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It was disheartening to see the damage that had already been done to Ailmer's kitchen. Smoke hung low in the air, and scraps of bread and meat littered the counter top. At least one of Ailmer's keen blades was bent and halfway embedded the counter top. He didn't have the heart to count the others. The hearth was roaring, and Ailmer guessed that it was hot enough to melt steel. Considering that Reece was cooking, he wasn't too surprised.

The young man found an apron somewhere. He wore hip like his blacksmith's letters and it was already accumulating ash from the stove. With a grin on his face, Reece waved happily to the mage and his dragon with the sizzling pan. Several metal plates were arranged across the counter, and it Ailmer briefly wondered where he'd gotten the eggs he was scraping from the pan. "I found enough provisions that I decided to make enough for- Makith's flames!" Reece proclaimed.

Ailmer watched the smith reach into the oven and yank out a flaming boule of bread. He hurriedly blew on it to extinguish the flames, and dropped it on the counter to save his fingers. Beroan could not keep the grin off his muzzle, though his eyes turned back to Ailmer's aghast expression.

They watched, stunned, as Reese hacked apart the bread and tossed a chunk onto each plate. The crust was black, and the inside was cold. He grabbed a pair of plates and strutted over to set them down at the table, obviously offering them to the pair. "Ah, well, thanks?" Ailmer mumbled.

He picked up the plate, not bothering to sit down at the table. He was greeted by eggs with a bitter brown crust and meat that had adopted a charcoal-like exterior from soot. He grabbed a wooden spoon and poked at it, eventually settling on spreading the powdery yoke of the egg over the cool chunk of bread. "I appreciate the enthusiasm, but it's quite obvious why your wife had you cooking iron rather than eggs."

"You will will be less grumpy once there is some food and you." Reece said.

On dissuaded by the relatively inexpert cooking, Beroan immediately shifted onto his hind legs to drive his muzzle into his plate. He greedily devoured the meal well Ailmer was marveling that the alien consistency of the eggs. By the time than Ailmer had started to have trouble finding the courage to attack his meal, Beroan was already clattering the plate against the tabletop as he fought to lick every scrap often. Reece chuckled, walking over to plop another serving in front of the Dragon. "See, the Drake likes it just fine."

Ailmer couldn't help but Ailmer shook his head, though the corners of his mouth turned up. He stood up, leaving the rest of his meal to the ever-hungry Drake, as he stepped over to the counter to pull a bag of speckled gray-black beans from one of the cabinets. He threw a handful into a small mortar and pestle and began to pound them out. Reece looked on with widened eyes looking up from the next round of bread he was butchering. "Where'd you get kuvo?" Reece asked.

"Pay attention to your knife, Reece. They came through with Fredril a few seasons ago, and I picked up a bag-"

He was interrupted by Beroan's snout, which pushed right onto the counter to snuffle at the mortar. His tail flicked quickly behind him and Ailmer had to pause his motions to keep from catching the dragon's tongue in the mortar. "Get your snout out of there. Here." Ailmer said.

His fingers wrapped around a pinch of the beans and he lifted them above and behind Beroan's muzzle. In a very undignified motion, he craned his neck back and crouched down, compressing his form enough to let Ailmer drop the beans into his open mouth.

His muzzle snapped shut immediately. They could both hear the crunches as his powerful teeth bit down on the beans. His eyes stopped short of rolling back in his head and he flopped to the side, sprawling out in the middle of the kitchen. His tail thumped against the ground as he chewed and his low purr overpowered the crackling hearth.

At least, the dragon's lazy position in the middle of things granted Ailmer enough space to dump the ground Kuva in a small pot. He poured a measure of water in from a bucket beside the hearth and set it on the stones to heat. Reece was still staring at the dragon with amusement on his face, enough to ignore the searing bread in the hearth. "I don't remember it having such an effect on people." Reece commented.

Beroan contented himself with rolling from side to side as he chewed. Ailmer chuckled, carefully tapping the singing bread to a cooler spot in the oven. "No, the effects are notably stronger for dragons. Well, some of them. Kuva is a magical plant, and it has a whole set of effects that, well, affect those that are attuned to their threads." Ailmer explained.

Reece nodded slowly. "So…Should we be worried?" He asked.

Beroan's limbs flumped from side to side as he flopped back and forth. His tail wagged haphazardly and smoke curled from his snout with each pant. His digits pawed idly at the air, and he reached towards the fire and the lanterns each time he rolled over. Ailmer chuckled and shook his head. "It's a bit more of an effect than I expected. He'll be fine."

Reece suddenly glanced back behind him as he suddenly remembered that he was cooking. Surprised that nothing was on fire, his shoulders relaxed. "So you killed that…thing. We were starting to learn how to handle the little ones, but-"

"Brute. They're called brutes." Ailmer said.

Reece was taken aback by the tone of Ailmer's voice. Ailmer, it seemed, was just as surprised. "Sorry. It's…"

"Sure, brutes." Reece shrugged.

"Yeah, I saw the one outside of the inn. He didn't even appreciate the apples." Ailmer said.

Reece sighed and nodded. "I spent half a week helping Jacob pick that batch. They were really good, too. Soaked my shirt with juice in the orchard."

They both fell silent for a moment. Metal scraped against the hearth as Ailmer pulled the boiling pot back from the hearth, leaving only the cracking of the wood in the hearth to fill their conversation. Reece looked back at the embers in the flames. "It burnt, you know."

