I caught on quickly and lay still and quiet. Nothing moved not a sound was herd then…

"eeeek"

What the hell was that? Standing up quietly I cautiously walked over to where the chirping had come from, as I slowly walked towards the side of the cave were I left the rocks, I kicked awake fang quietly and motioned for quiet and to follow me.

As we neared the two rocks the thing chirped again I was aware now that it was coming from the one I brought back, it was rocking back and forth making a hell of a racket. What I am I supposed to do? What is this thing?

I gasped; my rock had a large blood red crack which branched into three then four. "Shit," whispered fang, as the rock cracked again with a loud breaking noise a scaly head pop out of the top. It was an egg.

Iggy had got the rest of the flock up quietly, so we were all ready for fight or flight.

The scaly thing finally managed to free it's self from its protective egg casing. It wiggled its self out of the membrane before licking it's self clean.

Voice? What is it? Come on I know you can hear me! What is it! I screamed in my head.

Hello, max. nice to hear from you again. Came the disembodied voice

Cut the chit-chat, what is it?

She is a dragon maximum. She is your dragon.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!

Istalri is your bonded.

Are you going to give me riddles or answers? Coz I want answers!

The vice didn't reply.

Voice! Come! back! Now!

Still no reply

Muttering curses under my breath I turned back to the baby dragon. She was rather cute with a long scaly neck and tail. She was mostly white but had black spine spikes running from head to tail and her wings were like ours but with out feathers it had the same structure and joints. They were black with blood red highlights. Istalri was beautiful and looked hungry.

"Iggy do we have any food left?" I knew we did and iggy was closest "can you pass some to me I think she is hungry."

"um..sure, max" Iggy passed me the 'would have been' breakfast to me. Leaning closer I held out my hand to the dragon, who sniffed the meat before lunging forward and snapping it up. She had rows of sharp white pointed teeth

"hey, I'm hungry too. Don't eat it all." Istalri turned her head to look at the small talking dog, before baring her teeth and hissed threateningly at total, who ran and cowered behind angel.

Gazzy sniggered "I'm liking the… uh… dragon –thanks angel- already."

Istalri slowly walked over to me and curled up by my feet. I sat down and she wigged up to me. She was adorable, I put my hand on her head intending to pat her, and my hand and arm seared with pain, I was used to pain so I didn't react very quickly, only lifted up my hand to see what had happened.

"Wow! What's that max? it looks so cool I'd like one. Could I get a different pattern although I don't think that really would suit me. I would like mine to be like a star or some thing, I mean a silvery flame is nice and all but…" fang put his hand over nudges mouth.

Ignoring the nudge channel I looked transfixed at my palm there was a shiny silver flame. My palm kind of itched but I ignored it for now.

I put my arm down on the dragon again to scratch her head; she made noises of pure pleasure as I scratched under her neck. Istalri rolled on to her back like a dog wanting a belly scratch so I fulfilled her wish.

She rolled around in pleasure for a while before getting up and wandering around the cave snapping at our bags, sneezing on the fire and chewed the fire wood.