Naunet

"You're a real pleasant guy. Mind telling me what he did to get you so riled up? I don't really like killing people, y'know." Nevermind the fact that he actually had never done so at all. The thought of it made his stomach churn, but he didn't trust himself to be able to outrun this hunter in an escape attempt. He let out an inward groan. What had he done to deserve all this crap, really?

"Yeah, well, I'm not a drake, and neither is she. We can't all be... whatever you are." Thal shrugged as he stood, and then turned to move towards the Amal'jaa. Part way he paused, shifting K'aijeen in his arms so he could bend to pick up his mask from the ground. For a moment he just stared at its empty face and the strange lines drawn across it. Then his tail twisted in frustration, and he set the object on his own face, covering his features save for now shadowed blue eyes. Turning to once more step towards the black hunter, though keeping a healthy distance between them, Thal called out, "Let's just get this over with."

Thal let out a faint groan and scrubbed at his face. When he returned his eyes to K'aijeen, they were sad. "Okay, kid. I know it isn't... look, for this guy to leave us alone, I need to help him with something, okay? It shouldn't take long." His ears shifted. "So... I'm gonna take care of it. Real quick. I'm gonna find you some place safe along the way, and then when I'm done, I'll come back. Okay?" Shuffling forward, he moved to try and lift her off the ground.

Thal tossed the arrow to one side forcefully, not bothering it with a second glance as he crouched near the girl. "Sorry, kid," he muttered. "I kinda botched the whole protecting you thing. Think you can forgive me?"

"Ah, okay, okay, stop moving around," Thal broke his cautious movement to hurry towards the girl and dropped down to one knee next to her. He grimaced at the gruesome vision. The arrow had shattered bone and tore through muscle such that he was surprised her hands were still attached. Pulling in a deep breath - one that he stopped almost immediately at the uncomfortable sensation of air pushing out from a hole in his chest - Thal worked past a wall of mental nausea to rest a hand on her shoulder, gently pushing. "Lay back down and, uh, we'll get that out, okay?" He urged her down and gripped the arrow's shaft, moving his other hand to press down on her arms over her face as he pulled.

"Right..." One ear twitched. "Let me just.. I'm gonna check on her." He sidestepped away from the river, keeping his eyes on the Amal'jaa but heading towards K'aijeen. When he got closer, he spoke to her and tried to keep his voice light, "Kid, can you hear me?"

Thal's expression went slack for several seconds in surprised bemusement. "That... uh... what? Okay... Wait, hold up--" His tail swung in time to the asking waving of his hands. "Hold on a sec. I was taking care of... well, I mean, I've got some responsibility to that kid. Y'know. I mean, I guess I could help you... I'm not an assassin, y'know. And, uh, I need to get her some place safe." With a grimace, he gestured towards where K'aijeen lay.

"Woah, woah," Thal's hands came up in front of him, one of them bloodied. "I think we already established shooting me isn't gonna make a difference, so let's just... maybe there's something else I can do to help you, eh? Get you a new drake maybe? And... besides!" Blue eyes frowned, eyeing the bow warily. His toes shifted in the mud. "I may not be... well, y'know. But I still exist. I was defending my existence. That counts."

As the Amal'jaa spoke, Thal felt himself relaxing little by little, enough at least that he felt comfortable enough to chance a glance towards where he'd seen K'aijeen run. His jaw tightened at the sight of her, and he quickly shifted his gaze back to the giant, black, lizard-man. He tensed at the hunter's last sentence. "Okay... well. They did kind of attack me - you can't really blame me for defending myself. I don't think that counts as a debt?"

Lifting his gaze to the hunter, Thal winced, though not out of any pain. "Believe me, if I'd had a choice... I probably would've preferred to long before this." He rolled his still intact shoulder, a bit weirded out by the sensations his other arm was sending him. Letting out a sigh, he tried to ignore the way he could feel air pushing through one side of his chest and lifted both arms to either side of him. "So, I can respect your honor, but... sorry. Can't we just go our merry ways? There's plenty of other stuff to hunt out here... though you chased away the orobon."

