After School Swim!

Patrick turned red again once he'd taken Ciel's other arm. He'd calmed down considerably, so he wasn't so sparkly any longer. His hair only gave off a soft sheen. Since her question was about Fairies, he figured he should answer her.

"N-no, they don't... I don't know if you've noticed, but I've got a tail under here as well. If you really looked at it, you'd see that it's much like the one that belongs to chameleons. Well.. that's where the color changing is from. My skin changes based on how I'm feeling, and my hair changes based on the environment... it changes shape too for some reason, though no one has figured that out yet."

"Ah, yes," Ciel added. "Patrick is special. Lizard tails themselves aren't too farfetched, but chameleons are very, very rare. He's the first one in a few centuries apparently. He does have what I suppose would be considered a "normal" skin tone. He's actually quite pale like all of the other Fairies, but you almost never see it since he's so easily riled in any which way."

Ciel took note on the two people on either side of him. Quite frankly, polygamy wasn't something he ever thought about. You picked one person, and that was who you got. Even breeders did after they'd started the next generation. Maybe this was okay because, even though his heart did, Ciel's body didn't accept Patrick as a life partner. It wouldn't until both of them were old enough... And perhaps it didn't see Ethril as a real partner either since she wasn't a Fair person.

He sighed in his frustrations. It didn't really matter. Things were working, Patrick didn't mind, and Ciel had two wonderful people willing to put up with the mental barrier. Or maybe they just didn't notice. It wasn't as if he couldn't like people or love them either, he just couldn't consider anyone good enough to produce children. It was probably why he'd spent most of his teenage years looking down at everyone. He wasn't ready to have children anyway.

Ethril's last question pulled him out of musings. "Eat?"

"You haven't seen that fatty eat yet?" Patrick asked, amazed.

Ciel rolled his eyes again. "Of course she has. I think she means what counts as sustenance." He frowned down at the short Fairy then. "And I'm not fat."

He turned his head rather dramatically toward Ethril. The majority of his hair landed on Patrick because of this. A disheartened jingle seemed to pour out from under the pink mass. "We can eat anything, dear. It's just a matter of getting it. Fruits, nuts, berries, and sweets are easy, but we've got to lift things like meats and veggies from people. We can get by on just those first four things, but we can still eat meat last time I checked."

"You can," Patrick grumbled, having finally found his way through Ciel's hair. "Pixies and Sprites still interact with humans. Fairies never really did. It won't kill us or anything, we just have trouble with it."

"I'm actually so used to seeing tails that I didn't even notice." Ethril said apologetically. "Being a dragon and all tails are kinda the norm." She giggled and shrugged slightly. "The past few weeks have actually been kinda weird. When you live your whole life being used to watching where you step and general tail etiquette it's weird not worrying about it." For a moment Ethril wondered if there were any faery dragons back at their home.

She'd run into a few back home while they were in their human forms, but they never did tell her anything about the fae. She'd never pushed the subject since they'd been nice enough to even include her. One had let slip once that her mother had been friends with the fae once before she had died. If Ethril were to believe her clan history, the light dragons were some of the original protectors of the fae kingdom, since they were the best shield and illusion spell casters at the time. Ethril winced slightly as that thought led into another and she remembered that she was possibly the last light dragon in her world.

"Well that's great! I guess I was worried over nothing." She rubbed the back of her head with her free hand. "Fascino suggested a place near the middle of town that has a buffet...whatever that is." The conversation of food was starting to make her hungry again. She'd actually not eaten much lunch having discovered tuna casserole was not a tasty or filling food. It'd been a couple days since she'd actually gone hunting and had fresh meat too so that might be contributing to the almost constant hunger she was feeling. Dragons had to eat raw meat now and then, especially while maturing. It helped feed the second stomach that was still growing in preparation for fire breathing, or in her case lightening when the time came.

Patrick pursed his lips trying to think. "Ciel! What's a buffet?"

"You know English, Patrick," Ciel chided. "It's a buffet! It's a lot of different food, and you pick whatever you want to eat. Why are you acting so childish?" There was a tint of worry in his voice then. Ciel had never handled Patrick like this before. He usually didn't have to remind him of rules or teach him words... Sure, Fairies weren't so in touch with human things. And it was true that they all spoke Dutch and Fae, but younger ones knew English. It was necessary to communicate with everyone else. Since the split, the old language was lost to everyone other than the Fairies who kept the scripts.

