The dragon gave a mighty roar, loath to give up too easy. The priestess had expected an outburst—it is not in the nature of a dragon to acquiesce quietly-- but anticipating it did not make the eruption less startling. The girl stepped away from her mentor and met his gaze apprehensively, looking back down quickly as she recognized only the harsh, metallic glare of the dragon-half. The princess said nothing in response, waiting for her words to sink in and for it to dawn upon her companion that if Kjors Sorenson did not bow to lesser wolves, he didn’t run from them either. 

The silence drew out longer, and Karina chanced another glance to her mentor’s face. He looked distant now, and almost scared (if dragons could be frightened), and the child timidly closed the distance between them once more. She felt Kjors sigh into her embrace, and as he began to tremble she held tighter. His breathing became ragged as his battle with his inner dragon raged. His daemon had devolved into a mass of swirling, churning chaos, wrapping around the pair like a furious golden tornado. Karina could not see or even feel her doe, trapped outside the dragon’s wall. When Kjors’s knees buckled the pair fell to the ground together. Karina remained curled into her companion, and she buried her face into Kjors’s onyx pelt to hide from the storm.

The princess lifted her head when she heard Kjors’s raspy voice, and when she did so she saw that the dragon’s tempest had subsided. The golden daemon had retreated into the trees to light upon a sturdy limb, and it now watched them through harsh, narrowed eyes. Kjors stuttered out an apology, and Karina, still unable to find words, gave the man a small lick on his cheek to convey her understanding. Out of the corner of her eye, the priestess saw her doe emerge from the trees where it had retreated for cover. The deer approached Karina and laid its nose upon her shoulder. Karina felt her fear subside instantly as it drained into the daemon. The doe’s eyes widened with newfound panic, and as quickly as it had come it vanished, fleeing back into the treeline from some unknown terror.

Finally able to find her voice, Karina whined softly, “Sh-sh-Kjors.. I want to—c-can we..?” The tremor in her voice was reminiscent of an earlier time, a phase in her life Karina had been happy to bid farewell. She took a deep, steadying breath, and spoke with more confidence, “..let’s go home.”  Zephyr Rill had a calming effect on both of them, and Karina was already thinking longingly of her lavender-lined chamber.