"Saw it while we were flying in."

Silent again, Ailmer waited for the ground kuva to settle to the bottom of the pot. He couldn't see the grains through the opaque orange-brown tincture. He carefully raised the small pot to pour it into a mug and gestured it at Reece to offer a measure to him. Reece shook his head, sitting back against the counter as he stared at his feet. Ailmer poured another measure into a bowl and set down the pot. He turned to lift the bowl up above his his head, as if he was expecting to have to keep it away from something. "Mar-" He started, before the world melted back into place around him.

He frowned, and his hands slumped down. He nearly spilled the kuva as he joined Reece in a slump against the counter. "Hot as I can make it, damn flametongue." He mumbled, doing little more than mouthing the words. "What?" Reece asked.

Ailmer shook his head. Beroan was still lazily settled on the floor, and wasn't making any move to change position. He turned and slid the bowl back onto the counter, picking up his mug. He let the hot liquid steam his nose as he raised it to his lips, blowing across the surface of the scalding brew. His eyes closed as he remembered a time long ago, crushing kuva with smooth rocks and boiling it over the campfire. He'd only been able to keep the blue-scaled dragon from drinking it off the fire by promising that it'd sate the firebreather's tongue. "But the brutes?" Ailmer said.

"We were just learning how to handle them. Without traps, I don't know what we would do. None of us can throw fire or leap like that. We were sure we were all gonna die in that line." Reece said.

"They're intimidating. They're slower than the spiders, but much stronger. You can't meet them head on with a shield or a weapon. If you watch for their attacks, they're fairly easy to duck or dodge. Hopefully you won't have to worry about facing another one." Ailmer said.

"There's already been three. There's gonna be more." Reece said.

"We will scout today. They leave heavy trails and so it's fairly easy to track them. I doubt there's more within a day or two, and there should be a patrol arriving soon behind us." Ailmer said.

"Even with the Army, we'll still have to fight more of them." Reece said.

"You don't plan on staying?" Ailmer asked.

Reece nodded. Ailmer winced and looked down into the swirling kuva. He didn't reply immediately, instead lifting the mug to his lips. The brew was cloying and sweet, but left his tongue with a deep bitterness after he swallowed. He felt his body relax and he reached out to touch his threads.

He felt power throb through his fingers. It was feeble power, but it brought back to him a relaxation of struggle, like the feeling of an infirm chest breathing again without struggle. Carefully, Ailmer pulled at his magic. He felt it shift and move, but it still felt like shifting a trickle of water with his cupped palms.

It would be a lot to a novice, but the sting of his unseen loss made the small flow seem even more insignificant. Once, he could reach out and feel the thrum of the world. He could feel the vibrations along his thread that rumbled with every motion in the world. He could hear the chorus of huge events and the echos of the creatures around him in the back of his head.

Now, it was little more than a trembling rumble. With the Kuva, he found it hiss in the back of his mind even as he released his conscious grip of his threads. It hummed the way that the tune of the world had, and it was comforting.

Ailmer took another slow sip of the brew, turning his attention back to Reese. "What holds you to this town, then?"

"The forge is heavy." Reese answered, without hesitation.

Ailmer raised an eyebrow and paused, waiting for Reese to explain further. As eagerly as he had answered, it seemed his motivation ran dry quickly. "Surely, that's not all." He said.

Reese looked away and shrugged.

"Your skills have much more value, and, if there's a war flooding over the mountains, skilled blacksmiths like you will find no shortage of coin far from the frontlines." Ailmer said.

Reese nodded.

"Your family will want you alive, Reese. These things are dangerous. They've cut their way through armies, and I watched them do it."

Reese looked off to the side and nodded again.

"Makith's fires will leave your forge cold if you keep lying like this." Ailmer said.

Reese suddenly straightened. After a moment, he sighed and let his head droop, staring at the floor. "I promised Seb." He admitted.

"What did…" Ailmer started.

They both fell silent.

"I can't just leave him, Ailmer. He helped us get settled; he helped us set up that forge. Without him, we wouldn't have had a life in this town, not our lives. I wouldn't have had Holly. And now, he doesn't even have his family." Reece said.

"Did he make you promise?" Ailmer asked.

Reese looked away again.

"I'll talk with him, Reece. It's noble, it really is. I'd give anything to have a friend like that, but you'll do much more good at a forge than behind a mace." Ailmer said.

A frown split Reece's face into an alien visage. Ailmer realized he hadn't often seen the expression cross the lank blacksmith's lips. "You'll do a great amount more building powerful weapons and putting that mind of yours to use designing new contraptions to help Sebastian. I'm sure you'll have a lot more luck with metal than with apple crates." Ailmer continued.

"How'd you know I built the trap?" Reese asked.

"You're very creative with your materials. You're wearing my decorative torch as a weapon." Ailmer said.

"I saw you fight with it before." Reece said.

"You've already modified it." Ailmer countered.

Reece chuckled, the edges of his mouth turning up at the corners.

"I'll talk with him, Reece. Holly needs you, and Sebastian and the army will hold down the fort. We need you to put weapons in our hands, Reece, not bashing in spiders." Ailmer said.

Reece took a deep breath and nodded. When he released it, he seemed to deflate entirely, leaving his head hanging and his shoulders slumped. He seemed to shed the tension he'd been carrying all at once, and wholly enough that Ailmer was prepare to rush over to catch him if he started to collapse.

