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[mordredeschain]

*Mordred has discovered the Sign and has a question to ask.* Have ya ever had the sort o' day where ya wished the universe would just end already? If so, how did ya deal with it?

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[feathered_mages]

"I won't," Mistral says. "And I don't like or use cages, unless they won't let us in a town otherwise... and then I'd rather stay outside anyway. I only have collars on Red and Kitty because Red's is charmed to shrink him if we have to go into a town so we don't get chased off by guards. They don't bother us as much if he's the size of a small dog. And Kitty's collar has all kinds of charms on it to help keep her safe."

Displacers didn't have the benefit of dragon-tough hide, if someone happened to work out just where they were. And Kitty's smart enough to have grasped the usefulness of the gift and would likely turn anyone trying to remove it into Kitty Chow... unless it was Mistral so a new protection spell could be added.

"But I don't make pets out of people," Mistral continues - he's not really aware yet of how intelligent Red might be full grown, what with the baby being the only dragon they've encountered so far. "I also don't steal other people's pets or try to use my Bell on fire lizards, since they might be linked to a person."

[mordredeschain]

*Mordred smiles shyly, then changes. It's rather enlightening and quite disturbing.* (Well met are we upon the Path. I would be happy to be thy friend in this form as in the other.)

[feathered_mages]

Kitty perks up from where she's resting to give Mordred a look. Ooo, it's one of those leggy-things! It's so fun to bat those around until the legs fall off... But this one had been someone they were talking to just a moment ago. She gives Mistral a glance and then settles back down in her spot. Not a Kitty-toy then, sadly for her. Oh well. Maybe the next leggy-thing will be.

Kitty's shifting rouses Red from his dozy post-meal state enough for the little red dragon to raise his head and give Mistral's face a nuzzle before curling back up. This keeps Mistral from answering anything right away as he has a faceful of baby dragon muzzle.

"Well, now I'm going to second-guess every spider we come across," says a faintly amused Blaze. Though if they attack him he's still going to set them on fire. Friends/Associates get exceptions... random dungeon crawlers do not.

[mordredeschain]

*Mordred chitters playfully at the ‘kitty’ for a bit, then changes back.* I don’t mean ta make more work for thee.

[feathered_mages]

Arashi chuckles. "It's no problem, you're just not the first giant spider we've seen."

"I'm almost certain you're the first talking one, though," Blaze adds. Not that he'd given others much of a chance to say anything.

Mistral's only slightly disappointed he hadn't had the chance to use his bell at the time. But it was just as well. They'd found Red during that same outing... or rather the dragonlet had found them.

"Our home... doesn't provide the right sort of outlet for some of our needs at times," Arashi explains, hinting that a world at peace was a nice place to live but didn't take the edge off a Waltz's predatory nature. "So we visit another one frequently."

"The best part," Blaze adds, "is that some people will pay us for solving the occasional sticky problem with raiding orcs or goblins or whatever."

"I think the best part is all the interesting animals," Mistral comments. Of course he would.

[mordredeschain]

I would offer my home as a place ta let off steam, but I don’t think you would survive it for long. The very laws o’ physics have broken down in All-World, and o! Discordia.

[feathered_mages]

"That's all right," Arashi says, though the description doesn't scare him off.

"We're well-established in the one we do visit by now," Blaze says, thinking of how all three of them had 'second homes' there that they'd acquired through various adventures. And reputation could be an important thing in their chosen line of work. Once people had managed to mostly get past their non-human appearance, at least enough to pay them to kill things, it had gone quite well. Especially as they had a few advantages over the local mages while still being able to use the spells of that world when they had occasion to learn them.

"I was thinking you might accompany us sometime," Arashi adds, "If it would interest you."

"I should let Sealion go back now... it's too warm here for him to stay for too long, and if I made it cold enough that might hurt the plants." Mistral says, letting go of the summoning magic holding Sealion there. The large creature vanishes in a few sparkles of light, to a slightly sad rumble from Red. But the little dragonlet is used to Sealion disappearing and doesn't get too upset.

[mordredeschain]

I'd be glad to, sai. Not today, mind ya; I have things as need doin' sooner or later.

*He waves goodbye to the creature, then gives Red a careful pat.* Missin' thy friend already, little one?

[feathered_mages]

Arashi chuckles. "We're likely to be busy finding homes for Mistral's latest finds for some time ourselves. Perhaps after that we can get in touch."

Red's already over that, not having much attention span at that age when it doesn't come to food, naps, and Mistral. While Sealion was the 'bigger sort-of-dragony' thing the baby finds comforting to have around because then there's someone bigger to snuggle, Mistral is 'mommy' as far as Red is concerned. Sealion would be back someday, just sometimes they disappeared and sometimes they reappeared. But petting?

Petting is something the little red dragonlet has gotten maybe just a bit too fond of. Mordred might well find his hand headbutted by a bright-scarlet scaled head. Hopefully not too hard, but Red is at least around the size of some of the very largest dog breeds. The wings make him look even larger than that, but he'd actually have trouble getting up with Kitty on his back at the moment. Not that he minds the warm displacer beast 'blanket'.

[mordredeschain]

*Mordred is stronger than he looks, now that he's not sick and starving. He laughs and gives more pettings.*

[feathered_mages]

And Red goes through the tradition of 'pets' everywhere in 'teaching the new person the best places to scritch'.

Mistral just watches approvingly, with a random derisive thought for those occasional stupid villagers and town guards who always took offense to his pets. Always screaming about a dragon... he'd gotten to where he's tuned out anything they might say on the matter. Hmph. Red was perfectly well behaved as long as you didn't wriggle around in front of him like wounded prey or try to take something shiny away from him.

