Meat.
        She was suffused with the overwhelming, all-encompassing need for meat. 
        Her limbs were weak useless things. They could barely move the heavy stone geode that nearly pinned her to the ground. She stretched her weak, fledgling wings, shaking goo off them impatiently as she pried her way out from under the broken stone.
        Meat. 
        She followed her instincts blindly. She couldn’t see anything, at least, nothing distinct. But she could smell. And somewhere in the distance, she could definitely smell the meat her body craved.
        Her hands scrabbled across stone, her wings beating uselessly, far too small and weak to even lift her upright. So many smells assaulted her, filling in the blanks left by her immature eyes. Stone, old, old stone, and fresh water. She tried to make her body hurry, but it worked against her, her muscles weak and her bones brittle.
        Oddly, she felt that she should be struggling not against herself, but against others. Her instincts told her to tear at the wings of her competitors, to worry away their legs at their knees so that she would be the strongest. So that she would be the one to survive. After she had fed, she would return to the dying bodies of the weaker ones and consume them as well. Then she would sleep.
        But there were no clutchmates to dominate, no one to struggle against. And the meat she craved was far distant from where it ought to have been. But hunger dominated that sense of oddness. Despite the distance, her weak, trembling body dragged itself out of the old stone. The light that struck her was blinding and new scents assaulted her nose. Grass, rain, metal. And so much meat. She could smell it all around her. Creatures made of meat coming and going, constantly moving. Most of it was far away. . .but not all of it.
        Her body twitched. Her legs constricted and then she pounced. The tiny bird shrieked in alarm as she fell upon it. She was hardly any bigger than it was. It pummeled her with wings and claws, pecked at her sensitive flesh with its beak.
        She hung on tenaciously, clawing viciously at the joints of its wings until she finally crippled it. Then, at last, she plunged her teeth into its soft breast.

        Estrid awoke with a start, panting softly. Part of her could still taste that bird’s fresh blood. Her first kill. But it faded quickly, most of the half-remembered dream going with it. As the lucidity of the dream faded, she was left with only a sense of loneliness and that slightly-off feeling of. . .wrongness.
        She tried to grasp at the last remaining threads of that experience so long ago. Just how long ago had it been? How old was she, exactly? And that one question that her companions always seemed to ask first: Where were her parents?
        She stood, yawning, brushing her hands down her slight, nude form. It seemed like so much time had passed since her hatching, but also that it had been almost no time at all. She had been the same height for as long as she could remember, and she’d always lived in the same cave where she’d hatched.
        Well, it wasn’t entirely the same cave. Her lair, if anything, was her best indicator of the time that had passed. The deeper she explored, the more caves she found. She’d hatched practically at the surface, but now she slept in a chamber deep underground. The walls of all her caverns sparkled with quartz deposits, and there were so many hidden and covert passages that she felt pride in the fact that no one would be able to find her true lair, even if they did stumble upon the caverns themselves.
        She reached up, brushing her fingers over the jagged, crystalline walls, her body reflected back at her from a million facets. The quartz was raw, but whenever she expanded her lair into a new cave, she took the time to cut and polish the facets at the surface. A single torch, lantern, or flashlight in the right spot could make her entire lair glow. She had seen other lairs. They paled in comparison to hers. Other dragons dismissed quartz for its commonality, but not one she had met had so much of it that it lined their very walls as she did. She smiled in sweet self-satisfaction.
        The question of time returned, tugging at her insistently. How long did it take to polish the walls of a single cavern? Days, certainly. The last room she’d done, she’d had to eat three times before she was finished, so that one must have taken weeks. Did they all take that long? Her true lair was made up of fifty-two rooms of polished quartz. Many were much smaller than the last one had been, but plenty of them were larger, too. How many weeks did that come out to, just of polishing quartz? Her head swam with the numbers, refusing to come up with a definite answer.
        Plus, there was the time before that. . .the time before she really knew what it meant to be a dragon. She had been cold, alone, and hungry. And worse, she had been hoardless.

