The day was warm and oddly lethargic, but that wasn't hard to achieve not really. Not when the person you were currently sharing a cave with was, in all technicality a dragon. Dragons were warm creatures, Alfred had discovered. Well, not s much discovered but had inflicted upon him. Literally. Having a dragon sit on you was not as much fun as could be assumed. Matthew - as he had chosen to call his new found and not entirely voluntary friend - liked company. The dragon would curl up beside him and playfully headbutt his arm until Alfred curled it around his shoulders. Matthew was not an easy person to hug; his wings were cumbersome and his scales uncomfortable against his skin, but in the sake of camaraderie it could be dealt with. After all, it's not like Matthew was going to let him leave the cave any time soon.

He had tried, oh, had he tried, but there was no room for lea-way with Matthew. The second he had allowed Alfred to get up and move around, the human had made a bee-line for the exit, one the dragon had promptly taken offense to. The lizard may have been smaller the human when on all fours, but with his wings spread wide and threatening, he blocked the whole exit and that alone made Alfred back down. Instead of the sweet air of freedom, he was resigned to smoky, heavy cave-air and an overly-affectionate dragon. Matthew was more like a cat, in many aspects, and Alfred didn't hate him. He was just doing what dragons did. They hoarded treasure. Flattering though it was to be thought of as such, Alfred was a little bit bemused as to why Matthew had classed him with the goblets and coins that littered the cave floor. There was a moderately large pile towards the back of the cave - To be fair, Matthew was only a small dragon-, where the light barely reached, and the gold and jewels glistened in the wan, flickering torchlight. It was beautiful. Alfred had never seen so many riches in all his life before. And Matthew draped across them, languid as any cat on the laundry, stretch and flexing, his odd, whistling chirrup marking his happiness.

Alfred didn't begrudge the dragon his right to keep a little loot tucked away in his den, but he didn't see why he had to be party to it, kept like a pet on a leash. It really wasn't fair at all. But at least Matthew was nice. Whenever Alfred woke, there was some kind of food waiting for him, and though Matthew wasn't much of a conversationalist, he was at least an attentive listener.

The would-be adventurer even suspected that the dragon liked to listen to him talk.

Just to pass the time, he would find himself talking about the things he wanted to do, the mountains he wanted to climb and the damsels that he wanted to rescue - all the things that could be happening outside the cave at that very moment spilled from Alfred's wistful lips and into the smokey air around them.

Matthew would settle down beside him on the dusty cave floor, wings folded neatly across his back and head resting placidly on Alfred's thigh as the other spoke, his slit-pupiled eyes wide with wonder. The boy was curious to know if Matthew understood what was being said to him at all, or if the dragon simply liked the sounds that cam from his mouth.

As the time wore on and the number of days that Alfred had spent in the half-light of the cave blurred together until it could have been months and he wouldn't have known, he started to talk less about adventures that he could have been having and more about the life he had left behind.

"I'm the son of a farrier," he told the dragon, his fingers stroking mindlessly through blond hair and making the creature purr softly. It was an encouraging sound, like the sound of a contented cat by the fire, "My father was a farrier and his father was a farrier and it just goes back and back and back. My family has always been farriers. I know horseshoes forwards and backwards, but that's not what I wanted, y'know? I wanted more than just shoeing horses day in and out, because let's face it, no one calls a farrier for anything else in these parts. I just wanted a little excitement. And I suppose I got it, but even if you are exciting, you're kind of a homebody. For a dragon," Alfred glanced down at the dragon in his lap and smiled. Matthew looked so peaceful. And so trusting. Alfred could have picked up any one of two dozen discarded swords that adorned the cave floor and run the dragon through. But he couldn't bring himself to, not when Matthew used his thigh as a pillow and let his eyelids droop; a sleepy child at story time.

"Treasure~" Matthew murmured softly. It seemed to be easier for him to say than 'Alfred', and the human wasn't about to complain. He'd gotten used to it by now. The dragon blinked sleepily, "Miss family?" he asked quietly.

"I suppose. They probably think I'm dead by now. Dunno how long I've been gone." his heartstrings twanged painfully at the thought of his mother grieving for him without any kind of proof.

"Treasure want to go home?" Matthew's purring voice was softer still and Alfred looked long and hard at the creature who held him captive in the cave. He looked about as sad as Alfred felt.

"I don't want to go back and be a farrier," he said slowly, weighing his words, "But I would like them to know that I'm not rotting in a ditch somewhere."

Matthew frowned, seemingly more awake than he had been. The dragon got up and stretched, leaving Alfred's thigh a colder and his chest inexplicably heavy.

"Treasure can go," Matthew sighed, tail not swinging the way it usually did when he walked, but rather dragging limply in the dust, leading a thick trail into the gloom of his treasure trove.

"Alfred!" His mother had clung to his filthy shirt, still thick with cave-dust and the reptilian scent of dragon that he had gotten so used to over the past however long. "Alfred, you're home!" She wept and he felt terrible for leaving in the first place. Her thin fingers twisted into his shirt and she held him close. Absently, he petted her hair, the way he had done Matthew's as the dragon dozed beside him, and the ache in his chest grew all the more pronounced.

He missed the dragon, he thought, dazedly.

"Matthew," Alfred called, a rucksack over his shoulder, the fingertips of one hand grazing the rough stone wall so that he didn't lose his way. The torches that lined the wall weren't lit. "Matthew?" he asked the darkness again, softer this time, but still brazenly unafraid. There was a snuffling in the darkness ahead. The familiar sound of a dragon stirring in his sleep. Shaking his head and chuckling as loudly as he dared, Alfred dropped the bag from his shoulder, one hand still touching the wall as he made his way right to the back, where Matthew's pile of treasure lay. Feeling blindly, he knelt, gold clinking as it shifted under his knees. Matthew, at a guess, was draped over the top of the hoard, the way he usually was. Alfred lay back, feeling soft hair touch his face and dragon-breath caress his cheek.

It was good to be home again.