The tiger is more gentle than he deserves, but he can’t make himself pull back. As much as he hates it, Dragos needs that soft, careful affection. The simple act of fixing his mane. He watches her work quietly, blinking back tears and holding his breath when she passes close. Slowly, the frantic feeling in his head begins to ease.

"They would’ve hurt you." He says, matter-of-fact. If she had been there and turned on them, they’d have ripped her to pieces. The only thing that stopped the fight had been… what he did. Dragos still does not regret it, but it haunts him. He can’t bring himself to tell Leila - what would she think of him? He can’t bear to see disgust on her face. "The ones at the challenge - they’re bad. They’re one family, I think. I don’t know. We didn’t do shit to them. They’re psychotic."

Leila talks softly, and he listens. They’re friends, she says. She wants to protect him. Dragos has not… ever had anyone think they needed to protect him before. He is the protector. "Don’t go back, Leila." Dragos pleads, reaching out with his healthy paw gently, to place it on top of her tiny one. "If they know - " The Savante pauses, eyes wide, before he looks away from her too earnest face. He pulls his paw back.

He needs to protect her. No matter what.

"We’re not friends."

They can’t be.

Leila doesn't protest, knowing it would've been true. She had been there, though she wouldn't tell him. The cavern floor had been slick with blood already when she'd arrived, and further battles had broken out even as she had watched. If they had fell upon Dragos and his family unprovoked, then she didn't know what would've happened to her. Still too, she knew what he had done. Or at least, seen the commotion that had come of it. But knowing him, Leila didn't think he had done that for no reason.

"Which family?" she said hesitantly, hoping it not to be the one family name she knew of. "Was it Dieudonne?" She thought back to her interactions with the only Dieudonne she knew of - Louve - and her brow creased. She hadn't seemed deranged and psychotic, when she'd been helping Leila. The tigress's face pinched in confusion at the feelings.

The tigress soon snapped back to focus as Dragos spoke once again. "But-" she uttered, "Where would I go? I don't know of anywhere else." she said with a feeling of growing worry, feeling his large paw atop hers and meeting his gaze. "If they know what?"

That's when he hits her with that and hurt lanced across her striped features, pulling away her paw from his. Her eyes were sharp. "You- you don't get to decide that." she said, voice thick. "No. That's not fair Dragos." Her banded tail lashed behind her in agitation, and she stayed crouched. "Please."

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Dragos watches her sullenly, watches her confusion - she has nowhere else to go. She knows nowhere else. He could offer her Andal, but that is something he won’t do. He won’t paint a target on her back, like he likely has done to every member of his kin. The Bluffs know the faces of the Savante - most of them, anyway - but his one friend, unattached to any of this, Dragos can protect her.

"None of this is fair," he says softly, carefully. "They’re gonna come for me. I pissed off the Mire, too." If that know-it-all little girl wasn’t all talk. She’d spoken like she was utterly confident she could make such promises. "If this family is an enemy of Wolfbron, then it is an enemy of the Mire as well." And from what he knew, the Mire was… big.

"I don’t want to be friends with you." He lies through his teeth, gritting them hard. His jaw aches with how much pressure builds before he spits, "I don't want to be the reason you don't have a home, so fuck off."

Dragos had made a lot of enemies, Leila realised, at that challenge for the hollow. "When? How do you know?" she pleaded, knowing the answer herself already. She'd seen what he'd done. Surely that would have repercussions. She thought of his paw. Perhaps it already had. Or had that been before he'd threatened that Wolfbron child? The memory is mixed up in fear and uncertainty and Leila wasn't sure how to put the facts straight. He'd been bloodied when she'd arrived, but what had transpired since then... Leila couldn't be certain.

Those words were hard for her to take in, and Leila flinched, her ears so recently relaxed flattening again. "You already might be!" the words burst free from her chest unbidden, gaze tearful. When had she rose to her paws? Leila couldn't remember. "If they find out I know you, and they're as bad as you say, aren't I already in danger?" her tail tip lashed against the sand. "It's too late, Dragos. I have looked after myself for this long, I don't need you being all- all-'" she shook her head, unable to find the words. The truth burned in her throat. "Besides. I was there. I know what happened. I hid because all the blood scared me. If they find out I disobeyed the queen's orders..."

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How does he know? It was all but promised. But he can’t say that - he can’t say why and what he did to earn the wrath of that rabid pride and its allies. Isn’t what he threatened to do worse, really? Even if he had been all bark, and no bite, it was clear they believed him capable of being exactly what Dragos wanted them to think he was. "I just do." He insists, looking away from her. Unable to meet Leila’s gaze when she stares so intently at him, demanding honesty he can’t give.

