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A Convincing Fact of Love

That night was a spectacular show in the center when the New Year drew to a close. The whole Hadfreid family currently resided in Milsteir (which coincidentally only Juagar's family) went to the city center and walked in the 'family-friendly zone' for a night-out. They went to various stores and eateries, while walking down the crowded streets that night.

"So, feeling good, eh?" said Juagar to Richard while they were sitting on a bench exhausted with Kijte. "I bet you never got this sensation in your world."

"Yeah, there are so many draconians in this place. I have never seen so much draconians in one place."

"Dad, what is Mr. Richard saying?" asked Kijte when he heard Richard's weird dialogue. Richard then interrupted Juagar by saying, "I came from a distant place, kiddo, so I never saw this crowd before. Hey, want to buy some candies?" with the young draconian nodded.

While they walked to a booth, he took glance to the passing Cernelesh returning from shopping with Vandel. Richard felt his heart thumping hard for no reason when he saw Cernelesh was walking using casual shirt with yellow color that matched her scales, with blue jeans under it. She was wearing a ring on her left black horn. In Richard's eyes, her walk was made into slow motion in his vision, but disturbed when Kijte pulled his hand.

"Hey, mister, want some candy?" asked Kijte, while Richard snapped from the condition.

"Uh, no thanks, Kijte," said Richard while recovering. "You can have both."

"Thanks, mister!"

When both walked back to Juagar who was still sitting on the bench, he then said to Kijte to follow his mother, to which the small green draconian nodded and go meet Vandel, while Richard sat on the bench beside Juagar watching the crowd.

"Tonight there would be a live concert of 'The Scalie Junctions'. You have never seen a live concert, do you?" said Juagar.

"What is it like?"

"To put it simply, it's a show where musicians played on stage while making a great crowd cheered on their performance. It's a good way to spend your night-out, and also a good way to celebrate New Year since 'The Scalie Junctions' is a progressive rock band, among others.

"Wow...that's a good thing. You know, it's similar to the festival of sound back in my world. Much like that you say, but maybe it's more primitive."

Juagar laughed. "No music is primitive, just old-fashioned. It's going to be year 1021 about three hours, so maybe if you want to..."

But Juagar's word was cut short when Richard again became mesmerized by Cernelesh for no reason, but now he managed to blink before he looked like an idiot, but then Juagar forced Richard to turn his head and seriously said, "Why are you watching Cernie like you're attracted to her?"

"Wha...no I'm not! I'm just looking at her, that's all."

"Hey, Richard, I'm not asking you about suspicion, I'm asking you why you are attracted to her. She's not a lover type, and to give you the truth, she once had this...hobby of her that always made her previous boyfriend ran from her. That's the reason why I really respected her, and you should to by not confessing your love to her, or you'll be sorry."

"But every drake deserved love, right?" said Richard. "That's one of the three mortal desire to live on!"

"I don't know what you're trying to do, but please, consider my words. You don't want any trouble, okay?"

Richard was surprisingly grunting in disapproval, then Engrak talked into his mind.

"Okay, now the poison started to work again," said Engrak. "Shit, I thought stranded in this world would stop it, but it was only reducing the effect."

"What do you mean, Engrak? I'm not turning into a dragon sooner or later, right? I'm accustomed to this world slowly."

"Yeah, your physical appearance stopped changing, but your mental is still changing. It's evidenced on how you became attracted to that female draconian."

"W...what?! Why are you supporting Juagar? I'm not..."

"I can read your emotions since you touched me unexpectedly while staring at her. Just some months ago, your heart, desire, and feelings were still human, but slowly, in this world, you'll lost your humanity and reverted to a draconic desire...and of course you know that desire will struck you if you're loving her. It's inevitable."

"You mean like in case of Shariot and Ray? Love at first sight?!"

"No, Shariot was saved by Ray back when we were rescuing Seraphor," corrected Engrak. "But, it's alright if you really wanted to have a love. You haven't feel any sexual desire for many years, so I think it's your chance to see the facts. C'mon, man, you need to love somebody."

After the spectacular firework show accompanied by the band's slow but energizing songs, all of the crowds went home. Less than 3 hours, they reached their home, exhausted and all. After they put Kijte to sleep, they all went back to their quarters to sleep, but Richard couldn't sleep because now he was struck in love.

The next day, when Juagar woke up, Vandel was making breakfast for both of him and Kijte, while stating that their child wanted to go to the national park with his friends. Juagar, although reluctant leaving his only son alone riding in the middle of the unstable town occupied mostly by thugs, Vandel calmed him by saying that the teacher was a part-time substitute and she was one of Juagar's co-worker from post 34, which were light weapon experts, including dagger, pistols, and combat knifes.

