Chapter Text
Hob poked at the fire he was tending and wished once again that the blasted heat and drought would finally end. He’d kill to have a good thunderstorm right now, or even a thick blanket of snow. At least wondering if he’d lost a toe to frostbite would be a change from the constant battle against his own overheated body and the flies that kept buzzing around his head.
He wouldn’t even have considered making a fire if it wasn’t for Dream. He’d rather eat raw meat or nothing at all than bear the heat of the flames just to cook dinner, nausea or hunger be damned.
But the dragon was doing poorly enough to make Hob want to give in to any and every request his new companion made, and suffering through the additional heat was a small price to pay if it meant watching a dragon bask in the warmth, curled around the small firepit Hob had built out of rocks and gravel to keep it from setting the whole mountain range on fire.
At least finding fuel was no longer a problem now that they had reached the forested northern hills.
They’d travelled a great many miles over the first few days since Hob had chosed he’d rather be a murderer than a monster. The endless fields and pastures he’d know for all his life were far behind them now, hopefully along with anyone trying to find them.
That risk of being pursuied was a worry that stayed with them both.
The day of the coronation had come and gone, so anybody and their mothers would know by now that the catchers had failed to deliver the dragon they’d promised.
Even the worst search party in history wouldn’t be able to miss the evidence Hob and Dream had left behind, the chains and a broken cart, and of course the herd of horses running loose. Not to mention the corpses.
People in his village would know by now that the dragoncatchers he’d joined were all murdered, and if anyone had the decency to go out there to collect his body for burial, they’d know neither he nor his possessions were there and connect the dots.
Being the first murderer to come from Little Huddleton wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted to go down in history, even if it had led to him also being the village’s first dragon rider. Probably the first dragon rider at all, never mind the little shithole he’d been born in.
Even if that currently meant he was spending a great deal of time washing out wounds and telling stories to an overgrown lizard.
He swatted at another fly that had decided that his head was an even better place to be than the seeping wounds on Dream’s body and decided that the dragon had slept for long enough.
He wanted to wash the gashes and puncture wounds that littered his friend before they left for another night’s travel, just to make sure he got rid of all the eggs the fies had been laying during the day, and he needed daylight to do that. There was only so much human eyes could do in firelight, and he didn’t want maggots to screw up all the work and care he’d put in trying to help the dragon heal.
“Dream?”
It was impossible to see if the dragon was actually sleeping or just dozing, and Hob still didn’t know how to wake him without risking a gruesome death. Just a single swipe of a paw would probably break every bone in his body, so he had a strong preference for staying out of reach, but neither did he want to shout. Dream had been shouted at by humans enough to last him a lifetime, and obviously didn’t like raised voices.
Hob couldn’t blame him, even if he had not liked being the recipient of the dragon’s dark mood when he’d been forced to chose between shouting and throwing a rock at his head, and had chosen the former.
“Dream? We need to get moving again. You wanted to get to the other side of the mountains tonight.”
The high cliffs and peaks would be a far greater obstacle for anyone following them on horseback than they were for Hob and his winged companion, and Dream had refused to rest for more than just the daylight hours before getting to the safety of some truly inaccessible terrain. It would at least protect them against any would-be heroes riding out to kill them and claim both their heads as trophies, even if the rest of their problems would be just as shitty as the were now. Hob was feeling the lack of proper food and water, and he didn’t doubt the fact that his companion felt even worse.
The dragon grumbled, a deep sound like rocks shifting somewhere deep down in a well, and opened one eye just far enough to glare at Hob. He’d been truly asleep then.
“Good evening. Did you sleep well? The sun is setting, so I thought I’d give your wounds a quick wash before we left. We really should try to find a place with a proper stream to rest one of these days. We coud both do with a bath and some clean water to drink.”
It was true. The muddy pond Hob had been able to find as he roamed the area around Dream’s sleeping body had held just enough water to keep him alive and not overly thirsty for another night, but it wasn’t what he’d have used to clean a dead chicken for dinner back home, let alone open wounds. It was not even remotely enough to slacken Dream’s thirst, so he merely settled for wetting his tongue, choosing to wait rather than rob Hob of the water he needed to keep feeling even remotely alright.
“I did yes, and I agree. I hope we will find a meltwater stream on the other side, or perhaps some snow at the peaks.”
The idea that he might be standing in snow in just a few hours was mind-boggling to Hob, whose linen tunic was stuck to his skin with sweat even without having done anything more active than snoozing and swatting at flies for most of the day.
“Well, the sooner we get cleaning those gashes over with, the sooner we get to pick our next resting place. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get rid of the smell. ‘Ripe’ stopped being enough to describe it several days ago.”