Her sassy little response about her being in front of him while they traveled irritation Tychon, but in an amused way. It was clever and being of the unimaginative sort, he respected it despite the nasty shout in his brain to bite her for being undeterred in her attempts to converse with him. Thus, he could only snort into her face and march away to lay in the cold water. While her closed his eyes in mild relief, she challenged him. Tychon’s ears popped up, betraying his surprise at her attitude. She seemed oblivious to his displeasure, entirely comfortable around his disfigured face, and now wanted to debate with him. He felt… squeamish. He didn’t like the feeling. Or maybe he did. He wanted to argue.

He felt himself squish closer into the mud for a moment, unsure about the prospect, and feeling guilty about his longing to to try. Magic was a stupid thing to debate anyways. Proving anything about a force that was invisible was difficult. Further more, being blunt or argumentative was forcefully dissuaded in nearly all situations. Tychon looked to his right uncertainly while the side of his missing lip wrinkled into grotesque forms of consideration. Finally he barked, splashing water around his face while he replied, “You’re on, pipsqueak.”

He breathed bubbles into the water while he thought about where to begin their argument. He supposed he had better make sure of what the definition of magic was. It’d be idiotic to try to prove the event of a thing without clarifying what that thing was. But, he supposed even more pressing than that would be to know who he was debating with. He couldn’t just keep calling her derogatory names if she were his opponent - he had to at least act like he respected her if she were going to be convinced of his ideas. He brought his head up and looked at the pup to ask, “First off, who the hell are you?”