Thread: WAR! Survivor00 & Confrazzled

Almost before she knew the young woman and her dragon tumbled down the craggy mountainface in a tangle of leather straps, tooth and talon, crimson-flashing scales, and broad, delicately tearing membranes. And something foreign, too, a cold and cruel metal box, pressing its angular edges into the dragon??s tough hide. The duo snowballed down the surface, tumbling over and over, uprooting trees and bracken as they went, twigs twining in the lady pilot??s inky locks and catching in the crooks of their elbows, and her dragon??s sharp-ridged scales. Rambling end-over-end. Lizreth Cirruswheeler clung tight to the dragon??s harness, obsidian eyes squinched protectively closed. Why did this feel so sickening? For the pilot who could wheel and dive in the most reckless, cloud-spinning manner, why could she fail to handle a few rolls over the rock? Because her dragon was threatened that??s why. Even if the young woman was protected in her sturdy pilot??s leathers and by the enfolding, enveloping membranes of her dragon??s spiny and tendrilous ruff, flat-pressed to hold her safe. They whathumped near the base of the mountain, in a bed of bracken and toppled trees, dragon??s tail trailing to coil around that strange buffering box. Lizreth crept out from beneath the wreckage, 5??8 frame uncoiling quickly if a little stiffly. Her forearm and left calf ached vaguely, but she didn??t really notice this yet, for Lizreth was too busy focussing on the stickly-slick trail congealings of burgundy-black blood. The metal tang cut to the quick of her, and she adeptly unstrapped herself from the harness. ??Evaleen, are you . . .? she fluttered, checking talons, chipped away scales, for lacerations and gashes slashing the tough hide, flashing maroon-burgundy in frightened pain. The dragoness groaned a sonorous sound that still rattled the nearby leaves and stones. She didn??t even bother to try to form thoughts in coherent human words, but her suppressed pain was apparent. The right wing was near to shredded, and yet the remains of the convoy??far too close. And then there was that crumpled ragdoll, half-protruding now from the metal box, and wholly unconscious. ??Evaleen, we cannot hang about here there is entirely too much risk . . .? A series of images flooded Lizreth??s mind, of wings spreading of open skies, followed by secluded caves, feelings of tight, near-claustrophobic enclosure. ??If you believe that would be best, but he . . .? Assent. ??But I need to dress your . . .? Overwhelming imperativeness, urgency. ??You can barely fly . . . stubborn Beastie.? Lisreth smiled through gritted teeth, using the teasing nickname and infusing some comfortable familiarity into the situation. So few words were needed between them, and Lizreth was already buzzing about, setting things as much to rights as she could, booted feet stepping surely and practicedly over the dragon??s back, sides, onto the ground and strapping the man to her belly, with a length of rope and leather strap. Snatched up a pack of his too, squared as everything out of Atlovia seemed to be, and strapped that to the opposite side, for balance. ??Do not force yourself too far . . .? she beseeched the dragoness, out loud, for her thoughts were too scattered to project coherently, elsewise. Her wings beat the air and Lizreth winced, her friend unable to shield her from the entirety of the sharp, pervading brain. With a wavering lurch the dragon launched into the air, correcting her flight pattern to favour the gape-holed wing. She couldn??t force herself very high her tailtip and even back talons kept skimming the trees on the downbeat of her wings, but even so she managed to careen through a narrow pass and halfways up a mountainside. By the time that the Atlovian awoke??securely rope-bound to a half-severed stump of a tree, its shucked evergreen boughs forming a bed in a nooked corner of the limestone cave??the cave had been prepared and made almost habitable. Almost, but not quite. Lizreth grunted, her lanky muscles straining to drag a few more brambles to disguise the entry to the cave. It was rather large, and they wouldn??t serve to do much, save to screen their darting activities, and perhaps serve as fuel for a later fire. Not yet, for such a thing would draw a swarm of the Atlovians quicker than scarce anything else that Lizreth could think of. Perhaps tonight, then. For now she would have to settle for boiling a little water on the doubly-palm-sized brazier, to sterilize enough water to clean her wounds before she wrapped them. A good rider always tended to her dragon first, surroundings second, and Lizreth today certainly had proved herself a decent rider, at the least. The only hitch had been the crash, and that . . . would complicate things tremendously. Evaleen, her shredded wing bound and gauzed, glowed a more sedate amber, but the distal scales still tinged pained-maroon. Even as her head lay upon a springy bed of fir boughs, she did not lift it, not turn to examine her beloved rider. She merely opened a lazy-lidded azure-marine eye and regarded the captive, for she seemed to sense some stirrings of life in him.