The cry of a Phoenix

That was the last thing he remembered before he suddenly woke up from his nap in the carriage to Riften. It had been awhile since the confrontation between the two heroes and ever since have rarely spoke a word to each other.

Orion felt so bad for demonizing her the way he did, he knew that Karliana couldn't do anything. She was just a child at the time and hadn't developed the critical thinking skills one has when they are older. He wanted to apologize so damn badly to her already but she never gave him the chance to and this was killing him.

"Look Kar-"

"No, just stop I understand completely how you feel Orion" Karliana said, stone cold.

So for the rest of the trip, no one breath was ever uttered and they were shrouded by complete silence.

"How long until we arrive driver?" Karliana questioned, still overlooking the scenery.

"Only one more nights rest and you two…?"

"Good friends." Orion answered

'...should be arriving at your destination"

Karliana cursed under her breath and proceeded to pull a bottle of honningbrew mead out from her satchel, sipping the contents from the mead bottle. She stretched afterwhile and slumped back down into her laxed position of arms 3/4s out of the cart and dangling. Her hair was in a messy bun that was held together by a purple silk hair tie and was feeling weighed down by her armour, so she decided to changed into a low cut silk shirt with a sabre cat fur cloak wrapped around her.

As the cart drew near the city and with each passing moment, so did the time of nightfall which synchronizing with it. When it became too dark to travel, they unpacked their camping supplies and pitched up their tents for the night with the Orion starting the fire. Once done with everything, they settled down onto some seating near the fire and ate their rations for that day in silence. The tents were settled into a kinda half circle near the campfire they had made with trees surrounding the clearing they were in.

After done eating, they all piled into their tents and headed off to sleep.

Everyone but Orion.

He decided to stay watch after the last incident while they were on their way to Solitude.

I really have messed up this badly huh? She definitely despises me at the moment. I can't let that affect me though, she is still younger compared to me and has much to learn.

Orion was completely lost in thought, thinking about how Karliana has been more stone cold than he has ever seen.

Suddenly, a searing pain started to course from his lower abdomen as he jumped back to face his attacker, biting his lip to stifle the cry of pain that wanted to escape

Covered by the dead of night, he pointed out a figure wearing some type of dark, tanned leathers that fitted the body very well. The eyes were covered by some type of hood or mask that had the emblem of a snake. Long black hair draped from the left side of the individual's face. Though that's all he could take in before an arrow pierced his chest, rupturing a lung.

He couldn't take it, as he roared a cry of pain and anger as small 5 feet long dragon wings, black as the void itself that emitted a hellish red glow to them, sprouted. His eyes turned into orange slits like a dragon as he flapped his wings up to get a view of how many there were. 3 he saw

A power he liked the most was the fact he could see near perfectly while in the dark and with the fact he could also fly for a short while before he would get tired.

Flying towards with his battleaxe and gripping it, he soon followed through with a overhead strike at the first attackers head, but missing narrowly as they dodged out of the way and tried to take another stab at him. Orion parried it with his wings spikes and grab the individual's neck, intending to crush their windpipe. Before he did, he removed their mask and the face revealed to be that of a women with blue eyes, struck with absolute terror.

It looked like she wanted to plead for her life but he didn't care as he took one last glance at her before shattering her neck bones and crushing her windpipe and tossing the fresh corpse at one of the others.

The attacker was caught completely off-guard by the toss and collided with the body. As this happened, Karliana poked her head from her tent and saw, firstly the body hit someone and next, the human-dragonic form of him. Something she seen a long time ago when she was a lot younger.

She scurried back into her tent, grabbing dawnbreaker, and steadying herself into the ground into a defensive position.

In a split second, a figure in the same attire as the rest, rushed at her and collide blades with her. It was a game of 'who could overpower the other' to the death and she wasn't winning. She quickly took her left foot and kicked it into the assassin's shin and he quickly lost balance at this action. She went to stab them in the stomach but somehow the assassin managed to disengage and take a direct slash at her arm. Pain winced in her face and she felt the dripping of red from her waist.

She held back a cry of pain as she gritted her teeth and proceedingly lunged at her attacker, intending to aim for their upper thigh. The searing flames of the sword pierced the rough leather garbs and dark, thick liquid proceeded to spill out of the wound. The assassin winced in pain as he stumbled back a bit but before he could take time to register where to strike, Karliana struck a right sideways slash at his side and connected it with an upper wards strike into the opponent's juggural. A combination of blood and oxygen drained from their neck as he grasped it and slowly slumped down to the ground. Dying a slow and pain death.

As Orion finished off the last target by literally grabbing his head and tearing it straight from its body, he slumped to the ground, wings retracting and eyes returning to normal.

He evaluated his current condition: ruptured lung and searing stab wound through the lower abdomen.

He was slumped near the part of the forest near the carriage drivers tent and noticed that it was wide open. He mustered up enough strength left to pick himself up while clutching his wounds and stumble towards his tent. When he peered inside, the driver was dead with his neck slit.

He cursed under his breath and sat right back down to catch his breath.

"Orion, by the 8 divines, we need to get you to a temple."

This was the first time Karliana had any emotion in her voice besides a cold tone. It would almost made him happy if he wasn't potentially mortally wounded in the process.

"Can't Karliana, I think that arrow ruptured my damn lung. Grab a potion from my bag and hand to me." he said weakly

She raced towards his bag and fished a red vial from the bag and rushed back to give it to him.

He uncorked the potion and hurriedly drank the contents of the potion. He proceeded to stand up and slowly waddle towards his bag. When he got there, he fished around for awhile and withdrew a linen wrap and got to patching himself up and Karliana followed through with the same with her wounds.

"Silence dies when night arises."

Orion turned to his left and saw someone he hadn't seen since his imprisonment and this made him smirk.