Chapter 1

Karen had found the cave by remembering some of the stories and rumors that she had heard over the last two years and was very happy to find that the rumors were true, at least of a cave were true.

Karen sat hidden in the hedge near a small clearing that was surrounded by woods for so long that she was sure that she would not be able to move. Karen was waiting to see if she could see that dragon again. She had already seen it a few times as it came and went from its cave. IT was a dark green both in the body and it's wings but his wings had a brown edging to them. The only thing that made this situation not very good was that she was wet, very cold and starting to cough. It had taken four weeks of walking for her to get to where she was and the weather was not giving her a break.

Dracon knew several days ago that he was being watched as he would come and go from his cave but since the person or persons had not tried anything he was not disposed to do anything about it. However the weather had turned colder and wetter and by the third day he wondered if there was something wrong with whomever it was that was watching him.

So on the fourth morning he left his cave. The rain showed no sign of slowing down that day as Dracon made his way around and came up behind whoever was there. To his surprise it was a young female. She was clearly soaked, her dark brownish red hair was plastered to her head and her clothing clung to her skin from the rains. He heard her coughing before he moved behind her. He could also see that she was ill suited to be out in such conditions. She didn't even have a cloak.

Slowly he made his way right up to her and stood just behind and above her when he asked, "Is there something I can help you with?"

Karen spun around as she heard someone speak to her from behind and as she did, found she was looking at two very large legs. She let her head look up until her eyes locked on to the dragon's face. Joy, appreciation, excitement, and curiosity flooded through her. Then her mind slipped away from her and tumbled her into blackness.

Dracon quickly caught the girl as she fainted. Dracon chuckled to himself because of the facial expressions that ran across the girls face just before she dropped. None of them held any fear, which pleased him as well as, made him very curious. Carefully Dracon lifted and carried the girl to his cave and laid her down in his nest and covered her with a blanket, then went to start a fire in the cave and to think about starting some dinner.

Karen woke with a headache that started at the top of her head and went to her toes, as well as the feeling that she was being watched. When she sat up she found that she was. The dragon was looking right at her. "Good afternoon, young lady. How are you feeling?"

"Not so good. What happened?" Karen replied as she pulled the blanket around her more tightly.

"I'm not sure, really. I found you hiding in a bunch of bushes and when I came up behind you and asked if I could help you, you turned, stared at me for along time, then fainted. It's a reaction that I get from time to time but usually it's caused by fear. With you, I smelled none. So why were you hiding in the bushes for three days?" Dracon tilted his head to the side.

"I was hoping to get a few good looks at you." Karen blushed as she said that, "I'm fascinated by stories of dragons." Karen had to stop talking because she started coughing. Dracon moved closer with a concerned look on his face.

"Child, are you well? I heard you coughing a few times now and the strength and frequency seems to be increasing."

"I think I caught a cold. I have been traveling for four weeks and..." Karen started but the coughing came back.

"Child, why were you out at all? I would think your parents are scared out of their minds with worry." He paused as a thought came to him, "you left with only the clothes on your back didn't you?"

Karen looked right at him. "Yes, I ran away because my parents didn't like the fact that I was collecting stories and rumors about dragons. They had gone out to a friend's for the evening so I thought I had time to go through some of my parchments and check an idea I had. They must have forgotten something because they caught me. My father burned all my parchments then turned on me. I have never seen my father so outraged. He actually tried to strike me and that's when I ran." Karen was taken by another coughing fit that left her too exhausted to continue talking.

Dracon moved right up to the nest and with a wave of his hand sent the girl into slumber then called up his healing spells to help the girl get better. He decided to let the girl sleep the spell off and left the cave to hunt.

Karen woke feeling better than she had in over two weeks. Karen slowly got up and out of the nest, which made her giggle to herself that she had been sleeping in a dragon's nest. She must have giggled out loud too because the dragon looked up from where he was sitting looking out the front of the cave.

"Good afternoon child. How do you feel?"

"Better. Thank you for healing me. I really hadn't realized that I had gotten that bad."

"You should have come to the cave when you first got here." Dracon got up and moved to the table, "Please join me. I have made a stew for you. I do hope you like it."

"I'm sure I will. Thank you, my Lord." Karen said shyly.

"Now none of that lord stuff. I'm no one's lord. And don't want to be." He said with a grin to his face that he hoped wouldn't scare the girl, "So tell me more about this curiosity about dragons that you seem to have."

