Carja grinned and lay down with her wings tucked around her, "Yeah!! I can do magic and fight- I'm practicing both and I'm trying to grow stronger to be able to protect my family."

Her head turned to James and her chest puffed out, "That's right! AND! I wasn't even this big, haha!

She was so proud of herself at the achievement, especially against a foe such as Effluvium, though it was more like stumbling around and hoping that the other fell first. Maybe this round she could truly show her skills!

"I want to try to win," she said, "To show the caves that I am a fearsome adversary!! But if people don't want to fight, I give really good hugs too!"

@Comet

Comet left it to James to do the formalities. She wasn't too good at those things anyway. Her body relaxed as she felt him rub her back, a calming motion. Her fur fell back into place, and she pricked up her ear again. She was happy that the horse was there to protect her, just his presence felt safe. But if it did come to fighting Comet would throw herself in the middle.

Even laying down, the dragon was still SO much bigger than the pup. "Really? I do magic and fighting too! I hope one day I will be strong enough to protect all of my family! Same as you, right? Right now my magic is a bit better, so I need to practice more fighting. Comet found she actually had a lot in common with the dragon.

Olympics? Matches? She had not heard of those. But from what she heard from James and Carja, it sounded a lot like a fighting competition. It was too bad she missed it, she wondered if she would be able to win any. But James probably wouldn't want her doing anything dangerous like that. A thousand thoughts rushed through her head. She could try doing magic practice with the dragon! Or, hunting contest? Or, fighting? Okay, maybe she wouldn't win that one, but there were just so many possibilities! "We should really do something together!" was all she said about that, as maybe the dragon would not want to do such things.

@James

James watched Carja and Comet interact, content to watch rather than contribute. They seemed like they were having fun by themselves.

"Comet, honey," he said softly, "I'm not going to berate you or anything, don't worry. Do you mind if I take care of my feathers for a few minutes? I'm afraid the wind knocked some out of place."

He lifted a wing to reveal the messy feathers, some unfortunately broken, but they looked like they were due to molt anyway.

Carja perked up, wings vibrating with excitement, "Yes!! Oh yes I'd love to do something- like what? Practice? You're a bit too small to fight with safely... but we could practice magic!"

She bunched up her hind legs and scrunched her nose, trying to get her magic to work. Sometimes it didn't. Though when she breathed out, bubbles popped into existence, dozens of them. Floating all over, up and down, left and right, beautiful and iridescent and pretty.

"Can you do this?", she asked.

@Comet

"Okay!" Comet was glad that James felt that they were safe around the dragon. She really did want to play with Carja for a bit. Leaving the horse to focus on his feathers, she turned her attention back to the dragon.

"Yes! Magic!" Comet watched the dragon scrunch their nose, and when they breathed out, bubbles filled the air. "That is my favorite spell!" The pup inhaled, and exhaled. Her bubbles joined Carja's and they bounced against each other, some even merging to form even bigger ones. "Wow." Comet breathed in amazement.

@Carja

"It's mine too!", Carja squawked, clapping her hands together in excitement.

She reached up a clawed hand to pop one, giggling in delight as it popped, "I can do something cool with my scales, but I think that's just because I'm a dragon, haha."

She inhaled and tensed again, her scales shifting along her spine and then along her body, before she cast the spell. She glanced back at her scales... and nothing happened. Frowning, she was about to pout, before her scales started to get flaky.

"Uh oh-"

The upper layers of her scales peeled off and fell to the ground, and she squealed in horror, backpedaling as if to get away from her sudden shedding.

"MY SCALES!!", she shrieked in dismay, flapping her hands as she totally freaked out.

@Comet

Comet waited for the cool scale spell that Carja would do next. It sounded so cool! She sort of wished she were a dragon. Inhale, exhale. Was something supposed to be happening? The wolf squinted closer at Carja's scales. Yes-- they were peeling off! This was not supposed to be happening, she could tell from the dragon's reaction.

What to do? Well, there would be no way to prevent the scales from shedding, but perhaps she would be able to help them grow back. Only problem was, Comet had never tried this spell before, and wasn't sure if it would help, or only make it worse. In, out, she pushed our her magic and hoped that it would help.

@Carja

Well Carja didn't have a cold anymore, but it didn't help her scales. However, they were no longer shedding. Her scales were thinner, now, but still there. When she was home she'd try again.

"Thank you," she said, "Um... sorry I panicked. That's never happened before. Normally it makes my scales thick and hard, and nearly impenetrable. Not thin."

She sat down and huffed unhappily, wings drooped.

@Comet

Darn, it seemed that the spell she had used wasn't very helpful with regrowing scales. At least Carja wasn't scaleless. She still had some scales left from the shedding.

"That's okay. I fail spells a lot too." Comet saw that they were looking a bit sad that the spell had failed. She walked over to the huge dragon and sat down, thinking of ways to cheer them up. Hmm, bubbles! She always like to make some bubbles when she got sad, and Carja seemed to like them too. Bubbles filled the air around Comet, and they floated up into the air, one almost reaching the dragon's nose.

@Carja

Carja watched the bubbles float around, giggling gently as one popped on her nose. She batted at another like a cat, watching it float rapidly away. She sprung after it and popped it with a paw, before proceeding to chase down the other bubbles childishly, laughing happily.

With a bit of strain, she got her magic to work, and her scales restrengthened again, returning to their normal selves. Crisis averted!!

"Fixed them!", Carja crowed, "Can you make more bubbles? They're so much fun!"

She shook her head out and stretched, giggling softly. This was nice!

@Comet