Eridanus' black guardian had been hunting.

The encounter with the horse had troubled him - he could still feel his ribs giving way beneath its hooves. They had healed quite a while ago, he had been only a cub then, but he could still remember how it felt. The horse was the closest thing he'd ever seen to a monster - a boogeyman. It had looked like death, with hide stretched tight over its bones, and eerie eyes. And it had attempted to sicken a rat.

He had thought they'd irradicated it. All the sickness, the plague. But the scent, as he was walking through his home, was unmistakeable.

He followed his nose, horror bubbling in his stomach when he came across a fairly large section of plants. They fair reeked of the horse's sickness, and were twisted and mangled, looking dead despite smelling, still, of life.

He knew what he had to do, and he could only hope Rift wouldn't be too mad. His stomach roiled, and he stepped forward, lowering his head over the first plant as though to drink. Burning bile dripped from his mouth like blood and water, landing on the plants and burning them.

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

Raising his head, the panther licked his lips. The bile burned his mouth, but he had long gotten used to it. Almost all of his learned spells hurt him, and so he had long grown used to the pain of fire.

However, before he could attempt to cast the spell a second time, a voice cried out, drawing his attention. The large cat turned to see a tiny bird, with fuzzy feathers. It had wide, yellow eyes, not unlike the color of his own. The little bird seemed horrified, and he was quick to realize what this must have looked like. So this owl shared Rift's mind?

However, before he could respond to the young owl, another appeared. A massive white thing, with odd-looking wings. A Dragon of some sorts, he supposed. While he'd never seen one, he had heard stories of them.

He looked between the Dragon and the owl, rather taken aback by the Dragon's voice. It was much higher than such a large Gembound seemed capable of. He wanted to cut this off at the root, before it got out of paw.

"These plants were contaminated with a sickness. If I did not destroy them, they would have spread the sickness to other plants, and to any Gembounds that neared the plants, or ate them."

@Ash @Scorch

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.

Sebastian looked between the baby bird, and the Dragon. Why couldn't he just be left alone to do his work? He wanted to get to work on destroying the sickness before it could spread, but he could not, in good conscience, let these two leave without knowing the danger they may be in.

First, he turned to the young owl. "Sickness is... well, it's not good. It makes you weak, and unable to do things you could do thing before. It can even kill you, if it's bad enough. It is what made the plants dead, and I'm trying to destroy them before they can spread it."

Then, "My name is Sebastian." He looked then to the dragon. "There is. A plague horse is spreading it. From what I can tell, it is able to spread it through liquid, sickening plants which then sicken others." He lowered his head, dripping more burning bile on the dead plants. "I believe it can also be spread from Gembound to Gembound. When my brother and I met the plague horse, it was infecting a rat."

@Ash
@Scorch

"Speech looks like this."
Thoughts look like this.