CHARON
The very mountains whisper your name...

Charon looked away, sheepish as he slithered along, ”Oh... those things. Yeah uh... I thought they were slimy and gross so I never touched them.”

He found a spot in the soft sand and dug into it, nestling down into the hole and wiggling to cover himself up lightly. He wanted to be able to lunge while still being hidden, and though his eyes were above the sand, that wasn't what he needed to feel the deer running. The vibrations were.

”I'm ready,” he called out to Bone, his words muffled, ”How do we tell Dread?”

He looked up at the circling dragon above and then at Bone, mandibles clicking in suspense.

@Bone

The black dragon continued to circle, though he was getting distinctly impatient. What were they doing, down there? Surely the plan wasn't that complicated? (Even HE understood it!)

He turned away, gliding up a little higher with a soft huff, though he glanced back down to keep track of his intended targets.

Dread wasn't really annoyed, though. If anything, he was fairly content. He enjoyed having family around; aside from that weird blue fish-looking dragon that occasionally glared at him from a distance (he didn't know why), and Haven, who was now avoiding him (he also didn't know why--he still babysat her old den periodically but he was giving up on that, since she hadn't offered him any shinies lately), Leo felt pretty empty.

He liked having that much air and sea mostly to himself, so it wasn't that much a loss; he was usually content with solitude. But... he did miss, at times, the company of his kids around, and Asimona too. He hadn't expected Bone and this new stranger to show up today, but he found that he wasn't displeased with it.

In fact, he sort of hoped they'd stick around awhile.

Bone laughed, good-naturedly, her draconic voice rippling across the sands.

"They are sort of slimy," she agreed, "but not all of them. Some are worse than others; some are nice and tender. I'll catch you one, when we're done here, if you want to try one of the good ones--oh." She interrupted herself, here, squinting off at Dread.

"I'll head up to him. We'll herd the stuff your way, then--get ready," and she tossed a mischievous glance Charon's way.

Something in the back of her mind was bugging her, though. She felt like maybe she should head back home, soon; she'd been away from Ursa for... well, not for that long at all, but she always felt uneasy when she wasn't a short flight away from Mother.

What if Mother needed help? What if Catalyst got into trouble, or Morpho got hurt-? She fidgeted briefly, then took flight, slow and heavy thuds of her wings carrying her off toward Dread.

@Charon

CHARON
The very mountains whisper your name...

Charon huffed softly at her description, not sure if she was trying to make him like fish or be even more disgusted by them. He appreciated her efforts, though.

”Good luck!”, he called out to her retreating form, burying himself just a bit deeper in the sand, though making sure he could still move. It wouldn't do to be hidden for an ambush only to become stuck.

He waited patiently, and as he waited, his thoughts wandered.

Here was warm, a little too warm, but there was the water nearby to cool off and Ursa was a short distance away. Visiting would be easy if he made his den near the tunnels in between. Or even in one, though it had been pretty steamy. But... maybe he'd stay. Or at least stay close. He kind of liked having family to lean on.

'I could get used to this,' he thought, though his mood dampened a little as he watched the other two dragons fly about in the sky, envious of their perfectly functional wings.

Though perhaps by the end of that day, he'd be on the road to getting some himself.

@Dread

Bone was coming toward him.

Flameglow gaze sharpened with mounting excitement. Predatory instinct flared, an ember catching into conflagration: he was sentient but still a hunter, and Dread did love the hunt... sometimes, at least.

He flapped twice, lifting swiftly higher, and then folded his wings into a dive: a low sweep for the treeline, toward where he'd seen the deer. His gaze sought them through breaks in the canopy, and he heard the shift of Bone coming along behind him. He dropped and snapped out his wings again, catching to hit a low glide over the treetops, his tail-tip occasionally brushing leaves.

He inhaled.

Instead of boiling flame, what came out was a deafening roar: a bellowing thundercrack of dragon's voice, one he often blasted into Leo's sky in pure exultation in his freedom. But this time it was low to the ground, and as he gave his bellow he locked his gaze onto a single dark shape--one he saw in brief and fleeting glimpses through the trees. Magicka infused his bellow, pure terror flowing from Dread to the deer, images of flame, destruction, black-winged death...

