"Shit. Someone's in trouble. That way."

The Companions have been keeping up a brisk but comfortable pace. Yfandes speeds instantly into a gallop, overtaking Kellan, but he isn't far behind. She leaps over a fallen tree, clears a tiny half-frozen stream. :Chosen, how far away does it feel to you?: 

:Oh gods, I have no idea-- they can't be far, I wasn't actively looking--: He tries to get a sense of the distance, but he hasn't practiced this, and he can't Farsee it and balance on Yfandes at the same time, fuck, he should have practiced more.

:Shh, hey, you're doing fine: Yfandes sends, along with a tide of reassurance. :Just a general sense - a hundred yards? A mile? Two miles? How quickly does it seem to be getting stronger?: 

Yfandes' reassurance crowds out the mix of native and empathic fear enough to let him think. :Not far--just over that ridge.: He brings his mental shields to full strength and gets ready to throw up a barrier as soon as they aren't all moving.

And they crest the ridge, in time to see a man with two children behind him, standing about ten paces away from a drake that's easily twice the length of any of the juveniles. 

The man is - entranced. Frozen, unable to move, unable to look away from the creatures eyes. The children are held pinned only by sheer terror. 

Starwind takes the lead. :Abras, shield the family. As much power as you can. This fight may be messy: He gestures for the othes to spread out, ready to attack from three directions at once. :Abras, you say when you at ready: 

Oh shit, three people and two of them are kids. He flings up a mental and physical shield around the three of them as tight as the one around himself, pulling a stream of node-energy to make them as impenetrable as he can possibly manage. :I'm doing it, I've done it, go!:

The man blinks back to alertness, and instantly turns, crouches, and additionally shields both of the children with his own body. He glances back over his shoulder, seems to recognize Starwind and Moondance, or at least recognize them as Tayledras. 

They have their hands full right now. The queen drake is bigger, faster, sneaker, and meaner than any of the juveniles. She's using her spiked tail and all of her clawed limbs, and she's not happy about losing her prey. She manages to knock Starwind flying, though he lands neatly on his feet and clearly unarmed, and then she forces Savil to leap back, and then she gets her tail up and around and smashes at Abras' shield. 

Abras' world is rapidly contracting to nothing but the shields he's holding and the impact against them. His eyes are open but he's not seeing the people, or the drake, it's all just colors, only the shield is real.

In which case he's going to miss the next exciting segment of the fight. 

The queen bashes at his shield a few more times, but when it doesn't give in the slightest, she concludes that the way to her prey is through the the annoying little humans trying to cut at her with fire-knives of energy. (Her hide is triple the toughness of her now-dead babies). They're wounding her, but for the moment that's just making her madder. 

The queen is clever enough to notice that Moondance is moving a little more slowly than the rest, and zero in on him. 

Moondance takes the full brunt of her gaze. He - doesn't fall to it, not entirely, but he's distracted, and that's enough. The tail comes up and around, and he's shielded and grounded but he's not reinforcing it right this second, or dodging, and–

Starwind notices, of course, and tries to fling up shielding in the way, but he's too slow, and Moondance goes flying and he doesn't land on his feet. 

Savil snarls and yanks Starwind into rapport with her and pulls from his reserves of node-energy as well, and it takes a couple of spears of light to finally get through, but then they do and the next attack cuts through her chest, and she crumples but she's still whipping her head around trying to get at Moondance who's lying unmoving in a snowbank, but the mortal wound is dealt and Starwind focuses on shielding his lifebonded until the drake's head falls to the snow as well and she lies there twitching. 

:Abras, you can drop it: Savil sends. :Reassure the family and then come help us over here: 

Someone is talking to him? Oh, it's Savil. What did she say? He plays back the memory, figures it out, takes the time to bring the shield down properly. Turns out that isn't enough time to figure out what to say to shaken strangers. He walks over to them anyway, gets out an "Everyone okay here?" The adrenaline is fading now, and everything is a bit too close and a bit too far away at the same time.

The father, who's just managed to shakily stand up and look around, immediately drops to a kneel at Abras' feet. "Thank you, sir, thank you thank you, you saved my children, I can never repay you..."

The kids are hanging back, looking at him with awed eyes. 

Aaaaaaaaa what! Why this!

"Hey, it's, it's okay, please stand up, it's going to be fine." Oh gods he's babbling like an idiot.

The father gets up, calms himself down a bit. Finally gets a proper look at Abras' face – and his age – and does a bit of a double-take. "Are you with the bird people?" He's speaking a dialect of Valdemaran, not Tayledras; it's a bit hard to understand but Abras can manage. "You don't look it."

"I'm, um, visiting them." He gestures at Starwind and Moondance. "Where do you live, can you all get home alright?"

"The village, I was - taking them to pick berries - not far - but my knife, where–?" The man is babbling a bit now too, and looking around frantically. "I had it, but - that creature - I don't remember..." 

"Colddrakes do magic to your brain; it's awful. But it's dead now and can't do it anymore. Probably your knife is on the ground somewhere; want to help me look for it?" Abras starts casting his eyes around the area; it's not like he's been successfully making eye contact anyway. He really hopes that was something in the general direction of the right thing to say; he knows he'd need more comforting than that of the drake had gotten him but he has no idea how to be comforting.

The hunting-knife is lying half-buried in the snow where the man dropped it. The man has gone to hug and comfort his children, which seems to be helping him calm down as well. 

That's good; they can reassure each other much better than a random person can. Once he makes sure the man has his knife back he goes to check on the others. "Moondance? Are you alright?"

"I will be fine." Moondance gives Abras a strained smile, though his eyes aren't really focusing. The other two have him half sitting up, Starwind supporting him, and Savil is peeling back his robes, trying to get a look at his injuries. There's a gash down his ribs from the queen's spiked tail, but it's not deep, his shields had caught nearly all the force before crumpling. 

Abras swallows, and murmurs "I should've been shielding you too."

"You absolutely should not have," Savil says dryly. "Splitting attention that way is hard even for me, he was moving around... And he's going to be perfectly all right in a day or two. And, Abras – I couldn't have held a shield like that. I was watching, it didn't even flex when the thing's tail went at it. Colddrakes are magic-resistant, which means a blow from them counts a bit as a magical attack as well. You saved the people we were trying to protect. We just killed the creature." She stands up. "Getting bandages." 

"Drink, ashke." Starwind holds his waterskin to Moondance's lips; his hands are trembling a bit, which is...an odd thing to notice about Starwind. "I think you ought do a little self-Healing now, before we ride back? To at least stop the bleeding."

Savil already has some strips of cloth from Kellan's saddlebags, and is wrapping them to cover the wound.

"Abras," Starwind says. "Might you join me in rapport, to let my shay'kreth'ashke use our strength as well? He is very drained." He's speaking in the exact same tone of voice that he uses with Savil. Like Abras is an adult.