"Rat..?" He did not know what that was; his curiosity lingered, for a moment.

Blight hesitated, then thought about his magic some more.

Was darkness all he had-? He didn't think so-... instinct prompted something else to well up within him. Tiny jaws cracked open, and an invisible cloud of bacteria drifted forth. It was enough, perhaps, to make Umbra sneeze, though Blight was far too young to have incubated anything more dangerous than that. It was powerful magic, though, and it spread quickly through the tunnel.

Blight, however--he knew something had happened, but what it was, he couldn't say; he peered curiously to Umbra.

"Did magic," he informed her calmly--but what it had been, he had no idea.

He hesitated, thinking, and then--with childish innocence--asked, trustingly, "What now?"

"Plan my entire life, if you would; I don't know what comes next" was perhaps a little complex for Blight to ask, but the essence was about the same.

@Umbra

”Four-legged furry creatures, similar to me but without wings,” Caliante explains. ”Some of them are the same size as us, some of them are smaller, and some of them are… bigger.”

She had flown away from the larger ones as quickly as she could after finding out about them. Even though Mercury had been clamoring in the back of her head for her to stay and fight, she would rather save herself from being covered in bite marks once more. It was bad enough the first time.

Not to mention she was certain those things hunted in packs.

Blight cracks his jaws open, and Caliante draws herself up slightly in attention; is he going to perform more magic? Perhaps more shadow will flow forth from his jaw, perhaps—

—perhaps nothing at all?

Oh, well. There’s no guarantee that magic works; she’s experienced that first-hand.

Blight seems to think otherwise, however, and she pauses, trying to discern whether he did do something or whether he just thinks he did—

—the urge to sneeze wells up in her abruptly, suddenly, and she turns away to do so, not wanting to be rude to the young dragon.

And then it wells up again, and again; Caliante quickly finds herself in a sneezing fit, tiny, high-pitched noises worthy of a kitten rather than a bat, eyes slipping shut as she tries to get the urge out of her system.

What was—that?

An excited giggle in her head answers her question, a sense of anticipation from the one being who shouldn’t be excited or anticipated at all making her heart skip a beat.

Oh, great, this again, Mercury says. Crack, stay.

No answer except another harsh giggle, and Caliante supposes that it was misplaced after all to hope that a dragon named Blight carrying unexpectedly familiar neon eyes—although where she’s seen them before, she can’t tell—would be free of—well.

Plague.

She shivers and elects to use the dragon’s question to ignore the topic of magic, hoping that he won’t bring it up again. Hoping that if they don’t talk about it, he won’t use it again; stupid, really, but she just wants to avoid the thought of plague altogether.

”Well...” she begins, hesitating. What is there to do in a tunnel like this? It seems so eerily barren of life, so unnaturally devoid that it sets her on edge, (not like there isn’t a plague dragon in front of her to do that already) that she can’t really think of anything.

She eyes the dragon’s wings, hesitantly. They seem oddly tattered at the edges, but other than that, they look—pretty much fully developed.

Maybe she can teach them how to use those wings of his? She’s probably the best gembound for the job, all things considered.

”Would you like to learn how to fly?” Caliante asks at length, spreading a wing to accentuate her question.

When I speak.

When I think.

@Blight

The tiny dragon listened, eyes springing wide, giggles forgotten. ...Fly? he thought, and as if in answer, his mind supplied sensations of weightlessness, of thrilling drifting, of banking and weaving with no ground below.

Blight gasped, drawing himself up and staring at Umbra with newfound awe--and hope. His single word echoed his thoughts.

"...Fly?" he asked, back to being shy again, that hopefulness bringing with it a sort of bashful uncertainty--as if he were afraid he might be let down, afraid to get too excited over this. Could it be-? Were the concepts that his brain said were 'flying,' true?

"...Can you? - Teach me?" he squeaked, his mind offering 'teach' as the thing Umbra would do.

And he, Blight--he would learn.

"Please," he added, polite despite his draconic shape.

@Umbra

There was no response, straightaway, and so the child practically threw himself into the air. He turned, scrambling up along the wall and leaping, wings flapping in a frantic, altogether clumsy manner.

He crashed back down, at first, with a startled squeak.

"No good," he confided, quietly.

This time he was more cautious. He stood on his hind legs, and leaned back, little wings beating--and then attempted a tiny jump--more like a hop, really--in an attempt to take those wingbeats airborne.

Up, he went--up--and then careening, wildly, smashing off the tunnel walls and rapidly out of sight. His voice echoed along as he vanished, informing Umbra of just how terribly he'd failed at his attempt.

"OUCH! OW! NO! WRONG-"

Hilarious silence fell in his wake.

exit Blight due to inactivity