He drove the deer toward Charon, Bone a few dozen yards away at his wing.

"He's ready!" Bone called out, coming up alongside her father. She swept around past him, curving away and coming up alongside and beside his right, so that his right and her left wingtips had a fairly safe distance between them. Dread, she could see, was champing at the bit; he was already swinging down and away as she drew closer.

She glanced at him sidelong, and as the echo of his roar faded, she let out her own--shorter, more bassy and growly but without anywhere near the volume and ferocity of his.

Still-... Hopefully it would be enough; the quiet thunder of hooves far below was audible now. Some of the deer had split away, bolted in other directions--she caught the barest glimpse of those--but a small handful of deer stampeded toward Charon.

@Charon

CHARON
The very mountains whisper your name...

Charon could feel hooves trampling over the ground, could hear Dread and Bone's roars high up in the sky. He shuddered in anticipation, waiting for the perfect time to lunge and strike.

He lunged out of the sand and snapped at the first deer to come his way, missing its throat by a hair as it jumped rather than try and bolt like the deer he normally encountered. It kicked as it flailed mid-air and he barely missed getting a sharp hoof to the skull before it was springing off like a rocket.

Instead he tried for the others, puffing himself up as large as he could, hoping he could divert them so that Dread and Bone could swoop down and get them. With a mighty roar (nothing near the magnitude of Dread's, he didn't quite have the lungs for it) he darted forward, quills raised as he tried to herd the deer towards the hole.

@Dread

It was hard to see, for sure, but Dread thought maybe the herd had overshot, or scattered, or something--Charon he could see as a pale shape just below, surprisingly impressive in his charge. But he'd failed to catch anything--or maybe he'd been trying to herd the deer?

Dread dropped lower.

If they were going to feed their guest, he'd need to catch something, even if Plan A (as cool as it would've been) had for now failed.

His flight was rapidly shifting, wings flaring out and quickly adjusting to and fro as he brought himself in low and fast. A quick curve to streak out over a deer that was bolting off left, and his legs shot down: talons hooked into muscle and he lifted off.

Back up again, and up, and up, the deer thrashing in his claws; a spiral higher into the air that spelled death for the Lesser. Dread craned his neck to peer down, gauging direction, then slowed and dropped it.

With luck it would drop with a deadly thud somewhere near Charon, a fresh meal ripe for the picking.

Bone glanced sidelong at Dread--then down at Charon--to quickly assess the situation. It looked like they might lose a meal--Dread was diving, and there was no guarantee he'd get his prize. At the same time he dove, so did she: all four limbs reaching for a target, wings beating heavily to keep Bone aloft.

She, however, was far heavier than Dread: less maneuverable and rather than an agile sweep out mere feet above the sand, she found herself losing balance. She gave up on staying aloft, jaw gritting, and simply smashed down into the deer below her in a skidding plume of dust and sand, wings beating furiously to keep her at least upright.

A snap of jaws, a twist of her neck, and the deer was meal: and she looked around, blinking past the dust, to try and see how Dread and Charon had both fared. Perhaps Charon had managed one after all--she'd see when the smoke, so to speak, had cleared.

@Charon

CHARON
The very mountains whisper your name...

Charon saw Dread swoop down out of the corner of his eye and hissed under his breath. How humiliating would it be to end up the only one not able to catch a stupid deer? These ones were fatter than the mountain deer in Ursa, perfect for a nice meal. In no circumstances could he let one just go.

His jaws snapped out and he grabbed a leg, his mandibles snapping forward and breaking it. The deer went sprawling with a screaming cry, kicking out and struggling to get up, bleating and crying out as loud as it could.

Charon shut it up with a bite to the neck, its flailing stopping instantly. With a snort he grabbed it by the neck and started to drag it out of the mess of dust kicked up by the herd, setting it down off to the side to wait for Dread and Bone to return with their quarries.

”I got one!”, he shouted, looking down at his... smallish fawn with a bit of disdain, but hey, it was a meal and he wasn't turning down a meal.

@Dread