Author's note: Everyone (including me) liked Talons, so here's another look into that 'verse. There will probably be more, though I still have no plot for this and thus it will remain just little scenes.

Title: Talons II

Setting: AU

Characters: Kaoru, Kenshin

Type: series 2/?

Genre: urban fantasy

Word Count: 1,728

Kaoru fumbled her keys, trying to decide whether she'd made a terrible mistake or not. Behind her, the dragon waited patiently, wrapped in the thermal blanket from her Jeep's emergency kit.

Taking him back to the Watch Station had not been her first choice, but his shoulder wound needed stitches, and she hardly had the supplies, or the light, to do a proper job of it in the forest. She could hardly sterilize anything in the pouring rain, let alone see where she was putting the stitches in the limited light of her flashlight. And she was not going to half-ass treating the first dragon anybody could ever remember interacting with.

Kaoru suppressed a groan. Warden training taught her how to be polite to Legends, how to speak to each species without accidently inviting them to eat you, and how to bandage wounds. It did not teach her how to be an interspecies diplomat to a shapeshifting dragon.

Very much aware of her thoughts and the Legend standing at her shoulder watching her with interest, she fought with the Station's sticky lock. When finally the key turned, Kaoru shouldered the door open and briskly stepped inside to hold it open for him. She'd forgotten to hit the lights when she'd flown out the door earlier, so she didn't bother groping for the switch.

The dragon stepped in, looking around curiously. His nose worked, and Kaoru took a surreptitious sniff also, hoping she hadn't forgotten to take that week's trash to the compost out back or something. But all she smelled was curry…

"Oh!" Kaoru said, head whipping around toward the kitchen. The bowl of curry that was supposed to have been her dinner lay splattered on the floor, left where it had fallen when Kaoru had heard the first explosion. "I, uh."

She released the door and it swung shut behind them. She fluttered a little. "Sorry, I'll clean that up… After I stitch that shoulder. The smell doesn't bother you, does it? I'm sorry."

"It is fine," he said. His words were a little hesitant, as if he wasn't sure he was using them right. "It smells… good?"

"It was my dinner," Kaoru said, flushing and hiding it by stuffing her face into a cabinet to grab her supplies. "I dropped it when I heard the first rocket. Please, sit down."

He sat on her couch, the blanket clutched around his shoulders. He laid his sword across his knees. Kaoru paused awkwardly. "Um. Here, let's move the blanket a bit so I can get at your shoulder…"

There was a blotch of red already soaking through the pressure bandage she'd applied in the forest to slow the bleeding. She carefully removed it, and wiped away the fresh and dry blood with a damp towel. Cleaning and prepping the area, she described the process, what she was going to do and why. He listened intently, purple eyes watching her unwaveringly.

"It should take about twelve stitches," she concluded. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," said the dragon.

"I don't know much about, er, dragon metabolism. Can you take ibuprofen? Do you want any? It's a pain-reliever… And this will hurt..."

"I am fine, thank you," the dragon said politely.

"Okay," she said, trying not to fidget under his stare. "Um. Okay, if you're sure. Here we go."

Faced with a wound and armed with the tools and knowledge to treat it, all of Kaoru's uncertainty, her tumbling thoughts, faded away. She wasn't treating a wound on a creature even those who worked with Legends though only a myth, she was only treating a wound on a creature of flesh and blood. Her hands were steady, confident. She worked with quick efficiency, the economy of her movements speaking of her experience and training. She was careful, but did not draw out the painful process. She was quick, but did not cut corners.

"There," she sighed when she'd finished, wiping an errant strand of hair from her forehead with the back of one wrist. She leaned back, eyeing her work critically. A dozen stitches stood out like black spiders against the dragon's pale human skin. He hunched the shoulder forward, craning his neck to look himself.

There were a few streaks of fresh blood on him and on her blue nitrile gloves. She blotted the blood from him with a clean corner of the damp towel. Peeling the gloves from her hands, she dropped them in the waste basket and grabbed a pad of gauze and roll of bandages.

"This isn't too tight is it?" Kaoru asked, winding the bandaged around his arm. He shook his head. "Are you certain you don't want anything for the pain?"

"It is fine," the dragon assured her.

"Good," she replied briskly, tying off the ends. She dropped her hands to her lap. "Uh…"

The dragon tilted his head at her, bird-like. She floundered, confidence draining as now she was faced with an unknown once more. What did she do now? She wasn't a Senior Warden; she didn't have their advanced diplomacy training. She'd never acted so much like an ambassador to a Legend.

