Swords and arrows

[Anadwen]

"Orcs." Athran growled with his teeth clenched. "And please, don't touch me." Now that the excitement and concentration of battle was over and the pain was getting into his brain, he could go unconscious practically any time. His vision was slowly beginning to fade into black, but he forced himself to keep talking.

"We need to find a high, sheltered place to sleep tonight. The wolves won't get there. We can't start a big fire, we can't hunt, we can't do anything." he explained,  slowly scanning the environment in a search for such place.

[Lion]

"Gladly," Dram huffed and shuffled around the Pale Elf.  He sat back in the saddle and peered at Athran from the corner of his eye.  "Orcs?  And somehow they conjured some fucking magic bat to fly after us!  Maybe they're after you," he commented and noted the icy burns along his arms and body, partly shielded by the armor, but otherwise turned his eyes toward his own wounds once more.

His arm was charred and his skin smelled of roasted meat.  It stung, painfully, from both the fire and ice, but it just needed a little patching up - he hoped - and it would be all right.  Turning his eyes toward the horizon, the light was dreary all around them, dim and low and his red eyes peered solemnly to the ashen mountains, what trees still stood and he gave a soft sigh, a longing suddenly peering in his eyes though he didn't know why.

This land, the Thunderblacks was always strange for him to pass over.  He knew the greater portion of what he should call his people lingered here, hidden away from the rest of the world.  He was Umbraeon, but he was not of them.  He belonged to the skies.

Shaking his head of his musings he peered across toward a lower plateau that stuck out from a western mountain ledge and pointed.  "Down there!" he pointed.  "That is as good a place as any.  And I'm sure Bane could use the rest.  Good thing, food at least is nothing we have to presently worry about."

[Anadwen]

Athran nodded. "I bet they're after me. I'd put my right hand into the fire... As if I haven't already done it today... That they're after me." he snarled. He softly pressed his hand onto Bane's neck and pushed it towards the possible place for encampment. Even a simple move like that reminded him of the fire - it apparently charred a bit more than his skin, and even though flames weren't unknown to him, feeling them that deep inside himself was painful.

The eagle gracefully turned, and begun descending in great circles. It was very similar to Maigrod - elegant, with a slender body and wide wings - and he felt confident on its back, though maybe it was only that he was too exhausted to notice the differences. Bane squawked, and his claws scratched the stone as they landed.

It was a distant place, with hardly any passage to the forests beneath, but that was only good, for no wolf or orc could climb the steep sides of the mountain. It was quite narrow, but well shielded by yet another, even taller and steeper cliff. It wasn't unusual for the mountainsides to be shaped like this - it was maybe why dragons favored them so much.

Athran sighed and dropped his bag onto the ground, peering at the sky. The clouds that have passed during the day were again coming from the north, dark and threatening.

"There's a storm coming." he muttered.

[Lion]

Dram rolled off Bane's back when they landed on the cliffside slope.  The sounds of drawing night sent chills up the Umbraeon's spine as he put am arm around his other and pulled it forward trying to get a better look at it.  "Orcs after your head, great.  Just when I thought this mess couldn't get any worse.  Well that was my mistake.  Of couse messes can always get worse," Dram plopped down and observed Bane walk closer toward the wall beside them.

"Why do they hunt you?  I've heard of the fueds between some orcs and elves but I never thought much of it.  At least your kind of elf."

[Anadwen]

"Would you chase someone if he'd kill a thousand of your kind, wish to wipe you out for all eternity and curse you at every meeting? Sure you would. Especially if that someone's not a village idiot, but a dragon rider." Athran replied.

He sat down by the cliff and unbuckled his heavy gauntlets. The softer leather beneath them was cracked and singed from fire and ice that ran over it, and ripping it off hurt like hell, yet Athran remained silent. It was only a temporary inconvenience, he convinced himself, and took off the armour that covered his chest, too. The chainmail clinked on the ground, as he dropped it. The shirt he wore under all of the heavy gear didn't end up much better than the gauntlets, but at least it wasn't stuck to his skin.

