What's in a name?

[Dragon]

Dragon looked up at the sound of Kinley's laughter, which--while musical and pleasant in his ears--made his cheeks burn in embarrassment. He supposed he looked silly, or inept, having to sit down and struggling with this basic form of protection. Kinley did it so gracefully earlier. Why couldn't he do it?!

Eventually, with lots of help from Kinley (and Dragon kept sneaking glances over at him while they were this close, holding up the whole process) the pans went on properly. He took Kinley's hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, after which the stretchy top bit went up and above his dangly bits, containing them so that they no longer flopped around in a way that Dragon could only describe as being deeply disturbing and uncomfortable.

"Huh?" Now another new item was added, this one to go over the body. Dragon stuck an arm through it too, but facing the cloth so that when he did, it only covered his front and not his back. He looked at it with a deep frown and then looked up at Kinley with a mutinous expression. "No."

[Kinley Sima]

"Um..."

The jacket was on backwards. But as Kinley went to try and correct it, Dragon stared at him with a dangerous expression, like he was sick and tired of being treated like a rag doll. Well... nobody wanted that but Kinley was pretty sure Dragon didn't want to be caught walking around half naked, either. Since Dragon didn't seem keen on letting him switch the jacket around, he sighed and tried to urge Dragon to turn around again.

"If you're going to wear it backwards, at least let me button it."

It would look stupid but at least his back wouldn't be exposed if Hazleton's famous rainstorms started. Again, he found himself peering up through the canopy of trees. It was steadily growing cooler and darker in the woods and his heart skipped a beat. The two of them stuck out here against the elements all night hardly sounded appealing. Plus, he left his backpack out where Mrs. Briggs was, when he was dragged unceremoniously off with Dragon. The only thing he managed to get out of his backpack was the pants--his phone and everything else was back there...

Uh-oh. Not... a good thing by any means.

[Dragon]

Well this was much better! Dragon looked down at himself; now he looked just like any old human! ...minus the part where the back collar of the jacket was cutting into his windpipe, and the fact that he was barefoot and disheveled, wearing a jacket backwards. But other than THAT, he looked very presentable.

He was also much warmer now, and gradually the shivering stopped. Dragon sidled up to Kinley, thinking about curling up against him again--he was a lonely dragon, stuck in a realm where most of his kind weren't present. But the worried expression on Kinley's face stopped him and he reached out to curl a hand around Kinley's wrist instead.

Where did they go now? Did they stay here? Dragon thought about the card--his ticket back to the realm of endless gray--and he felt a stab of reluctance at the idea of having to return there. At the very least... he didn't want to go back alone. But he didn't think that taking a human through with him was necessarily a good idea, either. The journey was already rough on him; it might be catastrophic for a human. (That just meant he couldn't go back! And it was an excuse to stay with Kinley for at least a little while longer!)

"Kiney?" he queried softly.

[Kinley Sima]

Slipping an arm around Dragon's shoulders, he took a look around and tried to figure out where they were. The woods by the school weren't that big but there were no trail markers anywhere around them and no landmarks within sight. None that he recognized, anyway. So for a moment, he remained where he was, listening to the wind gently blow the branches above them, swaying to nature's rhythm. He glanced down at the hand around his wrist, then slid his free hand over Dragon's hand. He seemed worried now, maybe now that all of the weirdness and excitement died down, he could see they weren't in the best situation.

His mom told him to stay in one place if he got lost while hiking but that was when they were with people. Kinley had no way of knowing what the others had done when they ran away. Mrs. Briggs probably stopped Kero and Tim's kid brother from following them. If they didn't come out soon, they might call the cops. If the cops got involved, there was no telling what they might do to Dragon. They wouldn't hurt him--of that he was sure. But they might take him down to the station, all alone and with little ability to communicate.

"Come on," he said finally, taking Dragon's hand and tugging him along with him. They just had to keep walking until they got out. There was really no other alternative. It would be better to walk out of their own volition than to involve the authorities.

[Dragon]

Dragon was no stranger to darkness but he found that his vision was becoming severely limited with the withdrawal of light. It seemed that human eyes were incapable of night vision. He looked up keenly at the dense canopy above them, formed from criss-crossing branches and thick leafy boughs. Darkness was falling and it was getting windier, judging by the way that the leaves rustled.