"Fine. I thought I was doing the right thing, helping out Seb. After all he did for us, I didn't think I could…" Reece said.

"He'll understand, Reece. I know he will. And if you do end up making the tools that help us fight these creatures off, isn't that almost the same promise?" Ailmer said, "He'll see it that way, I'm sure."

Reece's smiled turned up a bit more. "I'll talk with him too, I guess. There's still time for me to catch up with my family."

"As long as Holly is as particular about camping as she always was." Ailmer said.

Reece snorted, his face creased with a grin.

***

"Kith's fires kiss that kid." Ailmer mumbled.

The breath driving his words was mostly stolen by his exertion. He stumbled, both hands fighting to hold up the straps of a set of cracked leather pouches, both weighed down heavily with charting supplies, quick weaponry, and enough food to keep Beroan satiated. The drake craned his head back, watching Ailmer struggle with the large pouches, awkwardly linked by leather straps slightly too long for the human's form.

Beroan's form hardly shifted as Ailmer bodily threw another heavy set of pouches over his shoulder. He had to put his full body underneath the leather in order to push it up over the dragon's side. "Do you need some help, Ail?" Beroan asked.

"Dammit, I almost have it. 'S fine, no, just hold still.." Ailmer grunted.

"Perhaps you should sneak another few mouthfuls of spicemeat from the pack, Longtail. It would save him the trouble of lifting it." Cymris said.

Beroan stuck his tongue out at the dragoness. She glanced at her own rider, though Kerian had nothing to add, at least verbally, beside a few grunts as he struggle with her saddlebags. She smirked as if she'd heard the comment that ran through Kerian's mind. "Yes, legends struggle just as well as you, Firebrand." She replied.

Ailmer grunted and rolled his eyes. His boot dug a track in the dirt as he nearly slipped, but he managed to toss the bag across Beroan's back. The dragon curled his tail until the tip brushed his spine to make sure that the bags didn't slide back too far. He made a show of swaying his hips in front of the mage as he did. Ailmer shook his head, though a slight smile curved up the edge of his mouth. "I still think it's a good path, Ail." Beroan rumbled.

Ailmer chuckled and nodded, reaching up to buckle the saddlebags to the rest of the harness. "It had better be, as often as your mind travels it." He replied.

Kerian fumbled with his bags, but in a heroic show, he managed to toss them over Cymris's hips. Without looking, the dragon had crouched down to receive them, and her legs flexed to bring her back up to the exact spot that Kerian needed to buckle the bags to her harness.

It was the little things that he missed, Ailmer decided. Though his magic ached with his power's absence, it was the trust, the compassion, that left the biggest void inside of him. The feeling of knowing the other creature's needs before they did and of having that returned was something that he sorely missed. He saw it in the bound pair, in the imperceptible shifts of stance and motion that made their actions just a little easier with respect to each other. He watched their expressions shift with intimate thoughts that crossed the border of their minds. They were almost invisible changes, unless one knew exactly what to look for.

They acted like they had known each other all their lives, and were closer than twins. Ailmer closed his eyes and he thought back to Marlin, just for a moment. He remembered the scenes; all from his perspective, and all missing something dreadfully important. It was a void so complete that he could only remember that there had been something else there.

It was as if he came to a cliff in his thoughts that was the regular wall of a creature's thought. It was a barrier that had no agency to stop him. To all, and even to Ailmer now, the edge of memory seemed as if it were such an implicit truth of the universe that it was fundamental that nothing was past it.

But, he remembered possessing the ability to reach through and peer over the edge. He recalled that there was once a whole world past the edge, a whole other mind, as integral to his own as any memory he cared to recall. However, now, his probing thoughts reached only into a formless void, so complete in its annihilation that it seemed as if he'd simply forgotten his right arm.

Ailmer took a slow breath, drawing himself back and slowly coming back to his mind. His hands rested on Beroan's flank, and he counted the dragon's breaths, timing his own to them. It took conscious effort, unlike how he remembered it, but it was comforting.

He started as a hand gripped his shoulder. He spun and recognized Sebastian. "Apologies, I meant to find you earlier, but I actually walked past you in that armor three times." Sebastian admitted.

Ailmer's anxiety turned into a chuckle and he nodded. His own eyes fell back on Sebastian's own cracked leather armor, and the faded Galastan standard dyed into it. Sebastian had been wearing it the whole time during their long talk after the fight, but it still looked alien across his chest. He took a glance down himself, and found that he felt the same way about his own clothes. "I hardly recognize you in a soldier's garb, too." Ailmer said.

"I hate it, Ailmer. I wish there was no reason for it, but I guess the gods decided to drag me back into it." Sebasian rumbled.

"You too?" Ailmer said.

Sebastian held back his chuckle for a few moments, just long enough for both of them to start laughing in time. Beroan raised an eye ridge, turning so that he could dart his head under Ailmer in case he collapsed, but after a few long moments, the pair slowly calmed to chuckles. "Some times we're fated, Ailmer. You always seemed like you were past it, I think, that you'd already burned through the fate and done your destiny. I was hoping I was past mine, that I could have a quiet life, too."

"I thought so too. I'm hardly old, but I've had my fill of duty. Sometimes, though, our threads just keep thrumming with fate." Ailmer said.

