Sent Forward (Open)

Rannoch sprinted beside Edrick and Azalia on the back of his deer, the fire chasing them at an alarming speed. He was dreading coming face-to-face with a group of knights, especially ones from Adriwia; he only hoped they would be too caught up in the dragon to notice the tattoos of his clan marked on his cheek and forehead and painted on Oskan's fur.

The three other knights jumped immediately onto their horses once they heard the pounding hooves of Jax heading their way. They left behind whatever was not important and did not hesitate when Edrick ordered them to leave. A few looked untrustingly at the boy and the girl with the dragon, but a sharp comment from the head knight sent them off.
"We need to get to a safe land! That will be north of here, so just follow us!" He shouted to the two.

Rannoch was becoming more and more uneasy as he lingered around the knights, but he hardly had a choice. If he did, he'd do what he usually does when a threat appears: run fast into the mountians. But that wasn't an option, not here. The dragon was easily gliding over mountains and blazing forests in a matter of seconds. He would not be safe there. 
Begrudgingly, he followed the men on horses, falling back from Edrick's side and riding alongside Azalia, comforted by the similar amount of difference they both shared amoung this group.

Edrick glanced back at the dragon. He could hear the terror in its voice, making him certain it was doing this against its will. Dragons only acted out if they were being threatened, and they almost never went on the offense if they had a choice.
"I'm sure Thaliwan has already heard it and is evacuating. If I remember right, they had a dragon run in a decade ago and that's what they did," He spoke loudly to be heard over the roaring of fire not far off and the wind blowing past them as they raced towards safety.

Rannoch looked behind him doubtfully toward the village surrounded in angry flame. He had caught the suspitious glares he had recieved from the knights and his own fears had been confirmed; they were knights of Adriwia. 
Without warning, a tree crackled painfully as its charred body hit the ground only a few feet to the left of the party. It didn't help that Oskan was in a whirl of panic as he sprinted blindly along, unable to push past the much heavier build horses of war. All his rider could do was to pull the deers head back stiffly to stop him from stabbing the horses with his antler tines.

"Keep calm! A river is up ahead!" Edrick shouted. The river would prevent the fire from spreading too far, and it seemed as though the dragon was only aiming at a certain area behind them.

Rannoch felt a pull weighing him down as if cannonballs were tied to his shoulders. The fire chasing the party began to fall back, the roasting heat and distant crackles being the only remaining evidence that the flames had been close at all. With this, Oskan the deer began to slow his frightened running, easing to a steady canter and soon dropping behind the knights and Azalia.
A few paces more and the stag had slowed to a trot, but was pulled into a stand by his rider. Rannoch turned to look over the burning valley they had left behind. More furious than ever now, the blaze had struck up again, pushing up the hill towards him and the knights, though it was also racing towards Thaliwan. Above the spitting of the fire and the shrieking dragon, Rannoch could hear the terrified voices of the people fleeing from the fishing village, numbers desparately trying to escape the trap the possesed dragon had set. 
The wanderer had made another decision. Turning back towards the knights, he yelled at the top of his lungs; "Edrick! I'm going back! Thaliwan needs help! You and Azalia need to either escape, come with me, or find out what on earth is wrong with that dragon!"
And without another word or a moment to wait for an answer, Rannoch and Oskan leaped into the fire and were gone.

Edrick halted rather abruptly on Jax, who replied with an indignant snort. He glared at Rannoch and then at his men. He wasn't sure what to do, and that was a feeling he hated most.
He groaned and shouted an order at his fellow knights. "Helios, head with me to Thaliwan. Layne and Fortias, keep going to the river!" His soldiar nodded and started their horses one way or another. He was bringing with him the only knight there that he had fought alongside with in battle. He could trust Helios with his life.
Together, they started racing towards Rannoch.

It didn't take too long for the deer and his rider to reach the village of Thaliwan, though it seemed like to burning tunnel of fire was never ending. As Rannoch stampeded through the flames, his eyes soon teared up with ash, and smoke caught in his throat until he could scarcely breath. 
At one point, the two brushed past a branch, fallen from its trunk onto the road. The sharp fingers of the charred wood sliced through the rope bindings that held the winterwear Rannoch had wanted to sell, plunging the clothing into the firey abbys and shedding the flesh on Oskan's rear.
Rannoch began to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake that would cost he and his deer (and whoever had followed him, he was not sure who) their lives. Then, after the crackling of the fire eased and the dragon's screams began to fade into the distance, a shaft of lit split through the smoke, and there was Thaliwan.
Hooves clambering over the cobblestone, the wanderer pulled his stag to a halt and took in the scene of chaos that played out around him. Edrick had been right in that much of the village had been evacuated, but there were many who had not been able to escape on a cart or horse that now stumbled fearfully around. He could see a sourcerer casting some kind of spell, and decided to leave her to it.
"Please sir, you must help me!" came a broken voice from beside Rannoch. 
Looking down, the boy saw a small, grey-haired man, his leathery hands clasping onto the deer-rider's trouser leg. 
"My wife is with child and my mother is very, very old. I have a young son, but the carts taking people out of the village had left us behind. Please, can't you get us away from here?"
Rannoch hesitated. His emerald eyes set their sight upon a small horse cart laying beside a market stand. He knew what he had to do, but he didn't like it one bit.

