Bound [Sethron and Sigr]

[Sigr]

Ezer Palebranch sighed, signed the deal with the prince of the county, a contract bound by blood and magic, by oath and word. It didn't incur any kind of penalty breaching it, as such a thing wasn't possible, its pledge eternal. He didn't like it even a little bit, as not only it had do do with hunting a witch, but also had him working with a green adventurer who was unknown in the area. Of course, that adventurer not knowing him seemed to be the only reason to accept the task, as Ezer had earned himself a double edged sword of a reputation around there. He was one of the most capable warriors around, able to even best races more powerful as a human, be them minotaurs, centaurs or anything else. Ruthless and expedite, it was your man if you wanted something done fast and didn't have much of a care about the how implying violence and shortcuts. He shook his head, black short hair waving around, while his right thumb traced the scar he had along the right side of his head, from dangerously close to one of his ice blue eyes to to just below the ear. That reminder of the war always itched when he had a bad feeling about a deal, and now was no exception.

Dressed more practical than fancy, his clothes were thought as armor and not a fashion statement, reinforced leather and small sections of light metal here and there, allowing for fast movement. There was no armor that would shield you from the acid of a swamp crawler or the fireball of a wizard unless enchanted, so it was better if you could keep yourself out of the way. Of course, Ezer's method would probably imply trapping the crawler and murdering the wizard in their sleep, but one couldn't be careful enough. A long sword and half a dozen daggers gleamed around his body, Ezer's backpack containing more specialized implements of death, like a morning star to smash skeletons you couldn't stab or a crossbow to shot winged foes. All in all, he was ready to fight a war that was over and yet he had never left completely, and his disgust was hard to hide when it seemed that his rookie companion looked at his eyes as anything but grizzled.

 

[Sethron]

Navie had needed a job. He had travelled to the city of Innistrad because it was a hub for adventurers, for opportunity, for money. He hadn't intended to, but a year back, he had--in a show of magnificently impressive naivete--gotten mixed up in an adventuring party with thieves and underground dealers. The half dragon had easily been left with the brunt of paying off the debt when they had filched some crime boss’s money, and the rate was steep. Every phase of the moon, he has an amount he had to make, or he'd end up paying with his freedom. He didn't want to find out what that meant precisely.

But it had narrowed his options to high risk jobs with less partners to split the pay. This witch hunt was precisely that, although he hadn't quite known why until he had seen the man he was going to be traveling with. More weapons than flesh, it almost seemed, and a stare that could paralyze anyone of low will. This was not a description that applied to Navie.

Navie's father's species was readily apparent in his spiraling horns, the shimmering scales that looked like patches of freckles on his cheeks, and the more prominent scales covering a long tail and his hands, flowing up to clawed fingertips. The boy’s feet also bore this marker, but were covered in custom leather boots that looked big around his slender calves.

Unlike his partner, his clothing consisted of no armour and his weapons were attached to him--mainly in claws and fangs that were a bit longer and far stronger than humans’. His pants were made to fit around shapely thighs and a more cushioned ass, not to mention accommodating the iridescent violet tail that could have wrapped around him twice. They were loose for motion, tucked into the boots at just below the knee, and obviously magical. His tunic matched, and his long robe hanging open in front finished his outfit but for his jewelry. The thin and shimmering fabrics, the way he carried himself, the loose bag that apparently held much more than it should, all painted him clearly as a mage.

It was the wide eyes and way he spoke that nailed him down as what Ezer referred to as a ‘rookie’. While Navie had adventured plenty before, he was not jaded and his capacity for healing left him with very little memories in his flesh. A scar would have to be carefully curated into him with loving care for his skin to remember it.

 

[Sigr]

"So it's all done, right?" Ezer barked to the ones responsible for all that paperwork, receiving a nod in return. It paid well, but going through the motions was a pain, more so with those bright eyes looking at him. "A wizard then" every word he said to Navie sounded like a spit, sudden and rude. "You better be good, half lizard, I don't want dead weight on the job" he said, looking him all over, sizing him up. "Fancy clothes, pretty face" what normally would constitute flattery, sounded quite contemptuous in Ezer's mouth. Grabbing him by the arm, he basically dragged him outside calloused fingers digging his skin. "The sooner we do this, the better" Ezer seemed to be in a hurry. "Remember rookie, this is a witch we are talking about, none of that academic nonsense you're packing" he kept talking. "Her power is as old as the land, and your rules don't apply to her, so open your eyes" Ezer had his horse near enough the place as to reach it soon, making sure he was packing anything needed.

"The last sighting was along the edge of the green bog" he instructed. "A few days of travel south, but she really could be anywhere" he sighed. "You can't trust the word of a cowardly peasant" Ezer grinned, ready to ride. "Call me Ezer" he added, almost an afterthought. "Do you have any questions to waste our time with?" added, not bothering much with asking his name.

 

[Sethron]

Those first few minutes were exceptionally educational. Ezer was impatient, he was crude, he respected brawn over brains and found things that looked inexperienced to be of annoyance. Navie could taste the anger rising in his stomach, but he bit it back for the moment, until he was roughly manhandled out the door of their meeting chamber and toward the stables. “Excuse me.” He barked, but he was ignored, and with Ezer dragging him along, his only slightly above average strength was fairly apparent, making him exceptionally weak for a half-dragon of any other type than gem.

The grip was tight, and Navie easily identified the larger man as physically overwhelming to him, although he wasn’t feeling less confident about his own talents in the shadow of the bruiser dragging him through the street and listing off details he had already read through in the contract he had signed.

Ezer, He mentally recorded before the man let him go to tend to his horse, a thought that did not please Navie. Horses weren’t particularly fond of him, although he had rented one for the trip regardless, it was finicky and back at the stable. The impatience of the man was likely going to make them very argumentative over this trip. His tail lashed, the hair at the end whipping across the cobblestones.

