Why had Jake come to this place, not a question he asked himself but really anyone else would have asked he had no interest in hunting game so why had he come to this island where death hid around every corner. There was no logical reason for a bard to go to an island like this, then again while Jake was certainly capable of using logic he simply preferred not to. Which is why he had decided to accompany a hunting party that had decided to make the trip to acquire some of the rare game that roamed the island. The boat they got passage on hit some bad weather so they were delayed a few days, but they did arrive and the captain of the ship reminded them that the ship would be returning in a weeks time, if someone did not show up to greet them within an hour, they'd leave. This was worrying to most Jake however did always seem to be able to get out of such binds, through a mix of luck and actual skill.

It had been two days since they had landed, things had gone smoother than expected, nobody had died yet though a few people would be walking with a limp from now on. Jake had spent most of his time writing music and following the hunters as they went into the forest to find the strange inhabitants of the island. Though today he walked the forest alone, which was probably going to end up going horribly for him. Jake did carry a sword but if some creature wanted to make him into dinner its highly unlikely that his bladesmanship would save him, he could of course use magic but he had never been formally trained and casting spells usually left him exhausted. Still though he walked through the forest, paying close attention to stay close to the ground so as to be hidden in the underbrush. While the forest was most likely going to cause Jake's untimely demise, it was nice to get some privacy as the hunting party had simply erected large tents that held four people per tent, while it was good for saving space it left little in the way of privacy. Eventually though Jake managed to not only not die, but find a small clearing with a building built in the center. If Jake had to guess it was either an old hunting lodge, or a building used for logging either way Jake decided to stop in the clearing for a bit and just enjoy the scenery.

Unlike many that came to this place, it really felt more like home than anything else. Sure there were horrible monsters, but it was easy to argue he might be included in that group. The real question was probably more along the lines of how he had gotten there, though there was no one to ask him at this point. Awhile ago there might have been, but they weren't in a condition to talk anymore. He was wandering the forest, his keen sense of smell picking up some new and unusual presence. At first he thought it was some strange human/monster hybrid, but soon realized it was just the scent of a human and one of the creatures of the island walking in the same direction. He almost just left, but soon realized maybe that meant there were more people here, or the creature had just eaten one…

…Either way, that meant there was likely to be something shiny there. People that came here always had interesting things, weapons, or gold. It was a little surprising how quiet the dragon was being, but to tell the truth he was mostly lucky his wings and such weren't catching on much as he walked. This went on for awhile, as they approached one of the old buildings on the island. He had been here before, but didn't fit in the place. He could tell he was getting closer to the human as well, the scent was stronger and they were slowing down.

It was about then that the 'silent' approach was broken, by the sudden sound of snapping branches and powerful foot steps that were heading out of the forest behind Jake. It was not hard to notice the now charging draconic creature, though another shape emerged from the underbrush just before it- a massive snake that made a sudden leap either to get at the wandering human, or escape the dragon. With the… Warning? It wouldn't be too hard to dodge out of the way of either creatures before they tumbled out into the open, so long as one could avoid the urge to gawk.

As Jake walked towards the building, he heard a loud sound coming from behind him. The young bard turned to look and see a giant snake charging out of the forest and a dragon behind it. Though he had the good sense to dodge out of the way of the snake; he knew that if either one of the creatures tried to kill him he would need to be a lot more than quick on his feet. As it stood he had a couple options, first among which was to fight probably not the best idea as all he had to fight with was his sword. Well, Jake did also have magic at his disposal but he had never been properly trained and it made him extremely tired to cast a single spell even if he did manage to kill the snake there was still the dragon to worry about. Other than fight he could run and or hide, he could also just assume his dumb luck would save him which probably wouldn't be the best idea.

