Campfire breath greeted him when he took his first aware inhalation, coughing spastically as the warm gust washed over his face, filling his nose and mouth. “Oh… e…” he groaned, grimacing with a tightly scrunched face as he picked his head up in an effort to pry his crusted eyes open and look at whatever the hellfires was resting on his chest. “Holy mother of…!” he started to say, shoving forcefully at the massive mouth resting directly in front him, blowing hot, acrid air into his face with each breath.

                “Eh…” the dragon groaned, the sound a bizarre mix between an actual growl and a strangely deep voice as the creature shifted and nuzzled his head against Jiyong’s body in an attempt to find a more comfortable position.

                “No!” he yelled at the dragon, pointing his finger accusingly at the nose before he pushed with both hands, wriggling valiantly under the surprisingly unaware creature. “Get… off… me!” he grunted through clenched teeth as he slowly kicked himself out from under it, panting when he was free. He glared at the still sleeping creature. “Stupid dragon…” he mumbled to himself, tossing a handful of dirt at him as he picked himself up and looked around, eyes going wide in his face when he finally saw the remnants of the fight from last night.

                More blood than seemed possible stained the ground in the clearing, the fire long since burned out to nothing more than warm coals. Pieces of men were scattered and there were only a few whole bodies lying nearby. Michelle’s abode was untouched for all that everything else was nearly ruined. Jiyong spied his lance still sheathed in the body of his first target. Muttering under his breath, he yanked it free, wincing when the action jarred his side.

                Hissing at the discovery, Jiyong peeled away the blood stained cloth sticking to his skin so that he could see the rather lovely gash beneath. At least it had stopped bleeding and was just crusted over and angry now. A disgusted groan slipped between his lips and he placed his hand carefully over the wound while he wiped the blade of his lance off on the stiffening body in front of him, searching for his sword in turn.

                “Aish…” he rolled his eyes when he noticed the blade lying next to the dragon’s head. For a moment, he hefted the lance in his hands, debating on finishing what he had intended last night. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, his left palm burned as if a brand had been pressed into it and he dropped the lance immediately, the weapon clattering on the hard ground. “What the…?” he gasped, staring at his hand in disbelief.

                The scar from the night before was gone, healed as if it had never been. In its place instead was the sliver of a crescent moon, much like the one on his right hand, but this one had an open-mouthed dragon’s head extending from the inner arch. With a confused frown on his face, Jiyong rubbed at it harshly, even using his short fingernails to try and scratch it off, but the marking remained unchanged. In fact, the only thing he managed to accomplish was to make his palm red and sore…

                “This is so stupid,” he muttered, retrieving his sword and cleaning the blade on another body nearby before he slipped it back into place. With a deep breath, he went back to pick up his lance, still grumbling in annoyance. “Stupid witch. Stupid dragon. Stupid… everything!” he flailed his left hand, certain none of his adventure last night had been even remotely worth the trouble. “Spot!” he called into the woods, trekking down the mountain in search of his horse. “Hey Spot!” he tried again, squinting into the forest. “Stupid horse,” he added to his list when he didn’t see the creature anywhere.

                Of course it was likely those idiots from last night had freed him or possibly just stolen him anyway… That made sense. At least as much as anything did right now. Speaking of which, why in the hell had they followed him at all? It wasn’t like he was worth anything. Even if he was a nephew of the King… Quietly cursing his rotten luck, Jiyong stomped back towards the sorceress’s house intent upon searching the bodies with the hopes of finding something useful or telling. Instead, he found a waking dragon nosing about the bodies.

                The creature noticed him as soon as he stepped into the clearing, large head whipping around to focus on him with intense golden eyes. “You!” he growled, lips peeling back to reveal a dangerous set of fangs again.

                As frightening as the image of a growling, angry dragon was, Jiyong had seen plenty of them before, but he was equally mystified at having heard what sounded very much like an intelligible word coming from it. “You spoke,” he pointed at the dragon, fearing that he’d either gone crazy or it was all some mad dream brought about by the powder Michelle had blown into his face and he had yet to wake up. That had to be it… right?

