The rustle of wings and spines in Nymeria's binocular blind spot makes her flinch, and she jostles her head to the side so that her scarlet eyes might better see the perpetrator of those shaded movements. Ah. Her brother's dragon, all garnet and ruby, ridged with bone and savagery; a most fitting monster. Jealousy surges through her arteries, envy and greed haunting her thoughts—Lilómiel, while older, did not compare to this glistening beast. Even their scales spoke of voluminous differences in hierarchy. Whereas Lil was dull shadow (which, admittedly, had its own advantages) the red gleamed predatorily, like a poison dart frog—all venom.

Indignation snaps through her bonded's tethers, his apathy stirred into scorn. The black wheels back towards his family, feathered crest ascending in a territorial display. Wings flare and cusp at the wind as he lowers, sailing in for a well-mustered and temperamentally graceful landing. Lilómiel's scaled lips curl back from his ivory fangs; he balances forwards on Nymeria's withers, tail whipping sinuously back and forth. Red eyes seek to meet his superior's.

Down, Lil.

"He is stubborn," the sister says, a hind hoof unconsciously raising in warning of a kick. She fumbles for her keywords, gropes for her training mechanism—and finds it. Upon Lilómiel she thrusts the memories of his pain (all caused by her), his dignity's shreds and his former agony; her benevolence, and mercy.

The dragon's lips slide back over his fangs, feathers smoothing and flexing against the curve of his neck. As he does so, Nymeria visibly eases, lowering her hind hoof and softening the arc of her head, allowing Lilómiel to nestle more comfortably upon her withers. With his irascible temper's pulsations subdued by the cool clench of her hand, it is easier to focus upon her brother, and the changes to his body as he aged. Her gaze roams back towards Volterra's red drake, perched upon a stallion's neck, jaws clasped around a clump of ebony hair. Features fade and shift into neutral expression, the joy draining from her face as abruptly as blood from a broken artery. Ears flex forwards, clasping attentively onto the dark tenors of Volterra's voice; Lilómiel croons, hums, kneads his claws against her spine.

Why is he doing that? She should be focused, but she can't help but notice the red's periodic tug on Volterra's mane. Perhaps he finds it harder to dominate his companion than when he tried to school me on companion training.

Lips twitch and slide into a brief smirk. How hypocritical of my brother.

"Your dragon..." and here she lets her words trickle into cautious pause in effort to soften the blow of her ignorance. "What is his name?"

Lilómiel chirped, his laughter an echoing travesty drumming against her cranium. Her heart squeezes, arteries constricting; her smooth features twitch, ripple, broken momentarily by bitterness. Be polite. Nymeria would not take his disobedience, especially not around her brother.

A shadow crosses her face, a prevailing blackness like the gathering of storm clouds on a distant horizon. How could he? Ruby eyes—mirror to Volterra's—harden against his suggestion, and clipped features, pinned and tied into submission by her control, break and wither against the burn of her anger. And it is then, in her wrath, that she looks truly fearsome; and in her eyes glows the very spirit of Confutatis herself, monstrous. "Remember what mother told us? Madarat tolláról, embert barátjáról. And you want us to join the horses who took from us our mother?"

Back she steps, repulsed by the very thought. "Annyit ér, mint halottnak a csók."