“That was one hell of a shot Anon,” Gregory said as he pats you on the back before taking a swig of ale from his tankard.

“It was nothing, just a lucky shot is all?” You say as you give a dismissal wave.

“Look at that, he’s being modest, no one else could have shot that drake in the eye from that far away other than you, here’s to you.” Ruder says as he holds up his tankard.

You smile as you and Gregory lift up your tankards as well and clank them together. As soon as your tankards make contact with each other the tavern door bursts open and a lone knight walks in. His face was covered with a helmet and he was decked out in full plate mail. He unsheathes a mithril sword as he charges your group. “What the hell?” Ruder says in confusion as the knight stabs Ruder through the chest.

Ruder cries out in agony as Gregory takes out his sword and swings his blade down on the unknown assailant. The knight quickly pulls his sword out of Ruder’s chest and clashes swords with Gregory. The knight easily overpowers Gregory and swings his sword, cutting off Gregory’s head. “Nooo!” You yell as you pull out your sword and jump over the table you were sitting at.

Your swords clang together as mithril meets mithril. You both were evenly matched so you decide to kick a tankard at your feet, hitting the knight in the head and stunning him long enough for you to stab him with your blade. The knight grabs the sword and pulls himself along the blade until hes mere inches from your face. He pulls off his helmet to reveal that its you. “W-what, what kind of trickery is this?” You ask to no one in particular as he just laughs.

“You killed them, you lead them to their deaths, their demise was all because of you.” The fake you says, but the voice that comes out of his mouth isn’t yours, but Quirog’s.

“No, that’s not true!” You shout as you take your sword out and decapitate the fake you.

The head rolls to a stop as fake you looks up at you and starts laughing. “You’ll never succeed, you’ll die all alone in this strange world, you’ll never make it back, all of your efforts are for not.” Fake you continues to say.

You quickly punt the head out the window before you fall to your knees and grab your head. “This isn’t real, this is all just a dream,” You say as the world around you starts to melt away.

You look around you only to see an inky black void. Quirog materializes in front of you. He smiles down on you. “Your journey ends here.” He says in a booming voice as he opens his mouth and breaths out jet black flames. You can feel the pain as you start to burn in the flames. You want to get out of the flames but for some reason you can’t move. You scream out in pain as you quickly turn to dust.

“-ake up, A-Anon wake up!” You hear Fizzle yell as he shakes you awake.

You open your eyes and see Fizzle on top of you, just mere inches from your face. Your heart rate quickens as he gives you a smile. “Oh t-thank goodness, you were having a really b-bad dream, you were screaming and thrashing about. Y-You had me worried.” Fizzle says with relief as you start to blush.

“U-uh, Fizzle, do you think you could....” You say as Fizzle looks down and sees the position hes in.

Fizzle blushes as he gets up off of you. “S-Sorry about that Anon.” He says apologetically.

“It’s fine.” You say as you get up and put your helmet on.

What was that just now. When you saw Fizzle’s cute snout so close to your face, you felt something. You’ve never felt like that before, could Fizzle be using a charm spell? You remember one time when a woman tried to enter into your stronghold. She used a charm spell on the guards and they let her in. Well one of the dragon slayers who was well versed in magic caught her. He could tell she was using a spell just by looking at her, that’s because when a person is using a charm spell, the user’s pupils turn into the shape of a heart. After she was caught she was sent to the gallows, and lets just say, she couldn’t charm her way out of that one.

You look at Fizzle who is currently turned away from you. You decide to see if hes using charm magic or not, so you start to sneak up on him. When you get near him you put both hands on his shoulders and turn him around. You stare deeply into those piercing yet adorable red eyes he has. “A-Anon, w-what are y-you doing?” Fizzle asks as his face turns a bright shade of red.

You ignore him as you continue to study his eyes, you see that his pupils are indeed normal. More importantly, your faces are really close. You can feel his breath on your face as you continue to stare into his eyes. You could kiss him right now if you wanted to. Wait, what the hell are you thinking, and why were you thinking it. You shake your head as you let go of the embarrassed dragon as he just stares at you with a confused expression on his face while he clacks his claws together nervously. You give a nervous cough as you ask “Well, um, shall we get going?”

Fizzle nods as he starts walking, with you following right behind him. As you do you get a perfect view of Fizzle’s soft looking behind. It looks quite firm and supple, just looking at it makes you want to feel what its like in your hands. You shake your head, now was not the time for that, you had more pressing matters to deal with. “So whats the plan?” You ask as you continue to follow Fizzle.