                “It’s all your fault!” the dragon roared at him, banishing all thoughts of it being a dream as fear and the reality of his predicament took over.

                “Yah!” Jiyong screamed, readying his lance and shakily drawing his sword, preparing for the imminent attack as he somehow managed to stand his ground.

                Just as the dragon looked ready to pounce, his front left arm suddenly crumpled and he fell awkwardly on his chest with a howl of pain, jaw bouncing on the ground once. “Ow!”

                Gasping in surprise, Jiyong watched in confusion before he decided to take his chance. He growled and pulled his arm back to throw the lance, only to feel his knees buckle when the damn emblem in his palm speared him with agony. “Yah!” he groaned, clutching the aching fist close to his body as his weapons fell on either side of him.

                “Mother…” Minnie keened when he stabbed the talons of his left hand into the ground and looked up to glare at the slayer in front of him.

                Agitatedly, Jiyong jumped to his feet and pointed at the dragon, “Why can’t I attack you without this-” he shoved his palm at the dragon who focused on it intently, “-acting up?” He blinked when another thought occurred to him and his eyes widened further. “And why can I understand you?!”

                Mutely, the dragon lifted his left hand up and stared at his palm, inspecting the dark skin with keen eyes. It was hard to see but there was a faint marking on his palm too; Jiyong could just glimpse it from where he stood. The dragon frowned at it and remained silent.

                “Well?” Jiyong asked when the other’s contemplative silence stretched on with no answer.

                “It’s mother’s magic,” the dragon finally sighed, deflating rather sadly in front of the hunter. Most of the angry fright seemed to bleed out of him, leaving him looking like the dejected child once more.

                The hunter couldn’t quite feel pity this time. He threw his hands up in frustration as he paced several steps back and forth, kicking the lance away and stepping over his sword. “I sort of figured that part out. What does it mean?” he gestured with both hands, stopping to glare at the still resting dragon. “First she spouts off a bunch of prophetic nonsense and blows this weird powder in my face. Then she dies, turning into these weird strands of light and now this appears,” he pointed at the marking on his hand.

                Clearly unhappy himself, the dragon pushed off the ground and started pacing around the clearing, making no effort to avoid stepping on the corpses littering the ground. “It’s a spell,” he muttered, flashing his hand up to show the hunter a similar mark on his palm: a crescent moon with a human head instead of the dragon. He didn’t give the human much chance to look though, before he continued towards the residence. He knocked the door open with his nose, poking his head inside to look around while the rest of his body stuck out rather humorously, his back and wings actually as tall as the cottage when he stood upright.

                “More like some sort of curse,” the hunter grumbled.

                “No. It’s a spell. Mother didn’t use curses,” Minnie defended her immediately, his voice muffled when coming from inside the hut.

                “Wait, wait, wait,” Jiyong shook his head, hurrying over to the dragon’s side, taking considerably more care where he placed his feet. “Curse. Spell. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. What sort of magic is it and how do we break it?” he demanded, looking at the creature quizzically when his body twitched and suddenly took a large breath. “Drag- oof!” he gasped when the dragon sneezed and his wings flapped partially open, smacking Jiyong roughly. The impact knocked him onto his rear with a shocked and offended look.

                Shaking his head, short straight horns nearly catching on the doorframe, Minnie eased back and turned to look at the slayer recovering himself with a dazed expression. “Oops,” he murmured, rustling his wings to settle them more comfortably on his back.

                “Oops?” Jiyong cringed, coughing with a hand pressed against his injured side as he scrambled to his feet again. “And how come you managed to hit me?” His finger pointed accusingly at the dragon as if it knew something he didn’t.

                Minnie looked thoughtful for a moment, one claw coming to actually tap against his teeth in a very human gesture. Then he shrugged with the same hand in a helpless motion. “I didn’t know you were there.”

                “How could you not…?” He didn’t even bother to finish the question before he waved at him with his free hand. “Just forget it,” Jiyong sighed, straightening up carefully as he waved the dragon’s head away while he stepped inside, frowning at the array of unknown items within.

