Tiernen's Crest

Kieran dropped to the ground and found something of rest here at this strange ridge of rocks. Leaning against the stone, he turned back to human form, panting from the exertion and the pain, as by now the medications had worn off. Thankfully, it had all gone to aches rather than stabs, and he could tolerate that much. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering slightly from the much cooler breezes here. He had been rather dumb, he realized, having just left. No preparations, not even proper clothes. He had just enough energy to shift his mouth so he could breathe flame, and bunching sticks and leaves together, he built a fire with a breath of flame. He let himself shift back to fully normal, and he huddled by his fire, dozing off.

Kieran was too sound asleep to notice anything, he made some small grunts and shivered, drawing his limbs in closer to himself, but otherwise, he remained much the same, unaware of this new presence. Typically he would have been wide awake at a touch, but the cold and weariness had made him completely spent. No way was he going to wake up now. Not for a while yet.

Kieran eventually stirred, still somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. He pulled the sleeping bag tighter around him, mumbling incoherent things. Then, as if a siren sounded, his eyes shot open, and he threw the sleeping bag off of him. He jumped to his feet, one eye darting around wildly, till he caught sight of the boy constructing the tarp thing, but that wasn't exactly registering in his mind yet. In a moment, his entire body shattered, contorted, reformed, and he was a massive, blood red dragon, ember eye blazing, empty socket letting off some kind of black smoke. He lunged at the boy, knocking the human to the ground. Snarling, he pinned the boy down with his forepaw, digging his claws into the earth on either side of the human's body.

Kieran got right in his face, amber eye darting this way and that as he looked the boy over closely. He snarled, lip curling back to expose dark fangs. He snarled, rather loudly, smoke seeping out from between his clenched teeth. And then he pulled away, lifting his foot off the boy. But then he turned around and sat down, pinning the boy down again, this time with his tail. He picked up the boy's pack with a single claw and held it close to his face, sniffing it over. He wasn't sure what he was checking for, just anything that made him suspicious, he supposed.

Kieran shifted his throat, making a sort of raspy grunt as he did so. He was not well enough for all this shifting. He swung his head around, glaring at the boy harshly. "Don't call me boy, boy," he snarled, his voice much, much deeper than his human one ever was. It fitted a dragon more suitably though. He turned his attention back to the pack, then flung it aside, dragging his claw down the side of his scaled face, thinking. He rubbed gently at his eye socket where it still pained him. His tail wrapped around the boy, pinning his arms and legs to his side, swallowing him in his hold like prey in a snake's coils. He got to all fours and shook himself out, then stepped away from the little campsite, climbing up the rocky ridge to its top. perched at the top of the ridge, clenching the jagged stones with his feet, he surveyed the forest, thinking. Hard. About what was anyone's guess. A lot of thoughts rushed through his mind, about Adrian, Lorcan, the spirits he saw, Alice, Cinaed... He turned to look out where he knew Cinaed was. How was their home doing? General Razka was free to work his evil with them out of the way. And what happened to Alice? He felt his heart sink. Where was his sister? He could not help her here. Not like this. He needed... well, he needed a miracle. And an army. He could start with an army.
He crawled back down the ridge and half-stumbled, half jumped the last ten feet to the ground, one leg buckling under him from the strain. His legs had not fully healed. He bit back a cry of pain as he went down, then forced himself up to his feet again. He let the boy go, straightening his tail some. Then he dropped to his haunches and wrapped his tail around himself, keeping his head up, wings folded, watching this new person, a hundred questions about him now running through his troubled mind.

Kieran's eye narrowed at the knife, watching the silver gleam orange as it reflected the firelight. He growled lowly for all of a few seconds before turning his attention to the dwindling fire. He stretched out a wing and wrapped it around a dead tree. With a snap, he pulled the dead thing up -not that it was that hard for even a human to try knocking it over, the poor tree was in rather a state- and he held it up somewhat. He opened his mouth, firing a steady stream of fire at its top. When it caught alight. He stabbed the tree into the earth and let its blaze keep him warm, though being a dragon, he was rather warm already.
Settling down with his tail wrapped around him, he tucked his front legs in and stared into the fire, still contemplating things, deep in thought, and simultaneously ignoring the human as well. Though he did pose a problem.

"Oh no you don't," the dragon snarled, suddenly standing, then crashing down as his legs gave way. He beat the air with his wings, making the fire flare like crazy, and he rose up a few feet before landing sloppily next to the human. He pinned him down again, then scooped him up in his claws. "You're not going anywhere. I don't trust you to not go blabbing of my whereabouts to any human out there, and have the Hunters raining down on my ass. That's the last thing I need." He dragged himself backwards, slithering somewhat, and dropped the boy on the ground near the fire. "You stay!" he snapped.