"Don't have to," Onca responded gruffly. "I'm fine." He shifted with the intent to stand up, reaching his hand into one of his pouches to procure the payment. It was clear he wanted to leave immediately. Nerys shifted over to block the side of the cot.

"I can never tell if strangers like you even have ears to hear what I just said. You hardly lasted thirty seconds, let alone thirty minutes. Your companion here hasn't even finished her tea yet," Nerys gestured to Asta. Onca stared at them, settling begrudgingly back onto the cot.

"Don't even know her. She's not staying," he concluded bluntly. A vein almost visibly popped on Nerys' neck.

"I'm taking that as a prediction and an incorrect one at that rather than a demand to her, especially right after she gave you her word she'd help." Nerys shook her head. Onca only huffed in response, but finally sat still for the duration he was ordered.

When they were finally allowed to leave, Onca unceremoniously dropped his hand onto the counter near the entrance, leaving adequate payment for Nerys to receive before hobbling out with Asta's support. Nerys took one last look at the two and called out to them with her version of a farewell.

"You take care now, you hear? As a healer, I hope I don't have to see you again so I know I did my job right."

Onca merely let Asta's hand slide off of his, and he set his hand down next to his side to continue staying still like a good patient as she wrapped his wound. Nerys nodded to Asta to indicate she was doing a very satisfactory job, and neither of them seemed to take notice of her slight flush; either that, or they noticed and paid no mind enough to point it out. Nerys took a deep breath as she flexed her shoulders to prepare releasing her magic on Onca's leg. "Ready?" Onca gave her no answer and just stared. Just do it already. "Of course you are," Nerys answered herself. The glowing in her hands halted.

Almost immediately, bloodstains began to bloom from within the bandaging. Onca let out no sound, but true to Nerys' warning, he immediately faltered from where he was sitting up, and doubled over onto his side before catching himself with his elbow. He gripped the glove he'd taken off and had been holding onto in his fist while straining to get his bearings again.

"Now I can get you a refreshment, in return for your well-appreciated assistance." Nerys washed her hands in her enchanted basin again before bustling off to prepare tea for them, returning in almost no time as promised with a tray. "I'm not able to offer much on the house, but at least take this barley tea. You, however, can either opt to tough it out without anything for a few more hours, or accept intravenous nourishment to help with replenishing your blood. That, you'll have to pay for." Onca's shoulders fell almost comically at the disappointment of no free food or drinks for him. "Your body has to be disturbed as little as possible to start the regrowth to begin properly," Nerys chided, "even from distractions like digesting."

Onca pulled his glove back onto his hand, which in turn covered up his wrist to show that he declined her offer. "I'll pass."

Nerys sighed. Of course he would. She turned back to Asta. "Then you're to stay here for another half hour until he can at least sit upright and you've finished your tea while I clean up. After that he may pay and you two are free to leave whenever you like, given that he follows my instructions properly during recovery. I trust you'll hold him accountable to it?"

Onca responded in kind to Asta's light reassuring squeeze. He already ran fairly warm, but the duress of his injury had spiked his temperature a little. He loosened his grip just a little so his hand wouldn't get unpleasantly sweaty. The anesthetic had started to kick in so the pain was becoming more and more bearable, until he was able to relax a little more loosely and stay still without being stiff.

"I'll know once I get a better look, but I'm afraid this won't be magically better by next morning. I'm unfortunately not that kind of healer." Nerys had begun lifting out the first shard of the wood, tapered and long so that it allowed inner space for the surrounding pieces to be lifted from the flesh without scraping outwards. The wood floated by her palm before being placed onto a tray, and she set to gingerly removing the next pieces.

After extracting all of the wood, she peered into the hole to confirm it was cleared of all splinters, careful to keep her hand that was willing the blood from spilling steady. "Mm, thought it'd be the case." Nerys had seen how Onca hadn't been able to put any weight on his leg at all. "If there was only muscle damage, it'd be a faster recovery, but your tendon and fibula need repair too." She closed her hand into a fist above his leg, almost magnetically drawing in the last traces of debris from his leg, and pulled them out.

