Scraggles came to a stop outside the door. In one hand he held a bottle of fine wine, one that he held onto for a special occasion. His other hand, curled into a gentle fist, was poised to knock on his tenant's door.

"Unhand me woman!" exclaimed a familiar masculine voice. It held a strange quality, however. There was a slight growl in the tone.

"A Dragon! It's a dragon!" cried an equally familiar female voice.

Eyes wide, Scraggles took a step back then fought off a bewildered laugh that rose up from deep within. "What in the world..."

"It's mine! The dragon is mine," cried Sonja with an excited squeal.

"Let me go!" snarled Blackthorne. "Keep this up and you'll break me!"

A girlish giggle echoed through the door followed by a pronouncement, "I'll never let you go!"

"Dammit all!" cried Blackthorne in a high-pitched hysterical tone.

He doubled over as the laughter erupted from his lips. Scraggles staggered back as though he had been shot then heavily fell against the wall. Tears streaked down like rivers of mirth even as his face reddened. He pointed at the door and the laughter increased threefold. Slowly, he slid down the wall to land with a ridiculous thud.

Soon he could no longer laugh at all, as his voice left him. For several minutes tears poured down like rain as the tavern keeper waved a finger at the door and barely audible wheezing laughter attempted to tell the story of his good humor. It would be some time before he could collect himself enough to crawl to his room, celebratory wine in hand. Those two certainly did not need it at the moment.

Back in the room, Blackthorne attempted a death-roll like the mighty crocodile. They flopped over ridiculously, but little headway toward his freedom was made.

He tried to bite her, but she expertly avoided his snapping jaws and cooed at him. Eventually, he desperately enacted the final solution. His whip-like tail lashed around with a loud crack and slapped her on the ass with enough force to leave a stinging red mark.

Sonja cried out in a mixture of joy and pain, but it was not enough to cause her to relent. Blackthorne repeatedly struck out again, and again, whipping her unprotected posterior for all he was worth. His inner demons tried to turn it into something sexually deviant but he was in no mood. Thoughts focused like a laser beam, he punished her posterior so that it might suffer as he suffered.

Finally, the damage generated by her slave position and the tail whips mounted to a point that she could not simply ignore. She tried to reach back to protect her pert money maker.

"Freedom!" cried Blackthorne as he tore free of her iron grip.

With a mighty, if somewhat high-pitched, roar he drew his hind legs up and then kicked off of her chest with all of the force that he could muster. "Rawr!"

Blackthorne flew through the air in a graceful arc, while Sonja was also sent flying back into the wall. Largely unharmed despite the fierce blow, she looked on in wonder as her surging adrenalin caused the moment to slow down. He arced beautifully in the air then span in mid-flight. Like a prima ballerina one foreleg came up even as the other moved downward. He span through the air his head pointing up. His tail whipped in a decisive arc, and the light caught his scales in such a way that they began to sparkle. Were the moment to be captured on the Internet as a meme it might have the caption, '#Fabulous'. The Internet was quite odd in that way.

A certain gleam came to her eyes as she witnessed the glorious spectacle. In truth she had to fight down the urge to clap her hands. "Oooh."

His aerial arc took him to the other side of the room where he kicked off of the wall then flipped in the air to land on the bed. Confused by his own acrobatic display he blinked slowly the froze in place a moment while his eyes widened in a manner that caused Sonja's gleaming eyes to take on a certain expression of desire. Blackthorne was simply too adorable.

She reached for him, a goofy grin on her face. He whipped her hand with his tail. "No! Bad Sonja!"

Her lips quivered softly and she offered a decidedly adorable pout. Typically stoic and overly sexual, the sight of the girl actually acting in that manner caused Blackthorne to draw back slightly.

In order to alleviate the situation, he drew back to the edge of the bed then took a moment to transform back into human form. The gleam in Sonja's eyes died immediately.

"Oh," she said, a certain amount of disinterest in her tone.

"Oh? Really?" he asked her with a snort. "Make a guy feel good about himself why don't you."

She offered him a slight smile, but then lunged forward and plopped down onto the bed. "Are you really?"

"Yes, but let's keep it to ourselves.... Right?" he asked her in annoyance.

Sonja pouted at him then blinked. She looked back at her pert posterior. Numerous red welts waited to greet her. She glanced back at him and offered a saucy smile. "Owned me for less than a day, and already whipping me... Oh, what a benevolent master."

