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Lyllii felt a fraction of her old strength seep back into her outer extremities, like sap thawing in early spring, when the evil fire receeded, but a full recovery was drawn to a hault; ash now completely blotted out the sun and the earth below was cast in the eery light of a near eclipse.

She turned her head and grunted with a curt nod in acknowledgement to Kasha before tucking Aaron's human shell under her arm and making a bolt for the exit. Weakened as she was, she still retained her inhuman strength; she just couldn't use her plant magic without completely dipleating her stanima.

The nymph turned and watched the mansion tumble behind her from atop a low hill. "It's all over, Kasha," she murmured, a sense of despair washing over her in a sudden flood. All of the drama from that day suddenly overwhelmed her as she began to crumble. "The forest is gone, we couldn't save these people, and we are probably going to be destroyed alongside them."

A silvery glint caught her eye; she turned and saw a golden wolf idly playing with her knives in the distance. She quickly wiped away her tears from her already grubby face with a less than clean sleeve from her tunic.

***
"YOU FOOL!!!" screamed a cloaked figure, hurling a stone goblet at a kneeling figure wearing a mask that veiled the lower portion of his face. The figure kneeling ducked slightly; the goblet whizzed through the formerly occupied space and bounced along the flagstone floor.

The masked figure tilted his head upwards, piercing his master with his golden eyes. "Beg pardon, but wasn't that your spell?"

"Silence!" shrieked the cloaked master. "If you had done away with that nymph all those years ago, we wouldn't have wasted it! Instead I had to resurect your worthless shell!"

"But why do you want that wench exterminated? How can one tree rat foil your scheme? And didn't you say that you wanted that were-drago-"

A blast of scalding vapor struck the apprentice, causing him to shriek in pain.

"Lylli, let me take him. You still look like walking death," Kasha said. Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed Aaron's limp frame from her; he was surprisingly heavy...probably due to his stocky build. Only whne she rested him against her shoulders did she notice Lylli was staring at something. She followed the wood nymph's gaze to see an anthro; a golden-furred wolf. She was walking through the burning town, sheathing a dagger or two.

Katha was looking around at the burning buildings that surrounded her, when she heard a pained shriek.She looked in the direction that it came from, only to see a wood nymph and an anthro panther stairing at her. She walked over to them and noticed what chaos had, and was still happening. "What in the heck is goin' on here?" she said with an indistinguishable accent. Her accent botherd most people because she couldnt tell them where she was from, so they didnt know what it was.

Aaron groaned. His vision was becoming a mix of the blurry world around him and pure pitch black. He was being carried around now and could suddenly hear faint voices coming into his ear. Well, they weren't really 'faint', but to him, since he was drifting to and from consciousness, they were.

"You couldn't have come at a worse time," she told the golden anthro. "The entire hillside is errupting; we escaped the forest in time, but we -well, me mostly," she interrupts herself, glancing sheepishly at Kasha, "decided to warn this town on our way through. You can see how that turned out..." she murmured, glancing at Aaron, who lay limply in her arms. She felt Kasha tap her shoulder and insist that she hand him over.

"Take him," she murmured, handing Aaron to Kasha. She felt his shoulder move slightly. "He's awake! Kasha, he's awake! He needs medicine," she cried, nervously wringing her hands, longing for enough stanima to provide it herself in vain.

Katha looked at him catching glimpsed of wounds all over his body."Those need to be cotterized. He looks like hes about to bleed out.I can do it if you like?" she said with a hint of concern to her voice. Katha didnt usually get so concerned for strangers, but he looked like he was in terrible pain. She pulled out one of her daggars and put the tip of it in a flame.

Kasha wasn't sure whether it was a good idea that they put a flaming knife close to his wounds...not with a stranger doing it. Then again, she barely knew him as well, and had only begun to trust him recently. She could be called a stranger as well. Hesitation was writting all over the anthro's face, and she turned towards the nymph.

"Lylli? What do you think?" Kasha decided that Lylli would probably know the most about wounds...all Kasha knew was how to inflict them on her enemies, basically.

"I know what Im doing if you dont trust me. I coterize my own wounds all the time." she said showing one of her scars."That one wound would have killed me if i didnt get it to stop bleeding."

Lyllii shut her eyes tightly and quickly turned away. "Just do it. It's my fault this happened," she said, desperately trying to control the waver in her voice. From her new view, she could see that the ash was now a few feet deep in some areas and drifted across the street in sheets. Bright orange lava could just be seen lazily sliding and oozing over the highlands' terrain, maliciously aware that it could toy with its prey and the results would remain unchanged.

Aaron was unsure of what to think when all of a sudden his focus cleared up to see a burning knife. But he was too weak to care. Whatever might make him better was worth a shot at this point. The possession had taken a lot out of him. He put his head back and breathed as deep as he could.

Katha pressed the kife against his worst wound, burning the skin that was bleeding and it almost immidiatly stopped. She did this to his other wounds too, stoping the bleeding on all of them. She then pulled out a peice of leather and a needle from one of her pouches."This is gonna hurt" she warned as she began stiching.

Aaron winced only slightly at the knife touching his skin, but since he was half dragon, it didn't hurt as much as it would to anyone normal. He was relieved at that thought but just then she took out leather and needles. His eyes widened. "Oh god...." he whispered with a raspy voice. He braced himself for the sharp pain that was to come.

Katha finished stitching up the first wound.'Good golly! What happened to this poor lad?' she thought to herself as she moved on to the next one.

"Ah!" Aaron grunted, trying to be as silent as possible. "Sorry...." he managed. He turned to the two strangers he had just previously met. "I'm sorry I betrayed your trust.... I don't know what came over me... I..." he faltered as the wounds were getting stitched again. "Ah..." He looked the golden anthro in the eyes. "Thank you for doing this by the way."

"Pain, Lad, is one thing I truly understand."Katha said finishing up the last wound. "Thare we go." she said, her accent very pronounced. She looked around and got very worried."We should probably leave, were going to drown in ashes"she said as she started to cough.