Nerys fished out some powders and oil from her pouches, expertly portioning and mixing them with her free hand into a little bowl. "Had it been you, dear, I would say three to four weeks. Realistically for him, I would give six; I know a patient who won't listen to bedrest orders when I see one, and it'll delay the speed." Onca did not protest to this, and watched silently as she began spreading the mixture inside his open flesh. She hovered her hand over it until it glowed and seemingly disappeared, melding into the tissue. "This will restart the growth and keep it from festering. Absolutely no strenuous activity or weight onto this leg for the next month, you hear?" She unraveled a roll of bandaging with one hand and held out the end to Asta to indicate for her to help tear it.

"Once we finish the dressing, I'm releasing your blood flow. I can't prevent all blood loss if you're to heal, so there'll be a decent spillage before it clots and you might be lightheaded for a while." She didn't even wait for Onca to answer (as she she didn't really expect any from him at this point) and finally looked back at Asta while holding out the bandaging. "You'll likely have to keep an eye on him for the rest of the day until he replenishes the blood over time."

"You're quite fine as you are, darling," Nerys muttered to Asta. Her tone wasn't the warmest it could've been given she'd been focusing intently on Onca's leg, but there wasn't a trace of any mockery or sarcasm in her, only genuine bluntness. "I'd listen to her if I were you. I've already begun working on your leg before the numbing sets in because we can't afford to lose more time with the state your leg is in."

Onca's hood had turned to Asta's hand and was visibly debating whether or not to take it, but he was hedonistic at heart. Comforting skin contact was something that he could almost never turn down when he didn't feel in danger. The irony of his typical full-coverage gear wasn't lost on him, and his own penchant for pleasant skin contact with others easily won him over. Onca pulled off a glove and placed his bare hand into Asta's, even though he made no moves to squeeze it forcefully as though under duress. He just held it for the sake of liking the sensation of holding someone's hand. Yeah his leg hurt like shit, but he'd started becoming adjusted to the pain enough to hold down the urge to roll around groaning or clutching at anything for dear life. The only visible movement from him was the slow and steady swell of his shoulders and chest as he took slow breaths from his nose. He was really hoping for the anesthetic to kick in soon.

"And here I was worried that you being a dark and brooding vagrant would be terminally unable to accept kindness," Nerys sighed. "Hold still," she ordered again as her hands hovered close to Onca's calf. Not that he had budged an inch anyway other than accepting Asta's hand. From afar it hardly looked like anything was happening to his leg, but if one looked closely, they'd notice small seams cracking through the wood to fragment it without actually moving the body. In the meantime, Onca quietly sat there gently holding Asta's hand. Sure, Asta was still mostly a stranger, but she seemed nice enough to him. He wasn't particularly picky in terms of who or how he got to exchange friendly physical closeness as long as he didn't feel like they endangered him. He knew this wasn't particularly the purpose she'd offered her hand to him, but he still decided he'd take what he could from it.

This time, Onca actually bothered to give her an answer. "Less than an hour." His voice was strained, and he was stiff from gritting his teeth and letting Nerys actually begin poking around his injury. She stared intently while her fingers barely grazed against the open wound, deliberating the best steps to proceed with. She took note of Asta's detail about adding ointment. "A good thing that you did, too, given how filthy this is."

"Alright." Nerys looked back up at Onca. "I'll be redirecting your local bloodflow so it doesn't spill out while I fragment the wood into pieces that I can actually remove without disturbing the surrounding tissue." She put her hands together and rubbed her palms as if she were flattening out an imaginary ball of clay between them, and as if the friction ignited her hands, the veins under the skin of her palms glowed softly. "Then I'll take a look inside the actual flesh to plant some muscle growth back in. You'll be needing anesthesia. If you have a budget, now is the time to say instead of telling me you can't afford the strongest numbing we have after I've used it."

"Cheap," Onca immediately responded. Nerys raised an eyebrow. She held up a plain clean cloth, twisting it. "This is our cheapest," she offered; at this point Nerys had also realized that talking to Onca never got very far, so she directed her conversation to both him and Asta as a whole. Onca's hood visibly tilted like a confused dog. Nerys pointed at his face. "You say aah and bite down on it."

"Not that cheap," Onca revised sourly. Nerys gave Asta a look that screamed can you believe this guy and sighed, beckoning her over efficiently. "I'll have to ask you to apply the numbing paste, love, I only have two hands and one's for halting the bleeding and the other's for fragmenting and removing the blasted chunk of wood." She held up her hands as if to demonstrate how her palms were still glowing. "The jar is right next to me on the cot."

