You open your eyes slowly, your surroundings appearing as a big blur.  Yawning as you start to wake up, you blink a few more times, rubbing your eyes to clear them up.  Able to see clearly at last you simply lay there for a few more minutes, smiling up at the roof of trees above your head, glimpsing patches of the bright blue sky through the spaces between leaves.  The sounds of the forest flood into your senses like a well rehearsed orchestra of nature’s creatures.  The chirping and buzzing of the countless numbers of insects overhead, the gentle splashing of water in the nearby lake as fish leap gracefully out of the water, catching those bugs foolish enough to hover over the surface.  All of it over the backdrop of the birds’ constant proclamations of their territory.  Hostile their voices may be to their fellow avians, to you it is rather peaceful and relaxing, almost lulling you to roll over and fall asleep once again.

But the last thing you want to do is waste such a beautiful day sleeping.  Yawning again as you stretch, you force yourself to roll over and finally find the strength to push yourself up to your feet.  You gather up your things, check your bearings, and then continue along your way.  Though this detour through the forest has added a few days to your travel you don’t mind.  In fact, you are rather glad that you decided to come this way, to get away from society at least for a little bit.  It feels so relaxing to your soul to have spent the time here.  You have a genuine smile on your face for the first time since you can remember while you travel between the trees and through the bushes.

About an hour passes when you begin to find yourself in what you assume to be the heart of the forest, judging this by how close everything is growing together now and by the density of all the shrubbery and vines.  It’s gotten so tight that you’ve had to resort to using your machete to chop your way through the more stubborn patches of vines.  You trod along slowly, trying not to damage too much, hacking away only when needed.

You come upon a rather thick group of vines suddenly and you begin chopping them down heedlessly, only half paying attention.  But then you glimpse something in the corner of your eye.  You stop yourself mid-swing before coming in contact with the object, throwing yourself off balance in the process.  Once you untangle yourself and regain your composure you move closer to the object which had caught your attention.  Dangling from the trees above is a sea blue… tail, you guess, looking up to see where it’s coming from.  But the clumps of leaves above block your view, the tail seeming to disappear into the shadows above.  Curiosity grabbing hold of you, slowly you inch closer the appendage, examining it closely.  It appears to be covered in a layer of fine scales, leading you to believe it is some kind of lizard at first… a chameleon perhaps.  Though why it would change to this shade of blue is beyond you.  But as you look around on the opposite side of the tail you throw your first guess out the window and remain bewildered.  There are a series of silver spines traveling down the tail, tapering off towards the tip.  You rack your memory, trying to think up the creature who would have such a tail.  

Coming up blank after a few moments you decide to just find out the senseless way… by disturbing the creature to whom it belongs.  You raise your machete up again and poke the blue tail with the handle.  Suddenly you hear a loud ‘Squeep!’ of surprise, the tail quickly getting pulled up out of sight by its owner.  The leaves begin rustling angrily above you while the creature moves about, a low growling noise flowing down towards you from the branches now after the initial noise of surprise.  Second guessing your choice to bother it now, you take a few steps back, holding your sword in a rather unconvincing aggressive stance, you were never really a good swordsman.

All is then quiet for a few seconds… and then you see a flash of blue drop down no more than 15 feet in front of you, smaller than you thought it would be at first but no less intimidating as you gaze at the sharp points of its teeth.  Still rather curious you try to get a good sight of this creature but the foliage all around obstructs you view.  You can see parts of the snout, the lips on the creature pulled back in a snarl, its green eyes blazing at you from within the sea blue scales surrounding them.  As the creature pads closer to you, passing through the vines, you can finally get a good look.  Your heart seems to skip a beat, your mouth hanging open as your mind registers what it is you are looking at… a creature you never could have thought existed!  You forget all your fear for a moment and stare in awe at the dragon before you whom seems to notice your changed attitude and stops snarling, tilting his head to the side to regard you.

You can tell right away by the way the dragon carries itself that it is indeed a male.  You sneak a quick peek between his legs to be sure but there is nothing there to give it away, must have a reproductive system like other reptiles you think to yourself.  Your eyes then travel back to the dragon’s muzzle, pointed in shape, covered with the same sea blue scales as the rest of his body.  But as the dragon raises his head back up you notice that his neck, chest, and belly are of a different color, covered with larger plates of silver scales.  Going back to his head you can see two large horns growing out from behind each of his eyes, also silver in color.  And starting on the top of his head between the two horns is a series of silver spines that travel down the back of his neck, over his back, and along his tail, tapering off towards the tip of it.  You smile slightly, remembering how seeing those spines on the tail first confused you.  Taking in his entire body for a moment you finally realize that this dragon is quite a bit smaller than what you’ve imagined in your mind before.  You estimate that from his head to his tail base is about 8 feet in length.  Adding in his tail his overall length about doubles.  He may be a little small for a dragon but still not a creature you’d want to go up against.

The dragon is indeed a quadruped, standing before you on all four paws.  You can see the slight bulges of his finely toned muscles under the scales on each leg, admiring again the strength this creature must have.  His forepaws have four digits it, sharp looking sky blue talons coming out of each.  His hindpaws also have the same four digits though the are much longer than the toes on his forepaws.  The same sky blue talons protrude from each of his toes, also bigger and more dangerous looking as well.  

Your eyes then travel up to the dragon’s wings, slightly extended a bit in case he should feel the need to hastily retreat from you though both of you probably know he would win in a fight.  Again you see the powerful muscles connecting his wing-arms to his shoulders, each one rather long but thinner than his legs.  You can see that each of his wings has three fingers, long, bony structures which you can clearly see underneath the sea blue membrane which makes up each of his wings.  The wings also have that characteristic wing-thumb, sporting a claw in the same sky blue color as the talons on his paws.

Amazed at the creature you continue to stare at him, soaking in this legendary appearance.  You notice the dragon’s nostrils flaring suddenly as he starts to make a show of sniffing the air.  He then gazes more intently at you once again, his tail tip flicking in a seemingly restless motion behind him.  The dragon then leaps at you without warning, tackling you to the ground effortlessly.  He tears at your bag with his fangs and it is then you realize that dragon must’ve taken in the scent of your food.  Obtaining his prey, the dragon then rumbles in thanks to you and launches himself into the air, disappearing into the forest ahead, leaving you awestruck and with a slightly lighter backpack.