Karen moved to the table and sat on a bench across from the dragon. He took a bowl, dished up the stew, more like he tipped the pot of stew into the bowl and placed it before her. She took a bit or two then began. "I guess it started about when I was seven or eight. A traveling storyteller came through town and held a show. He told several; one was of some great battle, another was of how a dragon would trick towns into giving the dragon virgins," 'now where have I heard that one before, ' thought Dracon as the girl continued, "the last was about a girl that fell in love with a dragon and what they went through to be together, unfortunately the story ended badly. I will have to say that it was that one that I liked the best at least the first part of it.

After that I started listening to more stories and writing them down. There was even a story that a girl from our own town was taken over a hundred years ago, but there were no relatives of the girl left in town to get more details about the story so I had to let it go. Then I started collecting rumors of dragon sightings too. That was what I was looking up. I had heard a new rumor that someone had seen a dragon in this area and I wanted to check it against another tale from two years ago."

"That is truly amazing and a little disturbing. I've lived here for almost two hundred years and thought I was being careful. I must be losing my touch. Were there only the two?" he smiled sideways at her.

"So far." She smiled at him.

"I'd love to have you read the stories you've collected but then your father burned them didn't he."

"Actually it was just the most current ones. The others I kept at my grandmother's. She's the one that taught me to read and write and helped me get started with the project."

"That's one thing that in 500 hundred years I have not been able to learn. My mother wasn't very good with either and then with taking care of my sister and me, believe you me, we were a hand full, she had little time for much else." Dracon chuckled as he remembered just how much trouble he was.

"Do dragons have a written Language? I had heard that you do have an oral language."

"We don't have a written language. Though over the last three hundred years I have come to wish we had. The brain can only hold so much and for so long, it would seem. We do have other ways of keeping the oral histories but those are not as easy to get to nor are they able to be taken to any place to be listened to."

As the dragon had been talking Karen began thinking. The beginning of an idea was working its way into her head. "I know that in some of the larger cities, there are records and libraries that have been kept for hundreds of years and if the parchment becomes hard to read, the information is painstakingly copied to a new piece. Is this something that you would like to start?" Karen's excitement was growing quickly at the prospect of working on a dragon library.

"It would be an interesting experiment. Once a record of an event was recorded it would be a little thing to place a spell on it so that the parchment would not age and would not need to be replaced." Dracon said after thinking a moment and liking the idea.

"I wander what would happen if a being with that spell got into those large libraries." Karen started giggling and was joined by hisses from the dragon.

"My lady, you almost make it sound like a challenge. We should discuss that at another time. There is a question that I need to ask. What am I to do with you? You have nothing to take care of yourself with and I don't have what you would need here. I would think that your grandmother is as worried as your mother and father."

Karen sat in thought for some time then looked at the dragon. "Would it be worth room and board, shelter and food that is, in trade for teaching you how to read and write; As well as helping you to record the stories that I'm sure you know as well as what others of your kind can tell us?"

Dracon sat up and looked down at the girl and smiled. "It might, I don't think you would eat me out of house and home, you don't look like the type." The girl laughed. Dracon thought it was a great laugh, "But there are things that you're going to need. The pot for the stew I had from when my mother first came to see the cave." Dracon said, wanting to test the girl's reaction. He also felt that he could tell this girl anything and she would keep it to herself if asked.

This statement caught the girl off guard, as Dracon had intended, "Why would your mother need to use a pot to make a stew? I would think it wouldn't be enough." Dracon could see she was curious.

"If you must know and will most likely be one of the first stories that you write down for me. My mother is human."

"WHAT?" Karen was all but floored, "Is that really possible? But you said, I think, that your 500 years old."

"You're quick. Yes, I'm 503 as of last summer. My mother is human and both my mother and father are doing quite well. A gift of the gods, you could say, has allowed my mother to remain with us." Dracon hated telling lies but he didn't want to tell this girl everything right away without knowing her a little better.

"I must hear all of it! Once I have parchment and ink you are going to have to tell me the whole story. I'm almost going crazy of curiosity now. But I can wait, I think." She looked at him with a look of hunger in her eyes. Dracon hissed his amusement at the little red head. She was all but bouncing.