"Impaled leg. Wood's still in it." Onca ignored Asta's question, lifting his leg up to place onto the cot until Nerys caught him with an AHT AHT while holding up a towel to indicate that she wanted to lay it down first. He merely sat there holding his limp leg up by his thigh until she was able to return to the cot and place it down, finally easing his leg on top.

"Well, I'd assume so, considering you haven't bled out yet, Sir Too-Mysterious-To-Warrant-A-Name." Her words were sharp but her tone had become less snappy. Nerys was a stern and disciplined medic, not a hostile one. She cleaned her hands in a basin that left her hands completely dry when she pulled them out, likely a magic one, before pursing her lip and pushing a stool over to inspect Onca's leg.

As she gingerly but efficiently removed the bandaging, Nerys spoke to Asta without looking at her. While her tone didn't soften or lack its intensity, all traces of irritability were gone. "Dear, you're also a mess. There are clean patient gowns in the back that you're free to use; broody travelers like this one would rather I saw off their leg than change out of their ridiculous getup anyway, so you can take whatever would've been his. Use my basin over there to clean your clothes; it's enchanted to clean common organic matter off whatever you wash in it. I'll get you something hot to drink once I've seen to your friend."

"Not you, though." Onca's hood perking up at the sound of a warm beverage was maybe too obvious. "No fluids until I know what to do with you." Nerys tossed the bandaging onto the cot, swatting at Onca's hands when he tried to stop her from cutting open his boot (he didn't want to have to get a new one) and judging how would be best to remove the wooden fragment skewering his calf meat. Her magic was practical, not a miracle, and she wielded it like a surgeon would their powerful tools.

Yeah, Onca thought tiredly, I think I'm good being coddled by one person for now. He let himself be dragged over to where hopefully, his leg would soon get properly looked at. As soon as they were within reach of the building's entrance, Onca didn't hesitate to drop his entire arm weight onto the door so that his fist slammed against it to give it one giant and desperate bang.

"Injury," he called loudly through the wood. He hated raising his voice in general, but he wasn't about to risk this "Nana" Nerys leaving them unheard at the door; he found old people annoyingly poor at picking up his typical low volume. A few more seconds later, he banged one more time on the door right before they could hear a voice clamoring from within.

"I heard you the first time, you impudent fools, now hang on a moment...!" Heavy footsteps rushed unevenly to the door before their owner finally swung it open. "Now what's with all this racket, coming in such a fuss as if your arms and legs are about to fall right off of yo-"

Onca and Asta were met with a solidly built old woman who was tall enough to almost see Onca eye-to-eye. She was quite the imposing Nana, having a robust and stern face, and rugged set of hands that spoke volumes of her age and experience. She looked at them with a hawkish glint of her eye before adjusting her tiny spectacles and widening the door to let them in. "You look terrible," she asserted. "Sit there." She pointed to an empty cot. The two of them didn't even seem to have to explain any of their situation for Nerys to already stomp around gathering what she saw fit to treat Onca's leg.

"Patient name and cause of wound?" She called over her shoulder. Onca remained silent for the time being, as he was mostly focused on easing himself onto the simple cot and biting back a hiss from having to endure the pain from the entire ordeal. He didn't particularly care that neither Asta nor Nerys actually knew his name.

If it weren't for the fact that his face were entirely covered, the world would have seen that Onca's face was positively green by the latter end of the trip. He could tell Asta was already trying to reduce as much disturbance to him as possible, and couldn't complain; he didn't want to know what it would've been like had she cared a little less.

He dismounted with 0 elegance, and accepted Asta's instructions to lean on her with equal inelegance. Even had Onca wanted to doubt her comparatively slight figure, he had no choice if he wanted to make it any further than a few hops anyway. He slung his arm over her neck without protest and allowed her to take the brunt of what weight he couldn't support himself. True to her word, Onca found himself able to distribute a decent portion of his weight onto her. He kept this in mind, so that he didn't underestimate her strength in the future.

