I had never dressed a wound this large before. A stag's torn flank, a wolf's broken paw, yes–but never a creature whose body could blot out a clearing, whose scales gleamed like wet obsidian beneath the rain.
I gathered what I could: strips of cloth torn from my cloak, the sharp bone knife at me belt, and herbs i recognized from the forest floor. Yarrow for bleeding. Comfrey for strength. Father had taught me plants could save a man's life in the wild. Maybe they could save a dragon's too.
It watched me. Every movement I made was met with a narrowing of golden eyes, with a soft rumble deep in its chest that made the ground tremble. It could kill me at any moment. Yet it didn't.
"Hold still will you," I muttered, as though speaking to a wounded hound. "I can't do this if you thrash about."
I pressed a hand to the torn wing. Hot blood oozed over my fingers, slick and steaming despite the chill. The dragon hissed, smoke puffing weakly from its nostrils. My instincts screamed at me to leap back, but I forced myself to stay. If it wanted me dead, I'd be dead already.
With careful strokes, I cleaned the wound. My hands moved with the same steadiness I used when skinning game, when setting snares. The dragon's scales were tough as iron, but the flesh between them was as fragile as any beast's. It shuddered beneath my touch, but it didn't strike.
Minutes turned into hours. The rain slowed, then ceased altogether, leaving only the soft dripping of water from the leaves. By the time I tied the last strip of cloth across the torn wing, I was trembling from the exhaustion.
The dragon lifted its head. For the first time, it leaned closer, its golden eye hovering inches from my face. I froze, caught in its gaze. There was no hatred. No hunger. Just something I couldn't name.
A connection.
My chest tightened, and i staggered back, breaking eye contact. this was, madness. Helping a dragon–touching on–wasn't just dangerous. It was treason. The queen's decree was clear: any man who harbored such a creature was to be put to death.
But as the dragon exhaled, its breath was against me, I knew it was already too late. I couldn't kill it. I couldn't abandon it.
I had chosen.
And the world would never let me go back.
I rose on unsteady legs, wiping blood from my hands onto the damp grass. My stomach churned–not from the gore, but from what I had done. If anyone from the village saw me now, crouched beside a dragon with my cloak in tatters, they would not hear my reasoning. They would not care that it was wounded, that it had spared me.
They would only see betrayal.
The dragon shifted, a low rumble vibrating in its throat. It wasn't a growl–I was beginning to tell the difference. Its chest heaved, labored, and I realized with a jolt of fear that this healing would take more than bandages. It needed food. Strength. Time.
And I was the only one foolish enough to give it those things.
I glanced at my bow, lying abandoned on the wet ground. the deer had fled long ago, startled by the dragon's fall. The village would expect me to return with something, anything. My hunts rarely came back empty.
"I'll bring you food," I whispered, though I didn't know if it understood.
The dragon's eye blinked, slow and deliberate. For reasons, I couldn't explain, it felt like a promise exchanged.
The dragon tore into the stag, powerful jaws working with surprising precision despite its injury. I crouched nearby, rain still dripping from the canopy above, heart hammering in a rhythm I had never known. Every movement it made, every glance it threw my way, felt deliberate–as if it were watching me as much as I was watching it.
And then it happened. Its golden eyes locked on mine, unblinking, and in that gaze I felt a strange pull–not fear, nor hunger, but understanding. A recognition. I could feel it in my chest, in my pulse, in the way my fingers itched to reach out, to touch, to communicate.
This was no random meeting. The forest hadn't simply thrown a wounded dragon in my path. Something had drawn us together, something older than the trees, older than the mountains themselves.
I swallowed hard, the weight of realization pressing down. My life, as I had known it, had shifted on a knife's edge. This bond–this connection between hunter and dragon–was no accident.
And I was not sure if I was ready for what it meant.
Yet even as doubt curled like smoke in my mind, a single truth burned clear: I could not turn back. Not now.
Not ever.