        ~~~
        Rain pelted down on her as she sat in the lee of a massive building. The cold and the wet didn’t bother her too much. She tended to be more sluggish in the cold, but she experienced none of the discomfort the other people on the street complained about. No, she was more concerned with the fact that the rain was soaking through her clothes.
        Clothes were a funny thing, in the city. When she had first flown to the city a week ago, she had been nude. People had been mortified. An elderly woman had immediately ushered her to the side and covered her with a woolen shawl. It seemed that her nudity embarrassed other people for reasons she couldn’t understand. But that was fine by her. Their embarrassment encouraged other people to clothe her. She had accumulated a nice collection of clothes since that first day. It was all a bit shabby, but it was all hers. Her socks and panties even matched, though her clawed toes had worried a hole into one of the socks.
        She tried to keep her clothes clean, and the rain made that much harder. So she had pieced together a little bit of dry ground by digging out some discarded cardboard boxes. Now, she sat huddled against the building, trying at least to keep her shirt and panties dry, waiting for the rain to end.
        When the rain did end, she had decided, she would fly back to her lair. The city was large and dirty and it was only made dirtier by the rain. She had only come here to find people. She craved the attention she deserved. Her scales, carefully polished, were lustrous and beautiful. She was perfectly formed. She was a fierce predator and swift as a whip. But her lair was a place of perfect solitude. How could anyone appreciate her perfection if she didn’t seek out people?
        So she had followed the cars into the city. All cars came here, so there must be hundreds of people. They had appreciated her the first few days. After she had been clothed, people would coo over her and give her food and tell her how adorable she was. She even had a pocket full of small trinkets that people had. . .forgotten about in her presence.
        Then the rain had come. It had rained for two days. Her shiny scales had grown shabby and gritty and it was all she could do to keep her clothes even a little dry. No one stopped to look at her when it rained. Far fewer people were on the streets, and none of those that were bothered to stop and look at the little bundle of perfection that graced their city.
        She sighed, staring balefully at the rainclouds, and as she did, she saw a dark figure move across them. It swept down swiftly, streaking in front of buildings and heading for the street at an alarming pace.
        Something inside her stirred. A dragon, she knew. No other creature could fly with such perfect grace in the pelting rain. She had seen no other dragons in her long week in the city. Wolves, foxes and felines seemed to abound, peppered with a variety of other races. But she had been the only dragon.
        The figure turned sharply on its wingtip, gold and glistening despite the dim, electric lights of the city. As he arced, his body came around to face her. He covered the distance to her side of the street at a ridiculous pace, snapping his wings out at the last moment to land lightly just a few paces away.
        He was enormous and nude down to his waist. His scales gleamed. polished to a shine despite the rain, which seemed to roll off him effortlessly. He kept his wings unfurled, posturing for her. Then he snapped them smartly to his back, looking down on her with calm, immutable eyes. Estrid stared, mouth slightly agape.
        “What are you doing?” he demanded in a deep, even voice.
        Estrid cocked her head, confused, her eyebrows furrowing slightly. “Trying to keep dry,” she responded slowly.
        A frown distorted the male dragon’s face. “Concern over wet or cold is beneath a dragon,” he said in that same level tone.
        Estrid frowned back, feeling a little offended. She snapped her wings out, spreading them wide instinctively in response to his insult. “I am not concerned with getting wet. My clothes look nicer when they are dry.”
        The male looked over her slowly, his eyes narrow. His frown slowly softened. “Those are the clothes of a peasant. They are beneath you. Can you fly?”
        “Of course I can fly,” she snapped, standing, indignant. She opened her mouth to say something else, but in that moment, he nodded and turned.
        “Good. Come.”
        With that, he launched himself effortlessly into the air, his wings beating sharply against the cold wind.