Thal hit the ground with a grunt and rolled for several more malms across the mud. He came to rest halfway in the shallow water of the stream, and the water stained almost instantly with blood. For several seconds he just blinked at reflections of rocks above him in the ripples and the weird, wet, empty sensation across his chest. Then he grimaced, rolling onto his back and pushing himself up in the mud. The first thing he noticed was his mask lay a good malm away from him, face up in the mud, apparently having been jostled free in the combat. Then he looked down and immediately regretted it. "... okay, we're just gonna pretend that isn't there," he muttered to himself, shoving the gory image into one corner of his mind. "I guess maybe I should be thankful." With another grunt, he pushed himself to his feet. His left arm felt weaker than the other but impossibly functioning, and as he stood he called out to the Amal'jaa, "How about we call this a truce?"

"Hey! Stop that - I'm not for eating!" The hand that had been straining for the arrow changed course and delivered a solid punch to the Amal'jaa's jaw. He kicked again at the beastman's gut.

Thal grunted as his straining was brought up short abruptly. He'd nearly managed to stretch far enough to get purchase on the arrow when the Amal'jaa's arms closed in around him. He felt the pressure strangely, not as pain but still aware of the bruising of muscle and cracking of ribs. He could feel the curve of the mask Megiddo had given him digging at his hip. Kicking his feet against the Amal'jaa, he tried to ignore the pressure and strained his arm as far as he could reach towards the arrow.

The response was expected, but came far quicker than Thal would have liked, as though the beastman had barely even felt the jab of his weapon. Even more frustratingly, the arrow-spear tore from his hands when the beastman whirled about, leaving Thal with nothing but his body as a weapon. There was no time to think about it. As the Amal'jaa brought down his mighty arms, Thal ducked forward, putting himself right up against his opponent's body and thus too close for those powerful fists to properly land their blow. Grunting with the effort, he grasped scale and armor and tried to whip himself around to where he could just see the arrow sticking out of the beastman's side.

As soon as he hit the ground, Thal tucked himself into a ball and rolled forward, around the Amal'jaa's back legs. One hand grabbed for the spear on his way, and he brought it around as the beastman was turning to jab it deep against his side again, aiming for the gap of scales he'd knocked off with his first blow.

Thal tried to dodge away from the arm, to use his size to his advantage in close quarters, but the Amal'jaa was both powerful and fast. Though his weapon struck home, dragging across the beastman's side and gouging a gap along his scales, the massive, black arm caught Thal broadly across the chest. He let out a silent "oof", bouncing against the arm as though it were a wall of solid bricks. He tried to go limp and slip beneath it - if he could get behind his opponent, he might have a better chance.

Thal had a flash of a thought for some witty comeback. It would have been very impressive, for sure, but there wasn't time for it as his legs powered him towards the Amal'jaa. There also wasn't time to think about the girl impaled through the skull behind him. All there was time for was considering the size of his opponent and figuring out the best way to get out of this alive. At the last moment, he swerved out to the right, skidding on bare feet, and then thrust forward towards the man-beast's side.

Thal caught the swift movement out of the corner of his eyes but couldn't turn to watch the arrow as one of the drakes lunged snapping jaws at him, its teeth dripping with something that both looked and smelled unpleasant. The other reared back, seemingly in preparation for something, its jaw opening wide, and Thal took the opportunity immediately. Skirting away from the teeth of the first, he thrust the arrow-turned-spear forward at an upward angle and drove its pointed end into the drake's softer throat. The thing let out a gurgling roar and thrashed, forcing his grip to break on the weapon, and he leapt back away from an attack from the other. Eyes wide and ears flat, he spared just a moment to glance back towards the kid and felt his heart drop to his stomach. Then he was running, past the drakes and tearing the spear from one of the beasts as he went, and charged straight for the giant, black-skinned man-beast ahead.

The drake thrashed beneath him, and it took all of Thal's strength to hold onto the beast. He barely noticed when some of them retreated, but he did notice when the remaining drake closed in, its maw hissing and snapping at his legs and tail. Feet scrabbling against the armored, pointy scales along the creature's back, he leaned away from the second beast. A voice behind him brought his head up, ears swiveling back towards the sound, and it was pure coincidence that he saw the massive arrow come flying from somewhere outside his vision, clattering into the muddy ground nearby. It was just long enough to be a spear. Grinning despite the danger, Thal lurched to one side of the drake's back and pushed off the beast. It toppled sideways and thrashed wildly to right itself, but Thal was already scrabbling in the mud towards the arrow. When he took it up in both hands, it settled into his grip with a casual familiarity. "Hah, the god of death, hunter extraordinaire always comes prepared!" He decided to ignore the glaring hole of logic in that statement. Drawing in a breath, his nose caught a harsh, acrid scent on the air, completely foreign, and he squinted at the beasts before flicking his eyes past them. He spent only half a second watching the massive, dark form some distance away before the drakes, having recovered from their tangled tumble, pressed at him. He lunged at them both with the arrow, driving its pointed tip towards them and growling.

