[ IP ] `` Shh . I 'm here . I 'm right here ... ''

The skirmish had raged for days, devolving into a battle, dragging through the nights and spilling into the next dawn, roaring its way as the sun crashed below the horizon and so forth. As fires burned and the debris crackled under heat of hungry orange flames, the wounded howled out for mercy. The fastest participant on any battlefield is Death and his attention is endless, his appetite for work never satisfied. Valiant riders were scattered about the endless charred black that seemed to reach out in all directions; it was as if the whole place were some inescapable crater that tapped on Hell's ceiling. The heavy bodies of onyx or golden dragons were heaped in random, littering piles. Ray stumbled through the smokey haze, her footing betraying her as she slipped on ashen piles or bloody slicks. She'd never known how much the mighty beasts could bleed. 
 
 Her voice had failed her completely, she was n't sure if it had fallen away because of all the smoke or simply the effort of shouting during combat. She could not speak above a weak whisper. Her ankles and knees hurt from the fall, Kahshrah had taken care to dip as lowly as he could before she'd fallen off. She was n't quite sure how her old friend had simply known she was injured before she had realized it herself, but Kahshrah had been her older brother's battle-dragon before, it was possible he was just more acutely aware than she could fathom. Her chest ached worse than her knees and ankles and her vision was become a daze from time to time. Ray reached a hand past her armpit, wriggling it into the space between chest-plate and chest, fingertips probing at the sopping wound beneath. The armor had done its job of keeping the impact from piercing her, but her flesh had still welted and ripped some, her fingers came back with a light red hue. 
 
 `` Shh. I'm here. I'm right here...'' the deep and melodious tone was unmistakable, even among the chaotic din of post battlefield horrors. 
 
 Ray half stumbled, half fell as she spun on her heels to face her closest friend. Kahshrah's wings carefully and elegantly folded against his body as he crawled foward to his belly, head lowering and nose pushing up into Ray's chest. His nostrils flared in a loud sniff, the smell of her blood filling his mind. His eyes swirled in his head as he angled his long face to peer at her with his fullest expression. Dragon's always seemed to have a sort of permanent grimace with their edged and toothy jaws, but Kahshrah's features always reminded Ray of her dogs from shepherding. The wide and toothy smile of man's best friend looked exactly the same over Kahshrah's near endless face. 
 
 His deep tone resonated and vibrated in her belly, `` You're hurt. Can you ride?'' 
 
 She had fallen off her dragon hours ago. The fighting on the ground had been even bloodier than the combat in the skies. Managing to hide from bloody scene to ever more impossibly murderous moment had taken an obvious toll and her eyes showed the exhaustion of days full of endless fatigue. Her hands reached out and she clutched onto her friend's face, barely holding in the sobs she wished she had the energy to release. Kahshrah's heavy head gently pushed back to her for support, the smell of her wounds both enraging and worrying him in a fervor of conflicting emotions. He was no stranger to war, and neither was her brother, but they had both hoped she would n't come to this world. He felt as though he'd failed his old friend, not just by letting her get hurt, not just by almost losing her among the brawl, but simply by allowing her to have joined it in the first place. 
 
 It was no matter. She had lashed with gun and sword with every bit of tenacity and fervor as expected of House Hrothgar, her brother would have been every bit as proud of her as she always was of him. Kahshrah unfurled his wings and brought them forward of his body, shielding his closest living friend from the horrors of the world they were rulers in. No one understood how close the friendships forged in fire and blood could be, and no one ever would until they experienced them too. He would eventually help her to climb onto her saddle or he would clutch her carefully in his bladed talons, but he would bring her back to the apothecaries. His only worry was that she would see his wounds and forget the severity of hers, but in a strange way he cherished that concern. 
 
 *Perhaps* he thought, *I'm more wounded. Perhaps she's worried in the same way as me... *
