Cobra grumbled to himself as his foot caught on yet another twig in the forest. He'd had no other choice but to escape through the barren wilderness terrain after those council guards had caught him in the town and chased after him. A hardened criminal since childhood, Cobra knew the sly art of escaping arrest. He'd been able to give them the slip quite easily—unfortunately, he'd had to run deep into the forests to do so. And not many people tended to roam these woods due to the stories that floated from small whispers. The townsfolk warned against the mountains, where they said magical beasts dwelled and roamed. But someone like Cobra did not believe in mythical tales.
He had been travelling for just over a few hours now, listening through the trees and using his gifted senses to keep alert for any of the council guards that may have been sent in after him. He wouldn't be able to go back to Oak town, at least not for a few days. He needed to wait until the heat of his recognition died down before he risked it. He had left his bag back in the inn room, which he cursed the guards for now. He had not given a da of leave, therefore, if he was lucky, the inns people would assume he was still there and not clear out his stuff. They'd put the extra days on his tab—but Cobra never intended to pay anyway, so it mattered little to him. However, it still left him with one very pressing issue: he had nothing on him but the clothes on his back.
Unless you counted the will of a seventy-three time arrest-escaped convict. But criminal will would not keep his body warm from the night, nor put food in his currently empty stomach. The sun was still high, but once night fell, he would be left to the frigid temperatures of the night. It was not his first time surviving alone in the wilderness—but that didn't mean he enjoyed it.
He continued to grumbled to himself as he slowed to a more leisurely pace, shoving his hands in his pockets as he kicked a stone from his path into the bushes across the clearing.
He wasn't expecting something to get kicked back out at him.
He came to a still inside of the wide clearing, facing the stone walls that made the mountains sides. The large cluster of vibrant green bushes rattled in response to the stone he had sent into them. His hand instinctively flew to the dagger at his side that he'd luckily had with him when he'd gone into town that day. His palm clenched on the hilt, waiting to draw it in the blink of an eye if he needed to. It was not the guards—he would have heard if it was. This was something else.
Hopefully nothing bigger than a fox, Cobra thought, dreading the image of a vicious bear or mountain wolf. A brief recollection of the stories the townspeople told flashed in his mind of mythical creatures and magic beast—but he shook those away with a blink, cursing the ridiculous thought from his mind just as the bushes fell silent. Cobra blinked.
The bundle came crashing out before he got the chance to do anything else.
With a startled yelp, the criminal jumped backwards at once, narrowly avoiding the tangle that broke through the barricade and came rolling into the clearing before him. The thing continued to roll in the grass, letting out soft grunts and whines as it withered like a coiled serpent in water. The sun glinted off of something shiny, blinding him for a few seconds as he raised a hand to shield his eyes. Something long and silver with a forked sort of double spear whipped back and forth in the air. A flash of metallic claws and scales caught his eye—as well as a large mane of jet black spiky hair.
Cobra stared in bewilderment as the creature finally settled and seemed to give up, deflating onto the ground with a breathy whine. Until it saw him that was. Cobra saw the exact moment the creature noticed he was there with the jerked way it's body went still. Then it just stared at him, with large vibrant eyes the colour of blood rubies. And Cobra did not know what else to do but stay still and stare in return.
The beast, he realized, appeared more human that he realized. Male, if looks were enough to base off. His face was sharp featured, not, to say, unattractively so—and young, around Cobra's age if he had to guess. His face also held and array of metallic studs, in his eyebrows, his nose, his chin. Cobra had eleven blood that gave him ears that ended in pinched points rather than round ends—this creature's were similar, though not the same. They were long and pointed, adorned with the same kind of metal as his facial features. Jutting out in a more triangular shape, like those of a long eared canine, in between the strands of the thorny black mane. His skin was tawny, not as dark as Cobras, but far from pale. That's when Cobra noticed that the shimmering was not just a trick of the light. The beast had real metallic looking scales merged with his skin in various patches, around his eyes, chin, arms, and most likely other places Cobra could not see due to the clothes that covered his lower half and torso. Another oddity: the creature was wearing clothes? A dark navy coloured tunic and beige pants—all of which appeared worn and scrapped.
