Winter Dream | Riley & Kinsey

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Kinsey fully expected Riley to argue, to tell her that it wasn't safe and that she shouldn't try to go into the village. He always wanted to keep her safe. Even now, holding onto his arm, she could strongly feel his intention to protect her. There were other intentions as well, but the main one was focused on her, which made her feel all warm inside. She already knew he loved her, but she also knew it didn't change anything. How was she supposed to know what he'd want to do in a life or death situation? He seemed a little angry when he agreed to go with her, but Kinsey couldn't help the instant smile. She pulled herself closer to him, nodding. "I will, I promise." 

The two of them started walking closer to the village, staying close to the trees as they did so. While she did want to find Penelope and make sure her sister was safe, that didn't mean they had to let the dragons see them easily. They actually made it to the outskirts of the village without being noticed. "So what should we do?" she asked as they stopped. There was screaming and roaring everywhere, the air here was definitely hotter and Kinsey looked up to Riley, trying to hide her nervousness. She was ready, she thought, but that didn't take away the nerves.

@riley

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She promised to stay close and he gave a single nod but didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to speak in the event that he might say something that he didn’t mean about how stupid he thought that she was in this moment. He understood why she wanted to go into the village, but that didn’t mean he thought that she was smart to force them into the line of danger. And worst of all, he knew that as long as she was still holding onto him, she could tell what he was feeling, or at least, what he was intending. He was intending to keep her safe, that was for sure, but, right now, he was also thinking about punching a tree out of the frustration that she was giving him.

He stopped them on the edge of the village, taking in the scene before he would lead her into it. “Take your wand out and keep some spells on the tip of your tongue.” he suggested when she asked that they should do. He already had his out. As best as he could, he counted the number of dragons and took note of their current locations. “If we stick to the back and go behind the buildings we can probably make it to the center of town.” he told her.

@kinsey

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Riley was silent as they approached town. Kinsey wasn't sure if he was just focused on what they were about to do and formulating a plan in his mind or if he was annoyed at her. His intentions never wavered from wanting to protect her, so she couldn't know anything else unless he told her, which was unlikely since he didn't seem to want to talk right now. 

When he stopped them, Kinsey looked at the battle taking place inside. She was starting to feel more nervous now, but her current nerves were in behalf of her sister. Penelope was somewhere in there! What if she had a dragon attacking her right now? Kinsey knew she should be more worried about herself and Riley- since she was dragging him into the danger- but all she could think about right now was her sister. She nodded, lifting her wand when he told her to pull it out. Hers was already in her hand, but she wasn't going to say that. Kinsey nodded, "Okay, let's go," she encouraged, nodding to show she was ready to follow him. She knew Riley wouldn't like it if she tried to lead now, and since she already knew he wasn't happy, she wasn't going to push it. 

@riley

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Riley hated this for several reasons but most of all he hated it because it hadn’t been his idea so he hadn’t been able to formulate a plan. If it was his idea, of even necessary, he would know what to do. But he didn’t know how to even begin going about looking for her little sister, and as much as he wanted the safety of Penelope, he also wanted the safety of Kinsey. And he was sure that no one would see the young Hufflepuff in danger and just leave her be. No one would see anyone with a dragon attacking them and just leave them to their own devices. There seemed to be gangs of people around each dragon and the rest of the village was cleared of people. Most everyone had to have taken shelter, he thought, like smart people would have.

It wasn’t that he was scared or nervous, he was confident enough in his ability to protect her, but he still didn’t want to fight a dragon, not even a little part of him thought that it was cool. But it didn’t seem like he was being given any choice. He lead the way through the winding path into the heart of the village.

@kinsey

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Kinsey was basically not really listening to reason anymore. While she was following Riley closely, her eyes were searching the groups she could see around dragons and the other groups of people she could see inside the buildings. Where was her sister? Every time they passed a dragon without seeing anything, her anxiety rose just a little, as did her grip on Riley. 

She gasped when she finally saw a familiar head of blonde hair. "Riley, look!" she whispered, pointing as she let go of him and quickly started moving in her sister's direction. She slid around the corner of a building, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that there wasn't a dragon nearby. Good. "Penelope," she whisper-shouted to the figure, that didn't turn around. She was a bit of a distance away. Kinsey looked to the left and right, making sure there wasn't a dragon nearby before she started crossing the street, going out into the open. 

