One Hundred One Shots

Disclaimer: I do not own Jane and the Dragon. Thank You.

It had been a lazy afternoon, with hardly anything going on in the castle… it was unusually quiet, probably because it was the kings rest day and the he had given virtually everyone in the castle the afternoon off.

Jane was taking the most of this… she had taken a long walk in the forest and had found a comfortable grassy spot by a river in which she took up temporary residence. Normally on her days off Dragon would be with her but he had felt the call of the "Moo" as he put it, and had high tailed it out of the castle to find some unsuspecting cows to frighten. She didn't mind really, as much as she loved Dragon it was nice to have some time to herself… and oh how she was enjoying it, nothing to do but lay there in perfect peace.

She couldn't remember the last time she had done… well done nothing really. Well, she wasn't doing nothing, she had started looking at the clouds and already they were taking form she saw a horse, a wolf, a sword… after a while the warmth of the sun began to do its work and she fell into a fitful sleep.

Meanwhile Gunther had been taking a walk towards his favorite area by the river. He loved it there it was so peaceful, so quiet. He could forget all of his cares, all of the weight that had been put on him by his father, his loneliness… Gunther could tell when he was nearing his favorite spot, he knew that area by heart but somehow something felt different that day. He couldn't put his finger on it but there was something there, he could feel it. When he got to the river he saw a fiery orb rising out of the tall grass… was it an animal, or simply a neighboring villager? With sword in hand he slowly made his way over to the, "thing," to investigate it.

As he neared it, it somehow seemed very familiar. When he finally saw what the "thing" was, he immediately put his sword back in its sheath. He could hardly believe that Jane would be all the way out here… and in his favorite spot. She looked so peaceful sleeping there that he did not have the heart to wake her, he would simply leave quietly. As he was turning to leave he heard a moan coming from her general direction. He turned one last time to see if she was still asleep but when he looked down he saw two sleepy green eyes looking up at him. Through her state of half awake, half asleep she managed to ask the question, "What are you doing here?"

"I was just passing through… this is my favorite spot you know, I come here often to think... it's so peaceful here."

By this time she had managed to wake herself up completely, "I'm sorry I didn't know! I'll just be on my way." The fine weather had seemed to do wonders for both of our moods, we were actually being hospitable towards each other. While I was thinking about this Jane was quickly getting up to leave, "Wait! What were you doing here?" she smiled and said, "I assume you mean before I fell asleep. Well, I was looking at the clouds… have you ever truly noticed all of the different shapes they can make?" I looked up at the sky and said, "Not in a long time…" Jane smiled at this and started to leave, "Jane!" she stopped and asked, "What?" I couldn't believe I the words that started to come out of my mouth, "Stay… please. We could look at the clouds and see if there are any interesting figures in them."

She didn't say a word she simply walked back over to where I had found her and sat down. I just stood there for a moment and Jane turned to me as to say, "Well, are you coming." I needed no second invitation, I walked over and laid down next to her and looked up at the sky… if anyone at the castle had seen us I think they would have thought that we had gone mad… and I probably would have agreed with them, but here we were lying in the grass and looking at the clouds and all to see if we could distinguish objects in them. "Do you see that one it looks like a figure of a dragon?" I smiled then pointed at another one and said, "Look at that one; it looks like Sir Ivon on a donkey." I heard Jane laughing and I felt that this was somehow right, like it was the way it should be… in the end we stayed there for hours pointing out clouds and for some reason I felt as though I were just as high as those very clouds in that beautiful sky.