Lilith very much enjoyed the ride, even if it they had to eventually take a break in an open field at some point, her new acquaintance having gone off, presumably to hunt or drink. It was a much better pace than her running full steam ahead through the wilderness until her own bulk threatened to topple her from exhaustion. She snorted, brushing the thought off as being too dramatic a description for that travel. Though she did enjoy the company of the Kirin, she enjoys the company of her dragonic friend much more, especially since they understand her speech, however dated it might be.

She scratched her hide, noting silently how easily it shifted with the motions, she made a soft noise of worry. Her memories of being back in the Common Wealth reminded her of how flush her scales used to be to her body, now it sort of felt like old-person turkey neck but all over. They were dry and soft, not the best thing. Dry was one thing, she's used to baths of ash, rust, and sand, but soft scales were another thing entirely. She started thinking about what she wanted to hunt next until ear-piercing terrified squealing startled her out of her thoughts.

She almost hadn't noticed her acquaintance's foot steps, they were similar to that of other Deathclaws in terms of weight so it was subconsciously comforting while simultaneously easy to just brush off as ambient noise. She saw the pig in her jaws and nodded to herself that it was as good a food as any, she supposed she would hunt one for herself until she found a little more than half of it being laid at her feet. She made a soft noise of surprise but nodded, thankful. Her voice was more than a bit lacking at the moment, all that talking did a number on it, especially the very broken English attempt. She got up from her sitting position and gave an rather instinct-fueled headbutt of affection, a rumble in her chest that didn't stop even as she started to tear into the pig. It looked like a domesticated pig oddly enough, she silently wondered if this one has escaped a farm or if boars had somehow managed to fail to adapt, she doubted that though. Perhaps they were simply bred from the wild boars from before, just as they were in the past.

The meat was fatty, a more than bit oily, but oddly just a bit sweet. There was a smokiness to it where her friend had bitten the head and shoulders off, she actually enjoyed that extra flavor but she's unsure if asking for her to lick the meal would be inappropriate, so she let it be. She found herself even drinking the blood, unsure why her hunger has been going absolutely wild. Usually she ate about once a week, sometimes once every two or three if they were big meals, now she felt like she was eating nearly everyday, her gut a bit of a bottomless pit. She didn't know when she started growling as she ate but she's glad that her friend isn't taking offense to it, quite the opposite it seemed. Her tail swayed happily, she found herself even swallowing down the hooves.

She snorted softly, lathering her tongue over her teeth and face to clean herself off before wiping the saliva away and moving to a clean patch of dirt to nuzzle at, rubbing roughly against whatever stones she could find, a small few old keratin layers of shed breaking apart much to her surprise. It appeared the stone was harder in this area, maybe she was running into more brittle and loose stones before then and that's why things felt so... weak. She wasn't a geologist.

She looked over at her dragon friend and or acquaintance, unsure still what to call her exactly, but trying to find a way to ask for assistant with her shed. She flexed her throat a few times, trying to at least stretch the muscles there before using them, she could feel the sharp ache already but pressed on regardless, stubborn on being polite about it considering she's not quite sure her view on helping another with stuck shed.

"Bonaar ahmik, dwiirok qah, dovah."

(Humble service, carve armor, dragon.)

She made a short bow of her head, not lowering her horns to the other but rather keeping her chin level and looking at them. She's not sure if the other understood the body language she was used to using with other Deathclaws, this sort of thing was a sort of sign of trust, without looking like they were going to charge one another horns-first, but still lowering in submission without completely exposing one's throat or threatening with horns. A simple move but an effective one for communication in most cases.

