The mainlanders were terrific, they must be great crafters and builders judging buy the houses in their village, and that wall surrounding it had been a marvel to behold. How did someone go about building such a magnificent thing, I could learn so much from these people if I could only talk to them. Visra sure hadn’t been lying when she had said the mainlanders had better weapons than us. The spears we had back on the island paled in comparison to the one I had picked up from those fleeing warriors earlier. Not only was the wood sturdier and better balanced, but the tip of the spear was also made of some tough and shiny material, it was incredibly sharp too. I hadn’t gotten a chance to use it on something, but it felt great in my hands, and I missed it already. The secret of its making would be a great thing to take back to the island, but now I had Lubus in my sight, and I wasn’t going to let her get away from me. I still didn’t know if Lubus was the only one capable of throwing fire.

These mainlanders were really diverse, Lubus had tiny breasts, so did all the warriors I had seen. I felt sort of sorry for them actually, but then in the village, I had seen some women with bigger breasts, so not all mainlanders were flat chested. There was also some extremely short girls running around, and I felt even more sorry for them, how could they accomplish anything by themselves? I had wanted to ask Lubus about it, but they seemed happy enough, so I let it go, not like she would have understood my question anyways.

Then there were their legs. How they could stay balanced on those skinny things while walking and even running, I had no idea. How did they hunt without a tail to hold their prey down? Maybe they got around it using their excellent weapons, I had only held one of their spears, but if they could make something like that surely that shiny metal could be used in other weapons too. I wonder if you could make armor out of the stuff, those warriors had worn what looked like leather armor, but without a closer look, I couldn’t be sure. Everyone in this village seemed to be wearing some type of cloth covering their bodies. Maybe they were embarrassed or something, Lubus had certainly appeared to be, turning away at first sight of me, her ears turning red. She didn’t look at me again until she had offered me her shirt and I had put it on. Back home we would usually go naked, unless it was too cold, or if we were wearing armor for battle or hunting.

I had been fortunate to run into Lubus, those warriors had been chasing her for whatever reason, but I got to her first. They would have to get through me if they wanted her. Maybe fire throwing was even rarer than I thought, and those warriors wished to learn from Lubus too. They could ask her, and not lock us in this room. Even if it was a fantastic room, made of square stone bricks stacked on top of each other, we were still stuck, and I could see no way out. I was happy enough though. My goals were partially completed after all. I had been afraid that I would have to spend days or even months looking for a mainlander that could teach me to throw fire, the language thing had been an unexpected setback. I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that these people wouldn’t be able to understand me, Visra hadn’t mentioned it either.

I had been investigating the door to the room, it was hard and cold to the touch, and the smell reminded me somehow of blood when Lubus called my name and gestured for me to come over to her. At least we had managed to exchange names I thought and made my way over to her. She started laughing suddenly, and I stopped in front of where she was sitting giving Lubus a confused look, this only made her laugh even more. She was still shirtless, and she fell over backward, holding her stomach, still giggling. Lubus had very short curly hair, and it became full of straw as she rolled around on the floor. She was slightly pudgy, with little muscle to be seen on her body. She was very pale too, she must not get a lot of sun, but when you could make fire appear what need had you of manual labor? You could make other people do stuff for you, but as I looked down at the giggling woman, I somehow doubted that she was capable of threatening someone, she was kind of cute now that I looked at her.

She isn’t shivering anymore, and if she was freezing, I could help her to warm up by wrapping her up in my tail. She wasn’t cold though, as she had shown me in her camp before the warriors had shown up. Maybe she was just scared, or nervous, or something. She didn’t seem shy now as she laughed openly around me at whatever was so funny.

She had a good laugh I thought. She would expand all her air laughing, a little snort or a snore would accompany her inhalation. It was sort of funny, and soon I was laughing too. Lubus made herself stop laughing eventually and gestured for me to sit, so I did, leaning my back against my tail. Lubus then said my name while gesturing towards me. She did the same to herself, but with a longer sentence with her name at the end. She must be introducing herself I thought and tried to imitate her. After a couple of tries, with Lubus repeating the sentence for me I got it. Then I would point out things in the room, and Lubus would say the name of them, and I would try to imitate her. The stuff in the place soon ran out, and I was making an impression of the horned deer when something rattled against the door.

