THE MOMENT
"I don't mean to pressure you, but I do mean to rush you," Graham chuckled and patted Nicholas on the shoulder with a heavy, scarred hand. Nicholas was a lanky scholar half as wide as Graham, the armored Knight Captain, and he wasn't used to the weight of a two-handed sword. The two men were deep inside a mountain, surrounded by knights, and several paces away from a bound and warded green dragon.
The young beast's torso was tied down to black steel stakes with enchanted chains, with its head and neck held taut against the ground to give Nicholas a clean target.
"We're all supposed to be doing something else, and the sooner we can get back to that, the better chance we have of keeping this little scheme of yours a secret," he said. Scheme? Nicholas wouldn't have called it that; to him, it was an idle thought that took on a life of its own. It hadn't even been his own imagination that came up with it. He heard some of the knights discussing dragons one day, and they mentioned a peculiar property associated with their magic. It was surprising at first, but easily verifiable within the proper texts; research was something he was good at. It seemed strange that it wasn't more widely discussed, but the more he considered it, the more apparent the reason became.
It was supposed to be a punishing curse for taking the life of a dragon. In a turn meant to be ironic, the killer would be made into a dragon. Except Nicholas could think of no greater power boost than becoming a legendary creature himself. And, he certainly would never reveal how he gained that power to anyone.
He never thought he'd get this far. He began engaging the knights in conversation more, and trying to get on friendly terms with as many as he could. He began asking questions and found out the knights had a special training that involved a juvenile dragon. It took time and most of all, coin, to get the circumstances right. But, the Captain did mention that it wasn't unheard of for the dragon to accidentally be killed during training, and collecting another didn't present much of a chore. With the right amount of compensation, he and his knights would metaphorically look the other way, while also providing protection in case the dragon broke free.
Now, all he had to do was end the dragon's life to start his own. He stepped forward and tightened his grip as he awkwardly raised the sword upside-down, ready to plunge it into the serpentine neck. Nicholas generally avoided violence and tried to be kind; but, if he was going to become a dragon, he would be losing his humanity anyway. He would embrace the intended irony from the curse and willingly shed it himself.
The pain was instant, almost as if he'd pierced his own spine with the sword. As soon as it was through the creature's neck, he fell forward in agony. His back ached with sharp throbbing as he felt unbearable itching all over. Green jagged scales were growing out of his human skin, and shredding it in the process. He writhed and screamed on the ground, and he was too preoccupied to hear the Captain's orders.
"Hurry up and get the wards on him before he changes completely," he urged the newest recruits into action - they were there just to do the busywork. "Get the corpse to the adventurer's guild," he directed another group to begin their assigned task. It was a shame to let a dragon corpse go to waste without cashing in any of its valuable pieces.
"Nothing personal, Nicholas..," the Captain shook his head down at the half-man still becoming something else. His flailing made it difficult for the recruits to get the chains on him, but they managed it before the transformation was complete. And thankfully, Nicholas' mind was also gone long before the transformation was complete. "... but it's kind of ironic," he chuckled and patted the heft sack of gold coins at his waist. "No matter how many I help set up a kill…, I'm the one who's growing a nice little hoard worthy of a dragon."