                “Hey. What do you think you’re doing?” the dragon grumbled, watching the hunter carefully from the outside. “Don’t think you can steal anything just because she’s not here. You can’t, hunter,” he stated determinedly, placing himself squarely in front of the entrance to block him from going anywhere in case that was his intent.

                “I’m trying to find something to treat this wound, dragon,” he muttered uncharitably. “My horse seems to be gone so I have nothing left,” he added while he rifled through the assortment of items left behind.

                “You have nothing left?” Minnie demanded angrily, snorting into the confined space with a gust of hot hair. “I just lost my mother! Again!” he reminded the hunter with a loud clack of his teeth, a low growl rumbling through his throat.

                Jiyong paused at the dragon’s response and started to look over his shoulder but stopped, shaking his head once. “And she knew it was coming, dragon. She said so herself. What I want to know though,” he started to say, one hand propped on his knee lightly as he balanced on the balls of his feet. “If she was so powerful, why didn’t she just stop them all with her magic?” he asked, honestly confused.

                “She wasn’t that kind of sorceress,” Minnie snorted derisively, turning away from the cottage and the slayer within. Jiyong heard him muttering under his breath – nothing he could make out, but obviously not nice things. The sound of something being swatted away as it then crashed into the woods made the hunter pause, nervous and tense, but then the dragon spoke again. “Her magic was for helping. Never to harm.” More quiet rustling sounded like the dragon was wandering around the area before he started sniffing at something.

                Distracted as he was, Jiyong still tried to make sense of what he was hearing – the words and the sounds. The latter didn’t make much sense but the answers did, and he frowned at the dragon’s response. “Oh! And binding us together with her magic isn’t harmful?!” he demanded over his shoulder, shaking his head when he finally managed to find a bit of clean cloth he could use to cover his wound. Carefully, he hiked his shirt up to expose the cut, revealing an expanse of pale only slightly toned flesh.

                “You’re not dead yet, are you?” the dragon asked seriously from outside.

                Jiyong snorted at the question. “Right… You would have died long before me, dragon.” There was no way a dragon that was previously the runt of the litter would ever be able to take him out. Not in this lifetime. At least, not without help.

                “Nope,” Minnie answered, quietly moving about again.

                “Yes you would have, dragon,” Jiyong responded just as quickly, wincing when he found a bit of string to hold the cloth in place. He hissed when he tied it uncomfortably tight against his side. “Yah!” he shrieked, jumping up and falling backwards into the cottage when he heard a loud chomp right behind his head.

                “Nope,” the amused dragon smirked, his intimidating maw sticking just inside the doorway. He looked frightening, as all dragons did, but his gold eyes danced with bemused laughter.

                “Dragon!” Jiyong growled through clenched teeth, willing his heart to stop pounding so damned fast as he recovered slowly. He wanted to say more, but cursing at the bloody creature wasn’t going to accomplish anything, if their last attempts at each other were anything to go by.

                “Stop calling me that,” Minnie frowned with a slight shake of his head. “I have a name.”

                “Minnie?” the hunter laughed with a raised brow, awkwardly resetting the overturned stool as he inspected the work table. Most of the stuff he didn’t know but there were a couple herbs he was familiar with that were good for helping to fight off infection and to lessen pain when prepared properly. Those he took and quickly stuffed into the small pouch hanging from his sword belt. “I am not calling you that,” he shook his head and stepped forward, pushing on the dragon’s nose so that he’d back out, giving him room to exit. He only belatedly realized how foolish that normally would have been…

                “Why not?” the dragon asked, tilting his head to the side and graciously pretending like he hadn’t seen the human taking the herbs from the table. “Mother gave me that name,” he reminded the hunter, reaching one large hand out to block his progress.

                Jiyong stared at the hand whose palm was nearly as large as his chest, not including the dangerous looking talons, and then looked up at the dragon’s head. “And what were you called before that?” he asked, feeling rather dwarfed standing as close to him as he was.

                “I didn’t have a name before mother gave it to me,” he explained quietly. “None of us had earned a name yet.”

                “Runt,” Jiyong nodded to himself recalling the sorceress’s story of how she’d found the dragon in the first place.