"Very well, I don't mind. Stuck shed at your age must be Tartarus to deal with." Grayscale bowed her head in similar fashion quickly before moving around to start carefully raking her claws over their hide, the scales on her muzzle scrunching with discomfort at just how many layers peeled from those points of contact. She gripped and started very very gently peeling back from those points, not missing the disgusted and discomforted shudder the move had pulled from the Deathclaw. She didn't see any new scales being ripped out or any pieces of tender hide so she figured the shed was long overdue. It was disgusting how multiple layers came off in almost one continuous sticky stretchy piece. At least her flight companion had a beautiful hide and scales underneath, and the old scutes came off without a fuss. Her companions size worried her but at least now her skin didn't look as loose on her as before. She allowed them to step and shred off the rest of their shed themselves, head tilting curiously to see what they'd do with it.

Lilith felt like she was on one of those pre-war gecko shed videos where a dumb or abusive owner just doesn't seem to understand how shedding works or care to help. She didn't realize just how much shed was on her until she felt how thick her nictating membrane, eyelids, and pseudo-gums had gotten until she was tugging them out of or off of her own face. She felt like she could hear the colors of the old gods with how much gunk and shed had come out of her ear-holes. She had refused to look at that part of her shed in fear of making herself vomit her meal back up.

She decided to get her underbelly herself with how sensitive that one was, and grimaced at how many of those flappy lines got physically shorter. They were still very much presence but now they at least didn't have a bunch of dead skin layers to make them look even worse. She dreaded the feeling of her companion getting to her tail but was silently thankfully that they only peeled it about halfway off and halfway down the length of it. She had to pause, just to mentally brace herself, and then moved to start peeling the rest of the shed off. It got stuck hard around the femoral pores, the feeling making her spine curl. She made a soft noise of discomfort and pain, snarling a bit but managed to get it off and out. The amount of relief and exhaustion when it was all finally off. She moved away from it, tail tucked low and a soft grimace on her face, a whine in her throat as she avoided eye-contact with her shed on the ground. She silently wished there was a word for embarrassment but she could use somethings close to it at least.

"Bein, ahzid, aus, dukaan."

(Foul, bitter, suffer, dishonor.)

She groaned, flopping over on the ground, stretching out. Her own glow caught her eye as it reflected off of the ground much stronger than before, the fact her shed was part of what was making her so dull and loose feeling made her curl up on the ground where she laid, pawing gently in her companions direction with a whine, half playful half embarrassed. It only grew in volume when she heard her companion chuckling at her dramatics.

Grayscale couldn't help the chuckling and chortling at the other's embarrassment, her tail lightly thumping the ground, though it caused it to pop in a few places that had her hissing softly for a split moment before the relief hit after. She avoided the shed skins that were left to the side, deftly plucking up the Deathclaw to move further away from the scene in order to encircle her protectively, but also to soak up the odd warmth that seemed to radiate from her now that her shed was no longer confining it to a surface level. She cooed gently as she cuddled up, smiling broadly. She knew that others might see this interaction as a direct insult but this obviously wasn't some hoity-toity ass-scale-polished jerk that would make issue with something as simple as comforting them and enjoying doing so. That, and with her lovely new scales she found that the other felt wonderfully textured, bumps, spikes, scutes, and then the smooth thick hide, a very good thing to be cuddling up to.

Lilith found their companions cuddles very comforting, she nuzzled up to them quickly, reveling in the unique fire-like warmth. Neither of the old ditties quite noticed when the other fell asleep but it was obvious later on that neither of them minded. Lilith stretched out like a cat, yawning wide, tongue curling, back and tail arching. She caught sight of her shed a bit of a distance away and grimaced.

They weren't in a particular rush but Grayscale still found it rather prudent to get the other to the dragon lands asap and learn about her new companion before she settles back to her home cave for her Long Sleep, perhaps her last one given her condition and age. She was going to record these events before then however, carve them into her cave walls and memorize her companions visage to faithfully recreate them in her walls before that time. It wouldn't take long with the compacted limestone and a bit of magic breathed into some of the crystals in her hoard, or if she ever came across Spectra Crystals again but she doubts that would ever happen again. She snorted a bit of thick black smog, stretching her wings out and arching much like her companion nearby. She plodded over once they were both done stretching and wordlessly plucked up the Deathclaw mid-stretch, allowing her to settle into her grip naturally.

