He was weak.
The world seemed to stop.
Wingbeat.
Alpha, snarling, the glints of glass swirling around him, the shift of one front limb. The gentle clatter of toxic quills.
Wingbeat.
His own breath, an inhale, the slow beat of his heart behind it. He wanted to sweep down, but those shards would not let him. He wanted to shatter the ground, and drop Alpha into a hole from which it would never escape, and then fill that hole with fire.
But the glass stood in his way.
Wingbeat.
The inhale, filling his chest with air. Rage, fury, frustration, boiling over. Dread's head snapped back, and he roared, a deep and echoing cry of primal intensity that throbbed with magicka. His voice thrummed with it, and the magic vibrated with his roar. Resonated. Amplified.
The cave began to shake--all of Canis, trembling; and while Dread, at its epicenter, seemed unaffected, all around the ceiling threatened to fall in. It was not as strong, or as far-reaching, as it could have been: but stalagmites began to crash down, here and there, pointed, heavy, crumbling.
"HE IS A CHILD," Dread bellowed--which was not entirely accurate; but Svartis was his child, and was relatively young, untrained.