The village, having been small and knowing mostly peace, simply had a single guard posted near the gateway. As the two approached, Onca recognized the guard as one he'd already passed by before during one of his previous times here. Small village, after all. It was apparent they were there more to keep tabs on the few travelers flowing in and out rather than being able to stop anyone, as they weren't that well armed; the guard also seemed to recognize Onca as a previous visitor who'd merely brought in meat and fur to sell (as there weren't that many visitors to even forget in the first place), and mostly just gawked at the sight of him being almost carried in by a bloody pale stranger.

Their appearance alone told a very plain story that spoke of their urgency, so they made it in without issue. Once they entered, Onca turned his head to a pathway lined with stalls and houses behind them. A market, from the looks of it. "Fourth stall on the right. With the potted plants." He recalled an herbalist he'd run into prior who'd requested antler velvet from him, and figured in terms of locating a healer, their family would be likely to know.

Onca shook his head to her question, that no, he didn't know a lick of beastspeak, and that she was correct. He then nodded at her compromise. "S'long as you make sense I'll get it." As Asta probably knew at this point, he wasn't much of a conversationalist anyway and seemed to prefer relying mostly on non-verbal indicators that even an animal could potentially do; he was comfortable receiving the same from others.

Once she was ready as a horse, Onca shoved down all of his instinctual urges to flee so that he could clumsily heft himself back onto her. Again. He was never going to get used to this. Instead, he rather focused on the task of figuring out what to do when they actually arrived, if he'd even be able to get that far. He'd been there a few times, and weighed which acquaintances would be the most helpful.

"Southwestern entrance," he muttered, "gate's too small for horses. Aim there." It only seemed wise to tell Asta ahead of time which village entrance that he knew to take, and that she'd likely have to turn back human and drag him in just so they could fit through it.

Onca nodded grimly. If he were a kid he'd have groaned in exasperation, but instead he just bit the inside of his cheek and began pushing himself back upright onto his leg again to stand with a slouch. There wasn't any reason for him to delay anymore, so he gave Asta another look up and down. He came to the same conclusion that the blood all over her clothing didn't seem out of place since she'd been assisting him, and she no longer looked like she'd recently mauled half a dozen men (not that it wasn't true). Onca didn't see anything else that would make the villagers fear her. If anything, if Asta wanted to enter the village as a human while dragging Onca along, they'd probably be more willing to approach an attractive girl who needed help rather than someone as faceless as him. He wasn't a stranger to seeing pretty privilege in action.

He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. At least this time he wouldn't be jumpscared by horse Asta again. "If I pass out or fall off on the way don't bother." If he lost consciousness or blacked out and dropped off of Asta on the way there, then that was going to be on him, and he assumed it'd only make sense for Asta to forget about him and leave him for dead. She'd already gone out of her way to help Onca this much already, and he didn't expect the goodwill to last forever. 

"If I make it, stay out of smelling range from any horses." Or they'll come after me, and I'm totally fucking dead with the state I'm in anyway. He took a deep and slow breath, and straightened up while leaning against the wall to indicate he was ready to get back up and move on- or as ready as he could muster in his condition.

Onca hadn't even been planning on the luxury of an antiseptic, but there was no way he'd turn it down. Just because he thought his immune system would eventually be able to tough it out didn't mean that he wanted it to. He took a sharp inhale when the salve came in contact with his broken skin, but otherwise stayed still.

He listened silently (half from holding in any cursing from the pain, half because he also just had nothing to say) to Asta reprimanding him. Okay, sure. She was right in that he wasn't the most grateful rescue victim, but he'd learned long ago that favors always came with a catch; he didn't like, much less even know, how to show gratitude anyway, especially when he'd had no choice but to take it or die. Instead, Onca just wordlessly adjusted his hands around to allow her to bind around the wound until it was well padded and secured.

When she finished, Onca leaned back against the wall again, sighing heavily. "Been there before. It'll do." He hadn't stumbled into that village with a wound as severe as this, but remembered seeing at least a handful of places that might've housed a healer who could possibly look at his leg or at least refer him out further, hopefully with some fucking painkillers. But in terms of arriving there...

Onca looked Asta up and down. "You won't. You're covered in blood." He knew he looked equally as unsettling and bloody around his bandaged leg, but he only looked injured while she looked murderous, and only one out of the two of them could actually clean off their grisly bloodstains anyway.

