Ash couldn't even manage a smile. After a while of walking, Ash muttered, "Don't look now, but we're being followed." They had been following the railroad, walking beside it. Streetlamps grew out of the ground, lighting the way. A small, familiar creature scuttled across the tracks, vanishing into the smoke that iron behemoths were hissing.

Jason's tail was swishing side to side,the ice shape now nothing but crystals. He glanced with golden eyes after the creatures path. "Hm." He licked his fangs thought fully,their sharp points seeming like they could be deadly.

The twisted landscape went on. They passed pools of molten lava, bubbling and shimmering with heat. Smokestacks loomed overhead, belching great spouts of black pollution that writhed into the yellow-gray sky. Lightning arched and crackled across blinking metal towers, and the air hummed with electricity. Pipes crisscrossed the ground, leaking steam from joints and valves and black wires slashed the sky overhead. There was a tang in the air that smelled of iron, rust, and smog.
Ash never complained, but it was obvious that the iron everywhere was taking a toll on him.

Jason coughed from time to time,having a hard time breathing past the pollution and stench. He noticed though how it wasn't having a good effect on Ash. He put a hand to his shoulder. "Hey,you don't have to continue. This doesn't seem to be all that much of a walk in the park for you. Just send me in and I'll get the job done."

(Time for a guilt trip)

"Do you know how to use a bow?" Ash asked, his voice raspy. He didn't let Jason answer. Ash spoke very little, stumbling on with grim determination. Jason was making him sick; it was his existence that bound him to help, even though it was slowly killing him. But they couldn't turn back, and he could only watch, helpless, as Ash struggled to continue. His breath rasped painfully in his throat, and he grew paler by the hour.

Jason soon growled,stubborn suddenly and stepped in front of the prince and took hold of his shoulders firmly. "Hey! Hey! Listen to me,I can see how this isn't good for you. I don't care if you have some sort of ego situation that's making you not want to go back but you know what i do care about? You. I care what happens no matter how much I don't want to. I've seen people and dragons die,before my eyes and in my arms and i'm not watching someone else die. You'r going back. I'm going to open a portal and your going to go through. I'll make the journey then come back to your court. You'll still take a Dragon to your queen,with your life still intact." His voice was dragon tone and firm but still gentle somewhat. He was in pain of his own,his dragon half not liking the non natural air and stench. But the only show of the way his body was fighting it was the pained colors stabbing his freckles and color changing scales in the area's other than the one dripping with blood from where he had taken the scales.

"No," Ash rasped back, just as stubborn. He shrugged off Jason's hands and side-stepped so he could get by. "We need to keep moving. The sooner we defeat the Iron King, the sooner we can go back."

"Ash! You can't fight in the condition your in,ya' stubborn ShockTail." He tried to to stop the prince again,spreading his wings wide to get in the way. The exposure of his underside he'd removed scales from tore the scab that had begun to form and it bled more,dripping dark red but with some sort of mixture of a glass like liquid. " Please,your breathing isn't good and I doubt that's the only thing hurting you."

"You're hurting yourself, me and the entire Fey Realm by trying to stop me. I'm not going back. I'm fine, I've been worse, so stop it."

He growled but his wings fell to his sides. "Out of those three I only care about you. I guess your realm because it matters to you,but you matter....but I guess it don't matter what I think or feel....just a barbaric dragon..." he muttered,pulling at his hair a bit. His tail twitched and he had drifted to walk behind the prince. He didn't seem angry. Just frustrated. "You don't realize the feelings of others and those who care about you,do you." He said softly.