"Ego... I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this."

A scoff was the response as a man stepped back from a series of pinkish-orange wires coiling over the stone floor over a stone floor. His fuzzy brown and grey hair stood on ends, illuminated by the several firelit torches set along cave walls. His well-worn and dust-covered leather overalls were occupied by several tools, each with its own odd shape and purpose. A manic grin was stuck to his face as wild blue eyes took in what he had created.

"Don't know why you're so worried, Havel. I doubt any residue from a possible mistake will hurt you," responded the human.

On one side of the wires sat a slightly miserable-looking drake. Havel had the electric yellow scales and jagged wings of a lightning dragon. He was sitting on his haunches, several of the wires clipped to his body through various clamps. His tail was curled around his paws as he watched the human do some last-minute changes to the experiment.

"It's not me I'm worried about, you buffoon," Havel replied with a snort, "It's you."

"Aah," Ego gave a dismissive wave of his hand at the dragon as he turned to walk to the other side of the wires, "If anything goes wrong, you can protect me."

He knelt by a small glass globe, inspecting the far smaller metal wires within to make sure that everything was how he had left it. Two thin wires sprouted from the bottom of the globe, with a thin filament attaching the two together. The bottom of the globe was a metallic box, which all four larger wires lead into, attaching to the bottom. Everything seemed well in order. He took a step back, rubbing his hands together and turning back to the dragon with an excited grin.

Havel sighed, "I can't protect you from everything you know."

"I'll be fine Havel," promised Ego as he walked back over to his friend, "Since when have I ever been in danger doing these experiments?"

The drake narrowed his eyes accusingly, "All the time! You literally jumped off a cliff with some sad excuse for makeshift wings and I had to use all my speed to make sure you didn't fall to your death."

"The wings work now though," Ego tapped the dragon on the snout.

"I would hardly call gliding 'working'."

"Hey, at least I don't plummet anymore," the human replied, before turning around, "But my point is I haven't died yet, so why stop now?"

"So you don't end up dead!" the dragon replied with frustration.

"But that is no fun," Ego replied joyfully, spinning around to point at the globe, "But enough complaining my reptilian friend. Let's see if this works."

Havel grumbling unintelligibly in the dragon's language, before switching back to the human tongue, "You are impossible. Stand back so you don't get zapped like last time."

Ego saluted the dragon and skipped a couple of metres away, "Alright! Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," was the muttered response.

"Three! Two! One! Aannnnddd... let... there... be... light!"

Havel narrowed his eyes as electricity ran through his body, bolts zapping out of him at random intervals to hit the ground. The metal coils conducted the electricity as it was sent buzzing down their length, the yellow bolts also striking out of them and into the ground. Ego's hair frizzed even further from the static electricity that ran through the ground. Then the lightning hit the metal box. The electricity ran into the globe, up the small metal wires, and into the filament, turning it a glowing white-hot. Light shone from the globe, forcing both dragon and human to cover their eyes at the sudden glare.

"Haha! It worked! I told you, Havel! I told you!" Ego cried with glee.

"It's a bit bright don't you think?" responded the dragon.

"Difficulties we can figure out later! We know it works!"

A sudden crack alerted both human and dragon as the electricity continued to sizzle up and into the globe, lightning striking against the inside of the glass. Havel yet out a yelp, cutting off his supply of lightning and leaping in front of his human friend. The glass exploded, unable to handle the power going through it, sending shards of glass everywhere. Ego cried out, ducking intrinsically. A roar of pain escaped the dragon. The light died, leaving them both mildly blinded as their eyes adjusted to the dim light of the still flickering torchers.

"Aargh, damnit," Ego clicked his fingers in annoyance, but was brought out of his disappointment by a whimper from the dragon, "Havel! Are you alright?"

He quickly stepped around his friend and let out a gasp of surprise. Havel had used his left wing to brace himself, but it had come at a cost. Several shards of broken glass had pierced the leathery appendage. The dragon's scales had protected him against the smaller pieces of glass, but one large shard had gone right through the scales and into the dragon's left flank. Thick red blood dribbled down the dragon's wing and onto the ground. He collapsed on his right side with a groan

"I warned you, I did," hissed the drake, "I said it was going to be dangerous."

"Hey, it's gonna be alright," Ego responded, a trickle of guilt running through him as he knelt by the dragon's wing.

"No thanks to you," Havel growled, laying his head back on the ground, "Aargh! That bloody hurts."

"It doesn't look to be too serious, though the shard in your leg looks quite deep."

"Well take it out!"

"If I do that it might injure you even further. Hold on, let me grab my injury kit."

