Cloudy night, with a new moon, and miles and miles of miles and miles away from civilization even if you took a pretty loose definition of that word. Made it dark, completely dark outside with no moon shine, no diffuse glow from stars and no glowing underside of clouds to relieve the inky black-on-black where you couldn't tell the sky from trees. The only thing lit on this kind of night were the little soap bubbles of lanterns or campfires humans took with them into the wilderness, little oases to remind themselves of civilization in the very uncivilized night. It was perfect hunting weather for a dragon. Late fall, almost winter, but down in the south 'fall' was a loose term. There was still a humid, muggy wetness in the air with only the barest hint of the chill to come. But the chill would come as it came every winter even here, and the dragon would have to be well insulated to make it through the winter. Which brought him to the night's hunting. The dragon mostly just glided under the clouds, secure that absolutely nothing would be spotting him and that he knew his territory well enough to not crash into the ground. Eyes the size of cars scanned the ground hunting for the pools of light he knew would be there, flares in the darkness to alert him to a meal. He had hours yet before the sun would even think about lighting the dawn, but by then he had to be safely back in his cave.

At length, a tiny pinpoint of light far below and to his right caught his eye, and he banked towards it secure that nobody could possibly see his sky-blue scales on the sky in this murk. He barely had to beat his wings- finding thermals to help keep his bulky frame aloft wasn't hard even without sight. As he neared the light, it resolved into a campfire, and doing slow and cautious circles around it told him what he needed to know. Two people, both male, one asleep in a little tent and one poking the fire with a stick. No way to tell what they had for a weapon, but probably it wouldn't be much of a bother to him either way. He decided on speed, and so he folded his wings and barreled towards the light, eyes on the man outside the fire. At the right moment, he flared his wings to kill speed and stop his descent, coming right perfectly in to almost a midair halt almost on top of the hapless man, who was peering in shock at the reptilian shape looming out of the gloom. Leaning his head down, the dragon clamped his jaws around the man's chest roughly, squeezing hard enough to turn the just starting shout of terror into an agonized squeak. Flapping hard, the downdraft from his wings knocked over the tent, confusing any rescue attempt, and the dragon flew back off into the night with one part of a meal thrashing between his teeth. Rich, salty blood began to run down his scaled chin, and in response the drool began to flow and mix with the red fluid in his mouth to properly sauce his meal. He didn't fly far, landing about a hundred yards away, and dropping his prey onto the dirty ground with an audible shriek of pain. He let the man continue screaming, wanting his companion to know what was coming for him- better yet, to try to come after him. Leaning down, he began to feed slowly, knowing what terror the man must be feeling and relishing the flavor it gave the meat.

His forked tongue lapped over the human's body, getting a good taste of him and adding to his terror, before he reached down with his jaws and took a leg between his fangs. Wrenching and tearing the limb off to the punctuation of more screams, he chewed a few times to carve the muscle and bone into smaller pieces before gulping it down, craning a sinuous neck down to get another dainty bite. An arm this time, the shrieks of agony correspondingly weaker as the human started bleeding out. Losing precious nutrition into the dirt as life's blood spurted from bite wounds rankled, but with another entire human out there waiting for his attention he could afford a little waste. With the the arm gnawed and swallowed, the dragon could still feel the human thrashing around weakly, screams fading to a wet gurgling sound as he still tried to get away from the unseen predator. Picking the limp torso up in his jaws, the dragon finally ends his prey's suffering by biting down, shattering spine and bones and splitting the man's torso open like a pinata. Blood and entrails spill into the serpent's mouth, and are greedily swallowed; the jaws continue working, mashing the human up before swallowing one more time to leave the only evidence of his existence outside the dragon's stomach blood spatter on the dragon's scales and a soaked area of the ground. The other man had just barely gotten out of his tent when the dragon landed between him and the fire- the dragon saw no weapon, and felt like playing with his food a little. The man stumbled back into his tent, and the dragon darted in, shoving his head into the tent to chase. With nowhere to run, the man attacked, punching at the dragon's snout helplessly, and after a few minutes of this rather helpless struggle the dragon finally moved in. He wrapped a thick, meaty tongue around the man's waist and dragged him halfway into his mouth before beginning to chew, screams being cut off comparatively quickly before wet crunching and slurping sounds from inside the tent echoed in the night. A few minutes later the dragon took flight again, stomach a little more heavy with meat. Over three hundred pounds of a bloody, soupy stew was currently churning in his stomach, by the feel of things. Two months or so worth of sustenance once he'd turned it into warm fat. Another human would be sure to keep him fed throughout the winter... and as luck would have it, he spotted another campfire on the way back to his cave. Still an hour or two before light- the dragon had time to burn, and without the driving urgency of hunger he could be a little more playful with his food.

By the smell of things, there was one male and one female human in this large tent, and they'd recently finished fucking each other. So... lovers? The dragon grinned. He loved romantic dinners. Especially if he was eating alone. Being as quiet and gentle as he could, he landed near the fire sniffing warily- no guns. And both humans were asleep now. Leaving a fire burning like that was terribly bad manners in a forest. The dragon didn't particularly care, his cave being above the tree line, but maybe the other forest denizens would be happy that he was removing a pair of reckless fools from their home. He stuck his head into the tent, knowing his body was blocking most of the firelight so that he would show up as only a looming shadow, sharp-edged darkness inside duller twilight. The dragon's entrance was rewarded with startled shrieks, which he let go on for a few seconds along with ineffectual blows on his snout before he spoke up. "Do you really think anyone'ss going to help you out here?"