"I'm not acting childish.." Patrick turned a light purple then. "You've been gone a while so--"

"It's been four days."

"Well, yeah, but that's a long time!" Patrick whined. "I'm... I have a lot on my mind.. Patrice's birthday is coming up, you know?"

"Mon dieu.. that's right..." Patrice was turning eighteen soon. That meant her maturity ceremony was coming up. Being her only family member, Patrick was of course going to be part of it. That explained his blue attire. Ciel sucked his teeth. He'd be spending quite some time explaining things to the two of them... That was alright. It wasn't like it would be hard or anything. "I apologize then, mon cher." He bent down to place a kiss on Patrick's head. He actually managed to revert back to his natural skin color.

He nudged Ethril then. "Don't worry about this with me. English is my second language, not my third. And I don't have a ceremony at all when I turn eighteen. I'll just get some odd.. bodily change or something... I was never old enough for Father to explain it to me. And that's what a buffet it," he added with a smile. "It's a long table with a lot of different foods to choose from. And you get as many plates as you like."

"Oh! Like a feast but you chose your food!" Ethril knew feasts, the high elves had thrown plenty of those while she'd been around. She'd never been old enough in the Southern clan to attend the feasts, and she'd been kinda banned from them after turning Pryonim's hair blue...so worth it though.

"Are you three going or what?" Fascino said as he leaned out the library window. "Or do I need to magic the kitchen to start cooking?" he tilted his glasses slightly down so he could see over them and at the three teens standing on his porch.

"Suuuu-" Ethril hissed between her teeth at Fascino. "Tu la raeim! We're going we're going!" Ethril said reverting from ancient back to english.

"And don't speak ancient while in town. You'll start forgetting the English I taught you at this rate!" Fascino leaned back in and closed the window with a thunk.

Ethril glared up at the window and then muttered a few things in ancient under her breath about nosy adults and how far up the stick was. "Well I guess that's our cue to get out of here." Ethril said as she skipped ahead a of the two guys. She turned and walked backwards as she waved at them to follow. As she walked she got to thinking. Dragons had three times in their lives that they reached maturity; magical, physical, and sexual. She was reaching the sexual here in a year or two which meant her human form would stop aging. Her physical maturity would mean she'd reached her full grown size as a dragon. She'd reach magical maturation in her hundreds. There was no big ceremony or whatever, it just happened for dragons.

The clan got together for a birthday party or something, but that was about it. Things were so different between all the races, even for dragons. Ethril sucked in a sigh and kept up her smile. Becoming an adult was strange and confusing. She wished her mum were here to help; it'd be nice to have another light dragon tell her what was going on. "Hey Patrick..." Ethril asked in all seriousness. "Do you happen to recognize the name 'Allasaril' ?"

Patrick's eyes opened rather wide, his skin going from its natural pale color to a bleak white. "Of course I do! Allasaril is our Mother of legend!"

Ciel looked down at him then. Patrick may not have noticed, but he started squeezing his arm rather tightly. "Calm down," the Sprite warned him. "You're entirely ghastly."

Patrick frowned as he tried to collect himself. It was rare that he ever took offense, but to him, his intelligence had been severely insulted.

"Ma... She's not one of us, stupid. She doesn't KNOW that we learn about those kinds of things. And be happy. She never asked me about any Dragons."

Slowly, Patrick's skin took on a sickly green tone. "I'm so sorry!" he cried, burying his face into Ciel's arm. He peeked at Ethril with the one eye he had visible. "It's just that.. Well, I'm a Fairy! A light Fairy! We know more about her than anyone! My people-!"

Ciel nudged him.

"My ancestors," he stressed, "were there when the grand attack happened. It was right before the big split that the Fair Folk had been targeted so viciously. When the light Dragons were still protecting us, Mother Allasaril was at our Master Cove. She wound up being the only one to survive, so she put up all of our magical barriers so that we could protect ourselves long enough to make our own! Because of that, we have enough Coves around to aid during any other problems. We wouldn't even be around if it wasn't for her!"

((I would like to point out that Ciel and Patrick live in Fair Cove. It is called such because it was one of the first two [the other being Pix]. There are a lot more spread out all over the place, even underwater ones. Also, before their parents left them, Patrick and Patrice were raised in a rather racist home. So when he says 'his people' it's considered derogatory.))