        Estrid gasped at his presumptuousness. To think that she would let herself be ordered around like that. But still. . .he was the only dragon she’d seen in her days in the city, plus the only person who’d extended to her an invitation of any kind. Perhaps, if he were leading her to his lair, there might be plenty of things for him to ‘forget.’ She ran a few short steps then leapt into the air as far as her short legs would carry her. Her immature wings snapped open again. She had to beat them furiously to gain any lift with the air so cold. They had been growing lately, but so had she. With the rain so prevalent, she hadn’t been exercising them as she should. 
        The male waited for her several stories aloft, his wings pivoting impressively at the shoulder to keep himself in a hover. Estrid eyed this movement with curiosity, determined to see if she could replicate it the next time she was exercising. She’d never been able to master that particular skill. 
        She caught up with him in the air and he nodded as if satisfied, then altered the beat of his wings to continue to rise. He was pacing himself so that she could keep up, she knew, and hated him a little for it. But if he hadn’t, she would’ve been left behind in moments. Her wings struggled to lift her young body up and up, several hundred feet in the air until they were well above the towering spires of the city’s downtown.
        The male glanced over his shoulder at her then spread his wings wide, angling his body downward. He soared gracefully out over the city in the opposite direction of Estrid’s lair, gliding lazily on the warm air rising from the urban sprawl below.
        Estrid angled and dove after him. With her shorter wings, she couldn’t glide for the long stretches the male could, but she did much better keeping up then she had when she was struggling to rise against the downdrafts.
        They outpaced the city quickly, the wind rushing by too fast to allow for conversation. The air grew colder as they soared into a low mountain range. Estrid stared around in wonder. There was so much of the local geography she had yet to explore.
        The male dove suddenly and Estrid tucked her wings to follow. Though she was lighter than he was, she was also sleeker and more finely lined. Diving was the one time she could outpace him. But she stuck her wingtips out slightly, letting them drag her back so she could follow. The male twisted suddenly and snapped his wings out, shifting directly toward the side of a mountain.
        Estrid gritted her teeth and swallowed her fear. This was a test, she knew instinctively, a male challenging her flying skills. She mimicked him, letting the air twist her body on her right wing and send her toward the mountain’s sheer bluff.
        The stone swallowed her. She put her feet out instinctively and they were greeted by stone. Two powerful beats of her wings brought her to a standstill by the male’s side.
        At the entrance to his lair.
        She smiled broadly with excitement, eager to see how his lair glistened and shone and to see what lay within.
        But his walls didn’t shine. They weren’t even formed into clean lines, and there were no natural mineral deposits he could have polished. It looked so drab. She frowned slightly.
        “You fly well for your size, wyrmling.”
        Estrid bristled, her wide ears flaring out, wings twitching on her back.  “I’m not a wyrmling!” she hissed.
        The male just chuckled serenely, walking forward deeper into his lair.
        “Forgive my innocent pet name. I am Seijuro, and I am the only great wyrm on this continent. To me, every dragon is a wyrmling. Why were you cowering on the street?”
        “I was not cowering. I was in the city. . .”
        For attention, part of her whispered. For adoration.
        “To explore. Only, I was trying to keep my clothes dry.”
        “Ah,” the male said, and it was clear he didn’t believe her. They walked in silence for a while. She passed paintings in gold frames, sculptures on pedestals, and occasionally trod over masterfully woven rugs. Dozens of passages twisted off the main cavern. It was as if the entire mountain Seijuro resided in was hollow on the inside. But nowhere did she see any refinement or care in the cavern’s construction. The walls were rough hewn and in some places she still saw the marks of claws or acid, though not often. Seijuro’s hoard was clearly impressive, but, in her opinion, his aesthetic lacked elegance. Her hoard fit in her pocket, and her lair was a single cavern, but she felt it showed more refinement than this.
        “Dragons are rare on this continent. Female dragons rarer, and amethysts rarest still. How did you come to be here, without my knowing? Did any of your clutchmates survive?”
        “I. . .I don’t know,” she said carefully. “And no.” Instinctively, she hid the whole truth from him.
        He shrugged slowly. “No matter. I run a. . .school, you might call it. For young dragons. We do not fit in with the people of that city, and even if we did, they could not teach you how to be your true self. What it means to be a dragon. I would like it if you joined us. You would be. . .very well received.”