Lilith expected the pick-up thankfully, a part of her eager for more travel. She playfully stuck her tongue out while relaxing a bit in her companion's grip, the wind making it flap about. She almost wished she had wings of her own but she was also more than happy to be mostly ground-bound, less limbs to have taken off or broken in a fight to bleed out or get infected. She found her tongue quickly drying uncomfortably as her companion pumped their wings faster and she was quick to gently grip her companion and promptly pulled her own tongue back into her mouth and squinted against the wind, nictating membrane helping mitigate the pressure. She was looking down at the landscape and out to the horizon, watching as the terrain changed drastically and quickly. She silently wondered what could've happened to cause such uneven and unnatural looking changes to the landscape. On one hand, miles away from the chalky limestone mountains of the Kirin's home the stone had gotten harder, but yet there was plains and thin dark forest, near identical clearing spotting all kinds of areas. One the other, there was what the new views were feeding her senses. There was an extremely clear divide in the distance that sprawled for miles, a miles wide clearing between short yellowed scrub plains and then flat blackened lands, a clear line sprawled directly in the middle as if drawn there. Miles into the scrub plains there were trees, thick, luscious. Miles into the blackened lands there were hills, then mountains, then volcanoes far into the distance. Further down the line of the lands there was a much more familiar looking rocky desert wasteland, it's terrain so alien however that it had drawn yet another clear barrier between the other two meeting lands in the distance, making them a three way border. She found it very weird to see all this from a slowly closing distance.

She suddenly felt more than heard the beating of another pair of wings and she instinctively growled, throat and chest aglow and she looked behind the two of them. She made a strangled noise in her throat as she saw the absolutely massive bird that leisurely started to follow them. She could feel her companion dive down, she clung onto her grip, eyes focused on the bird's head that followed their movement. She did not like at all to be made to feel like prey. She also hated the vertigo and the fact her lunch and/or dinner threatened to come back up as the g-forces pushed on her body and very nearly out of her friend's grip as they dove for cover into the trees. She found herself being let go as her friend couldn't quite pull up in time to avoid skidding along the ground, she rolled into the movement to keep momentum and to spring up onto her feet as soon as possible. She saw the tail-end of her friend, wings folded, rending a rut into the ground with their own weight.

Lilith didn't hesitate to dart after her, nuzzling up under one of her wings and gently flicking her tongue over her form to check for the scent of blood, a steady low hissing and growling noise continuously leaving her as she did this check. She heard the screech up above the two of them and saw a pair of massive claws uproot several trees like it was nothing. She almost moved to abandon her companion but she shook her head of the thought. She looked around, found her companion's head half-buried, and rushed over to unbury it, licking off the dirt clogging their nostrils and spitting it out to the side, a very brief memory flashed in her head and she had to stop herself from responding to it in any way other than re-enacting the scene. She smacked her companion, getting the dragoness to suddenly splutter back to wakefulness and fear in an instant.

"Use your voice! I'd sooner tear my vocal cords attempting it without training but it's your native language! Use that tingling you felt in your throat! A Roc won't hesitate to eat either of us and I only have so much flame." Magma Grayscale shouted to her friend. She considered the two of them most certainly a great deal closer now, especially after having been snapped to wakefulness. She counted herself lucky that she wasn't abandoned like she expected to be after a crash landing like that. She heard the screech and saw the talons approaching their section of tree line, she promptly spat out a plume of flames, the flames going from orange to blue with their heat, it going from a plume to a more controlled line of fire, aimed at the talons. She heard the pained screeching soon after and could see it abort the most recent swoop but that only brought them so much time. Roc's are notoriously tricky to get rid of or hide from, it was either fight or die trying to run and hide.

