“You’re a dick,” I muttered.
“This has been said before. The village?”
I groaned. “They might have built a cult and made you their central deity and the people tied up out here are sacrifices made to you because they think you’re a god or something. No big deal. One time, someone bought me a sandwich because I’m an apprentice to the King’s Wizard. Same thing.”
I didn’t know much about dragons. But I will say that I never gave much thought to a dragon being able to look smug. But now I did because the fucker preened. “Is that right?” it said. “A god, you say? Sacrifices, you say? Well now. This certainly changes many, many things.”
“We need to go back,” I said. “The people there are awful and they eat too many corn-based foods. We have to stop them. They have my friends and—”
“Nope,” the dragon said. “Not yet. There’s something you have to do for me. As a god, I command you.”
“Um. Go fuck yourself.”
“Maybe later, pretty. I’d like to see what that mouth of yours can do, even if you are a wizard.”
“You son of a—”
And before I could move, before I could even formulate a plan to defend myself against a creature that towered above me and blocked out the sun, I was in its claws, and those great wings rose up and down. The wind roared around me. And then we were up, up, up, and I screamed, “You fucking asshole!”
The dragon just grunted.
The ground fell away below me and I learned rather quickly that my body was not okay with heights. And flying. And that I had an extraordinary fear of falling from high places and so I might or might not have upchucked copious amounts of corn as we passed through a cloud.
“That’s disgusting,” the dragon said, turning its head to look back at me. I wanted to irrationally point out that I would rather it pay attention to where it was flying to and not stare at me. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t vomit on me anymore. I just took a bath.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d let me go!” I shouted back at it.
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life!”
“Okay,” the dragon said with a shrug.
And then he opened his claws and dropped me.
I decided right then and there that the dragon and I would never be friends.
The wind roared around my ears as I plummeted toward the earth. I told myself that I was a wizard for fuck’s sake, that I could very easily think of a way out of this, but instead of actually thinking of a way out of this, I screamed quite loudly.
They say that moments before your death, life flashes before your eyes.
That’s pretty much bullshit.
Because in those moments before your death, all you can focus on is your impending death. I thought about how much it was going to hurt. I thought about what it would look like when someone stumbled upon me. Would I be recognizable as a human being? Or would I just look like a big puddle of meat and blood and bone? My mom and dad would be sad, and Morgan would be too. Randall would probably be relieved that I couldn’t turn his nose into a cock anymore. Gary and Tiggy would mourn me for life because of the best friend code and would most likely never recover because I was that awesome.
And Ryan. Well. At least Ryan wouldn’t want to bone me anymore. Sucks, that. I really wanted to find out what that felt like. Ryan. And boning.
I opened my eyes to accept my immediate future like a man and saw the dragon falling in front of me, eyes amused as it watched me. Its wings were curled around its body, free falling in tandem with me.
“Having fun?” it shouted at me.
“NO, I’M NOT HAVING FUN!” I bellowed.
“Oh! That’s too bad. I couldn’t tell from all the screaming.”
“YOU FUCKER! SAVE ME!”
“Ask me nicely,” it said, somehow able to look bored.