Dragon Reincarnated (Working title)

Que Cliche Bandit Encounter

My departure from my forest home was actually rather dull. It consisted of me getting up in the morning, stretching out the aches from the day before, flying for two to three hours- depending on how taxing the wind was on that particular day- and then stopping for the day. I would hunt when I could, either on the wing or after I stopped for the day, and drink when ever I passed a stream or pond I could safely land near.

As I left my carved out little territory near the nest Verona had laid my egg, I came across more and more monsters, but usually flew over, and past them. I didn't even take the time to examine them as I once would have done, curious about the creatures of this world. 

The truth was that all the flying took so much out of me that by the time I landed I was wiped out. Every muscle ached and I could hardly keep my eyes open long enough to drag my scaly hide to a semi-safe location to sleep. The longer I spent in the forest, the more likely a monster would pick me off in my weakened state.

But, today was going to be the day. The open meadows and rolling hills were easily in sight now, and not just a bright green line on the horizon. And the trees had been spreading out wider as I passed over them.

I was just picturing all the sleep I was going to get the second I escaped these trees. I would find a nice cave, or maybe a cliff... something defensible! Then I could just rest a recuperate for a few days, before figuring out what it was that I needed to do next.

But my keen eyes caught sight of an intriguing sight beneath me as I flew rather low over the trees (I was still nervous with flying up high where the winds were less forgiving): It was a road. An honest, to goodness, road! Mind you, it was a dirt road, but a road all the same. 

Where there were roads, there were people. And where there were people there were towns!

It had been so long since I had seen humans- heck, any people, no matter the race... After all, Lottie's book sure had a lot of intelligent beings I could become in this world. I wasn't even sure if I could remember how to hold a conversation any longer. Even before I died and became a dragon I was never very social, preferring my room, a good cup of coffee, and my books.

Lost in thought about potential human interactions, I was roused from my musings by a cacophony of noise to my right. I was sure that I could here people shouting, maybe a scream, and was that the sound of swords clashing?

I tilted my wings away from the road and passed over many trees, towards the noise. It wouldn't be hard to locate the dirt path again, and I couldn't ignore the racket. What if it was the bandits who took my siblings? I assumed that they would never dare stick anywhere near where they had stollen them. After all, they had not stuck around to confirm Verona was dead. For all they knew, they had a massive silver dragon looking for them.

But if they were dumb and brazen enough to snatch eggs from a being as dangerous as my mother, then they just might have some kind of camp on the edge of the forest, looking to fence the eggs from there.

To my surprise the trees opened up again after only a scant minute long flight, revealing yet another dirt road. This one looked even more traveled, with ruts in the dirt- probably from wagons and carriages- and short wooden guard rail along the verge, preventing horses and their cargo accidentally veering into a ditch.

But, more than the road, what caught my eye was the ruckus upon it. Was this, literally, the single most stereotypical bandit encounter situation?

There was a carriage in the middle of the road, its lacquered wood gleaming in the sunlight, and two very large horses keening and bucking at its head. Around them were various men with swords, an axe, and I was pretty sure one was wielding a massive hammer too. More than half the men wore what I would call the 'bandit get-up' of miss matched rags with scatted bits of leather armor over the top.