"Aargh..." the dragon groaned, closing his eyes with a hiss.

Ego quickly dashed to the other side of the cave where he kept the tools he didn't need. Scrapes, bruises, and other injuries were quite a common thing in his life, so he had taken the liberty of creating a small pack full of things that might be necessary should he maintain an injury. Unfortunately, he had never used anything inside on a dragon, as Havel was often relatively protected by his scales and far larger size. Still, he had a fair idea of what to do, if human medicinal practices were anything to go by.

He grabbed the bag and quickly ran back over to the Havel, who was taking deep breaths through his nose as he fought down the pain. His jaw was clenched, and his stomach was moving up and down rapidly as adrenaline rushed through his body. None of the wounds were mortal, but they certainly were enough to cause great deals of pain.

Ego emptied the contents of the bag onto the ground before holding it out to Havel, "Here, bite down on this. I'm gonna remove the glass, but it's gonna hurt."

Havel opened an accusing eye, but he took the bag in his mouth, the leather tough enough to withstand his sharp teeth... at least for now. Taking a deep breath, Ego picked up a ball of translucent string with a needle at one end. It would hurt for the needle to go through Havel's flesh, as it would be difficult for the small piece of metal to piece the leathery skin of a dragon's wing, but it would be better than leaving him to bleed all over the cave floor.

There were only four injuries he needed to sew up, one of them being the one on the dragon's leg. He started at the top, using a canteen of water to wash the wound first, before gripping the shard of glass with his finger, and with a grunt yanking it out. A whine escaped Havel as he pawed at the ground. The shard was as long as Ego's finger, and about twice the width, the second largest one, and it was covered in stinging dragon blood. The human quickly got to work, cleaning each wound, before using the needle to pierce through the dragon's leathery skin as he quickly pulled the wound together with string, Havel shivering and groaning the entire time. He cut the end off with a small blade and put the shard of glass on the ground.

"You are making a lot of noise," Ego chuckled as he moved to the next shard.

The dragon snorted, another whine escaping him as the second shard of glass was pulled out of his wing. Ego worked diligently, and it wasn't long before the three major injuries in Havel's wing were closed up again. They still were seeping drops of blood, but it wasn't as serious as before. The lightning drake was breathing heavily, his head lay on the ground.

"There you go, one more to do," Ego said softly, moving around to the dragon's leg.

This shard was the biggest one, having managed to cut through the dragon's scales and into the muscle underneath. It wasn't bleeding... much, but Ego knew that would change as soon as he pulled it out. He also doubted the needle would be able to break through scales, meaning he would likely need to do something else to minimize the bleeding. He looked back at the contents of his bag, eyes falling on the lengths of cotton that had come to be known as bandages. He doubted they would work on the dragon, as his scales would shred them to pieces if he moved around too much. Ego's eyes then fell on the torchers lighting up the cave, his face turning grim.

"Hey, Havel... the needle won't be able to break through your scales. I think I might need to cauterize the wound."

Havel took a moment to respond. He spat out the bag and looked at Ego with narrowed eyes, "No way! That'll leave a horrible scar."

"If I don't you will bleed all over the place and likely get an infection... which will create a rather ugly scar anyway."

Havel snorted as he recognised the truth in the human's words, "This is all your fault you know."

"I know," Ego, looked to the ground, "I'm sorry. I didn't expect it to explode like that."

"Well, you should have! You've been doing these sorts of things for ages!" accused the dragon with a grunt, before laying his head down, "Aargh, just take out the glass and cauterize it. Not much else we can do."

"I really am sorry Havel," Ego said.

"Just do it."

With a sigh the human got up, plucking a torch from a nearby stand and holding it near the dragon's thigh. He gripped the glass with one hand. Havel once again bit down on the bag. With a grunt, he yanked out the piece of glass, then placed the burning torch on the wound. The drake let out a yowl of pain, his tail flicking back and forth as the flames seared the injured flesh. Ego took a step back, looking at the wound grimly.

"It's done."

Havel didn't answer, laying his head against the ground as he breathed slowly. His eyes were closed again, and he had cast the bag aside. Ego put the torch back in its place and walked over to the broken glob. The filament had been vapourised by the heat produced in the constricted environment of the globe, meaning he would have to make another one, which would take time. He couldn't believe it go so overloaded so quickly. He was sure the ground would have taken in enough of the electricity to stabilize it. In a fit of frustration, he kicked the metal box.

"Do you know what went wrong?" Havel asked suddenly, seeming a little more mellow now.

"The thing overloaded," Ego replied, "Bit too much power."

"I thought four wires was a bit much," sighed the dragon.

