Karos

Karos could tell by the small rays of light peeking up against the rocks, the sun has risen. It was only a matter of time. The only thing that worried him was not the hour of high noon, but the creature with whom he shared this same, three-walled confined space.

Though he thought the foul beast was dead, he knew that they did not die as easy as he would like to think. For hours, for what seemed like days even, he waited for any sudden movements to come from it. However, that had caused him to go weary.

Sweat trickled down the sides of his face as his heavy breathing grew more laboured and hoarse with time. He was a dying man, but he was a man willing to die with honour. Though the thought was bitter to him, it caused a sad bout of laughter to rise from his parched throat.

His heart fell into the pits of his stomach as he noticed movement coming from its body. He heard it let out groans filled with an agony that echoed off the cave walls. After such a long period of silence, it nearly deafened him. A little wave of panic continued to rise.

Karos' eyes darted back and forth at the creature who'd seemed to have come back from the dead. He clenched down against the hilt of his sword prepared for any attacks to come from the stirring being. Soon, his injured arm rested as he noticed the blood leaking from it's body.

Fields of fiery, red hair covered its golden skin. Its blood ran in multiple silver streams down its arms and head, sparkling like a precious gem. His tattered cloak acted as a blanket that covered the rest of its body, so he could not see much more.

A cry of pain tore from its lips and it brought Karos out of his fruitless thoughts. As it tried to rise, it fell back down with a nasty thud. The jagged rocks opened skin and made more blood spew from its delicate, human body. He watched the creature close his fists filling them full of rocks in anger, frustrated with its incapacity to stand. It perplexed Karos to no end why he had suffered for this inhuman thing. He also wondered why and how it could look so human,

"It is a dragon," he murmured. Yet here in front of him laid a human being. His whispered words caused the red-headed devil to turn and look at him with a glower that could rival the sun. its fingers sank into the bed of rocks as it continued its hopeless attempts at sitting upright. All Karos could do was muster an amused smile.

It was not so fearsome when contained in something soft and fleshy instead of hard and scaly. Its wings, its horns, its gigantic size, had all become nothing more than a mere memory. In the eyes of men who had not seen the true nature of this creature, they would only see it as a many fresh out of his flower years.

As much as he wanted to help the poor thing he knew it was not as helpless as he thought. This creature was making him question things he never cared to question before and it daunted him. They were beasts. There was nothing more to them. Well, at least there had been nothing more to them. Now, not so much.

"Ach ni bal valum!" it hissed, its voice wrought in pain. It fell back down from its fifth futile effort to stand. Of all feelings to emerge from the once proud soldier of Asalph, he felt pity for the bloody thing. So the creature could feel pain.

He rose wincing at the pain going through his leg and walked closer to it. Though he wanted to know what the creature had just said, he wanted his questions answered even more. There was more to them than he could have ever imagined. Karos bent his knee down towards the beast. It met his green eyes as it leered and scoffed at him. It kicked his injured leg making Karos more than irate. He tried to lunge at it, but the sly thing maneuvered around him, slamming him into the ground till his head collided with the hard rocks. That simple push knocked the air out of him.

The thing was not something to be trifled with.

It hovered above him and gazed at him with eyes changing colors every second until it stopped at a cerulean blue. Specks of green and yellow surrounded its irises. The flaming, red hair of the creature flushed against its disgruntled face.

For a moment, Karos thought it was intending to devour him with the wild, surveying look in its eyes. Yet, he only felt the creature's cool hands on his forehead soaking with sweat. Its eyebrows furrowed as did his. Before he could understand the intentions of the beast, he felt its tongue smothered in hot saliva traveling down the length of his rotting arm.

He let out a hiss of pain and tried to wrestle his arm out of its grasp, but to no avail. As delicate as the thing may have seemed, it had the strength of a hundred men. It continued to lap up the remaining blood around his arm, paying special attention to the pus surrounding it.

Karos could not wrap his mind around it. He thought, like any beast, it would want him dead. It already had spared his life, now it was trying to save him. The thing could not stand, let alone walk. It should be worried about its own well-being.

As if reading his thoughts, the beast narrowed its eyes towards him like he was an insignificant, little bug. "Ash li gu falashi, byuna." This time, its voice was even and heavy traces of concern was in its eyes. He heard it cluck its tongue before it moved away from him. He couldn't make any sense of it.

He could not help but look at the creature, trying to figure out the meaning behind its words. "Beast, I do not know of your language. I speak High Ganish, a language spoken in all three lands of Malcea."

The creature's eyes fluttered to Karos with the same look of enmity it had given him earlier that day. It looked at his arm, then snorted and directed its gaze elsewhere.

"Ovani, byuna."

The last word had an edge to it, he noticed.

"... Bhana?" Karos tried the word on his tongue. It felt foreign and distant, however, he liked the whisper-like feel of the words. That utterance grabbed the beast's attention once more. Instead of hate, the creature looked on at Karos with amusement as a small smile graced its pink lips.

"Byuna," it uttered again to correct his pronunciation.

"Buhyuna."

Its eyebrow raised this time as an even greater smile splayed across its face.

"Byuna." It pointed at Karos which caused Karos to shake his head.

Whatever the thing was trying to say, he knew it involved him. Whether it was an insult or not, he found these unwinding events to be unbelievable. Never in all his years of life would he had ever thought of speaking with a beast that tore apart his comrades and set their bodies ablaze.

"Karos." He pointed at himself and soon made wavelike movements with his hand to signal it to speak.

Its eyebrows kneaded together in what seemed to be deep thought before speaking.

"... Ake," it muttered. "Aniya byuna."