Rufus the Ice dragon was a very lonely ice dragon.
In fact, most dragons find themselves lonely on account of eating most of the
living creatures they encounter.
Just this morning, Rufus had
encountered a colourful horse thing, but as he reached out to say hello, he
inadvertently swallowed the thing whole

which was quite the mistake. Not only did the horsey thing taste funny, it also
seemed to remain alive within the gullet of the ice dragon, and caused quite
the pain, trampling around within his insides...

but fortunately his stomach acids took care of that quickly enough, and the
trampling soon turned into stumbling, which was soon reduced to wallowing, and
finally merciful stillness

So, another potential friend
dead, Rufus decided he had had enough. So he realised it was time to leave his
ice plains home, and travel to distant lands, to meet new people, and hopefully
not eat them all before they could become his friends.

He flew north, towards distant mountain tops, with, what he could see with his
exceptional dragon eyes, what seemed to be glittering rainbows stretching
between their peaks

but, as he flew in that general direction, he caught sight of another strange
thing, a big, wet blue thing, which stretched to the west as far as his eyes
could see. (Which, as we've already established, was quite far)

and so he decided to explore that way instead, because this big blue wet thing
looked far more interesting than the glittery rainbow mountains.

Soon, his eyes spotted a smallish island, upon which nestled strange looking
unnatural structures, and tiny pinkish coloured things walking around them

he dived in for a closer look, and grew hopeful, because of the sheer amount of
the small pinkish creatures, he felt sure he could find at lest one potential
friend.

So he soared down, opened his
mouth to greet them,

and drenched their whole
settlement in blue green fire, scorching the earth and burning all the small
pinkish things to ash

...whoops, he thought, this making friends thing is more difficult than I would
have previously thought

many flaps of wings later he
encountered another bit of land, sticking up through the sea (this is what he'd
decided to call the big, blue, wet thing)

this one had a large mountain, with a smoking crater at its top. He peered into
the crater as he flew over, to discover it was full of red seething fire,
which, of course, being a dragon, he felt the need to investigate further.

But, as he descended on the smoking mountain, another being shot up towards
him, this thing that seemed, he realised, exactly like him, and yet, strangely
not

for it was another dragon, but this one was a red hot fire dragon, and she (for
it was a she) was not happy to be disturbed

she demanded to know his business, and he, opening his mouth, managed not to
eat her, or bate her in flames, and responded, in a new found voice, croaky
from under use,

I was just looking for a friend,
he explained, but every time I try to make one, I accidently eat them. Or burn
them horribly.

Oh, she said, taken somewhat
aback. I know what you mean. I've never had a real friend either. In fact, she
said, I also eat everything that notices me.

And so, the dragons began talking, and realised they had quite a lot in common.

And so Rufus the ice dragon
finally made a friend, and settled in to live a long and happy life with his
new dragon friend.

The end