His arms were bleeding after he managed to rip the clothes off, missing large parts of his skin, while the rest appeared burned. He clenched his teeth and cleaned the wounds with what he had left in a bottle of water. It burned like fire... He wanted to scream, but instead just cursed silently.

He just hoped Dram ended up better. It wasn't concern - he just wasn't willing to put up with a companion that can't fight, or keep traveling.

[Lion]

At his words, Dram gave a smirk and did so as he carefully set out his things from Bane's saddlebags.  He rolled out his herbs and ointments and salves and found the solution he'd made for Athran from the previous day.  He carefully turned his shoulder to examine his wound.  The burn was quite nasty, but he hoped all it would need would be some salve and some wrapped in some spare linens.

"Idiots can ride dragons," Dram said as he wiped the salve over his shoulder, rubbing the rest of it gingerly into the wound and ignoring the sting of it.  Blood seeped down his forearm but largely the wound resided on his upper arm and when it was done, he took a piece of linen in his teeth and began to wrap it.

"So they're after you to do what?  Settle the score?  Why would you want to kill them anyway?"

[Anadwen]

Athran begun cutting the other shirt that he has in his pack into strings and bandaging his arms with the washed grey fabric, but at Dram's words he shook his head. "Idiots can't ride dragons. Dragons eat anything dumber than them..." he growled.

He could have expected this to follow, and yet he didn't like what he had to give as an answer. "It's a long story, but my family, and especially me, had long troubles with orcs. They shot my mother. It's an old family history, but due to the fact that in the neverending sway, I killed more of them than my father, mother, and sister together, they logically hate me more. The better you are in killing them, the higher threat you pose as. And your head's also priced higher." he explained him plainly, concentrating at treating his wounds, instead of talking.

It was all lies. The only truth was that their poisoned arrows killed his mother... The reality was much bleaker and less pleasant.

[Lion]

"Hmph, surprised you're still alive," Dram, referring to idiots and dragons.  But he shook his head from his own poor sense of humor and listened intently as Athran explained as he bandaged his arm.  He paused, mid-wrapping as he looked at him more clearly.  "Why did they kill them?" Dram continued to ask.  "Were they just in the way?  Wrong place wrong time?"

[Anadwen]

Athran shook his head. "Not entirely. Many hundreds of years ago an ancestor of mine had some big trouble with them..." he shrugged. It was simpler to tell a lie like this, than to explain the truth - that that ancestor of his was actually Athran himself, and the trouble was not as simple as that, too.

"Orcs always hated elves." he muttered.

[Lion]

Of course, Dram would not take the answer at face value.  He made a soured expression toward Athran and finished knotting up his arm and cutting the linen with a small knife.  "Why?  Why kill elves?  Why kill orcs?  Seems pointless to me," he replied.

[Anadwen]

"Do I look like a history expert? A scholar? Well, if I do, I'm not one. I don't have a slightest idea why they hate each other. But I was raised to hate them. They... They are but beasts. As worthy as wild animals in the woods, even less! They have nothing... And I have nothing for them..." Athran growled. He put his shirt back on, and buckled the hard iron and leather layer of gauntlets that wasn't as burned as the softer one underneath it.

It was getting difficult to keep this lie, but he kept a straight face, and didn't let it show. Straightening his back, he stood up again, and peered into the distance. "I don't have anything to give to them. Only death."

[Lion]

Dram looked at him with furrowed brows.  "So you would instead continue the cycle of hate?  Kill them because you were taught they were nothing more than savage foul beasts that were so undeserving of life. Certainly that must bring you relief."  Dram was growing angry by his words and turned his head away, looking down to his sword.  He brandished the blade and peered at his reflection in the metal.

"The wretched and scorned," he said, musing, frowning, seeing not himself anymore, but the pitiful, the weakened slave he had formerly been.  "Who are you to judge who is worthy of life?"

[Anadwen]

Athran turned to him, staring with empty eyes. They appeared like azure mirrors, showing the oncoming storm in their deep pools...

He dropped down. "Fine. I admit... Nothing of this... Was true..." he whispered, holding his head in his hands. Dark clouds were flashing before his eyes, clouding his sight, but he didn't pay any attention to them.

