The process of removing the bolt is long and tedious. It requires Leo to free the muscle, slide the bolt out a miniscule amount, and free the caught tissue once again. Repeating this process seemingly endlessly, Leo does his best to cause as little pain as possible. The human is very aware of how fast the light is disappearing. He needs to hurry if he intends to get back to the fort before dark. It takes nearly half an hour to free the bolt.
As expected, the wound gushes blood as soon as the bolt is removed, and Leo wastes no time in discarding the evil weapon and quickly removing his cloak. Immediately, he shivers against the cold. Underneath the cloak, all he is wearing is his heavy metal armor and a thin under-shirt to protect his skin from chafing. It is not great protection against windy and snowy, bitter cold weather. Yes… he is definitely going to have to hurry back to the fort. Turning to Ausren, Leo holds up the cloak and asks, "Can you rip this near the clasps?"
Ausren studies the cloak for a moment, a phantom of pain in his eyes. Judging by all the snorting and angry snarling he was doing during the removal of the wicked broad-head, the procedure hurt. Leo can't blame him. Then, reaching out with one foot, Ausren pins the cloak to the ground, grabbing it near the clasps with his front teeth. With a quick and powerful movement, the dragon twists his head and pulls backward. The cloak gives a loud groan before the fur-lined, sheepskin and leather material gives. With a jarring snap, the material breaks near the dragon's teeth, leaving only about two inches in either clasp. For a moment, Leo only blinks in shock, staring at the dragon. Ausren spits out the tattered fragments of his coat onto the ground. Of course, the human is aware that the beast before him is powerful, but to rip an elk hide like that… it's an impressive feat.
Leo snaps himself out of it, then tugs the majority of the cloak out from underneath Ausren's paw. Ausren lifts his foot helpfully. Scooping up the clasps, Leo pins them back in place. Then, wadding the cloak up to the best of his ability, the boy presses it into the puncture wound. Ausren snarls, shifting away from the pressure.
"Sorry," Leo mutters. "I'm trying to stop the bleeding."
Ausren huffs, laying his head down on the ground, watching the human out of one eye. His breathing settles into a slow and steady rate as Leo leans his body weight against the wound, attempting to apply enough pressure to get the bigger veins to close. The blood was not spurting, leading the human to believe that, if there were any arteries in the way of the bolt, they were not severed. Which means that it should be possible to stop the bleeding.
It is not until the human's arms are exhausted, making him grit his teeth to keep pressure on the wound, and the light has faded into near-nothingness, that the dragon speaks again.
"You should go, Leonidas. If you do not leave soon, you will freeze on your way back," Ausren murmurs softly.
Already shivering relatively violently, Leo shakes his head, replying through chattering teeth, "Not yet. We need to move you. If I go back to them now, they'll make me bring them to you. We need to make it look like you got up and left after we fought."
"I'm not entirely sure I can get up. Besides, they will be able to track my footprints very easily in this snow."
"We're not going through the snow," Leo says. "We're going up that." The boy turns, his hand coming up as he points to the scree slope behind them. Ausren lifts his head up higher, his eyes widening slightly as he takes in the slick rock.
Eyes narrowing into a slightly annoyed expression, the dragon asks, "And how, exactly do you propose I do that? Have you forgotten, Leonidas, that we do not even know if I can stand, let alone climb that?"
Leo glances out at the surrounding forest, allowing the pressure to be released from Ausren's wound. Then, after a minute of flicking over the cold, thick forest, the boy murmurs, "You don't have a choice, Ausren, if you want to live."
The dragon snorts, shaking his head, and growls, "You are a very bold human."
Leo pauses, glancing up into the dragon's eye, the pink orb glowing with some emotion the human does not understand. "Really?" the boy asks softly.
"Yes. Why do you doubt my evaluation?"
As he steps around the dragon's wing, Leonidas mutters, "I'm used to adjectives such as 'coward' or, my favorite, 'inadequate.' 'Bold' is not a word I would have associated myself with."