                “Eh?” Minnie looked confused at the word, wondering why the human had said it.

                “Michelle. She said you were the runt of the nest. So… Runt,” he grinned cheekily, quite proud of himself..

                “No,” Minnie snorted in disbelief. “You are not calling me that.”

                “I just did. Runt,” Jiyong smirked, side stepping the dragon as he started to check over the bodies, grimacing at the savaged remains of the majority of them. They had to have some useful stuff left on them though. He began removing smaller weapons and money pouches.

                Minnie fumed quietly as he watched the hunter poke about the dead, glaring at him with a low growl. “Fine, hunter,” he sniffed. “You can go by Scrawny then.”

                “What?!” Jiyong asked, looking back at the dragon with a confused expression. He couldn’t help but look down at his person reactively before he scoffed and brushed it off. “I am not scrawny,” he muttered, attention distracted when he reached the beheaded and mostly ruined body of the last one Runt had killed. They were all relatively poorly armored, coming off as hardly more than barbarians, but that alone made little sense to him. Why would they go out of their way to track him – a single only somewhat equipped dragon hunter? At least this one had a pouch hanging at his waist, the fabric dark with blood but otherwise whole, unlike the majority of… things he’d found in the area.

                “What are you doing anyway, Scrawny?” the dragon asked, nudging him carefully with the back of single talon.

                Jiyong shifted to knock the offending digit away. “Don’t touch me, Runt,” he pointed at the dragon with a scowl. “I’m trying to figure out why these bastards were following me.”

                “Because you’re stupid,” Minnie grumbled, picking up a severed leg distastefully before he tossed it away and into the forest, uselessly pawing through the remains for the sake of appearing to do something while he waited.

                “Really, Runt? That’s something a child would say,” he shook his head, prying open the sack and emptying the contents on the ground, wiping his hands free of the drying blood quickly.

                “I’m not a child,” Minnie responded immediately, swiping another piece of carcass away, slowly but steadily clearing the area of the worst debris.

                “I didn’t say you were,” Jiyong responded distractedly as he sifted through the items. He saw a few stained coins, what was likely some sort of dried meat and most surprising, a scrap of cloth that bore a startling resemblance to the emblem of the King. Whereas his father’s symbol was the crescent moon, his uncle held to the image of a ray of sun shining upon a royal crown. He’d once explained it showed how the first King of his line had been chosen by divine right. “Interesting,” he frowned in thought, stretching the fabric to make sure he was looking at it right.

                “What is that?” Minnie asked, peering down over the hunter’s shoulder so he could see the emblem too, his shadow blocking out the light of the sun.

                “Hey!” Jiyong grumbled, standing up and shifting out of the way with a perturbed look at the looming creature. “Don’t do that. It’s rude, Runt.”

                “Scrawny!” the dragon retorted mulishly.

                “Ugh…” he groaned as ran one hand down his face in frustration. “What are you still doing here anyway?” he demanded in frustration as he turned to locate his mostly forgotten weapons. The sword was easy enough, still sitting where it had been this morning and he slammed it into his sheath in irritation. The lance was a bit harder to find, having been knocked aside with light scoring on the shaft as if the dragon had carelessly swatted it away. “Aish,” he sighed, picking it up and inspecting it with a critical eye, aware the dragon had yet to answer. “Well?” he asked again, turning to start heading down the mountain with a glance at the climbing sun.

                Quietly, Minnie moved along after him, keeping his wings tucked close as the pair started down the mountainside, sliding around trees and stepping over brush as necessary. “It’s not like I want to travel with you, Scrawny,” he grumbled, keeping a determined eye on the human.

                “So why are you following me then?” Jiyong asked without looking back, still hoping he might catch sight of his horse while he used his lance as a modified walking stick. The dragon mumbled something that he didn’t fully hear so he stopped to ask again. “Runt. Why are you following me?”

                “I’m not a runt!” he denied again, looking uncomfortable. He shifted in place without answering the question for a moment, but eventually got tired of the silence. “Because mother told me to stay with you,” he finally admitted unhappily, sitting down on his hindquarters to wrap his tail around his front feet, looking rather small.