“I’ve no questions; you basically summed up the entirety of our contract and the information as if you thought I--a mage didn’t know how to read. As far as the academic nonsense I am packing, you’ll need it plenty if you’re going to go rushing headlong into a scrap with a witch. You’ll end up cursed or worse if you don’t listen to me, as I’m quite knowledgeable about other spellcasting types, and if you don’t spend the whole trip proving your acuity by running your head into trees, you’ll maybe learn something.” He was barking belligerent, but afterwards just walked around the large horse, “I guess I’ll go get my horse, since you’re so eager to ride off into the twilight. Navie is my name, in case you would like to refer to me as something other than half-lizard, but if you insist on pet names, I’ll give you one.” He threatened as he walked toward the stables at the edge of the Guild Hall’s walls, “Just as a warning.”

 

[Sigr]

Ezer looked at the rookie's tantrum, partially angry but also amused. It seemed that the lizard had bark to spare, but what worried him if it he had any bite to go along with it. He was right, a witch could be bad business, that's why the payout was so grand, so tempting, but Ezer wasn't going to show any appreciation about that knowledge Navie talked about. Ezer spat on the ground as his partner walked away fuming, with those critters it was always hard to guess the age, but he did seem pretty young in his eyes. "A dragon wizard with attitude, tsk" he mumbled unheard, waiting for him to bring back his horse so they could set off. He always found that defiance, that fire in the eyes enticing, something that you never got even if you paid for it.

Maybe the trip wouldn't be so bad. Either the boy was capable enough to earn a bit of praise together with his disdain and the job ended soon enough, or the boy was all talk and he would have to do everything by himself once more, using the chance to berate him. He didn't even consider ending up bested by a witch, damned backwater wizards, that's what they were. It was going to be his second one, the first one he eliminated during a solo work. It haven't been dignified nor pretty, as he made himself look wounded, persecuted by fanatics into her forest, earning her sympathy as he knew her story of hatred with an order of paladins. That night's sleep was her last one, and the job was done with only a knife.

Sure, this one wouldn't be so easily tricked, and Ezer knew nothing about her past to exploit in such a way, so maybe it was good to have the wizard with him? He just needed a lesson or three. "Hey, dragon boy, now you got me curious" Ezer grinned seeing him return ready for the trip. He seemed uneasy with his mount, something that already irked him a bit. They couldn't get into the bog mounted, so maybe it was nothing, but if they were ambushed on their horses and the boy spoiled his concentration by not being accustomed to a mount, things could get ugly. "What nickname were you going to give me?" he asked, amused with himself.

 

[Sethron]

The horse was the beginning of an irksome time with the human boy. Navie had to get used to his attitude, his treating him like he was a child, his criticising his every movement, but over the course of the travel, the dragon also appreciated tiny nuances: Ezer was capable. Ezer was efficient. Ezer had a quirk about asking odd questions that threw Navie's expectations into the wind: like what pet name he would have gotten, which Navie had stumbled through a few of over the course of their travel, usually after the end of some fight--he'd promptly say “Maybe that nickname should have been this instead…” but the first answer was simple and to the point to counter “half-lizard”: “human child”.

Was Navie older than the man to his side? Maybe, maybe not. He didn't care to discuss it. His mother had been a Tallfellow clan Halfling, so he aged differently than the other, by virtue of both his parents. It was hard to tell, his draconic height growing him to 5’4”, a decent elven size. Years passed on the planet rarely accounted for much in the end, anyway. Experience was what mattered. Humans experienced things in bursts of speed unlike many of the other races, and by a glance at the frowning, beleaguered fighter with the sarcastic wit, it was easy to tell he'd been forced to age quickly.

A few problems arose on the way to their quarry. Navie was quite capable in a fight, although perhaps a bit less cautious than one would expect of a mage. He did get tossed from his horse at one point in their first run in with bandits, but he recovered easily and seemed unconcerned with battle damage. The magic on his clothing became readily apparent after that, since by the time they were done, the outfit had acquired more tears than not and was stained with blood. It was fully back to normal by morning, the same as he, and without a blemish to marr his pretty skin despite one of the blades having dug into his side two inches the night before.

Mage and healer. It readily became apparent that some amount of his arcane might was spent in the reparation of wounds, an odd quirk of his draconic heritage allowing him access to what would have been considered divine to most others. Despite how salty Ezer got, or how angry they both were at each other, Navie never let the other go to sleep without the full effects of his healing, and seemed to reserve himself in fights to be sure he was able to do it at the end. It was also quickly apparent that Navie himself rarely needed this divine gift, healing faster over the night than would have been expected.

They certainly argued. Navie didn't take well to being condescended to, and was happy to condescended right back. He'd offered knowledge that Ezer had blown off about witches’ hexes and primary tactics, and they had argued at long length about the damn horse after it ran away from Navie and they had needed to find it, the dragon's cheeks burning in humiliation the whole time.

((Feel free to do the skip?))

 

[Sigr]

Ezer hounded Navie about how his magic made him reckless and stupid, about how simple bandits had made him fell from the horse, how that same horse flew away from him... The list went on and on, be it full of real flaws or just nitpicking, Ezer used his own experience living and fighting lacking everything as a blanket support for any argument he made. If Navie behaved like this was because he didn't have to kill someone with his bare hands, if Navie behaved like that was because he hadn't been starving on a trench for days... and so on, and on, and on. Anything and everything was suitable to not recognize how useful his domain over magic was.

And damn it was useful. It didn't matter if it was to attack, for utility or healing, it seemed that the dragon boy could do everything. Ezer was sure that such thing required effort and study, but treated Navie as if such prowess was just gifted to him in his dragon blood, as it was an undeserved inheritance. But beyond all that there was a modicum of respect, as Navie was the only one who was capable of matching him in that road of mutual disrespect, mocking his lack of education or manners at every time it was possible. Most adventurers would have ended up fighting and losing him, packing up and walking away or just outright crying as that elven sorceress once did.

