Madrigal grinned at the boy's remark, her teeth flashing in the soft moonlight. She'd heard about them; the people that talk the language of the dragons. She knew the language they spoke was ancient, and so were their people. She also knew that they sat at the bottom of the social system here. At least, they were here in Drihsa. In her home city, Ciradyl, she was sure that it wasn't the case. Her time at Black Gate wasn't time spent freely, so she couldn't speak for them.

But, if this boy wanted to play coy, she wasn't going to stand in his way. He could hide who he was, and she would understand. Hiding is what she did best.

"So, I didn't think that dragons were so comfortable around human-occupied land..." She said, folding her hands behind her back.

He sighed and shook his head. "They're not usually. But things out here aren't very good right now. Farther away, there's no prey. They decided to risk coming closer to find food." He shrugged. "If they had known there was food in the village they would have destroyed everything in it besides the food. They would have gotten hurt." He didn't really care what happened the the city, but the dragons were important to him. They were also exiled, misunderstood, and hated.

He studied the girl's face. She knew something, but he wasn't sure what, and it made him uneasy. He was about to ask her what, when he heard his father yell something. His eyes widened and he started to turn around, but before he could his father was in his face yelling about dumping supplies on the table.

Sage jerked backwards with a snarl. "well maybe if you hadn't thrown a damn bottle at my head I would have put stuff away," he snapped. Then he winced and flinched, knowing what was coming.

His father reared back, and backhanded Sage hard enough to open up the stiches on his cheek and send him sprawling. He hit the girl as he fell, knocking them both over.

Madrigal's body stiffened at the arrival of the drunk. She stiffened even more when she realised he was the boy's father. All expression dropped from her face and she became stony.

When the father hit the boy, Madrigal lept into action. Her eyes flicked to him o the ground, assessing, and then to the man who had staggered to the side in his drunken state. She glared at him, gliding forward, and presented her crescent blades- one in each hand- in a flash. They glinted menacingly in the light of the moon. Her lips pulled back in a sneer and she lunged forward.

Sage lunged to his feet, his dagger already in hand. He ran towards his father, who shoved the girl to the side and turned to face him. They exchanged blows for a moment before his father spoke up. "You dare oppose me now? You're nothing. You're what I get for having a child with a native. I'll kill you, just like I killed your pathetic mother!" Sages eyes widened and he staggered backwards, pressing his free hand to his forehead as those words triggered flashbacks of that night. Of the things that had happened. Of the things that he still had nightmares every night about. He couldn't fight his father, his memories wouldn't let him. He wanted to, so badly, but he couldn't see anything but his mother's dead face, her head a bloody mess from where his father had slammed her head against a wall and killed her. His father grinned and reached out for him, knowing he could kill him. And sage wasn't sure if he wanted to stop him from doing so

Madrigal grunted, and then growled. Her eyes narrowed to slits at the boy who pushed her, and then the man. This man was wicked and vile, and she believed he deserved the slow death she would deliver.

Telling her impulse control to go screw itself, Madrigal got up. Before the man could reach the boy, she was in front of him. She flashed the knives, which required her to get close and intimate- to invade his personal space. A mere blur of movement, she sliced and spun, falling into a comfortable rhythm, each movement highly calculated. Her blades become slick with blood. In seconds, the man was on the floor, breaths heaving, bus body covered in his own blood. She smiled, slowly and menacingly.

Sage blinked hard and shook his head, getting himself mostly under control. He stood up shakily, but he was up. His face was stony, and he felt more numb than anything. He palmed his dagger again and walked towards his father, and lashed out right alongside the girl, whoever she was. She had paused for only a moment, but it was a moment he would take. His dagger cut through his father's finger, taking the tip off. It was a fitting thing, Sage thought, since his father had robbed him of his mother, and any chance of having a good life. His father yelled in pain and grabbed his hand and Sage scowled. "Oh shut up. If I could handle it when I was seven and sober, you can handle it now and drunk." He walked past his father and paused momentarily in front of the girl. "Leave him here. He can't go anywhere and the wild animals will have his bones picked clean by morning."

Madrigal stepped back from the bloodied body she'd left lying on the ground, into the shadows. She watched as the boy sliced the tip off his father's finger, and grinned. She wouldn't stop him from taking what he wanted. She looked down at her prized crescent moon blades, which were slicked red. She held one up to the moonlight and watched it drip. Great. A perfectly decent piece of cloth she was going to sew into her blanket would now turn into a cleaning rag. She tugged the old shirt from her belt as it was the smallest piece, and began wiping the blood from her blades.

"So, what are you gonna do now that you're free from that brute?"

Sage looked back at the girl, surprised she cared enough to ask. Then he shrugged. "Keep surviving, I guess." He didn't really know how he was going to do it, as scarse as food was getting in this part of the forest, but he had wondered about the same thing for years, and now there was one less mouth to feed.

"Yeah," Madrigal muttered. She knew what that word could entail. She was no stranger to it. She inspected her blades. Deeming them good enough for now, Madrigal placed them in the special pockets of the cloak she'd had made for them. Later, she would clean them properly. She looked around them, there were a few small houses scattered about. It didn't look like anyone had cared enough to see what was going on. It didn't surprise her, Madrigal knew these people would keep to themselves until it was them being threatened. She hoped that no one had seen her fighting with her crescent knives, as rare as they were. If it were reported, she'd have to flee the city again, and she hadn't been here very long.

Sage looked closer at the girl and groaned. "You know what, just come to my cabin. Clean your lives and... whatever." He knew the look of a fleeing person and hoped he could help. She had helped him, after all