Second Chapter

This is actually a combination of Chapters 2 and 3, with just a few minor changes.

                                     Chapter Two

It was raining. Again.
Norman was sitting under an overhanging rock, which was large enough to shelter him, his horse, and the fire he'd built, eating a rabbit he'd snared earlier that day. He looked out at the rain and grimaced. This was the third day in a row of miserable rainstorms, broken only by brief respites in which Norman could go out and try to gather dry firewood and fresh meat to round out what was left of the food he'd brought with him from home. And he'd only been traveling for a week! At this rate, Norman would never find another town, much less a dragon to slay!
With a heavy sigh, Norman stretched out in his bedroll and went to sleep.
The next day dawned amazingly, startlingly, bright and clear. Norman whistled as he set about cleaning up his temporary camp and preparing his horse for travel. When he had everything packed and the horse saddled, he swung up on its back and headed toward the road. Suddenly the sky grew dim for a moment, as if a cloud had scudded in front of the sun just briefly, but when he looked up, Norman could see not a single cloud up above him, but there was a dark shape like a very large bird up ahead, heading in the same direction that he was. Could it be a dragon?
Norman was excited, though a part of him wondered what he would really do if he confronted a dragon. Would he be able to slay the beast? Or would he end up as dinner, instead? Norman could see that the flying whatever-it-was was circling lower a few miles up the road, evidently preparing to land. He spurred his horse to go a little faster, hoping he would reach the spot before the creature decided to take off again.
As he drew nearer to the creature's apparent landing place, Norman realized that he really should have some sort of plan. Try as he might, though, all he could come up with was to try to sneak in very quietly, hoping the beast wouldn't hear, see, or smell him. Then, once he'd seen what he was dealing with, he could challenge it to a duel, or something. He really wanted to fight the creature fairly. After all, if he didn't, how would he know whether or not this dragon (if, indeed, that's what he was going to be facing) was really the fiercest dragon in the kingdom? Somehow, this logic all made perfect sense to Norman.
After a while, Norman judged he was close enough to where the creature had probably landed, and that it was time to continue on foot. He left his horse hobbled in a small grassy meadow, and continued along a game trail into the shadowy forest. He tried to look for signs of a rather large creature's passage, but couldn't find anything. He was just about to give up and return to his horse, when he noticed a very large, very odd, rock formation. Norman knew it was odd, he just couldn't figure out exactly why it was odd. He walked around it, studying it closely. The color was right, it matched other rocks in the area. The lichens and moss growing on it seemed normal, as well. What in the world made this pile of rocks different?
Norman was puzzled. He decided to climb up on the rocks to get a better look at them. Starting at a point where the rocks came out in a long, tapered point, Norman climbed up what was almost a small hill. When he reached the top, he looked closely at the rocks he was standing on, but still couldn't see anything obviously out of place about them. He'd been using a short, broken branch as a sort of walking stick in order to help him keep his balance while climbing. Now he started tapping on the rocks, listening for any clues that might tell him why these rocks seemed so out of place. No results, except that the rocks almost seemed to be moving. But that couldn't be, could it?
Giving up for the moment, Norman found a small crack in the stone nearest him, and jabbed his stick down into it so he could sit down. This time there was no doubt about it--the rocks moved! With a violent shudder, the rocks shifted under Norman until he fell to the ground, his stick landing beside him. He watched in amazement as the rock pile changed color from mottled grays to emerald green and purple; and with the color change, he could see that what he had thought was a pile of rocks, was, in reality, a dragon. Which he had just woken up by jabbing a stick into it. Norman had an idea that he was in very big trouble.
With a bellow, the dragon shook itself all over, then opened its eyes and glared at Norman. It then opened its mouth and, to Norman's astonishment, spoke.
"Are you kidding me?! Do you normally go around climbing on dragons and stabbing them while they're sleeping?" the dragon demanded. "Well?"
Norman, who had been expecting to be charred to cinders, was a little taken aback by the dragon's sarcasm. Well, truthfully, he was mostly taken aback by having the dragon speak to him at all. He stammered, "Y-y-you can s-speak!"
"Of course I can speak! Better than you can, apparently!" the dragon retorted. He cocked his head and said, "I asked you a question, you know. It would be polite of you to answer."
Norman replied, "No, I don't usually climb on dragons or stab them. I've never even seen a dragon before now. I do apologize, though. I saw you flying and was looking for you so I could challenge you to a fair fight. I've been recently knighted, and my quest is to slay the fiercest dragon in the kingdom. So, now that I've found you, I challenge you! Let us find a clear field and do battle!" He somehow thought he might have sounded a bit ridiculous, especially when he noticed the dragon was laughing at him, shaking with silent chuckles and blowing little puffs of smoke out of its nostrils.
When the dragon could control itself, it said, "I haven't laughed so hard in months! What makes you think that you can slay me, or any dragon, for that matter? Look at you. You're puny!"
Norman retorted, "That's what knights do--they slay dragons! And I may be puny compared to you, but really, I'm normal-sized for a human!"
"Listen, human, how many knights do you know who've actually slain a dragon?"
"Well, none, now that I think about it. But that's what the stories all say."
"Uh-huh, that's what I thought. Listen, kid, you just can't believe everything the bards tell you. What's your name, anyhow?
"I'm Norman," Norman replied. "What's your name?" He was still a bit unnerved that this creature was actually talking to him (albeit pretty sarcastically) instead of eating him, but thought that that wasn't such a bad thing anyhow.
"I'm Dennis," said the dragon. "Pleased to meet you. Let me tell you a bit about dragons. We really don't like to eat people. You're stringy, and you just aren't big enough to be more than an appetizer. We much prefer to eat things like cows, wild pigs, deer, you get the picture. We're good at hiding ourselves in plain sight, so most of the time, you humans don't even know we're around. And we tend to travel quite a bit, so that we don't wear out our welcome, so to speak, in any certain area. Myself, I was heading east to see what's been going on in that part of the world in the last twenty or so years since I was there last. What are your plans? Other than the whole dragon-slaying thing, that is?"
"Well," answered Norman, "I don't have a direction in mind. I just decided to go east because that's the way the road from home goes, and then I saw you flying, and now I've talked to you and I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't very well try to slay every dragon I come across, but even if I did slay you--which I'm not going to do!" he added hastily, "I couldn't go home and say that I'd killed the fiercest dragon in the kingdom, because how would I know?"
Dennis was trying not to laugh at this young human. He could tell that Norman was truly concerned with proving himself worthy as a knight, but hadn't expected dragons to be intelligent beings, instead of unthinking beasts. He was fairly young himself, for a dragon--only about two hundred years old--and it sometimes got lonely traveling with no one to talk to. He said, "You know, you could come with me. We might run across other dragons, you never know. If nothing else, you would have adventures and see places that you'd never be able to get to on your own. What d'you say?"
Norman thought about it. "What about my horse?" he asked. "He'd never be able to keep up with you, you know."
"That's true. Well, you could sell him in the next town, about five miles from here, and you could ride on my back, instead. There's nothing like flying to get you someplace quickly."
"All right," Norman said. "It's a deal. I'll sell my horse, and you and I will have adventures and travel the world!"
"Right then," said Dennis. "I'll meet you on the other side of town. You'll be able to find me--just look for the pile of boulders." With that, he flew off, heading eastward toward the town that Norman now knew lay just a few miles distant. Norman headed back to his horse, thinking about the amazing turn his life had taken in the last hour, and realizing that he now had a new quest--to explore every corner of the kingdom, as well as the habits of dragonkind in person. It was good to have a new friend and companion to share the journey.