Sebastian nodded slowly, and Ailmer could see him fighting to keep pain off his face and to keep enjoying the relief of the laugh for a little longer. "I wish life wouldn't pull so damn hard, though, old friend."

Ailmer sighed and nodded. "I'm sorry."

"I know the stories, Ailmer. If anyone knew what it was like, I suppose it would have been you." Sebastian said.

"That doesn't make it any easier, Seb. Reece took it hard, too. You're important to him; you're important to everyone in this town."

"What few are left."

"There are many, but they are simply traveling." Ailmer said.

Sebastian closed his eyes and dropped his head. His hands came together and he squeezed his fingers. Ailmer watched his lips move in a soundless prayer. He let the silence hang in the air, for as long as Sebastian would tolerate it. Even the dragons halted their shifting and squirming.

"So you saw?" Sebastian said.

"There are no words that can express my grief, nor yours." Ailmer replied.

Sebastian took a deep breath through his nose. He lifted his head, his eyes still closed and his hands fell back to his sides. He searched for the emotions, for the words, and simply reacted. "I'm going to kill them all, Ailmer. I don't care if I have to go back to the Army's silver, I am going to kill them until I die." Sebastian said.

"It won't bring Mossly back," Ailmer said, and Sebastian's eyes shot up with fire burning behind them and his teeth bared, "but there are many more to save. Your passion will make you a legend with them, and when you meet in front of Halin."

Passion still burnt in Sebastian's eyes, but his gaze turned back to the mountains, to where the monsters had surged. He took a deep breath and nodded, looking back to Ailmer. He had turned away, and reached up to grab the strap of Beroan's saddle. Sebastian's fists closed on the back of Ailmer's shoulders yanking him back around to face him.

"You come back, old friend. I lost my trade, I lost my town, I lost my way. But you, you give them hell and you come back, you hear?" Sebastian roared.

Ailmer's hand came up to clasp across Sebastian's. He gripped it and shook, nodding. "You send Reece off, you keep the rest of us safe. I'll come back, and we'll bring the fires of Makith's forge sweeping across these monsters."

***

Ailmer had too long to think on Beroan's back. There had been times that he had dearly missed having someone there to talk at any time, and even pressed against Beroan's back he felt painfully lonely. The feeling only heightened as he looked over to watch the gestures that accompanied the incorporeal words that transferred between the bound pair.

He found himself studying the forest after only a few moments. He busied himself trying to keep to a mission, and to think about anything else but the memories that Sebastian's anger had brought up. He remembered thinking like that, he remembered charging into a slaughter. He remembered spilling the caustic blood of armies of the monsters, but he couldn't remember the moment his rage had helped him.

He had to thought about it a lot, and he wasn't sure that such a moment ever existed.

More thinking wasn't going to help, however. He took a deep breath of the chilled, thin air and tried to sober himself. When that didn't help, he bent further forward in pressed tighter against Beroan's strong back.

He could feel muscles pumping under Beroan's finely-scaled skin. Thick sinew shifted under his fingers and elbows with each pump of the Dragon's wings. With the exertion, he could even feel the subtle beat of the huge creature's powerful hearts echoing just underneath his skin.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He tried to remember how it was, how it had been with Marlin. As Beroan shifted to bank, he forced Ailmer to cling more tightly to his back. As more of the remembered feelings came back to him, Ailmer realized that it wasn't how he had been, but how he was now.

Ailmer's eyes opened again. He looked over to see why Beroan had turned, and realized that Kerian had taken the lead. The dragon rider was pointing and gesturing down at the ground beneath them. His eyes followed the line, spotting a clearing on top of a ridge. As he peered out over the forest, he could spot the entrance to the mountain pass, and the burning wreckage of what was certainly Halix.

He followed as Kerian drifted in a spiral, peering over the side of his dragoness. Ailmer tried to follow his view, but they were still too high for him to distinguish any detail besides the road, the town, the forest, and the gaping mountain pass that led across the border. He shifted on Beroan, pressing with a heel as he pulled one side of the dragon's saddle, goading him to spread the spiral and descend faster.

Cymris followed his lead, dropping in behind them. Kerian looked over at Ailmer, slightly confused, but he leaned in against Cymris's back, letting the dragon fall behind Beroan. Ailmer shifted in, settling in against Beroan's back as he steadied his heels, pointing out a clearing on one of the ridges that overlooked the pass.

Their target obvious, his drake was determined to have some fun on this flight. Ailmer felt Beroan's back tense and a sudden whoosh of wind rush across his sides. Air moved unnaturally across his sides, catching the sail of Beroan's wings. Ailmer flexed his thighs and arms as hard as he could as they suddenly leapt nearly a hundred feet into the sky while he banked as hard as he could. His teeth gritted together as he focused on controlling his body.

He could feel himself shifting and the green of the forest and the blue of the sky melted away into colorless gray. His focus followed a straight line in front of the dragon, the edges of the sky and the forest disappearing from his thought. His eyes locked onto the ridge as they plummeted towards it. Ailmer forced his whole torso to flex, sucking in another breath from the cold, thin air, managing to fight off the encroaching blackness for another moment. The saddle's straps bit into his arms hard enough to make the tips of fingers tingle. His legs flexed harder and he sipped another breath. His lungs burnt and his knees dug into Beroan's side.