"Hm." A concerned sound slipped from him as Kinley tugged him along. He followed, footsteps rustling through dried leaves and grass, sometimes stepping unpleasantly on a hard pine cone or a pebble. Dragon didn't make too much noise; he didn't want to attract the attention of creatures in the night. Much like in the other realm, darkness only brought out the monsters--and demons.

He thought that Kinley had an idea of where they were going--Kinley being the obvious expert here in the human world, on all things human. Dragon mostly walked with him, holding his hand tightly. If worst came to worst, he could protect Kinley--he could change back into his dragon form. The master would probably blast him into atoms for it, though...

Deeper, deeper they went and further and further they walked. Dragon looked around anxiously. Were they getting closer to where they needed to be, or further away? He imagined that Kinley wanted to go home, wherever home was in the human world, but all he saw were trees and more trees.

[Kinley Sima]

Hm was right. Kinley didn't wear a watch so he had no idea what time it was but the further they walked, the darker it got until they were walking in nearly total darkness. Their only guide were the stars above, often glimpsed through the eerie tree branches. Some of them looked like monstrous claws raking the sky and they looked even scarier when he realized that clouds were rolling in and covering up any light they previously had.

Through most of their trek through the woods, Kinley remained silent, trying to listen his way through the forest and away from any danger that lurked in them. At one point, he thought he heard a growl--his heart leapt into his throat--but when he turned around and looked, he didn't actually see anything. Still, he drew Dragon closer and held his hand tighter.

Eventually, he heard the telltale sound of water running and he found himself at one of the many streams that traversed through the woods. With relief, he nearly stumbled to the bank of the stream before letting out a whoop of relief. He turned toward Dragon to hold onto him tightly, grinning.

"I think I know the way now!"

The celebration was short lived, however--when he heard the crunch of a twig nearby. Freezing in place, he held onto Dragon and stared over his shoulder into the darkness.

"Who's there?!"

[Dragon]

Dragon didn't want to admit it but he was scared. He heard the growl too and he whipped his head around to look, catching sight of something gleaming between two bushes. They looked like eyes, but he couldn't be sure and he didn't want to speculate. He definitely didn't say anything to Kinley, instead squeezing his hand in response and walking faster with him through the woods.

Eventually they came upon a small stream and by then, whatever had produced the growl seemed to have gone away. Or maybe it never followed them! Dragon tried to think optimistically as Kinley tugged him forward, though they both stumbled near the bank of the rivulet--Dragon doing so simply because he still wasn't accustomed to legs and feet. He was getting the hang of things, though, and didn't fall once up until that moment.

"Yes!" Hearing the elation in Kinley's voice, Dragon let out a whoop of his own too. He didn't know what the happiness was about but he went along with it anyway, if only because Kinley was smiling at him again and holding him even tighter. Dragon peered beyond him at the water, only to stop short. He froze, every sense tuned to their surroundings.

Crack! Snap!

Another series of noises sounded closer to them and he hastily pulled Kinley behind him. "Kiney..." Dragon's voice was a hushed warning. He pulled his hand away--if he needed to change, he couldn't do it while holding Kinley's hand.

Snap!

A stocky animal emerged from between two trees, with glowing yellow eyes. It was a wolf, with its lips curled in a deep and menacing snarl.

[Kinley Sima]

All thoughts about how they could follow the stream out of the woods were halted in the face of another growl. This time, he was sure he heard it and it sounded far closer than it had been before. Kinley tried to get a better look around but Dragon was stepping in front of him, speaking to him in what anybody could tell was a warning tone. Kinley didn't say anything--it was better to remain silent, calm, and listening than to start asking hysterical questions. At the same time, he felt like he could hardly hear anything over the water and his own pounding heartbeat.

Without a hand to hold, he grasped at the front of his shirt instead, staring at a shadow close to the ground, skulking forward with eyes that glinted in the moonlight. Thankfully it wasn't a full moon but that didn't mean they weren't faced with a werewolf. He half wanted to laugh thinking it but... if a dragon could appear as a human off the face of a card, then maybe the whispers about werewolves were true.