"If your value is based on the opinion of those around you, you will never have very much value at all," Ausren replies, watching as the human bends down to the bone of his wing.
Leo sighs softly, gently grabbing the bone and saying, "Let's get this wing up."
Ausren lets loose a hiss, but engages his muscles. Lifting on the wing, plying every bit of muscle in his body, the human attempts to help. Quivering, the wing tucks to Ausren's side, assisted minimally by Leonidas's efforts.
"Alright," the human murmurs, walking back to the dragon's head. "Now we need to get you up."
"We?" Ausren asks, huffing a tired laugh. Leo crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow, and the prince shifts his weight to the side, bringing his injured leg forward enough to get it under him. Then, with a great heave, he surges to his feet, placing most of his weight on his healthy leg. As he gets up, his tail whips around, nearly taking the boy off his feet, and snow is flung in every direction, pelting the human. Shivering renewed, Leo takes a moment to study the dragon in more detail.
Now that he is up, Leo can see that the prince's anatomy closely resembles that of a horse. However, the dragon is much thicker than a horse; wider in the shoulders, deeper in the chest, and thicker in the neck. His neck is also much longer, as is his tail, which is long and tapers down into a slender tip. The tail closely resembles a whip, if a whip had a barbed end and was supported by multiple bones and muscle. At the shoulders Ausren is about eighteen hands tall, which puts his back just below the top of the human's head.
The dragon is definitely not small.
For a moment, a wave of fear washes over Leonidas once again. Ausren, despite having no intention to kill him, is still intimidating. Every part of the dragon's body, from the spikes on his head to the spines on his tail, is streamlined for the purpose of fighting. His entire body is a weapon, bred and born for killing. He is terrifying.
Shaking his head and neck, Ausren applies weight onto the injured leg. Surprisingly, it holds and the dragon takes a limping step forward. "Hmmm," the dragon purrs contentedly, then looks up at Leo with something close to excitement in his eyes. "Thank you, Leonidas."
That fast, any fear the human was feeling is banished. Despite how ferocious the dragon seems, he is actually quite gentle. "Please," the human murmurs, smiling genuinely at the dragon, "Call me Leo."
Once again, the dragon's head comes up and tilts to the side in the way that Leo is starting to learn means that he is surprised and curious. However, the dragon simply makes a purring sound once again and replies, "Then call me Ren."
"Come on, then, Ren," Leo says, and starts up the slope. The footing is not great, causing a lot of scrambling and near falls. Despite the difficulty of the climb, the exercise allows Leo's body temperature to rise from freezing. Ren follows, scrambling only slightly less than the human. His weight and larger feet allow him to traverse easily, but his injured leg creates struggle. However, he follows the human obediently.
Leo continually glances over his shoulder, not only checking to make sure the dragon is doing alright, but also to make sure that the dragon is not leaving any noticeable prints. Thankfully, the loose rock shows no signs of the passing of either being. The plan is working so far.
For a long moment, the two travel in silence, wrapping around the massive peak. Leo watches the light die around him with something close to despair. It is going to be a long, cold journey back to the fort, assuming he can even find his way back in the thick darkness. He needs to find a place to hide the dragon and be on his way. He has helped the prince far more than he anticipated. If anyone ever figured out what he has done… he would be hung for treason.
Hiding the dragon correctly will determine the outcome of the human's life.
When the light is nearly gone and not even the hard physical exercise can keep him from shivering, Leo quite literally stumbles across a cave entrance, hidden so well in the scattered rock that he did not see it until it was too late. The terrain has shifted from light scree to a slide of boulders, the jagged rock covering every inch of their path. Stepping forward with his right foot, his mind mistakenly thinking that the dark path beneath him was yet another rock in his path, Leo lets out a shocked yelp. His foot goes directly through what he believed to be a hard surface and suddenly he is falling.
