Ashton stood as sentinel. He was giving up a night of flying and checking on his lair to monitor Kana while she went through the strange occurrences that were troubling her. The sacrifice of his time was worth it to the dragon, who viewed Kana with a kind of possession that he would have over other people he'd gotten close to. Ashton had learned not to hold onto all of them so tightly, but when one was threatened, he acted. Ashton was not a passive kind of person who let things slide without a great deal of effort from him. Though he had gotten better at letting comments and things go and not irritate him too much, things like this, like Kana's telling him her spirit was leaving her body on the full moons, was something he would not just put down.
When the spirit left the body, the dragon was taught, it died. That was the definition of death, was it not? Dead things had no spirit. Vampires had no souls. Ghosts had no bodies. That was how it worked. The idea of Kana turning into a spirit greatly disturbed the dragon who valued her as a like-kind because of her fire. She was someone he could exercise his fire with without hurting her and though Kana may be timid and shy, afraid of others almost, the kitsune girl could withstand a blast of dragonfire and that had earned Ashton's respect.
He stood near her bed, watching over her as she slept, arms crossed. His eyes narrowed, following the rise and fall of her chest for signs of it stopping. One minute she was laying in her blankets, peaceful and beautiful, in that human beauty kind of way, and the next there was a ethereal shape emerging from her that came to look like a two tailed fox.
Ashton's eyes widened, watching with increasing concern as the spirit fox took form, and he stepped closer, reaching out to touch her without fear of being bitten or harmed - not because he knew she was incorporeal, but because he knew this was Kana. This was his friend.
"Kana," he spoke in a low voice as his fingers passed through her, eyes shifting to her human form. He reached instead for the girl on the bed, fingers lightly touching her shoulder. "Kana!"