--Lilia was awakened by a sudden pain running from her back to her left side. She let out a scream as the pain grew to that of a thousand stings. Marco quickly woke up in a panic. He forgot that he was holding Lilia when he went to sleep the previous night. His grip loosened on her, causing her to slide out onto her bed which had been fortunately been dragged right beside her sleeping husband. She screamed again as she hit the bed for it only made the pain worse. Marco's eyes looked down upon her in worry. 
--"What's wrong?" he said in a soft rumble. 
--"My back, it hurts." She replied as her expression tightened from the pain. 
--It seemed a bit odd to Marco that her back was causing her this much pain. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen to humans until they had grown start in old age. Even then, it shouldn't cause the amount of pain she seemed to be suffering. A couple of seconds passed before he noticed a growing red mark on the bed come from her back. He delicately turned her over with his front feet. She winced in pain as her body was twisted to the other side. She was confused and only knew she was in terrible pain. 
--Marco's body began shaking. Upon her back was a growing pool of blood flowing from two large claw marks that ran in slashes from her right shoulder blade down to the midsection of her left side. His claws were dripping red from a freshly inflicted wound. His mind almost snapped him into a panic that would send his body into a petrified state of fear. He did start to panic immediately, but luckily for Lilia, her groans of pain reminded him that immediate action was needed. He had little time for thinking, so he acted swiftly. 
--He folded the blanket around her and picked the ends up in his mouth like a giant sling. He kept a firm bite as he galloped out into the darkness. His feet pounded down the mountain and into the forest. Each step shook the ground causing nearby pebbles to roll aside. The light of the moon lit his path. He cut corners traveling as fast as he could to get to his destination, the man that could fix all of this. His wild charge knocked away tree limbs, trampled brushes, and kicked up clouds of dust. Within a few minutes he arrived at the round cottage his father lived. 
--He gently laid down the sling with his wife before the door and gave a loud roar. The silence that followed was very uncomfortable. The panic and the run had set him at a fast pace, so the seconds felt like minutes as he waited. After a short time he knocked on the roof of the cottage hoping the man would hurry. This must have worked, because the door opened a few seconds later. Rinaldo wore a look of disorientation and mild anger. The expression dissolved once he saw the bloody cloth bundle on his porch. 
--Rinaldo wasted no time at all rushing her inside. Marco slipped Her body was laid on a large table in the basement. The blood smeared on table and Rinaldo's hands. 
--"Can you help her?" said Marco fearfully. 
--"What happened?" He put on a pair of gloves and pulled his goggles down over his eyes.
--"There's no time. Just please fix her."
--"Alright, but you've got a lot of explaining to do once this is over with. To answer your question, she probably will live." Rinaldo replied as he rolled her on her back. He proceeded to pull out a jar with some blue slime and rub it on the bleeding wound. It hissed and began producing smoke. Lilia, as weak as she was, winced in pain and let out a short scream. He pulled out various powders and ingredients from jars on a large shelf and put them in a bowl. He hummed and quickly crushed them into a powder. This was poured into a oddly shaped pot of water. After getting the water to boil over a fire, he dropped a purple rock into the mixture. The rock gave off a soft glow that steadily grew and spread changing the color of the water. The mixture and the steam that arose from it soon gave off the same purple glow as the rock.
--Marco was staring at his wife on the table, paying little attention to the work. Rinaldo however, seemed very pleased with himself when he saw the purple smoke rise from the mixture. He took the pot off the fire and brought it over to the table. "Well it's supposed to turn red, but that's the first time it worked so quickly. She needs to breath this in." He brought the pot to the side of the table.
--The smoke slowly drifted up spreading out as it moved. A cloud of the stuff drifted over her body. Her breathing drew the glowing purple smoke in through her nostrils. After a couple minutes passed, she quickly sat up and started coughing. Her breathing soon became desperate wheezing in between periods of trying to hack something up. Rinaldo took the pot away and dumped the contents into a huge vat in the corner. Lilia spat out a large glob of purple slime after hacking it up. She was too busy catching her breath to be disgusted by it. The lashes on her back had faded to small cuts that were no deeper than ones given by an angry house cat. 
--When she started breathing normally, she noticed two big green serpentine eyes staring at her from above. Panic took over. She scrambled off the table to a corner behind the huge vat. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was excruciating pain and dragon claws covered with her blood. She distinctly remembered all the blood.
--Everything now felt cold and certain parts of her body were going numb. At that moment she could see that her arms had red streaks of blood on them. She instinctively wiped the blood off on her gown and looked around. Unfortunately vision was a bit cloudy. At first the only thing that she could see was a menacingly large black shape. Pale dots on the shape became sharp claws as her vision began to clear. The stone floor had splotches of blood around them. A chill ran up her spine as the bloodstained claws burned in her mind. The thing standing before her was no less than a living nightmare She pushed herself back into the corner trying to hide. 
--It only took a few moments for her vision to return to normal. The black figure slowly came into focus. It took no more than a moment for the realization to hit her. That was Marco. Seeing the blood on his claws brought back the rest of her recollection of what happened. Her husband had clawed her back. Why did he do that? She might not want to know the answer. One thing was clear though: She was not safe. 