        He looked at her sidelong. Her scales bristled a little, that look sparking some instinct in her that she didn’t recognize. He continued to lead her deeper and deeper into the cavern. Far fewer side tunnels branched off the areas and treasure adorned the walls only rarely, but what was there was clearly far older, and far rarer. She stared at a mithril sword hanging by itself on the wall, wondering how many ages ago it had last seen use.
        “No,” she found herself saying.
        “What?” Seijuro asked, pausing to look at her. Refusal was clearly something he was not accustomed to.
        “No,” she repeated. “Thank you, but I will learn on my own.”
        “You will find this world very harsh, wyrmling. Very unforgiving.” His voice sounded ominous, but also tired, as if he knew how unforgiving the world could be from experience. But she knew her answer was the right one. She was not meant to be holed up in someone else’s lair. She was strongest by herself. Amethyst dragons relied on themselves alone.
        She frowned. Where had that thought come from? She had only heard the term ‘amethyst’ from Seijuro himself. How would she know what an amethyst dragon did? And yet, she knew she was right.
        “No,” she said softly.
        She could see his face harden. Was that disappointment, or anger? Or both? It passed quickly, though, and in a moment, he turned and continued down the hallway.
        “You will come to reconsider, in time.”
        “Maybe,” she lied.
        The cavern ended in a door. It was a massive wooden thing, twenty feet high and half as wide, bound in thick gold plates. Dragon wings crafted masterfully out of mithril adorned the upper half of the door, though the pattern and anatomy didn’t match Seijuro’s. She looked closer. The hinges, thrust crudely into the stone wall, had been twisted at some point. This door had been brought here from somewhere else, stolen from some other threshold. The edges weren’t quite square, either. She could see light through cracks in the irregular stone hole that the door covered. Some time and care could have made it flush.
        Seijuro opened the door, not noticing her scrutiny. Inside was a large bedchamber, its ceiling so high that the light of from the sconces in the wall didn’t reach it. Polished, mismatched bookshelves lined the wall, each one a different wood and most of them filled with books. Two of the shelves, however, were occupied by dozens of small boxes, crafted of dozens of other woods entirely, some trimmed with gold or silver.
        Gemstones occupied every space not given over to books or the boxes. There must have been a thousand or more simply scattered through the room with no care for color, size, or proper display. The room made a profound statement of wealth. On the bed stand, she saw a ruby the size of her head. Near it, simply placed on the floor, was a collection of diamonds as big as her fist, each one faceted into a different fanciful shape.
        The sheer value of even the littlest things in the room practically screamed at her, begging her to take them, just one of them, and make it her own. A single diamond elephant. One ancient tome of histories. That ruby. . .if that ruby were simply turned a little, moved slightly to the left, it would catch the room’s light so much more brilliantly.
        Seijuro held wealth that probably outweighed the treasury of the city itself and yet, to Estrid, it felt wasted. In her hands, this display would be refined, polished, and put so it could be appreciated as it ought to be. The room felt. . .careless. Gaudy, even. She tried not to let her distaste show on her face. Seijuro pushed the door shut behind her. She altered her face. From ambivalence to awe. Despite her disapproval, she didn’t want to offend the male. Suddenly, she itched simply to be out again, to be back at her own lair. Maybe with one of those diamonds. . .
        “Welcome to my lair, wyrmling,” Seijuro said smoothly, appreciating the look of awe she had donned. “Is there anything you need?” His voice was entirely different. Soft, quietly confident. She started to wonder why he had brought her here at all. Her fingers twitched, dying to fill her pockets.
        “Actually,” she said, an idea occurring to her suddenly. “I would like someplace to lay my jacket and my socks, so they can dry.”
