A Pair to End The War

A New beginning

Interesting, A human and a dragon?

My body jolted and I gasped, waking up suddenly. I groaned in pain and slowly sat up, my mind still foggy, "What happened?" I rubbed my head and looked around. I was in the middle of a field, colorful flowers scattered among the grass, and small critters ran, jumped, scurried, and prowled through the grass and flowers. I rubbed my head and looked forward, my mind still drawing blanks.

As I searched my mind for what had just happened, I saw something scurrying around in the distance, something larger than most of the other critters. I watched it for a moment, only seeing the shuffle of grass for a bit, but then I saw the glimpse of wings and a tail, followed by the distant squeak of a critter who'd just been killed. "What is that?"

The animal stopped and lifted its head, it was a dragon! A young dragon!

All of my memories suddenly hit me, my troop, the battle, how I escaped, that little dragon.

The little dragon ran towards me, pushing away the grass as it ran. "You saved me," I wanted to run, but I felt a strange calming sensation overtake my common sense telling me to run away from the dragon. "You saved me! You really did it!" The little dragon jumped with full force.

I tensed my body as the little dragon rammed into me with all its might. I crumbled to the ground landing on my back as I gasped for air, all while the little dragon excitedly licked my face and jumped on my chest ardently.

I caught them mid bounce and lifted them into the air until I could breathe again; strangely they reminded me of a cat. After a moment and a much-needed breath I said, "Yes, I saved you. I couldn't leave you behind, not in the grasps of the dwarfs, not after hearing you'd been a slave for so long,"

The dragon jovially bounced their head back and forth, "I can't explain how happy I am that you did!"

I let the dragon go, setting them to the side, and sat up myself. They jumped around and pranced in a circle, cheering and humming a tune they had made up. After a moment of prancing they said, "I've waited for 5,000 years for you to save me," they said dropping into a playful position. 

"Me specifically?" I asked pushing the head of the little dragon around gently.

The dragon grabbed my hand with their mouth before letting it go and frowning: "Well, not you specifically, because I had called out too many people and animals as they came in, but they all died in the ring or in slavery,"

The little dragon dropped their frown and smiled again, lunging at my hand and playfully biting it. I need to get back to the human kingdom, but if they see this little dragon then they'll kill them, and probably me.
I was going to comment about finding something to do with them but stopped when I realized this dragon had said it was over 5,000 years old. "Did you say 5,000 years?"

"Yes!" the dragon said, batting at my hand playfully, as if what they had said was completely normal.

"But you look no older than 500 years old how is that possible?" My mind spun and did flips in my head. How was this dragon 5,000 years old? Even the oldest dragons recorded are only 2,000-4,000 years old.

The little dragon was clueless to their own body, "I don't know, I pretty much grew up a slave, I've only ever known that small space and those chains, those painfully heavy chains," the dragon stopped playing and rolled onto their stomach. "Those heavy chains, their painful hammers, the endless years of nothing but fire," They covered their face with their wings, as if they were trying to hide from their own memories.

I placed a hand on their back and started petting them. They started purring, softly and quietly, slowly releasing their face from their wings. "Hey, don't worry, you're out of there, you don't need to worry about those chains anymore," I said to them.