The enemy ranks are getting thinner, the corpses on the ground piling up. It's becoming more and more difficult to move without stepping on a body, the ground long since soaked in blood and lost body parts. This would be just fine in cold weather, but during the hottest days of summer it's the closest thing to hell the living could endure. They're all sweating, dehydrated, and a rancid smell is rising from the rotting bodies, making it hard to breathe without feeling the urge to vomit. This is not a good day for any battle.

Ao knocks his elbow into the chest-plate of an enemy stupid enough to try sneaking up on him from behind. The clang of his bare elbow knocking against steel makes his whole arm shake for a few seconds, but it doesn't distract him enough to stop him from pulling his other arm around and cutting off the head of the attacker. His sword is dripping with blood, the bandages covering his hands are soaked, and his mask is as good as painted red.

"He's a demon, we can't- !"

A quick slash takes care of the screamer, the sword easily cutting through the man's throat. The body isn't done falling as Ao starts searching for his next victim. The glare of the sun flashing off armour irritates his eyes, so moves in that direction.

While the enemy ranks are slowed down by their clunky metal and boiling inside their supposed protection, Ao is moving freely and only sweating from the exercise and heat. Yes, he is fighting alone against dozens of bandits, but his strength has not yet diminished enough for this to be a challenge. He can afford to not wear any protection, unlike his opponents.

"Please, we didn't know, we di-"

He stabs his sword downward, just through a gap between two metal plates meant to be protecting the man's heart. A feeble kick from the dying man makes him draw the sword out, killing him instantly.

"Retreat! Retr-"

The last of the bandits run away just as he snaps the neck of their coward of a leader, too scared by the fate of their comrades to continue. They might have thought in the beginning that overwhelming him with numbers would be enough to defeat him, but they were horribly mistaken. Ao just wishes they'd figured that out half an hour ago, because he has to look after a baby and nobody else is willing to help him, which means that the baby has been alone for approximately two hours by now. There is a good chance that the child is dead.

Except apparently the child is more resilient than he'd originally thought. Though he doesn't hear any sounds when he steps into the house, as soon as the little dragon sees him, the screaming starts. Smart.

"Hungry?" he grunts, tearing the blood covered mask from his face and reaching for cloth to clean his blade. When he doesn't find anything fitting he lifts the hem of his robe and uses that.

The boy looks at him, closing his mouth and staying silent, those cursed eyes wide and accusing. Sometimes Ao wonders if the boy can already use the dragon's powers, Ao certainly feels frozen whenever he sees those glowing orbs.

"Well, too bad." He gives the boy a sharp grin, making sure to display as many teeth as possible. "You're not getting anything until I've changed my clothes and cleaned my sword."

Ao has been taking care of the dragon child for a year now, and they've developed a certain understanding. The boy does as he's asked, stays silent and doesn't bother Ao, and Ao tries to keep hating him and being scared of him to show him how it's going to be like with the rest of the village once he's gone. Should Ao show him more than occasional kindness, more than the cruelty he will surely experience in the real world, the boy would become weak. He would be crushed under the hate, he wouldn't survive without Ao. The dragon child has to get used to it now, before it's too late.

The dragon before Ao had been weak, kind and caring. He'd shown Ao love, and made sure Ao was utterly unprepared for the overwhelming cruelty of the rest of humanity. He had made sure Ao would be affected by his death, but that he would still have hope that there was someone out there who would accept him. He'd almost broken Ao, but Ao was too strong. He found out very quickly what it was really going to be like, what he really was. The dragon child will not have to go through that, he will know from the start, and he'll be ready. Ao had promised.

"Ao," the child calls with a small voice, the first word he had learned to say. Ao can't describe the feeling he'd had when he'd first heard it. His chest still aches thinking about it, the pain spreading slowly to his limbs.

"What?" he manages not to snarl. Placing the mostly clean sword on the only table in the house, he starts ripping away the bandages around his arms. They're no longer slick with blood, instead they're now starting to become slightly crusty, which makes them difficult to remove.

"Okay?"

Ao stops. He turns to look at the small dragon, his eyes narrowing dangerously. At the blank look on the boy's face, he relaxes and resumes his previous actions, though slower this time. He needs to concentrate on this. Maybe the bandages can be used again. He's already mostly shredded them by now, but it's possible he could use them for something else. Wash them, dry them, sow them together. He doesn't look at the boy.

"Yeah." He lets the bandages slip to the floor, giving up. "It's not my blood."

Though he's turned away from the child, Ao can still feel the weight of his eyes, watching him, observing him. Ao feels trapped, as he often has in the last year. Adrenaline is still coursing through his veins, except now instead of fighting, he feels more like fleeing, getting as far away as he can, to get away from this dragon.

"Food?"

"I said wait!"

There's a moment of blessed silence, and Ao relaxes as much as he can, resumes his task. And then the child starts making a suspicious noise. Ao feels a headache building behind his eyes. His heart isn't working properly, something's wrong. It's beating irregularly and something is squeezing around it too tightly. He's dying.

"Ao!" the child cries out before breaking into pathetic sounding sobs, loud and unseemly.

It's too much.

Ao gets up and makes his way to the child, picking him up quickly and pressing him to his still blood covered chest. His muscles loosen, heart starting to work again, but the awful feeling remains. The villagers would never have picked the dragon up, would never have comforted him.

"Sorry," he says quietly, miserably. "I'm sorry, it's okay." But it's not. He runs a hand through hair as blue as his own and starts rocking gently, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The child is crying freely now, chubby little hands holding onto Ao's hair and bloody robe tightly.

"Was I too loud?" He sits down on the floor, adjusting the child in his lap. "You'll have to get used to that, the villagers like to yell."

He stays quiet after that, offering comfort and body heat, which always makes the little dragon calm down. He feels defeat well in his chest, another failure. But he's trying, dammit! These things take time, he reminds himself, but the villagers don't care about that. They only see a monster, not a child that can hardly feed himself. They won't be like Ao, they won't break at the first sign of tears. He'll have to get stronger, learn not to react.

"We'll get some food for you, yeah?" His voice I gruff, rusty as though he'd been the one crying. The boy usually likes the vibrations though, placing his small fingers against Ao's throat and giggling. This time he doesn't, still shedding silent tears on Ao's shoulder, but considerably calmer than he'd been, relaxing the punishing grip he'd had on Ao's hair.

There's a bottle milk in the cooler which he has to take out and warm between his hands. At least the villagers understand that starving won't solve the problem, and so generously give them just enough food to get by. Just enough.

"Here," Ao hands the somewhat warmed bottle to the child, watching as the dragon drinks greedily. He's still growing, will be for the next several years. There's a very good chance that Ao won't even see the child all grown up. Ao can feel the power in his eyes dwindling, he's been losing his eye-sight ever since the child was born. At first he hadn't even noticed it, but by now he has to rely more on his other senses. The gradual diminishing gives him the opportunity to adjust to the change more than if it had just disappeared all together.

He's not sure which is worse, waiting for death while he can feel everything about himself get less, or just going in the blink of an eye.

(He wants to see the dragon grow up. He wants to see again.)