Ooc: Bumbsies ;3

Sliding nimbley off Oskan, Rannoch sprinted over and freed the cart, which consisted of no more than a wide body of wood, two wooden traces, a leather harness and one wheel on each side, from broken peices of debris, dragging it back to where Oskan and the man were waiting. The man called for his family to join him and Rannoch reluctantly set about fixing his deer to the cart. Oskan was unwilling, but once it was on, it was already too late. The family had settled themselves on the cart. Tears accumulating in his eyes, Rannoch turned Oskan towards where the towns-people were evacuating and smacked him once on the rear, setting the deer off at an unsteady but speedy gallop ou of the village. 
After watching his only friend disappear and unsure if they'll meet again soon, Rannoch wiped away his tears angrily and glanced around the seemingly abandoned village. He spied the mage from earlier walking away, and decided it would be best to leave her to herself. Instead, the wanderer ran up to the nearest building that wasn't ablaze and nimbley scaled it, peering down from his high perch onto the wreck that was Thaliwan. It was from here that he was able to spot a very young child, only about three years old, tripping about in the centre of the burning village, bawling and wailing at the top of her lungs. 
Leaping from the rooftop, the red-haired boy raced up to the child, choking on the thickening smoke clouds, and scooped her up in one motion, before running for the exit of the village. He was unsure to where the lady and the knight were, but pressumed that an abnormally tall gentleman trained in combat and a woman who owns a dragon could both take care of themselves.

Edrick had been carrying the elderly and the sickly on horseback out of the town by the multiple. He had given out orders to the men of the town to grab their children, wives, and belongings and to escape as quickly as possible. The fire was nearing now, but the town wasn't yet emptied. He spotted Rannoch on top of a building and lord knows where the mage girl had gone.
They had to hurry before the fire or the dragon made it to the the town.

Rannoch skidded to a halt, his animal-hide boots scraping noisily along the ground. Turning back towards the town, his emerald eyes settled on Azalia and her dragon in the middle of the town square. Towering over them was a dragon. Another one? 
The maiden was dangerously close to the beast's taloned foot and the boy thought to go and help her. Then he felt the small girl in his arms press her face, drenched in tears, into his chest. Mumbling a tone of angst as he anchored himself to where he was stood, the wanderer slowly fell to his knees, hiding behind the foliage and watching the scene take place.

Edrick had gotten his people out now, and he could hear reinforcements from the kingdom off in the far distance. They needed to hold the dragon back for as long as they could.
"Azalia!" Edrick yelled out as he galloped towards her and the enemy dragon. "We need to break the collar! It's controlling it!" Edrick knew this from previous encounters with mythical creatures. He had never come across a dragon taken control of like this, but many other creatures had fallen prey to talismans such as those.

Rannoch stood as he spied Edrick approaching Azailia on the far side of the burning town from his vantage point. Over the roaring and spitting of the fire, he just caught the knight's words and looked to the chaotic dragon who had set the landscape alight, still sailing high in the sky, the forespoken-of collar catching the sunlight like the boy's throat caught the smoke. 
Burrying the child he had saved in a collection of reeds he had harvested quickly from the nearby bank so as to hide it, the wanderer shot from the ditch and began sprinting towards the people he had only met less than two hours prier, but who he now felt a duty to help. His legs moved fast and his steps were nimble and silent, much like a deer's. Soon, the red-headed boy had reached Azailia and Edrick, hoping that at least one of them had a plan.

Shay remained perched in a tree, watching as the dragon burned the landscape around him, frowning that he can't be helping, when he saw Edrick, Azalia, and Rannoch, "Plans? Any at all?" He asked them, his cowl pulled over his head in such a way that his eyes were hidden

Edrick didn't pay much attention to the new arrival of the boy. He was here to help, and that is all the knight cared about.
"We need to distract the dragon, get it away from the town. Whoever is controlling it will want us dead, and therefore it'll follow us. Reinforcements are getting closer, and they can bring the dragon down and get the collar off more than we can," Edrick explained, out of breath from all the riding and heavy lifting.

"Well judging from how innocents are dying there, i would say, we don't have time for reinforcements. We need to get the collar off Quickly." he replied

"There aren't innocents dying. Not yet, anyway. We've gotten most people out of town, and away from the dragon, which is why we need to steer the dragon's path away from them," Edrick yelled calmly. He needed to be heard over the raging fire not far from the town.

"We're running out of time!" Rannoch butted in, "Edrick, Azailia, and whoever you are, we all need to work together to draw the dragon away from here. Azailia, how do we get the beast's attention?"
As the boy said this, he jumped over to Azailia's side and helped her up, balancing her weight on his arms.