"You are a curiosity in yourself. First, not being scared of me and know this. I have known many young people in my time but none have reacted to anything like I have seen you do." Dracon studied the girl for a few more moments then looked around his cave. "I could easily create large shelves along that wall." He pointed with his claw. "But you would need a place to sleep. I could see both dragons and humans coming to see this arrangement for a variety of reasons. I will have to think on this. I would however recommend that I take you back to your home so that you can get some of your own belongings."

"If my father hadn't thrown them out, he had been acting strange for a few months and it was getting worse." Karen looked down at the table.

"Do you think he is a danger to your mother? I detest males that force or hurt females for their own pleasure." Dracon let the hate of what he said into his voice.

"I don't truly know. I know my grandmother would never allow it. But if she doesn't know about it she can't put a stop to it." Karen sat quiet wondering if she should have gone to her grandmother before leaving.

Dracon thought for quite some time. He truly didn't know if he wanted the responsibility of taking care of the girl but he really did want to learn what she offered and to start the project that she had suggested. In the end he came to the conclusion that it was an experiment that was worth trying. "My dear, I think I will take you up on that offer. But I think it is best to see you get some of your own things: like clothing and bedding, as well as the stories that you have already written down. I don't have much to buy things with, but the less personal items I have to get, the more food and other stuff I can get for you. What do you say to that?"

"Sir, I believe you have yourself a teacher." Karen and Dracon were both smiling at each other.

"Very good. Now all I need to do is find out where your town is?"

"The town's called Riversand. It's about four weeks walk from here."

"That would take all of about half a day to get there. Wait, let me get my map out and see if it's already on it." Dracon moved quickly over to a pile of things and took out a large role of parchment. He came back to the table and laid it out. Karen was marveling at the fact that the dragon walked on two legs not four, but sat as though he did. "About three hundred years ago I had the chance to work with a map maker for about three months and he showed me how to measure distances and draw them out. Now we're here. Four weeks out would be here." and he made a semi-circle with his claw. "Now which direction did you come from?"

"Southwest. Here it is, Riversand. You already have it marked." Karen paused to look over the map; it was well done. "You did a very good job for someone that can't read and write yet."

"I think the map maker thought I could and so showed me only what I needed for doing this work. Mom did help with the names though. But I think we could get to your town by this evening. That is if we leave soon after you finish eating."

Karen looked down to realized that she had only taken a few bites before she was distracted. She chuckled and started to eat some more. But Karen's stomach was not up to handling too much even though she did feel better and stopped. "Is there something wrong with the stew? I could reheat it."

"No, no, I just don't think I can eat any more. And if we're going to be flying I don't want to have an overstuffed and somewhat grumpy tummy."

"Good thinking. If you want, I can finish that up for you? I hate for it to go to waste." She handed him the bowl and with a quick flick of his tongue the bowl was empty and clean. Karen was mesmerized. The same went for the cooking pot.

Dracon then got up and went to a high shelf, took a small box off of it and opened it. Once he took out two small pouches he put the box back on the self. Then he went over to some of the things in the corner of the cave and took up two large sacks, one he rolled up and placed into the other.

"So should we be going?" Dracon turned to the girl. She got up and walked to him.

"Yes we should. But how?" this time she tilted her head at him.

"You'll sit at the base of my neck and hold on to the leather strap that is around my neck. You may want to wrap the carrying bag strap around your wrists just for extra security; it will be a long flight." and slid the handle of the sack down his neck. With that Karen got into place and did wrap her wrists with the extra strap and held on.

Dracon was filled with a strange feeling as he felt the girl lean forwards twisting her wrists into the strap then tucked them into the other and all but hugging him. He was fully aware of her breasts pressing against his neck as well as other parts of her body, even though it was through her clothes. Then he realized that he had been having other strange feeling since he met this girl. He decided to wait for another time to think about them. After waiting a moment for the girl to get settled he walked out of the cave and launched into the air.

It was late evening when they walked quietly up to the back of the small house. Karen knocked on the door and heard someone coming. "Who's there? What do you want?" asked an old woman.

"Grandma, it's Karen."

And before Karen could say another word the door flew open and an old woman all but ran out and took Karen into her arms. Dracon smiled at the scene but then realized he had never asked the girl what her name was and he could not remember if he had given his.

After a few moments the old woman pulled back. "Girl, where the hell have you been! You've taken years of my life from me with all the worrying I've been doing."