Bug spun, eyes wide. Let it live on in other ways, he'd said.

"Those are STILL ALIVE?!" she squealed, again very much like an excited, disgusted child. At once she was hovering closer, zipping this way and that in awkward, half-flopping curves around Attikias' shoulders, peering at the furs.

Then, as she seemed prone to do, she was distracted by his other words.

"Oh! Yes! Teach me how to dent things!" she cried, enthusiastic. "Do you think I could make stuff like that, too? Like Dad?"

Eyes, wide, regarded the elf with excited hope.

@Attikias

Her high pitch caught him off guard, and he nearly stumbled again with his free hand immediately pushing forward. "Nonono! No! Uh-- That'd be really weird," he laughed out with his awkwardness definitely not hidden. "It's more like being... Respectful. Not letting their death be a waste, like- yeah, I eat 'em, but I also do more than just eat, and-"

He stopped. No. This was maybe too much for a kid. Plus, "now that I think about it, it's kinda gross." It was said defeatist-style. Still- it was what he did, after all.

She was excited for the latter half, though. "Oh! Yeah- After I'm done with your dad." He resettled the figure before finally satisfied as they (well, he) kept walking. "I'm sure you could. This took a lot of tries, though, and it took a while for me to figure it out." Plus, she didn't have hands, but... She did have claws? And those wings? And she was smaller, that would help. "I can get you started," he gave with a definitive nod.

"What kind of stuff would you want to carve?" The question came out of a desire to pass the time, his eyes watching her flitting to and fro. "Like- I like to carve a lot of deer, since I see them a lot. But you don't have to carve living things, and it doesn't even have to make sense." A shrug rolled over his shoulders. "Sometimes it just looks pretty without having to be anything."

Those ones took a long time to actually look nice. He neglected to mention the fact that many of his first tries ended up burning as kindling as he went on, unable to stand looking at them after he improved them in a sequel.

@Bug

The little kitten-dragon considered, eyes wide, as she hovered and floated alongside Attikias. Oversized bat-wings carried her along in large, unsteady bobs through the air, the soft bass whumph of each wingbeat punctuated by slight disturbances of the dust beneath.

"Ummm..."

Of all the things that Dread had taught her, challenging her creativity had not been on the list. Confronted now with, for the first time, a question of creation, rather than destruction, she found herself drawing a blank. And, like most children, she then fell back on what she knew. "My dad!" But--Attikias had already carved Dread, hadn't he? Or, rather, dented him from the rock. Worried side-eye turned to a sly hopefulness. "I could carve you-?" She did a little spin in the air, looking up, around. "Hey! Did you ever carve anything out of, like, colored gemstones? Or--or food? Did you ever carve food?" She squinted, imagining bone or bananas carved into fantastical forms.

And then, her attention yet again rapidly shifting: "What else do you do? What did you do before you carved? -You can't fly, right? Do you have to walk everywhere? Do you walk far? Do you know lots of places?"

@Attikias

Attikias gave her the time needed to answer, watching simultaneously where he stepped and where she flapped. Her dad was a good start. But, he tilted his head to her second answer. "Me?" A free hand fluttered to his chest. "I'd be flattered!" He chuckled through his nose. "I've never tried food, though, but gems are usually a bit too hard to get goin' well. It's not like wood- it chips off rather than carves."

That kind of made sense? "You wouldn't be able to get much detail, but it could be prettier. Food carving doesn't seem very permanent, though." He gave pause for a brief second. What else did he do? "I... Used to think I was a hunter, but I wasn't very good at that." Boy, this kid had a lot of questions. "I walk a lot- yeah, I came from Eridanus. I'm guessin' you haven't been out very much? I don't know a place I haven't been- well. Not that... Desert cave, but otherwise mostly everywhere."

He looked to her with her curiosity reflected in his expression. "What's it like to fly?"

@Bug

Bug listened intently, ember eyes wide and round.

Undoubtedly, she have barraged Attikias with another stream of questions--('what desert cave?' and 'why does it chip' among them) but his own question at once derailed her various, simultaneous trains of thoughts and sent them crashing over some forgotten cliff, her mind now on flight.

"It's fun!" she squealed, and began to... demonstrate. Not that she hadn't already been flying, of course. But up she went, bobbing unsteadily. Bug wasn't, by any means, the best flyer out there in the caves. There were those who swept gracefully through the sky, diving, wings unfolding and carrying them smoothly back up in a dance-... The kitten was not one of these. Her own flight was clumsy and bobbing, not unlike the bumblebugs that trundled from flower to flower, and she sort of shot one way, then nearly fell out of the air while changing direction.

She seemed to enjoy it, though, bright-eyed; but she hadn't the words, in her youth, to describe it. That, of course, didn't stop her trying. "You can go anywhere you want! Not just to the sides but up and down, too! And you can go and see up on top of stuff! And-"

The dragon-kitten blinked, coming to hover wide-eyed before Attikias.

She had had... an idea.

"DAD COULD FLY YOU!" she squealed. "You'd fit on his back! Or in his feet! He carried me around, when I was little!"

She lost patience part of the way there--or, at least, a memory that someone was with her--and shot off ahead, giggling excitedly. Hopefully, Attikias could keep up.

bg texture by Eddi van W. on Flickr

@Attikias

edited into an exit due to inactivity