Oh, he wanted it soon, did he? Well, that wasn’t going to happen. “Cold, are we? Here.” The words rolled out with a dark suggestive tone before a sudden loud hissing sound and the bright and violently warm lash of heat suddenly rolled past him, arriving first with a gust of intense cold that seemed to flee from the flames. It was far enough away when it only would have singed his hair and a few of the ropes at best. “Did that warm you? I do so hope it did. Suffering does not suit something I want to eat. Sours the meat,” he mused in sing-song tone. He shifted his weight to his other hip, rolling onto his side and shifting the rocks again. “But that was it? They did a random pull of lots and that was how they figured out my tribute? Feh.” He raised his head, chin pointing a little higher. “That hardly seems fitting.”<br/><br/>He looked around at the town with some air of disdain, feeling wounded that he hadn’t been offered someone of greater value. “If you are of so little worth to them, then can you even begin to imagine how little you are to me?” There came silence for a few moments more as the dragon mulled it over in his head. Finally, one claw outstretched and ran down the pole, purposefully not cutting the ropes but skipping over them as he left a long gash in the wood. “These people, do you like them?” It was a strange and distant little question. “ You, my pithy little tribute who are small, weak, and so alone…were they good to you? Treat you of equal value?”  His mind was whispering soft things to him, that old and ancient pride filling his thoughts as he gazed around at the small flashes of heat here and there as the villagers either slept or cowered in their houses.<br/><br/>Yes, they had made a mistake, hadn’t they? They’d gotten fat and lazy now. Complacent with this tradition even. Well, that wasn’t very nice of them, was it? Stupid little beasts. The claw fell away and soon a swishing sound seemed to take its place as his tail licked back and forth behind Jawn. “You or them?” he finally asked after a minute, hoping that it was clear enough with his last few questions. Sure, he didn’t have to give the man a choice but, well, he was curious and he had his own reasons for asking. Ones which he wished to have appeased and hoped that this tiny little morsel wouldn’t disappoint him in. “Come, come. Quickly now. I haven’t got all day, you know. Much territory to cover and so little time.”