Chapter 5: Close Encounter

As Sapphire just managed to pull up enough to avoid the hit breaking her neck on impact, the hit still knocked the air out of her though, and she felt ribs cracking, it was a deep disorienting pain as she wondered what had just happened to her. She was not that high in the air and would be dropping fast. The thing that had hit her clung to her and was shaking her by the shoulders shouting at her, it seemed very distraught, what a weird language, She thought. Before snapping back to her senses and drawing breath again, it hurt like hell, her cracked or broken ribs, protesting loudly. Her training took over, any real flyer knew what to do when things went wrong, as tucked in her wings and used her tail to counter the spin they were currently in. She was heading straight for the ground and it was a lot closer than she had remembered. Cursing the seconds she had lost in the daze she flared her wings trying desperately to pull up, the thing clinging to her sure didn’t help the weight was too far forward, damned thing! It was going to get them both killed. Though if she was without wings in a crash dive, she would probably be clinging to the nearest thing that could fly too. That was little comfort though, she had been too slow to react and the creature wouldn’t move, despite being told they were gonna hit! At least the clinging creature would hit first, she thought angrily.

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Tom admitted things weren’t going great on his little trip. he'd been kidnaped, gored in the gut, poisoned, shaken like a dog's toy, used as an air to air missile, and was now heading for the ground clinging to a half-unconscious dragon looking thing, at least it had begun to wake up around halfway down. the impact must have knocked it out and was now seemingly fighting not to turn into a pancake on impact with the ground. He couldn’t see how well that particular battle was going from his current position locking over its neck hanging on for dear life. He soon got his answer as he slammed into the ground, back first the hit knocked the breath out of him again. They rolled across the ground, dirt and moss flying everywhere, he heard cracking bone and screaming. He had added his own voice to the choir when his right shoulder was knocked out of its joint, causing him to finally lose his grip on his ad-hock transportation method, he led out a gasp for air as the world began to blacken around the edges

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As sapphire came to, she was on the ground, the pain was immense, she looked up to see Esmeralda looking worried at her with a grimace on her face, “ noo, noo that is not supposed to look like that. ughhh”

the older huntress shuddered looking at her. When she tried to move she was meet with sharp pain, from her right-wing and leg protesting the movement, besides her badly bruised chest. Forcing herself to sit up with a grunt she inspected the damage, her right-wing was utterly broken with pieces of bone sticking out, a torn membrane, and several broken digits. Ohh nooo, she thought to herself, her spirits sinking, she would be grounded for weeks at best if not months, and when she looked down she found her shin broken too! apparently getting stuck in an awkward angle during the tumble. So she wouldn’t be walking either, marvelous! But at least she was alive, that was quite the fall. she looked over to the crash site to see the thing sitting up with one of its hands in the air, seemingly not ready to pick another fight. Dammit, she thought she would have loved to pay him back for her busted wing, or perhaps have one of the others do it for here, current condition and all. As Jackalope came over and proclaimed “ouch you don’t look brilliant” all she could do was stare at her, with the sort of indignant rage reserved for people who didn’t know when to shut up. “How many got away” she demanded “Two not bad all things considered, we got the one that so graciously knocked you out of the sky ” Jackalope seemed quite pleased with the result “yay I have been avenged” not a grain of amusement in her tone.

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Tom was not sure if his situation had improved much following the crash, he was down one gun and his knife, he hurt like hell, and was now staring at a drawn bow. He had raised his hands the best he could despite his less than fully functional arm, and sitting up to look at his captor/savior? they were dragon-like for sure, but no taller than him, well with the horns maybe a little, they were humanoid just like him, but with wings on their backs, they were all a white-ish silver color varying a little between them, horns were dark blue almost metallic looking, with a lighter blue to turquoise ish color running down their neck and chest, along what seemed like interlocking plates? Big scales he guessed, they were wearing light armor of some description, though it looked more for show than practicality.

the armor consisting of what he could best describe as a tiara breastplate that stopped above the midriff for some reason, grieves, and gauntlets, and a skirt of what looked like thick dark blue leather plates. they all carried bows and some sort of big dagger or shortsword. The metal part of the armor had a White enamel-like finish to it, with copper, silver, and gold inlay. It was all very intricately made too, all in all, they looked quite dapper, he thought. They were very slenderly built, but more like an Olympic runner than anything else. It didn’t hurt of course that they even looked quite feminine. They just screamed high-speed flying.

