Ron dangol johnson's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Ron slept on the crater floor with the reforged sword across his chest. He did not wake for a long time. When he did, his arms were heavy in a new way. His shirt no longer fit. His legs stretched past the dragon's foreleg. He sat up and looked at his hands. They were a man's hands now, thick at the knuckle, scarred at the thumb. The dragon stirred beside him. Its head lifted on the long neck. The yellow eye found him and held. Ron reached for the sword. The blade lit under his fingers, purple veins waking through the dark metal, thin blue lines running to the point. A voice moved inside his skull. It did not use his ears. It was low and dry and amused. You have aged in your sleep. You are a man now. How nice to meet you, lord. Ron stood. The dragon rose with him, wings half open, taller than the broken tower behind it. Horns curled back from its skull. Scales ran green and black down its throat. It did not bow. It watched him the way a hawk watches a field. "You talk," Ron said. I always did. You could not hear me before. Ron felt the shape of the problem. He had forced the dragon's head down once as a child. That was muscle. The creature had lain beside him out of respect for pain. Respect was not loyalty. Nothing tied it to him. If it flew now, it would go, and it would come back with teeth. He stepped forward. The dragon's chest rumbled but the head did not move. Ron opened his hand over the hilt. The blade came apart. The swarm lifted off his palm in a slow cloud, each machine a spark of light and dark. The dragon's eye tracked the cloud. You would unmake me. "I would remake you," Ron said. "Choose." The cloud drifted closer to the long throat. The dragon could have burned him. It could have taken the sky in two beats. It did neither. The yellow eye narrowed and then lowered. The great head came down. The horns touched the black stone at Ron's feet. Falcore, the voice said. That is my name. Use it. Ron set his hand between the horns. The swarm settled on the scales along the neck and sank in. He felt it thread through the dragon like a suit of armor plating the dragon not a leash but more of a friendly embrace to show the dragon it was his friend. Rise, Ron said, and did not speak aloud. The dragon rose. Ron climbed onto the shoulder. The crater fell away below him. He had a sword that obeyed. He had a mount that obeyed. The armor held and was astral, but there was a stir Ron could sense.