When the arrow struck K'aijeen, he couldn't help the flash of fear and worry, even though he knew it wouldn't actually kill her. At least he didn't think it would. Gritting his teeth, he made to alter his course towards the girl only to find his path cut off with the scaled, hissing bodies of the drakes. "Kid!" He called out to her, backing up only to stop in his tracks when others closed in from the opposite direction. "Fu... K'aijeen! You okay?" Crouching over his knees, tail quivering behind him, Thal darted his eyes between the drakes. He didn't have time to wait for them to make a move; if he did, he was sure those nasty teeth and claws of theirs would make quick work if his body. And he was pretty sure he still needed his body functional, even if it didn't have to be entirely puncture free. Letting out another curse under his breath, he felt his spine curve, his tail moving with it, felt his muscles coil up against his bones. And then very suddenly they released, launching him up and towards the nearest drake. He slammed against its neck, which the beast had lifted high in preparation for striking, and swung around to latch at its back. He kept his grip on its neck, though, locking his forearm and twisting as hard as he could.

The second stone that had been meant for the first drake was thrown with a startled, choking sound as the other two rushed forward. It struck one of the advancing drakes straight between its ridged eyes, and the thing let out a screech. Thal scrambled backwards, dragging his hand low to pick up a third rock as he went. "Kid, you need to get moving, now," he called out. Rocks weren't exactly an effective weapon against these creatures, and he wished for the kind of spear that man who claimed to be family and yet hated him had carried. If he could get on its back, maybe...? He ran at an angle to K'aijeen and, a few steps into his retreat, spun to whip the third rock at the drakes behind him. He didn't pause to see where or if it struck, instead whirling back around to continue running. "Find some place to hide behind, kid. I'll distract them!"

Thal's feet shuffled backwards in the water, urging the girl to move back with him as the drakes approached. His ears remained upright, swiveled forward, his senses alert and focused entirely on the beasts closing rapid distance between them. Blue eyes left the beasts only glance minutely towards the mud at his feet, then back up. "Kid, I want you to run. On the count of three." He didn't listen for any protest from her; there was no point in giving her an opportunity to do so. Instead he simply began, "One.... two..." He could feel his muscles drawing up against his bones, tendons ready to spring and jolt action into his limbs. The sensation didn't distract him, however, and his eyes flicked a second time to the ground immediately to his right. "Three, go," he didn't shout but he gave the girl a light shove behind him to get her moving. At the same time he lunged down and right, kicking up a stone with one foot and catching it in his opposite hand. A breath later he hurled it with every ounce of strength he could muster. The rock struck the foremost drake in the side of its head, snapping its skull to one side and sending it stumbling with a squawk. Thal didn't wait; he scooped up a second rock and let it loose, calling out, "Hey, ugly face, back off!" Some instinct in his gut told him running was not an option with these creatures.

He let his bare feet slap through the water as he searched, aware that it wasn't the most stealthy thing to do but not particularly caring. The cool damp mud felt good on his calloused feet and he was determined to enjoy the sensation, so different was it from the countless unenjoyable sensations that now composed his body. At the girl's - he still couldn't bring himself to think of her as his daughter - exclamation, he looked up from where he'd been stomping around, only half keeping an eye out for fish. He grinned and spread his legs into a mockery of a crouch, lifting his arms to either side of his head and curling his fingers into fake claws. He shifted from side to side, red hair swinging. "Ahah, our prey is in our sights! Now watch as Thal, god of death and hunter extraordinaire, catches us some din--" A crackling roar covered up the rest of Thal's boasting, and he froze, ears lifting straight up and tail stilling out in a banner behind him. "Eh...?" Ice blue eyes blinked upwards, following the sound, and then his posture very slowly pulled back into what outwardly looked like a relaxed stand. "Well, kid, looks like our prey was already claimed." He kept his voice steady and low, relaxed. "How about we leave 'em to it, huh?"

*hyperventilates*

Er... The human brain isn't fully developed until late 20s/early 30s. It is very much not society/parent's fault if a kid's not emotionally developed enough to "handle life" by the time they're 14.