30 days

She usually didn't crawl down the cliff side so slowly. In fact, she barely crawled like a Komodo dragon at all. She caught herself stumbling a few times, gritting her teeth at the pain that shot through her after every step.

And yet the lake was still too far away.

Bucky walked down slowly, making sure to watch his step. The path to the river was steep and he wasn't particularly feeling like falling off a cliff side and breaking his neck.

He'd had enough of falling off cliffs for a lifetime.

He would occasionally glance towards the dragon who was obviously struggling with the task, and he wondered if perhaps she was feeling even worse than she looked.

"Want a break?" he asked carefully. They were still a good ways away from the lake but she looked minutes away from fainting. 

"Do you want to die?" she fired back, annoyance lacing her voice.

Astrid was hungry and in pain and unable to fly thanks to a ginormous purple alien whose magic had torn her wings. And the man showing remnants of concern for her made her want to throw up.

She was a dragon, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Had been taking care of herself for a long time now.

Astrid just wanted to wash herself and curl up to sleep.

"Yes."

She looked over at him, not having expected that answer at all. She felt herself panic, what would she say? What could she say? The man they had decided to leave behind was totally okay with her eating him like a snack.

She nearly stumbled again as her wide eyes snapped on him, he completely ignored her gobsmacked look, deciding to focus on his footing instead. She huffed in annoyance as she realized he was trying to hide a smirk.

Stupid human. 

They walked the rest of the way in silence, Bucky still carefully looking at her to make sure that if she did happen to faint, she wouldn't roll over him and take him with her to the bottom of the cliff. Astrid could feel his gaze on her, it unnerved her slightly. She had to remind herself that she was the dragon between the two of them, she couldn't be afraid of a mere human man. Not that she was afraid, she was hesitant. She hadn't really thought everything through when she had made the deal with the wizard. 

Was she supposed to feed the man? Find him clothes? Oh gods above, what would happen if he froze due to the freezing temperatures? It would get rather cold around the fjords. She was sure the man had nothing but the weapons and clothes on his person. 

Her head was starting to hurt, but they had finally managed to make it near the narrow body of water. Astrid didn't wait for him to say anything as she dragged herself into the still waters, diving into the depts of the blue water only to come huffing towards the surface. The tiny droplets of water casted the colours of rainbows above her before fading away. She flinched as she stretched her wings on either side of herself, closing her eyes as she allowed herself to float in the blue, cold water. 

Part of her face was above the water, making her look like a floating alligator as she gently swayed her tail left and right to keep her moving. She lazily opened her deep violet eyes to peek towards the man to see what he'd do. 

He was in the water, his clothes neatly folded on a big rock as he hastily rubbed his skin to get rid of the dirt that marred his body. She was startled to see the gleaming metal arm in it's full glory along with numerous scars that seemed to be all over him. He back was towards her, most likely hoping to give on a message that says leave me alone.  

Like she was going to do that. 

Instead, she steered herself towards him, noting the slight shaking of his arms and blueness of his fingertips. The man was freezing. She carefully started circling him, his blue eyes darting up as he noticed her on his line of sight. He tensed and eyed her warily, inching backwards but stopping briefly as he realized that was her intentions, she was trying to herd him towards the deeper parts of the river. He gritted his teeth and stopped, was this it? Was he to become the dragons lunch now? 

Astrid had him surrounded with her body but her movements were slow and calculated as she raised her head from the river, the droplets making her previously dull scales glisten. She turned her head fully towards him and breathed deeply. A lilac coloured fog slithered over the water right towards Bucky, he froze completely, his eyes widening as he watched with terror and awe as stars seemed to twirl in the fog. It glistened and moved on its own free will as it surrounded him, warmth seeped into his bones and the water around him seemed to start steaming, it was as if he was bathing in a hot spring and not floating in a freezing river. 

Astrid lowered her head in the water again, closing her eyes as she sligly pulled away from Bucky, but not going too far. It was easier to make sure her magic was still warming him up when she was near. She allowed herself to fall into a light slumber-like state as she allowed him to wash himself in peace. 

Bucky was stunned as he kept checking the water around him. It wasn't the same, light blue colour that the rest of the water was, the one around him was slightly more lilac and the glitter like substance kept floating around him in circles. It was still a bit alarming, he wasn't sure what her intentions were. Why had she done that? 

Once he felt like he was clean enough, he slumped into the water, turning towards the dragon who was still a good ten feet from him. Her eyes were closed and she was completely still, letting the water just carry her. She seemed to be exhausted, but the water did enhance her appearance. He had at first thought that her scales were just dark grey and purple, but no, it was black. Obsidian colour and even then, he could detect small glimmer of shiny purple colour in the dark scales of her body. It was as if the scales had captured the dark galaxies in them and the water brought it all to daylight. 

She was frighteningly beautiful creature. He had never given much thought to dragons, but it was the last thing he had expected to be real. But then again, Thor existed and he had fought other worldly creatures or in other words, aliens. 

He was startled when suddenly her face sunk under water, ready to try and help her somehow before she blinked groggily and looked around in a daze, as if she had forgotten where she was. 

Astrid caught Bucky's eye, ignoring the curiosity as she turned towards the shore. She flopped her body down, making sure her head was resting on the ground, the rest of her body still in the water as she fell into a light slumber once again. She was too tired to make sure that the human was doing okay, he just had to look after himself until she felt strong enough to wake up. 

She had always loved water, rubbing her scales against the sand and bathing had also always brought out the shine in her scales, so, being there was one of her favourite past times. 

When she woke up once again, she couldn't immediately see the man again. And suddenly, Astrid felt sad again. 

She huffed and curled into herself on the shore to try and comfort herself. Of course, hoping that someone actually stays would have been too much to hope for. If he had ran, she wouldn't chase, even though she had the right, she wouldn't. She could understand. Who on their right mind would actually stay. 

She wouldn't. 

"Good morning."

She jumped on all fours, turning around with a start as she gaped at the man not too far from her. He was sitting on a log, cleaning his knives as a small fire had been lit before him with a few fish roasting over it. 

He had just been on the other side o her, on her blind spot and she hadn't been wake enough to analyse the smell of fish in the air. 

He had stayed. 

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you." 

He said quietly, looking at her with those unreadable eyes of his. Astrid collected herself, shaking her whole body down to the tip of her tail. The soft sound of her scales glinking together made it sound as if there were numerous tiny wind chimes on her, the sound seemed to surprise Bucky as his brows raised when she stepped fully out of the water. 

"It's okay, you didn't really scare me, or else you would be dead." she said with a yawn, exposing rows of sharp teeth. Not that she was showing off or anything. She sat down on the opposite side of the fire, looking curiously at his catch. Salmon and fjord trout, not bad. 

"I'm not sure how much you eat..." he said with hesitance, clearly uncomfortable. He was sublty offering her his food, Astrid held back a snort. One fish would not keep her fed, although the gesture was nice. 

"Don't fret, human. Keep your fish, I prefer mine raw. Talking about that, I better go and catch some for myself before my hunger gets the best of me and I find myself gnawing at you accidentally."  his expression was priceless as she turned back towards the river and dove in once again.

She wasn't a big fish fan but apparently, her wings were still too sore to fly. Oh how she hated being stuck on ground.