Dragonwyst,
Thank you very much for sharing your story
I enjoyed and was captivated by your encounter with the water dragons and the meaning that they have taken on in your life.
My encounter was with an eastern bearded dragon.
I am lucky enough to live five minutes drive from a national park. A wonderful playground for an ovate!
I was driving into the forest to do one of my gwers exercises when I must have startled a hawk or kestrel (hard to determine as it flew off so quickly). It was having trouble holding onto its catch, which was of considerable proportions and dropped it from about 20 metres in the air. I saw the creature plummet, so thought I had better investigate.
I got out of the car and walked into the bush and came face to face with a 40cm male bearded dragon (who said real dragon's don't fly in this world!

)
I had an ethical dilemma for about five seconds where I was weighing up whether I take pity on the dragon or allow the hawk to enjoy its breakfast. I of course took pity on the dragon as I put it down to fate that I had startled it. It was looking a little shaken, and it fanned its beard out and opened its mouth aggresively. So I simply constructed a quick makeshift shelter with some sticks lying about and went off to do my gwers work.
I went back an hour later and found my new found friend still sitting in his stick shelter. He appeared to have one small drop of blood on the top of his head that was dry, but I was worried about his undercarriage. So I gently picked him up by the tail. No fanning of beards and hissing this time. He was quiet passive and regarded my with much curiosity. I gave him the once over and he looked alright, so I returned him to his stick shelter.
I went back the next day with my daughters to explore and found that he had gone. No sign anywhere and I sensed that he was well and safe.
I still need to do some grove work to contemplate the meaning of all this, and there might be a chance that this could be a totem animal for me. I definatly now have a local resident that I can attribute to a quarter for ceremonies!
So that is my little humble story of my brave knightly encounter with a dragon!