Chapter 1
The boy

It was a dark and stormy night in Mesopotamia. All windows were shut, doors were locked, and the streets were barren. It was like this for 2,000,000 years: Until something changed. A dragon was born.

"Mom! I don't want to wear this." "I know honey, but you have to. We're going on a very important trip, and I need you to look nice." "Humph!" "Come on, we need to go." "Fine! You can just go without me." "You know that's not an option." "Linda! Sweetheart, we need to get going." "Coming!" they finally got into the wagons and ready to go. Halfway through the journey, he started thinking, 'maybe there'll be a distraction and I can run away.' At just that moment, a dragon passed over head. All the people screamed and clutched each other. Linda reached over to hold peter, but he had disappeared.

Peter ran for his life, he was in the dense woods now, and it was really dark. He felt vines wrap around his ankles and limbs reach out to grab him. He jerked and twisted his way through and continued on. He saw trees stand up and move, but when he got to them, they looked as if they had been rooted there forever. He heard leaves rustle and could see eyes peering at him from the darkness, their eyes greenish-yellow and red. He heard leaves rustling. He saw a bush behind him rustle, then the one next to it. He stopped. The leaves stopped rustling. He ran some more. Strange, he thought, what was the creature doing? He ran really fast and finally came to a large clearing. He ran back into the brush behind the once-rustling bushes. He slowly crept forward, looking for the strange creature. He yelled, "Where are you? Why are you following me? Show yourself, co. . . ." Something put its hand over his mouth. He started to scream, but it was muffled and no-one could hear him. Except the creature.
"Shush!" it hissed in his ear. "Do you want to wake the whole forest?" he stopped screaming and listened. "Its okay," said the creature, "I 'm not going to hurt you. On the count of three I'm going to release you. Please don't scream! Promise me!" after a muffled" m prmise" from Peter, it let him go. He turned around to glare at the creature, but it had disappeared. He cursed and yelled at it calling it a coward. All of a sudden the red dragon that had been following the caravan appeared and landed right in front of him. He started to scream, but the beast put its paw over his mouth. "Do you ever shut up!? “Hissed the dragon. "Here, I'm going to let you go, but don't you dare start yelling!" He released his grasp on the boy. As soon as he was released, he ran for his life. He heard the flapping of wings and turned his head. The dragon was closing in on him! He ran faster, but it wasn't enough. The dragon swooped down and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Ahhh!" said a surprised Peter. The weight of the touch-down forced him to his knees. The dragon jerked upwards and flew high above the trees. Peter squeezed his eyes shut. After what seemed to be about 30 minutes later Peter opened his eyes. They were heading towards a mountain. He looked down and immediately felt dizzy. He looked back up. After the feeling passed he looked down again. He saw a lake. Alongside the lake there seemed to be a soldier. He looked like David, a soldier that stayed around the house. The soldier lifted a bow and suddenly it was raining arrows! He screamed and attempted to duck, which is hard to do when you can't move your shoulders. An arrow whizzed past his ear and made direct contact with the dragon's wing. "Look out!" he cried, but it was too late.


The dragon spiraled downwards. They were headed straight towards the lake! He barely had time to scream before they made contact. Luckily, the dragon rolled onto its back before the land, protecting Peter. The water swirled around him and the dragon. Peter started to swim upwards, and saw the dragon sinking. Peter swam back down and grabbed the dragon by the neck. He got underneath him and pushed him up. Soon they were floating in the middle of the lake. The dragon looked half dead, and Peter wasn't sure if he himself was okay. He looked around for the soldier, but it had disappeared. Peter dragged the dragon to shore.




When they were both on the shore and away from the water, Peter started thinking. What was it his mom taught him to do if a person was drowning? After awhile he remembered. He recalled her saying to drag them out and do something called CPR and to press on their chest. Then dad came in and said that he probably wouldn't see anyone drowning, and if he did to walk away, because he was too precious and handsome to ruin himself doing that. Then he asked him what he meant and he said never mind, you're too young to understand. He did what mom said because she said that dad is a blundering fool, whatever that meant.



