[Dragon]

Some time had passed. How much? Immaterial. She had a daunting amount of it to spare.

Whatever had long ago created the monster must have drawn from something horrible inside of itself that day. She was hideous beyond all redemption, disheveled and brutal, the long hairs at her belly and jaw discolored with some brownish-red sludge. Half of her face was stripped of skin and sensation; an opaque green eye peered into the world from the other side, like some nasty insect from beneath a rock. Dragon crossed paths with the land beyond Alteron to end up somewhere between here and there. She'd decided at some point that the smell was as distinct to it as it was unpleasant. That is to say, significantly so.

The renegade had already called to him, long before she arrived, and came in view expecting to see him there. There were better ways to spend her time than waiting for hours under some tree. A howl to rattle Isaiah's attentions. The boy hadn't changed a bit. Like a machine built by a drunken fool, he was cobbled together, shaped all wrong, but functioned... well enough. Cue some wise guy in the audience: not so different, huh guys?

Dragon said nothing. Even had her mouth not been full with what was blatantly Talon's head, she'd still have let Isaiah speak first.

[Isaiah]

The boy had been in the alchemy tower. The only sounds were his nails clicking against the stone as he worked, and the slight shuffling and squeaking from within the rows of clay containers. Trials were going well. Crisis was learning. He hadn't involved himself with any of the political goings on, since doing so was stupid and risky. Responding to howls when unnecessary only exposed one to more risk. Except -

This howl was different. It didn't come from Anya or Azuhel, or from other members of the higher ranks. It came from a familiar, ominous source. He swivelled his head and then pinned his ears, considering. The beast had threatened him last time, and he'd had something to hold over her then. It would likely be foolish to meet her.

But he couldn't help but be curious.

He set down the herbs he had been working with, placing them neatly into a pile. Then he abandoned the tower, heading to the borderline. It didn't take long. And there she was, much the same as she had been before, though further healed. She towered over him, all muscle and scar and green piercing gaze. His eyes travelled from her face to the face of his father, beheaded, dangling in her mouth. He smelled, it smelled (a head is just an object) but Isaiah didn't flinch.

"You found him." The cobbled-together doctor said, his voice cracking a bit, either from some betrayal of emotion, or perhaps only from chronic sickness. He looked back up to the wolf that was still alive, the faintest trace of a smile barely visible. "He'd be pissed about being brought back here." The Surgeon, all ribs and wounds and greasy fur, felt a small surge of victory. Talon didn't matter anymore, in the grand scheme, hadn't for a long time. It had been years since his father had beaten his mother, had neglected his children. Had screamed and begged for rank and honor from higher ups that had never respected him. Isaiah hadn't thought he'd care about Talon's fate. But damn if it wasn't nice to see him finally getting exactly the honor he deserved.

[Dragon]

She threatened everyone; her mere existence was poisonous to life itself. She could not hold anything as fragile as Isaiah without breaking it eventually, squeezing to see how it fractures and where. We can't much help what we are -- do you remember that line, pitiable boy? I told your mangy father a little story about it before I drowned him. I think it may have gone over his head.

If there was but one question at the core of Dragon, it was why into this futile world she'd ever been born. Never had there been a wolf that so strongly seemed to resent existing. Yet death didn’t seem to want her right now and she did not try to cross its path. There were old scores and old scars to settle. Here came the reaper of one of them.

Dragon shifted one glassy chartreuse eye to the approaching doctor, and in response to his arrival, set down the severed skull so that he may look upon it if he chose. When he approached, she didn't move away, but continued to stare down at Isaiah, observing his actions with a silence and judgment that was almost imperial. There was a cold and bitter smile on her little friend's face. When he spoke, his voice was not entirely steady. She took it all in. Pried some decaying black hairs from between her teeth with her tongue.

"He didn't fight me," said the renegade after a long beat. She had a quiet voice, with a soft kind of hoarseness to it, and it never changed pitch. Maybe it was even quieter than Isaiah remembered. How long had it been since she'd spoken with another wolf? Sometimes she talked to Sanctum when the sun fell at night, telling him of a nearby herd, engaging his storytelling with the distant, bored leisure of someone trying to solve a rubik's cube they'd solved twenty times before. She was not yet sure what she wanted to do with him and so kept him around in the meantime. Silly golden boy and his silver lovers from this land. "He cursed your name before he died."

Why she told Isaiah as much was his guess alone.