Swallowing hard, he took hold of the front of the jacket Dragon wore backwards and tried to pull him back and away. Not knowing how to use a human body the way he did, Kinley doubted that Dragon would be much help against an angry wolf.

"Don't. Don't fight it," he said softly, trying to back them up further down the stream. "They don't attack unless they're provoked."

That was what science shows said. That they only ate people when pushed into desperate measures by weather. The wolves in the area were well fed and fat, though. There were plenty of deer around, plenty of other wild life. No way would they choose to eat a human instead. But other things flashed through his mind, about strange murders, bodies that seemed mutilated by animals. Not here though. They weren't on the ridge. They were by the school!

[Dragon]

Not knowing what Kinley was saying to him, Dragon didn't step back from the approaching wolf. He stood his ground and followed it with his eyes, his face a grim mask of determination. Obviously, he wasn't about to let anything hurt Kinley. Dragon didn't know what happened to him if his human body was destroyed but it wasn't like he didn't know where he was already headed. He came from there--hell. He wasn't afraid to go back again, save for the thought that he would be forever separated from Kinley.

Slowly, the wolf paced forward, its gleaming eyes on them. It growled low and snapped at them ferociously; Dragon started and took only a small step backwards, and only because Kinley was pulling on him. He thought he'd be all right, though, what with two shields on him.

"Kiney..."

Dragon reached behind to try and push Kinley out of the way, in case the animal lunged at them. It wasn't within range yet but it was closing in on them, making Dragon uneasy with every measured pace that it took. He wanted to tell Kinley to run, to flee, but he didn't know the human word for it! All he could do was push, at him, half-turned so that one eye was on the animal and the other on Kinley.

[Kinley Sima]

Did they stumble on babies? Was it a mama wolf protecting its young? But if it was the same animal that growled at them earlier, it meant they had been stalked for a while. That also meant it could have come at them a lot earlier. Kinley had no idea what went through the mind of an animal. They didn't have any pets at home because his mother was allergic to basically anything with fur. (A shame, really, because Kinley loved his friends' pets... only to come home and have his mom order him to wash up immediately!)

This wasn't a fluffy kitty or a happy puppy, though. This was a wolf and he would have been a fool not to be afraid of it.

"Come on," he said, trying to urge Dragon to follow him. He didn't know where they were going, really, just that they had to stay close to the stream. The stream itself wasn't very deep--they could cross it and probably only stand up to their ankles in water, maybe their knees at the deepest. But that also meant the wolf could follow them. Putting a stream between them probably wouldn't help.

And if they ran in, away from the stream... Then they would be left to wander in the darkness... again.

If they ran down the stream, though... If they ran, wouldn't the wolf just chase them? It didn't seem ready to let up any time soon. Warily, cautiously, he leaned down to pick up a stick, tossing it in the general direction of the wolf.

"Shoo! Get out of here!"

[Dragon]

"No... Kiney, no." They could stand here tugging on each other and pushing at one another all night but it wouldn't make the wolf look any less hungry. That was a look Dragon knew well--hunger. Not the kind of hunger that meant it wanted a piece of meat but... something else. A hunger for bloodshed was the only way that Dragon could explain it. The wolf wasn't starved; it looked plump and well-fed.

It wanted something else, having stalked them all the way here. And it caught the stick with a contemptuous snap, tossing it aside with something close to derision.

"Kiney." Dragon turned fully to him, frustration etched in every line of his face. He pointed to himself. "Dragon!" He was a dragon--he'd be all right! It was Kinley, the human, who was in real danger! Dragon pushed him--shoved him, hard--to try and get him to run away.

The wolf sprang as he half-turned to face it and it was a giant leap forward--far too powerful for a normal animal. Dragon let out a shocked, pained cry as his arm was seized between its jaws and he felt, quite acutely, the teeth sinking into his flesh.

[Kinley Sima]

"But you're not!"

He might have been a dragon once but now he was in a human body, as far as Kinley understood. A human against a wolf with no weapons? It was ludicrous! Everybody always said that animals were more afraid of humans than any human was of an animal but anybody who said that hadn't been staring at a wolf that could lunge at any second--and tear out their throats. Just the thought of it made Kinley queasy.