Richard woke up soon after Juagar went and leave with Kijte to go to his school's road trip meeting point. He didn't ask for food, but simply sat down on the sofa, exhausted after being up for five hours without any sleep, but strangely okay. Vandel handed him a cup of coffee with her white hand, and asked, "How's the New Year's eve? Is it fun?"

"Y...yeah, it's actually the first time I got that sensation," replied Richard with croaked voice, indicating his exhaustion.

"You seem exhausted. Never been up that long?"

"Not really...I..." but his words were cut short by Cernelesh's arrival. Seeing the green female made Richard's heartbeat jumped a step. He was again mesmerized by her sleek almost humanoid scaly body, her curved horns, and her yellow reptilian eyes. He blinked once, realized that he was again taken by her beauty.

"Uh, morning, Cernelesh..."

"You look beaten up!" exclaimed Cernelesh when she saw Richard's weary condition. "You should be sleeping more after that night's party!"

"Hey, hey! I'm okay, okay? I have just waked up."

"Oh, but you look really beaten up."

"I'm not literally beaten up, for your information."

"Wow, you really learned a lot for a drake just lived here for three weeks or so," said Cernelesh astonished. "Well, actually, since now you've waked up, Vandel wanted to go to Seiglet's house, so if you want to hang out a little bit, maybe you can see his house...but don't expect things like...uh, our home over here. He's a bit...weird, for a choice of word."

"Believe me, I've seen worse," he said, recalling some of his friends back in his hometown before he was involved in the adventure (who was mostly mercenaries and dragon killers).

Since Seiglet's house was just some blocks away, and also because Juagar didn't want his cars to get wrecked mainly because of both females bad driving and Richard's unfamiliarity to cars, they walked to his house using their scaly feet. After half an hour, both females stopped, and Vandel said, "Here it is."

Though surprised, Richard knew he was seeing a true thing. The place where they stopped had a very vacant space...or maybe almost had nothing on it at all save for some trees and bushes...and a small house at the middle. The house, too, didn't have anything like a draconian's house. It had a clip on one side, maybe it was a portable house too since it had wheels like cars, and Seiglet didn't own one. Or maybe, he hid them? Richard glanced at Vandel and said, "He took up a lot of space for a small house like that."

But the female white black draconian smirked at him from the corner of her reptilian face and then he stepped forward. Suddenly, the whole place started to sprout trees and plants, and other things like swamps, lake, and even a small stream. The place was like a small forest, with his house at the middle of the forest. All around, using Richard's trained dragon eyes, he could sense many other minor reptiles like crocs (he winced when he see one), snakes, basilisks, and other reptiles.

But he swatted those and then he asked, "I don't know there's a magical invisibility shield in this..."

"Okay, Mr. Richard. First of all, this is not a fantasy story book world, and second, he used visionary imaging device planted at his trailer," said Vandel. "This is for him and his pets."

"Although it's a visionary imaging, he had actual pets inside his trailer," said Cernelesh, following Vandel's comment. "But, he used a high tech one, being able to make an imaginary site real enough for you to touch them.... It came from a Northornian he raided in the forest...with you."

"Then...why are these water real?" asked Richard while he was touching the cool, seemingly flowing stream.

"Uh...I don't know what he had in his mind, but let's go in."

While they went in, the visionary images of reptiles watched Richard in a manner like they were trying to kill him or pounce him, but he kept on with the females until they reached Seiglet's doorstep. Vandel pushed the bell, but nothing happened until at least five minutes later when Seiglet went out.

The white draconian was wearing a simple T-shirt with red stripes and white base. The stripes were horizontal, but with uneven pattern. He used shorts with his big spiky tail went out from the back and waving around as if he was happy. His wings were folded by something like a leather band, as if preventing it to be open.

"Well, if it's not my sister! Welcome too, mate," he said. "Come on in."

They went in and Richard found out that the inside was like a pet shop. There were many displays with many reptiles on the way, but then the displays weren't bordered, and thus making the reptiles sometimes became enraged by other's actions and started a fight, and surprisingly Richard, who was now a half-dragon, heard their conversation, which made him even surprised by his own ability.

"Hey, that's my food you're eating, you rope bastard!" said a tree snake.

"This is where my massster gives me my food!" hissed back the python, before they engaged in a fang fight.