It turns out it was the warriors opening the door, I moved Infront of Lubus and waited to see what would happen. They stepped into the room equipped with their fancy spears, I would rather not test my scales against those things, but if they tried to take Lubus away from me, I wouldn’t make it easy for them, where she went I would follow. The warrior women were escorting a person wearing voluminous purple robes. She had grey hair growing from both her head and her chin. That was another thing that was different with the mainlanders. They had hair in places I had never imagined before. Lubus had some hair on her chin and her chest, it must itch terribly.

The robed woman walked over to us with her head held high, her escorts tried to hold her back, but she dismissed them with a wave of her hand, and they instantly quieted. This woman's attitude annoyed me, so I hissed at her, showing my fangs. The first emotion I had seen on her appeared on her face in the form of fear as she flinched back slightly. She quickly got herself back under control though and said something I couldn’t understand in a calm and collected voice. Lubus laid a hand on my shoulder and walked out from behind me. The robed woman focused on Lubus, and they began talking, Lubus in her stuttering way. I grabbed her hand to show that I supported her, and to maybe give her some confidence since I couldn’t understand anything they were saying there wasn’t much else I could do right now. She looked up at me then and smiled ruefully, before turning back to the woman. There seemed to be a lot of questions about me, at least I thought so by the way the robed one kept gesturing towards me and pointing at me. Lubus answered as best she could, still stuttering, but she was smiling by the time they were done, so it seems to have gone well.

They grabbed each other's hands and shook them up and down once, I looked at Lubus questioningly by raising my eyebrows. She had a guilty look on her face, but it quickly disappeared as she noticed my attention, it was so brief that I might have imagined it, so when Lubus smiled up at me, I smiled back at her. Lubus then led me by hand out of the little room and out of the building entirely. The warriors led us to another building, this one made of wood. Words were exchanged between Lubus and the robed woman before all of us entered the building. The house was filled with tables and chairs, some of them had people sitting at them, either eating or drinking. At the back, there was a wooden counter with a young woman using a cloth rag to clean some mugs. We went up to the woman, and everyone in the place stared at us, well at me mostly, but I ignored them. I had been equally as fascinated by Lubus when I had first seen her so I could understand.

More words were exchanged between Lubus and the woman behind the counter. There seemed to be an argument blooming, and the woman kept gesturing towards me angrily. The robed woman stepped in then, and the angry woman shut her mouth pretty quickly after that. We were led up a set of steps by another woman to the second floor, who had ever heard of or even had the idea of building a house on top of another one, it was quite genius when you thought about it. The mainlanders were so numerous that if they didn’t build upwards their already big village would become humongous, stretching for miles around.

The room we were led to this time was much bigger compared to the stone one we had been in earlier. It had a wooden door, and Lubus was given a key she could use to lock it if we needed to. There was something Lubus called a bed in the middle of the room when I pointed at it with a question in my eyes. It had lots of blankets, and pillows, it was incredibly soft when I laid down in it to try it out. Lubus had gone into a little side room without my notice, and I followed her in curiously. There was a sort of wooden tub in there, and Lubus was in the process of helping some women fill it with water, bucket by bucket.

She called it a bath when I pointed at it, and when she mimed washing, I understood what it was for. I could do with a wash, and I wanted to jump in right away, but I restrained myself, remembering Lubus embarrassment at my nudity. She shoed away the women who had helped her and waved her hands above the water, some words were muttered, and I could feel the water heating from where I was standing. I confirmed it by dipping one of my fingers in it, this was like the hot spring back home. Lubus could do amazing things with just a gesture, I tried to ask her if she wanted to join me using my hands, but she shook her head and backed out of the room. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of company, but as I removed my borrowed shirt and sank into the water all my worries and tension drifted away as I relaxed in the bath.