"Scouting party, typical," Oxle complained with his axe hung lazily over his shoulder. 
"Could be worse," James stated. 
"I don't see how," Kiri quipped, "As the mage, I'm going to be doing the most work healing you when you're half dead and bleeding." 
"Sassy," Oxle added before lightly tapping James' plate armor, "I can see why you like her." 

Kiri let out an unamused scoff while James just laughed it off. It was true that the three of them had gotten the short end of the stick. After all, the scouting party was the most likely to die in situations like these, but the money was beyond good and it would earn them a place in the king's favor. A crack of thunder broke the cheery mood and seemed to summon a sudden hail storm that built from a light rain in seconds. 

Kiri huddled close to James as he held his shield above them in an attempt at shealter while Oxle just hoisted his axeblade above his head, muttering "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." 

Luckily, the mouth of a large cave was close. As scouting party, their job was to simply see if the beast they were hunting was still in the cave it was last seen in and report back, but if Oxle snagged some gold out of its lair, what would be the harm? The grassy knoll disapeared into a smog of blackness that seemed to radiate from the cave as the heroes entered. 

"Kiri," James whispered. 
"On it," she said simply as a bright light sliced through the blackness. 

Shimmering coins and vibrant gems bounced the light around the cave in a briliant series of rays. Despite the light, a black mass pulsed to the rhythm relaxed breathing characteristic of a sleeping beast. The light caused the beast to stir and sit up. Two sixty foot long wings spread out and brushed the walls of the cave in a one-hundred and eighty foot wingspan, but the owner of these wings was barely a dragon. Black scales covered her very humanoid body but lightened to a pale on her face and breasts. 

A squeaky yawn came from her maw as her slender arms streched above her head. She stood to a stature of seventy-five feet. When she turned around, the heroes saw that she had no maw. There was no snout holding rows of blood thristy teeth. Only a groggy smile dotted with dimples under a button nose and green eyes that held an air of sadness mixed with her tiredness. The reason for that sadness was a large gash along her arm that prevented her from flying away. 

"Stupid humans..." she muttered as she rubbed the wound. 
"Hide!" Kiri hissed and pushed the two brutes behind a pile of coins. 

The dragon walked passed the three and effectively cornered them by complete accident. She stood at the mouth of her cave and stared out at the castle in the distance being pelted by the weather. 

"Look at the ass on her..." Oxle muttered which, given broke the tension, earned him a slap on the back of the head delivered by Kiri. 
"Don't say things like that!" Kiri whispered sharply. 
"What? We were all thinkin' it!" Oxle quipped back. 
"James certianly wasn't!" 
"Guys..." James tried. 
"Really?" Oxle asked, "What? He can only oggle you now?" 
"What are you implying!?" Kiri demanded.
"Seriously, guys..." James started again. 
"C'mon, it doesn't take a scholar to know you're into him," Oxle stated with crossed arms.
"I am not!" Kiri yelled.
"Ouch," the dragon quipped simply as she sat, cross-legged, watching the spat unfold with James held in her fist. 

Kiri tried to pick up her staff, but a quick poke in the stomach knocked her to her back and took the wind out of her. The dragon then fliched Oxle's legs from under him and caused him to land squarly on his chest. 

"There," the dragon stated, "Fight over. Go home." 
"Like hell we-," Oxle started, but another flick to the chest stopped him. 
"Go. Home." 
"Guys," Oxle said from the ground, "I think we should go home." 

The dragon almost let herself laugh at the dry irony, but she had to keep intimidation up until the humans had left. 

"Wait," James spoke up, "Please miss... uh..." 
"Lolliyant," the dragon finished. 
"Right, Lolliyant, look at that storm. It's all flat land. In our armor, with that lightning, we'd be dead before we made it halfway back to the castle," James explained. 

Conflicting thoughts ran through Lolliyant's head, but dispite appearances, she couldn't send them out to die. She let out a defeated sigh. 

"Fine, you can stay for the night. But if anyone asks, I'm keeping you prisoner!" Lolliyant stated. 
"Deal." 

Lolliyant set James down next to a confused Oxle and Kiri. The calm of that night would serve as the last rest our heroes would get for a while. As the four slept the night away in the cave, an army of knights were preparing to slay a dragon.