Dragon Special

"Eh-hem," coughed the dragon politely. There was a pause, and then a more emphatic, "Eh-HEM."

I glanced up from the parchment I was studying to see the dragon looking over his shoulder at me where I stood behind him in the queue. I'd never been this close to one of the Dragonkin before. The School of Magic and Philosophy had a stuffed dragon in one of the display cases in the depths of the Arcane Library. It was about as long as the average alligator and, despite its intentionally ferocious pose, only succeeded in looking sad and dusty. Very much unlike the living giant ahead of me in the queue.

Sitting back on his haunches, the dragon was about twelve feet tall at the tip of his ears with a thick hide that gleamed a lovely mottled mixture of green and brown and autumnal gold in the morning sunlight. His other four feet were crossed over his smooth ivory belly in typical, bored, queue-waiting fashion. Down his spine ran a series of dark brown, upright ridges shaped like the tip of an aspen leaf, starting small between the dragon's ears and growing gradually in size until about the middle of its back and then receding down its tail. His eyes were a luminous yellow-green like new spring leaves and slitted like a cat's. A beautiful specimen.

"Draconus foresta," I murmured to myself, fumbling in my robes for the new Neverfill Quill I'd received as a gift from my Aunt Morgan for graduation. "Forest Dragon. Very rare. Flightless. Territorial."

I turned over the parchment that I'd been studying so intently and began to sketch on the blank side, continuing to mutter as I did so. It was a bad study habit I'd picked up while at School. "The Forest Dragon is a solitary creature, with the exception of every 100-150 years or so during it's mating season, after which there is a period of ten years before the female bears one or two live young. Six legs, very fast, and virtually silent due to inherent magics they possess. Can spit acid up to 100 yards with amazing accuracy, a trait similar to that of their fire-breathing, mountain-dwelling cousins."

I drew in the scale pattern with a brisk twist of my wrist, pausing occasionally to study my subject. "According to legend, elders of the species can reach as long as 175 feet, though none of that size has been spotted since the time of the knight, Sir Belari, who was supposedly ingested by the dragon Metalianne after having failed to answer the three riddles required to defeat her."

The dragon blinked, first one lid and then the other, and its long snout rippled back to expose very large, very white, very sharp teeth. Almost as if it understood me and found me moderately entertaining.

"Its hide can be used to make a lightweight, virtually impenetrable armor," I continued, rattling though my textbook definition and beginning a larger sketch of the dragon's head, next to the first one. "Only a weapon tipped with the tooth or claw of one of its own kind, or a weapon forged from one of the Mountain Dragon's scales can penetrate it. This armor is very much sought after by adventurers, particularly thieves since the inherent magical properties let the wearer move silently and lend a certain amount of natural and magical camouflage."

The great head snaked down to my level and I flinched, consciously quelling the instinctive urge to dash away like a rabbit and find a burrow to crawl into. The King had guaranteed the safety of all magical creatures today during the Census and very few would openly defy the King in his own courtyard. Still...

"Do you realize you are talking aloud?" asked the dragon in concise Maginese, one of its large, green eyes staring directly into mine. Its voice was a basso purr that I felt all the way down in my bones, particularly the crunchier ones. "In most circles it would be considered rude to talk about someone's skin as though they were not actually in the process of using it. What if I were to, say, talk about wearing your head like a hat? How would that make you feel?"

The parchment I'd been holding fluttered from my fingers and drifted to the ground.

"I-I-I..." I squeaked, caught in a fit of convulsive trembling that made the feather on my quill twitch like a one-winged pigeon. How was I to know that a dragon could comprehend, much less speak, the secret language of the Great Magi? "I would feel very uncomfortable... s-sir...uh... er, sir. I would rather keep my head on the end of my neck."

The dragon nodded with a snort that nearly blew my hat off and I clutched at it with a palsied hand. Its breath was as hot as if it were straight off the blacksmith's bellows and smelled like burning leaves. I watched in horrified fascination as its nostrils opened to expel another breath and then snapped shut when it spoke.

"Quite right, quite right," said the dragon. "Now, if you don't mind, you're standing on my tail."

I jumped to the side as if in the most direct route of a potential lightning strike. Where I'd been standing twitched the delicately tapered end of the dragon's lengthy tail. It blended so well in the grass I hadn't even noticed it. As my late, senile grandmother would have said, if it had been a snake, it would have bit me. Of course, I'm not standing on a snake's tail, I'm standing on a dragon's tail. Grandmother would have laughed. She'd always said I'd come to a bad end.

The dragon caught his tail up in a wickedly taloned paw. Rearing back to his full height he inspected it for damage, dusting it off with another paw before releasing it, and turned back to me.

I stood very still as it stared down at me from its enormous height. If it made up its mind to eat me then it wouldn't do any good to run. Many a legendary knight had tried that tactic and failed. And they had been on horses. I was just a rather pathetic, obviously stupid Magician. If the dragon let me live and word were to get back to the School about this incident, Master Dormius would tear my recently acquired pointed Magician's hat from my head and stomp it flat. Faced with humiliation at the hands of Master Dormius or getting eaten by a dragon, I'd have to go with the dragon. It would be quicker and a lot less painful.

"No harm done," said the dragon.