The scabs were healed by now, but the Mistress still had him out and about in Serenia, collecting herbs and doing other such manual labor. He wasn't really sure what it was all about, but Ainsley was getting less and less patient with all of it. The Mistress, the other servants and how they lacked the initiative to even just think about getting away and into the world, out of the kind of life that they had. It was temporary for him, he knew just that much, but he still had yet to figure out how he would escape. He'd been mulling over plans and such but nothing made too much sense to do. The young Orderite figured it'd either get him killed or land him in an even worse situation, neither of which were too pleasant to think about.
In any case, as he was still under her servitude Ainsley set about the forests of Serenia. The area he was currently in was only vaguely familiar, but the nostalgia seemed to pass as quickly at it had come to him, so he searched for whatever herbs and things the Mistress had assigned him to find, not being cautious at all about the creature that lay silently in the distance, snoozing of all things. So the boy searched, and he found, and he searched, and he found. He searched for almost an hour without a hitch, and then he managed to stumble across a weird, green "rock" like thing with holes, except.. you know, there was something coming out of the holes. Raising a brow, the young and unknowing Orderite inches a bit closer and shoves the walking stick he'd been using to shove aside loose brush into the hole, irritating the owner of said hole - an Ysali dragon, no less.
It gave an irritated roar, clawing at the offending stick in its nose while leaving the young Orderite speechless and staring in both awe and fear. He'd never encountered a dragon and, although he'd always boasted to his fellow workers back home that he would never get scared should he even run into one, he decided that they were... well, magnificent for one. Scary as all hell, for another. At least in person, especially if you were a 10-year-old person.
"My luck..." he muttered under his breath, unfortunately loud enough for the dragon to hear him and target him as the one who shoved the stick into its nose (which he was). Setting its sights on the blonde, it made another loud and fear-inducing roar, sending Ainsley's instincts into overdrive and causing the Orderite to turn and make a break for it, clutching onto the herbs he'd gathered for dear life as well since he knew the Mistress wouldn't be happy to see him without the herbs he was sent to gather.
Priorities, huh?
He passed tree and after tree and bush after bush, his eyes darting to his sides for signs of anyone or anything that could possibly help him. The boy was tired and winded after only minutes, not used to running since he'd never had to for most of his life, and cursed his luck once more when he found nothing and no one there. It was just him and the dragon. Unfortunately for him, the dragon was much larger, had wings, and had an easier time both catching up and getting ahead of the poor boy. When it landed just mere feet ahead of him, Ainsley came to a skidding stop, falling with a thud to the dry grass beneath his feet and sliding some feet closer to his assailant in the process. He hit his head on the ground in the process, and as he lay there, dazed and out of breath, on the ground, another instinct kicked in. It wasn't to run this time, considering he couldn't, but it was an instinct of defense -- essentially, another way of surviving.
Ainsley groped around for something, and once his hand wrapped around a sizable stone, the boy chucked it at the dragon, hitting the creature square in the face and causing it to unleash another loud and fairly hair-raising roar before finally coming straight at him. Ainsley closed his eyes and braced himself for some kind of an attack and perhaps his imminent death, but..
It never came. Instead, he felt something raise him up by his collar and then, seconds later, the wind in his face and running through his hair. As far as he could tell, he was being carried. By someone or something, he couldn't tell, so he opened his eyes to check. His fiery red eyes met with the greens of the Ysali dragon in the distance, glaring and daring him to come back into its territory. It was the last thing he saw before everything went black...