The dragon settled out, diving straight towards the cliff. Icy wind whipped Ailmer's face, but the world recovered in his peripheries. The color of the pines began to fade back in as they darted towards the cliff side. A manic grin creased Ailmer's face as he let his legs slowly relax as the forest shot towards them like a sea of arrows. The sense of speed made his heart race and the world, even now that he could see it, melted away in a different way for a few moments.

His hips pressed into the saddle as Beroan banked up again, flaring his wings out beside Ailmer. He forced his palms down into the dragon's shoulders. His back strained to keep his head up as they dumped all the speed that their rapid descent had gained.

Beroan thudded against the cliffside, their momentum carrying them forward a foot as he crouched down. Ailmer's fingers tightened around the saddle as the force pushing him down suddenly threatened to buck him off, but he held tight as Beroan settled against the ground.

A deep breath filled his lungs, but he couldn't keep himself sitting on the dragon's back. He tossed his leg over the drake's back and suffered the long fall with a jarring impact to his suddenly-aching legs. Beroan turned his head back, matching Ailmer's wide grin. Ailmer slapped the dragon's foreleg, shaking his head with his teeth still showing. "It's almost like you try to throw me off!" He joked.

Beroan's jaw suddenly dropped, and worry filled his eyes. "I didn't, I mean, it just looked like so much fun I couldn't-" He stuttered.

The drake was interrupted by an uncommonly sloppy landing from the other dragon. Cymris barely managed to keep her chin from kissing the dirt and she stumbled forward several steps before she stopped. Kerian didn't even manage to make it that far; he leapt from the dragoness's back before she skidded to a stop. He made it three shaky steps away from the edge of the clearing before he fell to his hands and knees.

The other three looked away as the sounds of the young fighter emptying his guts hit them. Cymris was looking nearly as green as Beroan. Her ear fins were drooped and her eyes were closed, and she was focused on taking slower breaths through her open mouth with her tongue draped out of her muzzle. Beroan couldn't stop himself from giggling, though he had at least enough tact to turn his head away from the other dragon. Cymris wasn't too ill to give him a warning growl. "That was hard to keep up with." She managed to growl, before another hissed heave from her rider made the dragoness's abdomen tighten and her eyes squeeze shut.

"You two kept up?" Ailmer teased.

He was rewarded with a growl from Cymris, and Beroan was barely able to keep back a chuckle. Cymris smoldered and Ailmer could easily imagine the condensation on her wings wisping off as angry steam. However, Kerian made another heaving noise and Cymris screwed up her face like she was holding back bile. Distracted from her anger, she rushed over to Kerian's side.

Ailmer rapped his knuckles against Beroan's flank to turn the drake's attention to him. They turned, leaving the other pair some measure of privacy. It also, tactfully, prevented either of them sneaking a peek at Ailmer's grin. He led the way, teasing the curious drake along with a clenched fist.

He made sure that the drake noticed him coddling his fist in front of him. He waited until Beroan was trying to keep up as tightly as he could and wrap his nose around him before he held it away from the dragon. Beroan quickly swung to the other side, then back, as Ailmer shifted his fist to either side. After a few moments, the dragon quickly lost patience. Every time the dragon's nose bumped his fist, he jerked it to the other side.

Once they were close enough to the cliffside, Ailmer finally opened his hand to Beroan's snout. The dragon sniffed intently at his fingers, shoving his nose into Ailmer's palm. After pressing his whole head past the Ailmer's side, huffing hot air between his fingers as he snuffled, he realized there was nothing in his hand. Ailmer turned his head slightly, pretending not to notice the expression on the drake's face.

Beroan swaggered forward, his head snapping up high and the corner of his muzzle turned down in to a prim frown. He made a show of readjusting his wings before he sat down beside Ailmer, looking out over the cliffside as if it had been his intent all along. He looked almost regal with his chin slightly inclined and both forepaws placed close together in front of him. The tip of his tail swished from side to side behind him, while the rest of his form was as still as a gargoyle in the day's light. "What did you think I had?" Ailmer asked.

"I unno. Food?" Beroan offered.

The drake shrugged slightly, and Ailmer chuckled. He supposed he might as well have asked a stone about its lineage. The dragon's curious nature was as natural to Beroan as the hypothetical stone's history was to it; it was simply there. However, that nature had quickly discarded the dragon's embarrassment and he was engrossed at peering from the cliff towards the blackened town, now mostly hidden by the trees. "Does it look much different from the time that you flew out when we were still in Mossly?" Ailmer asked.

Beroan bent forward, and it took him a few seconds of careful observation before he replied. "Well, it's not on fire anymore." He said, nodding sagely.

He nodded, and Ailmer appreciated the dragon's humor, but he was too busy trying to make out shapes in the forest. The town's roofs peeked through the treetops like charred boulders and deepened the shadows between the trunks where the forest thinned, closer to the pass and along the worn road. He was looking for the gaudy blue inn, right where the crossroads split off just outside of town, but he could only pick out the still shadows of charred wood. He let a low sigh drift out of his lips, and Beroan tipped his head to the side to look at Ailmer.

The sound of footsteps behind them made Beroan turn, but Ailmer decided that showing his frown might be too discouraging. He heard them stop behind him, and it left only the wind and scattered birdsong rustling through the silence. Finally, Kerian spoke up. "Why're we stopping here?" He mumbled, his voice still heavy with flightsickness.

"It's got the best view of the town. I figured we ought to plan out our approach, since it will be difficult to communicate until we're on the ground there." Ailmer said.