“Well f-first I’d like to go see a zebra who lives in this f-forest, her names Zecora. S-Shes letting me live with her, in exchange I-I go out and get her ingredients for potions, yesterday I was picking some plant for one of her many brews when I-I started getting chased by that m-manticore.” Fizzle recalls the memory as he shivers from fear.

A potion maker eh, you wonder if they have the ingredients to make your kind of potions here. While you doubt it, it would be quite good fortune if the stuff you needed for even one health potion existed in this world. As your thinking this Fizzle continues to speak. “A-After that we’d have to travel all the w-way to the badlands, its where another o-one of my friends live, they can fly us to the d-dragon lands.”

“Fly?” You ask with a hint of confusion.

“Y-Yes fly, the dragon lands are a-across the ocean.” Fizzle explains as you nod your head in understanding.

You both keep walking along in silence, you notice Fizzle looking at you over his shoulder occasionally when he thinks your not looking. You just shake your head as you try to get your emotions straight. Right now your mind was a mess, could you really be falling for this dragon. You just met yesterday yet your already feeling like this. Come on Anon, your a dragon slayer not a dragon dater. Yet as you think that, you still can’t get the image of Fizzle so close to your face out of your head. His cute snout, his adorable eyes, how soft he felt when he cuddled up against you. As you’re thinking this you hear a yelp that brings you out of your thoughts.

You look up to see that Fizzle is gone. “Fizzle, where are you?” You yell out as you start to go looking for the timid dragon.

“O-Over here, o-ow.” Fizzle responds back as you run to the source of his voice.

You get to a little slope, and at the bottom of the slope is a swamp. Fizzle was currently on his hands and knees in the water with a pained look on his face. “Are you okay Fizzle?” You asked worriedly as you slide down the slope to Fizzle.

You reach Fizzle and look down at him to see him holding his side. “Let me take a look at it.” You say as you kneel down towards Fizzle.

“I-I’m fine, i-its just a small s-scratch.” Fizzle says dismissively as you grab the hand he was using to cover up the injury and pull it aside.

It seemed to be a small gash, it wasn’t that deep but it was deep enough to draw blood, you look down into the swamp and see the sharp rock he must have landed on, you look at it with a grimace. Poor guy, that must have been painful to land on. Looking up at Fizzle, you notice the pained expression on his face, just by that look you can tell that it probably stung quite a lot. You hate to see the poor drake like this. Without a word, you hoist him up into your arms as he gives a startled eep. “A-Anon what a-are y-you d-doing?” Fizzle asks as he blushes, but you don’t say a word as you carry him out of the swamp water and lie him down on the dry ground.

You open up your pack and get one of the few health potions you have and uncork it. Fizzle notices this and looks at the potion with a curious gaze. “What i-is that Anon?” He asks as you kneel down to his level.

“It’s a health potion, it should heal that cut you have.” You explain to him as you go to give him the health potion, however, when you do Fizzle holds his hands up in defiance.

“You don’t n-need to waste that on me Anon, I-I’m not worth i-it.” Fizzle says as he looks down with a frown.

“How could you say that Fizzle. Of course you’re worth it.” You tell him as you put a hand on his scaly cheek.

Fizzle looks up to you with a confused expression. “All I want is for you to smile Fizzle, I hate to see you like this.” You tell him genuinely, Fizzle starts to tear up at your words.

“D-Do you really m-mean that Anon?” Fizzle asks as tears start to roll down his face.

“Of course I do Fizzle,”

“T-Thank you Anon.” Fizzle says as he hugs you, you return the hug as you pat him on the back.

Fizzle lets go of you and you hand him the potion. He accepts it gratefully and gulps it down. Pretty soon the cut on his side heals up and Fizzle is alright again. You both get up off the ground and Fizzle looks at you with a blush, when you turn to him you see him look the other way. “T-Thanks again A-Anon.” Fizzle says as you wave your hand dismissively.

“Don’t worry about it Fizzle, after all what are friends for.” You smile at him as he blushes even more.

“Y-Yeah f-friends, h-heh.” Fizzle chuckles lightly as you pat him on the back.

“Well, let’s continue on our way, and this time I’ll be right beside you so something like that doesn’t happen again.” You tell him as he nods appreciatively and you both continue forward.

You sigh as you think to yourself. You really did that didn’t you, normally you wouldn’t have wasted such a precious resource on such a minor cut. But seeing Fizzle in pain, it just stirred something within you. You never want to see Fizzle in that kind of pain again, that’s when you vow to yourself to always protect Fizzle, so no harm will ever come to him. You don’t think your heart could take seeing him hurt again. Your thoughts are interrupted when Fizzle points to a lone hut in the woods. “There it is, t-that’s Zecora’s h-house.”

