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Malta was not a quitter, despite appearances and reactions. She was a coward, but she didn't give up when it mattered.

In this case, it may be a bad year for Fluffotton, as Regeel had said, but she was sure that, if she kept looking, she would find something worthwhile. It didn't even have to be the fluffy deceptively harmless-looking herb. Malta wasn't picky about what she stocked in her lair.

Seggan especially. She needed more of it. It was such a lovely, useful plant... "If you see any succulent leaves, let me know, okay?" she called to her bodyguards. Succulent leaves could be seggan or something completely different and potentially useful. Or something nice for her garden.

At one point she had felt bad about asking her bodyguards to do things other than guard her (or mutter unkind things about her when they thought she couldn't hear), but after being tormented and abandoned enough times, she'd stopped feeling nearly as sympathetic. She didn't hate them, no. But she no longer felt guilty about having them do a little extra work.

"Kumog?" the silence unsettled her. It was all too familiar. "Vorkin?" Not quite silence actually. More an absence of something or someones specific that should be there, but was not. The trees still whispered pleasantly in the evening wind, and the dark lake lapped ominously on the shore, as nightbirds called in the trees. Not unpleasant sounds on their own, but they were missing the grumblings of her bodyguards.

Malta stood very still. No. There was no muttered 'what is a succulent anyway' or 'stupid flower picker' or 'I hate this' or 'I hate that fat bondworth runt' or the other horrible things that Kumog and Vorkin muttered under their breath (mostly Vorkin.) Not so much Regeel, not anymore. He was nicer these days. But he was off tonight, courting his fiance, and Malta wished him well... But...

"Vorkin? Kumog?" she called out, "This isn't funny! Come back!" The beach was suddenly very unfamiliar and dark and scary. This lake had many stories surrounding it, and though she found it pretty in the day, she wasn't sure she trusted it at night. "Please?" her voice took on a pleading note as she became hyperaware of the cries of the wood around her. Or, rather, their absence.

They were gone too.

"Please?" she whimpered, cowering to the ground, looking around her frantically. She didn't want to be alone in the woods at night with all the predators about. "Please come back..." she whispered now. She didn't want to have to stalk through the woods and find her way home. She'd done it before, and she'd never wanted to do it again.

But they kept doing this. They kept leaving her. She whimpered wordlessly and sought out somewhere to hide. The silence of Soldul at night bothered her more than the sounds of Soldul at night, and she wanted to be away and safe.

The nearest promising-looking bush was several bodylengths of sandy beach away, but it might as well have been on the other side of the lake. But it was what she had. Belly to the ground like a lizard, her wings pressed tight to her, she crawled towards the bush and its promise of something akin to safety...

(550/1600)

Malta knew the bush was too small. Most things were - rather, she was too big. But, despite that, as she managed to crawl her way off of the beach without being eaten, she felt it was her only hope. So, despite its pathetic lack of covering, she wriggled under it anyway.

She did her absolute very best to hide, curling her tail around her, and folding her wings flat on her back as she pressed herself as close as she could to the ground. Using her magic to hide was not a conscious thing, but she could feel it around her, repairing any damage she had done to the bush and shimmering around her to make her seem more plant than khehora.

She knew her glowing eyes would give her away, so she buried her head in her paws and closed her eyes, shaking, hoping for whatever danger that lurked out there to just pass her by. It was only a few minutes, but, hidden, it felt like an eon. A forever of silence and fear ticked by, marked by her own breathing and the sound of blood in her earfins.

In... out... Swish, swish... it was a rhythm of her, something to try and keep patience with, but it wasn't enough to block out the terrified yammerings of her soul. What was out there? What had quieted the birds?

A Notbjaovin? Maybe it had eaten all the birds! At once! That would be terrible - Malta liked birds.

A Riistäjä? No, they chased their prey. If there was one, and it was after her, she'd already know. There would be no waiting - only terror, running, pain, and death. And she wasn't dead yet. So... That was ruled out.

A bolarn? She didn't think they ate birds. They ate everything else though, and that would shut a bird up. Bolarn were sneaky and deadly and scary and they liked to ambush... didn't they? If it was ambushing... and it was ambushing her...