        Seijuro’s face darkened suddenly. “Your clothes! These rags you wear to look like a peasant!” He tilted his head back and roared suddenly, filling the cavern with his bellow, gemstones tinkling against one another on shelves. One hand lashed out with startling alacrity. Estrid did not even have time to flinch. His claws tore effortlessly through her clothes, slicing through her jacket, shirt, and skirt as if they weren’t even there. There was a whisper of air against her skin as he clawed her from shoulder to tip, but his control was such that his claws did not even brush her scales.
        She gasped, jumping backwards an entire breath too late. Her tail bumped the door and her clothes fell away from her in tatters, leaving her standing in her panties and socks.
        “That is what I think of your rags,” Seijuro spat angrily.
        She stared up at him, her breath shallow. The male dragon was clearly riled, his muscles tense and his nostrils flared. Standing in front of him, tiny in proportion and nearly nude, she knew she ought to be frightened. And yet, she felt oddly . . . in control. Seijuro growled deep in his throat. nostrils flared as her reached down, unbuckling the fur-lined kilt that covered his lower body.
        Estrid put on a timid, frightened face, cowering a little. He would like that, she thought. Male dragons needed to feel in control. But it slowly occurred to her that it was she who was controlling him. He had been courting her from the beginning, showing off his flying skills and flaunting his hoard for her approval. His nostrils were flared wide, breathing her scent in deeply, the scent, she now realized, she was putting in the air specifically to bait him. She had to resist the urge to smile. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect next, but she knew that she--or at least, her instincts--were in control.
        Then Seijuro’s kilt fell away and she did feel a little tinge of fear. His wasn’t the first cock she’d seen--showing up nude in the city had prompted a quick understanding of the word ‘rape’ for her, and a quicker understanding of her self-defense instincts--but his was far more massive than the few pathetic homeless men who had tried to overpower her. Thick, black, and erect, the dragon’s masculinity was nearly the size and length of her forearm.
        “What are you doing?” she gasped convincingly, feigning the lack of understanding he expected. 
        He stepped closer, looming over her in what was obviously meant to be an intimidating display. She felt her body respond. There was a faint warmth tingling between her thighs, which she squeezed together. Showing off superior size was a classic mating display, an instinctive part of her said. He might think he was intimidating her, but in reality, he was still courting her. She was still in control.
        “I told you,” he said in a deep growl. “Dragon females are exceedingly rare. If you will not accept the hospitality of my training, then do not expect me to give up one of my few opportunities to mate.”
        He grabbed her shoulder and spun easily. She found herself streaking through the air. Her wings snapped out just in time to soften her landing on the bed. He was over her in an instant, his thick shaft bobbing above her as she lay prone beneath him. He reached down, casually shredding her panties and discarding the tattered fabric. She whimpered softly, but not from fear. He was going to pay for those panties.
        “Do not resist and you may actually enjoy yourself,” he said in a low rumble.
        She looked up at him, all innocent, wide eyes and slightly trembling body, the perfect picture of terrified submission--exactly what he would want. She had no intention of resisting, of course. Her instincts told her to be accepting and patient, and so she was. She didn’t close her legs or cover herself, but lay perfectly exposed as if his throw had stunned her in a perfectly lewd pose. His eyes were on the nethers between her legs, which were feeling far warmer than normal. Cautious but oddly eager, she watched his body and saw the bead of white liquid form on the tip of his shaft as he lusted over her.
        The stillness broke. He moved closer to her, pushing her shoulders down to the bed. She cried out softly as the motion pinned her spread wings uncomfortably underneath her. Seijuro didn’t seem to notice. His hands were on her legs as he knelt on the bed between them. His fingers easily encircled her thighs just above the knees and he positioned her to suit him.
        He lifted her hips off the bed and pushed his forward. The hot flesh of his black cock slid over her mons, the tip resting for a moment on her sleek belly, dribbling that white liquid onto her tummy. His hands shifted quickly, moving from her thighs to her backside without dropping her. His sharp clawtips pricked her smooth scales, squeezing her ass and spreading her cheeks. Her tail lashed underneath her, tailtip slashing across the sheets.