Ethril tilted her head as she listened to Patrick. She continued walking backwards, using her tail to feel around to make sure she wasn't going to bump into anything. 'Mum did all that?' Ethril wondered to herself in awe. She thought about everything she knew about her lost family and added this piece of information to it. She didn't feel sad, more like disappointed that she hadn't found out sooner. There was so much she didn't know; about her mum and about her light dragon heritage. With her mum dead, the last light dragon who even knew light dragon history, everything pertaining to light dragons had been lost. Heck, Ethril had had to learn light magic from a human mage!

"The reason I ask is because I'm a light dragon..." Ethril said with a light shrug of her shoulders. "I've got nothing to go on history or culture wise and well...any knowledge about light dragons is just gone." Ethril wasn't that sad. She'd had a happy life in the Southern clan, so why should she complain? "That's what a lot of my adventuring has been about; find anything that I can so that there's...I don't know something. I'm tired of listening to rumors and gossip about the past." Most of said rumors and gossip had turned out to be false.

And then she felt a momentarily pang of loneliness. It was gone before she had time to really think about it, but she knew why it had happened. She had no culture or people to call her own. Maybe by some miracle there was a light dragon somewhere in the world, but she had yet to come across them. It was hard growing up and winging it when it came to one's powers. Before the elders of the Southern clan had found a light mage for her, a lot of her learning had been trial and error...and pranking. Oh those were the days when she could trap Pyronim in a bubble of light magic.

Ethril reached up and rubbed the forehead jewel that had been her mother's. Had her mother had it then when the clan had been destroyed? How had her mother felt to lose everyone? Ethril didn't envy her mother, not in the least. Losing your clan and family when you were a baby was one thing; you couldn't miss what you couldn't remember. But she'd lost everything and had to live with that memory.

"I bet she looked like a real light dragon." Ethril said as her hand went from her forehead jewel to her hair. "With gold hair instead of brown. Do you know what happened to her? Is she still around? I'd like to talk to her and maybe learn a few things." Ethril didn't know if Ciel had figured out the truth that Allasaril was her mother, but she'd keep it secret for as long as she could. One person learning her secret was enough for today. She'd pretend to know nothing about a dragon named Allasaril for as long as she could.

Ethril thought back to her childhood and recalled all the times that she had caught people whispering about her and her light magic. She'd grown to hate those whispers and the side way glances that she threw herself into studying fire magic. The Southern clan was primarily fire so it wasn't hard for her to learn as much as she could. She'd started wearing more red and using fire more often just so people who didn't know her would think she was just an oddly colored fire dragon. She'd never thought about why people would whisper about her, just that it had annoyed her. Now though she knew the truth; she was probably the last light dragon.

(( Allasaril would have kept in contact with the fae up until her death so there's a good chance that the older fae would know that she had a daughter that was a light dragon like her. It's really up to you if they know Ethril's name. And Ethril has no idea if the fae no about her mum being dead or even about her own existence. dramadramadramaduck))

Ciel kept quiet. There was an awful feeling in his heart; he just couldn't place it. He was entirely at ease, but he felt scared.. cornered somehow. He wished that he knew more about this. True, he had to learn a very extensive history on all things Fair and Fae, but there were limits. Being a Sprite, he wasn't even allowed to breathe on certain tomes let alone read them. He decided to take his chance and just listen as Patrick rambled on.

"Well... no," the tiny Fairy said sadly. "Once she put up our barriers, Mother Allasaril left to help the Fair Folk in other worlds assuming that there would be more attacks." He looked rather odd transitioning back to that light purple. "From what I know, she kept in touch for ages to make sure there was no need to return. I'm sure she would have, but she'd met someone by the name of... Ethorim I believe.. And they had a lot of children."

Ciel rushed a hand to his chest then, a sharp twang befalling him. That's what it was. He thought it strange hearing Allasaril once before, but now it couldn't just be coincidence. Ethorim was the other name that White Cloud had spoken of.

These were Ethril's parents.

Patrick paused when he saw Ciel make such a sudden movement. "A... are you alright?"