After awhile the dragon started coughing and spluttering. It tried to stand up by a series of flapping, but he cried out in pain and stopped.
"Hold still!” Cried Peter. The dragon opened his mouth to protest and flopped around a bit, but eventually realized it was of no use so he stopped. "That's better", declared Peter. "Now we just have to get that arrow out." The dragon flinched at the thought. Peter made up a fire and took a look at his surroundings.
He found some plants that looked like the ones in the books he was forced to study for some of his lessons about medicine so he grabbed a few and walked back over to the fire. He laid the leaves by the dragon and looked for a bowl-shaped rock. He couldn't find one so he walked a ways into the woods.
He found an old oak and pulled the knife out of his pocket. After a while of studying the tree he dug in and cut a good sized chunk of wood out of the trunk. He walked back to the fire and took out a burning branch. He stuck the flaming end into one side of the block and burned a bowl-shaped hole in it to compensate for the lack of a stone bowl.
He cut the burned part out of it and filled it halfway with water. He crushed the fresh leaves and made a kind of paste out of the leaves and water. He carefully applied it around the injury and went back into the woods. He looked for a bush with yellow-purple berries on it. Finding none he turned back. He was about to give up when he found a small crevice in an oak. He looked in and found some reddish-purple berries. He grabbed a handful and ran back to the dragon.
He found the dragon sitting and looking at the wound. "Here, eat these," said Peter. The dragon looked at him questioningly but ate them anyway. Peter sat back and watched the dragon carefully. Slowly, oh so slowly, the dragon's eyelids started to droop. It wasn't long before he fell asleep. Peter smiled to himself and waited another five minutes to make sure it was truly asleep.
After that he walked up to the dragon and got a close-up of the dragon's injury. The arrow had pierced his wing all the way through. Peter didn't like thinking about what he was about to do, but it had to be done.
He got a firm hold of the arrow and tugged on it a bit. It wouldn't budge. He tugged on it and it gave way a bit. He pulled out his knife and cut off the arrowhead to make pulling it out easier. He grabbed the shaft near the feathers and yanked on it with all his might. It came out cleanly but released a fresh flow of blood.
Peter tore the hem of his shirt off and bound the dragon's wing, making a kind of sling with it. After making sure the dragon was comfortable he went back towards the lake to fish. He soon found some vines to be used as string and whittled a hook out of some wood, using another stick as the fishing pole.
While he was waiting for a bite, he thought about his parents and what they were doing and if they had begun to search for him yet. Knowing his father, he was sure that he had all his best men out searching. He didn't really care though. His parents were fairly unimportant. He felt as though his parents were extremely overprotective. He was never allowed near water for fear that he would drown (although he was a very good swimmer). While he was thinking, he felt a tug on the line. He used what his father told him about fishing, and pulled slowly on the line, letting it go slack for a few seconds and attempting to tire the fish out.
"You know, you're not going to catch anything like that." Peter jumped at the sound. He whirled around to see the dragon sitting up gazing at him uninterestingly. "Well how am I supposed to catch it, genius?" "You're not." "Then what are we going to eat?" "I said that you weren't going to catch anything." "Then who's going to catch fish for us?" "I am." At that, the dragon stood up and walked slowly into the water, obviously still in pain from the injury on his wing.
He waded calmly in and walked to the end of the vine. He stuck his head into the water and came up with a fish twice as big at Peter. Peter glared at the dragon. "I could've landed it!" he cried. The dragon ignored him; it was no use to argue.
Peter stuck the fish over the fire. The dragon just watched him attempt to cook a fish. Peter glared at the dragon. "I'd like to see you cook it." "Okay," said the dragon. He stood up, walked over to the fish and blew on it. He scorched the fish all the way through. "Dinner's served." Peter just glared at him with the most menacing look he could muster, (which was not very menacing at all), and stormed off. "Well that went well," said the dragon. Peter stormed into the woods. He decided to run away again. Little did he know that the dragon might need him later.





