Arslan impatiently tapped on the sheet with the pen. He managed to design the basis for the circle with a triangle. “Gah!” he yelled, “Why couldn’t you be more normal?” the drake-girl sat there with a continued blank stare.

There was a sudden gasp that was followed by a deep yet feminine voice calling him, “...Arslan, is that you?” A female with blue eyes, a slender face, and short red hair stood holding a hand over her chest. “You nearly scared me to death!”

Arslan gave the woman a slight wave as she traveled to one end of the room. While laughing, he greeted her, “Good morning Leila. Long time, no see.”

“Damn right it’s been a long time,” she sassed, “I figured you done and finally gotten yourself killed.”

Arslan looked at the back of his hand then to the front. “Nope, not ethereal yet.”

The female set a teapot on the stove, and she touched a circular area near the face, an aura around her hands lit up in a deep crimson. Shortly after, the burner was activated, and the pot was now being used to boil water. She turned around away from the stove and pointed at the girl. “So, who’s that?”

Arslan smiled and shrugged, “As of right now, a headache.”

“Oh?” Leila pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, unphased by the strange appearance of the girl. “So, what seems to the problem, Arslan?”

“As you can see, she’s not a human,” Arslan informed.

“Clearly.” Leila retorted.

“I’ve had to cast an advance control spell over her.”

“Too wild, huh.” Leila grinned. “So, what is she? Salamander?”

“Drake.”

“Drake? Hmm.” She hummed leaning back in the chair to the point where only the tip of her toes made contact with the floor. “Perhaps you’re going about this all the wrong way.”

“You think?” enquired Arslan.

“What exactly do you know about drakes?”

Arslan looked straight ahead and recalled the information he studied. “Typically, lone hunters, they can’t fly, live in hierarchical commun…” Arslan stopped sputtering out the academic knowledge and looked at Leila, who in return raised an eyebrow, her face said it all.

“So, what was that?” she asked rhetorically.

Arslan pulled the book in front of him. “Drakes live in small communities wherein one is chosen to be the leader often by a show of force.”

Leila smirked and spoke with a hefty deal of sarcasm, “Oh, what a useful piece of information.”

“She wasn’t feral, at least, for the most part. She probably didn’t have memories of her last tribe anymore, so she reverted back to her instincts, domination. Her need to start a new tribe.”

Leila clicked her tongue and pointed her both hands at Arslan.

“I guess I should think about sleeping sometime.”

“That’s it?” Leila scoffed, “I expected you to have learned some kind of lesson out of this.”

Arslan shrugged, “I probably did, but…” he said trailing off.

“‘But’?” she waved her hand in a circular motion urging him to keep going.

“But, for the life of me, I can’t figure it out right now.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, “Whatever.” the teapot in the back started to scream, urging Leila to take the metal off the heated surface. Before she got up, she gave Arslan a light punch on the shoulder. “Never change, bud. Your weirdness was the glue that kept us all sane.”

“I’ll just take that as a compliment.” He looked at the design he already put down, a circle with a triangle in the middle, memoria, a spell for memory. On its own did nothing, but when paired up with linguia, memorium linguarum would bestow upon the creation the creator’s memory of language. On a separate piece of paper, he drew an octangular pattern with a star in the middle, solvite, a counterspell to dissipate the effects of control he had placed on her.

The first to go on was memorium linguarum, the spell, and he placed it on her forehead. It burned up as it made contact signifying the activation and acceptance. Arslan’s attention turned to Leila; she was sipping tea out of a cup; she waved her hand for him to continue.

Arslan took a deep breath and put the dispel over the magical tattoo. In an instant, both the mark and the paper were incinerated. Arslan jumped back as the gears in her head began turning on their own again. The light of intelligence returned to her once more.

The drake-girl sprung up, knocking the chair over in the process, she slammed her scaly hands on the table. Arslan screamed out of fear jumping further back. Leila had put down her tea and reached for a kitchen knife. However, the drake-girl began laughing, “Pathetic,” she said. Her voice wasn’t exactly the most pleasant to hear. It was figuratively rough enough to make the paint chip off the walls.

Her laughter slowly started to diffuse the escalated atmosphere between the three. Leila let go of the knife.

“So, you can understan-”

Arslan tried to say being getting cut off by the drake girl. “Fight me!”

“I’m not really a fighter, but you can fight Man-.” Once again he was cut off.

“Just you, fight me. Right now!” the drake-girl growled.

“We do have a bit of land if you want to fight there, you can,” suggested Leila.

Arslan sighed, “Fine.”

“Ohohoh!” Leila cheered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you fight!”

“You know she’s going to try and kill me, right?”

Leila opened a door that led to the back of the house, “I’m sure you’ll be fine, you lived this long.”

“I’m not sure it actually works that way?”

Arslan and the drake stood in a dirt circle twenty feet apart from each other. In the drake-girl’s hands was a great sword, the blade had been dulled in favor of reducing the ability to cleave Arslan in two instantly. Arslan held a wooden heater shield and a longsword.

On the sidelines, Leila was sitting on a rock watching, Mandilyn and Edward stood next to her. Little Nina was playing further back with the dog she received as a pet.

“I don’t have a lot of faith of Arslan winning this,” said Mandilyn.

“You’d be surprised, little girl.” Leila folded her legs.

“Yeah,” agreed Edward, “back in the day, we’ve survived more encounters than we can count because of his thinking.”

Mandilyn’s grip on her glaive tightened. “The moment he starts losing, I’m jumping in.”