Days passed by faster than expected, and even if Navie irked him, even he would admit that it was better than being alone. Well, admitting it surely not, unless drunk or threatened with death, but at least he thought about it. In the end, they reached the Green Bog, a noxious swamp that had been a forest not so long ago, the land poisoned by a magic that, once again, Ezer didn't understand. "You are lucky, dragon boy, the horses can't go beyond here so you will get rid of yours for a while" he said with a smile. "Or maybe the lucky one is the horse, that doesn't have to carry an inexperienced rider" his smile turned into a dry laugh while he dismounted and tied his horse to a rotten tree stump. "Let me help before you fall on your ass" he added, aiding him down the horse and tying it, disguising his interest as an insult.

"Now do something useful, like track the witche's magics or something. I can't follow prints or traced in that mire" he pointed.

 

[Sethron]

Navie wouldn't have admitted it to anyone aloud--he barely admitted it to himself-- but arguing and fighting was actually not unpleasant with Ezer. Yes, sure, in the moment he was furious, throwing back insults, condescending the same way to the human as he was condescended to, but at the end of each day, he was left with a calm confidence that Ezer wasn't going anywhere. After all, if he hadn't stormed off while they were screaming at each other, he wasn't going to storm off now. And he was too blunt to be a thief, which helped Navie relax even more. Plus, being polite was stressful, and yelling and arguing came naturally to the violet dragon.

Ezer moved up to his side after he had dismounted, Navie nervous about getting off the horse and taking much longer than his counterpart. The offer to help him down was one of several small kindnesses that Ezer had extended in the form of insult over their trip. While, usually, Navie balked, the horse was easily his least favourite part about this trip. It had bitten him several times, kicked him once, bucked him thrice. When the human steadied it and reached up to assist, Navie didn't complain or argue one bit for fear Ezer might rescind his offer.

The human's hands on his hips, his clawed fingers gripped Ezer’s forearms and he shifted his leg over the horse warily. The mage was sure footed and undaunted in a fight, but in this act he had a hard time hiding his fear. Lack of adrenaline and all that.

He was not as light as his height would have made another, the weight of scales and that heavy tail adding, but the human lifted him down without much effort, showing his formidable strength. The horse made a noise of irritation, but didn't move in the presence of an expert. Navie nodded his thanks, muttered it under his breath, and then the awkward moment of blushing was gone as they shifted away from each other and Ezer easily slipped back into insults.

“Jackass,” Navie retorted, but his hand went to the pouch on his side and, after a bit of digging, pulled out a feather. He clasped it between his hands and whispered to it as he would a child in draconic, “If known the creature we're searching for, the power to tell is mine, lead us then upon her door, the witch called Val’ursa.” The light betwixt his hands grew bright, bouncing off his iridescent scales in a rainbow array that illuminated his face as he gave the order, “Divine!” and he let it go. The feather was no more, though Navie’s eyes saw what no one else could, a bobbing and floating light in the shape of the feather that he could follow straight to his quarry, shifting around him to show him the way like a compass.

“This way, then.” He spoke, simply, beginning into the swamp.

 

[Sigr]

"Jackass? And here I thought I had just heard a thank you..." Ezer smirked. "Go on with the light show, don't let me distract you" he shooed Navie away, getting his trappings ready in the meantime. All the days of nagging and joking, the sarcasm and insults, all lead to that moment of truth. Either they ended the witch or... well, there was no other option. They were contract bound to kill her, so the only way to breach that magical pact was death, and then it wouldn't matter. Not that he planned on dying, nor letting that purple runt die either. If people got wind that he had lost a partner that would only add to the awful reputation he had, and getting jobs would get harder and he would have to resort to the military. Ezer had promised himself to never go back to the military.

"Already?" he asked, hiding his surprise as he was caught daydreaming. "Whoa, were the hell do you think you are going?" Ezer hurried into the emerald swamp, wet and hideous. "For you to open march I'd have to be dead. Or crazy. Or wanting to let you die" he said, holding him by the shoulder and passing by. "And none of that applies. Maybe just the second if I keep too long with you" he grumbled, unsheathing his sword and starting the walk. Chopping one of the last long tree branches they were going to see in a while, Ezer used it as a pole, checking the depth every few steps, making sure they weren't going to sink into a watery grave.

"Just keep me informed of the direction" he barked, visibly tense. Navie had never seen him like that, not even with the bandits, who were no trouble for a warrior like Ezer. Now he was wary, his jokes were over and just his posture made clear how dangerous he could be. "That witch can't just live wherever, she must have some kind of lair around" whispered, slowly advancing through the bog, green slimy water reaching his knees.

 

[Sethron]

Navie blushed at being called out for being impolite, but then recalled the insult that had brought about his calling the other male a jackass and felt less sheepish, “Thank you, then,” he said, correcting himself before the other jumped off after him to stop his walking forward.

It was almost flattering--hearing he didn't want him dead was the lowest bar for compliments, but it was one of those tiny things Navie was starting to enjoy about the gruff soldier.

Forward he stepped, cautiously and carefully, into the mud ahead of Navie, tense. The dragon muttered directions softly, whispering them behind Ezer so as not to interfere with listening. Walking through the mud in his boots was unpleasant, the soft leather dampening and sticking as he went, but he didn't step off the trail lead. No graceless plummets into the marsh, no foolish missteps.

It took a while, but after a time of walking their slow march, the feather light glowed bright to Navie, indicating their proximity. Navie reached out to touch Ezer upon the shoulder, claws tapping his skin for attention. “We're close now,” he mouthed when Ezer gave him his eyes, unwilling to speak aloud. The element of surprise was not guaranteed, but not one he was willing to give up without effort.

He gestured ahead to an outcropping of trees and steady land, doubtlessly obscuring the fighting area they would be forced to contend upon.

 

[Sigr]

Ezer's fingers tensed on the sword hilt, knuckles turning white, when Navie warned him that they were close. He knew that he had to be silent, so Ezer saved himself the effort of pointing it with a gesture. Slowly emerging to the steady land, Ezer soon noticed that those tree weren't normal or in fact, weren't trees at all. Blackened like a fire had scarred them, the bark of those trees formed distorted human figures, as if some powerful magic had twisted and turned every person that dared to incur in the ire of the witch. Magic, there it was one of the reasons he disliked it, how prone to abuse it was, how much horror could it create. Looking around the forest of burned souls, there didn't seem to be no trace of any witch nor a house.

