I inhaled. Normally this would be the point where someone dimmed the lights, opened a presentation, and pretended facts were neutral. Here, the light was lava, and neutrality had teeth.

  “Very well,” I said, surprised that my voice functioned. “I will outline a possible structural correction.” The dragon did not move, which counted as encouragement.

  “The attacks against our settlements,” I continued, lifting a hand slowly so the gesture could not be misunderstood, “are reactions, not strategy.” The eye remained fixed on me, and I proceeded anyway. “In my experience, reactions can be redirected if the incentives change.” Good. Familiar territory. Words like handrails.

  “If approaching you becomes illegal, if it becomes costly socially and materially, then fewer will try. And if fewer try, you burn fewer villages.” Simple, elegant, possibly fatal.

  The dragon’s nostrils flared and smoke rolled across the treasure. “Yo- propose that yo- contr-l desperation.” Important correction.

  “No,” I said quickly. “I propose we control opportunity.” Better. More accurate. Still ambitious.

  My legs had begun negotiating independence, so I adjusted my stance. “Right now any ambitious fool can present himself as a hero by walking toward you. If the path disappears, so does the glory.” The guard made a small movement behind me, perhaps reconsidering career choices.

  Silence followed while the dragon processed. I discovered I would normally prefer chairs, water, and marked exits. “This is not a conventional negotiation environment,” I said, hearing myself arrive extremely late to the insight, and forced myself onward. “If I can create structures in which harming you produces punishment instead of reward, the flow of attackers will decline. And if that happens, you will have less reason to respond with fire.”

  The gaze did not soften, but it did not advance either. That counted.

  “Yo- speak of laws,” it said.

  “Yes.”

  “And yo- believe laws protect the we-k?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, revised. “They can, if enforced.”

  A rumble passed through the cave. Laughter would have been kinder.

  “And who enforc-s them,” the dragon asked, “when those who desire my h-art are powerful?”

  Correct question. I felt sweat move down my back. “Infrastructure,” I began, heard the weakness, and corrected. “Visibility. Documentation. Consequences that outlive enthusiasm.” The dragon waited for something heavier than theory, which was reasonable. “In practical terms, I make it harder for rulers to tolerate hunters, because every attempt will now threaten stability.” There. The real currency.

  The dragon tilted its head. “Yo-r king agrees to this?”

  “He agrees that dead peasants are bad for his reign,” I said. Honest, perhaps excessively so, but accurate.

  Heat washed across us. “And if he chang-s his mind?”

  I hesitated, and I hated that it was visible. “Then we will have failed.” No decorative version available.

  The cave remained quiet while the dragon studied me the way disasters study bridges. “Yo- ask me to trust a future built by cre-tures who hunted me yesterday.”

  “Yes,” I said, because there was no alternative sentence.

  Gold shifted beneath the movement of its tail. “And what do yo- risk if I accept?”

  Balance, finally.

  “My position,” I said. “Possibly my life.”

  It searched my face for exaggeration and found none. “Yo- are afraid.”

  “Yes.” Performance offered no advantage.

  The great head lowered, not friendly but closer. “But yo- came anyw-y.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “My people are already dying, and so are yours.”

  Silence settled, deep and ancient and thinking.

  Stolen story; please report.

  When the dragon finally spoke again, the anger had not vanished, but it had acquired shape. “I hear yo-r proposal,” it said. The words were enormous. “And I do not rej-ct it.” Relief attempted mutiny; I suppressed it.

  “But I do not believe yo-,” the dragon finished.

  The dragon inhaled, deep enough that the cave expanded around the sound and stone remembered older catastrophes. When it spoke, the air did not carry words; it carried verdict.

  “WHY SH-ULD I TRUST YO-?”

  The impact was physical. The ground vanished and I found myself on my knees before I understood that standing had ended. The guard struck the stone somewhere to my left, gold shifting, dust descending from the ceiling in patient curtains. My ears rang, and breathing became an administrative challenge.

  “YO-R KIND HAS HUNTED MINE FOR THO-SANDS OF YEARS.” Heat rolled across us, not flame but promise. “MY H-ART FOR POTIONS. MY SCALES FOR ARMOR. MY BONES FOR W-APONS.” Each word transported inventory, graves I had never seen. “YO- CALL IT HEROISM. I CALL IT BUTCHERY.”

  My hands shook, unhelpful but honest. I attempted to stand, failed, and negotiated a kneeling compromise. “I—” I began, an excellent start without continuation. The eye narrowed, waiting, judging whether my presence had been an avoidable error.