Lilith saw the impressive display of fire power and control, a part of her just could not believe that a video game's magic dragon language genuinely worked like the spells in said game, her kin has simply been using it because it was easy to do with or without lips, and their sub-vocals could account for some of the sounds human lips could produce if followed by the sounds before hand. It was phonetically easier on them. She supposed though if pegasi, unicorns, and dragons existed that this could happen to though... Aha! She remembered the name of their species!

The triumph was short-lived however as she could see the giant ass bird coming back in for another swoop. She snarled, eyes narrowing as she tried to focus on that feeling that had made her throat tingle, silently hoping it wouldn't fuck up her throat, her talking so much had already done so.

"GAAN LAH HAAS! VEN GAAR NOS!"

(Stamina drain health. Wind unleash strike.)

She shouted the words at the giant fuck-off bird from hell, feeling the rush of energy and seeing the results for herself as it fell suddenly from the sky to sudden exhaustion and was swallowed by a summoned cyclone. She could not fucking believe that worked. Though the vampiric-esc vitality drain definitely helped her feel better as the creature steadily started getting weaker and weaker, the magic stopped eventually, leaving the bird alive but trembling on the ground in a stupor as it processed it's pain and how everything went wrong so fast. Lilith felt good, better than good, great. She inhaled deeply, eyes still pinned with a bit of adrenaline, she moved her gaze to her companion, whose jaws were loosely hung open at the display of power. She crooned under the unsung praise and decided to test something else.

"Shaan haas ahrk gaan."

(Inspire Health and Stamina)

The words came as a near whisper but the power could still be felt tickling her throat, she wasn't expecting the reaction they'd have on her friend however. She watched as her body arched and popped, things aligning themselves and patches of scales and what tattered holes she had had healing and sealing closed, she heard her take in a breath deeper than she's heard her take before, quickly but evenly. She seemed to be breathing a lot better, and looking a lot better to, much perkier. Lilith nodded to herself, smiling about as much as she could as she plodded over. She paid no mind to the weakened screeching in the background and gently thrashing of the ginormous bird, very much content to encourage her friend to keep flying so she never has to look at it again and pretend that such giant things don't exist. Out of sight out of mind and she'd rather be that sooner rather than later before the things gets up. She was thankful the most she got was a thankful nod and then was plucked up once more and on their way. She did not look at the bird or make any move to antagonize it, she'd just much rather not deal with such a thing or it's existence. It doesn't deserve to die, and goodness knows she can't pack away that much meat, she just hopes that sparing it from further damage would simply serve as a lesson and not something to hold a grudge over. She had no idea the stamina boost she had given her friend until she had blithely realized much much later on that they were finally stopping at a lake to rest and drink and get a damned bathroom break in, it was still a ways away from the lines but markedly closer still.

-


In the mean time the elements had decided to grill Maud, though, it was less a grilling and more just them being frustrated despite her brutal honesty and take on the situation.

"She doesn't know the rules or laws, for all we know cows and ponies were a common prey item for her kind in her time, she did only recently wake up from what I can tell based on the hole she crawled out of and the age and make of the rock around it." She had said in her usual monotone to the group, shrugging.

"Besides that. She's obviously confused. Possibly scared. Maybe ask Discord where she's from, or ask Starlight to do something with time again." Maud has continued on, shrugging once more, much to the groups frustration.

It was after the only somewhat insightful talk that the group had a rather tumultuous sleep-over followed by a very small train ride back to Ponyville, dissatisfaction and worry distracting them from their day-to-day.

Fluttershy was both the least and most bothered to a degree, she simply didn't know if the creature was fully sapient or not. Some times that spark was there but other times it was just like looking into the eyes of a fish in some ways. The complete and totally lack of sapience, even when compared to the looks from her animal friends at the sanctuary. It was so troubling in fact that during a scheduled tea date with Discord she had found herself accidentally overfilling his cup. The apologies came quickly and her ears pinned back as she blushed and started cleaning.

"O-Oh my, sorry Discord. What was it that you were saying?"

