The flames were accompanied by a high-pitched tone that vibrated the sand as it swept passed. It left Bo's ears ringing as he watched the carnage unfold before him, slack-jawed and emitting a sound somewhere between a squeak and a shout.

Waves of heat rippled off the flames that scorched the shark - blasting gusts of hot wind into his face.

Until that point, Bo had seen Yvet as annoying, small, weak, and useless. A burden, in not so many words. But as he stared at the little dragon, transfixed as the sand shark began to melt – he was reminded that she was, in fact, a dragon.

Something that he might just have forgotten along the way.

As Yvet burned the shark's skull, it occurred to Bo that he might be witnessing the first dragon's breath in thousands of years. He concentrated his everything on the image, searing it into his mind. Later, he hoped to describe what happened here to Fran. In detail. Excruciating detail.

Yvet – on the other hand – didn't much care for the gravity of the situation. She was too excited about the fact that her fire breathing actually worked.

It didn't work for long, however. After reducing half the shark's skull to cinders, she coughed and found the flames wouldn't reignite. It seemed whatever she was using to fuel them had just run out.

She closed her mouth - staggered, swayed and slumped to the side, rolling off the shark's charred back. Landing in a heap beside Bo, she weakly raised her head, checking that he was still alive.

"Bo?" She reached out, breathing a sigh of relief when his mind was still there to connect with.

He just stared at her, awestruck.

"Bo!?"

He blinked twice, his pupils focusing slightly. "Oh…" he mumbled, "this is real,"

"Of course, it's real!" Yvet shouted nervously, clambering to her feet and stumbling over to his prone body.

He lay in a tangled mess. His arms were scraped raw, and one eye was severely bruised… not that it mattered. The only injury of any importance was the gaping wound in his ankle. He was doing his very best not to acknowledge it – nor the fact that it wasn't going away.

"I sort of hoped it wasn't. Real I mean," he mumbled, looking everywhere but his ankle.

"Well, it is," Yvet said, arriving by his ankle, "and you need to do something about this; it's not healing,"

"Oh really!? I hadn't noticed!" He snapped, feeling the icy daggers of pain begin to seep in again. The Horus shoots had offered him brief respite, banishing the agony to the far corners of his mind. But that wouldn't last long. Soon, it would return with a vengeance.

"Now's not the time for snark, Bo," Yvet reprimanded, "What can you do about this? I'm not having you die and leave me all alone!"

"Leave you alone?" Bo echoed, "I was expecting a pettier reason from you,"

"Yeah!? Well, I misspoke!" Yvet yelled, "I actually meant that I didn't want to lose my ride; walking is ever so drab... NOW TELL ME HOW TO FIX THIS!"

Bo hissed as her shout reverberated through his head, crashing off every nook and cranny in his skull. "There's no need to-" He grunted as a sudden spike of pain lanced up his ankle, "shout."

"Well, there's no need to die. So, what do I have to do?"

"Nothing,"

"NOTHING!?"

"Yeah, you don't need to do anything. I need to—" He couldn't finish the sentence, too busy stifling a scream.

"What do you need to do!?" Yvet yelled.

"I NEED YOU TO SHUT UP AND LET ME CONCENTRATE!"

Yvet shrunk back, startled by his sudden outburst. It was the first time she'd heard him yell. She didn't like it. It scared her.

Bo waited for a snarky response; honestly, he would have welcomed one. Anything was good enough – as long as it distracted him from what came next. But cruelly, for the first time ever, Yvet had nothing to say – watching him with the wide eyes of a startled child.

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He ground his teeth and glanced down at his ankle, gagging a the site of it. It wasn't the wound that sickened him, but his foot - that was pointing the wrong way round.

From the beginning, Bo knew that fixing his foot was the only way to get his ankle to heal. And the Horus shoot wasn't helping with that. He would have to turn it back around himself.

Deep breaths.

In.

Out.

In.

Out again.

That didn't help. His heart was still trying to break out of his rib cage, and his blood raced so fast it made his head spin.

He clenched his fist, digging fingernails into the palm of his hand. It wasn't until blood began to run down from his closed fist and drip from his elbow that he was ready.

"Yvet," He rasped, his voice barely a whisper, "I may pass out after this,"

She nodded dumbly, still too shell-shocked to respond.

"Okay," Bo grunted, sitting up straight. He stared down at his feet, grimacing. They were facing completely opposite directions. Something that he needed to fix, now, before the pain became unbearable.