  “I cannot undo history,” I forced out, my voice resigning from authority entirely. Accurate. Useless. I swallowed against a mouth that had converted to desert. “In my world we did the same. We hunted what was rare, powerful, different. We called it necessity, progress, security.” The dragon did not interrupt, which made the confession heavier. “And we were wrong. We learned too late, many times, for forests, for oceans, for people.” I could hear how small I sounded.

  “But we did learn,” I insisted, not loud but real. “We built laws that arrived late, protections that followed damage. A bad system.” Understatement achieved professional excellence.

  I met the eye. “I am what comes after regret.”

  Silence expanded, enormous. The dragon regarded me, unconvinced but listening. “Yo- spe-k as if understanding repairs death.”

  “No,” I said at once. Finally a sentence without hesitation. “It doesn’t.”

  Stone cracked somewhere behind me. “So why should I gamble my survival on yo-r promise?”

  Nothing elegant remained. No structure, no terminology, only exposure. “Because if you don’t, they will keep coming,” I whispered. “And if you burn everything, they will call it proof that they were right.”

  The calculation that followed was long and hot and private. When the dragon spoke again, the decision had teeth.

  “SEVEN NIGHTS.” The words descended like geography. “In seven nights I will come to yo-r castle. I will demand the agreement from yo-r king. And from yo-.” Flame gathered between its teeth, contained for now. “If yo- lied, your kingdom will burn, even if it costs my life.”

  The promise settled into the stone with architectural ambition.

  I nodded, because collapse was not negotiation. “That is fair,” I managed.

  The dragon studied me one final time, as if memorizing the administrator attached to the future, then said, “Go.”

  Standing required procedure. My legs filed objections, then approved limited operation. Behind me, the guard rediscovered oxygen, and I joined him in the exercise.

  Seven nights. I had requested time and received a deadline.

  Acceptable.

  We exited the cave without dignity. There are withdrawals that resemble strategy; this was not one of them. The moment the air outside reached my lungs, my body cancelled authority, hierarchy, and posture simultaneously, and I collapsed onto the gravel. Beside me, the guard conducted a similar negotiation with gravity and achieved comparable results.

  For a while we did nothing except remain alive. It required concentration. Breathing moved in and out with the enthusiasm of overworked personnel, my hands shook, my knees shook, and somewhere inside my chest an organ filed formal complaints.

  “Still alive,” the guard croaked eventually.

  “Yes,” I replied. After a pause I added, “Unconfirmed how.”

  We remained where we were, two survivors of diplomacy. Gradually the world returned in fragments: wind, sky, pain, moisture in places where confidence had previously operated.

  I turned my head toward him. From an observational standpoint, his armor had developed internal weather—remarkable humidity, localized, catastrophic for morale. He noticed me noticing and closed his eyes. “Don’t,” he whispered.

  “I am not judging,” I said. “I am categorizing.”

  He produced a sound somewhere between despair and resignation. “This really isn’t the time for jokes.”

  “I am serious,” I replied, and I was.

  I watched him until measured breathing replaced survival breathing. Acceptable. “What is your name?” I asked.

  He opened one eye, suspicious. “Why?”

  “Because I require it,” I said.

  He looked toward the cave, then at the sky, then back at me, as if a more reasonable edition of events might still be negotiable. “There are more urgent things right now,” he attempted.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Many.” I waited.

  He surrendered. “…Nicholas. Nicholas Feranor,” he said, almost apologetically.

  I nodded, rolled onto my side, took out the notebook, located a blank section, and wrote:

  Nicholas.

  I underlined it once, then twice, then a third time for structural integrity.

  He pushed himself up on an elbow. “What are you doing?”

  “Documentation,” I said.

  “I told you my name, not my crimes.”

  “Until approximately thirty minutes ago,” I replied while closing the notebook, “you were part of the environment—terrain, equipment, audible anxiety.” I gestured toward the mountain. “Now you are someone who stood in front of a dragon with me and did not run. That changes classification.”

  He blinked several times. “That’s it?”

  “That is not a small promotion,” I said.

  He held the information the way one holds something fragile and poorly labeled. We sat quietly while trembling downgraded from crisis to aftershock. Finally he looked at me again. “You’re insane,” he said.

  “Possibly,” I answered. “But now I know your name.”

  He exhaled, long and complicated. “…Nicholas,” he repeated, testing ownership.

  I nodded. Confirmed. Filed. Behind us the cave remained; ahead of us, seven nights waited. I pushed myself upright with the grace of a falling cabinet. “Come,” I said. “We have a kingdom to alarm.”

  Nicholas stayed seated for a few seconds longer, then he stood, because there was nothing else left to do.

  Feel free to share any ideas for scenarios you would like to see him thrown into — especially situations where the German controller is pushed to his limits, or moments where he might despise this barbaric world and try to turn it into something different.