The one looking at him and not pointing a bow at him spoke in a guttural tone it almost sounded like Russian he thought, the voice was feminine too though. As he pondered if he had just been rescued/captured by flying dragon amazons, it dawned on him he was being held at bow point. By people, he couldn’t talk with, and that locked decidedly militaristic, if stylish. Well, this complicates things, as he pointed at his ear with his good hand, and shook his head “I can’t understand you” the one talking just facepalmed, followed by throwing her head up towards the sky and letting out a long sigh, seemingly about as pleased with the situation as Tom as, it/she? turned to talk to the Injured one.

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“It can’t speak properly” Dakota sighed turning to Sapphire “how are you feeling Saph”

“To be honest, not brilliant and I’m not gonna be flying or walking anytime soon” Sapphire replied sounding defeated.

“accidents happen to be honest I haven’t seen that maneuver before it was quite well done, the way it used the tree to hide its trap” Dakota said sounding as if she was already working to use the new tactic to her advantage.

“I’m glad you found my crash educational,” Sapphire replied indignantly, as she further inspected the damage. it would need to be set and braced before the natural healing started, and they were quite far from home and it hurt like hell. “I think that weird thing could help, it seems to know some magic?”

“let's try and find out,” Dakota said looking back at the thing that had downed her best flyer.

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As Tom had begun looking around he had counted 5 dragon people, he really needed a better name for them than that, he thought. The one he had ‘ridden’ on his way down, it did not look great, the wing was definitely busted, leg was fucked too. He wondered what they were gonna do now, when the leader he believed, it certainly had more gold than the others on her armor? Looked back at him and pointed at the injured one, with a very demanding look in its eyes and muttered a single word in its language, Tom took it to mean fix or something like that. He hadn’t brought anything besides a basic first aid kit, but hey least he could do was try and help. He nodded and got up and tried to walk over to a nearby tree only to be stopped by the one still pointing a bow at him, he pointed at his shoulder and grimaced as if to indicate pain then at the tree. The dragon thing looked quizzical tilting its head before backing away a bit to let him reach the tree. Tom had tried the procedure before, that didn’t make it any more comfortable of course. Reseating his shoulder by slamming it into a tree, was painful but on the third try, he had managed it. With a loud pop and a shout of satisfying pain he regained the use of his arm, his guard seemed alarmed by the act and had moved to stop him right as the joint slipped back into place, reaching out its hand but seemed to realize what had been done and quickly retreated drawing its bow again. Tom stumbled over to the wounded dragonette, yes dragonette, not quite a dragon but pretty close, it would do, for now anyway. He removed his backpack, and took out the first aid kit, and set to work.

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“I don’t think he knows healing magic, that looks like healer’s supplies, and it seems quite hurt too” Esmeralda’s input was as always appreciated if often quite obvious. Still better than nothing, and the materials looked to be of excellent quality. as the creature worked its fingers seemed so soft and delicate, they were warm too, if not for the pain here and then it was actually quite comfortable. it didn’t have claws either, which was nice. but it was still only healing supplies so Dakota Would have to lend a hand, even if she wasn’t that capable of a healer she could at the very least close a wound to prevent infection.

It was at times like these Sapphire regretted Nunuk had gotten too old to go on hunts, her spellcraft would have been greatly appreciated. Looking at the thing currently working on her wing, she realized its clothes were soaked through with blood, the green and black cloth it wore had done well to hide the fact “if you want to question this thing he needs attention that doesn’t look good, I’ll live for now. also, I think it's bleeding red?”

