Here is a thing I had learned about Spirit Beasts, and I had learned it the expensive way, over and over, in places that smelled worse than this one.
These beasts look at you.
They size you up, they decide what you are worth, and somewhere behind the teeth a little calculation runs. Prey. Threat. Food. Problem. Whatever it is, it is a calculation about you, and that means you are, at minimum, in the equation.
This thing did not look at me.
It looked past me, over my head, at the broken dome it had just come through.
'Ah, damn…'
"Celestine." I did not take my gaze off it. "You've been here before, right?"
"Yes."
"If I'm not mistaken, that's what a dragon looks like right?"
"You are very correct summoner. she said, and her voice had gone flat and careful, all the honey boiled out of it. "The horns, the four complete limbs and independent wings. It is one, of surety."
"How rich is your experience in fighting one?"
Celestine released a thin chuckle.
