Thread: Bound [Sethron and Sigr]

The scent of rotting death and forbidden alchemy hit his nostrils before he saw them. The undead swathed the land in cries of distress, descending upon him and his partner. They were crushed under sword, beaten back by magic, but they were.. nothing. Their teeth could barely find purchase in his rough skin--when they did manage to surround him completely, cutting off his vision of his partner, even then, they were rent by claws like paper. They were nothing but distractions, the poisons they carried unable to enter his blood flow. But distractions, and good ones, they were. A scream drew Navies attention. A cry for his compliance as one of the corpses wrapped its dead arms about his torso in a gruesome hug, gnawing at his neck and pulling his sensitive hair until there were tears in his eyes. He beat it off with his tail, and as the last, he grasped it between violet talons and tore it apart, leaving himself a gruesome, dirty mess. Not soon enough to be of any assistance to Ezer, who, following a scream from their woman target, hit his knees, and then his face, upon the wet grass, their quarry escaping in smoke before Navie could finish his incantation. Not that her flight would have been hindered by it--Navie's concern had little to do with her, the spell leaving his fingers stitching up a small portion of the bite on Ezers neck. He did not wake up. Navie was over to him in a flash, but when he turned him over, with effort, it was clear the man was not battered to unconsciousness. The damage done was too little, his sleeping face contorted into a grimace that bespoke nightmares. Poison? A curse? The dragon had done many things in attempts to wake up his partner, but he did not come to. Hours and hours passed, then an unholy day. Ezer had not been a particularly friendly companion, but Navie felt wholly responsible, and he had come to like him, at least a bit, despite his quirks, he realised. He had tried, at first, to fix him in the heart of the swamp. He was not dead--the way he occasionally cried out in anguish said as much. Occasionally, he opened his eyes and Navie thought he was awakening, only to find him muttering incomprehensibly and his eyes blank before he fell back into whatever pitiful slumber was laid on him. She had escaped. The mission was not done. Navie could not go home, could not seek aid from someone more knowledgeable. He should have tracked her down, while she was weak, hounded her to assure her death. He could not bring himself to leave Ezers side. He decided, sometime in the late night, that the poisonous air of the swamp was not good for Ezer's recovery. With magic to enhance his strength, he had managed, with great difficulty, to move the warrior and his ungodly amount of equipment outside the swamp, although more than once he had ended up in the swamp water, falling, able only barely to hold Ezer above it each time. They reached the forest they had come from, dirty, messy, and with Navie exhausted. The dragon had cleaned Ezer of dirt and grime carefully, without invading privacy. By the time the other male was showing no signs of Navies close encounters with drowning, though, the dragon was too tired to stay awake any longer. He curled up next to the other, uncaring of his own state of mess, set a spell of alarm, draped his tail across Ezer to warn him of any interference with the male while he slept, and drifted off into a guilty and hopeless slumber.