--"Lilia?" said Marco taking a step towards her. 
--The only thing that could escape her mouth was a faint gasp. She only pushed herself further back into the corner. 
--He stopped. "Lilia, it's me, your husband. I'm not going to hurt you."
--After a few seconds of silence, she replied "Then why did you hurt me?"
--"It was an accident. I didn't do it on purpose. I'm sorry." He said lowering his head in shame. 
--She stood up slowly. "That doesn't make me feel safe. Even if that was an accident, it could have killed me." Marco's eyes quivered and shut tight. A couple of tears rolled down his face. She went on "It's not your fault… I just-" 
--A deep rumble from Marco's throat cut her off. His claws dug into the floor and his mouth pulled back to show his teeth. "I'm sorry." He muttered as more tears escaped his eyes. 
--"Marco, calm down you're scaring me." She said backing up towards Rinaldo. 
--"Please control yourself." said Rinaldo. 
--Marco didn't listen. The growl in his throat grew louder. He rushed out of the basement tunnel, but not before his tail knocked over a table and a shelf of dried plants. 
--Rinaldo groaned, "Sometimes I wonder if he's still at the age of foolish youth in dragon terms."
--"Where is he going?"
--"I haven't a clue." He said beginning to clean up the mess. "It would be best if you went out there and watched where he is headed. I have to salvage these ingredients before they go bad. Be careful, and I'll join you shortly."
--Lilia nodded and made her way up the stairs. After stepping outside, she could see Marco's tail disappear among the trees. The thumping of his footsteps grew faint. Moments later, a thundering roar came from somewhere in the distance causing all the birds in the area to fly away. That was smart of them, because the trees in the area started to shake. Rinaldo had just stepped out of the house when the noise of a tree being torn down filled the air. 
--"He's not going mad is he?"
--"I don't know. Either way it would be best if we kept our distance." The two of them stood by the house and waited for the noise to die down. Smoke ascended above the trees, but at least the forest had regained it's calm atmosphere. "It might be safe now to check on him."
--She agreed and together they looked for where Marco was. It wasn't difficult. All they had to do was follow the trail of broken tree limbs and footprints left in his wake. Five minutes later they found Marco. To say the scene was a disaster would be an understatement. It looked like two or three disasters got together and had a huge disaster baby. What ground had not been torched had been given a rough plowing. A couple of trees had been ripped completely in half.  The rest were either horribly clawed, pummeled, on fire, or a combination of the three. Lying in the middle of the devastation was Marco. He was tense. His claws were dug into the ground. His mouth was twisted into a snarl. 
--"Marco, are you okay?" said Lilia keeping her distance.
--"No, I'm not okay." He replied obviously trying to hold back tears.
--"It wasn't your fault. It was an accident. I understand."
--"It's not about that. It's about us."
--"What about us?"
--"Everything that's between us. I can't stay with you as a dragon. It's dangerous and I'll probably be the cause of your death."
--"That's not true. We'll just have to be more careful."
--"I'm tired of being careful! I love you and I don't want to spend my life with you treating you like a fragile piece of glass I can't touch. That's no way to love and no way to live. I hate being a dragon." He couldn't hold back his tears any longer. They started rolling down his face. “I hate it! It's the reason why I'm hideous and dangerous. I'm sorry... I just can't take it anymore! I can't go on like this.”
--Lilia didn't have anything to say at first. After moments of awkward silence, all she could say was, “It's not that bad. We'll find a way to get over this.”
--Keeping his head on the ground, Marco looked up at her. “How can we just get over this?”
--Lilia felt foolish for saying such a thing. Along with not believing it, she didn't know what she had meant by the statement. “I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking straight and just wanted to say something to make you feel better.”
--At this point Rinaldo interjected, “The important thing is you're not tearing something up now. Are you calm now?”
--“How can I be calm knowing that I'm dangerous to those I love?” 
--“I don't know, but couldn't you have waited a little bit longer before having this relationship crisis? You two haven't even been together for a month.” 
--Before Marco could respond, Lilia piped up, “I think he's trying to say that we need more time to develop our relationship. We can be together in a safe way, it's just a matter of taking things slowly and learning safety boundaries.” 
--Marco responded, “It's not that simple. We can't just figure this out even if it takes a long time. There isn't much of a gray area of safety. If something we do is dangerous, I'll find out because it'll kill you. It was lucky that Papa was able to save you. I can't take that kind of risk again... Not with you.” There was a bit of a catch in his deep voice as if his throat was tightening. Tears were steadily dripping down the sides of his face 
--Lilia was desperate to say something positive. By this time, it felt like it was her duty in their relationship. "It's okay. We can get through this."
--"How can we get through this?"
--"I honestly don't know. Do you have any ideas?"
--"Yeah. Papa could change me into a human." By this time his crying had subsided into uncontrolled sniffles so his words were broken up and sounded like they were being croaked out.
--Lilia turned to Rinaldo with an inquisitive expression. "Can you do that?"
--"No no, that's absurd." the man said quickly. Marco protested with more sniffling. 
--Lilia whispered to Rinaldo, "At least look into the matter for his sake. It couldn't hurt to look like you're trying."
--Rinaldo sighed and agreed with a silent nodding of his head. "I'll see what I can do."
