In the cold of the north, her child shivers against her side, letting out the soft, painful sounds of a cough that just doesn’t want to go away. She’s started counting how many times it’s happened in the past day. It’s starting to push thirty coughs, ones that every time they show up, she makes sure to stop and let him catch his breath and rest, to lie down if he feels is needed, only after making sure that everything in her power can be done to protect him for the snow.
Right now, his young body is pulled up in the snow, releasing coughs like he’d never stop their barge. Do you think my magic would work on him? Hobgoblin shifts uncomfortably from his perch, changing his weight from one talon to another, red eyes hung to the boy. While he doesn’t care for many, the boy brings him some sort of worry.
Or it could be a vein from Sikeax, strong enough that it flows down his IV into his system. Whatever it is, each cough is making this journey more and more unsettling.
“Zhu need to go home. Zhu sick. Zhu no need to be here.”
They both know he’s right, and as the fit does slowly recede, taking as much time as it possibly can, her son seems prepared for the trip once more.
Her muzzle presses into his frail ribs, pushing with enough force that it forces him to stir, whining as premature sleep is taken away. “I’m sorry, dear, but you can’t sleep here. It’s not safe.” Another way of saying that sleeping in the snow is sure to bring death.
In the time that it takes for young Zhu to stand, Hobgoblin’s impatience finally strikes a nerve. “Zhu need to move faster. Zhu too slow.”
Then you go.
A huff, flung out into the dead silence, sports his feelings towards the situation at hand perfectly. As much as he could seem to care for Zhu’s existence and well being, having the child along in the North was never going to work. He was just too slow, too weak for these things.
“I stay. Zhu need-”
Screaming. The sheer shock of it is enough to bring the boy tumbling downwards, stumbling on his weak legs until the snow moves to swallow him up. Sikeax’s rescue is swift, and obviously lacking the aid of Hobgoblin. He’s too far caught up in the battle that unfolds right before their very eyes, watching as gold and red clash into a flurry of talons, teeth and wings, screaming their rage like it’ll never be contained.
And oh, how beautiful of a sight is it to see, to watch them do such a magical and graceful, yet violent dance before him.
“Look.”
After some time of watching this unfold, it is then that he recognizes the blood scales of another, one kind enough to offer him food, to even go as far enough as to hunt for him. A small chirp rips from his jaws without second thought.
“Blood dragon back.”
Blood dragon?
“Dragon that give food.”
Zhu leans against her thinning stomach, small ears twisting and moon eyes wide with curiosity until he finds the jackpot, the source of all this unholy commotion. He can’t seem to care that his mother is so very obviously uncomfortable, that she wants to leave and is making attempts at doing just that. He doesn’t care at all, yanking out badly formed words from his mouth to try and ask her exactly what those things are.
He wants to know if they’ll be like Hobgoblin, able to change their bodies into different things when they want. “They’re dragons. Not like Hobgoblin. They’re a different thing.” It doesn’t help that to speak to him that she must be loud, speaking high enough that he can hear and actually understand what she’s trying to say, and at the same time, be louder than the fighting dragons. “Those two dragons, they’re not good. Or at least the red one. Red one is-” She checks, scanning for Him, hoping, praying that he wouldn’t be around, that this would just be a rogue pair of dragons or possibly that this red dragon that Hobgoblin was talking about was nothing more than a wild one, not that specific dragon.
“It’s not safe to be around them like this, not when you’re this young.” He can’t seem to find the issue with them, they’re only fighting, far enough away that they are no threat. Hobgoblin is crying out now, screeching madly and thrashing about mid-air in a flurry of excitement. She wants him to stop, to shut up once and for all so that they don’t have to risk anything.
But the sky is now lacking two dragons, and the space left behind is filled with the silver blur of her Rougarou, wailing out his cries of encouragement to the red one.
Hobgoblin, stop.
“Blood one still fighting gold one. Blood one good.”
There is nothing good about that single dragon, regardless of what he chooses to think, and as her son seems to be as thoroughly caught up in this situation as herself, the chances of escaping Him seem lower and lower. Zhu is too slow to make the run through the snow, and Hobgoblin, well, he simply choose not to care.

OOC: Hobgoblin is in his Wyvern form.
They're sort of standing off to the side as of the moment and watching the dragons fight. I'm going to keep playing Zhu alongside Sikeax up until she leaves, which should be pretty quick.
talk talk talk