In life or death scenarios though there's a need to think and act quickly, so Jake decided to scale up the building and hope for the best. The way he saw it the roof of the house was probably sturdy, so Jake sprinted away from both the giant creatures and scaled the roof. Which was wonderful right up until the roof collapsed under him, yes while it was probably quite sturdy when it was built time has not been kind to the house. Though that meant that Jake was inside the building which was probably safer than being on top of it, comparatively anyway as the giant snake was now slithering to the house at an alarming rate.

Jake by this point realized that running probably wasn't gonna help him, so he smashed a window and began playing a quick tune on his flute which was easier to play than his lute. As he played it began to feel very hot around him as heat collected itself into his flute and little sparks spattered around him. After the final note was played a fireball launched itself out of his flute hitting the snake. The fireball hurt the snake, but all it really served to do was piss it off also; the spell had set the house on fire, this is why you don't shoot fire out of a small opening in a wooden house.

The dragon seemed more interested in the serpent than the human at the moment, partially because humans could make good friends, but also because the snake would be a much better meal. There wasn't a whole lot more thought put into it than that. His initial attack on the snake had stopped it in its tracks long enough for the person to get away, but soon afterwards it had whipped back and attempted to bite at his neck, causing him to jump back and drop it… He furrowed his brows a bit as he eyed it though, it didn't have the long fangs of a venomous snake, which he hoped meant that it wasn't magically venomous or something. As he went for it again he saw the fireball suddenly emerge from the house where the person had ran, he almost jumped back but the impact ended up being less than impressive in his eyes. Usually magic was more… Explode-y in his experience.

"I'm not counting that as helping, this is mine!" He called out in a less than threatening tone. If someone wanted a share of the meat they at least had to like… Put out an eye or something like that, or help him from getting injured. Otherwise they would probably have to buy it off him in some way… Which honestly wasn't hard, he'd sold bits of food for shiny glass shards in the past.

Once it was apparent no more fire was emerging from the house (at least not magically) He leapt upon the snake again and this time managed to bite down on the neck behind its head, before it whipped out of the way. The rest of the serpents body almost immediately wrapped around his own arm and neck, and in his attempts to kill and loosen it they both went half tumbling, half stumbling into the side of the burning building. The wall was not even the slightest barrier against the dragons bulk, bending and buckling after hardly a moment. Splinters and chunks of flaming wood going flying, the flames, and smaller bits of debris getting whipped up into a storm by a wildly flailing wing. If anyone else had been watching from nearby, and had they been invented yet, it would have resembled a cartoonish struggle within a cloud of smoke with random limbs, tails, or such randomly poking out of it as they wrestled and fought…. Though there was a fair bit more blood being slung about than might appear in a cartoon.

"Wait wait wait, dragons can talk!?" Jake would have loved to take some more time thinking about this information that he had just acquired. Though he ended up just shrugging it off as he had to get out of the burning house before it killed him; this wasn't helped by the fact that he was now quite tired and hungry. The tiredness problem was quickly fixed when the two giant creatures came crashing through the flaming building and Jake had to duck out of the way. Among the things going through his head besides oh shit was that he should probably try and help kill the snake so he doesn't get bulldozed.

Albeit this was easier said than done as the two might as well have been the same creature at that point; they were rolling around biting and scratching each other. The safest decision was going to be to skirt around the edges and look for an opening to attack. Also he needed to keep track of where the fight was moving if he didn't well he'd be knocked down run over and probably eviscerated. When the opening came Jake took his sword and shoved it into the mouth of the snake, he'd been aiming for the eye. Deciding to remove his hand from the snakes mouth as quickly as possible leaving his sword inside.