Maybe it was already there.

Suddenly Malta was convinced she could feel the hot breath of a predator on her back. She knew, with great certainty, that there was something behind her. She trembled, begging the feeling to go away, but it didn't. Sure, now, that she was doomed to be eaten, she quickly uncoiled her neck and looked behind her. her eyes wide and frightened, her muscles tense, ready to run as fast as she had to to survive. She'd fight if she had to, fight and then run - she didn't like hurting things, but living was very important to her and when it came down to it, she really, really, really, really did not want to be eaten.

She looked back, an action that seemed to take forever, that she expected to be interrupted by a sharp pain to her neck and her own death, and scanned the darkness behind her.

Nothing was there.

She stared at it, heart racing.

Nothing was there.

She could feel the bitter taste of venom in her mouth.

Nothing was there.

She felt the venom recede, and was relieved that she wouldn't have to let it do what it was made to do - hurt. She took a few deep breaths, settling back under the bush. She was safe. She was alive. But her question was unanswered: what was out there? Why were the birds still silent?

She peered out warily, looking out over the water through the twigs and leaves of the bush. From the light, she realized it had not been long at all. Then again, when it came down to it, life could be over in a moment, couldn't it - She'd learned that from her cousins. So it really has been quite a long time she thought. It did not comfort her.

Slight splashing sounded nearby, and she looked over quickly, her heart rate rushing into a constant flow. There was, she realized, a river nearby, flowing through the trees like a shining ribbon. and in it... A magescan - an Oblivionite with wings and a tail - a very familiar one. She wouldn't be forgetting that Oblivionite any time soon, maybe ever - not how his wings and tail had torn from their membranes and flopped, wet and weak, at her feet, or how she had protected him in the rain for hours of cold, dark, swampland night.

Or how he'd thanked her.

For a brief moment, a trill of hope rang through her, as clear as a bell and as heroic as an angelic choir. Could he be the reason the birds were silent? If so, she didn't need to be scared. He was dangerous, yes, but he was infinitely better than a bolarn and... well... he hadn't hurt her last time.

That hope, though, was short lived as she remembered that birds really didn't care about magescans. For the most part, they ignored the two-leggers and kept on singing away. That meant that there was something bigger, badder, and probably fang-y-er still out there.

Could it be me? wondered Malta, trying to hold onto that hope. She was a khehora. Khehora were pretty big and fang-y and liked to eat birds sometimes. Scales, she'd eaten a bird before - it had been tasty, though she'd felt bad for the little feathered creature. Could they be going quiet for her?

Except: they never had before, and they never did so for her cousins, either. Which, she realized, her new hope draining through her claws, meant something else was still out there.


The magescan was looking at something, his magic stinger-slinger in hand, and she wiggled forward to get a better look, the bush rustling unintentionally as her curious muzzle pushed them aside.

Dragons.

She saw them, a huge one and two smaller blue ones, gliding down the river like an omen of death. It was only a few seconds glance, but it was enough to chill Malta's blood. Dragons. She'd never seen one properly before, and she'd had no wish to do so. Back home, she'd come along as her sister fought one. That had been at a distance, and Malta had been so afraid...

TWANG

Malta jolted as the ground right in front of her impacted, letting out a sharp "Yip" before biting her tongue and curling into a vaguely khehora ball of green and grey and brown. She stilled her trembling as best she could, and tried to think positive thoughts. It didn't work.

It registered that the impacts had been the arrow-fangs of the Magescan's stinger-shooter. He'd shot at her. He'd attacked her. He was going to hurt he, and if she ran he'd sting her.

Hiding like this was her only chance, and praying that he didn't actually know she was there. I'm not here. she thought, I'm not here, not here, not here... she coiled herself tighter, In fact theres nothing here and I'm just a pile of leaves, yes leaves, smelly, rotting leaves...

She actually liked the smell of leaves and the entIre mast layer of the forest, but that wasn't the point.