Ezer looked back at Navie, ready to berate him for messing up with the spell, but he saw in the half dragon's eyes that something was wrong as he looked upwards. There, creating a structure of sorts between the elongated bodies of those mockery of trees, there was an intricate cathedral of spider webs, a housing on its own merit. No, that seemed more of a nest than anything remotely resembling a human dwelling. The threads seemed to move, but Ezer didn't know if it was the wind or something moving along them, watching them from above. "Burn it" he whispered, a dry request to his partner.

 

[Sethron]

Navie watched that expression twist on him, and his violet crystalline eyes gestured up rather insistently. Ezer got the hint, looking up and pausing before asking him to burn the webbing above. He took a breath, and nodded, pulled his clawed hands back, took something from his pouch and hummed softly, a murmur in Draconic was followed by a burst of flame in his hand, and he threw it above them like a tiny beach ball. As it reached an appropriate height, it burst outward into a sphere that sent waves of heat over the two of them and engulfed the webbing above. The feather popped out of view as his concentration ended, insistently pinging upward.

At that moment, Navie dashed to the side to put space between himself and Ezer so they couldn't easily both be targeted by a counterspell. A hiss filled the horror space and the trees creaked as if in a choir of backing voices as they moaned in tune to the rising tensions.

((I'll let you take point on the bad guy, since it will inevitably end up harming your character permanently.))

 

[Sigr]

Fire brightened the creepy ceiling, illuminating the unnatural thicket, casting shadows on the trees that mocked human form by twisting it. Ezer looked everywhere, watchful for traces of movement anywhere. Only the crackle and sizzle of the fire were breaking the silence, Ezer moved slowly sword in hand, pulling a dagger with his left one in case he needed it. A shadow of movement to his right caught his attention, striking with the sword before even seeing what had he sliced. It looked like a human corpse, long dead before he had thrust his sword in, looking desiccated and empty. The ghastly creature had appeared from one of those trees, breaking through the carbonized bark.

"The trees!" Ezer warned Navie, as more and more of their surfaces cracked and broke, letting go of the creatures they were shaped and nurtured with, victims of the witch in both life and death. Ezer wasted one, two, wondering if their souls would get rest now that their shriveled forms were gone, dust in his weapon. The dagger on his left hand found a new home in the head of a third one, making him shiver and crumble. They were no worthy foes, just a poisonous distraction. Paying attention at how Navie was doing, that it was way better than he would care to admit, he saw the feather fickle, pointing that the witch was moving down a tree.

That creature, a she if one wanted to call her for the woman the witch once was, looked like a humanoid spider, a centaur-like being with the oversized body of a spider instead of a horse, what some elves called a Drider, but Ezer couldn't care any less about their academic categories. It was a monster and it had to be killed. The spider body appeared partially charred, a sign that Navie had done a good work with the webs, but their foe was far from beaten. Ezer approached the monster slowly, the sounds of battle as Navie took care of the zombies from the trees. The creature still moved, syncopated motions telling that maybe the fire had done a greater job than he expected.

Even then, Ezer wasn't one to lower his guard, and in a swift motion he covered the last yards separating them, beheading the creature in one swing. The body fell like a puppet without strings, as that was what it precisely was, spilling thousands of little spiders as it burst, crawling around to safety. If that was just a decoy then... "Navie!" Ezer tried to warn, hurriedly going back to his companion, lowering his guard for a fatal moment. A couple of arms appeared from a tree, but they didn't belong to any undead, as they were shapely and feminine, embracing him against the bark. Their form betrayed what strength they had, as Ezer had trouble to budge.

"I thought you didn't mind what happened to the dragon, little soldier" a female husky voice sounded behind her from the insides of the tree. "I've been watching you two long before my swamp..." Ezer was trying to grab a dagger from his leg with his left hand, wincing when he felt a needling pain in his right shoulder, the black haired witch biting him deep. "Mmm... I can taste it..." she cooed, Ezer taking a peek at her deceptively young face, those piercing green eyes. The warrior averted his eyes, as those emerald orbs threatened to poison him as much as the swamp could do. "It's still here... the struggle, the war..." the witch licked the wound. "So many dead brethren... and one of them was special, right? Another little soldier..." she cackled, every word a mockery.

Ezer almost had it, if he managed to grab the dagger he would be able to use it, as his sword arm was not only trapped, but feeling more and more numb every second since she had bitter his shoulder. "I can feel the monster the war made, the roaring beast trapped inside you, venting though words and words alone..." the witch continued to taunt him. "Let it play, let it quench its hunger..." Ezer could feel the witch rest her forehead against the back of his head, while she muttered words that no doubt were arcane in nature. Finally grasping the dagger, he managed to stab it backwards, causing the witch to howl her pain, releasing Ezer. He could see the doubt on her face as she limped out of the tree, her form shrouded in shadows. For a moment she looked in the direction Ezer had left Navie, noticing that the sounds of battle were over, and as a could of smoke, she whisked away.

Ezer was in no shape of chasing her into what it could be a trap, as he barely felt the fingers of his right hand when the sword fell from them, clanging against the ground. But that wasn't all, whatever the witch had done, it felt like a beast clawing at his insides, biting and eating him piece by piece. The process seemed to halt, maybe the curse was incomplete, but Ezer felt colder and colder, his vision blackening and blurring, Navie's colorful hair the last thing he saw before passing out to the ground. At least the dragon boy was fine, he thought before falling into the black.

 

[Sethron]

The scent of rotting death and forbidden alchemy hit his nostrils before he saw them. The undead swathed the land in cries of distress, descending upon him and his partner. They were crushed under sword, beaten back by magic, but they were.. nothing.