That's when a new dragon landed in the middle of the street, staring right at Kinsey. She shrieked, looking around for something she could use as cover. Nothing was nearby. 

@riley

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Riley hadn’t seen the blonde figure that Kinsey had, he hadn’t noticed anything until he felt her let him go and run off on her own. In a mad dash he was running after her, his feet slipping here and there on the snow but going so fast that he stayed on his feet. Why would penelope be out here? Riley couldn’t imagine it. She would surely seek shelter right away, it just didn’t make sense. He spent his whole life thus far studying people why they made the decisions that they made, but then they did stupid things that threw him off. He liked it better when people were predictable.

Riley saw the dragon land in front of the love of his life in particularly slow motion, though nothing about it was slow. He pulled her to him and began to try to pull her away as the Dragon let out a loud roar and stomped closer, menacingly. There they were, in the center of town, nothing nearby, not even a wooden drink stall.

@kinsey

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Kinsey found herself standing right in front of a gigantic dragon, no form of cover anywhere nearby, feeling like a complete idiot. Why did she run out here in the first place? Suddenly seeing her sister didn't seem like a good enough reason, but there really wasn't anything she could do about that right now. 

What pulled her out of her trance was a couple of arms pulling her to the side and then she felt him. Riley. He'd come out here with her? Kinsey wasn't frozen anymore, she was hurrying to the side with Riley, looking for something she could use to protect them. She felt extremely guilty that now he was in danger because of her. She could hear the dragon moving towards them, roaring loudly as it did so. What if it breathed fire at them? There was nothing they could do to stop that. 

She suddenly remembered a spell she'd read about while studying a bit more about protection spells and conjuring spells. She stopped, turning and conjuring a huge silver shield between the dragon and her and Riley.  Maybe this would help if it tried to burn them. She turned to Riley, not meeting his eyes. "We should make a break for the buildings, right?" She felt like a complete imbecile and definitely wouldn't blame Riley if he didn't want to see her again for the rest of the break. "On three?" she still couldn't look at him. 

@riley

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A brief thought crossed his mind: how could he be so utterly in love with a woman as impulsive as Kinsey Bainbridge. She certainly wasn’t the type of person whom he had seen himself with, but every fiber of his being knew that she was. Whether or not he would ever have her. Honestly Priscilla was the type of woman that he always pictured when he pictured himself marrying, but before Kinsey, he didn’t know anything other than that existed as an option for him. Now of course, it wasn’t. But it was still a thought that crossed his mind for a brief second. If he didn’t love her so much, he’d shout at her a lot more than he currently wanted to. She didn’t really let him pull her away much like he was trying and instead she cast a shield charm which seemed to hold for a second. She then asked if they wanted to make a break for the buildings on three and Riley rolled his eyes, “there’s not time for three let's go!” he exclaimed, pulling her by the arm behind him as he ran.

@kinsey

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 Riley loosened his grip on her when she pulled away to make the shield, but Kinsey thought it was important to protect their backs a little. Maybe not, she just hated feeling so exposed. He rolled his eyes at her question, saying that there wasn't time for them to count to three before he started pulling her arm and running. Kinsey stumbled slightly, but followed Riley's example. Was it just her, or did he sound really annoyed? Was he mad at her? She wouldn't be surprised, really, since her running out into the open was completely idiotic, but she couldn't remember a time when he'd lost patience with her. Surprisingly, Riley seemed to have neverending banks of patience. 

As she thought all thing, Kinsey was running as fast as she can, though once she got going she let go of Riley's hand so she could run faster. The buildings were coming closer and closer and she was starting to thing that the two of them were going to make it. She heard a gigantic roar behind her and then the next thing she knew, something was slamming into her side. She flew through the air, the breath knocked out of her. Kinsey didn't register that the dragon had used its tail to keep her from running and to knock her to the side. She flew about twenty feet before she hit a building. Kinsey was knocked out instantly, her body falling in a heap to the ground, her arm contorted unnaturally. 