"Ou.. oui. I'm fine, dear." He thought about telling Patrick to stop, but a quick look at Ethril showed that she had no problems with this. She no doubt just wanted to learn more about her mother. He had no right to stop her. "Please.. continue."

"O-okay.." Patrick had since turned normal, but an uneasy feeling settled in his gut. His tail wrapped around his leg to steady him. "Uhm... she's not around anymore, though. One night, our Seer suddenly lost contact with her. He sent a party out to investigate, however.. Well it's rather sad actually.. Mother Allasaril and her family just aren't with us anymore." He never liked the word dead.

"But!" he added with a smile, not wanting to ruin their night. He'd just met the girl after all. And Ciel took a liking to her, so Patrick didn't want her to think he was a downer. "Someone got away! She was moved before anyone got there, so we know she's alright even if we can't find her right now. We wanted to ask if she'd take up Mother Allasaril's duties, but she was still a baby... And probably their favorite, too! She got a portmanteau of her parents' names even! She's called Ethril!"

Patrick stopped moving then, pulling Ciel to a halt with him. His hands shot up to cover his mouth and a vibrant pink appeared within seconds. "Mijn goedheid!" Ciel just waited for a reaction.

Ethril felt a cold chill going down her spine as Patrick continued his story of her mother. As soon as she heard her father's name Ethril knew that the fae knew more then she had thought. She looked at Ciel worriedly and Ethril knew that he knew. She considered asking Patrick to stop, but she wanted to know more. She craved to know about her mum and the light clan. Here was the connection to her ancestry that she'd been looking for, and she wasn't about to give it up.

What she didn't expect though was for the fae to know that her mother was dead. Ethril had known her mother was a couple hundred years old and that she'd been mates with Ethorim for only about 50 years or so. She didn't know the fae would know.

"Oh shit..." Ethril felt panicked now and she stopped walking. She really hadn't expected the fae to know her name of all things! She'd only been three! Ethril didn't know if Patrick was upset or not. "Patrick? A-are you ok?" She felt like running away and she didn't know why. That was a lie, she knew why; she didn't want sympathy or pity. She'd grown up with it without knowing why people felt that way and she did not want a new close friend to feel it for her. Hadn't she already gone through this with Ciel earlier?

So what was she supposed to do now? If Patrick knew then it was a good chance that if she went with them to their home one day then everyone else would figure it out. It wasn't like she had a common name.

"Heilige Moeder!" Patrick pushed at Ciel then. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Ma!" Ciel raised his hands up to his chest for protection. "I didn't know! I'm in the third race, remember? Mon dieu... I didn't learn these things!"

Patrick frowned. It was true. Sprites were even less privileged than the Pixies were in their home. He stopped attacking him then and turned his attention to the Dragon who had called his name.

"Of course I'm alright!" He was around her neck in less than a second, yellow taking him over once more. His wings had come out again, so Ciel was nearly pushed to the ground. "Who would have thought our last connection to Mother Allasaril would be dating my Sprite?"

The instinct to run away again flickered through her head and she wondered about it. At least Patrick wasn't trying to be sympathetic or show her pity! She could live with this reaction. "C-Ciel just found out about my family earlier!" Ethril said trying to defend him. She didn't even know her mum was a big deal to the fae, so why would anyone else know but a fae? All she had wanted was to know a little more about her mother's clan.

Ethril oofed softly as she felt Patrick reattach himself around her neck. "Who would have thought the fae would be my last connection to my mum!" Ethril frowned; all of this really was a rather large coincidence. Why had she become friends with Ciel so fast? If she hadn't she probably would have never known that her mother knew the fae. 'I have a bad feeling the Goddess is involved somehow.' Ethril thought to herself as she looked from Ciel to Patrick and then back to Ciel.

"So...what now?" She asked in confusion. Ethril honestly didn't know what to do in a situation like this! She was still hungry so her mind turned to that immediate need. "Let's go have some dinner 'k? Ethril smiled, trying to change the subject the best way she knew how. They weren't too far from town by this point so the walk shouldn't take too long.

"Of course." Ciel took a few seconds to make it to where his two lovelies were. "We are here for dinner after all." He reached up to pull Patrick off of Ethril and placed him on the ground. That same dejected jingle escaped him.

"I don't want to hear it," Ciel sighed. He tickled the spot between Patrick's wings and watched them disappear much more quickly than before. It was a survival strategy. If anything was that close, there was a good chance your wings would be gone in moments had they been left out.

