Fireheart had been given very specific directions, and he had followed them to the letter. The wolf pushed his way through the mist, now, an hour into Cetus; his white legs were stained black with mud, brush tail raised out of its liquid grip.

He skirted the edge of the black lake, though it was hard to tell precisely where its borders lay, at times; broken clumps of earth, thickly-covered in reeds and long swamp grass, were marbled with still and silent streams of dark water. It was a honeycombed landscape, and sometimes he sank deeper, struggling back out, before realizing he'd gone too far into the lake itself, too far from shore. He'd followed his nose, for a time, seeking the rotten food pile he'd been told to watch for, but still he found nothing.

"DRAGON?" he called, his voice growing hoarse now, though its deep timbre still carried. A cough, and a pause, the wolf's muzzle dipping low, the tongue flicking out to lap at the lake-water. It wasn't terrible, but there was an old and fishy taste to it, a muddy stagnancy that spoke of swamp long left undisturbed. He shook himself, grimacing, and turned to point his snout upward, instead, focusing on the mist.

A brightly phosphorescent wisp--his own form of ignis fatuus, but less... potentially deadly--burst into bright existence above him, a bright, strong guide. He sent this out ahead of him, a blazing signal in the dark, one that lit the fog brightly in all directions, despite being dimmed by it at its center; and this he followed, trudging along beneath it and behind.

'DRAGON?'

Two third eyelids slid back to reveal dark eyes atop what appeared to be a black, wet log floating at the Heart's edge. Dragon woke from his half-sleeping wait; he often simply floated at the shoreline, sometimes for hours on end, waiting for prey to come to the water--or not. This voice that had woken him was unfamiliar to him, but he sighed and shifted, turning toward it.

After a moment, magic swathed him: a chaotic tumble of blood reds and blacks, forming into draconic wings and horns that lifted from his back and sprouted from his skull. Smoke trailed in their wake as he rose, the thudding wingbeats perhaps more dramatic than the limp, vertically-hanging bulk that was the scarred-up alligator. This was easier, though, than trudging through the swamp with one lame leg--and faster than swimming along the shore, roaring back in some half-assed game of marco polo.

He caught sight of the wisp's glow a few moments later, just as the creature puppeting it called out, again, and Dragon swept down and landed with a light and splashing thump in the mud before it.

"I am Dragon," he responded, the natural bass in his voice booming; the wings folded away and vanished, horns fading, as he went on. "Who are you, and what do you want?" It was bluntly-said, not impolite but perhaps a bit brash, as he looked this one over.

A wolf, by looks; white and muddy, its stone too-visible and too-large across its chest. A vulnerability, that, he thought but didn't say aloud. That would perhaps be rude.

The thump of wings alerted him to something coming, and for a moment he froze, and faltered, tensing down and staring up. His mind raced through possibilities, and he fought to swiftly raise a shield before him.

Pride had said nothing about Dragon flying, so this was unlikely to be him; he'd been very clear that Dragon was some sort of swimming lizard. Nothing came in terms of a shield, and Fireheart scrabbled and cursed quietly in the mud, at a loss. Yet the thing that came into view, despite being swathed with bloodied magic, scarred and ancient-looking, wet and battered, lowered itself down with no sign of aggression, and spoke.

Fireheart blinked, and relaxed, standing upright once again, and bowed his head, briefly. "I apologize for disturbing you, if I've done so," he offered, to begin with, and then cleared his throat. "My name is Fireheart. I've come from Orion; I recently joined the Seven, and I seem to have some affinity with fire. Pride suggested I seek you out for tips. He said that you're the best," he added, matter-of-factly. "I don't mean to intrude, and of course I do not ask for aid right this moment--but if you are interested, perhaps I might come here, from time to time, for training-?"

It was all very politely said, or at least his tone was polite; he hoped he wasn't being too formal for the creature, or too... complex. He wasn't entirely sure how intelligent a battle-scarred lizard could possibly be, and it wasn't his intention to insult him by being overly sophisticated in his wording.

Dragon grunted, and settled a little. The words were not anywhere near 'too' sophisticated; despite his appearance, he was no mere brute. When he spoke, it was blunt, plain, but with a clear intelligence to it.

"Pride said that I am the best? Hrmph," he started, with a snort of laughter at this. But... if Pride had seen both he and an actual dragon in action (assuming that Dread was still alive, of course) and still sent this one to him, it meant that the stag thought him better than a real dragon. A bit of pride sparked in him, at that. "I might be the best," he admitted, after a moment; "But I haven't met enough to know. I can teach you. I can do it now, if you want; show me what you know, anyway," he demanded, "assuming you still have the energy to, after that trip."

This one was humble, then--or at least straightforwardly honest. 'Show me what you know,' he asked, and Fireheart glanced up to the wisp, thoughtful. He let it fade, after a moment. "The wisps seem useful, but they do not... feel like true fire, if that makes sense? They are not hot; they don't burn, and they do not come to me as easily as other magic does," he explained.

A moment's focus, and thought, as he settled on something to show the alligator.