Onca bit his lip as he precariously tossed himself over Asta's back and secured himself while holding onto her neck. He manually threw his injured leg over to the other side and gripped her mane when she stood back up. The built-in instinct that HORSE=DANGER was making his heart beat fast, even more rapidly than when he'd been stuck in that stupid trapping pit like a sitting duck. It took everything in him to steel himself when he was already injured and vulnerable while so goddamn close to a horse. As she stood up, he lurched forward from the sudden movement and clutched tightly at her hair. Every aspect of this was nerve-wracking.

The ride was... bumpy, to put it nicely. Asta wasn't the only one who felt less natural without being able to rely on a cervid. Onca was only used to the gait of his moose, goddamn if he wished it was anywhere nearby (it was not, and was happily going about its day munching pondweed far off down in Adela), and as careful as Asta was, even just the way her hooves hit the ground was harsher than the more delicate footsteps he was used to. He wryly thought to himself that at least his thighs were intact enough to allow some form of grip.

As the structure came into view, Onca realized he should've seriously asked where they were headed to before departure. He wasn't going to ask what in the world this half-built hut was. No matter. Shelter was shelter, and he was going to take Asta's word that it was safe. He slumped against the wall of the mini-cottage as soon as Asta let him down, sliding down onto the ground with his back to the wall with a strained exhale. Plop went his ass to the floor as he swallowed another groan and pulled up his knee to get a proper look at the injury.

He grimaced, pressing down around the area and holding the wood still. "Here," he indicated with his head to Asta for her to start bandaging. "Secure it." The chunk of wood getting jostled around while in his leg throughout the ride here had been agonizing, and it was about time to immobilize it and keep it in place before he was able to head to a more populated area with healers to get it removed.

Onca didn't withdraw his leg from Asta's reach, but he used the opportunity to support part of his weight by leaning onto her shoulders with his hands. "I said when we're farther away then," he insisted flatly. He swatted lightly at her shoulder now that he was much more stable, since he'd have rather dealt with this after they'd left the area.

"I don't do regular horses. Yours is fine," he grumbled. A tiny part of Onca still worried that along the way, whatever ungodly instinct that drove horses to try and eviscerate him would rise up within Asta, but that was just a worry he'd have to shove down and risk anyway. "Don't expect me to know how to get on or stay on."

Onca exhaled thinly from his nose to hold down any pained noises that might've leaked out from him. "Leave the main piece. It'll bleed out if it's removed." He nodded at the unconscious poacher still on the ground nearby. "Kill him first or worry about it when we're farther away." Onca was the type who preferred to lick his wounds once he was sure he wasn't vulnerable, and he didn't fancy a run-in with anyone that Asta had let escape either. Had he felt safer, he would've looted the men laying about, but wanted out of there as soon as possible.

He fumbled through one of the pouches at his waist, producing a roll of bandaging, and limply tossed it with an underhand swing to Asta so she could use it later. "Don't just stand there." What was he gonna do, weaponize his nausea and fall on top of her to crush her with his weight?

Asta was right, he seriously didn't see himself getting much further than a couple hundred meters, maybe a bit more if he was alright with wriggling himself a tad further like a worm.

He swallowed, sitting himself up and leaning down to prop his hands up onto his thighs. It was taking most of his focus to not dry-heave from the pain, but the rest of his mind was busy figuring out how he'd start off. They were considerably far from any larger settlements where there would be better medical treatment to reconstruct whatever got twisted up in his calf, so having a closer spot where he could at least quickly patch up what he could to make the rest of the trip safer made sense. Although, that meant relying more on Asta.

Onca's hand balled into a fist as he braced himself against the pain and straightened up to look at Asta, breathing heavily. He eyed her carefully, since he knew she already had a sour opinion of him. He didn't want to take her offer lightly, let alone take it at all. Onca knew she'd already helped more than she had to, and his cynicism didn't hold anyone above remorselessly indebting him for a past grudge they may have held against him. But right now, it was either risking looking like a fool to Asta by having to accept her help, or very surely looking even more like a fool by turning her down and crawling through the dirt.

"City afterwards. Can't heal on its own." He shakily lifted himself onto his working foot, visibly unstable in his attempt to balance himself as he took his hands off the ground to stand upright.