        Seijuro grunted softly, stroking her upturned lips along the underside of his cock in three or four slow strokes, more of the thick liquid dribbling from the head of his shaft onto her belly each time his balls pressed against her spread backside.
        He repositioned himself suddenly, sliding his shaft back over her lips with a quick stroke, then raising up on his knees. He held her rump with only one hand as he used the other to angle his thick manhood downward. She hissed as she felt the thick head press against her entrance, which was pitifully small compared to the swollen head of the dragon’s cock.
        Seijuro’s wings snapped out to either side, making him seem even larger as he pressed down. Estrid cried out softly as the male dragon used his size and weight to slowly penetrate her, stretching her to an incredible degree. New, foreign sensations flooded Estrid’s body, intense pleasure radiating out of her nethers and suffusing her body, washing away the twinge of pain she felt from being stretched so. She felt a brief tightness, a brief snap of pain inside her, then his shaft sunk deeply inside her body.
        She rolled her head back, clenching her eyes shut. The penetration hadn’t hurt nearly as much as she had expected. She felt her body responding to the scents of him as surely as he was to hers. Her body accommodated him instinctively, a young dragonette willingly taking a wyrm inside her.
        Seijuro’s hands moved again, sliding further along her body. His hands nearly encircled her waist as he held her. His wings beat once and he tilted his head back, roaring with triumph as he pulled her, sliding her body easily onto his shaft. Estrid cried out, this time with pleasure. The feeling of taking so much inside her was electric, and it was flavored by the knowledge that, somehow, things were going exactly as planned.
        With that thought, Estrid smiled as Seijuro plunged his shaft into her again and again, each stroke more forceful than the last, her tiny body sliding further down the length of his huge shaft with each thrust. Seijuro’s wings beat periodically, accompanied by a short roar, wind buffeting the room, knocking trinkets off their shelves. Estrid wrapped her slender legs around the big male as much as she could as he rutted into her, each thrust feeling as though as it pushed deep down into her belly. Her body kept changing as his pace increased. She could feel her temperature rising and her body producing more fluids. 
        She looked down, staring at where Seijuro’s thick shaft split her open, her tight cunny stretched taut around it. He pulled out with a swift stroke, the ridge of his cockhead visible just above her stretched lips. His black flesh glistened with the fluid her body made. As she stared it was like it more than glistened, it almost seemed to. . .glow?
        Pleasure washed over her as he thrust back inside her, deeper than he had before, his clenched thighs slamming into her body, heavy sac slapping against the cheeks of her rump. She tossed her head back, mouth open to cry out but no sound coming out of her. The sensation was intense and incredible, more thrilling even than a swift dive from high above the clouds. Her body arched, squeezing tightly around the shaft that filled her, making him grunt in surprise, and the little claws of her toes dug into his leathery scales, holding herself in place. 
        Seijuro tensed, trying to pull out to continue the solid, swift rhythm of his fucking, but she held him in place as she orgasmed, bucking her little body on his length, her hips slapping repeatedly against his. Her hands curled, talons tearing at the sheets underneath her as her first climax crashed over her. She kept trying to scream, but she was so full of his shaft that she couldn’t find her breath.
        Moments later, with her body slapping wetly into his, he caught up with her. He arched his wings taut and tilted his head back and roared. His claws pierced underneath her scales as he held her fiercely in his grip. With her body so possessively tight around his cock he couldn’t move much, but she felt the shaft inside her swell. Her body shook as he exploded inside her, flooding her receptive nethers with his seed. She shivered as she felt it pour into her. The seed of a gold dragon. Some bizarre part of her thrilled at possessing it, and as he filled her with it, she came harder.
        Seijuro fell on top of her, his hips still thrusting into her, hot seed painting her womb. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on tightly as he twitched and growled above her. The pleasure racking her body eased to a dull, warm satisfaction as the male dragon let out a soft, final grunt and then lay still.
