temeraire did not disagree ; he and all the chinese dragons , and their crews , had been very silent and shocked since the battle : what was yet a lurking fear in the heart of most westerners , who had grown up on tales of maurauding dragons and heroic knights standing forth to slay them , and who thought of aviators as the handlers of savage beasts , was to them so unthinkable and vile as to be unacceptable even as a subject for fiction .