Dianna walked around the forest with her hood pulled over her head, and her hands shoved into her pockets. She was surprisingly cold, just not completely freezing, because she was in her hybrid form and had traits of a human, but still had dragon parts and abilities. Dianna was heavily breathing, inhaling cold air and a few snowflakes, and exhaling a small but easily visible flame. She was not happy being the one that had to hunt food for her siblings just because it was 'her turn'. She shook her head to herself, wondering why she didn't plan ahead with the hunting schedule, then stopped in place.
In the distance she could hear rustling of bushes, and could smell a faint scent of something, but couldn't clearly make it out. Dianna really wanted to get this over with, so she quietly side-stepped to the closest tree, and pulled herself onto a branch that could hold her body weight. Then she inched towards the direction she heard the rustling, without getting out of the tree, to investigate.

A figure searched through the bushes at that same moment. An older man that had dropped something on the ground and was looking for it. He hadn't paid any attention to his surroundings during his search. For all he knew, there was an entire gang of robbers hiding in the bushes around him.

Finally, he found what he was looking for. It was nothing more than a pair of reading glasses. A banal thing, but necesarry for his attempts at reading the map the local yokels had given him. He hadn't much faith in the piece of paper seeing as their 'help' had already seen him completely lost in this accursed place.

Then, his attention was gripped by something. he cleared his throat and looked up towards a articular tree. "The shadows whisper to me about a spy in the sky. Hiding just makes me suspicious, so I suggest you come on down and speak to me."

Dianna watched the old man search around for something on the ground, then saw him pick up a pair of reading glasses. She made a quiet snort, then tightened her grip around the tree branch when the man said something, specifically towards her. Well, apparently the shadows don't like me today, she thought to herself. With annoyance she punched something invisible in the darkness, with the shadows shifting an inch then back to normal. Dianna didn't want to go down to the man, having her instincts tell her that it was dangerous.

Rasputin flinched for just a moment. “So you control the shadows too then?” He asked, still facing where he had found someone spying on him. “Your rather brutish way of breaking my observation ward implies either inexperience or rashness... Neither are good qualities for one that uses magic.” He was now looking around in the canopy above him. “Look, just show yourself at the very least. The dilligence with which you are hiding implies there is a need to hide yourself from someone just passing through.”

While he talked, he subtly searched around the area. Not with his physical eyes, but with the third eye of his mind. There were many shadows in the forest, but a more subtle approach than direct assault would likely be needed here.. And then he saw an opening. The crevices, nooks and crannies in the roots under the trees. Spaces just empty enough to allow him to work his magic. And so he began molding the deep darkness to his needs.

“To emphasize I could very well strike you down if I wanted to, I'll be uprooting that tree you're sitting... If you know what's good for you you'll stop hiding like a robber lying in ambush and explain yourself to me.”

Before he even finished the sentence, the tree already began moving. Masses of shadow granted physical form swelling underneath it and pushing it upwards. Before long, the heaving crack of a falling tree resounded through the forest.

Dianna continued listening, making a snort when the man said that she might be inexperienced, or just being rash. In situations like this, no matter if the person has the same powers or not, she doesn't really like introducing herself right away. She wanted to at least see how they would react to her being around first.
She thought about a few things when the stranger talked to her, but her train of thought was interrupted by the tree starting to tip over. Dianna looked down, seeing shadows pushing the tree out from the ground. She had to act quickly, so she scrambled to a branch that was facing the direction the tree was toppling over, then leaped to another tree. Dianna grabbed a tree branch, and pulled herself up, only giving the stranger a glance of the tip of her tail.
When she was safely in another tree she breathed heavily, then wrapped her tail around another strong branch that faced the stranger. Dianna didn't want to do that type of stunt again, so she flipped herself upside down using her tail and legs to hang from the branch, and revealed herself to the stranger. All of her hair fell down, inches from touching the ground, with her hoodie still holding some of her hair. She used both of her hands to keep the bottom of her hoodie covering her stomach, then looked back at the stranger, blinking a few times.

