Right, for anybody who sees this later and wonders what that was all about: I stomped out of supper tonight because everybody was getting up my nose and went out flying to cool down, and found Istvan, one of our Horntails, mortally wounded just at the edge of the reserve. Looks like two of them got in a fight, which means we'll have to keep an eye out for who the other one was. I'm guessing it was spill-over from whatever those people are doing to them for the wards.

There was no way he was going to survive, but I did manage to get two phials of blood before I had to put him down. (Wish like hell I'd had more phials with me, too, since I likely could've got more.) I was able to deliver them to Poppy and get back to the reserve quickly enough that nobody missed me.

Sadly, Istvan was tagged, so I couldn't harvest anything else -- no heartstring, no liver, no lung -- since we have strict protocols in place for what happens when one of our dragons dies. But it's something, and I'll keep my eye out in case one of the wild and untagged ones doesn't make it through the winter.

Here's to Istvan. One cranky bastard, but a beautiful dragon.