!Violence and stabbing warning!

In seconds, the big dragon had followed through with the command given by Odan. He raised his head and spewed out those freezing flames of ice at the direction of the hunters. The ice piled into a low wall, separating the humans from the rest of the forest and also encasing their feet, keeping them from running away from the fight they had picked. Odan quickly rushed to fend them off with a giant longsword that looked brand new even though the girl had seen no such weapon on him before. Enfys was quick to go to Össur's wounds and looked them over to evaluate the damage that had been done to the beast. The hunters were screaming, yelling for backup, blowing a goat horn one of them held in hopes of being saved in time. Those who had managed to break free from the ice and avoid Odan's blade would run back from where they had come from -possibly some camp they and whomever they were calling to had set up nearby. Those who didn't manage to do so however, tried to defend themselves with their guns but their arms were cut off before one of them could pull the trigger. Their deaths were undeservingly quick for having shot so many innocent creatures in a forest they didn't belong in in the first place but no one commented on that.

The girl didn't want to look but the scene kept her eyes and ears glued to the imagery and sounds. Was that what would have happened to her had she not been part selkie? It looked wrong but it seemed to be right. Humans don't belong in this forest, she thought, even though she had thought she was a pure human just a few hours prior. From what she had seen, the only reason humans came in the forest was to either build houses (like Henry and Elizabeth) or to poach beasts and other critters from it. She made sure she would remember that rule in all of her life. Even if it were a friend of hers, she would not allow a human access in the future and if she did, she wanted to believe that it would be for a good reason. Was this trauma or heartlessness? She did not know and frankly, she had no idea how to soul search herself. But why is mr. Henry, mrs. Elizabeth and Christian allowed to live in that clearing? She was soon snapped out of her mind once her friend, the kelpie, came by her side to check if she was okay. Well, aside from the trauma of seeing people being killed and all the dragon blood on her hands, from Össur's bleeding she was fine.

Odan soon came back to them after having been successful in buying time to retreat as well. Thankfully by then Enfys had managed to take the bullets out and seal the wounds with some cleansed leaves she had brought that allowed the blood to clot underneath them without a hitch. Össur was stretching out his wing, seeing the damage that had been done to it for himself and later found that there wasn't as much pain as he had expected there to be -especially since the bullets were made of iron. He wouldn't take to the skies for some time, at least until the bullet holes completely healed. Odan put his blooded sword away in the leather sheath attached to the his hip before petting the wounded dragon.

"Are you alright, big guy?", he asked and the beast turned his head away as if to say 'it's nothing more than a scratch' in a snobby tone. Enfys chuckled and pat his neck before going over to search the corpses of the humans.

"What about you, girl?", Odan asked the girl, seeing as she was talking to her friend about what had just happened. She turned to the man with a perplexed look on her face. She didn't know if her previous change of mind was good or bad, if her brain needed tuning or not for her to understand her own reasoning. She was so confused that she could barely form sentences with meaning in them.

"It will take some time for you to understand. You're small, too innocent for the side of your own kind, not mature enough to comprehend all this -especially since you lived in the humans' world for so long. Trust me, things will change -for better or worse- and even then you may not understand anything that is going on in your thoughts. Until you are able to understand yourself, you only have one worry and that is the humans that come and go in this forest and hungry beasts that are looking for a meal", he told her.

That speech made her calm down some. All that frustration of having to figure everything out on her own in a short amount of time had been levitated off her shoulders. It freed her mind of the confusion but she knew that effect wouldn't last forever. For now she could let herself be without feeling any unreasonable guilt to herself for not trying to understand and she would make the most of that emotional freedom. She nodded to the words of the man and climbed on one of the fallen trees Össur had brought down with him before, the kelpie going along and allowing her to get on his back.

"I don't really want to think about this myself", she started, her gaze meeting the yellow orbs of the man as he looked at her expectantly, "but after all those words, I feel... a little better so, thank you".

Odan didn't respond, instead he turned to Össur and nodded towards the forest. Enfys came back holding that horn that had been blown by one of the hunters, muttering something to Odan before approaching the girl and the kelpie. Apparently she would be riding along with the girl back to her hut.

"Odan, will you be okay?", Enfys asked with a raised brow.
"Of course, Össur and I will make sure there are no more hunters from where these ones came from and we will catch up with you. Don't worry about us, just get back to safety"

And with that, Odan went into the forest, disappearing behind the trees. The dragon decreased his size to be able to follow along for the patrol and soon both of them were gone. The three of them disappeared into the trees also, travelling back to the hut at a slow pace because of the heavy load on the kelpie's back. The girl was certain the way back to the hut looked different than before, though, more crowded with trees but now there were only bushes lining their path.

"Most dryads relocated their roots, went farther inland to escape those humans", Enfys said once she saw the confused expression on the girl's face. "They're safer there but it will cost the forest if they don't move back".

"How will it cost the forest?"
"There won't be much food and sun for every tree".