Being shoved away so unexpectedly didn't help, either. Kinley tripped on a stone and scraped his knee against a rocky patch on the bank. Immediately, he sprang back, turning toward Dragon and the wolf just in time to see the wolf's sharp fangs sink into a very human looking arm. Letting out an incoherent shout, Kinley got to his feet and tried to kick at the wolf with one foot, attempting to get it off Dragon.

"Get out of here!" he shouted, heart pounding erratically. Pure adrenaline was the only reason he reacted so foolishly. No, adrenaline mixed with fear. And maybe the fear made him stupid but his panicked mind only saw the two options: flee or fight. And it wasn't just himself. No way could he live with the guilt of running out on somebody in trouble, even if it meant they both ended up meat in a wolf's stomach.

[Dragon]

Pain lanced through his arm and Dragon felt all the strength draining from it. Tears popped up in his eyes but he tried to keep a cool head, even as the wolf shook its head from side-to-side, as though it wanted to rip the arm right out of the socket. Preoccupied with Dragon, it didn't seem to notice Kinley until Kinley's foot landed against its ribs. It let go--to snarl--and made as if to lunge at Kinley.

Dragon hurled himself at the animal with a wild cry, seeing only Kinley in danger. He didn't know if all of his powers could be used here, or if they could be accessed through this much weaker human form. Already, his power of flight had been taken from him, forcing him to walk on stick-like legs. He couldn't see in the dark and he was prey to heat and chill.

"NO!" he shouted at the wolf as they went tumbling, forcing its slavering, snapping jaws away from his throat. The jacket's buttons popped with the violent movement and Dragon felt something hard and painful scraping across his back. Probably some rocks and twigs. He jerked his head away in the nick of time; sharp teeth snapped at the space where his ear used to be. Kicking out with his legs, he tried to push the animal off of him but its weight was suffocating him and pressing him down.

Then, suddenly, a sharp noise cracked the air. With a queer shudder, the wolf convulsed and then went frighteningly still, with its head lolling gently to one side.

[Kinley Sima]

It was hard to fight anything in the dark, when all he could see were shapes and shadows. Still, he managed to connect his foot with the wolf. He knew it was crazy. Insane. He probably shouldn't even be risking his life for somebody he barely knew. The thought of not doing anything was too sickening, though. When he was a kid, he was that dumb kid who watched everything in silence unless it came to something important, like somebody trying to pick on his little brother. Pick on him, fine. Pick on other people... not so fine.

"Get off him!"

He was about to follow the tumbling pair when something... happened. Kinley dropped to one knee beside Dragon, hand hitting the ground hard, touching something warm and wet. Shivering, he lifted his hand to see it covering it. He could smell it, thick in the air. In the dark, it was hard to tell what color it was but he knew it was blood. He tried to wipe it on his jeans, shaking from the rush of adrenaline working its way through his veins. He assumed what he'd heard was a gunshot but he was preoccupied by Dragon.

The wolf that had landed atop him had stopped moving and it was heavy as Kinley pushed it as hard as he could, then sank down on his heels right next to Dragon's side.

"Are you okay? Dragon?"

[Dragon]

"Kiney!" It was a breathless gasp. Dragon could barely breathe with the animal on top of him, and with one arm bitten and torn he could only use one to shove at the corpse. It was dead; he smelled the fresh blood in the air and it turned his stomach as much as it excited part of him. It was the darker side of him that reveled in the fight and the scent of blood. Dragon tried not to dwell on it and focused, instead, on the shadowy figure beside him.

Dragon reached out with his good arm and latched onto Kinley's hand. He sat up and his head felt woozy for a moment. "Kiney?" Quickly he looked around but nothing else came out of the darkness. Where did that sharp, loud noise come from? Who dispatched the animal? No one came forward to identify themselves as their savior.

Slowly, he tried to stand. "Kiney..." His tone was urgent. They needed to get away from this spot, in case there were other dangerous beasts hanging about. Dragon took an unsteady step toward the stream, tugging on Kinley's hand. Even if Kinley was injured--and Dragon dearly hoped not--they still had to get away. Injuries could be tended to later, but escaping with their lives was more important now!