"Oh? I wasn't saying anything, I think I'm about as distracted as you are, though it was mostly by your tea pouring. I know we tend to empty the pot but I wasn't thinking we'd do it so soon!" He chuckled, though he leaned forwards, serpentine body curling on itself while he rested his head in a talon and paw respectively, his goat-like head tilted slightly, curiousity clear on his features. The tufted end of his tail formed into a hand comprised of the white fluff in order to snap it's new found digits, magic getting rid of the mess and resetting everything.

"Oh. Thank you! Sorry though, Discord. I've just been thinking about an animal I might've run into recently. She's kind of an enigma, though the others are thinking she's a dangerous one. I'm... I'm just not sure if she's all there." She said with no small amount of concern. She looked up at him, brows furrowed slightly.

"Well, tell me about her then! I don't want to worrying yourself into a panic, especially if she's occupying your thoughts enough to be interrupting our lovely tea time." He took a sip of the glass itself, the liquid staying despite the lack of any physical barrier to keep it from spilling.

"Oh alright. She's big and scaly, spikes on her back, rams horns on her head. She doesn't have any lips, her teeth look like their more for shearing off chunks rather than chewing so that's something. Oh! Right, she also was white, glowed blue on her underbelly and eyes. She didn't have wings and didn't speak Equestrian as far as I know but by speaking to Spike she called herself a Dinokclaw?"

Discord spat his teeth out, gasping dramatically after, he grabbed the bones and they disappeared as he spoke, mouth full of teeth not a moment later.

"I thought those were dead! Those were around before everything, they predate my existence even, Equestria's existence, hay they even predate ponies up until ponies ancestors, the Horse, before you lot had gained any semblance of higher thinking!" He recoiled in shock, his hair raising and puffing up until it burst off of his body, leaving him woefully bald everywhere. He shook his head, looking around at the mess and the heart patterned boxers that appeared around him hips with a sheepish chuckle as he swept up the fur, turning some of it into a glue-soaked brush that swept across and reapplied his fur back into his body seamlessly. The whole process allowed him to think for a moment.

"Hmmm... Usually those creatures are bloodthirsty hyper predatory animals, buuuut... The one's that were intelligent eventually went on to become the ancestors to the dragons we have today, only sleeping and awakening whenever exposed to some sort of nonsense that I refuse to disclose to anyone or anypony. No need to open that can of worms." His face twisted in disgust, eyes glassy as if looking at something far off while his forked tongue stuck out of his mouth. He shook his head, eyes rattling in their sockets before he focused back on his dearest Fluttershy.

She had sunken a bit into her seat, ears flat at the news and front hooves tucked to her chest.

"Oh... oh my. And, which one is Lilith? Is she? Feral?"

"Oh hmmm... Give me a moment dearest." He took out a spyglass from his cup of tea, the pattern of the painted porcelain piece on the shell of it. He peered out, watching the old elder dragon and deathclaw flying off to the dragon lands, he hummed in intrigue, getting a gauge before nodding to himself.

"Sentient but has fully feral moments of non-sentience. In other words, very traumatized and very much mentally unstable, but stable enough for her own needs to be understood and met. Rest assured she'd probably not hurt anyone so long as she knows whether or not they're sapient creatures or a threat." He collapsed the rather ornate spyglass into a sandwich, promptly eating it while listening to Fluttershy's exhale of relief.

"Oh, goodness, is it bad to say that's a relief? It honestly makes me think of my animal friends, but a bit smarter. Hopefully the whole situation is simply a misunderstanding. If she's that old she might not have any idea about anything, it's no wonder she's so easily overwhelmed and quick to run." She somewhat deflated with relief, even if she felt bad that such a creature was suffering in any capacity, it was simply a relief to know that what she had done may simply have be borne of instincts or a reaction to a traumatic event. It was news she's have to tell her friends, but for now she could finally find her appetite returning and happily munched on a sandwich, ears perked towards Discord.

"Now, Discord, how was your week so far?" She smiled happily at him, happy to be able to find focus on the conversation with her worries assuaged.