"Firas! Colen! Stop! Hey, not this again!" said Seiglet while separating the two snakes using his big (but a little smaller that Richard's) bulky hands. The two snakes were hissing at each other before Seiglet put one to the display over his head, in another snake's display.

"Can you consider having separate display?" said Cernelesh.

"Can't do. It's hard to manage them in separate displays, especially cleaning and caring them. At least, I put separate displays for different animals. You three can sit down while I finish with them."

After a while sitting outside his half-open trailer, he came back while carrying a small river crocodile on his hand. The crocodile had brown scales, with both light and dark hue. He (because Richard saw the croc's 'private') was staring at Richard with a somehow allured look, making Richard gulped.

"This is Thenais. He's an adult, mate," said Seiglet to Richard. "Here, you can carry it."

While Richard went to carry the small lethal carnivore, the croc suddenly jumped to his face and made him fell backward, while struggling to take it again. Thenais then said to him, "Somehow you're pretty good-looking like my master."

"Thanks...for that. Geez, why are you so sudden like that? I almost got a heart attack."

"You can talk to me?!" said Thenais in surprise.

"Yeah, I guess I'm a half-reptile too."

There of the pure draconians became confused when Richard laughed at the somehow growling crocodile. After a while of talking to himself (unknown to them, Richard was talking to Thenais), Seiglet pulled Thenais to his back, while the croc just grunting. While Richard was cleaning himself, he went back to his seat and unknowingly said, "That Thenais is really a good chatter. You do love your pets, huh? He said he..." before he closed his mouth.

"Wait a sec, Richard, you talked to Thenais?!" exclaimed Seiglet. "What did he say about me?"

"Uh, you're good-looking?"

Seiglet smirked to his pet while putting the croc down to the floor while he went to sleep, and resumed the problem.

"Okay, what's make you three came to my place?" said Seiglet with serious expression.

"We had nothing to do with jobs or something else, we just want to visit."

"Oh, but you see, there's a news concerning the safety of some of the guards."

Seiglet handed them a newspaper headlined 'Guards at Risk: Local Thugs Swore for Union's Demise'.

"Local thugs? But how..."

"Somehow those Northornians attacking us were connected to the underground illegal organization. The opposing government didn't have any logs concerning the invasion, and moreover they had nothing to do with the neutral zone since at the same time we were attacked they didn't have any military movement. Those illegal soldiers bear no Northorno logos, and..."

"Okay, look, Seglet," interrupted Richard. "I've heard this from Juagar before. Now, what are the thugs doing? Are they mental?"

"Don't underestimate underground organization, mate," said Seiglet. "They could be thugs, but their black markets are really wide and like roots. Some of Milsteir's weapon shops were suspected as the black market."

"Is that a market where you sell things in black?"

"No, this is a serious matter, Richard! Black market is a place where you buy illegal weapons, usually in cheaper price with the common ones. Most of the banned weapons could be found in the market."

"And where's the base."

Seiglet shook his draconic head. "Black market had no base. It's simply a mobile business, individually or in group."

Richard sighed at the revelation, but then suddenly his feeling mysteriously aroused when Cernelesh started to speak. He didn't realize any of his actions for the past 2 minutes when Seiglet snapped him out of his trance and asked the females to take Richard out with him. They walked to an image of bench near the small lake and he asked to sit, to which, surprisingly, was a real bench.

"Are you okay, mate?" he started. "You were staring at Cernelesh while she talked to Vandel. Are you really..."

"N...no, I'm not really that weird! It's just...whenever she talked, she gestured, she moved, I somehow can't let my eyes out from her."

"You know what? That's the indication of love. Jua once told me those when he was watching Vandel while in high school. But, to Cernelesh?"

"Well, she's just...you know, marvelous in...wait, what did I say?"

"Mate, that's how you got your trance. Also, I saw how Thenais suddenly jumped to you. You also seemed to have animalistic sex appeal too, tending for a..."

"Okay, stop! Please, this is my own problem!"

"Fine for that, but be careful. The world is cruel, and it's only a matter of time before those facts take you and you'll suffer from the 'love-sick' symptoms, like Juagar."

"Why didn't you...have that feeling?"

Seiglet went silent for a while, something uncanny for a chatty draconian like him, but he replied with sad tone and solemn expression.

"I lost it many times ago, and I'm trying to take it back. I only want to friend-zone any draconian I knew, not making serious manner in hand."

"Seglet..."

After a while, they bid farewell to him after a conversation, while Richard kept distracted by Cernelesh on the way home. Seiglet just watched from the distance, and started to mutter, "Richard...mate, maybe something will be different around you."