He was sure there was a procedure to this. Most likely, there was a proper way to twist a foot into position. But he didn't know it and hadn't the time to figure it out. He could only pray that the Horus shoots would counteract whatever damage was about to be done.

"I'm doing it," he whispered to no one in particular.

Shaking hands neared the foot, hovering over the gory gash in his ankle. A startling white fragment of bone poked out through the skin… he would need to fix that too.

But first. The foot.

Trembling fingers closed over the numb appendage, his toes unresponsive, the skin a mess of blood and bruises. He gripped it, feeling nothing. It was as though the limb was somebody else's.

"Maybe it won't hurt too bad after all…." Bo's voice quavered, sounding unconvinced.

"Yvet," he hissed, "when I fix the bone, I need you to sear the flesh closed. Can you do that?"

She nodded, still startled but quickly regaining clarity.

"Good," Bo set his jaw, "then I'll begin,"

He twisted.

It was a sudden jolt, as though Bo had hoped to fix his foot so quickly - the pain never managed to keep up.

As the foot snapped back into position, accompanied by a cacophony of tearing and cracking – Bo experienced pain beyond what he had ever imagined possible. It hurt so much he couldn't even black out. Nerves he never knew existed reared their heads just to scream at him in collective misery.

But he wasn't done yet.

Grinding his teeth, he fought back the black spots at the edges of his vision and reached down to the splinter of bone sticking up through his ankle.

"What are you doing!?" Yvet screamed, the gruesome sound having brought her back to her senses.

"Remember," Bo spat, "I need you to seal the wound,"

"But I-"

And then he pushed.

The bone jolted back where it belonged. Back under the skin. Back into his leg.

For a moment – as though standing in the eye of a storm – Bo felt utter calm wash over him.

It was merely the precursor to an ensuing wave of hurt - but the moment of crystal clear clarity let him look at the world lucidly for the first time. For that brief, blissful moment – everything was in perspective.

And then the pain hit.

----------------------------------------

Yvet squealed and ran to Bo as his limp body toppled back, hitting the sand hard. His eyes had rolled back in his head, and his body had folded in on itself like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

She jumped on his chest and put her snout next to his mouth – only letting out a sigh of relief when she felt that he was still breathing.

What had he said? She had barely been paying attention. Too frightened to think, too scared to concentrate.

This was her first battle, and it shouldn't have gone like this. Her partner wasn't supposed to be at death's door, and she was meant to be stronger, fiercer.

If she hadn't been so useless, so weak. Then Bo wouldn't have been put in this position.

But what could she do?

Wracking her brain, Yvet eventually remembered what Bo had asked of her. She didn't understand how burning a wound would help it heal – but she supposed that Bo – being a human – knew better than her about this sort of thing.

After searing the gash closed, Yvet stumbled blearily over to the sand shark. After using up her elemental powers twice, she was utterly spent and could barely keep her eyes open. All she could think to do was eat.

And so, she did.

For almost an hour, she gorged herself on charred meat. She ate until feeling sick and then ate some more.

It wasn't until she heard a muffled groan from Bo that she lifted her head from the carcass and looked his way.

"Wh-where… am … I?" He wheezed.

His eyes were cloudy, and he was clearly still half asleep.

"The sand shark," Yvet answered, "Do you want some?"

"The sand shark," Bo echoed, turning the word over in his mouth to see if it meant something.

"The one we just killed…."

His eyes snapped open, gaining laser focus, "Oh gods!"

"What!?"

"We need to get away from here now!"

"Why?" Yvet snapped, "This is our prey. Why should we leave it? I'm sorry, but I'm not one to leave food for other people,"

"Well, it won't be people coming to- " Bo sat upright, groaning as his vision went fuzzy, "eat this," he finished.

"What then?" Yvet asked.

"When night falls, far worse things than that shark will come out," he said ominously, "and after a storm like that, they're probably starving,"

"Oh…" Yvet glanced at the shark's corpse and back to Bo, still injured from their encounter.

… She paused for a long moment, deliberating.

"Okay then," she muttered, "let's go,"

Bo struggled to one foot, hopping forward and falling a few times before getting the hang of it.

"Let's try the other side of the ravine this time," he said.

Yvet bobbed her head and ran after him, scampering up his leg. She quickly arrived at her usual perch on his shoulder, settling down comfortably.

As they set off, Bo muttered something under his breath, "did you get heavier?"

She flashed pointed teeth proudly – in what could only be the dragon equivalent of a smile. "I did. Thank you for noticing!"