You examine the hut, noticing some type of tribal masks as well as decorations of some sort hanging from the huts branches. All in all, it looks like a place where a dark arts user would practice their magic. Especially the tribal masks, plenty of dark arts users collected them, saying something like it boosted their potential when they had them around. As you think this, the door to the hut opens and out walks what looks to be a horse, with black and white stripes across its body. “Ah Fizzle there you are. I was searching for you near and far.” The horse says as Fizzle waves to her.

“Hey Z-Zecora.” Fizzle says as he walks up to her. So that was Zecora, you’ve never heard of talking horses before.

Zecora looks over at you with an intrigued look. “And who might this be? I’ve never seen something such as he?” Zecora asks as Fizzle clacks his claws together nervously.

“I’m a human.” You tell her as she simply nods.

“H-He saved my l-life when I was b-being chased by a m-manticore.” Fizzle explains to Zecora.

“Hmm, well stranger that I’ve never met. Since Fizzle trusts you, you can come inside so don’t fret.” Zecora says as Fizzle smiles.

“Thanks Z-Zecora.” Fizzle says as Zecora nods with a smile.

Zecora signals for you and Fizzle to follow her as she walks back to her hut. “Now come, I am working on a potion. Let’s hurry up, before there’s an explosion.” Zecora says teasingly as you both follow her inside.

You really were hoping she was kidding about that, the last thing you need was some kind of weird magical burn from an accidental potion explosion. As you all enter Zecora’s hut, the smell of incense hits you immediately. You plug your nose as you look around, you see a lot more tribal masks as well as a huge cauldron in the middle. Many potions line the shelves on the walls as well, each one a different color. “Zecora, I-I have something to t-tell you.” Fizzle says as he clacks his claws together.

Zecora looks at him, waiting for him to speak. “I-I’ve decided to travel with A-Anon here. W-We need to get back to the d-dragon lands.” Fizzle says as Zecora gives Fizzle a worried look.

“The way to the dragon lands is very far. And the trip there might be very bizarre.” Zecora says as Fizzle nods.

“I-I know it might be d-dangerous, but I made u-up my mind. I w-want to travel with Anon.” Fizzle says with a determined look on his face.

Zecora sighs before nodding in understanding before walking over to one of the shelves that held the many potions. “If you want to keep your goal in sight. First you need to some insight.” Zecora says as she picks up a purple potion then walks over to you.

She hands the potion to you as you take it and look at it skeptically. “You want me to drink this?” You ask as you point to the sketchy potion in your hand.

Zecora simply nods as you turn to Fizzle for his opinion. Fizzle just rubs his arms nervously before giving you an awkward shrug. You sigh as you uncork the potion. “Well, what do I have to lose.” You say as you quickly drink the contents of the potion.

You feel nothing as you look Zecora. “Sooo, is this suppose to do something or-” Before you can finish that sentence, an intense headache racks your brain.

You fall to your knees as you scream out. This is the most pain you’ve ever felt in your life. As you sit there holding your head, Fizzle comes up beside you and quickly embraces you. “A-Anon, whats wrong, w-what did you do to him Z-Zecora?” Fizzle yells out in anger, making your headache worse.

Before you can hear Zecora’s answer though, you black out. The pain immediately stops and is replaced with a feeling of bliss. You sigh as you float there in the black empty void, not having a care in the world. Suddenly you find yourself in a field of flowers. The sun is shining brightly as you sit there amidst the flowers, soaking in the sunshine. You start to feel incredibly hot as you see fire all around you. Then your in the inky black void again, this time Quirog is there staring at you with malice. He opens his mouth to breath hot fire when a bright light shines around you both. It’s an incredibly bright light as both you and Quirog have to cover your eyes.

The light gets closer to you and soon you are engulfed in its bright embrace. You stop covering your eyes as you see the source of the light is Fizzle. He floats besides you with a warm smile on his face as he extends his hand to you. You look at it before reaching for it and grasping his tender hand in yours. The light around you brightens as you do so, making Quirog roar in pain before disappearing in a puff of inky black smoke. You feel overwhelming happiness when you see him disappear before suddenly feeling intense sadness. You realize the reason for this as you look back to Fizzle and see that he is floating away from you while waving. You reach out to him but fail to grasp him as he continues to float away from you. Soon he too disappears in a puff of smoke. your left there in the void, all alone. All you feel is sadness and loneliness before you black out.