I'm not here.... she thought desperately, willing his... not-eyes...? to pass over her, and maybe the dragons eyes too and, scales, maybe if she thought it hard enough, it would be so and she'd wake up in her lair safe and sound and... and...

That wasn't going to happen.

He'd noticed her. She didn't feel the sting of one of his arrow-fangs, so she thought she might have a chance. A small one. Something. Better than nothing.

She looked up, staring at him with glowing blue eyes, silently assessing. Well, he didn't seem like he was about to hurt her.

"I... I wish I was..." she whispered, wary, "a leaf." she clarified. She also wished she was big, strong, and not-here. But a leaf would be a decent start.

Being a leaf would mean that she would be ignored. Nobody would bother her. She'd be left alone to float in the breeze and gather sunlight. It would be a simple life, being a leaf, with no obligations but to be there, and no sudden changes to her body to bother her, and nobody to tell her that she wasn't good enough. It didn't take much to be a leaf. It would be... nice.

Well... until she fell off. Or until she was eaten. Maybe she didn't want to be a leaf after all, even if it would keep her safe from the dragons...

Dragons...

Oh Scales and Darkness... Dragons.

Suddenly things began to happen very fast and stinger-arrows began to fly through the air like a deadly, sharp, horizontal rain. It was so fast she almost could not track it. She wasn't sure if time slowed down or sped up as she watched the first dragon fall, but it all felt strange, disconnected somehow from reality. Or, at least, the reality that she knew. Her flower-picking, potion-making reality had no place here.

The bush, she had to acknowledge, would not hide her from the dragon's eyes - She was just too big. She doubted, also, that being distracted by the Oblivionite would allow her to hide: it would be her luck to be noticed anyway. It did, however, still feel like the remnants of safety, and that was more than anywhere else in this strange life or death parallel to her usual universe. So she remained there, clinging to it like an infant to its mother.

Of course, no thought of fighting crossed her mind.

You're fat, useless, and weak. her mothers voice, remembered, echoed in her mind. She would only get in the Oblivionite's way. Running was not an option either - she'd get caught, and plus, she couldn't just abandon the nice Oblivionite. She hadn't before, and she wouldn't do it this time either. Not unless he started running too, in which case she would be perfectly justified in fleeing.

Any remembered semblance of safety that the bush had was torn away as a wave of water, stinking of magic, came at her with the sound of a dragon's roar. She squeaked in terror, wriggling out from under the bush and, comically, crawling partway up a tree, which groaned unsettlingly under her weight. She apologized to it silently, watching the water flood and swish ominously under the bush as it began to recede. She looked back from her vertical perch as the dragon wailed.

As it staggered, struggling desperately towards the Oblivionite, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the monster. Despite her fear, despite its size and claws and sharp teeth and terrifying magic, her heart went out to it. Poor thing... she thought, It's so pathetic....

Yes... Pathetic, as it writhed along the beach, desperate to destroy its attacker.
Pathetic, as it could barely move its body.
Pathetic, as it was killed before it could reach its goal.

Pathetic. Like her.

Not that she wanted it to reach its goal, of course! She didn't want the Oblivionite to be hurt by those teeth and claws and magic. She felt an odd depressing relief as it shuddered, collapsed, and disintegrated into ashes and a brilliant, blue soul orb.

It had been scary, it had been pathetic, it had been sad, and it was, thankfully, gone.

The third dragon was huge and radiated a sort of terrible awesome blackness that made her, and her tree host, quake - even if she had tried, she couldn't have ignored its presence or pretended it didn't exist. As he challenged it, she didn't want him to. She wanted him to run, to flee while he still could. Maybe if they ran – if she ran – they would be safe. She would still be lost, but she wouldn't be eaten by dragons, and that mattered a lot.

She wanted to call out to him to Go! Get out of here! But then the dragon spoke, and she knew that, even if they ran, they would not escape. The deep, resonant voice of the dragon held that certainty. She could run, she could hide, but he would still find her and feast on her and the Oblivionite, and she would be dead and he would be dead and that would be that.

She slid down from the tree, leaving deep gouges in its thick bark - the poor thing would probably die if she didn't heal it with magic – and stood, unsteady, on the ground, wings flared.