"Are you hungry?" she asked finally, desperately. He smiled, and she froze. 'Goddammit, Kaoru, just ask the dragon to swallow you whole next time.'

"No, thank you," he replied, calmly enough.

"…Thirsty?" she asked weakly. He nodded. Relieved, Kaoru sprang to her feet. "Water? Tea? Juice?"

"Tea."

Kaoru nodded and nearly ran to get the kettle on. After setting the full kettle on her stove and cranking on the burner, she turned and found the dragon right behind her sitting at the kitchen's breakfast counter, his sword propped against his stool's legs. Surprised because she hadn't noticed or heard him move, she jumped a little. He blinked his disconcertingly purple eyes at her.

"This is your… home?" he asked. His eyes traced the room.

"Not exactly," Kaoru answered slowly. She wondered if curiosity was a dragonly trait, or unique to just this one. "This is a Warden Watch Station. I live here for the duration of my assignment, which is a month. Then the next Warden in the rotation will live here, and I'll go home until my next assignment."

"Not your home," he murmured, almost to himself. Then, focusing on her again: "Where is your home?"

"I live in the City," Kaoru said, making a vague gesture in the general direction of the metropolis that curved around the border of the Preserve in the shape of a crescent moon. "My family owns a kenjutsu dojo. I teach there when I'm not on assignment with the Wardens."

His eyes lit up and he smiled brightly. "Kenjutsu?"

Kaoru's eyes flickered down to his sword. "Kamiya Kasshin Ryu," she said. "My family's style. So, uh… I didn't think you had a sword when you were… um. Before."

When he was scaly.

His smile became slightly feral, and he touched the hilt of the katana. "A dragon always has fangs… no matter his shape."

The kettle whistled as Kaoru was trying to absorb that one.

For a dragon, he managed drinking as a human with a deftness that made Kaoru wonder how much time he'd spent as a human in the past. He spoke her language well, also. How had he learned? Was it dragon magic? Kaoru knew that Sphinx could speak any language without learning or even hearing it beforehand.

Nursing her gently steaming cup, Kaoru surreptitiously watched as he curled his hands around his cup and inhaled the steam. The vapor wreathed his face like smoke.

'I'm feeding tea to a dragon,' she thought with a bit of wonder, and hid a smile behind her cup.

When she'd finished her tea, Kaoru cleared her throat and said: "As a Warden, it is my duty to offer any aid you might need. I have offered hospitality and medical aid. Is there anything else you might need? I can arrange for transportation deeper into the forest, if you wish. If you need further assurance that the poachers that attacked you will be punished, I can put you in contact with my superiors."

Kaoru tried to sound as professional as possible, but the circumstances were pretty far from the norm. In her three years as a Warden, the only interactions she'd ever had with Legends were small wound treatment in the field followed by a swift parting of ways. The only words exchanged had been the ones she had told the dragon in the forest: and apology and an offer of first aid. She was empowered to do the things she had just offered, but wardens were told only to offer such things if the Legend in question asked for them. They weren't supposed to interact extensively with the Legends. They were only supposed to keep poachers from killing them.

"I will heal by morning," said the dragon. "I only need a place to sleep, until I can take my true-form again."

"Huh?" Kaoru's brow furrowed. He healed that fast? Then, had the stitches been unnecessary? And was he implying he couldn't turn back into a dragon yet?

"Now that the wound is held closed, it will heal faster," he said. "But as long as it is healing, I can't shift, or it'll get worse."

Part of Kaoru was astonished that he'd volunteer that information. He'd essentially admitted to being trapped in this vulnerable human form… Though, on second thought, maybe it was a smarter move than remaining a dragon. He was camouflaged, after a fashion.

"You can sleep here," she said. There was nothing else she could have said.

"Thank you," he said. His head tilted. "I am called Kenshin."

He 'was called'? So was that his real name or not? Did dragons, like pooka, believe knowing a thing's name gave you power over it?

"I'm Kaoru," said Kaoru's mouth, without input from her brain. Clearly, she was going to die a terrible, Legendary death. 'Just forget everything they taught you in training, Kamiya, that's fine.'

"Kaoru," Kenshin repeated, curling his tongue around her name. He smiled at her, eyes bright. Suddenly completely not worried, Kaoru smiled back.

'Maybe it's not so bad as that. He doesn't seem to have any kind of ill-will at all.' She paused. 'Though, maybe if he's going to hang around a while, I should get him some actual clothes…'