Chapter 2
The girl

‘’Sam was walking through the woods when she saw a boy. She came from a village in Mesopotamia. She recognized the boy from the castle since her dad was the royal gardener. When she saw the boy coming her way she looked up and slightly to the left to appear to be looking at the trees. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he leapt behind a tree. She walked around the tree, but the boy had seemingly disappeared. She hopped quickly around to the other side. No boy. Where could he be? Maybe he disappeared, she thought. No, he couldn’t of. She slowly looked up.
She saw a flash of gold and white disappear behind a clump of leaves. Well, if he wanted to play hard-to-get, he picked the wrong girl to mess with. She grabbed the lowest limb with both arms, walked sideways up the trunk and flipped onto the limb.
She was wearing her father’s old hunting boots. They’d always sounded loud when her father wore them, but she was accustomed to walking in them and had found that walking on the toes silenced them.




She crawled slowly up the trunk using only the toes of the boots. When she got to the branch underneath the boy she grabbed his branch and shook it up and down. The boy screamed and fell out of the tree. She grabbed his arm as he flew past her and hoisted him up onto her branch. She noticed that he had the decency to help by climbing up on whatever footholds he could find. She helped him sit on the branch and lowered herself onto the limb using only her arms.
He looked away from her and she could tell he was blushing because his ears were bright red. “Hi. I’m Sam.” “Hi, names Peter.” Silence. She knew he was more talkative than this. She saw him multiple times just rambling to her father and the other gardeners. If he wasn’t going to talk then she would have to find a way to make him talk. She climbed down the tree and he followed. She glanced over at him and was surprised to see that he was just standing there. All the other guys she knew ran away from her at every opportunity, and she gave them quite a few.
He was different.
They just stood there and watched the birds flit from tree to tree. Every once in awhile they would glance over at each other to see if the other was looking at them and then quickly looked away. Sam grew impatient after a few minutes of this and took off running towards the lake. The boy followed without hesitation. They ran beside each other for awhile. Sam sensed that Peter was getting tired and with a sudden burst of energy she sprinted onto the shore. She stopped suddenly when she reached the edge.
There on the sand lay a dragon. It was_______, her friend. He was hurt, and there was some yellow-gold cloth tied around his wing. It wasn’t very useful, though, blood was seeping through it. She turned around abruptly. Peter was just about to reach the shore. She couldn’t let him see ______. He was sure to kill him. After all, he was a prince. That’s his job. They kill ogres, giants, dragons, trolls...you could go on and on. Time was not on her side. He had already reached the shore. It was too late, he already spotted the dragon. He looked at the dragon and then back at her.
White and gold cloth, she thought, Royalty cloth. The hem of Peter’s shirt was torn. It was obvious who had helped Matador. A dragon killer helping a dragon, that was a new one. “Can you help him? I already did my best, but it obviously didn’t help.” She knew that he really did need her help. She could see it in his eyes.
Matador needed help, and fast. If she didn’t stop the blood soon, he would die. Immediately she got to work on the dragon. She made a poultice with herbs and berries here, mushrooms and fungus there. When she finished she got a small bowl lying on the ground that obviously had been used for another sort of poultice. She filled it with water and dumped the water on the dragons head. He sat up immediately and started to cough and sputter. She stood and looked at Peter. “He should be okay now, just keep putting this on his wound and make him drink a gallon of water every hour. I need to get home. I’ll try to come out here tomorrow, but I might not be able to make it.”
She handed him the bowl freshly filled with the new poultice which had taken on a purplish hue and turned around to leave. “Wait,” Said peter. Sam turned around. Peter ran up and hugged her. “Thanks,” He said. Sam turned abruptly around and ran back into the forest before he could see her blush.