She couldn't argue with 'fat', and would have felt awful and self conscious and, maybe, tried to squish herself to slimness with her wings. But being fat was not the important thing right now - it was nothing compared to being eaten. "I don't taste very good!" she called out desperately, "And... and he doesn't either! So... so... you should just go and leave us alone!" She cringed back even as she spoke, wondering what on Magesc she was doing. She was talking back to a dragon. Oh gods what was she doing? She felt herself tensed with terror, and wished, as she often did, that she had been born more like her older siblings - strong, beautiful, and brave.

Its not as though it isn't going to eat me anyway she thought, despairing, whether I talk back to it or not... the thought gave her a sort of giddy terror, enough to continue. "And... and... He's not a toothpick!" she insisted, he voice high, tinny, and choked from fear.

Coincidentally, the arrow let fly at that very moment and made her statement seem timed for maximum effect.

She didn't appreciate the perfection of the moment, though.

Instead, bittersweet venom filled her mouth - she could feel it drooling out from the sides, dripping with toxic magic down her face and to the ground.

Flight was not an option - she'd be caught and killed easily by the massive creature. She couldn't just sit and cower while this Oblivionite - who had been nice enough to thank her AND apologize AND not hurt her - fought a dragon that would probably kill him. That would be wrong. The only other option was to fight, and her venom was ready and overflowing with her fear... but what could she do, other than quake like a leaf? Cowering (and feeling terrible) was all she was capable of, not like her family, not like the Oblivionite, not like anybody else she knew. What could she do, other than be eaten.

Malta had been hoping, on some slim, fragile level, that the Oblivionite would keep up his terrifyingly badass streak and take down the dragon. That would have been really nice of him.

She squealed and shrunk back at the dragon's laughter, her own poison nearly choking her as it overflowed her mouth and dripped down her throat. She swallowed it and watched desperately and shakily, frozen as every shot the Oblivionite took proved useless.

Pathetic.

Like her, who stood there and did nothing. But what could she do? Not even the Oblivionite could do something against this mighty foe. She cried out in terror for him as seething malevolent smoke covered him and cloaked him from view. It was Diabi magic - her mothers and her mother's tribe's magic. She knew it well. It could do so many things that hers could not: Crush, slash, burn, maim, hide, and kill... Hers only grew and poisoned and made virulent. That would do nothing here.

Still - her legs twitched against the invisble chains of terror that locked her in her place, and her tail lashed anxiously - she could not simply stand there and do nothing while a friend – if she dared to be so presumptuous about a magescan - was harmed.

She managed to, shakily, approach the dragon, who ignored her for more interesting prey.

But what - What could she do but cringe, her belly to the muddy ground, as the dragon took to the air, its mighty wings making the very trees shriek and scream in terror. She was bowed before the mighty power of its roar, whimpering piteously under the pressure of its presence.

Soon, she smelled blood, strong and thick and full of life - or, perhaps more accurately, of life being lost - in the wet air. She scrabbled, slipping somewhat on the wet ground, and keened a worried, anxious, upset sound as she saw the dragon coil around the smoke that held its prey.

She saw it roar, smelled it bleed, and heard its dreadful words as it flapped upwards and its magic came alive. No... not alive - a cruel, writhing mockery of life that made Malta ill.

"No!" she managed to shout, venom spraying from her mouth as she scurried forward, her limbs stiff and awkward as they moved, "Stop hurting him!" But her voice was lost in the powerful beat of the dragons wings and its cruel laughter.

She knew - with great certainty - that if she did nothing, the Oblivionite would die, and he would die in terrible pain. Malta rebelled at the thought. She could not let that happen! She had to do something! She had to try something! But what? What could she do?

Whatever it was, she had to do it soon.

She had to do it now.

