Fluttershy trotted along the Everfree Forest path with her saddlebag donned. The left bag held the gems Rarity gave her not too long ago, and the right bag held the large pearl and a first aid kit to treat the Dragon's nasty leg wound. Fluttershy had found the creek that led to the pit. She followed it upstream, and found the hole in the wall. She went through and expected to find the Dragon trying to claw its way to freedom, but when she exited the hole, she found it lying motionless near the shore of the pond.
She approached it, wondering if it was asleep. If it was sleeping, the last thing she wanted to do was wake it. But the Dragon started to sniff, lifted its head up off the ground, and turned to see her standing there. He started to growl, but then began coughing up a storm, and it was pretty much a hurricane.
Fluttershy did not know what was wrong. She tried to approach it, but it just kept growling her away and then started coughing again. Soon the Dragon's coughing ceased, but its breathing was very raspy, like he had a serious cold or something.
"What's the matter?" Fluttershy asked, trying to see if the Dragon could speak like the last one she met. "Are you sick? Why are you like this?"
The Dragon hissed like a crocodile, but coughed up a wad of saliva from doing so. Fluttershy examined the spit and noticed something strange. It was as green as worn old copper. Then she knew what was wrong.
The Dragon was suffering from lethal poisoning.
Fluttershy had seen this sort of thing before when a bear with an arrow in his shoulder came to her house. She never found out what type of poison it was, but fortunately, a tablespoon of tree sap from a unique species of tree called Entiohk was powerful enough to neutralize the poison. Luckily, she had a jar full of Entiohk sap in her first aid kit. She set down her saddlebag, took out her kit, and took out the jar. It took a tablespoon to cure a bear, but for a Dragon, Fluttershy decided to give it half the jar.
She approached the sick Dragon, who bared his teeth and growled at her again.
"It's okay, I'm here to help you get better." Fluttershy said, trying to convince the Dragon she was no threat to him. The Dragon then gave a low roar that made Fluttershy flinch. "Please, let me help you." she implored. The Dragon was still not wanting her near him. He then opened his mouth and slammed his jaws inches from Fluttershy's face, making a bone-crunching sound that made her flinch again and yelp.
This Dragon was dying before her eyes, and it would not let her do anything to save it.
A thread snapped in Fluttershy's headed, and she grew angry. She stomped up to the Dragon, who started to growl sickly.
"Don't you growl at me, mister!" Fluttershy said, commandingly. The Dragon cocked his head up and raised an eye in surprise as she continued to speak. "Now, unless you wanna just lay here and die in front of me, you will take this medicine, because I'm NOT gonna stand here and let you drop dead on my watch! Comprendre?!"
The Dragon looked behind him, to his left, then to his right, and back at Fluttershy. He simply rolled his eyes, brought his head to her level, and opened his mouth. Fluttershy made a hard nod of her head in success, and poured half the jar of sap onto the Dragon's tongue. He grunted at the bitter taste, and swallowed it. Fluttershy then brought her saddlebag up to the Dragon and presented the gems to him. The Dragon raised both eyes to the gems, and then began to feast upon them.
"Good. Now I just need to apply some antibiotics to your wound and everything will be alright." Fluttershy trotted to the Dragon's left-hind leg with a spray canister of antibiotics and got to work cleaning the wound. The Dragon stopped eating to see what she was doing. Fluttershy wiped a washcloth soaked with rubbing alcohol on the wound. It still burned, but it was not anything he could not handle. The Dragon still questioned as to why she was helping him. He began feasting again. As soon as the Dragon had swallowed the last jewel, which was the pearl, Fluttershy had finished cleaning his injury.
She placed her equipment back into her kit and put it in her saddlebag. Before she could even begin leaving, Fluttershy felt the Dragon's warm breath on her neck and back. She turned to see the Dragon staring her in the face with broad eyes. She turned to face him and started backing against the wall, and he had her pinned.
"What? Do you want more food? More gems?" Fluttershy asked. The Dragon kept staring at her and gave a low grumble. But then wall eyed and started to sound like he was going to upchuck. Fluttershy braced for whatever was going to happen as she closed her eyes and held her breath. The Dragon started to gag, and a lump formed at the bottom of his neck, which started to come up to his mouth. The Dragon then forcefully coughed up a large gem onto Fluttershy's laps. It landed on her hard enough to knock the wind out of her. Fluttershy's eyes were forced open from the impact, and she saw what the Dragon had coughed up.
It was a rainbow opal.
Fluttershy could not believe her eyes. Rainbow opals were, hooves down, the most rarest and extremely difficult to find gemstone in all of Equestria. This one was the exact same size as the pearl the Dragon had eaten.
"Oh my goodness..." Fluttershy said, breath-taken, "Rarity would kill for an opal like this."
Fluttershy looked up to see the Dragon sitting upright with his tail wrapped around him on the ground. Was this opal a gift from him for helping him? She set the opal aside and slowly walked up to him. The Dragon sneered and growled, making her halt, and he stopped. He then brought his head down to her and was a foot away from touching her nose with his snout. He just stared at her, and Fluttershy stared back. She then closed the gap between then, closed her eyes, and pressed her nose against his snout. The Dragon closed his eyes as well. For ten seconds, they made contacted before the Dragon lifted his head straight back up.
Fluttershy was in a state of confusion, calmness, fear, and bliss. Never before had she even dared to try this with another Dragon from the wild. She kept looking at the Dragon before her. The Dragon then blew smoke out of his nostrils, got up, and limped away to recover.
For years, Fluttershy had always thought of Dragons as greedy, dangerous, thoughtless, heartless monsters that cared for nothing but their treasure hordes and sleep, but that was all negative. Were there positive sides of a wild Dragon? Could there be good in them? Could she be forming a dangerously forbidden yet compatibly possible friendship with this one?
Fluttershy put the opal into her saddlebag and headed home.
"Maybe Dragons aren't such scary beasts at all." She thought. "Maybe there's more to them than anypony truly knows."
It was now nine o' clock. Fluttershy had arrived home, removed her saddlebag, headed upstairs, and tried to go to sleep. But sleep would take quite a while for it to overtake her. In the meantime, she just laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling. She also thought about the Dragon, and the possible relationship she might be forming with him. The thoughts were wearing down on her stamina, and she sunk into slumber.