Instinct kicks in and he lunges for the opposite side of the entrance he stepped into, using what little traction he has to power the lunge. Pain rips through the human's face, ringing another yelp from him, and his hands scramble for purchase. Behind him, Ausren roars, lunging forward in a desperate attempt to save the human from falling.
Leo scrambles at the rock he collided with for a moment, attempting to find purchase, before he slips, and falls into the blackness. Ausren's teeth snap shut where he was, missing the catch by millimeters. The fall could not have been more than a few seconds long, but in his terror-drugged state, the human is sure it lasted for a minute or more. Then, however, his back collides with a soft substance and he is rolling. His feet come up over his head, he flips, the world rotates, and suddenly his face is colliding with yet another rock. Leo's body comes to a stop, his chest pressed against a thick rock wall, his face stinging with the impact of his fall. Between the reflexive tears, the boy manages to discern that his nose is not broken, but his face is cut in more than one place.
Pushing himself off the wall with a soft groan, Leo casts around his surroundings. With the dim lighting, the most he can see is a small, enclosed dark space. Grey rock surrounds the place, the only light coming in through the entrance the boy fell into. Reaching down, curious, Leo threads his fingers into the bedding. It is sand, soft and light in texture, flowing smoothly around the digits of his hand. Yes, the cave is small but… it is big enough to house a dragon.
"Leonidas!"
The boy starts at the voice, his eyes snapping up to the cave entrance. His head blocking what is left of the watery light, Ausren peers into the cave, lips peeled back threateningly.
"He's ready to defend me," Leo realizes with a shock. The more time he spends around the prince, however little it may be, the more the human is starting to realize how kind the dragon can be. No one has bothered to defend Leo from much of anything since Cecil left to fight in the war. Not even Ruhban.
"Leo!" the dragon tries again, pushing his head farther into the cave, fire brimming between his teeth. There is rage in his voice. Rage and fear. "Answer me!"
"I'm alright," Leo calls in reply, unsteadily climbing to his feet. For a moment, the world spins, the dragon's head tilting this way and that. Pressing a hand to his temple, the boy takes a second to let his mind reorient itself.
Softly, from deep within the shadows to the human's right, a growl sounds.
For a moment, fear makes Leo's limbs go cold. That growl, while not as fearsome as that of a dragon, is something that has been ingrained into every soldier's mind, especially up here in the mountains. That was the growl of a very big, very angry mountain lion.
Slit eyes open in the dark, reflecting the light from Ausren's fire. Adrenaline kicks into gear, bashing into Leo's mind like a frightened cat. He flinches away from the eyes, his attention turning to survival. How can he get out? Where can he possibly go? There is no-- Ausren. If he can get to the dragon, he will be safe.
The human bolts. Scrambling up the sand, his skin stinging from the cold, Leo lunges from Ausren's nose, the lion letting out a growling roar as it springs after him. His fingers make contact with the hard ridges protecting the dragon's nostrils, scraping along scales. Then, his digits curl around one of the many horns lining Ren's snout. Before the human can really understand what exactly is happening, what exactly he just grabbed onto, the dragon rears back. With ease, Ren lifts the human out of the cave and deposits him safely between his own front feet.
The lion comes roaring out seconds later, teeth bared, claws out. Reflexively, Leo recoils, his hand going for the sword on his back. The rocks underneath him, however, are uneven, and he slips backward, falling sharply. The sword will be of no use.
Ren roars, the sound deafeningly loud, reverberating through the dragon's chest and into the ground. Fire flickers from his mouth, searingly bright against the dark backdrop of the sky. The lion, for the first time, seems to realize that the dragon is there. It immediately backs up, its posture changing from attack to survival in an instant. It only gets one step.
Ausren's head snaps forward, teeth sinking into the brown hide, and with one movement, he flings the lion down the slope and into the far-away trees.
For a moment, Leo just stares, shocked. It has been… so long since someone bothered to help him. It's been so long since someone has protected him.
So, despite the stinging in his face and the cold now seeping into his bones, Leonidas tips his head back and laughs.