The hero walks into the old castle, his sword at his hip but remaining in it's sheath. The place had been even further cleaned up since he was last here; now it was oddly cozy, peaceful.
He rounds the corner into the courtyard, and finds who he was looking for. She's tending to some berry bushes - pruning them with careful pinches of her massive claws.
Her ears - long, pointed, somewhat goatlike - perk up at the sound of his footsteps. She doesn't even turn around, keeps focusing on her plants. "I'm surprised to see you here" she says, setting her forepaws on the ground. "It's been another year already?"
The man - no longer young, but not that old either - nods. "Four years now."
She twists her long, scaled neck around, her nest of golden horns glittering in the cloudy afternoon's soft light. Their gazes meet.
"So. Our deal's still good?"
He sighs. "I'm still not the biggest fan of it... but yeah. You'll keep your amnesty."
He remembers her old face. Cackling with laughter as she laid waste to villages of the innocent at her master's orders. And yet, the massive, scaled dragon before him looks kinder, gentler, happier then the human sorceress that came before.
The two stare in silence, for a moment.
She sighs. "You know", she says, "I regret what I did. I really do."
The hero simply leans against the wall, his arms crossed.
"He... he preyed on the pain in my heart. Same for a lot of the other cultists. Promised us power to make our dreams come true."
"Was your dream always... this?"
She shakes her head. "No, I didn't know until I activated the amulet and transformed. I dreamed of wealth, mostly. Which... may have been a dragon thing, thinking about it."
His expression softens, as he reminisces. The Dark King's closest lieutenant, transforming herself into a dragon to stop his party from interrupting a dark ritual... only to immediately switch sides.
"But, when I felt my wings, and the flame burning in my heart... I knew real joy for the first time in years. I looked at my claws and realized - why was I sworn to that asshole? Why was I helping him remake the world into an undead hellscape?"
She uses a wing to point at one of her cherry trees. This time of spring, the very first blossoms were starting to flower. Soon the courtyard would be awash in beautiful pink.
"When I changed, I could see the beauty in the world, for the first time in a very, very long time. And I... I wanted to protect that."
"... so you betrayed your master, just like that." The hero says. He pushes himself off the wall. "And then within two hours he was dead and the world was saved. Yeah. I remember, too."
Another moment of silence hangs over the dragoness' garden.
He closes his eyes, shakes his head. "I'll never forgive you, you know. I'm sorry. Not even the great hero is that virtuous. But..."
He glances up, looks right into those slitted pupils.
"Thank you, nonetheless."
And he turns to leave. Halfway down the hallway, he stops, turns his head.
"I hope those plants can help you find peace."
And she smiles, and gives a wordless, thankful nod.