Thalron might have paused when the human called out 'wait' but he was far too invested in the moment to really pay attention to it. He also wasn't paying too much attention to where the human had gone either, which was an extra danger as the two large creatures fought so ferociously. It was obvious that the snake was not going to win though, and at most opportunities it attempted to escape whenever the dragons grip slipped or they were forced apart by rubble or flames.  He was pretty surprised when the man actually managed to stab the snake, and lose his sword in its mouth. He knew how painful it was to get stabbed in the mouth, and was pretty sure the snake was not happy about it either… Though it didn't have much more time to be unhappy, as Thalron leapt backwards with a large flap of his wings, fanning the flames and sending a cloud of smoke away from himself. Time seemed to slow down for a brief moment as sparks and bits of energy arced between the raising scales of his back, a glow appearing across them and seeming to race up to his horn before his jaws opened a bolt of lightning shot out into the snake. It thrashed, hissed, then fell down spasming randomly as smoke ran out of its mouth, nose, and many of the bite marks that covered the serpentine body.

…Then there was the loud THUD of the dragon landing back on the ground. He seemed happy with himself, despite the fact that he had a couple bite marks on his arms and neck that hadn't gone too poorly… Really he should have opened with the lightning if he didn't want to get so hurt, but that wasn't nearly so fun. His eyes moved from observing the twitching creature to the smaller musical one. "Okay, I guess you can have some…" He trailed off as he looked at the instruments that the man carried. The flute had shot fire out the end of it. He glanced towards the now mostly wrecked building, which had part of the roof and only one and half of its walls left, and wondered. "It must be dangerous to play music if it always shoots out fire, are you out here because you burnt down a theater?" Well, his mind was working slightly harder than normal, unfortunately it wasn't working as hard as it could have, otherwise he would have realized that was magic not just regular music.

Despite the somewhat predatory look of the dragon, it's large scale, and obvious physical advantages it wasn't as terrifying as it could be whenever he spoke. He hadn't mastered the intimidating deep voice, or rather, just very rarely used it. He was pretty talented at mimicking voices, but his natural voice was rather casual and worded a bit childish at times. Though the child like nature was often heightened when he was playing, rather than fighting. Slowly the scales that had risen up during the lightning attack settled back down along his spine, and the slight glow on his horn faded away. It'd take a little while for his adrenaline spike to level out, but for the moment it was obvious he was starting to relax a little bit. His ears did twitch occasionally though, as he listened for anything that might have been attracted by the fighting… It was just a good thing the really big things didn't often come out this close to the beach, and the smaller ones tended to avoid him.

After seeing the dragon dispatch the giant snake with lightning Jake went wide eyed not sure how to respond to what he just saw. Luckily the dragon threw him a bone and asked him a question, the bard had to stifle some laughter though upon hearing it. "The flute is for all intents and purposes is just a normal instrument, I simply used it to channel a magic spell. The same effect could be gotten with any instrument, or you know without one if I was actually trained to use magic". By this point his stomach was grumbling rather loudly, so the bard took his blade and cut off a hunk of snake. Which he then roasted over the remnants of the burning house, always attempting to keep the dragon within vision. It seemed nice enough but Jake didn't want to chance anything. It suddenly struck him that the dragon could talk and Jake hadn't introduced himself. So he left his lunch in the burning rubble to finish cooking. He turned and made a quick bow to the dragon "I apologize for not introducing myself, my name is Jake, what is yours?". After saying that Jake began to smell the meat starting to leave the state of cooked and enter the state of being charcoal. Which cause him to turn around quickly and pull his blade out of the fire.

Thalron sniffed at the sizzling snake, listening to what Jake was saying about the instruments… It obviously somewhat disappointed the dragon, who had been imagining fire and lightning and etc getting flung around at concerts. That disappointment didn't last long as he seemed to completely forget about the human the instant the snake was partially cut into. His eyes seemed very sharp as he judged the size of the bit that Jake took, but apparently it was satisfactory and as soon as the human moved away the horrible crunching, ripping, and tearing apart of the snake was heard. 

