Lukas recognized Lady Sar’s hair from across the room and made his way over. However, he was unready for what he wound up seeing. The mercury dragon was used to seeing her in her work clothes, purple robes with a lot of pretty gold embroidery and awards adorning it. Of course, she had the robes taken in to show off her curves and figure, but that had absolutely, positively nothing on her out-of-work attire it seemed.

Her hair was worn down, matching the pattern and color of the top of her fairly skimpy, deep-back dress. Mixed in was a medley of decorations of animals and flowering tree branches woven together throughout, with bright gems representing the blossoms and thorns, as well as eyes and claws, and gold making up the bulk of materials. As usual, her ringletted strawberry red hair was flowing and thick enough that it covered her breasts fairly easily, though the scant, multi-colored lighting made it a little hard to determine what color was what.

The skirt of the dress was long and flowing, as well as somewhat sheer, and deepened into a rusty maroon shade at the bottom. It came to just above her ankles, though both sides of the dress had slits that rode all the way up to her exposed thighs - nearly her hips. Her feet were bare, not uncommon for elves, though she had adorned them with anklets that glistened in the same shade as her eyes. She brought attention to all of her petite, beautiful features.

She stood to greet him, and Lukas was startled to realize that the top half of her “dress” was, in fact, actually just her hair. She was walking around topless. He wasn’t too terribly surprised that she wasn’t a fan of clothing - he had seen many, many naked elves and fae since he got here, as the school and settlement, in general, didn’t mandate being dressed. They simply required that they wear their robes so they had some form of identification.

Well. Maybe high elves weren’t so different from the other variants at all. Generally, elves preferred to avoid clothing if possible. Most types of elves were rather attuned to nature, after all. The only odd one out was the high elf type, which he had been under the impression preferred to wear clothing. And, to be fair, she had on more than nothing but… damn. Certainly a step beyond what he’d seen from her before.

Then again, looking like she did, he’d strut his stuff too.

“My goodness, Lady Sar, how the hell are you not married already?” He asked, genuinely baffled.

The researcher just laughed. “Oh, it’s a much more complicated process among nobles than you’d think. Alliances, benefits for the family, et cetera. It’s all a hassle, so I just avoid it in its entirety. I have a few partners, but they can’t be officially associated without a lot of undue troubles.”

Taking a sip out of her glass, which was of a crystal that almost seemed to glow with its own multi-colored light and depicted what Lukas would guess was a simplified version of stories like greek pots, Lady Sar expounded on it. “Besides, right now I’m focused on my research and career. I can contribute far more by continuing my work on Fae hybridization.”

This made Lukas laugh as he sat down. “Well, I see why you’re so interested in me then,” he teased as he tried what drink she ordered for him. There was a definite burn of alcohol, but it also had an almost mesmerizing flavor that seemed to slowly drift between similar fruity flavors. “Fae hybridizations huh? What methods do you even use to research that? It sounds like there’d be a lot of fuckery involved.”

This just got a nod from Lady Sar, her true colors as a researcher shining through as she continued talking. “Well… it’s not the only reason anyway,” she teased, taking another sip. “As far as how, it mostly involves studying the relationships between the Fae, aspects, and the connections between the aspects that get changed between a normal creature and its Fae version, or hybrid races. It’s rather fascinating seeing how illogical and strange the changes are, such as a former earth aspect creature changing to live in trees, for some reason developing a tie to the Fire aspect, and yet not damaging the environment around them. As for fuckery, there is a lot of it, to be sure. However, my family line has always had good ties with the local Fae Lord, and we are all taught how to interact with Fae of this region accordingly. The combination of intellectual inclinations, Fae training, and lineage make me an ideal researcher for this subject. It also frequently gets me dragged into other projects I’m less interested in, but I suppose that’s the price one pays for nigh unlimited access to supplies without having to play ridiculous games of political footsies. Well worth it.”

Finishing her explanation, she blushed a bit and took another sip. “Ah, apologies. I can get rather… into discussions of my work.”

