Bug turned at the sound of flapping wings.

She was not having fun with this whole "sentry duty" thing. She wanted out. She wanted to go, to explore, to fly and have fun. Sitting around staring at a mostly-empty tunnel all day and night was BORING, and she hated it.

She knew it was to keep her family safe, but avoiding the temptation of just leaving was incredibly difficult for her.

"Blight!" she cried, upon seeing him, ember eyes lighting up. A portion of it was just happiness to see him but most--no, almost all, really--was relief. It meant he was gonna take over, and that she could go do whatever she wanted to do for a little while before she got too tired, and had to sleep. "I haven't seen anything. It's been quiet--what?!" She sprang back as he yelled, and then eyed the Wind Hopper doubtfully.

"Ewwww, sick?! I don't want it, then. Why'd you make it sick?!"

Long, thin canines bared in disgust, and she hissed briefly at the dead rabbit. That was disgusting!

"Sorry, Blight, I'm not being mean. It's just gross, you know? Sickness," she added, grimacing a little.

The cat-dragon turned, sitting on the ledge--high up against the tunnel--and curling her tail around her, peering down along the derelict stretch of abandoned armor and weaponry. It was picked through almost daily by the armor-smiths and so forth that lived in Monoceros, so what was left was mostly scrap, unidentifiable and half-decayed. She'd hear anyone trudging through the metal easily enough, well in advance.

"Anyway, it's been quiet." The scent of meat caught her nose, then, and she glanced back, hunger spiking. She wasn't quite sure she trusted it to be healthy--it wasn't that she didn't trust Blight's magic, exactly, but the idea that something could be diseased one minute and then wholly purged the next was... questionable, in her mind. Still, she found herself hungry enough that she decided, if somewhat doubtfully, to give it a shot. And because she was a prankster, she didn't just go over and get her share.

Instead, she focused on a piece, and then on a rock near her foot, trying to swap their places.

A moment later, the dead Wind Hopper's quartered leg was replaced by a stone--but the leg itself embedded halfway into the rock below Bug's feet. "Awww man," she lamented, and then pushed up with a sigh, going to take a piece the old-fashioned way.

"Sorry," she said, and she mostly meant it. Unlike Blight, mantling and tearing at his meal, she just sort of flopped down, wings sprawled loosely out to either side, like a dog with a bone. Her ears twitched as she ate, and she glanced at the little dragon as he spoke.

She swallowed down a bite after chewing it in the corner of her mouth for a moment; it didn't taste sick, anyway. "I'm not going with you," she said, and her brow furrowed. "You can't just go to Canis alone. They'll kill you, Blight. -And if you do you'd need a distraction," she added. Suddenly, instead of worried, her mind was excited--she could go, too. Despite having just said she wouldn't. And how stupid it was. No; she could lay down whispers, wisps; draw their attention-...

The cat dragon took another bite of meat, and gnawed at the bone for a moment, tail lashing behind her as she thought.

Bug finished her portion a moment later, eating quickly, as a cat is wont to do--let alone a dragon. Then she turned, lounging, legs out to the side, back to the wall, tail twitching.

"From here-?" she said, doubtfully, eyeing him. "But you can't even see them from here. -Are you gonna try to make them sick? Don't make me sick. You'll probably make the wrong person sick, you know, if you just... aim through the caves. It'd be like Dad--I mean, Dad-Dad--setting everything on fire," she explained.

Still, she had to admit that despite her caution, she was curious. She'd never really understood the little dragon's magic, not since Svartis had turned up having found him roaming Orion. Blight had been much smaller then--and shy--and it had taken Bug playing with him quite a bit to bring him out of his shell, at least with her. He'd enjoyed chasing her wisps around, if nothing else, and pouncing on her tail.

He was going through that holier-than-thou phase, she thought, that kids tended to go through. (It hadn't occurred to Bug that he was actually more mature than her, already, in some respects.) It was making them drift apart, a little, though she didn't really want that. So it was with a vague desire to mend fences (which hadn't really broken) that she forced up some enthusiasm.

"I'll stay, though. I want to see. Just--be careful, okay?"

Bug eyed the flies.

"Why've you got flies all over you-?" she asked, trying her best not to sound disgusted. It was gross, though. "And why'd you want its fur?" She, herself, didn't really imagine that Blight might be cold. She had fur, and was always warm. Dread and Bone were always warm to the touch, that fire within them perhaps keeping their temperatures high. And Svartis, and Asimona--they were cold, but happy that way.

Maybe he just liked the softness of it? That'd be... weird, but she supposed she could understand that, at least.

"All right, I'm watching. And I'll be quiet," she promised, but there was mischief in it--and magic. Her words echoed all around, ricocheting off the rock, and twisting as if spoken by a dozen voices.