Their teeth could barely find purchase in his rough skin--when they did manage to surround him completely, cutting off his vision of his partner, even then, they were rent by claws like paper. They were nothing but distractions, the poisons they carried unable to enter his blood flow. But distractions, and good ones, they were.

A scream drew Navie’s attention. A cry for his compliance as one of the corpses wrapped its dead arms about his torso in a gruesome hug, gnawing at his neck and pulling his sensitive hair until there were tears in his eyes. He beat it off with his tail, and as the last, he grasped it between violet talons and tore it apart, leaving himself a gruesome, dirty mess. Not soon enough to be of any assistance to Ezer, who, following a scream from their woman target, hit his knees, and then his face, upon the wet grass, their quarry escaping in smoke before Navie could finish his incantation.

Not that her flight would have been hindered by it--Navie's concern had little to do with her, the spell leaving his fingers stitching up a small portion of the bite on Ezer’s neck. He did not wake up.

Navie was over to him in a flash, but when he turned him over, with effort, it was clear the man was not battered to unconsciousness. The damage done was too little, his sleeping face contorted into a grimace that bespoke nightmares. Poison? A curse?

The dragon had done many things in attempts to wake up his partner, but he did not come to. Hours and hours passed, then an unholy day. Ezer had not been a particularly friendly companion, but Navie felt wholly responsible, and he had come to like him, at least a bit, despite his… quirks, he realised.

He had tried, at first, to fix him in the heart of the swamp. He was not dead--the way he occasionally cried out in anguish said as much. Occasionally, he opened his eyes and Navie thought he was awakening, only to find him muttering incomprehensibly and his eyes blank before he fell back into whatever pitiful slumber was laid on him.

She had escaped. The mission was not done. Navie could not go home, could not seek aid from someone more knowledgeable. He should have tracked her down, while she was weak, hounded her to assure her death. He could not bring himself to leave Ezer’s side.

He decided, sometime in the late night, that the poisonous air of the swamp was not good for Ezer's recovery. With magic to enhance his strength, he had managed, with great difficulty, to move the warrior and his ungodly amount of equipment outside the swamp, although more than once he had ended up in the swamp water, falling, able only barely to hold Ezer above it each time. They reached the forest they had come from, dirty, messy, and with Navie exhausted.

The dragon had cleaned Ezer of dirt and grime carefully, without invading privacy. By the time the other male was showing no signs of Navie’s close encounters with drowning, though, the dragon was too tired to stay awake any longer. He curled up next to the other, uncaring of his own state of mess, set a spell of alarm, draped his tail across Ezer to warn him of any interference with the male while he slept, and drifted off into a guilty and hopeless slumber.

 

[Sigr]

Ezer was running through the trenches, magical explosions shaking the ground, making him unable to go anywhere but forward in the narrow corridor. Bodies with his same uniform were scattered here and there, but even in death they moved, their desiccated hands trying to grasp him, to make him trip and fall. He stopped for a moment, as those weren't his fellow soldiers, but the victims of the witch, where was he? What was chasing him? It didn't matter, he had to keep running, he just had to.

Small black spiders populated the walls of the trench, getting out of every crevice and hole in the dirt. The ground was getting wetter and wetter, from dirt to mud, every step taking a bit more and more of Ezer's strength. But even then he kept moving forward, he had to, they had a job to do. They... they... Yes, he wasn't alone, not anymore. There was... someone, who got him on his nerves but even then...

No, there was no time. Don't think, just run. His right arm felt numb, the shoulder was killing him and he didn't know why. In the end, the trench seemed to be over in a wall of dirt, there was no way out of there. Turning around he saw that the way he had followed there disappeared as well, ending up in a small ditch on the ground, a grave that was rapidly filling of green slimy water. Ezer tried to climb, but he only ended pulling clods of earth, with him on the way down, more and more spiders getting out from the holes he made.

He was trapped and he had nowhere to go, growls and howls awaited in the darkness outside the hole he was in, whatever Ezer planned didn't work. He wouldn't be able to face that alone, he wouldn't be able to survive it, and there was no one there to help, no one who would lend a hand unless...

"Navie?" he asked, seeing a clawed silhouette of a hand appear to help. Without a second thought he accepted it and was violently pulled out, feeling the fur on the rescuing hand, red burning eyes the last thing he saw.

"Navie!" Ezer woke up, screaming and sweating, dressed with the bare minimum and Navie by his side, all dirty but uninjured, his tail around Ezer's body. He looked to his right shoulder, unable to see it well, but it seemed that the bite was gone and he felt quite well all things considered. It was still dark, but a slight shine in the horizon signaled that the dawn was close by. "Navie, what happened? I can't remember all of it..." Ezer felt unwell for a moment, a hunger roaring inside, his blue eyes flickering red for a moment. "Ughh... something's... I'm not well" he mumbled, seemingly back to normal, still feeling uneasy.

 

[Sethron]

His name, like a cry through the water, filtered into his dreams. The exhausted dragon took a moment to register it, but then it was repeated: louder and with more clarity and Ezer sat up and that rocked Navie out of his sleep instantly, the boy sitting up with a “Hn?!”

His hair was a mess of iridescent curls, dipped in muck and clinging to his face. He looked at Ezer, sitting up, and blinked away the tears of relief. Oh good, he thought. He pulled the tail away from across the other male's abdomen before shifting to his knees. The detail of Ezer’s red eyes was missed on the sleep-deprived dragon, but Ezer’s sickened condition was not. He reached up and pushed the other’s bangs out of the way so he could press his forehead to his, gauging his temperature. Navie was cold and still a bit damp, so his estimation was interfered with and he frowned. As far as his sleepy mind was concerned, the soldier was deep in fever.

His action was sleepy. His tail flicked behind him. He barely registered how close he was, except to groggily think how nice Ezer's breath tasted as it exhaled across his lips. He leaned back onto his haunches, swaying. “I'm glad you're awake. I was worried, but we have to address the sickness…”

He dug through his endless pack, pulled out several herbs in small bags. He answered, softly, the question that Ezer had asked that he knew would earn him a fight he didn't want to have, “You collapsed.. she ran. I didn't pursue.” He left it up to Ezer to decide whether he thought Navie was being cowardly. He didn't really want to admit he had been insanely worried.

