Pride listened, his head coming up and his ears sweeping forward. He was going to ask if Dread wanted him to check the stone for life--but it seemed the dragon had already. "Some children are... slow, in hatching from their stones," he offered, in soft and noncommittal reassurance.

He could not, after all, guarantee that it would one day hatch.

That aside, he waited quietly, chewing a mouthful of leaves; and when it seemed the moment had passed, he looked again to Cadenza.

"If you'd like to rest, you might rest now? Or we can see that tower, if you prefer." He hadn't realized that perhaps they didn't intend to go just now, but then again, he couldn't read minds.*

* actually he could! but he wasn't, just then.

Pride nodded, stepping forward. He glanced to Dread, rolling his own shoulders--and, mentally, urged Mischief to get down. She hopped from his back, scrambling into the garden, moving to graze and browse amongst the foliage. I'll be back, he told her, along their link.

Pride gave Cadenza a moment to answer Dread either way. Then he nodded again, this time up toward the distant tower--hardly more than a silhouette, from here, but certainly visible--and reached out with his magic. "Ready?" he asked, his tone kind.

A moment later, Pride was surrounded by a swathe of golden light, sweeping up around him in ethereal brightness. It clung to him, spreading, and seemed to take over his very armor: tinting it with golden hue, adding a strange helm between his antlers, and golden legplates to his legs. Feathered golden wings swept from his back, translucent and trailing light. "This way," he said, and bounded forward before leaping into the air--the magic wings snapping out and catching his weight, carrying him in a swift, glowing soar toward the watchtower far beyond.

Pride flew up to the tower, though "flew" in this case was perhaps a strange term. He looked as though his stag body had paused mid-bound: legs slightly tucked up, but otherwise motionless. The ethereal wings, however, beat gently at a pace that seemed really too slow to propel him as it did.

He came to the tower, having gone as the crow flies straight for the top. It looked like, perhaps, some form of old watchtower: it looked out over much of Orion (high enough to overlook a couple tunnel entrances, the forum and the ancient ruins), large arches leading into a room at its top.

The stag flew through an archway--then quickly squeezed to one side, making himself as small as possible. The room wasn't really all that large, though it should, he reasoned, be just big enough for Cadenza and himself. They were not, after all, all that large.

Then he waited, his ethereal wings and golden armor fading into nothing. He did not speak--not yet; instead he turned, a faint smile on his face, watching Cadenza to see their reaction.