Lukas just let out a soft scoff, waving away her apology. “Trust me, I get it. Where I’m from, you have to woo benefactors for funding, and it often leads to a lack of control over your research. It’s incredibly frustrating. Knowledge is its own reward.” Paying less attention to portions, he took a longer drink than last time. “Maybe it relates to subtle aspect interactions in singular genes? It’s not uncommon for species to develop in strange ways, and if the process of becoming a Fae creature over generations accelerates genetic diversification then it’s possible that they change in even weirder ways. So, if every individual gene expression has its own attached aspect, then the one that would be expressed would be the one with the net largest percent of the ratio. Possibly anyway. Rapid alterations of aspect ratios that are running pretty close might wind up making pretty reasonable changes, but are very unintuitive from an external perspective.”

Many creatures and ideas in this world were alien to him, and elves were admittedly hard to read for Lukas still… but he knew the look of gears turning in his soul.

“We have considered the ratio of aspects in the auras of the creatures involved, but within individual features? If the expression of an aspect in the aura itself might be suppressed by the actual placement of the part of the body that contains the energy in question, then maybe that would result in Unique Aspects appearing in minuscule quantities undetectable by present toolsets…” Lady Sar’s sentence drifted off, her tone and attitude drastically different and less formal than when he entered. Waving over a waiter passing by, she gave them the most positively charming smile he’d ever seen. “Excuse me, might I use one of the spare psi pads? I can discuss with management the payment for it before we go,” she asked, referring to the piece of equipment they used to jot down orders as stated. The waiter looked startled, then unsure. “Ah… I suppose so, Your Ladyship. It may take a moment to procure since I will have to explain before they will part with one.”

She nodded gracefully in thanks as the waiter continued delivering the order in question. In the meantime, she reached down without a thought, effortlessly ripping a long strip up the skirt to make a long, straight ribbon. A quill appeared from nowhere, and she began scribbling furiously as her skirt repaired itself before Lukas’s very eyes. It didn’t take long before the discussion drifted off entirely into the realm of research. She had to explain a lot of misconceptions, but it didn’t matter to him; the chance to actually participate in this kind of conversation had Lukas’s heart skipping beats.

A few hours passed in that fashion, with drinks coming successively faster. They both put up a surprising amount of resistance to the alcohol, in no small part because of his natural poison tolerance and the toughness afforded to her by experience.

Still, eventually, reality became a drunken blur, where only snippets were clear, and even those threatened to fade like a dream. He woke up on a cot in a place that looked deceptively modern and sterile. Moments later, he noticed how utterly bare he was, completely exposed and naked. So, too, was Lady Sar, who had fallen asleep on the cot above him, bunk bed style.

She looked to be awakening as well, yawning in a petite, gentle way.“Uhhh,” Lukas groaned, clearing his throat as his form warped and shifted to that of his natural, tiny chrome dragon self where he felt as though he could be more comfortable nude, “Lady Sar? Did we… I mean… I don’t think we did… but we’re naked… so did we… you know? Have sex?”

Lady Sar laughed loudly, rolling off of the top cot onto her feet as lithe as a cat, and very, very nude, “No. I wasn’t that interested in much more than business, silly dragon. And you can call me by my first name. I feel if we’ve gotten this close that you’ve slept in my lab, it’s only right.”

“I… don’t actually know your full name,” Lukas said, flying up and hovering much like a dragonfly beside her, “Everyone only calls you Lady Sar, or at most Sar. I think I saw your name in a book of noble families, but that was just your house name and some general stuff. Stuff that would last more than one generation, you know?”

She nodded, cupping her hands out to offer a place to perch, “Fair. Kax Imnea Olavrin Sar. Imnea is my mother, and Olavrin my father. Kax is my name. I’d keep the Lady, though, just for your sake. I hardly mind, but others would take umbrage. And, by the by, Little Mirror, I’m naked because clothes are a bother. I do recall you agreeing with me on that and doffing your own clothes. We are in private, no need to be so shy. You’re half-dragon half-fae, rightly you wouldn’t wear clothes in your natural environment either.”

Lukas only huffed at the statement but did not change his form. Instead, he looked outward, around the lab, “What did we… do? I know I tried to help you work on some things with my knowledge of biology and chemistry, but… much of it is a blur.”

“I’m not sure either,” she said and placed him on her shoulder, “Be careful with your claws. Let us see if we left ourselves any notes - we’re both scientific types, I imagine we would have, even drunk.”