He pulled a bowl out, crushing some herbs into it with a small dash of water as he talked. The medicine didn't smell bad, but it wasn't exactly satisfying or tasty. He put the mixture on the end of a spoon, holding it up as if trying to feed a child. He didn't mean to, but he opened his mouth in an instructive way. It was something of a patronising action, but it was also cute, sleepy, unintended, without malice.

 

[Sigr]

Ezer froze for a moment when Navie got so close, his cold and damp forehead against the human's own, his eyes, his face, too close for comfort. "I think I feel mostly fine but..." Ezer turned to look back, he could swear that he had heard something just behind him, a wet breath on his nape. "Its fine" Ezer said when Navie told him what happened, "she would have killed you" added, just in case. Ezer seemed jumpy, uneasy, his eyes looking around, the nightmare still chasing him. "What the hell is that thing?" he asked, looking at Navie mush some herbs, "my wound is gone, good job on that" he looked at his shoulder, not knowing that Navie wasn't the one responsible.

Ezer jumped on Navie, taking them both to the ground, alerted by a growl and a sudden movement, but once the moment passed, there was nothing there. "What..." the human mumbled, confused. "The beast, the beast is following me" he muttered, looking around for the creature of his dreams. Prone on top of Navie, he saw his disoriented expression. "The witch did something to me, a curse or something, and now... ugh!" he groaned, his eyes flickering red for a moment, "now it's chasing me... but..." Ezer had a strange feeling, perhaps a hunch. "Something went wrong" he got away from Navie, looking at his left hand. "I stabbed her... it's... she didn't complete the spell, so you should be safe, right?" Ezer asked, shaking his head after hearing his own words.

"Why did...?" Ezer looked lost, wondering why he asked if Navie was safe, when the one cursed was him. It was just a hunch, just a bad dream, there was nothing else involved. "It's... the dawn..." he looked at the increasing brightness in the sky. "The further we get from this place, the better" a little bit of the usual Ezer seemed to take control of the situation, fumbling around, clumsily attempting to dress himself. "The beast won't chase us during the day" another hunch, but why was he so sure?

 

[Sethron]

The way he talked was like a paranoid man, distracted. Navie looked up, concerned, dazed, and then was suddenly tackled. The herbs ended up on the ground with the spoon. The boy's plush body was pinned beneath Ezer's, his eyes as wide as saucers as he stared up at the other man. He seemed awake now. He studied Ezer, listening to his mumbles, seeing the change in his eyes, analyzing the pattern of his words. He was half in a dream, half out, but more than that--the dragon was suddenly very aware of Proximity. It wasn't like Navie had a thing for Ezer. No. Definitely not. But with him over him, out of his armor, Navie was... well, he was distracted, is all, by the red-flickering eyes, and he was warm because Ezer had a fever.. that was all it was. It wasn't a blush that was creeping along his cheeks.

"Okay. Witches' curses are pretty bad," He finally managed to find his voice well after Ezer had unpinned him. He cleared his throat, sat up, still dirty. The short time of sleep he had acquired made him sluggish and his tail swung behind him to balance him as he came to his feet. He was a muddy mess, the magic clothing having completely mended themselves but not cleaned themselves at all. The satin clung to his form and his ponytailed hair had come half out of the tie, falling around his shoulders. He took a deep breath, "But we can't just.. leave, can we?" The contract did not compel them for a time, it merely didn't allow them to stop the mission. They could leave and regroup, come back and try again... it wasn't a bad idea, the way Ezer was muttering.

"And I'm... I can take care of myself, you know." He responded to Ezer's concerns about whether he would be okay, blushing again at the statement. Unlike him, Ezer seemed to be having a hard time keeping his thoughts to himself. "If you think we should regroup for a time, then I'll follow your lead..."

 

[Sigr]

"I know that we can't just leave, I'm not stupid" Ezer was angry, what was going on with him? What did that witch do to him? Why whatever she did made him worry about Navie of all people? It make no sense and drove him mad. "But she fled, she's not here anymore" he struggled with his clothes, taking way longer than usual to dress himself. Something inside him made him feel awkward about those garments, like he didn't belong in that skin. In those clothes. Clothes. Ezer shook his head, he really felt feverish, confused. "Yeah, you better do..." Ezer grunted as Navie said he would follow his lead, unable to think of anything else to add.

Ezer finally managed to get ready, even if he looked uneven and disheveled, and they were ready to get into their horses and go. They seemed specially restless, even Ezer's mount, but once they were on them, they complied slowly taking them away. Ezer was looking around, muttering to himself and clearly unfit to continue with their mission for the time being. He still tried to behave professionally, carrying on with the discipline expected of him, but his condition made him react to things that weren't there. Dreams of a beast that echoed in the real world.

As the day advanced, even as slow as they progressed, the duo managed to leave the Green Bog behind, and now at the sun of noon and with clean air on their lungs things seemed to have calmed down. Even Ezer behaved within reason, although unusually quiet when compared to the days before, his eyes still shifty. Whatever the witch had done to him, didn't make a dent in his appetite, it made it greater if anything, seeing him devour the rations. He was usually uncouth, having received a humble education before the army, but now he looked almost feral.

"This place is fine" Ezer said, as the afternoon advanced into the dusk, orange giving way to purple. They were on a forest not far away, at least not far enough for the contract to make a number on them, and Ezer felt a strange calm within himself. He didn't feel as feverish or weirded out as before, an acceptance of sorts that the curse, whatever it was, started to wane as it seemed to be incomplete. Navie did seem to need a rest as well, he had been riding the better part of the day, and taking care of him the one before. "We can camp here, recover our strength and then we'll chase her" he affirmed, resting against a tree.