He took another deep breath, forcing his frown back up into as neutral of an expression as he could manage. With his lips pressed firmly together and the way that Cymris recoiled slightly when he turned around, Ailmer supposed he hadn't succeeded.

They nodded, but there was something hanging over the group. Where Ailmer was expecting tactical chatter from the others, he received only silence. He supposed he hadn't given them any direction. Figuring out what was important to report on was one of the many skills that was so foundational that Ailmer assumed that it was simply a given.

He sighed, realizing that his distractions had kept him from being an effective teacher. He was also getting into situations where the outcome of his distractions would not be confusion, but he could very well get himself killed. Ailmer closed his eyes as realization weighed down on the back of his neck.

It wouldn't just be him. He was responsible for Beroan and the young scouts, and the threads were telling him that he would be, again, the one in front of the tides of gem monsters. He took a deep breath.

In front of this burnt town on a windswept cliff, in front of a trio of creatures who's blood ran with magic, Ailmer made a decision that only he could make.

He turned around, looking over the other scouts.

"Alright, we're looking for any evidence of Ikthil still in the town or in the surrounding area. On the fly-in, we'll look for farms and see if there's any livestock still visible on their land or as much of the forest around them and see if they're alive or recently killed and see if we can figure out how big some of these things are. Then we'll head into the town from the west side..." Ailmer began.

He kept talking for several more minutes, spelling out the plan and various contingencies and tips. By the time he was finished, the others were standing a bit taller and more confidently. Cymris, especially, looked more comfortable by the time he finished.

Another wind brushed across the clifftop after he finished, and he turned to look back over the town. The others stepped up beside him, peering out over the ridge. As Cymris's sharp eyes traced over the forest, Beroan sat down and shifted his weight, leaning his neck and shoulder against Ailmer. Ailmer smiled, taking a deep breath as he leaned back against the dragon.

"You know a lot about this, Ail." Beroan said.

"It was my life for almost twenty years." Ailmer replied.

"Wait, if you were drafted at the start of the gem wars..." Keiran said, suddenly jarred from his observations.

"I wasn't. I was drafted when I was sixteen, four years before the gem wars. We were going to have a war against Astal, then the Ikthil started to pour up from the mazelands." Ailmer said.

"You're fifty?" You don't look a day over thirty." Kerian protested.

"Forty-three. I was bound to a dragon for seventeen of those years."

"Still..." Kerian said.

"You know that Hal is nearly ninety? He's been bound to Kihil for seventy-some years." Ailmer said.

"The headmaster? He's hardly gray." Kerian answered.

"Dragons have incredible longevity. Their clans claim that dragons live into their two hundreds, or longer if they're larger." Ailmer said.

"So the bound humans..." Kerian trailed off.

"Mhm." Ailmer replied.

"No wonder the nobles bring their kin to the festival every year." Kerian mused.

Ailmer chuckled, looking back to Kerian. Beroan asked the question for him. "That only happens once a year, right? How many times have you been to the festival?"

"A few times?" Kerian claimed, his voice trailing up..

Cymris puffed a huff of smoke into the air, turning towards them with a grin. "He distinctly remembers six times. He's been fascinated with dragons since before I carried my stone up the mountain." She replied.

Kerian blushed and turned back to look back over the forest. Ailmer chuckled and shook his head. "Well, now you belong to one. I'm sure your fascination is just starting."

"I'm sure she keeps his paws full." Beroan said.

The comment teased another draconic chortle out of Cymris. Her thoughts were apparent in Kerian's deepening blush, and he quickly shook his head. Ailmer smiled, reaching over to scratch along Beroan's neck.

"There's a farm out to the south of the town. It looks like it survived the battle." Kerian said.

Cymris bumped the younger rider with her snout, forcing him to stumble back. "Trying to change the subject already? We've hardly started." She rumbled.

Ailmer glanced at Beroan and started to laugh. "She's got a one trail mind, too. The young rider is right, though. We'll want to do this while we the light is good; you'll have plenty of time to occupy his fascination when you bring him safely back to Mossly."

Cymris growled, crouching her head down as she nuzzled across Kerian's front. He looked up at Ailmer, pleadingly. Ailmer simply shook his head and patted Beroan's flank to get the drake to stand back up so he could mount his saddle. "Mount up, Kerian. We'll visit that farm first. You lead, and be careful to chose where you set down."

***

They made several slow passes over the large clearing that the farm had dug out in the forest. As they'd gotten closer, it was apparent that it hadn't made it out of the razing of Halix unscathed, but the structures still stood. The fence had been crushed through in a few places, and the main house was heavily damaged. The last of the fall's harvest was trampled in the fields and Ailmer could see a few cows in the field.

They didn't see any movement, however. Ailmer tugged on Beroan's reins and guided him back to form close behind the other dragon. Cymris waited until they were in an instinctual formation before dipping down, landing in the center of the farm's yard, far from the edges of the forest surrounding the cleared land. A scattered swarm of flies buzzed off as they landed.

Kerian waited for Ailmer to dismount, but Ailmer stayed poised on his saddle for a few long moments. His eyes trailed around the edge of the clearing, settling on dirt churned with loam and tree's broken stems. There were several new paths through the forest spelled out by nearly uprooted trees. He spotted several trunks, their green trunks split open and cracked like they'd been hit by cold lightning. Thick scars, several inches deep on the trunks pushed aside told the story of the carapace that had crushed through the forest.

