Hard Luck

Nothing raised Aylon's spirit like a walk through the forest. All around her, life flourished, from the mushroom-covered logs on the ground to the squirrel families leaping through the treetops. The woman knew all too well how hard pressed one could be to survive in this place, but the sheer beauty of the natural landscape more than made up for it.
Moving silently along the faint pathways she had made over the years, Aylon soon neared her hidden home. It had been a sweet victory, sending her former mentor Edercy on his way, but she knew he would be back at some point.
Preparations needed to be made.
Just as she stepped into the clearing around the ancient oak tree, though, Aylon sensed the approach of a large creature. She froze with a grin on her face, waiting for the ambush that always accompanied her return. A bellow of rage deafened her as a behemoth erupted from the foliage to her left. Flexing her legs, Aylon leaped away, twisting through air so as to come down facing the creature.
As large as a horse and twice a heavily muscled, the drake slid to a stop, changing his tactics to slowly circle the woman. Admiring, as she always did, the way her opponent's orange hide rippled with the cautious movement, Aylon held her hands ready over the daggers secured to her belt. When the drake finally charged again, she jumped again, straight up into the air, then came down on the beast's neck as he passed under her. Throwing her arms around his head, Aylon carefully pressed her daggers against the underside of the drake's jaw, at the soft spot where one jab wold go up through his mouth and brain.
Stopping immediately, the beast did something she wasn't expecting - he rolled over. Aylon scrambled to not be crushed under the monster's bulk. Rather than retreat and begin again, though, she instead got in close to the drake's underbelly. There, even as he tried to right himself, she was able to hold a dagger in the hollows between each of his front legs and chest. Realizing the danger to his heart and other vital organs, the drake became still.
"Done yet?" Aylon asked sweetly. Huffing, the beast shook his scales out, the signal for surrender. Aylon removed her weapons with a laugh.
"You almost got me that time, Hard Luck." She said. "Someday you may actually win our contest." The drake looked her straight in the eye with his usual glare.
Aylon remembered the first time the monster had looked at her like that. It had been after their first fight, a few years back, when each of them had sustained heavy injuries from the other. As the two top predators in the forest, competing with one another would only lead to both of their deaths. It was then that Aylon had struck a bargain with the intelligent drake - if one day he could beat her in a fair fight, the woman would leave his forest. Until then, they wouldn't interfere with one another's business.
She'd never imagined that the deal would lead to a grudging respect for one another, or that the drake would gradually shift his den closer and closer to hers, until the two shared the same home. Aylon suspected that her wild companion had begun to be less earnest in his attempts to best and get rid of her, but there was no way he would ever admit to that.
"Did you catch anything for dinner?" Aylon asked as she re-sheathed her daggers. Tossing his head to the treeline, Hard Luck (as Aylon had come to call him) indicated a kill he'd made a short while ago.
That evening, after she had skinned, butchered and cooked the stag, Aylon began constructing more trip-line crossbows as Hard Luck munched on his portion of the meal beside her.

Introducing one of my favorites for this series, I'll add an illustration of Hard Luck and Aylon at some point.
-Triscribe