"Here, take this," he said wrapping his hands around to Patrick's front.

The tiny Fairy frowned up at him. "Do I really have to?"

Ciel sighed. He hated forcing him into things. "We're almost there I'm sure, and you're just too emotional tonight, mon cher.. I think a Dragon and a child-sized chameleon would be a bit much at once... I'm sorry, but if you don't I'll just have to grab your tail." He watched as Patrick reluctantly took his hand. The color seemed to seep onto him, crawling up his arm and to the rest of his body. "Thank you, dearest," Ciel said, placing a kiss on Patrick's newly stained cheek. It would last a few hours.

"I'm telling when we get back," he pouted.

Ciel laughed, "Who are you going to tell?"

"Whoever is in charge of you guys."

A chuckle got away from him. "Me, you mean? Himmel and Taevas are dead, remember?" Patrick just hugged him in apology. "It's fine," Ciel said with a smile, pulling on one of the thin ponytails at the base of Patrick's neck. "Shall we go, Miss Ethril?"

((I will draw him for you XD I wish you knew what he looked like TT_TT))

Ethril watched the entire exchange with curiosity. 'My clan is interesting.' Ethril thought to herself as she watched Patrick change to a more natural skin tone. Ethril blinked a few times as she processed what it was she had just thought. She was in a courtship with Ciel and it was obvious Patrick meant a lot to him; so of course she would consider Patrick part of her clan. Who would have thought she would have two fae as part of her clan?

Ethril smiled and giggled softly as the two seemed to bicker back and forth for a moment. The giggle grew and she started laughing happily. "You two are so funny!" She was able to say between gasps. "I haven't laughed this hard in forever!" She was really glad she had met Ciel. But that brought up a whole new question; why had she felt so close to him so fast? If Ethril didn't know any better, she would have sworn the Goddess had had something to do with this set up. What were the chances she'd meet fae here and that they'd know about her mother? Ethril made a mental not to ask the Goddess what the hell she was planning the next time she saw her.

She grinned and lead the way into the town, talking and listening to Ciel and Patrick. It wasn't long until they found the buffet that Fascino had recommended. Once inside Ethril pulled out the money she'd been given and handed it over so they could go and eat. Ethril fingered the flimsy paper money and wondered about it. Why use paper money? It was so easy to destroy! Back home you traded with materials that would last so that you wouldn't lose your income by accident.

They finally took their seats, having gotten their food and finding a reasonably secluded booth. Ciel thought it was nice to be with his two loves at the same time. There was no one there to bother them, and he was pretty sure any other drama was done with. It was nice to just sit and eat his fruit and cookies in peace.

Patrick had taken the seat next to him, leaving Ethril to take the spot across the table. He knew they weren't fighting for his affections or anything-- and he was glad for that!-- but it was still so weird how they got along. Maybe it was the light thing. Patrick and Patrice were rather high up in society, so he could see them maybe having a better connection with the Dragons they'd lost contact with.

He sighed. It didn't really matter. He wasn't going to question anything that was going well. Finally at ease, he took a strawberry into his mouth and melted. They'd been through too much today.

Patrick on the other hand was still rather bubbly. His plate was piled with his favorites as well, but he hardly touched them, choosing instead to pass time in conversation with Ethril.

haha you guys have been chatty (:

Ethril bypassed the salad bar and went straight to the one thing that she was desperately wanting; meat. It wasn't a fresh kill, but it was meat none the less. In fact she wasn't at all sure what kind she grabbed, she just went on smell. Once she was happy with her selection of meat she also collected other varieties of food. She didn't recognize a lot of the food, but it definitely smelled better then the lunch she'd had back at the academy.

With her three plates and tea in hand she went back to the table to eat with her clan. 'Where to start first?' she wondered as she looked over everything she'd grabbed. She'd start with the food she could recognize and then move onto the things that she was curious about.

"I grew up in the Southern Clan." Ethril said as Patrick asked her questions and talked to her over their dinner. "An Earth dragon named Sistra raised me. She's really nice, I'd love for you two to meet her one day!" Ethril grinned and finished off the first plate of food. The second plate had some of the more questionable foods, but it never hurt to try things at least once.

