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Every step felt more labored than the last. Reynauld could hardly remember the times that his steps were light, and that the earth did not tremble at his approach. He much preferred the open skies, by this point. It was a beautiful thing, and it was perhaps something that he would have preferred to feel over the walkup on this steel monstrosity... just to meet another. Reynauld could see it. A giant, steel man, with flecks of rust around key parts, but still bristling with weaponry that Reynauld could remember being... far smaller, frankly. It was something that could still equal him in size and strength. It had been millenia since he met anything like *that*. Yes, yes.
This might finally be it. His wings spread behind him, a natural reflex to make him appear bigger than he already is, as he approached the monstrosity. It seemed to be speaking, and it took but one cast for Reynauld to understand it. An interesting language, and not quite as mechanical as he expected.
"A fine foe, to meet at my final hour. A creature of flesh and bone, rather than that which has left me obsolete."
Reynauld laughed. It was a pained, slow laugh, the laugh of something that hasn't felt joy in a long time.
"Yes." Reynauld responds, a flicked of blue fire licking at his teeth. "A fine foe indeed. To meet a monstrosity, atop... whatever this being was. Larger than even the both of us?"
The metal man looked down, if only for a moment. They stood upon a hulking beast of a machine, for certain. Something that might have, at one point, been able to move a country's worth of people. The true war is happening inside, where the scaled tide of kobolts and other such creatures seek to conquer it. Reynauld had long given up on holding back his now warlike tribe. Years of humanity trying to exterminate him has left him weary.
He could not feel any kindship with anyone, not any more.
Yet, somehow, there was something about the giant in front of him.
Something familiar.
"Tell me, creature." Reynauld asked. "Are you a knight? You strike me as a creature that walks with honor."
"I do not have a response for that. What would one define as a knight?"
The giant scaled monster laughs, liquid fire leaking from betwixt his jaws as he does.
"Currently... I'd say it's a man, fighting monsters. Abomination against the gods. Things that are a danger to the innocent, against freedom."
Beta stares at the creature, and despite the fact it is even bigger than him, despite being biological. Despite the threat level that he had been told.
For a moment, it looked like little more than a sad old wyrm.
"Yes. I'd say you are a knight. For what it's worth from this old monster. Come then. Let us see who is mightier."
The ancient creature that once called itself knight took to the skies in but one mighty flap of its wings, already forcing the creature of steel to brace against the winds, as it prepared its weapons.
Reynauld truly, honestly hoped, he had found a knight. And not a victim.