                “Aren’t you just the mother’s boy?” he sighed, rolling his eyes at the admittance while he turned to continue on. “Ouch!” he yelped when something pelted him from behind and he turned to see a tiny stone rolling down the hill. “Did you just hit me with that rock?” he asked incredulously.

                “No,” Minnie shook his head and stood up, beginning to head down the hill on his own. “Come on, Scrawny. You’re too slow.”

                “Gyah!” Jiyong scratched his head with both hands, playing havoc with his hair. “So now you’re leading the way?”

                “Someone’s got to,” he snorted without looking back.

                Glaring at the departing dragon, Jiyong looked around and sighted on a stone like the one that had pelted him. Picking it up, he tossed it at the creature, feeling a warning twinge in his hand but little else. “Hey!” he yelled, snorting when the dragon started as the rock bounced off his back, making him jump to the side in surprise. Even more amusingly, he knocked over a tree in the process.

                 “Scrawny!” the dragon growled in response, tearing his claws through the offending tree to burn off his frustration.

                “Runt!” Jiyong spat back, watching as the dragon prowled back to his position and just looked down at him. “Why did Michelle tell you to stay with me?” he asked in all seriousness, holding the large eyes towering above him.

                Taking a deep breath, Minnie finally decided to answer. He picked his left hand up and held the palm out to the hunter so he could see it too. “You see the symbol right?” he asked slowly, as if he was speaking to a child, to confirm they were looking at the same thing.

                “Yes,” Jiyong answered warily, fighting his irritation as he inspected the mark on his own hand which was considerably easier to discern.

                “It’s a moon,” the dragon stated blithely.

                “Really? I couldn’t tell that,” Jiyong grumbled, holding up the symbol on his right hand to show the almost identical mark.

                “Shut up, Scrawny,” the dragon hissed, sitting back on his haunches so he could tap on his symbol with his right talon. “Something happens at night, okay?”

                “Like what?” Jiyong asked, looking at the creature skeptically.

                “I don’t know,” Minnie responded with a mystified look. “But something just does. It’s the way it works.”

                “And how do you know that?” the hunter asked, unconvinced.

                “Mother taught me,” he answered quietly, setting both hands back down on the ground while he continued to peer at the hunter.

                “She taught you to do magic?” Jiyong asked, immediately interested in that kernel of information. He would certainly be the first dragon to have such knowledge.

                “No,” Minnie almost laughed at the absurdity of the thought. “She taught me to understand the way magic works.”

                “Then that means you know how to break the spell, right?” Jiyong asked with a tight hold on his own annoyance.

                “In theory… no,” the dragon admitted uncomfortably.

                “Useless!” Jiyong growled, throwing his left hand up in irritation, his other held tightly to the lance jabbing into the ground with as much force as he could muster.

                “I’m not useless,” the dragon muttered in response, though he remained where he was without moving as he watched the human quietly fume. “So… Are we going then?” he asked, looking for all the world like a lost child again…

                Groaning at his inordinately bad luck, Jiyong sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he reluctantly agreed, throwing his hand up in surrender once more. “But only for now. And you’re going to have to stay out of…” he paused and actually looked the creature over again. “Never mind. Just… stay over there,” he waved at a space nearby but not directly at his side. It was pointless to ask him to stay out of sight because like all dragons, he was pretty much impossible to miss. Runt or not, he was still large…

                Minnie nodded once and then waited for the human to get a few paces ahead of him before he followed along, pausing periodically so he wouldn’t catch up too quickly. “Hey Scrawny,” he called, trying to get the hunter’s attention. When he was ignored, he tried again. “Scrawny.” No response. “Scrawny!” Still no response, though Jiyong’s shoulders tensed somewhat. He grinned to himself and took a breath, “Scrawny, Scrawny, Scrawny, Scrawny, Scrawny, Scr-”

                “What?!” Jiyong exploded, whirling around on the dragon with every evidence of being angry, jabbing the of his lance into the ground again.

                “I’m hungry,” Minnie admitted, sitting down again while Jiyong just screamed in frustration.