[mordredeschain]

Clever one, this one. Or at least he has good taste in friends, does he not?

[feathered_mages]

"Of course he is," Mistral says, who is of the belief so far that Red and Kitty are the smartest pets he's acquired. Due to his ignoring anything the locals of that world have to say about dragons, he's completely missed that one of the two shouldn't really be considered a 'pet'.

As for Red, he's a little amused by what Mordred said. He's picking up words fast, though he hasn't tried saying them yet and sometimes he misses turns of phrase or idiom. But he does know friends aren't for tasting or eating! Friends are the ones who help you find things to eat and shiny things to keep.

[mordredeschain]

*Mordred notices and laughs.* Not that kind of taste, dragonling; 'tis just a turn o' phrase.

[feathered_mages]

Blaze chuckles at this. He and Mistral have both suspected for a while that Red understands more of what they say than the usual 'pet', though neither of them are close to figuring out just how intelligent Red is (or will be) yet. Arashi has been stubbornly fighting that realization until now, and Blaze can't help a little amusement at his sibling's expense.

"Hmph," Arashi refolds his wings. "Well, at least we know he doesn't plan on eating any of us yet."

Red wriggles, finding that even more amusing. Baby he might still be, but he's smart enough to know that eating the ones bringing you food and sometimes shiny things would be stupid. He likes the shiny things, and he's learning really fast which shiny things are actually good to keep and which are just shiny and pretty but not really 'valuable' by most standards. Not that he thinks he'll ever give up his colored glass and prism mobile. When the light hits it right it puts rainbows and sparkles everywhere and he can watch it for hours...

"Well, of course not, Arashi," Mistral grumbles, and pets the edge of one of Red's wings. "He doesn't have any reason to eat us. Red's a good baby dragon..." If he was going to say anything else it's cut off as the baby suddenly whips a wing over the short Waltz and practically knocks him off his feet for a cuddle.

[mordredeschain]

You give him food and hugs and shiny things, what's not ta like? Even the glass shiny things are entertaining. *Grin.* Something about a prism mobile? That must be very pretty indeed.

[feathered_mages]

Mistral is currently unable to answer on account of being half under a dragon and giving said dragon scritches under the chin. Despite how enthuiastic about this the little dragonlet seems, Red is actually being very gentle - for a baby dragon - with the short Waltz. After all, Waltzes have hollow bones and fragile bird wings. That Mistral isn't in a full body cast yet proves that Red has more restraint than is initially obvious to most.

Blaze chuckles though, remembering getting the mobile. It had been a pretty thing, and Red had liked it. Blaze sees nothing wrong in indulging in pretty things, though that's only to be expected from the Waltz most likely to be found wearing nice dresses instead of robes and colorful ribborns around his hat. He's also the most likely to be presumed female because of that, which has lead to some occasional awkward explanations.

It's Arashi that ends up answering for the Trio. "Well, he is a dragon. Hoarding shiny things is something I've heard of almost every dragon doing..." The only exceptions he can think of are the fire lizards sometimes seen in the Nexus, and he wouldn't be surprised if they do still collect shinies and he just hasn't heard about it. No one in their home village has one, after all.

[mordredeschain]

*Mordred will help with the dragon scritching, because why not.*

Much like humans, then. Human an' all others as like money, ta speak the truth.

My home could likely use more pretty things . . .

[feathered_mages]

And Red is a happy baby dragon.

"Well, money is a useful thing to have," Blaze says. "Though mostly because having it can lead to having power and influence. Dragons, though... reportedly they just like sleeping on it."

There's a little 'pfft' from Red that might be a chuckle.

"Hmph, even that makes sense for a dragon," Mistral counters, managing to wriggle free a bit. "Metal coins are durable and have good heat dispersion, and to an adult dragon they wouldn't be uncomfortably lumpy... more like those fancy pillows with the seeds in them."

[mordredeschain]

Havin' a pillow at all be more fancy than I've often had, but I ken thy meanin' well enough.

Be this young one still too small for such?

[feathered_mages]

"If he is, I don't think he will be for long," Arashi says. He's not at all sure how fast dragons grow, but he does have concerns about how big this one of Mistral's pets might get. Still, Mistral manages the rest of them well enough - not that Arashi's going to say that. The shortest Waltz doesn't need any encouragement to collect more pets, in Arashi's opinion.

"Don't worry about that," Mistral says, half to the dragon in an indulgent tone. "By the time he's big enough, we'll have a nice little hoard for him to nap on." Granted, a lot of it at the start might be the regional equivalent of pennies, but even dragons have to start somewhere.

[mordredeschain]

I'm sure it will be very fine indeed.

[feathered_mages]

A sleepy Red yawns, showing an impressive amount of sharp teeth, before curling up with Mistral 'trapped' in the middle. Kitty looks over from where she's been washing a paw ever since the dragonlet got too squirmy to use as a kitty perch and considers that he's now calming down... she soon joins the pileup. Looks like it will soon be naptime for those two.

[mordredeschain]

*Mordred smiles at them.* Praps I could join thee?

[feathered_mages]

Red's already too asleep to say one way or the other, and Kitty just gives Mordred a look that clearly says she doesn't care, so long as he remembers that these are hers. Then she goes back to washng the tip of a tentacle.

"You might as well," Mistral says, in a tone that sounds a bit grouchy but doesn't at all mean it. "I'm not going anywhere for a while." This isn't the first time he's been stuck in a pet pile. Not by a long shot.

"I'm going to go see about more supplies," Arashi says. There's no need for him to stick around, and a trip to the Nexus Mall was needed after their last adventure.

"I think I'll come with you," adds Blaze. He likes to window-shop if nothing else, and honestly the smell from those shambling mounds over there is kind of disgusting in his opinion.