They arrived.

Well, not quite yet, but they were pretty much getting ready to contact the air traffic control, taxi and land-

Oh, right. This is a fantasy story, set in medieval times.

Nisseos started descending onto the market square. Were she smaller, she would probably choose a long street as a place to land - it'd give her a comfortable distance to slow down. But she was a dragon, and dragons are a tad too big to fit in the wee, narrow city streets. This forced her to choose the most crowded place in the town as her landing spot. As she attempted to drop the knights in the corner of the square without further injurying them, she turned to Travis.

"I hate landing like that. Look at me, I'm pretty much flying vertically! No one does that, no birds and no lizards, but I am a dragon and I won't fit any other way!" she said.

"No worries! We can't fly at all, so I'm sure no one will bat an eye at this. Granted, you're a dragon so people are already looking," Travis stated, referring to the huge crowd that was forming around them. "But I'd rather you be careful not to crush anyone than worry about flying vertically."

Having carefully dropped the beaten knights next to a wall, Nisseos flew up, repositioned herself closer to the center of the square and turned around to face ten other men, clad in tin cans - that is, armour, of course - and armed with swords.

"You lost something," Travis stated pointing towards the previously proud knight brothers. "One of them is wounded, got a belt in his knee. They attacked us unprovoked."

"You bloody well know it was provoked!" one of the knights standing before them said.

"How exactly? Were you here?"

"I wasn't, and I don't know exactly, but you're flying a dragon. There must be something-"

"The thing is, there was nothing. Or at least nothing bad. We're trying to catch a thief."

"What exacltly did they steal? Or, am I supposed to believe, that either of you is doing it out of the goodness of your hearts? The locals have told us about a dragon living nearby, and about the time she just went and straight up attacked the town, burning one of the roofs."

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"That's not how it went at all," Nisseos stated quietly, looking down.

"Look, you clearly have no idea who you're dealing with. If you knew the other side of the story-"

"What did these poor people do to your dragon to justify burning a roof? Come on! Say it! I want to hear this other side of the story!"

"It was an accident, I swear! I'm sorry! How many more times should I repeat that! I'm sorry!" Nisseos yelled out.

Silence ensued. The knights, who certainly didn't expect these exact words, were quiet. The crowd was quiet. Travis was quiet, scolding the knight with his gaze. Nisseos was quiet, barely restraining herself from crying. No one gathered quite knew how to react. What the knights hoped for, was a clear signal to attack. They wanted her to say that she'd attacked the town because she was in the mood for destroying and pillaging that day. Instead, what they got was an apologetic exclamation and a look full of regret.

"...This is deception! Attack! And don't let yourselves be fooled!"

With these words, the knight charged, and others followed. Travis held tightly onto his friends neck, in order not to fall. Nisseos' wings fumbled in an attempt to fly away, but it was too late. The sword had already bruised her scales and damaged her wing.

The dragoness screamed out in pain, letting out a thin flame in self-defence. It wasn't effective, since the knight who attacked her had already backed off, having predicted the retaliation. Nisseos' fire further aggravated the knights, who, however, didn't manage to get close to Nisseos again, as she was already mid-air.

Her flight wasn't the most elegant. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite, and this time she didn't have neither the time nor the headspace to worry about it. Her left wing's membrane had a hole in it, causing the dragon to lean to the left, despite her best attempts. The pain from her wound was debilitating. Nisseos managed to fly for half an hour, before almost crash-landing in the middle of a forest. And as she rested on the ground, she wept. She did not solve either of her problems - Malton still hated her, and she still had no idea where her hoard could be.

Travis jumped off Nisseos just as she touched the ground. He opened his bag in search of medical supplies.

"When we set off, I hoped was going to be like back in the old days," said Travis, as he took out a flask of spirit. "Now I really regret thinking that."

The human soaked a piece of cloth in the alcohol and started tending to Nisseos' wound, as she hissed in pain.

----------------------------------------

"This seems to have drawn her out."

"Yes, this is what we wanted. Now she's out there, she's vulnerable and angry."

"What do we do with the gold?"

"First things first! The dragon is our priority now."

"But the gold! Where's it going to go?"

"Once we kill the dragon? To the king's treasury. We've got to gain his trust before going through with the plan. Nothing can go wrong here."