Rasputin simply stood around as his spell literally pushed a tree out of the ground. He watched, waited, and he saw just a quick flash of something swiftly evacuating the tree. He only saw a flash of a scaled tail, This detail quite narrowed down the possibilities of what exactly had been up there all this time.

He did not have to ponder it through for long though, as the creature in the trees had wisely decided to show itself after rasputin's show of force. "Hmm... So who are you then?" he asked. Looking her over. At first glance she appeared to be a humanoid, but closer examination showed things to be somewhat off. Her skin had a scalelike texture to it, and horns and a reptillian tail indicated she was quite definitely not a mere human.

"A shapeshifter perhaps?" Rasputin questioned. There were certainly creatures that shifted into humanpod forms for a variety of reasons. Though the only creatures native to this region that fit all of the criteria he could see right now were dragons. Rasputin had reas about the creatures once, though he was quite unfamiliar with the finer details of their capabilities.

"Or.... perhaps a dragon?" He half questioned, half concluded.

Dianna snorted, still not wanting to answer the question about who she was, just answer the simple ones. She shook her head when the stranger guessed about her being a shifter, then nodded when he said that she was a dragon. Dianna flipped down from the tree, facing the opposite direction from the stranger, showing a quick glance of two rips in the back of her hoodie before turning around. For her age and looks, she was actually around the same height of the stranger, excluding the horns.
The snow felt like it was falling more heavily, with the wind starting to pick up. Dianna pulled her hoodie back on and went back to her heavy breathing: inhaling the cold air, and exhaling a small flame. Still, she wasn't easily effected by the cold, but now her body was starting to feel the stinging of the frosty weather. This was a simple signal to Dianna that she should either quickly go get a bite to eat, or go back to the tree house.
She looked at the old man, back to the forest, and back to the man. Dianna repeated this several times until she decided to go get a quick piece of prey first, but she didn't want to leave the stranger in the forest. She started to walk to the direction of her tree house, but waved at the stranger to follow.

Rasputin's conclusion was confirmed by the forest dweller. It was quite thrilling, meeting a dragon. He had expected a more regal or formal guise, though one had to suppose even dragons could have pedestrain tastes in clothing. He didn't have any oppurtunity to inquire further as the as of yet unnamed dragon jumped down from the tree and beckoned him to follow.

The magician had to consider this for a moment, he was still guessing at this dragon's intentions, so for all he knew he was walking right into a trap. Nevertheless, he chose to follow her. After all, his earlier show of power seemed to have intimidated her enough to comply to his demands, and experience had learned him scared people often do not try to do anything against the source of their fear.

Every few feet Dianna would pause and point her nose into the air, as if trying to sniff out something. She could smell a scent getting stronger, a bird-like scent with a touch of a feline scent. A griffin. Dianna went off track to follow her senses, then found a small clearing with a griffin laying on its side. This was going to be easy with the griffin being extremely close to the tree house, so Dianna simply ran up to the griffin and jumped beside it, making snow fly everywhere.
The griffin screeched in surprise and immediately took flight towards the tree house. Dianna shoved her hand in the snow, not grabbing for the snow itself, then pulled out a large rock that was drying up in her hand. She launched it at the griffin's head with the rock bursting into the flames in midair, and knocked out the griffin.
It sailed downwards towards four large trees that were in a square formation, crashing against one of them. Dianna walked up to the griffin while waving over the old man. She put a shoe on the griffin's chest, which was still moving from shaky breathing, and put one of her hands around the griffin's beak. Dianna sharply twisted the griffin's neck with loud cracking noises being heard, with the body slowly going limp.

Rasputin simply stood back when the dragon tensed up for the kill. He bore witness to the brutal simplicity with which she eliminated the griffin. He briefly wondered what the reason for killing a griffin was. Then he remembered dragons tended to be apex predators in pretty much any region they lived in. He wondered if there were more dragons out here, and if so, where they lived.