After a beat, his body heated, mud slowly slicking off; his eyes flared up with a flameglow light. "This is... something," he explained. "It is fire, I suppose, but it isn't particularly useful, is it?"

Dragon eyed the wolf doubtfully. He hadn't seen such a spell, before--variations on it, yes. He himself could heat his body enough to sear what lay underfoot to ash. But glowing eyes? -No, he didn't know that.

"Fire is chaos!" the beast bellowed. "It consumes. If you use it to destroy, it comes more easily. It wants to eat wood, and burn meat, and leave ash behind. It is inside you," he added, "and to let it out you have to... exult in that chaos."

A deep inhale, and within the widening jaws of the alligator flickered an ember light--and then he turned, and a flamethrower gout of flame buffeted forth from his maw and into the air. It reached out some ten feet, a roaring, crackling fire whose heat was blistering to be near, and though it lasted only a couple of seconds it seemed like an eternity.

Then, Dragon turned, and thrust his jaws into the swamp water. Steam hissed up around him, briefly deafening. When dripping jaws--still smoking--rose back up, he eyed the white wolf before him slyly.

"-And I recommend practicing near water," he added. "It will hurt, at first. Sometimes a great deal. Even now it burns; but you get used to it, with time."

He flinched away, at first, tensing back and down so that elbows touched the muck, eyes nearly closing against the heat and the light. Some instinct lashed his magic out, and while at first it did little, after a moment (as Dragon shoved shout into water) Fireheart found that the alligator's fire was... under his control. It had not simply dissipated but hung, quietly crackling, floating, above Dragon's head by several feet.

Fireheart held his breath, a moment, staring up at it, barely hearing Dragon's words. At length, exhaling carefully, eyes locked on the flame, he spoke.

"I, ahh... I believe I have your fire, Dragon," he offered. A tentative, careful pull of his magicka brought the flame toward him in a shivering orb, a hovering fireball some three feet across, condensed from Dragon's flame breath. Fireheart's eyes half-squinted again against the light and he stepped forward, bringing his nose toward it. It was like a wisp, and controlled like it, too--but larger, stronger, its heat boiling the air before him.

After a moment it became too much to maintain and he turned, instinct pushing him to thrust it out against a pile of nearby reeds. There was a whoosh, a whoomph, and they went up in flames, the fire now wild and burning quickly out.

"I've never done that before," he said, staring at it.

Dragon had not, at first, noticed that his flame had not (as it always did) simply dissipated into the air. When the white wolf pointed it out he looked up. And he blinked.

"Well, that's new," he said, and then laughed heartily. "And useful, I'd think; but you need to make fire before you can control it. Try," he urged.

His eyes cast back to the flame dying among the reeds--each grass streaked now with black and emberglow--and wondered if he, too, could learn such a feat.

Flame breath, hm-? Well I am hardly a dragon, or--related lizard, he thought, eyeing Dragon over, but I suppose it's time to give this a try.
The idea that it would hurt was a little disconcerting, but if he wished to progress, it seemed that he had little choice. He splayed his legs a tad to brace himself, tail looped out behind him--straight, its tip hanging--and tilted his head back.

He concentrated.

Fireheart felt the heat guttering up in his chest, the sudden warmth of the gemstone outside it--the pouring forth of magicka. Like a well suddenly rising to the top, and then bursting out in overflow, he felt ember-hot heat searing inside him and then up through his throat.

Surprised, he barely had time to snap his jaws open before the guttering fire--larger than Dragon's, louder, hotter--came roaring out. Eyes widened, ears flattened back, a sense of wonder and almost savage triumph flaring up in him (that exultation suddenly taking him unexpectedly)--and then the pain registered.

A moment later the white wolf had yelped, and thrust his head down into the marsh water, trembling with the pain that wracked his throat and jaws. His tongue burned and hell that hurt; all he could do was roll wide flameglow eyes to stare at Dragon in shock.

Dragon stared.

This-... was new. The flame--the wolf's first, if his claim was to be believed--had been extremely powerful, and seemingly effortless. Dragon's interest was now piqued; he'd felt a dutiful sort of helpfulness, but now he felt invested. If he could train this wolf, he might make a fine ally, some day.

Then Fireheart's jaws were steaming, held beneath the swamp water, his horrified stare saying enough. It had been his first, then; Dragon laughed.

"It hurts, doesn't it? Don't worry, you get used to it, with time. Thicker skin, desensitized, whatever; maybe it just burns away," he added, with a shrug. "There's other things you can do with fire--more advanced things. Things I wouldn't recommend playing with until you know it better," he added, in warning. "You can imbue, for lack of a better word, your spit--your bile, your puke--with it. Hack that up, and the first flame that hits that makes it explode. It makes for a good trap," the alligator added.

"And then there's this." He kept eye contact with Fireheart. His tone was darkly amused. And the instant the last word had left his mouth, flames leapt up: hungry, reaching flames, fully engulfing the alligator in a searing inferno. They crackled, spearing skyward--and then he'd rolled sideways, into the water, another cloud of steam pouring upward.

After a moment his head emerged: bobbing to the surface, the rest of his ridged back slowly coming up behind it. "It can be useful, in its way," he explained, a grin in his voice.