"So what's your home like?" Ethril asked in curiosity. Ciel had told her some things, but she hadn't really asked much. She looked at Ciel and Patrick happily.

(( well we are RPing. ))

"That would be great, wouldn't it?" Patrick asked, bumping his boyfriend. It made him drop his fork.

"It would be awesome," Ciel replied, picking it back up and continuing with his many berries.

Patrick frowned at him. "I don't think he's listening well," he told Ethril apologetically. "Straight strawberries will do that to him. He can eat two in less than an hour! I don't know where it goes." He leaned in then. "That's why I call him fat. I still don't understand why he gets offended though."

He cut a glance at the Sprite by the wall. He was in another world. "Our home is quite lovely, I think! We've actually got a tiny part of the forest all by itself in there! Some animals were caught inside the shield, so we have quite a few of them as well.. Quite a few insects, some reptiles... We're trying to get the frogs out, but the Nymphs don't like that. But it's quite a pretty place!"

He took a second to eat a few nuts. "Ciel lives in a tree, for whatever reason. It's the only thing I don't understand about him. He's so posh, it makes no sense.. But Patrice and I live in a mushroom palace! So many had grown together and off of each other, and they're so big! It's perfect for getting away from her... But what's your family like, dear?"

Ethril grinned as she watched Ciel eat his strawberries. She understood that love of a food, after all honey was her addiction. She giggled as Patrick continued. "Some people take offense to size I guess. I'm a little sensitive about my size too." She was a small dragon for her age group. Most of the other dragons her age were well over 30 feet tall and she was barely under 20 feet.

"You're home sounds amazing!" Ethril couldn't imagine living in a mushroom! Then again she was a dragon and there wasn't a mushroom big enough to house a dragon like her. Maybe if she was a faery dragon, but she wasn't. When she'd first gone adventuring she'd been amazed at how many trees there were outside of the desert. But their home sounded even more magical!

Ethril paused as she thought about Patrick's question. Did he mean her birth family or the Southern Clan? She opted to tell him about the Southern clan. "The clan is pretty diverse, but most everyone is a fire dragon." Ethril smiled as she thought about it. "Sistra doesn't have any children so it was just me and her in her home. My clutch mates though were a lot of fun though! Except for Pyronim." Ethril wrinkled her nose at the thought of that particular fire dragon. "He's such an annoying twit, always bugging me and stealing my stuff. I turned his hair blue once as a prank." A well deserved prank if she did say so herself.

"Oh wow!" Patrick smiled in awe. "I don't know many fire users too well. Just Scotty, and that's by association... But I can do a bit! Mixed elements and all that. And I can do tiny breezes-- nothing like Pinky over there, though."

He thought about Ethril's last statement then. "You turned it blue? Like.. with a potion or spell or something?" It was rather curious. If someone back home wanted to do that, they'd use berries, but that seemed impractical at Ethril's size.

Patrick felt an ache in his tail then. He'd forgotten that he was sitting against it in his excitement. He leaned forward again and let it uncurl before it twisted around his leg. He put it on the side closest to Ciel so that no one would accidentally nudge it. He really didn't need to be scolded anymore.

"Hey, does your tail ever get you in the way?" he asked his new friend. "I'm surprised he hasn't touched it yet, but Ciel gets me every time.. Both ways too, that beast!"

"I actually don't know how I did it." Ethril confessed as she thought about Pyronim's hair. "Sistra said it was illusion magic based off of my light element. I was just so mad at him." Ethril frowned. Pyronim always grated on her nerves. She laughed nervously at her own ineptitude. "That wasn't the first time my light magic acted up because of Pyronim. After awhile the elders found a human light mage to teach me control." Sometimes she still didn't have control and she only knew basic spells.

"My tail? It never really gets in the way. Growing up around others with tails tends to teach you a few things." Ethril lifted her her tail and waved it at Patrick. "And um...Ciel did touch it...once...but" Ethril felt her cheeks go red. "I kinda froze up." She laughed shyly. "When you're a kid, adults grab your tail as a punishment. It's kinda the easiest target to reach for. So we learn very early that when someone in the clan grabs your tail you freeze. Stroking it tends to put young dragons to sleep too."

Ethril lowered her tail and it wrapped around one of the chair legs.