You feel a warmth beside you as your eyes open. You look down to see Fizzle cuddling you while you both are on the floor of Zecora’s hut. The headache that you had before you blacked out is gone, instead you feel, calm. As you stir you see Fizzle waking up. He stretches and yawns. You smile, He looks really adorable right now. Fizzle opens his eyes and sees you and immediately he lunges at you, wrapping you up in the tightest hug you’ve ever had in your life. “Oh A-Anon, I’m so glad you’re awake!” Fizzle yells out in happiness as you chuckle while petting his head.

“How long was I out for?” You ask as Fizzle nuzzles into your chest.

“You were o-out for 2 days, I was so worried A-Anon.” Fizzle says as Zecora walks up to the both of you.

“Fizzle has been with you since you passed out. I told him not to worry but he had his doubts.” Zecora says as you and Fizzle get up off the floor.

“Really now?” You say as you look at Fizzle with a smile as Fizzle looks away with a blush on his cheeks.

You look at Zecora who seems to be getting together a big backpack of supplies ready. When she’s done she hands it over to you. “Thank you Zecora.” You say as you take the backpack.

You look inside it and see lots of water and food that could last you for awhile. You then see Fizzle go to a corner of the room and pick up a small bag filled with something. Before you can question him what it is he opens it up and takes out what looks like a ruby. You watch as Fizzle consumes the ruby to your astonishment. “Wait, dragons eat gems?” You ask as Fizzle nervously nods.

“We d-don’t need to eat them, but they t-taste delicious to us dragons.” Fizzle says as you ponder his words.

Dragons back on your world didn’t eat treasure, usually they just hoarded it because dragons were inherently greedy. as you think this, Zecora opens her front door and gestures for both you and Fizzle to walk outside with her. You follow her until she gets to what seems to be a dirt path that leads deeper into the forest. “To start your journey, first you must walk to the south of the Everfree. Then when you leave the forest you must walk southeast into the desert where it is above a hundred degrees.” Zecora says as both you and Fizzle nod.

You look at Fizzle and he shyly looks away from you. You clasp his shoulder as Fizzle slowly looks over to you. “Are you ready to begin our grand journey?” You ask as you see determination in Fizzle’s eyes.

“I a-am Anon, lets walk down this path t-together.” Fizzle says as you smile and give him a thumbs up.

You both start to walk off while waving goodbye to Zecora. “T-Thanks a lot Zecora. Wish us luck.” Fizzle says as Zecora waves back as you both go deeper into the forest.

After what feels like hours of walking through the forest Fizzle finally points in front of him. “There it is, t-the forest’s exit.” Fizzle says as you look ahead.

Indeed, you can see the exit to the forest just ahead. Beyond the forest you see the bright blue sky. The sun shining down on the ground below is a welcome sight to you, you’ve had enough of this dark and dreary forest. You and Fizzle walk towards the entrance. When your near the exit you hear a howl pierce through the air.

The howls sounded close, you unsheathe your sword as you get in front of a shivering, scared Fizzle. “Stay behind me Fizzle!” You order as you investigate your surroundings.

“T-T-T-T-Timberwolves!” Fizzle exclaims as the wooden wolves reveal themselves.

The wolves jump out of the bushes surrounding the path you were walking on. They growl and bark at you as they circle around you. “Timberwolves?” You ask Fizzle as he nods.

“T-T-They're wolves m-made out of w-wood.” Fizzle says fearfully as he looks at the wolves circling you both.

Wolves made of wood huh. This is definitely something you’ve never seen before. The only thing you can really compare it to is the treants of the great elk woods to the north. Those monsters would attack any travelers that dared to enter their forest. Maybe the timberwolves were similar. As you study your opponents you notice a bigger timberwolf in the back of the pack. It seemed to have some sort of scar over its eye and seemed to be barking orders to the others. So, that was the alpha. If you could take that thing out first then hopefully the rest of the pack would fall. You just had to find a way to get there. You also couldn’t forget about Fizzle. You had to protect him or else these wolves might rip him to shreds.

As the wolves circle you, one of them seems a little eager too rip your throat out, and lunges at you. You swing your sword and slice through the timberwolf, leaving nothing but twigs in your wake. You chuckle to yourself. “They don’t seem that bad.” You say as you look for your next target.

“Anon l-look out!” Fizzle yells as two more timberwolves lunge at you.

You make quick work of them, swinging your sword and decapitating them before they can reach you. After you've dealt with them, another one lunges at Fizzle, clearly seeing that hes the easiest prey here. It’s the timberwolves last mistake as you cleave it in half. “T-Thanks Anon.” Fizzle says appreciatively as you give him a thumbs up.

“Don’t worry Fizzle. I won’t let any harm come to you.” You reassure him as Fizzle looks up at you, his eyes sparkle with an adoring gaze.

