That sound like something that could work. So if I understand correctly, the human doesn't know the dragon's nature at first? At first the dragon would only see him as a necessary annoyance, but by the time his true nature is revealed he likes him enough to try and stay rather than fly away to find some place else.

I think bandits would work better. I was thinking of having the motivation of the dragon to be boredom brought on by loneliness, so it wouldn't make sense for him to have a clan. Maybe later on there can be a dragon that wants to take him away from the human, but that conflict is more interesting once they have a connection I think.

So I'm thinking this is best set somewhere in the past where humanity was a little less present overall? It doesn't actually have to be set in a version of our world at all, of course. Do humans know about dragons or not? The whole idea of dragons being hunted to extinction by humans is a little overdone, I think, so I would like it if we made up something else. Not sure what, though, I'll think about it :p