The beast had not taken those glinted gemmed eyes off of him, though it did not rise. Cobra realized why.
He was bound.
The metal the Cobra had seen on him was not all his own—wrapped around the creatures body were wrapped of thorned hunter's wire and chains. They bound his ankles and his arms to his torso. The area where the wire dug into his skin where scales did not cover were dripping red beads the colour of his eyes. Bound and muzzled, Cobra realized as the beast looked away from him only to try and fail to nip helplessly for the chains his teeth could not reach through the black face binder. He let his head flop down with a low keening whine. Cobra could only stare as the beats then looked at him tentatively, studying his movements. They both seemed to know it could do nothing if he came close.
Not thinking, Cobra took a step forward.
The creature reacted in an instant, large metallic wings that had been hidden behind him snapped open, a warding sign, seeing Cobra as a sudden threat. The chains stopped them from opening all the way however, and the strain it created on the creatures torso cause him to let out another low whine.
He was in pain. Cobra could hear it.
"What are you?"
The beast froze and let out an offended sounding huff at the blunt question. Cobra almost laughed. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the beast was glaring at him. But it answered one question.
"You can understand me," he said.
Reluctantly, the beast raised his chin to give a tentative nod.
Cobra took another step forward and this time the beast growled but did not shift. Cobra took that as a good sign.
He got a better look at the male—scaled wings, a metallically scaled tail with a tip like a twin dagger, claws, fangs—which the male bore at him now, slitted eyes, and dark horns that curled up just behind his temples.
"What are you? Some kind of wannabe...metal lizard?" Cobra asked. The beast let out a terse chuffing breath. And then Cobra heard it.
'What kind of idiot doesn't know a dragon when he sees one?'
"Dragon eh?" Cobra chuckled and the beast's eyes widened and then narrowed in suspicion. To play with him, he added, "And you're a little too tied up at the moment to be calling anyone an idiot."
The dragon was definitely shocked now, staring eyes wide at him as though he had grown two heads, seven hands, and a fish tail. The image was ridiculous.
'What are you? Zenhäei?'
"Some sort of a mage," Cobra mused. Then he laughed, "What the heck is a Zenhäei?"
The dragon flicked his ears, and that's when he realized he was looking at Cobra's own.
"Do you mean Elf?" Cobra snorted. "If so, the answer is more or less."
The dragon looked intrigued. He tried to rise, almost as if he had forgotten about the wrap of chains and barbed wire that caused him to flip back down again.
"You really are tied up aren't you..." Cobra muttered, wincing at the blood that stained the grass.
'No shit', the other shot back, but it lacked ire as his head fell defeated to the ground, panting with strain and exhaustion.
"...Need help there?" Cobra mused, mocking grin appearing as the words left his tongue.
The dragon lifted his eyes to him. And glared. 'Stay away from me'.
"Or what?" Cobra challenged, raising an eyebrow at the pathetic display before him. "You'll tangle yourself trying to reach me?"
Red eyes gleamed like daggers. The chains shifted and strained as the dragon male rose by sheer force of will, as if just out of spite to prove the other wrong, he forced himself to his hands and knees. And then he felt the chains tighten on his wings and tear into his skin, and he couldn't help the cry of pain the left him.
"Hey! Hold on you idiot—you're gonna hurt yourself!" Without thinking Cobra ran forward, almost as if to catch the other as he fell. He didn't get far, his senses reeled him back a step or two away from the dragon clawing and panting on the grassy floor. Blood red eyes looked up at him; filled with pain, barely able to hold the glare. He was weak, that much was clear. Either the blood loss, the pain, exhaustion, or all three had evidently taken its tole on the poor beast. Who knew how long he could have been running from whatever hunters had bound him like this?
Heh, Cobra though. Running just like he was.
He sighed, eyes closed as he ran a troubled hand through his tangled hair. Then he opened one to peer back down at the dragon, who was staring back up at him, watching tentatively. "Listen," Cobra began. "I can get you out. You just need to promise you won't...I don't know, eat me or something."
The dragons eyes were blank. But his expression spoke with something like twisted repulsion as Cobra read his thoughts.
'Self-centred humans. Actually think they taste good'.