Whatever Asta had chosen, Onca felt his load lighten immediately. He strained to continue hauling himself up, albeit with much less struggle thanks to Asta's support. He presumed from the extremely steady bulk he could feel helping him up, Asta might have opted for large livestock, or at least something hoofed and heavy.  Bovine, maybe? He'd seen plenty of exemplary plow cattle in the past.

He should have possibly seen it coming, but the day had already been harrowing enough, and the pain dulled his typical decisiveness. Onca slung his arm over the edge when he finally reached the top and dragged his shoulders up onto the ledge before spotting the immaculately white and majestic horse before him.

"Fffuck," he spat in alarm. He'd just gotten himself to the top but reflexively let go out of shock, partially dropping back down. The better part of him made sure his hand still shot up and gripped the ledge so that he didn't lose ALL of his progress, so he hung there barely having avoided yet another tumble down.

He wasn't about to explain his ridiculous reaction. Since the day he was born, every horse near Onca's vicinity had a raging vendetta against him and he learned very early on to steer clear of them at all costs. There was no rhyme or reason to it, they just flat out hated him enough to want to violently erase his existence off this world, so he couldn't even provide a proper explanation anyway.

Onca dangled for a second before sighing exasperatedly. He wasn't afraid of horses, but avoided them on principle just to reduce the risk of getting injured or having to pay for someone's horse he slaughtered in self defense. Getting jumpscared by one so close was still jarring, and it took a second to recollect his composure; this wasn't just a normal horse, and he (probably) faced no danger in front of her even in that form. It might've been the first time he'd even seen a horse this close that wasn't frantically trying to bite his head off.

Okay, take two. With a last heave of exertion, Onca managed to get his arms back up onto the ground. Once his shoulders were safely up it was much simpler to drag the rest of his body back up as well, and he rolled over onto his back on the ground panting and trying to ignore the screaming pains of his butchered leg.

Onca opened his eyes and lifted his head from having it leaned back against the dirt wall of the pit. He'd heard all the nonsense happening, but surely didn't miss those footsteps getting away. He stared straight at Asta.

"You sure you can afford to look down here yet." Unlike her, he wasn't the type to spare people in case they retaliated no matter how unlikely it seemed, so it didn't sit securely with him that she'd let someone escape.

He didn't see anyone sneaking to jump her from behind at least, so after a second Onca assumed that she'd dealt with it cleanly enough for now. He sighed, pushing himself up onto his working foot and leaning an arm against the dirt wall to balance himself as he stood. He grunted, swallowing down a groan of pain while hopping to the spot he'd singled out prior that he judged to be the sturdiest place to climb up. "Over here."

Sighing, Onca unraveled a length of rope from his bags to tie securely around his torso. He gave it a test tug to confirm it'd help partially support his weight before knotting the loose end around the handle of one of his knives. He tossed it up so that it landed blade down into the dirt in front of Asta, giving her the opportunity to pick it up, and started hoisting himself up side of the pit to begin scaling it. It wasn't like he'd have been able to use a boost up from below considering he could hardly stand, so he reckoned getting pulled up was the next best choice.

"Whatever's your heaviest," he wheezed. Just as he'd expected, it was almost doable with his upper body strength, but excruciating and pathetic from how he was barely keeping himself stable with the one leg he could use. Dirt did not provide a good grip. The larger the animal that Asta could manage in mass, the more she could pit against Onca's weight to speed up his climb.

It was apparent that in the frantic rush and panic, the leader had forgotten to even shoot a single arrow from his crossbow, not that he'd have been able to land a clear shot with the speed that his men were being thrown about like dolls anyway. With Asta's final warning, he was given the brief respite to aim it back at her, but his hands shook. He didn't have the clarity of mind to check down on his crossbow, not when the last time he took his eyes off Asta even for a split second did in more than half his men.

Without warning, he fired the arrow, failing to notice that Asta's previous advance had crumpled an arm on the crossbow and consequently distributed the tension of the string unevenly. The bolt whizzed completely askew, not even close to where Asta stood, and nearly grazed one of the other men, who only managed to dodge it by jumping back and distancing himself from the others. Onca could see him jumping into view at the top of the pit, and it was a bit too easy of a shot to simply grab a stray rock and aim it at the guy's ankle to throw him off balance. He stumbled back before gravity did the rest of the work, and he joined Onca into the trapping pit. Judging from the screams and the visceral noise of the spikes meeting his body, Onca assumed the man didn't do as good of a job of dodging them.

