Horon cast his eyes to the ground. It was then that Koe remembered. He'd sworn never to do harm to a dragon, hadn't he? That was one of the vows of his particularly strange order. Odd to think that someone could take such a vow and yet so easily wield the powers of dragons against other dragons. Koe did not know how or when Horon had decided that those vows did not matter. But it must have been strong indeed, to turn him away from a pledge that knights would hold dearest of all. Something about the fellow took on an entirely new sadness. It was grief the man chose not to share, so Koe would not ask him again. But the mere fact that he was present, here and now, doing things he'd vowed not to do.
An ugly thought indeed.
For a moment the last thing Koe could think about, lying on his stomach with his face in soft snow-drenched grass, was getting clothes on. Cold did not agree with his body, human or dragon, but for some strange reason it was comforting. Here the earth was unstained by the blood of their fight. Here he could simply lay, and be, and there was no fear of anything else. And a song was in his head, about losing one's self to the cold. Or the water. How it felt very much like the great bards of the past would describe dying. No one had ever actually died and then penned a sonnet, of course, but he imagined it was ... as accurate as such a thing could be.
Koe was not dying. Not here and now now. Iluq was right. There were still three other dragons out there. Not to mention the witch, who had attacked Horon's village with reckless disregard for life. Yet it was impossible to avoid the thought that all of this was somehow connected. Horon knew of the dragons and was willing to fight them. Horon knew the fellow who had died by the witch's hand. And he knew that no matter what happened it was likely he would die here. What sort of misdeed could allow you to accept such a fate? Surely it was not wounding dragons - or he would have avoided repeating himself at all costs.
So what was all of this?
"The time for half-measures is over," Koe finally said in a muffled voice. "You would be dead without our aid, but I won't offer it blindly any longer."