"Well...that's a relief," Cobra expressed, managing a wry grin.
'You look about as appetizing as a worm to me'.
The grin fell, and Cobra shoved his hands in his pockets with ire. "Do you want my help or no? If not, I can just turn around and leave right now," he jabbed.
He heard low growls from the mass of scale and metal in the ground, but then it fell silent after some consideration.
'Please...?'
"Please what?" Cobra asked.
'...please get me out...'
He blinked at the tentativeness which the inner voice spoke, and noticed the dragon male was clearly avoiding his gaze; instead content to fix those red eyes on the ground.
Cobra sighed again, calming himself. "Alright, fine. But remember, don't eat me."
'I thought I made it clear—'
"Oh you did. Just don't attack me, either. Deal?"
The other nodded; a weak notion of exhaustion. Cobra really needed to get him out before those wire cut into him so deep he really did bleed to death.
He was hesitant as he came to kneel down by the dragons side; watching and listening for his every move in case he tried to lash out. But the beast was no more than a limp bind on wings and chains on the ground. He barely even lifted his head as Cobra kneeled down beside him."Alright...steady ok?" Cobra said as he reached for the first chains. "This may hurt."
The dragon simply closed his eyes.
The first chains were broken—or rather; melted by Cobra's magic, sizzling until he was able to break them and unwrap them from the dragon. It was the barbed wires that caused the most problems. Those couldn't simply be melted with poison. Cobra had to hold the dragon down as he pulled out the barbs individually, pricking his own fingers as he removed the wires from the dragon's wounds. He tried not to pay attention to the keening sounds the other male made, or the soft mewls of pain that escaped when he ripped out a particularly deep thorn.
"I'm sorry..." Cobra apologized softly, each time he did something that caused the dragon pain. "Almost done...almost done..."
The dragon would look at him; meet his eyes. He was vulnerable, his eyes glazed with pain. But he looked at Cobra with something the mage would have mistook as...as trust, had he not known better. A beast would not trust him. No one should trust him. Then those eyes closed tightly as he worked out the last of the damaging binds.
Finally, when he had removed the last of the wire, Cobra allowed himself to drop his arms and release a heavy breath. He hadn't realized being so careful had taken more concentration than he'd thought. The dragon seemed to fall limp with the release of tension in his body. He panted quietly as the blood from his wounds began to flow less prominently with the absence of bindings digging into them.
Cobra got up and moved hesitantly in front of him. The black muzzle was the last thing to take off. After a moment, he began to reach out his hands again, inching towards the straps he saw behind the other's pointed ears. Then suddenly the dragon snapped. Cobra heard the shift in his mind, but was not quick enough to react as the beast suddenly reared up and jumped back.
The hands by the muzzle, it had triggered the dragon to panic. He began to snarl and snap, reached for his head to claw viciously at the face-bind.
Cobra had fallen back in shock, but now he sat up and watched with wide eyes.
"Hey! Stop it! Calm down!" He yelled, watching with horror as the dragon's claws missed the straps and slashed a line of red across his own cheek, just under his eye. He roared, but continued to fight off the invisible enemies around him. "Stop!" Cobra yelled again. And this time, he launched himself forward, not knowing what he was thinking.
The sane part of his brain was screaming at him that he was charging towards imminent death, and that he was going to die. Another part of his discarded the thoughts entirely and set on the dragon. He grabbed him, throwing his arms around his head as he tried to make him fall still. One of the horns smacked the side of his face, causing a sting that told Cobra the edge must have cut him. But he didn't let go. As the dragon fought him, he did his best to undo the straps of the muzzle, afraid to use his magic while the creature was in such disarray in risk that he might hurt him further.
Almost...almost...
He finally heard the snap and the tear of the binding. He let go and stepped back. The dragon fell still, and the muzzle slipped from his face into Cobra's left hand.
The beast stared, his eyes still wide, his tail hanging around his ankle and his wings curved slightly around him. But he stared at Cobra with those deep blood eyes: moist, as if close to shedding tears of disbelief that whatever he had been suffering was finally over.
"There..." Cobra breathed quietly, one hand still on the dragon's head. "You're alright now."