The pack still circle around you, then they fall back to the alpha. They just stand there looking at you, why are they just standing there, aren’t they going to attack you. As you think that, the alpha barks so loudly that it echos throughout the forest. It makes your skin crawl just hearing it. You notice that all of the remains of the other timberwolves as well as the ones next to the alpha start to move towards their leader. The various sticks and twigs start to attach to the alpha as it seems to be getting bigger, soon it stops growing after it absorbs all of the timberwolves. This huge timberwolf is about the size of a dire wolf back where your from. Dire wolves were a real problem for farmers since they couldn’t stop them on account for how dangerous they were, and they’d always eat the farmers livestock, leaving them with almost nothing left. They got so bad one time that the kingdom actually hired an entire mercenary group just to deal with the dire wolf packs. The mercenaries weren’t just your run of the mill hired swords either, the kingdom had hired the iron brigade. One of the most famous mercenary groups around.

As you think that, the huge timberwolf in front of you howls, you and Fizzle actually have to cover your ears its so loud. After recovering from the howl, you study the timberwolf and come to the conclusion that normal weaponry isn’t going to work here. If anything, all that’s gonna happen is the timberwolf will probably just reassemble again, and you’ll just end up tiring yourself out. No, what you needed to do was light this sucker on fire. You open up your back to try and grab a fire flask when the timberwolf lunges at you. “Shit.” You say as you push Fizzle out of the way and get snatched up in the timberwolf’s jaws.

The timberwolf tries to impale you with its wooden fangs, but since they are just made of wood it doesn’t pierce your armor. The timberwolf notices this and starts to shake you around like some kind of dogs chew toy. While you wouldn’t be physically harmed, if the timberwolf kept this up you would soon pass out from all the shaking. “A-A-Anon!” Fizzle yells in worry as he sees your predicament.

“T-Think Fizzle think, I n-need to save A-Anon.” Fizzle says as he quickly thinks up a solution.

Even though your being shaked around, you can see Fizzle open up his mouth and breathe out a whitish blue flame. You see the flames catch on the timberwolf’s paw and it stops shaking you. It looks down at its paw that’s on fire and immediately drops you. You fall to the ground as the timberwolf yelps in pain and runs away deeper into the forest, presumably to find some kind of lake or pond to put itself out in. You get up when you are suddenly embraced by Fizzle as hes crying tears of joy. “A-A-Anon I’m so g-g-glad your a-alive, I t-thought that was the e-end of you.” Fizzle says as he nuzzles into your chest, wet tears falling onto your armor.

You pat his head with a smile. “Thanks a lot Fizzle. You really saved my hide back there.” You say to him as he continues to embrace you.

“Guess that means you don’t have to help me anymore.” You tell him as he looks up at you with a shocked expression.

“W-What do you mean?”

“Well, you were only helping me because I saved your life. Now that you saved mine your debt is repaid, a life for a life.” You tell him as his smile turns into a frown.

“I-I don’t c-care about t-that Anon. I-I want to h-help you b-because I care a-about you.” Fizzle says

“Really? Why would you care so much about someone like me, we haven’t even known each other that long?” You ask as Fizzle smiles at you.

“Cause, y-your really nice t-to me A-Anon. Y-You saved my life, a-a complete stranger. Your t-the first person to n-not make fun of me or get s-scared of me. Y-You treat m-me like a normal p-person Anon. I c-can also tell your a g-good and honest person. S-Someone who would risk everything f-for someone they d-don’t even know. T-That’s why I care about you A-Anon, that’s w-why I want to h-help you.” Fizzle says as he blushes a deep red.

You smile back at him as you return his hug. Maybe you were falling for this dragon, but is that such a bad thing. Sure all your life you had been slaying dragons, and it might take some getting used too. But maybe it could work out. Hell stranger things have happened. You remember when that guy married that centaur. They seemed to have a pretty good relationship, and they seemed to genuinely care for each other. Maybe the same could happen for you. Come on Anon, just tell Fizzle how you feel. You open your mouth to speak but just freeze there. Fizzle starts to look at you weird. Come on Anon, why can’t you do it, its not that hard just tell him. “A-Anon are you ok?” Fizzle asks worriedly as you shake your head to clear your thoughts.

“Y-Yeah Fizzle, I’m fine,” You lie as he ends the embrace and you let out a sigh.

“Well Fizzle, lets get going. Our big adventure starts here.” You say with enthusiasm as Fizzle nods happily.

You both exit the forest together to begin your quest. Telling Fizzle your feelings will have to wait for now. Right now you have a journey to begin, dragon lands here you come.

Author's Note

took a bit to write this one lol, but I hope you guys like it. :)