@riley

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Riley had been running a bit ahead of her, not too far ahead, but he was leading the way and didn’t see the dragon whip its tail around and knock her off her feet and send her flying through the air. He heard, however, Kinsey’s shrieks and turned around just in time to see the situation at its end. He saw Kinsey hit the ground and he rushed over to her as spells flew at the dragon from another direction, distracting it. The dragon turned its attention to the new attackers and left the two Ravenclaws in its wake. “Are you okay?” he asked her, which seemed like such a stupid question, but he wasn’t sure what else to ask. He slid down next to her on his knees. And his arm quickly went around her shoulders to help prop her head up.

@kinsey

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Kinsey was only out for a few seconds. She started to wake up as Riley reached her, and heard his concerned voice. She moaned as she shifted and then gasped in pain. "My arm," she answered, her eyes shut tight. She felt Riley beside her and moved closer to him, trying to ignore the sharp pain that shot up her arm. Her head was pounding as well and she couldn't pinpoint a part of her body that wasn't aching, but she didn't bring that up. He was probably already worried enough about her. "I think it's broken," she whispered, opening her eyes to look up at him, forgetting entirely that she should still be worried about the dragon. She didn't know it was battling other wizards right now. "Are you okay?" Kinsey asked in concern. She would feel so bad if he got hurt too because of her. 

@riley

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She admitted that she thought that her arm was broken and he looked down at it as well. He was no healer, but he was trying to become one. And even if he wanted to go into psychology, he knew he’d have to learn about the human body and anatomy and things like that, so he fancied himself a soon-to-be-expert on things like this. However, soon-to-be wasn’t now and so he had no idea what to make of her arm. “Yeah, probably. You landed pretty hard.” he said, going around to the the side of her without the broker arm and helping her gently to sit as he wrapped an arm around her back, under her arms, and an arm under her knees. Her lifted her gently, carrying her towards a building in which he saw others taking shelter.

@kinsey

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Riley agreed that her arm was probably broken and Kinsey nodded. She waited for him to tell her that he was all right, but Riley didn't say anything of the sort. He was probably too concerned about her to have really listened to her question. She was about to ask him again, but instead Riley started moving around to her other side. The next thing she knew he was carrying her and Kinsey quickly grabbed his shirt with her good hand, biting her lip to keep herself from crying out when her broken arm moved. She leaned her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes. "Are you okay Riley?" she asked again, trying to think of anything that would get him talking so she wouldn't have to think about her arm. She would take any distraction. 

@riley

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Kinsey leaned against him when he picked her up and he felt his heart flutter at the sensation and the reality that she was back in his arms. He just wished that it was in more desirous circumstances. “I’m fine.” he told her quietly. He was fine, he wasn’t hurt at all, he was still a little annoyed, but that fact that she was injured took a lot of that away from him. More than anything he was nervous and scared for her. He was sure that she was going to be okay and he knew that the hospital wing could fix broken bones almost overnight, but it was still a scary situation, there were still dragons all around them.

They weren’t the first people to make it into the building, the place was almost packed with people who were all hiding out and looking out of the windows at the battles outside. He carried her to the back of the shop and sat down with his back against a wall, keeping her in his lap as he sat down, his arms still around her. “Can we prop your arm up so it won’t swing around? Maybe lay it on your chest?” he suggested.

@kinsey

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Under any other circumstances, Kinsey would love for Riley to be holding her, carrying her. Mostly, she would just love the chance to be closer to him, but it was hard to really enjoy it when her head was pounding, her arm throbbing and the rest of her body aching. She started to feel like an idiot for making him come into town after her sister. They hadn't found her and she'd gotten hurt in the process. Riley whispered that he was fine and Kinsey nodded, nuzzling her face into him so she didn't have to look at anyone around. 

She could tell the difference when they made it into the building, but Kinsey didn't say anything or look around. She didn't want to recognize anyone or anything. Riley sat down, holding Kinsey so she stayed on his lap, holding her close. She sighed a little at his suggestion, "Yeah, that's probably a really good idea." Kinsey bit her lip as she reached over to move her arm closer like he mentioned. Pain shot up her arm again and she shuddered, whimpering softly.

Once she was settled again she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against Riley, still feeling incredibly stupid. "I'm sorry Riley. You were right, we should have stayed away from the village." She was no use to her sister like this, and Kinsey definitely didn't like being in pain. She should have listened to Riley.

@riley