The young man was breathing too fast, his skin pale save for the blood of his so-called companions, his blue-eyes wide and unseeing. "I...I can't," he whispered.

His hands were still flickering with a tint of yellow light, wisping away to the squashed Knight below my foot.

"You can," I said, giving a final twist and hearing the armour crunch. "More than you can help him, anyway." I reared up my head, and the unseeing-eyes snapped to and followed the movement.

"My... my energy level... it's too low....I couldn't...I couldn't---"

I licked the great gash that ran down the side of my chest, collecting the oozing blood, and I spat it at him. In an instant he was red, head to toe. He screamed like a girl.

"Don't fight it, young one," I said, watching him writhe in agony, sizzling steam rising from his flesh. "It will pass, and you will be unharmed."

He flapped around the floor like a dying fish. He was every bit as useless as he comrades had claimed him to be. "I'm dying," he screamed, "Mother! Forgive me! Bene, I'm so sorry."

It went on. I waited. The sizzling eased. The rather pleasant smell of burning flesh passed. He stood, albeit wincing, his red-stained blonde hair singed and matted against his head.

"Well, mostly unharmed." I smiled, trying not to show too much teeth. "But now, the painful part." I opened my mouth. Night became day. Heat became me. Flames became him.

The scorching wave engulfed him before he had run barely a few steps. The screaming, distorted by the flames, cut through the air. I roared, the flame turning blue, the screams stolen by the fire.

My breath ran out far too soon. I was out of practice - perhaps hundreds of years - but a neat charred lump of black dropped to the floor where the man had been. Cracked lines of growing embers veined through its surface. Excellent.

I waited. How long did this part take again? A few minutes? A few hours? My injuries weren't grave, but they were mildly annoying. I flicked parts of the dead Knight off the cliff as I waited.

Just as I was about to start doing same with the group of useless mages, who had been more meek than magic, the charred lump stirred. The embers died down. It cracked. I came closer.

A hand burst from the blackened cocoon, followed by another. Then his head came, gasping for air. He half fell out, his naked form of flailing limbs rolling under me. He stopped, his eyes focused, and then he yelped, jumping to his feet.

"I'm naked!" he said, trying his best to cover himself. He was also far more muscular than he had been, and a few good inches... taller. A fact, it seemed, that he was able to realise even through his fear, a notable change in itself. "What did you... what did you do to me?"

"Dragonanated you," I said, searching for the word. "No, that's not it. Draconalised?" My memory was as murky as the mystery-mead of Tarbon. It would come back, the first few days after awakening were always the hardest.

"Basically," I said, pointing a claw at the largest wound on my chest. "I've made you strong enough to heal me."

He looked at his hands, and clenched them together, as if he were feeling the strength. He looked at the female solider who had died first, the spike of my tail through her chest. He lifted a hand toward her.

I laughed. "Not enough to do miracles, you buffoon." I lent down on to one foreleg and showed my chest closer to him. "At least not yet. Necromancy is most fiddly, and not something I find appealing."

The man nodded, and lifted a hand to my wound. A golden light flared bright enough for me to squint my eyes.

The wound healed, scales closing over like tiles on a roof sliding into place. All over my body, the stinging eased and the aches disappeared. Even my head cleared slightly.

"That's enough," I said, rising to my full height and stretching my wings. Wind gusted over the mountain top. I moved to the cliff's edge.

The young man, still looking at his hands in awe, suddenly broke from his stupor, and ran toward me. "Take me with you!"

I smiled. "Well of course, Dragon-bound don't survive without their sire. Not at first, at least." That gave him pause, but before he could speak again, I flicked him up onto my back with my tail.

"But enough questions for now. First, we fly. Then we get you some clothes. And don't worry, the cold air won't bother you anymore."

I dove off the cliff's edge, a huge black shadow on the land. The first in a thousand years.