My first human was named Sten, at the time he found me he was a scrawny little blonde haired boy of eight years clad in well worn and patched clothing. The son of a small crofter family which had settled near the edge of the north woods.

Of course I didn't known any of this at the time, all I must have known was the gigantic creature was giving me food and didn't seem interested in eating me. That and it was getting cold.

It seems that young female dragons will often lay their first few clutches of eggs wherever and whenever they felt the urge, and then they just leave the eggs to hatch on the own. The new born dragonets just have to survive as best they could, at least until the females grew old enough to start getting curious and seek out the elders of their own kind to learn how to speak and behave like civilized folk. After that they tend to seek out similarly mature males willing to stick around and raise their young from birth to their first spark.

In the warm south such abandoned eggs survive by being warmed by the sun long enough to hatch, many of the new born dragonets even survive long enough to begin mating on their own. Not so for us northern dragons, until our first spark we are as cold blooded as any other lizard, and the food is not as plentiful as it is in the hot south. Few dragonets survive the winters, and I am almost certain that the new born dragonet that I once was would not have survived either if a curious young boy had not been in the habit of collecting pets, and his father tolerant enough to allow a hissing little scaly beast to sleep curled up in his son's bed, desperate for the warmth given out but the strange creature who had filled his belly with fresh raw meat to the point the little dragonet was so bloated with food that it allowed itself to be picked up and carried away.

The croft grew into a farm, the boy grew into a man, and the Dragonet grew larger, from a scrawny bundle of bony wings and scales the size of a rat to a sleek and well fed Dragonet as large as a house cat, it's bright scales so deep a green to appear black in dim light.

My memories of those times is dreamlike, Dragonets are little more then beasts, they care only for a safe place to sleep and food to fill their bellies. They are not very social creatures, but I imagine I looked to Sten as a generous clutch mate, slow and clumsy, but always willing to share it's food and allow a chilly little Dragonet to curl up close to warm itself all winter long.

Naturally I tried to share my kills with him as well, in retrospect I now realize the other beast who shared our lair that always made such noise when I brought in a kill must have been his mother getting upset at her son's scaly pet bringing in very dead rats, mice, birds, squirrels and other such fare into her home to present to his boy.

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Thinking about it she may have been more upset about the fact that my kills were almost always already half eaten, after all a dragonet might be willing to share it's meals with a clutch mate, but only after eating it's own fill first.

I remember that Sten always talked to me, I didn't understand of course, I was too young, but the sounds and the attention interested me, so much so that when he began to take a interest in the local females his own age I reacted badly.

I wish I go back in time and get to know him as a adult, capable of reason and speech, there are so many questions I wish I could have asked him, so many things I wanted to tell him.

He didn't try to make me behave as I hissed and bobbed my head, he just got me away from the girl before I did something regrettable, and he didn't try to punish me, he just talked and fed me, letting me know my place wasn't to be taken away from me, the one first fed and always welcome by his side.

After that he made sure I was so fully stuffed that I was half asleep when he went a courting.

The time he spent with his new born children wasn't so bad, his woman was the one feeding them, and he made sure to talk to me as much as he spoke with them. I never took much of a liking to the little things, smelly and completely incapable of fetching me food. Useless.

The farm grew larger, as did Sten's family, as did I.

His parent grew frail and grey of hair, then one by one they stopped moving and he put them in the ground. I didn't understand what was happening, but I knew it was bringing him sorrow.

I grew, as large as hound, my wings could now support me as I glided around the farm terrorizing the sheep. I hunted larger prey in the woods and learned to play with Sten's children. Some words I understood now, some things began to make sence.

Sten was getting old. Frail and grey of hair.

He would be put in the ground. He would go in the ground like the others and he would stay down there like the others.

I think he knew why I began following him around again like the newborn I had once been, so concerned for it's next meal it couldn't let him out of it's sight.

He took the time, he talked to me, he fed me by hand like he had as a child.

Then one morning he didn't wake up, his body was cold. They put him in the ground.

His name was Sten, he was a good man, a good father. He gave me a home, a family, a name.

He was my first human, I will remember him, I will live a life that will not bring him shame and I will watch over his children's children for as long as his line lasts.

No matter how much they complain.