Ego looked back at him, "So you're not mad anymore."

"Oh, I'm furious," replied Havel in a monotone, "Why do you keep doing these... experiment things Ego? You don't need to."

The human walked back over to his dragon friend, sitting down near his head, "I... I have to."

"You keep saying that... but why do you have to?"

Ego sighed, laying back against the wall as he tried to come up with the words to voice his answer. Havel had never liked his many experiments. Sure, the dragon had found them interesting at first, but as Ego grew more and more fanatic with his experimentation Havel had begun to grow worried. The only reason he helped was that he reasoned that his friend would die if he didn't. Ego had known that for a long time and had taken advantage of it, creating more and more dangerous situations. Compared to some things he had done, this experiment was rather tame, though he admitted it was a lot more dangerous than he had originally thought.

"Because... Havel," the human began to voice his thoughts, "Because... I'm only a human."

"That makes no sense."

Ego leaned back against the cave wall, "Have you ever felt restricted by the world around you? Like you're stuck in one place, and no matter how hard you try to move you just keep getting dragged back down? Like life is telling you one thing but your heart is calling out that there is so much more to be had?"

Havel frowned, "I... can't really say that I have."

"Well... that's how I feel. That's how a lot of humans feel I think. We don't have the strength or power that you dragons do. We can't fly or summon the elements from within our very beings. We don't have scales or claws. We have to look outside ourselves for that, which is why we have armour and swords, and bows. But even those pale in comparison to the power you dragons have naturally. So we're stuck, unable to match you, despite sharing the same intelligence, and the same world."

"You know I don't think you're any less than me, right Ego? You're my brother."

"I know," Ego pattered the dragon's snout, "And I'm not saying dragons are bad. It's just... nature. The strong rise above everything else around them. And I guess I feel as though... figuring out these experiments... it's like I have finally found a way that we as humans can rise to the level of a dragon. Does that make sense?"

"By creating fake wings that can only glide and glass globes that explode when they light up? Well... the glass globe thing actually hurt a lot, but you know what I mean."

"It's a step," Ego smiled, "Imagine we were able to perfect those lights, so we no longer had to rely on the fire of torches. And Imagine we were able to make things that could fly as well as dragons can."

"That'd be the day," chuckled Havel, before growing solemn once again, "I think I know what you're saying... but do you really need to make them all so dangerous?"

"Okay, to be fair, I did not expect this one to go as it did," Ego pointed out, "And I am truly sorry."

The lightning dragon looked at his leg, "I know you are. To be honest it's not that bad. Might make a cool story one day. 'Oh, when I was younger I met with this crazy human that did all these weird things, and one day he made one of them explode on me!'"

"A bit of an overreaction there. Technically you were the one that overloaded it."

"Hey! You know I don't have the greatest control over my lightning."

"Well, before we do the next experiment I expect you to train for it, and master control of electricity!"

"Yeah... no," the two of them laughed.

"You know... if you're truly against these experiments... you don't need to help me," said the human as they calmed down.

"But I do. You need someone to look out for you while you're doing all these things. What better than a dragon?"

Ego grinned, "You're a good friend you know."

"And you are a horrible one," sighed Havel, flicking his tail, "Filling me with shards of glass, and forcing me to dive off cliffs after you."

Ego shrugged, "Hey, at least I got them all out, and now you have your very first battle wound. It'll make you look tough in front of the dragonesses."

"Yeah... until I tell them how it happened."

"At the very least you'll get a laugh, and sometimes that can be better than seeming impressive."

"I guess you're right there," Havel sighed.

The two sat in silence for several moments before the dragon suddenly roused himself, getting to his feet, "Alright, are we ready to try again?"

Ego raised an eyebrow, "Again? What's made you so eager?"

"I'm hurting and could use a distraction. You figured out how to fix this overload problem yet?"

The human got to his feet as well, "I may have, but I'm gonna need to remake the glass dome and find a new filament, which may take some time... and I really don't think you should be flying with your injuries."

"Oh, it'll be fine. You're gonna need my help to buy some more of that stuff anyway. I'll go get some gold," Havel began to limp through the cave, toward the exit at the other side.

Ego shook his head with a smile, before picking up the leather bag, which had several tooth marks and was covered in dragon saliva. He wrinkled his nose, before kneeling down and putting all his medicinal stuff inside. He would clean it all up later. After he was done, he set the bag down and followed the dragon out. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey guys! Here is the chronicle of the week! Hope you enjoyed. A bit more of a wholesome one this time. Make sure to tell me what you think! Next week's chronicle will be Unwanted Love. See Ya!

Pennator^^