The dragons shuffled underneath their riders. The soft dirt underneath them, loosened from the plow and the heavy tracks of the Ikthil that had passed through the clearing, made their footing unsteady. Each time they stepped, the soft dirt underneath shifted. It made Beroan's back a slow flow of slight movements, and it took some of Ailmer's concentration to keep himself steady in the saddle.

Besides the scouts and the ever-present rustle of leaves, nothing moved in the clearing. Ailmer wave his hand, palm down, at Kerian. He nodded, and their boots hit the field at the same time. Ailmer reached up to draw out Mizkithar, and Kerian followed suit with his sword.

They moved away from the dragons, striding across the loose land. The dirt was dry, and thankfully, had kept the fallen plants from turning to rot. It did nothing to stop the smell of the dead cows, however. Ailmer sighed--he'd best deal with that first.

He waved, calling Kerian over with him. He walked out to the corpses in the field, and frowned at the smell of old offal. Kerian winced and paused at the edge of the field, letting Ailmer go ahead. He looked back and Kerian shrugged, looking away.

Ailmer looked at the body of the creature for as long as he needed to. Gnawed and cracked bones, but most of the flesh was still there. Big claws, or big maws, had done the damage, but not to feed. He frowned, and retreated.

Kerian was still looking the other way, and he was glad to walk back towards the dragons. Their silence still hung in the air; even the dragons were quiet. Beroan glanced back to him, head lowered. He wore the barest snarl, his lips only showing a thin line of teeth. The hair on the back of Ailmer's neck tingled against the collar of his gambeson. "Take Cym. Check the biggest path they crushed into the forest; see if you can compare the scars on the trees to something you can measure. See if we can puzzle out how big they are." He ordered.

Kerian nodded and turned to head towards the forest, keeping his blade raised in front of him. Cym followed, her lowered form slinking along the ground. They eyed over the shadows of the forest in front of them as if there were creatures ready to leap out at them. Ailmer watched them for a moment, trying to shed his own dread.

This was just a routine mission, and he'd done investigations like this countless times before. He hadn't done them in quite the same way, however. He missed Marlin's advice running through the back of his head; he felt half-blind. Running through these rusty motions felt like he was stumbling where he used to run.

He sighed and shook his head. Beroan stepped up beside him, following his pace as he walked towards the farmhouse. The windows were boarded, but the front door was laying in the ruins of an ineffective barricade.

The split log porch creaked against rusty nails as he stepped towards the doorway. He slowed down, choosing his steps carefully as he approached the door. Thick gashes on the frame of the door, though smaller than the ones left on the pines, started the story. The thick door, crushed in half and dented by several strikes, finished it.

Beroan stepped up beside him, looking at the rubble clogging the doorway. He wouldn't be able to squeeze in, at least not expediently or quietly. Ailmer waved him back. The motion made the dragon bristle, but he stayed in place.

It was up to him, then. He poked his head inside, and watched dust motes filter through the air; disturbed by his presence. When nothing else moved, he carefully picked his way around the crushed door and entered the structure.

The first room looked to be the original structure. Furniture was strewn about, and a simple tome lay shredded across the floor. The only thing seemingly untouched was a table in the corner of the room, holding candles, a jar of wilting flowers, and a few handfuls of wild herbs surrounding an antler propped against the wall.

Ailmer wasn't surprised to see an altar to Hadilla in a farmer's home. If he was more religious, he would have ascribed its soundness to divine intervention. However, he was certain that the only reason that it had escaped damage was because it was tucked into the far corner of the room.

He took a moment to pause and listen. The house was still, though several small creaks and groans interrupted the dead silence. The rancid stink of death that he'd expected to encounter was absent. He was thankful, but puzzled--if the owners had gotten out in time, he was not sure why Ikthil would have smashed in.

His grip tightened around the haft of his weapon, and he choked up on it in case he needed to make closer swings. It wouldn't do to get it jammed in the ceiling when he needed to cleave down. He slowly stepped through, passing through the kitchen.

The larder was open and it looked like they'd taken supplies. Dried meat and other hardier foods were missing, but there were several large cuts of beef still coated in tallow sitting on thick shelves. The rest of the kitchen was in a similar state of disrepair to the front room. The walls were marked with a multitude of thick scars, and the earthen stove was half crushed across the floor. He carefully picked his way across it, towards the doorway on the other side.

He froze as soon as he stepped inside. This was a newer addition to the house, and it had been built to house a single, much larger room than the front living space. Inside of it were three standing figures, each one several feet taller than Ailmer. Their craggy carapaces were dull in the dim light that filtered through the boarded windows.

Their forms slowly rose and fell with long, shallow breaths. Ailmer tried to silence his heart, fearing that the loud thudding from his chest would wake the brutes. He was suddenly aware of the rustle of the wind, the natural creaks of the structure below him, and the clatter of branches in the wind outside. He was certain that the sound of his fingers squeezing the haft of his [poleax] would be enough to wake the creatures.

They swayed gently, and the echos of the light that touched them refracted over the walls of the room. What light touched them highlighted sickly colors. Mottled brown and spotty green seemed to be taking over some parts of them, and their more brilliantly hued spikes were highlighted with veins of red and black. Their thick arms laid slack, each one ending in a jagged crystal spike.

Ailmer turned, but his heel caught a chunk of earth from the oven and he stumbled, one foot coming down in a hard stomp.