"I just told you a bunch of lies so you'd shut up and leave me alone. I see it didn't work..."

[Lion]

Normally it would have.  Dram had never been one much for words, not even in familiar company.  Yet the thought that a people could be slaughtered, even if they were indeed foul and wretched, sparked emotion in his eyes.  "I know, Pale Elf," Dram replied plainly.  "But I have a feeling you know what it's like to have the state of your mortality hanging in the balance, at least once or twice in your existence.  I know."

He turned the blade over and saw where the green blood had stained it from the beheading of the winged creature.  "But if they chase you solely for a price on your head...that I cannot believe.  They knew you would fly, that much is obvious, but they did not expect to find you on a bird.  There must be something more.  Something they want that is worth more than your head.  Perhaps my head, but I don't quarrel with orcs or any one people, not when it leads to nothing."

[Anadwen]

Athran turned his head up, looking at Dram. He appeared deathly pale, with dark, empty hollows where his eyes should be, only the circles of blue burning amid them.

"Do you want to know the truth? Why I hate them?" he asked silently. If he had to say it, he would... But it was something he didn't remember with awe. He pulled his knees to his chest, still piercing the dark elf with his glance.

[Lion]

His frown deepened at the expression of the elf before him.  His eyes were seemingly hollows, tired, angry, exhausted, somber.  "If it is a tale you are willing to tell, then you have ears that are willing to listen," Dram offered, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

[Anadwen]

"I will only tell if I really have to. I don't want to bring this up." Athran growled, slowly standing up and walking to his bag to grab a piece of cold meat from yesterday. He turned back, and sat on the other side on the cliff, biting large pieces of meat off the venison.

He didn't want to talk, especially not about this. If he could, he would fall asleep, and sleep through the whole night and next day. He felt completely drained.

[Lion]

At the turning of his back, Dram cast a glance at him but he otherwise said nothing more on the matter.  It wasn't his business anyhow.  If he wished to speak, that was his choice.  For the night, Dram would keep watch on the ridge of the cliff after tending to Bane's wounds.  At least his temper had passed.  He watched the stars as the night went on and drew constellations in his mind.

[Anadwen]

After he finished his meat, Athran picked himself up and laid down in the furthest corner of the cliff. He coiled up on the ground into a bundle as small as an elf of his height could - and it was surprisingly small - and covered himself with his cape. It was windy and cold, but he fell asleep soon.

While sleeping, he appeared almost peaceful, his fair face not twisted with any pain, anger or sadness. His dark hair partly covered like a veil, sliding over the pale skin.

However, even though he did appear peaceful, he found no rest in the embrace of sleep. Confused nightmares followed him all night long, and after a few hours of turning on the ground, he woke up to the cold night.

He shivered and pulled his cape to his shoulders, slowly raising himself to sit. It was deep night already, and he must have slept for long, yet he felt like he just closed his eyes and opened them again. He stood up with a groan and walked to the edge of the cliff, staring into the nothingness beneath him.

[Lion]

Dram had not slept.  For one, there was no one to keep watch if he did.  Two, he wasn't tired.  Three, Bane needed his rest more than he did since he was the one doing the actual flying.  Dram just meditated for the moment, taking the time to rest physically and mentally from their ordeal, but no sleep came.  He listened to the sound of the wind, to the breath of it as it whispered in his ears.

Somehow he felt at home on that cliff, in the wasteland of wilderness and dragon ash and again he thought he heard someone calling his name.  But it was nothing when he perked his head up and searched the darkness for any sign of life.  Likely their pursuers were making camp for the night.  He could see the small light of a fire miles away.  Elf eyes were always superior to that of the races of men, and though he did not alert, Athran he would tell him when he awoke.

And soon he saw a black shadow standing beside him.  "Three camps," he said, pointing one to the west, northwest, and south.  "Likely three packs or parties of those beastmen.  We should leave before dawn, gain as much ground as possible."  His eyes peered up at the Pale Elf and he studied him for a moment.  "Feel better?"