Amongst dragons, it is considered somewhat gauche to eat a friend of a friend. The chasm between having a friend for dinner and having a friend for dinner is vast and socially insurmountable.

Unfortunately, some bright spark let this slip to humans.

And so as I rear to my full height, flame billowing from cocineal-red nostrils, ready to devour this hapless intruder to my domain, I am thoroughly unsurprised to hear a tiny, squeaking voice.

“Wait… Please! I knew Mathesolor!”

Now this raises a quandary.

Mat was my lover for a host of seasons. Mat was - undoubtedly - the sort of dragon who would know humans; the sort who would rather gamble his hoard away than treasure it, who’d offer up his true name in drunken revelry and muddy the waters for the rest of us just trying to do right by tradition.

But humans invoke our friends and lovers all the time, to save their own skin.

Fact-checking, dragon-style, is swift and usually ends with a crunch.

Hoard-robbers are wont to memorise a list of names, known socialites of the dragon world - like Mat - but the tales they tell are clear fabrications, oblivious to even the most obvious nuances of dragonhood. But when this tiny rough-shod man speaks of Mat, tells me of the tales they wove, the songs they sang together, I begin to believe.

My flame sputters in my throat.

When he joins me in my chambers, he spares but a glance for the tumbledown piles of wealth.

We swap tales of Mat, lover and confidante, friend and occasional burden. As night draws in, we each fall silent, and I notice that my new friend is weeping, softly. He tries to conceal it, but I draw him close with vast, leathery wing, and we mourn, together.

And before he leaves in the cold light of day, I offer him my name.