"Need any help moving that?" He inquired. He had no intention of actually helping, and his help would be rather insignificant due to the lack of shadows in the clearing. Still, it woudln't hurt to put on an ac. If only to appear more friendly and helpful.

Dianna stretched her arms then shook her head at the man. She put two fingers, her forefinger and her thumb, up to her lips to make a high pitched whistling sound. In a matter of seconds, three dragons appeared from the center of the tree formation, jumping down and violently ripping apart the griffin, limb by limb.
The tallest dragon, who was the first to get to the griffin, had midnight black scales and bright yellow spikes running along its back, and on its head was a pair of short, grey and yellow horns. The second tallest had bright red scales, orange neck and stomach plates, and coal colored spikes. There were also a pair of dark grey horns popping out from fire colored fur it had on its head, with the horns curling backwards. The shortest, and the one that was struggling to get a bigger bite to eat from the griffin, was a female looking dragon that looked a lot like a cupcake. It had light blue scales, bright red neck and stomach plates, and purple fur on its head. Its pointed horns and spikes were white with small specks the color of blue, purple, and red.
Dianna crossed her arms then looked at the old man with a poker face, wanting to see his reaction to this.

Rasputin was no stranger to predators eating. The dragons were actually quite tame in method when compated to some exotic specimens he had studied in the past."Family of some kind, I presume?" He simply asked. He wasn't at all bothered by the griffin being reduced to scraps of gore and bones before him, or at least he wasn't letting it on. "Well, you've got me somewhat worried the intent here might be that I'm dessert."

He stared directly into the humanoid-formed dragon's eyes. "Thought that would be quite the breach of hospitality, so let's hope that's just me being overly careful". The implication of his words was made quite clear by the change in his tone of voice. Sligthly treathening, but still calm and collected.

The moment of silence that fell after this was interrupted by a stomach rumbling ever so slightly. It had been quite a while since Rasputin himself had had the chance to eat. "Would you mind if I joined? I wouldn't mind eating from your... cuisine." It was true, he hadn't the sligthest qualm about eating the scraps off of a torn-up carcass. It wouldn't be the first time he did that either.

Dianna nodded when the man asked if this was her family, making her look back at her two brothers and sister. She continued listening to the man talk, then looked back finding him staring into her eyes. Dianna whispered something to the black and yellow colored dragon, with the dragon backing away with one of the griffin's legs in its mouth. It dropped the leg in front of Dianna, turned its head towards the stranger, then flew back to the top of the square tree formation, disappearing out of thin air. Now only the fire colored and cupcake looking dragons were left.
With a grunt Dianna bent down and picked up the griffin leg by its foot, not eating it until her two siblings stepped away from the dragon. After a few minutes of loud crunching sounds with blood, meat, and feathers flying everywhere, the two dragons finally flew back to the trees and disappeared. Dianna flopped down next to the griffin carcass with most of its body gone, including the bones, but it still had enough meat left to serve the old man and herself. She slowly nibbled on the leg looking a bit more civilized compared to her siblings, even though she was eating a mythical creature's leg, while waiting for the stranger.

Rasputin Waited some more for the carnage to subside. It seemed the other dragons had indeed left some scraps for him. He took his gaze away from his conversation partner to pick out some bits of uncontaminated meat. He didn't know if dragons had any diseases transmissible to humans, but he wasn't taking any chances. He had come too far to die to the dragon version of the common cold.

"So... I thought dragons lived in remote castles on top of huge piles of treasure... Guess that's yet another fabrication of the peasantry." He said. More to keep the conversation going than anything. He had found a side of the griffin to his satisfaction. He took a moment to calculate the correct angles to make a perfectly clean cut. a pulse of magical energy, and a series of blades made otu of shadows sprung up from under the carcass. After that rasputin simply had to reach out and retrieve his freshly cut griffin steak. He did the same to the stone that had been sued to down the griffin to get a rather well-cut stone plate."Now... I can do many things, but conjuring fire is not one of them, would you mind sharing your fire? I don't know about dragons, but humans have grown rather accustomed to eating well-cooked meat."