 

[Sethron]

Navie watched him with the confusion and morbid interest of someone watching a person slip into madness. The changes to his behavior made the dragon nervous, although not for his own well being, not really. He was far more interested in whether poison was going to drop Ezer into the dirt while he was riding the horse. As usual, mounting had been a pain, his horse biting him twice in the action before he was able to force himself atop it, but once they were riding away, the silence between them grew almost deafening. Navie would have liked to be alert. He thought he should be, but only sleeping three hours the night before was taking its toll on his senses. The violet dragon just road along behind Ezer, occasionally just allowing the horse the lead, and luckily, she walked behind Ezer's mount without any curiosity for the trees lining their path.

When they finally reached a ways away, and the hours grew long, Navie having slipped off into a nap a few times while riding and nearly falling off before shaking awake, the dragon was pleased, but fully aware that being sticky and covered in mud was not to his pleasure. Down from the horse he slipped, managing not to get kicked in the process, and nodded at Ezer. She made her way to a nearby stream that Navie looked at covetously.

"Right." He took a deep breath, "I'm going to go bathe a moment--or do what the equivalent of such a thing is in that creek," He gestured. "Probably a little bit up river--not far." He assured, "If something happens, call out." He grabbed the saddlebag on the side of his mount as she glared at him, dug through to find a simple robe to replace his clothing after he washed it properly and would need to let it dry itself. He moved over to Ezer, placing a few things in front of him before muttering an incantation and leaving a fire before him. While it was perhaps not the most efficient thing, the magical torches gave off heat and risked no wildfire, and he was too tired to gather up wood and start one himself.

With that, he turned from the other man and wandered toward the creek, going just out of easy vision, obscured by trees, before he stripped himself down and washed the clothing he had been wearing first so that he could hang it off a branch as he bathed.

 

[Sigr]

"Go, be all tidy and proper, you vain boy" Ezer mocked with a gesture of his hand, a dose of his usual self. He purposefully ignored the fact that he had awoken almost naked and cleaned, so even if he had been unconscious he deep down knew that Navie had taken care of him instead of his own body, hence the need to voice his disdain. "Don't take too long, princess, it's getting dark soon" Ezer added, hiding his worries within an insult. Ezer tried to relax, as there was barely no trace of his worries, the strange aftereffects of the fight, and the nightmare seemed further and further away, its imagery and meaning blurred.

Ezer looked at Navie go, trying not to think what he was about to do, how he was about to look. After all, it wasn't that he had any kind of interest in that... that... creature, right? He was not only inhuman but also a... a man. No, those things weren't right in the trenches, and they weren't right there. Not again. He leaned to the arcane fire, warming himself. Despite the dusk setting in as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, it wasn't a dark night at all, with the full moon shedding pale light upon Ezer, contrasting with the mystic one from the torches.

Ezer hunched over, feeling like something had clenched his heart for a moment, its release making it beat wild, fast. "Wha-?" he mumbled, agitated. His skin felt like spiders crawled over, making Ezer to undress himself at the thought, checking himself and seeing that even the sensation persisted there was nothing there. Wait, wasn't his hair a bit darker and thicker or was it the light playing tricks on him? Ezer looked around, a howl resonating in his mind, something was wrong, the beast was here to collect their prize. Once again, he felt the hunch that the monster was here for Navie, not for him, but he didn't know why, and rushed towards the river in his undergarments with just a sword in his hand.

"Navie? Navie!" he yelled, looking around for him. "The beast! It's here! It has found-" he called, desperate, his last words dying on his throat as the pain inside him made him fell to his knees. It was torture, his bones seemed to be unfit for his flesh, everything scratched and the world was full of light, noises and smells he couldn't perceive before. He wanted Navie to help, but at the same time he wanted him to run, to flee... but he couldn't utter a word, trembling and shaking under the force of the incomplete curse.

 

[Sethron]

"Bite me." He responded to being called a princess, comforted by a bit of the banter they had been up to prior to this failure. Worrying over Ezer wasn't anything he was ashamed of--Navie worried frequently over many people; it was part of his job in a group to worry, as he was talented with healing. He just didn't like that his worry seemed to be aimed at something he couldn't fix--a psychological tear that was out of his reach.

Navie washed his clothing first, hanging it over the branch of the tree and scrubbing the boots thoroughly as well. He slipped into the cold water, refreshed and likewise forced awake by its icy grasp around his skin. Navie dipped his head beneath the stream and washed the mud from his violet hair, pulling it free of the ponytail and letting the curls fall nearly to the base of his tail at the bottom of his spine. Navie was not slender, nor was he muscular--more built in a plush, curvaceous way that spoke of his mother. He ran his palms over his body and swept dirt and mud away. He was nearing being completely clean, just a few more moments to feel perfect, when suddenly Ezer's voice sharply entered the air.

A warning, a desperate cry for help, and then a grunt as Navie's eyes caught the vision of Ezer falling over in the nearby trees. The dragonkin left the stream hurriedly, his senses seeing nothing chasing Ezer and becoming confused. He grabbed the robe and pulled it on, an easy slip over his head that clung to his skin, the tan cloth reaching his knees just barely, as a dress might. It had a slit up the back for his tail, which left his ass visible when his tail moved the wrong way, but Navie hadn't expected to be rushing over to a fight in this.

He dashed and leaned down over Ezer confusedly, the man completely naked and... was he furrier? "There's nothing there, Ezer. What do you mean, a beast?" He asked, trying to sound calm, though he was worrying more and more about the hallucinations the man was having. Navie cooed maternally as if to calm him, his ears sharply listening for anything around, but there just wasn't anything there. It was just Ezer.

 

[Sigr]

Ezer's body shook, twisted and trembled, spasms making his form contort under grunts of pain. His eyes abandoned the cold disdain of the blue and embraced the fiery red of a hungry creature. The forest fauna fell silent, no critters of birds daring to make a sound in the proximity of a greater predator, and now just Ezer's groans broke the silence. Soon his form seemed to swell, grow bigger, more muscular, cover progressively in more and more of that black hair. His bones crackled and shifted, making horrifying noises to accommodate his bigger frame, changing before Navie in seconds.

