BurnClaw

   He had feigned disinterest in the offer to sire children but had always wished for the chance. He felt, though nearly immortal, the only way to insure eternal life was to pass his seed on to the next generation. He relished the idea of mating especially with a dragon of her caliber. She was renown for her prowess in battle, both in defending her territory and for the execution of dragons known for the hoards they posessed. Her lair contained much more treasure than his own, but a red dragon's greed was unending and her's was worse than most. He knew better than to blindly trust her, but agreed for two reasons. He needed an excuse to travel across that many dragons' lands and truly wanted to father children. She would make the neccasary arrangements for him to travel peacefully, but he would not give her the details of his plans. He didn't need an ambush to confront him should he escape her clutches.
   The tribe of cyclops were travelling well outside their ancestral lands due to a band of trolls that had doggedly sought their cattle and them for many months. The leader of the tribe had decided to leave their homeland to the intruders rather than lose any more of their number. They barely had the warriors to keep themselves safe and had yet to find a region in which their small number cold overwhelm the local competition. Chief Ocle had been dreaming of a land perfect for his people and of the route required to arrive there. He had started by leading his people south through the pass in the center of the Jaw Range and begun veering east while still travelling generally south. Each day the chief dreamt and each night the cyclops traveled. The giants of these foothills had seen them, but rarely gave chase. The dreams had come from the dragon, as had the implanted suggestion to abandon their homeland. As they neared the northern edges of the Dead Moor the time had come for their manipulator to show himself. Before he left on his journey he crafted one last dream for the cyclop's leader. Ocle dreamed of their unseen protector leading them across the Outlet and into the land they required. BurnClaw brought several lengths of oiled rope and left his lair to meet with the cyclops and the female dragon.
   BurnClaw met them on the shore at dusk, just as the tribe awoke. They spread out and glancing around for large boulders. They had faced dragons before, but hadn't the numbers to win against such a large wyrm. BurnClaw circle once then landed in the center of the scattered tribe. He spoke directly to the chief. When his voice was heard the chief immediately recognized it from his dreams and bid his people to welcome him as a friend. Chief Ocle addressed BurnClaw as Master and asked as to his commands. The dragon set to uprooting great trees and ripping off the roots and most branches. With the oiled ropes the tribe began lashing them together until they had a barge of such size as to accommadate the entire tribe and their herd of gigantic sheep and goats. The last length of rope BurnClaw tied to the barge and grabbing hold of it, he dragged the barge across the short span of the Outlet. It was near dawn when at last the tribe was safely across the narrow passage. Promising to return and giving them general directions through the canyons, BurnClaw resumed his journey to the east Jaw Range.

   The mating went much as he had suspected, ending in a quick but fierce battle. His prudence had saved him though, he found one of the many hidden caves he had scouted and secluded himself in them until Lady StoneBoil had wasted enough energy to need to return to her lair. She was enraged at her failure, but had secured the seed of BurnClaw. He had gotten away with only a few scratches, caused more by the mating process than the lightning quick assault. Her spells had only glanced off their target leaving him barely wounded and well able to return home. Under the cover of darkness, BurnClaw climbed to an amazing altitude and glided home. She had thought his own spells had been unable to effect her, but didn't realize they weren't of an offensive nature. They were merely tracing spells that allowed him to remotely view her inside her own lair. In fact he had correctly chosen the scales to affect with such precision that the bulk of them were scratched off in the painful process of laying her eggs and sat inside her clutch. This allowed him to watch the eggs at his leisure.
   The cyclops were built for the terrain he had led them to and quickly adapted to their new home. They cheered the dragon when they saw him swoop down and pluck a few of the giant sheep and were awed rather then frightened when he burnt them to a crisp and ate them. He never harmed a member of the tribe and knew each by name though he never met with them. Through his mirror he watched them birth both children and lambs and had saved more than one shepard searching for a lost sheep by arriving just before or after one of the large predators attacked. The tribe changed their name to Vuagiden, meaning "dragon watched" in the cyclops tongue, and felt a kinship for the dragon who only sought to be left alone to tend to his flock.
   Vuathyreorxis also watched the eggs of Lady StoneBoil. Until, just after they had hatched and he had secretly named each, their mother had discovered the clever spell and negated it. By then he had found the holes in her magical protections and viewed them when they travelled to the least magically warded areas. His own pride at fathering such powerful wyrms got the better of him and he contacted his favorite of the four hatchlings. He had named this one SearAll, though his mother had named him Carvinol. The young dragon hated the imposition of being forced to remain in the lair until he was more powerful and not such an easy target for the giants who roamed the mountains and foothills of his mother's territory. BurnClaw sought to use this prideful rebellion against Lady StoneBoil and perhaps secure the child's trust. Through his mirror, BurnClaw planted the suggestion in the mind of SearAll to practice his firebreath on a specific region of tunnel wall. BurnClaw knew that area would buckle under the intense heat since it was near to a connecting tunnel that would allow the hatchling to reach the surface far from the view at the mouth of Lady StoneBoil's lair. In this tunnel, he had secreted an item, by the use of a weak elemental, which would allow the new wyrm to communicate telepathically with his father and could easily be hidden in the depths of his highly acidic stomach.