Her hindclaw knocked against an exposed root and she had a crazy, brief, flash of an idea. "Stop hurting him!" she shrieked, grabbing the root with her talons and shoving her magic into it. It buckled and coiled, struggling against the confines of the earth before breaking free, springing out like a snake to wrap itself around the dragon's tail and hindleg. It shimmered briefly with new, fresh, white root buds that soon blossoming into gnarled roots that coiled around the rest of the dragon's hindparts. Other roots, affected by her magic, twisted and coiled at her call and leapt for the dragon, wrapping and grabbing it tightly. "Stop Stop stop!" she cried, pulling the dragon back and away from Detraeus. The roots coiled in on themselves, braiding themselves tighter and shortening into thicker strands.

The dragon had not been expecting the tender, juicy khehora to do anything but quiver, die, and give it delicious meat. It roared in surprise as it was yanked back, struggling even as the roots dragged it back and roped around most of its body. It stumbled as one impeded a foreleg, and turned to tear the roots away, growling at the annoyance of the efforts of inferior creatures.

It would easily have managed it, too, but it's pulling and yanking was too much for one of the trees, already weakened by a chubby khehora's girth and claws. Where its fellows held on, it shuddered and, with a sharp, splintering crack it fell. It crashed into the dragon, one of its branches piercing a wing and dealing a glancing blow to the dragons head. The great beast lolled, stunned briefly.

Malta stared at the tree, which had fallen not a few feet from her own body, then back at the dragon, shocked.

She hadn't intended to do that.

She ran over to where the Oblivionite lay, the shrouding magic dissipating as its caster's focus was interrupted. She didn't need to ask if he was all right - the blood pooling around him and bleeding from his long wound told her enough. She keened, a high-pitched, anxious sound and nosed at him gently, her magic coursing through him briefly and banishing the dark magic that burned at him, replacing it with the magic of distilled life. She didn't have the focus for real healing at the moment but, as she tried to nudge him upright, she was able to help the clotting process along and replace the blood flowing out of his body.

She whimpered as the dragon groaned, not sure what else to do...

Malta stared at the pile of ash and soul that had been the dragon. Was it dead, was it really, truly dead?

It was.

She relaxed into a sphinx-like sitting pose with a sigh and a oof mixed into one heavy, relieved sound as she stared at the dragons remains. The soul orb was facinating (though they all were) as it seemed to absorb the light around it, a point of perfect darkness in a forest of softly glowing plants. It was a dragon's soul, all that remained of its magic and power and great and terrible arrogance.

She could feel the cool lakeside evening breeze on her scales, and hear the soft whisper of leaves. She could hear these things because she was alive. She was alive. How had that happened, by either god she paid homage to? How was she still alive?

As it sank in, she felt like cheering or, maybe, just prancing around and moving and just being alive, wholly and thoroughly alive. But, she remembered as the smell of his blood reached her nose, she had a patient. She turned to him as he spoke, earfins perked up.

"Am I...?" she became aware of the bitter, slightly olive foam that still flowed from her mouth. "Oh! Um... No..." she said sheepishly, rubbing her snout with a paw, like a cat cleaning itself, and trying to wipe it off. "No, um. Its my... poison. Sorry..." she had no idea why she was apologizing for that - she hadn't gotten any of it in his wound. She was, though, embarrassed at the way it dripped down her face. It was a lack of control that could have hurt someone, and, she felt, she should have known better. But... she'd thought she was going to die, and she'd wanted... Well, she had no idea. Poison production was not conscious. "It just... comes up. It'll go away in a bit..." The poison would dissipate fairly quickly – that was the good thing about it. The bad thing was that when she milked it from herself she had to cook it up fast. She didn't like to do things fast – she always tripped over herself, physically and metaphorically, when she did things fast. Slow, steady, and methodical were her favorite methods. Her poison, though, was not.

She looked back at the remains of the dragon. "It's really dead..." she said, half question and half awed statement. She shook her head gently, some of the remaining venom-drool dripping to the side, though it was no longer overflowing. Magescans really were powerful she thought, still not sure if she believed that she was still alive, and not merely having some strange pre-death fever dream. I'm glad he's nice she said, looking back at the Oblivionite, much in the way a puppy looks at their parent – with a mixture of longing, respect and awe. Well, he was nice enough for Malta. She had never set the bar high on that count.