This won the dragon a baffled, wary silence. Monsters were not typically known for their conversation skills, as his last two meals could have attested. Instead, a confused male voice asked, "Well- uh- we-.... you scared us? Er. What's your name?"

The dragon's nostrils flared, and he scraped dirt onto the fire with his tail to extinguish the light, now looming as a completely unseen presence inside their tent. "You can call me Jack."

"You're... a dragon... named Jack?" The woman's voice was tinged with bafflement, the oddity managing to get to her despite her precarious situation.

"No. When I wass a hatchling, my firsst live prey wass named Jack." The dragon's chuckle at his own sibilant wit wafted fumes of fresh blood and death over the couple. "I have fed well tonight. Two of you humanss. I only need one more to tide me through the winter. And here I have two. How... fun." The humans in front of him whimpered, fear rising off of them in fragrant clouds. "I feel like playing a game. How about thiss? And before you complain, I could jusst kill and eat you both right here. I will take one of you away. The woman, yess? I will assk you both sseparately whether you would like me to kill and eat your mate. If you both ssay no, I will eat you both, but I will make your deathss quick and painless. If you both ssay yess, I will eat you both, but I will make you ssuffer. If only one of you ssayss yess, I will only eat the other and the one who ssayss yess will ssurvive. It iss a fun game, yess? Who knowss how far you can really trusst your mate."

'Jack' darted forward to quickly grab the woman around the torso with his mouth, cushioning the cutting fangs with his tongue and dragging her out with a squeak before the two can do much planning. Taking to the air, the dragon quickly beat his wings and began flying low over the ground, only going a half mile or so with the delicious-tasting human's torso wrapped in his muscular tongue before coming down beside the gurgling sound of a stream and plopping the woman down into the flow. "I will be back. Do not... run. I can ssmell very well, and I will not be pleassed." With only that as warning, the dragon took back to the air, retraced his own flight path to the smell of smoke, touched down in the predawn gloom and sniffed around. The man was still inside the tent- as soon as Jack poked his head in, the reply came back instantly. "No." The dragon's only response was a snort, before he took back to the air and used his own body odor, with the attendant traces of blood and fear, to retrace his path. Landing in the shallow stream and splashing cool water around, Jack quickly found his female toy.

"What'd he say?"

The dragon laughed in her face. "Guessss."

She rewarded the taunt with only silence. Jack simply waited for her- he had plenty of time, still, even with dawn coming. The sounds of his stomach churning the meals he'd already had seemed to grow, expanding to fill the silence and overwhelm the normal rustling sounds of the forest. The dragon licked his lips, cleaning them of some stray drops of blood, until she finally said- "I can't... I can't do that to him. No. Eat me."

Jack laughed, a deep, rolling thunderous chuckle while he thought. He never really had any intention of letting either human go, per se. It would be silly to pass up the chance to put a little more fat on his body for winter, even if he didn't actually need the extra meat to stay alive. But the thing about dragons was, they were bastards down to the smallest scale on their bellies. And this bastard had hit upon an idea. "That'ss a shame. I hoped to eat both of you, but ssincce the other one ssaid 'Yess'... I only get you." The woman drew a deep breath in to begin screaming hysterically, but Jack knocked her over with a wing and dove in, beginning to violently devour her as quickly as possible before she could scream and spoil the surprise for her lover. Teeth and tongue tore and lapped up flesh and blood, and a few minutes later most of the hapless woman's remains were roiling together in a stew with two other humans in his even fuller stomach. Flying a little more sluggishly back, a few minutes later he landed in front of the man, and began without any preliminaries. "Your lady deccided to ssave hersself." With a chuckle, the man just repeated, "What? Lindy? But... no..."

"Oh yess. But you two didn't quite realize what I meant... sshe will live, but will be my sslave... I already took her back to my cave. Sshe will be... interessting, one who would abandon her mate to a dragon'ss jawss sso eassily..." That promtped the human man to scream in fury and launch himself at the dragon, fists hammering into the armored scales of his stomach. In response, the dragon leaned down, closed his jaws over the man's chest, and lifted him off the ground almost gently at first with wet tongue coiling around his throat. And then he shook his prey violently back and forth, fangs getting purchase into flesh and beginning to splatter blood everywhere for the few seconds the human hung on until his neck snapped from the stress. After that, it was merely a question of chewing his meal and swallowing. Jack could just barely get himself aloft, over a quarter ton heavier than he had been at the start of the night. The flight back home might be hard, but once there he could sleep for days while his stomach turned the gory slop in his guts to nourishing reserves of energy underneath his scales. Maybe he'd even keep some of his winter fat through the cold season, and be able to more easily attract a mate in the spring. Far better than keeping some smelly human as a slave- the idea was preposterous. As the first predawn rays struck the dragon's blue scales, he grinned a scaly grin to himself. Mating season. Something to look forward to.