        Estrid panted as softly as she could manage, suddenly feeling that it was very important she not move at all. She could feel the blood draining from Seijuro’s turgid shaft, and after a moment the organ slid out of her with a wet sound, her cunny drooling his seed onto the sheets. She clenched her muscles reflexively, trying to keep the thick liquid inside her as she waited.
        She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, exactly, but she still trusted her instincts. She nearly held her breath, trying not to squirm as Seijuro’s mass weighed on her tiny body.
        Then, faintly, the great wyrm began to snore. She let out the breath she’d been holding and, with some effort, squirmed her way out from underneath him. She had to gently pull each of his claws out of her sides, but she didn’t trickle much blood. Her toes had done nearly as much damage to his flesh. They had been gentle to each other--a mating between equals would have taken weeks to recover from. Only, she wasn’t completely sure which one of them had the upper hand in this case. She smiled smugly to herself, pulling her last foot out from under Seijuro’s bulk and standing up by the bed as he snored.
        This, she slowly realized, had been her goal. She had come into the dragon’s deepest lair, let him underestimate her enough that his mating didn’t brutalize her, and, once he had sated himself in her, some part of her body had played on his existing exhaustion to put him into a deep sleep.
        She resisted the urge to laugh with delight, arching her back and wings triumphantly instead. His seed dribbled down her leg, and she knew that it was a valuable part of what she had accomplished too, she just had no idea how one went about hoarding a male dragon’s. . .stuff.
        There were, luckily, plenty of other things here for her to hoard.
        She moved quickly, wishing that her clothes were in any condition to make bags out of. She ought to be discreet, she knew. If she took just one or two small items, she could play this sort of plot over and over again, as long as he never noticed the miniscule theft. It was an efficient way to start a hoard, and she could carry it on for as long as she was willing to accept the male’s shaft inside her.
        She smiled slyly. She didn’t mind accepting that one bit.
        But Seijuro had shredded her clothes. The jacket had been practically new! And her panties had matched her socks so cutely. Despite what her instincts said, she was going to make sure he paid for offending her.
        She perused his bookshelf, bouncing, trying to pick out the perfect thing as quickly as she could. Curiously, she peered into the little wooden boxes that covered so many shelves. A few held carved ivory pipes and ornate lighters and miniature guillotines whose purpose she couldn’t quite fathom, but by and large, most of the boxes held multitudes of short sticks in a rainbow of browns. A few held a handful of thin tubes which, upon inspection, held a single brown stick inside. The boxes reeked of cedar and some darker plant she couldn’t identify. They puzzled her. But, if the great wyrm placed such stock in them to have so many in his innermost lair, they must be valuable.
        She pulled the most ornate of the boxes off the shelf. It was only about the size and weight of a thick tome, and held four or five dozen of the brown sticks inside. The wood was so dark it was nearly purple, and it was the only box bound in mithril rather than gold or silver.
        Then she slipped off one of her socks and stuffed three of the faceted diamond animals into it. She used the lid of the box to hold the sock secure, then carried both toward the door, preparing to make her escape in plenty of time.
        Then she stopped, frowning, without knowing quite why. Something had caught the corner of her eye. She turned, facing a lustrous rosewood bookshelf, trying to figure out what she had seen. The shelves were covered with books, one of them even beginning to buckle under the weight of the heavier tomes it supported. She tsked at such thoughtlessness. Properly arranged, the books would have been an easy burden for such well constructed shelves.
        Then she saw it. A book as thick as her fist bound in a deep blue leather with gold lettering on its spine which proudly read ‘Of Dragons And Their Ways.’ She frowned again. The language of the title was completely unfamiliar to her, but she could read it easily. She set her diamond-stuffed sock and the mithril-bound box on the floor and drew the tome out. It was heavier even than the box was, owing to its thick vellum pages. Thumbing through it briefly, she was awestruck by the hundreds of meticulous illuminations depicting dozens of dragon species at various ages. She shivered. She had found something more valuable than mithril or diamonds.
        She had found answers.
        She threw her weight against the door, cracking it open enough to squeeze through. Then, stacking the book on top of the box, she fled nude from the lair.