"Bad girls should be punished," he said in cheeky fashion. The voices in his head had a field day with that statement, and even began to become noticeably annoying once more. He sought a means to quickly change the subject to avoid their full-blown bullshit.

"Oh. You took all my life force. It'll take hours for these love marks to heal," she said softly.

Her lips ready to speak a lewd reply, she stopped mid-sentence when Blackthorne leaned forward and looked into her eyes. Sonja blinked then drew back slightly as a hint of color came to her cheeks. "What is it?"

"The hell is up with you and dragons?" he asked her without preamble. Briefly, he wished that he asked her why she was able to lose all of her life force without collapsing in exhaustion. Set on a path to at least one answer, however, he would not waste the momentum on a tangential thought. The time would come for such answers as well.

"What? I've wanted a dragon since I was a child! What young girl hasn't dreamed of riding atop a dragon while smiting her enemies with fire that rains down from the sky?" she asked him in a curious tone.

Blackthorne tilted his head slightly then leaned in a little closer. Her nostrils flared slightly and she bit her lower lip. Her strangely innocent demeanor was decidedly odd to him, but it looked good on her. "Is that all?"

"Hmm? No. Of course not," she said. "You're all supposed to be dead, you know. Dead or hidden too well for the world to find you."

"That explains a few things actually," said Blackthorne.

"It's a pity, really," she said with a sigh. "My people have a long history with dragons."

She offered him a shy smile. "Did you know that there was a time in the ancient past when a young member of my tribe would not be considered a true warrior until she has found a dragon to ride?"

"I did not know that," he admitted.

Sonja gripped her hands into fists then bounced up and down a little in her excitement. "I can't believe that I get to have one that I can ride all I want!"

"Hell no," said Blackthorne as a surge of pride rose up from some hidden place deep within himself. He did not know why, but the very idea of allowing anyone to ride him caused him to want to set the world aflame. It was the same sort of sensation that made him violently lash out when people tried to cuddle him like a stuffed animal.

She gasped at him then clapped her hands together happily. If anything his denial seemed to intensify her excitement even further. "You mean you'll make me work for it?"

"What? No?" he asked her incredulously. "It's not going to happen, period."

"It's just like in the ancient tales!" cried Sonja excitedly. "The dragon never made it easy on the valkyrie. Once they decided upon accepting a Valkyrie as their partner, the trial would begin!"

Something about the way she said it made his teeth go on edge. "How exactly did the Valkyries know that they were chosen?"

"Hmm?" she asked him after she briefly tore herself away from her imagined glory as a dragon rider. "Ah, yes. The young dragon would do its best to kill their partner as a sign that they respected their strength."

Blackthorne's eyes narrowed and he acquired an expression which matched his sarcastic tone. "Are you sure the dragon just didn't want a partner?"

Sonja ignored him and hugged herself briefly. She lightly slapped her hands to her cheeks then sighed. "My dragon is my master. If I ride one, I ride the other! The only way this would be better is if I could warm my hands over the burning remnants of my husband's violently dismembered corpse."

Slowly, his eyes slid toward her. An awkward moment passed, though Sonja showed no signs of it actually being awkward for her.

"Yeah... Any-way." Blackthorne dismissed her strangely cute, yet disturbing, antics and focused on the task at hand. "Many things have happened. I'll fill you in soon, but I have a few questions to ask you, first."

"What manner of questions?" she asked him in a slightly more serious tone.

"Well, for starters why didn't you release me when I ordered it? The slave seal should not have allowed for that," he said curiously.

"Ah, the seal sends out a punishing force that cannot be blocked in most regards. The greater the violation of the master's will, the more force is produced," she said simply. "It's why I could occasionally threaten my former master without serious consequences."

"Right, and why aren't you gibbering in a corner right now?" he asked.

She shrugged at him. "The seal reacts to your will. You no doubt wanted me to release you, but you obviously did not want to hurt me that much in the process."

"I see... So, that's why you held on so tight? You figured that my pleas and demands to be released were just something I said to seem contrary?" he asked her thoughtfully.

Sonja spared him a glance then looked away. She coughed lightly into her fist. "Yes, of course."

Blackthorne studied her face for a moment. The more he got to know this weird girl, the more he realized that he knew nothing.