And now...the moment of truth.

Chapter 9: Getting to Know the Dragon

As Max kept walking towards the cave, he just looked around for some exploration and took in all the amazement on the inside and he's been in many caves before, but never in one closer from the Valley of Peace and it was a good thing for him to take in some exploration for a while. But he's got something else in his mind; finding nthat dragon and checking in to see if he's all right and things like that.

Further from the cave, the same dragon was looking around and is watching Max walk by and that surprised him that he actually came back to see him and he blinked his eyes a few times and thought that he'd make a little surprise to see him face to face and he quietly dropped out of sight to see the cub again.

"Hello? Dragon? Are you here? It's me...the guy that pulled that thorn out of your foot. I just came back to see if you're doing okay." Max called out.

"I'm cool."

Just then, Max turns around when he saw the same dragon coming out of nowhere and walked over towards him, still wearing the bandage on his paw and Max stood over and said, "Hey, how are you?"

"Pretty good, I guess." the dragon replied.

Before long, both of them stood there looking at each other and Max pulled out something in his sack and brought in some food for him and the dragon looked at it and asked, "What are those?"

"I brought you some food in case you're hungry." Max replied.

The dragon took a closer look and started sniffing it to make sure it smells good or not and he was surprised with the amount of food Max has gotten and asked, "Are they good?"

"Why don't you find out for yourself?" asked Max.

Max puts out three pieces of egg rolls on his hand and reaches it towards the dragon and in surprise...the dragon opens his mouth and places his tongue across the egg rolls and ate them and he said, "This is really good. You got any more of those?"

"I got 12 more." Max replied.

"Throw them to me." the dragon replied.

Max was a little surprised to hear him say throw it to him because he wasn't sure if it was gonna miss, but when he threw it, the dragon reacted quickly, jumped in the air and caught it with his mouth as it went in and landed back on the ground...in which Max responsed very surprised with that and he couldn't move for a while because he was too amazed by what he had just witnessed.

"Whoa..." Max whispered.

Just then, the dragon sat down on the ground and reached out to his pouch to give Max something and he ended up giving Max the yin-yang coin and said, "You dropped this yesterday."

Max was a little surprised to see that he had this coin was missing and he said, "My yin-yang coin. I must've forgotten about this yesterday."

He walked closer to receive it and placed it in his pocket and said, "Thank you."

The dragon nodded in response as a gesture for 'you're welcome' and before long, Max sat down on the ground and he asked, "So...where are you from?"

"I honestly don't know. Maybe in some parts of China, maybe. But other than that...I really have no idea." the dragon replied.

"Do you have family?" asked Max.

The dragon sighed in response as he lowered his ears down a little bit and blinked his eyes for a minute and said, "I don't know if I have one. I got separated from my family when I was an egg."

That seemed to break Max's heart to know that the dragon has been born without a family and he knows what it must've felt like to have no family at first and he said, "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Why are you sorry?" asked the dragon.

"Because I know how it feels to be abandoned." Max answered.

The dragon growled in response to that and with an angry glare, he said, "I was not abandoned. I was separated. There's a big difference."

"Sorry." Max replied.

The dragon calmed himself down a little bit and said, "It's all right. There are some things that can make me angry and I'm a little easy to be hot headed. That's why I always scare people so I wouldn't want to lose my temper and do something I'll regret. I'm sure you've heard this before; all dragons are monsters."

"Not me. I don't think you're a monster. I think you just need a friend who accepts you for who you really are. I just tend to look beyond those bad parts and just find the good ones." Max added.

"But I almost scared you yesterday. You could've just ran away so I wouldn't hurt you." the dragon stated.

"But then I wouldn't have to help you. Sometimes...doing the right thing is just as important as listening to whatever myth they talk about because they can't tell the truth from the fake. I'm just unusual that way, but that's what I am." Max added.

The dragon was completely overwhelmed with a lot of things that Max has just said and it was like the things about Max are really true and he asked, "What's your name though?"

"I'm Maximus. But my friends call me Max. What's yours?"

"I don't have one. I was never born with one." the dragon added.

Max then thought of something that would fit the dragon and he said, "How about...Blaze?"

"Blaze? Blaze...sounds kind fitting for me because I do breath fire."

Before long, a friendship started to emerge from there and he spent most of the morning getting to know each other better and Blaze could see that there's something special in that cub and for coming over to see him takes a huge amount of loyalty in him that was something new to him...but he's willing to give it a go and see where it grows from there.

And that's how their friendship began! Stay tuned for more!

Voice of Max: Ben Diskin

Voice of unnamed dragon (now Blaze): (also) Ben Diskin