It was slightly cooked from the lightning, or at the very least extra warm. He was not a picky eater though, and didn't bother cooking anything further. He was also not a very… Clean eater, blood, and bits of snake skin ended up plastered across his face and front, some small bits caught and stuck on spikes or other adornments of his features. At one point he even got a small chunk stuck to the end of his horn somehow. Even after the human introduced himself there was no reaction for a moment or two, till the words muddled their way through the draconic brain which was mostly occupied by the art of eating as much as possible as quickly as possible.

He paused, then looked over, the first noise that emerged was a massive belch which made the fire behind the human waver slightly from the force of it. "Thalron! I like your name, It's easy to say." he licked his lips, his long tongue brushing across large and deadly looking teeth… It was threatening until it moved past a nostril and accidentally made himself sneeze. A splatter of blood and dragon-boogers going flying in Jake's direction. "Oh… Sorry… Heheh… You don't smell like an adventurer, or hunter, what're you doing out here anyways? Trying to befriend snakes?" The last bit was obviously a joke, and the dragons grin while saying it showed how clever he thought he was being.

After wiping the blood and mucus off his face, Jake chuckled at the question. "I'm as you may have been able to tell by the instruments a bard; I'm here for a few reasons". The bard quickly mulled over why he had come here through his head and found his reasons had mostly been spur of the moment. Scratching his chin he explained "Well, I'm travelling with a group of hunters who are paying me, I'll probably write a song about this place once I leave, and I don't like being told where to not got". While it would be wonderful to think that this adventure was no more than a young bard looking for inspiration, that would only be slightly true. No Jake absolutely hated being told that he couldn't go somewhere, he mostly saw such comments as challenges. This had led to him getting into trouble with the law various times. As far as he was concerned if he wanted to go somewhere neither the law or other people should be able to tell him he can't.

After having got the rest of the dragons sneeze off himself, Jake once again turned his attention back to the dragon. Who seemed friendly and intelligent, "Thalron, that's a strong name what brings you to this island if you don't mind me asking". Jake could probably hazard a guess at why the creature was here. Though from what he understood of this island dragons were a rare sight, all the other predators give too much competition. Or at least that's what the hunters had told him, though the captain of the expedition was the only one who'd been here before so everything else was just here say.

It was increasingly clear to Thalron that this person was very strange, though it also took a moment for him to realize that when he said he was a bard, that he didn't mean that he was a piece of armor. The reason for coming here was pretty sound in his head though, being told not to do something was often half the reason to do so. If he was told by a friend, or someone offered him something to not do something, that was a different story though… Usually. "Am I going to be in the song?" He asked with a sudden peak of interest in what Jake was saying. He didn't resemble most dragons mentally, with a few exceptions, one such example being that he was a bit vain. He often puffed up, or stood more proudly when he received things that he thought of as compliments, and often got more sour, or ignored people that insulted him. "You should…" He paused, about to say that Jake shouldn't go much further inland, but the wheels churned in his head furiously for a moment before he continued. "…Go to the center of the island. It's super dangerous, sometimes I see things even bigger than me there!" His ability to fly had been useful when he had stumbled across some of the more dangerous residents, also not many of them liked lightning.

He did puff up a bit when his name was called strong, he thought that was a weird thing to say, but it sounded like a good thing so he liked it. "I came with some hunters too! I think, but they died, and I don't know how to pilot the ship, and then it caught on fire and sank… So I don't think it works very well any more. Then the other ship that I flew over to ended up sinking too… It was a bit small…" he trailed off a bit thinking about it, he wasn't very lucky for people in ships. Although a portion of it he didn't consider that may have attributed to some of the disasters was the fact that he was a huge lightning breathing dragon, and unless the ship was rather large it was very likely he could upset the balance or weight of it more than was healthy. As they spoke he was still idly cleaning various bits of blood and viscera from his face, and eventually his hands and chest as well. It was a bit slow going as there was a lot of dragon to cover, and eventually he just gave up and more or less flopped down onto the ground… Rolling around in the dirt, much like a dog would, but to scrape off, or at least make the mess less drip-y. He'd just go take a bath later.