"You already might be!"

It’s his turn to flinch, eyes flicking shut like that might block out her words. It doesn’t but it helps keep still. "They won’t find out -" He tries weakly, absolutely sure as long as they cut everything now, the tigress will stay safe. In her home.

But the Leila goes on, and says something that makes all the blood drain into his belly in to hot, writhing pool. He feels dizzy when his head rocks back up - and up - to find Leila looming over him. I know what you did. She doesn’t say it out loud, but her disgusted expression is loud and clear. Dragos stares up at her, horrified, unable to utter even a word in his own defence.

Because there is no defending what he did.

"They won’t find out." He repeats, his voice firmer now. Steadier. He finds his footing with the realisation of what he has to do. "You’ll go to them, and you’ll tell them you found me, and took a pound of flesh for my crimes."

Brown eyes scanned his scarred face, seeing that flash of knowing and the hollowness that rose into his gaze as she blurted out what she knew. "They might. They're not dumb." she said, voice trembling. At the memory of the challenge, at the idea of her pridemates being vicious monsters now laid before her. She didn't back up this time as he stood, looming despite his injured leg.

Obviously he thought what came from his jaws to be a solution, but Leila couldn't stomach it, horror leaping into her eyes. "No!" she protested, "I can't- won't- hurt you." She had never raised a paw even in anger. The thought made the tigress feel shaky, and she curled her paws against the sand to steady herself. "I could talk to them... tell them- make them see you're not bad." Did she know that herself, for certain? Leila didn't have that answer.

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"You can." Dragos insists, "you will." She has to - and if he has to make her… he will. He has done worse in the name of protecting those he cares about. He can be the bad guy, if that is what it takes to make Leila sage.

So he scoffs, twisting to the side so he can move his aching legs. He gives her a sidelong glance, trying to look and sound incredulous. "You think I’m not bad? You were there - you saw what I was gonna do." And as far as Leila needs to know, Dragos is absolutely capable of murdering a child if he didn’t get his way. "I would’ve done it." He insists, cut lips splitting as he grins wide, flashing his teeth.

"I’d do it again, if they come for me and my family." See, Leila? There’s nothing good in Dragos Savante. There’s nothing worth trying to save in the monster lurking behind his angry gaze. He tries to stalk around her, limping heavily. "It was fun."

Leila shook her head in horror. It was all she could do. Even the thought of hurting him, hurting anyone even on accident revulsed her. It made her heart ache. "No." she uttered, hushed.

The words that come from his jaws are berating and sarcastic and Leila's lips tense, blinking away tears in an effort to maintain her composure. She scanned his face as he gave guilty admission. It isn't guilt she could see in his teal eyes. That violent grin, she thinks - or wants to believe so hard she thinks so- didn't fit his piebald features. Her head turned as he limped a looming path around her, turning so her brown gaze only left him for an instant as he rounded on her other flank. "It was fun."

"But," she breathed, small and uncertain but poignant. "You didn't do it." Was she naive? Or was watching him lie to himself too painful?

"Protecting your family, and- and- killing a baby." she could no longer bite her tongue, the words spilling forth. "Dragos. They're not the same. I don't believe it."

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Leila can’t believe it - or won’t. The Savante’s big head shakes, slowly, mocking. "You’re innocent." He notes without emotion. "You don’t know anything. You don’t know me." His entire family are refugees from a war and a plague - and he will do anything to make sure they are not brought down to their knees like that again. Anything. But he can’t bring himself to disagree. In reality, that child was never more safe than under Dragos’s paw. Held down, yes, a bartering chip - absolutely. But he could no more hurt that kid than he could slit his siblings’s throat. He’d sooner eat his good paw off.

Leila doesn’t need to know that.

He comes to a stop before her once again, that grin still in place, as if amused by her ignorance. "All’s fair in war, Leila." He teases, but he doesn’t sound playful. He sounds cruel. "If I have to snap necks, so be it." He creeps a little closer, forcing himself not to limp, despite the pain. "Do you want to be friends with that?"

What will it take to push her away?

Innocent, he calls her and Leila's brow furrowed. Her shoulders hunch, as if it would defend her against his sharp tone. "I want to." This was a match of wills, and Leila was not the giving up type. Perhaps this was a fruitless endeavour and she foolish. But Leila would not throw in the towel, nor would she admit him a lost cause. The tigress physically stood her ground, small but resilient.

War. She didn't know war. The little taste she'd gotten at the challenge made her believe she would find it horrific. This mocking face he held was not the Dragos she had known. "I don't think you'd kill someone. Not like that. It would destroy you." she whispers. "Your heart is good." Defiant, empathetic, she doesn't shrink away as he looms close.

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