"I see," Patrick said nodding. "We have issues with our magic as children too. That's why the Sprites move in with humans. They're a lot closer to nature than we are, so they'd cause a lot more havoc outside."

He shook his head at her explanation on her own extra appendage. "That's not so bad. You see, the thing with mine is pretty unfair. For one, it can scare me when grabbed onto, usually closer to the tip. When that happens, I just take whatever it is that's touching me. Ciel's even turned me tie-dye by wrapping his hands in different cloths."

He blushed then, pouting at the memories. A normal blush could only be achieved under an assumed skin tone. "He likes to grab me further up too, though. I try to keep it curled away when he's around. It's a very... different response than you have," he admitted, laughing and embarrassed. He must have been loud because Ciel nudged him a bit with his elbow.

"Well when people not in the clan grab dragon tails, dragons can go berserk depending on the individual personality." She'd never had to go throw it, thank goodness, so she had no idea what her own reaction would be. Pyronim once had his tail grabbed by a visitor to the clan and he'd trasformed and engulfed himself in flames. Ethril had never seen him that angry before.

Ethril finished her third plate and contemplated getting more. She didn't feel hungry anymore and she didn't want to get a stomach ache from over eating. "I must be nice to hide away your wings and tail." Ethril murmured softly. She'd tried to learn, she'd tried to hide her wings once, but she'd gotten so sick that she'd been bed ridden for a week. No one had ever figured out why Ethril, who's light magic could create illusions, could not hide her wings, tail, or clan markings.

"I'm going to go grab some dessert," Ethril said, pulling herself out of that melancholy mood. "You two want anything?"

"I can't really hide my tail, so I can kind of understand how you must feel," Patrick started off. "You should come home with us, I'm sure someone there could--"

"Mousse, s'il vous plaît," Ciel mumbled in response to her dessert question. Patrick was taking too long.

The little Fairy sighed. "I'm fine thank you. But like I was saying, you should come back with us sometime! I'm sure one of our Elders could help you figure out why you can't... Because I'm pretty sure Dragons should be able to," he added, furrowing his brow.

Ethril winced at the 'should be able to' part. There was a lot she should be able to do but can't. She should be able to hide her wings and tail, she should be able to use her magic better, she should be able to control her instincts better. It irked her that she had such flaws. What was the point of being a dragon if she couldn't reach her full potential.

Maybe talking to one of the fae elders would be helpful! They'd no more about light magic too! "I'd love to go." Ethril said with a smile. "There's so much that I need to learn." Ethril stood up and neatly stacked her dirty dishes together near the end of the table. "I'll be right back with your mousse Ciel!" Ethril winked and turned away to go and get hers and Ciel's dessert.

Ethril's tail moved with her body as she walked through the crowd of people. Her wings were clamped down on her shoulders so they wouldn't bump into anyone. Ethril examined the desserts and watched as one person pulled a lever and a white cold creme came out. Intrigued, Ethril grabbed a bowl and got some for herself. She also grabbed some cookies, the mousse, and what looked like a berry tart.

She carefully carried the treats back to Ciel and Patrick. "Here we go!" She grinned and handed the mousse over to Ciel and set the tart and cookies in the middle of the table for everyone to enjoy. She picked up her spoon and took her first bite of the cold white creme stuff. Her eyes went wide and she licked her lips. Whatever this was, it was good!

"Thank you, dearest," Ciel sighed appreciatively. He took his mousse and began to take it down. "You might want to put a bit more thought in to coming with us though. You'd have to wait for Patrick to get you that potion which means you'd be stuck with me at the gateway for a while.. And you'd probably have to wear different clothes unless you don't mind being naked."

Patrick sank his elbow into Ciel's ribs. It nearly made him cough up everything he'd just eaten. "Why are you so pessimistic? She said she wanted to come; why won't you let her?"

Ciel collected himself and put his fork down. "Why do you abuse me so, mon cher?" He pulled Patrick close to him then and whispered a quick warning in his ear. When the tiny teen did not agree, Ciel frowned and placed his hand under the table. Patrick nearly fainted.

"Stop that!" he cried, rather appalled. "You're so obnoxious." He turned his attention back to Ethril. "Ignore him, hon! You should come! It wouldn't take too long to get the potion either! He's just being a sourpuss again." He leaned in to whisper to her. "He's probably got a stomach ache from eating SO much."