His face was distorted by pain and soon more, sharp teeth getting bigger on a mouth that soon resembled a snout, his ears vanishing under the curse for new pointy ones to appear on top of his head. Ezer's hands reached to Navie's shoulders, almost a plea for help, holding him with unnatural strength even for the trained soldier, but soon those weren't hands any longer. Painfully holding his flesh, completing those enormous arms that framed Ezer's new body, were claws the ones on Navie's body, no longer human hands. A tail flew wild on the back of the figure that once was a man, swaying around, the form rising taller and taller, pushed by those hindquarters of his, all covered in black hair.

The curse had run its course, and now Navie was in the claws of a werewolf. With his tongue out drooling heavily, the creature leaned in, sniffling Navie's face and making him smell the reek of his breath. It seemed to be a degree of understanding, of recognition in those red eyes, but not a semblance of humanity, and they betrayed a hunger for something. Ezer's lupine head closed in, seeming that he was to outright bite his face off, but instead his rough and muscular tongue licked him all over, trying even to push itself inside his mouth. A clawed hand made short work of the light tunic, leaving Navie as naked as the once man in front of him was, and the beast that he had become into clearly looked.

For the first time, even if he avoided it, Navie could glance at what looked different in that sea of black hair, that dark and monstrous being. A hint of reddened flesh started to appear between Ezer's legs, a rapidly swelling lupine cock that looked glistening and tainted the air with its beastly musk. It was clear now that hunger wasn't what moved that beast, at least not in the usual sense.

 

[Sethron]

"E...zer...?" Navie's voice quaked as the change happened, the man, who was already much bigger than Navie, was growing to near giant proportions. The Dragonkin thought he should run--he should put distance between himself and Ezer, but at the same time, those eyes were clearly begging for help. The violet-haired boy couldn't decide what was the right course of action, and he had needed to decide on it quicker. Ezer's hands on his shoulders kept him still, the shift of his body changing that grip into claws that bore into his smooth skin and drew up blood. Navie, for the first time in his life, truly thought he might be about to die as Ezer's sharp-toothed muzzle loomed right in front of his face with a growl.

But, instead, it was a different kind of death he was going to be introduced to: complete humiliation. He couldn't move from Ezer's grip, couldn't escape the physical power holding him in place. Ezer's tongue slid across his smooth cheek, then his lips, pressing rough against them as he tried to force entrance. Navie tried to keep his mouth closed, but the way the animal was running his tongue across his face, he finally had to gasp for breath, and in that moment, Ezer's tongue slipped past his white teeth and tasted the inside of his mouth wantonly. He made a noise of protest, and then was treated to the sound of tearing fabric and the feeling of the chill air on his naked body.

Oh, god. It was all he could think. He was sitting there, on his knees, in the forest, with an animal with only the vaguest traces of his ally's consciousness looming over him. He was being molested by the animal's tongue, gagged when it made it into his mouth, drinking thick saliva that barely seemed human, and when he finally managed to pull his head away, to duck it beneath the insistent and lurid kisses of Ezer's new form, Navie was unable to ignore the cock standing at attention between the animal's legs. "Wait, no. You can't..." He muttered, more a plea than a demand, and he somehow knew that anything he said would be ignored.

 

[Sigr]

"Hrrrr..." Ezer grumbled, his powerful legs advancing a bit, his groin closer and closer, that slick piece of wolf meat bigger as it got within inches of Navie's face. If the expression in Navie's face reached what once was a man, the beast didn't show it, its claws firmly planted on his back. The creature's prick was up to full mast, it's length roughly one of Navie's own arms, even if that menacingly close seemed larger, wider. Its flared tip was dripping a little bit, the translucent substance seemingly sticky, as it grazed his cheek leaving a bright and wet trail of it. Ezer groaned, sounding frustrated if such a thing was open to interpretation, as his meat struck over and over against Navie's face, nose, lips. His claws gripped a little tighter, thin threads of blood lining down Navie's back.

It didn't mind if it started as a protest, a cry of pain, desperate search for air or the start of a spell. As soon as Navie's mouth opened a little, the flared tip of that beastly cock found its way in, making him gag all over it, its girth pushing the jaw into a most uncomfortable position. Of course, the length of that had no way of getting inside him, but the monster still managed to push pass his uvula into the throat, scrapping sore where nothing should reach, covering itself with thick drool. The grunts sounded excited, clearer, faster, as that pulsing piece of meat was driven again and again into Navie's mouth, pushing tears out of his eyes. Those red eyes were focused on him, and seemed to brighten with each and every laborious gasp, every cough, every tear their owner managed to cause as the wet gargling sounds echoed in the forest against the rumor of the calm river.

As suddenly as it got in, Ezer's lupine member abandoned Navie's mouth, glistening bright with his fluids, allowing some time for the small Dragonkin to cough and spit, finally getting more air into his lungs, his sore throat mistreated by that animal. His prick was still hard, no, even harder than before, and soon the beast seemed to be doing something to calm himself. "Hrrr..." he looked at Navie, as if sizing him up, drinking in every emotion he was feeling. The beast didn't seem hungry for his flesh, at least he didn't show a craving for it, but he sure was feeding of his suffering, his humiliation and embarrassment. Forcibly turning Navie around to show his back to the monster, Ezer got hold of his right armpit with his right claw, using the left one to grab his left thigh. Standing how tall he was, the beast rose Navie's form in the air above his head, and howled.

The monster didn't seem to be about to split him in half though, as soon Navie could feel that wet nose, those sharp teeth close to the base of his tail. The feat of those mandibles closing in his tail was there, but what he received was another attack of that rough tongue, tentatively wandering around his cock and balls from behind, seemingly in the search for something. It was warm, sticky and strong, and seemed almost incredible that no long ago such thing entered his mouth, but it wasn't stopping there. Soon it reached his ass, embarrassingly licking the area to end up fiercely plunging in, the thick drooling muscle wandering his insides, seemingly intent on tasting its every crevice, sounds of wet shame coming from between his cheeks.