She assessed his wound. It did not look good, and she was of the opinion that blood should stay inside the body, where it did its life-supporting job – not outside in the air. He needed healing, at least a little bit of it. "Ummmm...” she said rubbing her snout again, trying to wipe away more of the venom so that it could not contaminate the wound should he allow her to touch it, "I can help with that... I can heal... I-I mean, I have healing magic..." He'd saved her life, she could save his too, or at least make him more comfortable. "I can make it just not-bleed if you want, too..." if he wanted it to scar... She supposed that was fine. People liked scars for some reason. She didn't. Other people were also big and strong and she wasn't going to argue with them. “I'm just... sorry I couldn't help more... um... before.”

Quick.
She did not like doing things quickly.

But she could do it. With her healing magic, she basically just shoved extra life into someone. She could finely control it and make it do what she wanted and direct it as she pleased, but the body did most of the work on its own. It knew - mostly - what it was doing, and could work on its own from energy she gave it. That was what living things did - they lived, and, given the means, they could handle themselves... unless they were her. The irony of her offer to heal was not lost on her.

"All right." she said bringing her nose to just barely touch the wound. She glanced up at him once, briefly, a bouken-like twitch of wariness. But she had decided to trust him and, calling up the vibrant sweet-feeling vine-like wisps of her magic, she closed her eyes.

She focused on the pulsing beat of the Oblivionite's life-force, that slightly-darkened rightness that was his blood, magic, and everything that held him together and kept him going. She could feel her own magic there, too, some of it still remaining in his body from her frantic magical pulse of before. She was almost irrationally pleased to see it there, still working, still doing good.

She concentrated on where it had collected - or, rather, where his body had chosen to collect it, amid the maze-like channels of his bloodstream and the brilliant flashes of his nervous system - She could sense it all through her magic, a picture sensed with magical whiskers. It had once been overwhelming – there was so much happening in a living form, and she sensed it all at once – but with practice, it had become clearer and strangely intuitive.

Life supported life, so if the body had collected her magic somewhere, it was using it for something. She sent more magic to those places, and followed it with her magical sense to see just what it was doing.

She was surprised to find that the Oblivionite's body had been beaten up a bit, with old, small injuries that his body was opportunistically repairing. In a way, though, she wasn't: he was clearly a warrior. Warriors, like her cousins, had lots of little damages that built up inside them but didn't effect them much at all. Not until they were elders, anyway, when all the little things suddenly came crashing down on them all at once. She had thought, though, that magescans would somehow be above all those little injuries, that their celestial origins would somehow confer a celestial body as well, or something like that.

It was almost comforting to see this evidence of the Oblivionite's mortality, if a bit frightening in a very different way than she was used to. If he was mortal, he could die, and she would be – yet again – alone and unprotected and... She decided not to think of that, and instead left the magic to its task, taking a moment to briefly scrub away the last, imdeding, sticky traces of the dragon's dark magic that she could find.

The, she turned her focus on closing the wound. That was easy: She just needed to focus on the healing that had already been done, and make what it was already doing go faster. That was growth in its simplest form. She opened her eyes and watched as the wound closed in front of her nose, growing together into glowingly healthy, vaguely pinkish (and purple) skin.

She moved her face away and looked up at him, her tail wiggling briefly. She loved healing - it always made her feel good inside, and, because of the residual magic, it made them feel good too. It was something she knew how to do, and it was something she felt comfortable doing, and maybe, he would say 'thank you' again. That would be very nice of him to do.