As he said this, the shadows had already assembled a campfire, fire pit and all, near the edge of the clearing.It didn't seem this relatively complex action took any large amount of attention from Rasputin. Almost as if the shadows were an extension of himself rather than a mere magical spell.

Dianna, who was easily annoyed by this type of myth about dragons living in castles, immediately rolled her eyes and continued to eat. She watched the man use the shadows to cut both the griffin and stone, and make a campfire near the edge of clearing. Dianna snorted at the placement of the campfire, waving around the completely cleaned griffin leg towards its direction, with the shadows taking physical form and pushing it in the center of the tree formation. In the center of the tree formation there was surprisingly no snow there, with a square patch of grass being pushed around by the wind, as if something blocked the snow from going to that area but not the wind itself. This was a perfect place for the fire to be placed at.
She scoot herself next to the campfire setup, throwing the clean griffin leg into it, then blew on the wood lightly. Crackling could be heard getting louder and louder, until a flame burst from the campfire. Dianna put her hand the fire, closed it, then took her hand back out. She turned her upper body slightly until she could see the old man, then held her closed hand out.

So, the dragon was a showoff herself too then? Rasputin silently watched as she did her thing. It appeared shadows and flame were not the only elements she had dominion over. While she worked on the fire, he searched out some stickes to affix the steak voer the fire with.

He handed his dinner to the dragon, along with the sticks. "So... I feel like I'm doing all of the talking here, and I don't even know your name yet. That's hardly good conduct towards your guests, now is it?" He hoped she would gzet the hint and tell her his name. "I'm Rasputin by the way,"

Dianna stopped blowing on the fire then took the man's dinner and sticks, squinting her eyes at him, wondering what she was going to do with this. If he doesn't take this away, I'm just going to eat it, Dianna thought, putting the stone plate down and dropping the sticks. She snorted when the stranger, who was apparently called Rasputin, tried to find out her name. She didn't really have anything else to do or say so she said quietly, "Dianna Dargon."
After a moment of silence Dianna took her still closed hand, and made it hover above the stone plate with the steak on it. She opened her hand wide, and a small amount of flames dropped upon it. The steak was surrounded by the flames, but was only being slowly effected by it. Dianna then waved her hand with the flames disappearing. She was slowly becoming bored, wanting to go to the tree house.

Rasputin observed the dragon fumble about. She seemed utterly lost as to his intentions, did she not know how to cook something? "err... if I may say so, that's a rather rare steak, may I suggest cooking it longer than a few moments?" His voice had a slight tinge of irritation to it. He was hungry, and his host's ignorance was not helping. "Look, just light the fire and I'll do the rest." He simply asked.

He wanted to cook this? Hmph, she thought, turning back to the fire that was slowly dying out. Dianna blew harder on the fire with a bigger flame erupting from the campfire. She took one of the sticks and stabbed the steak, then put it over the fire. The steak cooked rather quickly, and once it turned brown Dianna took it out of the fire's range, flopping it back down on the stone plate. She stared at the steak for a few seconds then put her elbow on her thigh, leaning on her hand. Dianna gave Rasputin a 'Are you happy now?' type of look, then turned back to the fire.

The steak was taken back and thoroughly cooked. Rasputin was so hungry at this point he didn't complain about the fact it had gone from rare to overdone. He ate the meat with his hands, silently cursing the lack of proper utensils out here in the wilds.

Once he had finally eaten, he decided to return the conversation to more relevant matters. "I have found myself quite lost in these woods, would you know where I would need to go to get to the nearest town or village? An outlying farmhouse would be well too, just as long as I can get back on a proper road."

He surveyed the sky, gauging the position of the sun. "Also, the hour grows late, and the nights are way too cold to travel... Would you know anyplace to sleep?"