Chapter 3
Friendships

“You know her?” The dragon asked. “Yeah...I guess so.” “You guess so?
The way you were acting I’d think you guys were blood relatives. I know that isn’t true though.” “Oh yeah? How’s that?” “Let’s just say she’s a friend of mine. It’s kind of nice to have company every once in a while.”
Peter walked back over to the edge of the lake and started skipping rocks over the water. “Sorry. Touchy subject?” “You could say that.” They just sat there awhile in silence. “She told me to force a gallon of water down your throat every hour or so, are you going to do it yourself or are you going to make me?” “I’ll do it.”
With that, the dragon got up and walked over to the lake, stooping down to drink. When he’d drunk his fill he stood up and walked towards the woods. “I’m going to go get some pine boughs for you to sleep on tonight. Care to join me?” “Nah, I think I’ll go bathe in the lake instead, I feel terrible.” The dragon walked into the forest. When the dragon was out of sight Peter stripped down, hiding his clothes behind a bush, and walked into the frigid water.
He gasped sharply as his bare chest hit the cold water making it hard to breathe. He quickly dived under to even out his body temperature and to wet his hair. He swam along the shore and found some slippery elm, holding onto the bark and using the sudsy wood to wash with. After a quick rinse he got out of the water and put his shorts back on, leaving his other clothes on the river bank. The dragon returned then carrying an impressive pile of pine boughs.
“Feel better?” The dragon asked. “A little bit, I’m just really tired.” The dragon put down the fire and Peter started making a mattress with them around the fire. “Don’t put them too close to it or you’ll wake up burning,” warned the dragon. Peter set the make-shift mattress about two feet away from the fire and lay down, using his clothes as a pillow and covering himself with a layer of pine boughs. The dragon lay down next to him and curled up. They were both soon asleep. Peter awoke to the smell of eggs and bacon. He opened his eyes and suddenly forgot where he was. It all came back to him in a flood. The caravan, the dragon, the escape, the girl... The girl! He sat up abruptly and immediately laid back down, groaning. He could feel bruises on his right side from lying on the ground all night. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.” He looked up and saw the girl. She was holding out a cup with some kind of liquid in it. He hesitantly took the cup from her and sniffed it. It smelled okay, kinda fruity, but okay. He took a sip. It tasted wonderful! He started gulping it down. “Slow down or you’ll make yourself sick,” The girl said. He stopped gulping and she handed him a rock with some eggs and bacon on it. Lacking silverware he scooped up the eggs in his hands and ate them that way occasionally taking sips from the cup of juice. He looked around and noticed the dragon wasn’t there. “Where’s the dragon at? He asked the girl. “Oh, he was feeling better so he decided to fly around a bit and stretch out his wings.” “oh.” Just then the dragon swooped down and stole a piece of bacon from the rock. “Hey! I was going to eat that!” The dragon burned it. “Want it now?” he asked. Peter couldn’t believe it. The dragon actually had the audacity to steal his bacon. Peter quickly ate the other two before the dragon could get those too. The dragon landed deftly beside peter. “How’s your wing?” he asked. The dragon stretched out his wing. Peter couldn’t believe his eyes, the wound had virtually disappeared! It was only a scratch now. “How’d your wing heal so fast?” “Oh that, well, your little girlfriend here put on a magic potion, oh, an hour ago maybe, and poof, the wounds gone.” “First, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a friend that happens to be a girl. And second, how did it heal so fast? What did she use?” “I don’t know you’ll have to ask her.” “I used some of the juice you just drank. It heals any ailment immediately.” “Why did you give it to me when I’m not even sick?” “Because you drank the lake water and it isn’t exactly sanitary. People get sick from it. Besides, with all your pampering you don’t exactly have a strong immune system.” “Oh, thanks.” “Sure. No problem.” “Okay guys”, said the dragon, “we were in the middle of something when I got shot down. I need to get back.” “Oh, you’re right! I totally forgot! Guess I’ll see you later Sam.” “Sure. See ya.” With that he climbed onto the dragons back and prepared for take-off. “Wait!” Sam ran towards him with a cloth sack. “Here.” She handed it to him. “It’s a little something for later. You might need it.” ‘Thanks.” “Oh, and one more thing,” “, yes?” she leaned over and kissed him back. The dragon took off right then. Peter looked back awhile at Sam before turning around to survey their surroundings. They were flying about 20 meters above the lake and rising quickly. “Can’t you fly up gradually? I feel like I’m about to fall off.” “Sorry, if I don’t gain enough altitude now, we’ll smack into the mountain later.’ He could see the mountain looming ahead. “Oh, that makes sense.” “Great. Now can you be quiet so I can focus on flying?” “No problem.”