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Tom was in the middle of working out a splint for one of the small digits that ran down the wing when suddenly, he had been pulled away and laid down on his back, not quite sure what to make of the situation he raised his hands again only to have his shirt lifted revealing the damage to his gut, as he struggled to get a closer look at the damage. It looked quite bad he thought it could have been worse though, the creature’s claws had almost managed to enclose his waist when carrying him and so had only made scratch marks and some small punctures, rather than digging in. His vest had also taken some of the pounding, even if the stinger had hit below it because why not? At least his captors seemed interested in his survival, which was nice, seemingly quite worried by the damage. One had begun applying pressure to the wound, a surprisingly large amount of pressure at that. Another brought him his first aid kit. He grabbed the kit and got out the disinfectant and applied it liberally to the wounds.

When he had tried to apply bandages though they stopped him? The leader had come over and began chanting, as his eyes widened and his lips curled into a smile, he practically screamed inside himself, THEY GOT MAGIC, OHHH HELL YEAH. It only seemed to knit together the skin though, the pain was still there, still very useful against infections he thought to himself.

As he got up with a groan, his guard drew their bow at the ready, he really needed to make friends here he thought, these were the first people he had met after all, and he certainly wasn’t in fighting shape. Stumbling back over to his backpack, his thigh still hurting like hell, he got out some trail mix, and jerky and offered it to one guarding him. It seemed the youngest, with mostly copper inlay in its armor and the leathery skin being closer to white than silver. “Food” he went, watching it lowered its bow and carefully took the item’s looking at them quizzically. Tom got out another bag of trail mix and opened it pouring out a few pieces of nuts and dried berries into his hand and eating them. The Dragonette followed suit, inspecting the bag closely, it looked quite pleased by the taste, once it got the content’s out. two of the others had come over to try the snacks immediately. That was a good sign, at least he had something to barter with on him.

He took out a pair of painkillers to take the edge off and offered one to the wounded dragonette along with some water, it seemed more interested in the bottle though saying something in its alien tongue and bowing her head. He showed himself eating the pain killer, and it followed suit washing it down with some of the water. The leader had continued to work on the injuries, sparing a Squinted look at Tom now and again, like she was trying to figure him out.

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“hey girls he’s got food, nuts and berries I think don’t recognize any of them though, and this looks like dried meat of some kind” as Fengi took a bite of the strange meat, her eye’s flared “how does that taste so good?” The childlike wonder of her voice got the attention of Jackalope and Esmaralde fairly coming over to try the snacks. She was left sitting there pouting while Dakota worked, wing broken, leg broken, and now the others were harvesting the reward from the guy she had practically saved? Not fair.

There was wide consensus that this guy knew how to make snacks, that was for sure. Next, he took out a dark green bottle and walked over to Sapphire, and gave it to her, “thank you?” she had responded bowing her head slightly looking at the strange bottle, it was not metal or glass that was certain, but she had no idea what it was, it didn’t look like skin or leather either, at least none that she knew. Was it medicine? The stranger reached over and unscrewed the top for her, no cork or cap? He gave her a small bead, he took one similar himself, looking at her expectantly, that must be medicine, she ate the thing and drank.

It was nice clean water and the bead didn’t taste of anything, strange medicine she thought, that stuff was usually horrid, though the bottle was even more interesting. He then pulled out some sort of rectangular object wrapped in a very thin strange material, it was very colorful too, almost like silk. As he ripped it open revealing a small bar of what looked like grain stuck together, she nearly winced, it had looked so pretty! He handed it to her and made an eating motion. As she put it in her mouth it was nice and crunchy, and sweet! there was honey in it!! Normally that would be reserved for feasts and celebrations. And he just had some in his pack, and gave it away!? did he even know what that was worth? Perhaps he was grateful for the rather ungraceful ride down. “he’s got honey too!”