Whatever, that was about as much as he could do. He just closed his eyes and leaned back with his head up, facing the sky. The initial adrenaline was wearing off and he was really starting to feel the pain like a bitch now, so he let Asta do the rest of the work. She seemed to have it handled anyway.

The other lackeys were already backing up, ready to abandon the job and flee. But the leader? He knew not to simply just show his back to a predator. He threw aside his now useless crossbow, wiping his hands on his pants and taking out daggers before forming a ready stance against Asta. Then he lunged. But not at Asta. His dagger met the foot of one of his own men, who howled and doubled over. With the decoy's foot pinned to the ground, the leader finally turned and ran, leaving the other two behind.

Cowards like him would rather live, but he wasn't about to let Asta bite his tail while he went running. He considered her no better than an animal at this point, so tripping someone in order to save his own skin seemed appropriate enough to him for an unintelligent wild beast.

Oop. As if on cue, there were the cries and screams of pain. Onca let go of the breath he was holding because the screaming was not Asta, meaning she'd managed to get a few hits in. He didn't trust many acquaintances enough to fully believe that she'd win the fight, but if she took down enough of them... no. It didn't seem likely to him. Even he hadn't found her wildcat form the most formidable presence he'd ever met, and so he couldn't weigh her to win against multiple adult opponents. He was certain that the first screams had been from being taken by surprise, and concluded she wouldn't be able to eliminate enough of them for him to whittle down the rest; with a leg out of commission, he could probably only even graze two targets at once from a distance. Asta was not going to be his deus ex machina today; he'd never get that lucky.

Or so he thought. The piercing screech took his attention away from the scuffle and he did the mental equivalent of putting all of his careful mental math right down the shredder. She has multiple animals. Now that was a game changer. He peered up at the sky trying to catch whatever raptor she might've taken form as, and the white owl was unmistakable. Onca figured he wouldn't need to say anything in greeting, but only had one message to get across. He pointed at his injured leg. He wasn't mobile, and needed to make clear that he would be of little assistance to Asta (as much as he wanted to beat some of those guys senseless too just because they annoyed the shit out of him). Dead weight should get dropped, he thought, even if that weight was himself.

???

Onca stiffened and readied himself as the men above him reacted all of a sudden. His less than ideal vantage point from below didn't allow him much context on what had suddenly distracted them, but hell if he hadn't heard a wild animal's growl. As soon as their eyes were off him, he broke his own vigilance to survey around the pit and scope out the most secure side of the hole. One of his legs might have been rendered unusable, but he assessed realistically that he wouldn't be incapable of dragging himself out as a tripod had he not been facing a group of enemies. Judging from the growl though, the animal wasn't large enough to be a bear and sounded more felid, and he knew it probably wouldn't afford him enough time to actually safely make it out. The men would turn their attention back to him before he could manage anything. He swallowed.

His focus was suddenly interrupted by yet another one of those growls that... now took the form of a human voice. Onca's hood immediately darted to face in the direction that the men were looking, the source of the voice. He could very easily place and remember that tone, livid and hostile that it was. That one imbecile white girl who owed him. So it wasn't just any ordinary animal after all. And they'd definitely seen her cat form too, from the sound of it. Not the best person to have stumbled upon the scene, given they weren't on the best terms, but hey. If these poachers were anything like Onca, they'd know to immediately set their sights on her. And anybody with a common enemy was still better than nothing to Onca. He stilled for the time being to wait and observe.

The leader's face fell in faux disappointment as Asta revealed herself, but he still kept the crossbow trained steadily on her. Damn, magical animals always had to come with a catch. "Miss, do you mind? I'd fancy another look at that marvelous coat." His head cocked to indicate to his men to flank around and behind her to try and close her in. "I'd hate to waste a shot on a fair lady. But if you'd like to stay this way for now, I'm sure we could arrange that."

Noticing that some of the lingering underlings behind him hadn't moved yet, he turned his head momentarily to make a much more exaggerated tilt of the head while whispering a frustrated "Go" at them to move their asses already and surround Asta. An idiotic slip of judgment had Onca witnessed it. He'd never have taken his eye off his target even for a second.