He heard a shift and a hissed breath from behind him and he knew he was caught. Ailmer didn't look back, sprinting back through the kitchen, a sharp roar echoing behind him.

Even before he made it through the kitchen, the threshold behind him splintered. The brute plowed right through the frame with all the weight he could bear, and it hardly slowed him down. Ailmer ran as hard as he could, one hand catching the doorway to the living room.

He pivoted, leaping around the corner. The creature behind him couldn't stop, and it plowed forward a few more steps into the wall. Cracked wood and chunks of daub skittered over the floor. Dust splashed into the air and Ailmer groaned. He'd landed directly on the haft of his spear, and pain shot up his chest.

He managed to stumble to his feet before the brute extricated itself from the wall, but the next one pushed it right back. It clawed against the other creature and the corner, trying to force itself out through the gap to continue the chase.

Ailmer jumped onto the broken-in door, hardly able to balance on the rubble as he sprinted out of the house. The others had heard the sudden din, but they took far too long to react. Ailmer jumped forward as far as he could, willing the wind to carry him past the porch. His magic, however, didn't cooperate.

He hit the steps with his hips, then he hit the short flight several more times on the way down. As soon as he hit the ground, he was trying to force himself back up. His limbs ached and he felt several bruises start, but as much as he wanted to cringe, he knew he didn't have a moment to spare. Beroan was already rushing towards him,but the dragon jumped back away from the house as the doorway splintered.

One of the brutes hadn't stopped its charge when the ones inside had hesitated. The bulky creature slammed one of his compatriots through the doorway, and followed quickly after, tearing the splintered door frame into splinters. The whole house groaned loudly enough to drown out the screech of the falling brute. The creature slammed down, crushing the short flight of stairs. Its arm strained forward, landing right where Ailmer had been just a moment ago.

The excited brute screeched, holding up a spike arm to try to shade its beady eyes. It paused on the damaged porch, just long enough for Ailmer to break into a full sprint. Beroan followed; even if he couldn't read Ailmer's thoughts, he could read the wide-eyed expression on his face just fine. They ran forward and Beroan overtook him, his frenzied steps granting precious seconds for Ailmer to turn and grab onto the dragon's saddle.

It took some acrobatics from both of them. Beroan's path swung to the side as he tried to adjust for the human hanging off his side, Steering his takeoff angle dangerously close to the tree line around them. He'd tried to turn and recover blood the hissing creature behind them was nearly on his tail. Leather straps dog into Ailmer's palms as he tried to hold himself onto Beroan's back. He glanced back, and saw the glittering hide of the gem beast only a handful of bases behind them.

Green scales and black hide suddenly cut off his view of their pursuer. Beroan's wing nearly smacked him in the face as it unfurled. They both knew that he didn't have time to scramble into the right position. It wasn't the first time that Ailmer had to fly like this. Instead of trying to clamber up the dragon's side and navigate his pumping wing, he just jammed his forearm under the the saddle's heavy straps, pressing the haft of his polearm against the dragon's side, wrapping his fingers as tightly around the shaft and the straps as he could.

Leather bit hard into his arms as he gripped onto the webbing, throwing a leg up over the saddlebags on the drake's tail. He managed to jam his other one underneath, and it wouldn't be comfortable, or safe, but he was stable enough to fly. That is, if Beroan could get off the ground with him in such an awkward position. All he could do was hold on.

Thick muscle pushed hard against his limbs, forcing the thick straps of tough leather to dig into his arms. He held himself tight against the dragon's side, trying to keep himself from jerking away from the dragon as he bounded along the field. He felt him slowing, unsure of the off-center weight of his passenger. "Fly, fool!" Ailmer yelled, though the words came as a guttural yowl.

A splash of soil clods splattered against Beroan's flanks from a swing of the Brute's vicious limb, brushing the scales on the underside his tail. The downbeat of his panicked wings brought him into the air, and his body squirmed against the awkward weight along his side. His opposing paws had to stumble along the sod for another beat of his wings before he chucked himself into the air. The usual grace of his strong form and lifetime of experience, though sacrificed for now, were the only things that allowed him to reach the sky.

Ailmer closed his eyes. His fingers ached from exertion as the leather creaked and the dragon's muscles flexed against him. Beroan's wing buffeted him with each downstroke, and he could feel the drake's lungs pump and his heart race against his knuckles and knees. As unsteady as the drake's flight was, they were airborne. The drake thrashed with each pump of his wings, stumbling his way through the air. Each stroke of the dragon's wings battered Ailmer and he found himself, for one of the only times he could remember, trepidatious of heights.

He was alone, again, in the sky. He clung desperately to the dragon with his heart pounding and fingers aching. The cool air stole his words--he'd taken off in similar positions before, but previously, he would have been able to let go. He'd fall, of course, but their shared instinct would have brought them back together before fear could overwhelm exhilaration.

Ailmer did his best to avoid ascribing what he'd lost as a mark against Beroan. It wasn't Beroan's fault, not in the least--he didn't have the capacity to know. It wasn't the fault of the other warriors; All of them had done much more than they had thought possible that day. It wasn't the fault of his medicine, and it sure as Sikthil's claws wasn't Marlin's fault. That had left only one thing to blame for his loss.

For now, all he could do was hang on. He pulled himself closer against the dragon's flank, letting him carry them to safety.