"Done." she chirped proudly, unable to keep her tail from wiggling again, "How do you feel?"

~~~

The Peisio dragon was feeling very good as it walked along the river. It had just visited its own child, now grown and with a beautiful laid clutch of its own, which meant that the already proud dragon was now positively glowing blue with pride. It was full, and it had hunted only the day before, so, with this conflux of events, it was as close to the peaceful nature of its element as any dragon could be as it headed back to its own lair and mate. She guarded their current clutch, and the dragon knew that she would be very pleased to hear of their hatchling's success.

It's good mood was broken when it caught the bold and pervasive scent of a Diabi dragon in the air.

It tensed.

The Dark Kin were never good news, horrible bullies that they were. The Peisio edged towards the river and the comfort of their element, looking about them warily for any sign of the Diabi.

They realized though, after a time, that the Diabi's scent was not growing stronger but weaker.

Yes.

Good.

Let them have moved on. The Peisio did not want to deal with a Diabi today. The Peisio wanted to have a nice evening on the lake with its mate, and, with Diabi in the area, it wanted to find her all the sooner.

It picked up its pace, trotting along beside the river towards the lake...

Detraeus watched with rapt attention as the khehora worked. Despite consenting to letting her get close — and despite her race, and a slew of various other factors that put him comparatively at ease in her presence — he still felt a stiff pinch of wariness at her touch, not born of fear or intimidation, but instinct drilled deeper than he cared to cut out. So, he kept his guard up. He kept his body rigid and alert, ready to withdraw at any instant even as she sent her magic into him, and his tail twitched behind him, shifting across the wet sand. All but immediately, his attention forked: split between the touch of her snout — don’t touch me, don’t touch me, never touch me — and the ripple of energy through his veins as her spellwork began to take effect. But despite the rise in his pulse, he held himself cooperatively still, waiting the process out.

The ordeal as a whole seemed to take agonizingly long, though in truth he predicted it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. For his efforts in holding his instincts at bay, however, he was rewarded: his leg felt better. Amazingly so, even. Enough that he expected he ought to be able to perform with it normally and, in addition, the rest of him felt invigorated, as though she had attended to more than just his leg and removed old aches and minor wounds still in the process of healing as she’d went along.

When she lifted her head, he moved back, putting space between them before standing and testing his weight against the previously deeply injured limb. After several steps and an experimental swing of his arms, he grunted, satisfied, and glanced to her. He blinked. Between the hopeful stare, poised posture, and hesitant tail wiggle, she radiated ‘eager-to-please’ from snout to tail tip, and Detraeus felt an abashed, confused warmth gather in his cheeks. Since when, in the course of his life, had anyone ever sought his approval for anything? He drew a blank, and shrugged as he rolled his shoulders.

‘Like I could kill something,’ came to mind, but he decided that might not sit well with her. So, instead, he said, “Better.” ‘Much better. And…’ Detraeus squinted, turning his attention back down the riverbank as bird sound in the forest — which had returned, briefly, after their last encounter — quieted again alongside the twitter and chirp of night creatures, all petering out to a lulled hush. He spotted the glint of moonlight on dragon scales seconds later. A peisio, judging by the size, bounding along the bank like an over-eager hound. Detraeus snorted and drew an arrow. ‘Just in time.’

With a beat of his wings, he was up and back, retreating to the forested shoreline. He paid little attention to the direction the khehora went. He anticipated that she was practiced enough at seeking shelter, regardless, and that he didn’t need to tell her to hide. She clearly wasn’t a fighter, and either or, he intended to have a single peisio dealt with without much incident. As soon as the beast slowed its trot, sniffing the area — aware, suddenly, that something was amiss and there was more than just wild things hiding amidst the brush — Detraeus strung his bow and fired.

The peisio gave a briefly panicked wail, and then a snarl, its magic coiling up around it and sending water crashing in serpent formation towards the direction of Detraeus’ attack, but he was already out of the woods, lifting again and darting out from between the trees. The encounter was brief, on the scale of such battles, Detraeus being practiced with peisios, and the dragon unprepared for his assault. After a matter of minutes, the dragon was disintegrating with a smattering of arrows to the throat and gathering into a pile of ash and a single glimmering soul.

Clean.

Dragon kills were always eerily clean, in Detraeus’ opinion, compared to all other manner of hunts. Magescians, beasts, khehora — all of them bled, left behind corpses to further the earth. But dragons, no — they were, apparently, too good for that degree of messiness. He re-holstered his bow, tucking away his next prepped arrow and moving towards the dragon’s remains, gathering up what good arrows of his were left behind before lifting the soul and glancing around for his ‘companion’ and healer.

One was hers, after all, since the most 'considerate' thing dragons ever seemed to do was leave behind a split portion of their energy, should more than one witness be present.