wretchedly like a dying human.
I wondered if it really was my responsibility to ward off the kin and protect this village. Was it my duty to protect what the villagers could not?
No, but they probably thought so. Yet, what could I have done? I could not properly fight someone off with my abilities, let alone if that someone was a full-grown dragon-kin.
Slowly, my breathing quieted and my heart had stopped trying to hammer its way out of my chest. Though it had just happened a few moments ago, the encounter with the dragon-kin already did not seem real. I wondered what had made me so inexplicably afraid.
“Coward.” The word whispered through my chapped lips was directed at no one in particular. It was not an insult: it was a fact. I was a coward, and not only on this day, but on many that had come before. I sat up, glaring determinedly at the setting sun. This time I would not be running away.
I started to make my way back to the spot where I had encountered the dragon-kin. Even if I could not defend the village from him, I had decided that the least I could do was discover his intentions. Now I had to find him again.
It took quite a lot more time to return to the old stream now that I was not running, and I arrived only to find that the kin had disappeared. For a moment I considered giving up and going home. Sighing, I looked at my hooves, digging them into the dirt for a moment before I froze.
I slowly crouched and squinted at the surface of the path. The dragon-kin had left a distinct trail in the dirt with his tail and long, dragging cloak. I stood and stared at the marks for a long moment. I gathered what small amount of courage was at my disposal, then set off into the forest after him.
It was not tough work to keep an eye on the distinct marks in the dirt even as it grew darker. The path narrowed, then disappeared altogether, but the dragon-kin had left odd footprints and it was simple to follow the line of broken plants that had been left in his wake. Though my step was delicate in life-filled places such as this, the dragon-kin’s definitely was not. For once I was glad for others’ inelegance.
Several times I was sure I had lost the trail, only to find the kin had backtracked or turned in a new direction for no obvious reason. Either he knew he was being followed, or he had gotten lost. Neither of those options were a good sign: