Rannok tilted his head forward and pressed the cloth to his nose. His temples throbbed. He closed his eyes and winced a bit as he moved the rag to stop a thin dribble of blood dripping around the edges. Already he could feel that both his eyes were black and blue, and it hurt even to apply a little pressure to them.

Armand stared at him with barely-contained rage. Purple stains surrounded his eye, and already the swelling was beginning to force it closed.

Some fistfight, Rannok thought.

"We're in serious trouble, I think," he said. He wasn't even sure the trouble would be contained just to Armand. He was sure that he'd get a talking to, too, especially since this fight was really his fault. If he hadn't pushed for it, it wouldn't have happened.

"I wouldn't have guessed," Armand replied sarcastically, arms folded.

"I guess I shouldn't have said anything," replied Rannok.

Armand looked away from him and didn't answer. Instead he fished a cloth from his pocket and went to polishing his blade. Rannok couldn't really blame him for being angry, since Rannok shouldn't have goaded him. But now it was all said and done with and they'd both have to live with the mistake.

"I think my nose might be broken," Rannok offered.

"Don't care," Armand responded as he rubbed the cloth into the metal, which made it no more shiny than before.

"Look, I'm sorry."

Armand turned toward Rannok. His eyes were brimstone. Rannok shrank back a little.

"You're 'sorry'? For which thing? The part where you punched me, or the part where you wouldn't stop talking?"

"You hit me first," Rannok pointed out. The same line he usually used whenever he'd goaded someone else too far. Kept too much trouble off his skin and sometimes got the other guy to fully take the blame. But this time even that didn't feel quite right.

Armand dropped the sword and stuck it back in his sheath. He looked back up at Rannok with eyes that were less fire and more sorrow.

"You ruined her life," Armand said.

"That was before you even knew her," Rannok replied. He narrowed his eyes. As if someone else's problems were a good enough reason for Armand to hate him.

"Do you have any idea how miserable she is? It's your fault she's stuck in his hellhole," Armand snapped.

Rannok lowered his gaze to the floor. "You think I don't know that? I'm not as stupid as I look." He clenched a piece of his shirt in his hand. He really hadn't meant to. Somehow he didn't think he'd be escaping that particular shadow anytime soon, though.

"Yep," Armand agreed. For a few moments the silence was almost deafening. As he glanced around the empty medic tent, trying to keep himself from bleeding all over his clothes, something startling occurred to him that explained everything. He shook his head and suddenly felt terrible.

"You love her, don't you?"

Armand paused and opened his mouth as if to say something, then shook his head. "Honestly I don't even have a good answer for that," he replied. His face softened a bit and he let out a deep sigh. "It doesn't matter anyway."

Rannok looked out the tent flap into the open desert, scattered with tents which went on seemingly forever. He remembered when he'd give anything to be just about anywhere else. When the village had grown too small and its walls too thin to contain him. Fledging had seemed like a blessing rather than a curse. No one here told him he was broken or accused him of stealing in shops he hadn't even been in, even though he grew out of petty theft years ago.

"You know, there are sellswords on the other end of the caravan," Rannok said. He'd seen them on the way in, boiling their leather and sewing it into armor. He probably would have thought they were cooler had he not been in agony and drifting in and out of consciousness.

"Yeah, and Griffon won't let me leave, so what's it matter?" Armand replied, arms folded. He looked wounded, like a dog someone starved, then kicked. Rannok couldn't help but feel sorry for him. His behavior made sense, really, even if it meant he lost his temper. And Rannok could see it hurt Griffon terribly in ways he admitted he could never understand.

"Griffon can't stop you if you decide to leave," Rannok said. "You're probably getting kicked out anyway."

"Don't remind me," Armand replied bitterly. His face twisted up into a scowl, then his eyes softened around the edges and he closed them and shook his head. He sighed heavily and leaned on the tent post behind him while clutching the cloth to his eye. "I can't do that to him."

Rannok thought back to the look on his mother's face when he'd flown, terrified and alone, out into open desert in order to escape the flaming arrows the villagers shot at him. Picturing the tears on her face still hurt. She probably didn't know he was even alive. But Griffon would know, and that had to be better than being dead.

"I'll cover for you," he said abruptly. "Leave, right now. I'll tell Griffon you ran off and that I couldn't catch you."

Armand shook his head but a slim smile crept across his face. Rannok's chest felt a little lighter. He wiggled the wings on his back to get more comfortable and stared at the doorway. The medic woman had her back turned which meant Armand could just sneak out under the tent flap and be gone and no one would be the wiser. He tilted his head toward the opening. Armand raised an eyebrow and glanced at it, then at Rannok.

"I can't. What about Griffon? He'll panic, he'll want to come looking for me--"

"Aegan won't let him," Rannok pointed out. People had been talking for days about how Aegan wanted to kick out Armand. Most of the guardsmen discussed it like it was a secret, but it wasn't a very good one. Everyone knew he was probably out at the next major stop. Why did it matter if he left a little bit early?

"I can't," Armand repeated, and his one good eye turned wild and darted around the room as if he worried Griffon would appear around a corner and grab him before he had his chance.

"You can," Rannok insisted. "I did it. I ran away from my village because I fledged and everyone thought I was a monster. As long as you get far enough away, they'll stop chasing, trust me. This caravan is huge, this is only one part of it. If you get away fast enough you'll be gone before anyone has a chance to think about it." 

Armand seemed to think about it for a moment, then slowly nodded. He stood and ducked under the gap under the tent. Before Rannok could say anything else, he was gone. He stared into the corner of the tent, watching him go between a gap in some of the canvas, until he disappeared and Rannok couldn't watch any more.

He turned back just in time to see the medic woman approaching with a big roll of bandages.

"Where did your friend go?" she asked. Rannok gave another cursory glance to the corner of the tent, then back at the medic as he waited for the right answer to appear, but it didn't.

"I think he went to the bathroom," he tried, although he doubted it would work. To his surprise though, she just shook her head and sighed.

"Damn kids," she said as she got working on Rannok's broken nose.

    ---

Do you think Rannok should have helped Armand? Would you if you were him? Put your thoughts in the comments!