“You KNOW this dragon???!!!!!!” Hope screeched.

These humans are on my property and they are not like you. I am merely protecting what is mine. Yuiops growled.

“Look, Yuiops, how about we just sort this out privately. I’ll call Iris here too!” I reasoned, then called Iris.

All right. But you’ll have to give me reasons to not just incinerate these humans, as well as why I should allow them to live here. I have high expectations of you, Mensal, so I will need a full and thorough explanation of why you brought these humans here and why I should not incinerate them. Yuiops walked over to his cave, with myself following.

“Okay, first off, you do know that it would be better for humans to be fine with magic, like the beginning times, correct?” I began, and Yuiops nodded. “The first step in getting humans to be fine with magic is getting some of them to be our allies, correct?” Yuiops half-heartedly nodded.

Well,” I continued, “these humans are humans that have a secret group that supports magic, and they are located at my old college! This has to be the right choice in building a relationship with humans!”

Impossible. Yuiops snorted with smoke coming out of his nostrils. Humans have always been our oppressors since the very beginning! We cannot trust these imbecile humans! Humans cannot and never will be trusted!! With that, he shot a burst of flame at one of the wooden supports holding up the cave longer down the tunnel.

The wood turned into a pile of ash, and the tunnel collapsed. I cannot believe how incredibly unintelligent you are, Mensal!! I thought you were better than this!

Then Iris arrived, and reasoned, Father, I agree with this plan. If you could look past your hatred of humans, you will be able to see that this plan is an excellent one. If Mensal is able to mend the relationship between those with magic and those without it, the world could become peaceful and prosper once more!

Yuiops sighed deeply, then stated: For now, I shall not burn those humans. Leave me, I would like to be alone. With that, Yuiops spread his wings and flew to the morning sun.

Welp, that didn’t go as well as I would’ve preferred. I thought to Iris.

Well, what did you expect, Mensal? Iris inquired. My father is one of the eldest dragons in existence, and it is very hard for him to open his mind to new thinking. In his opinion, every normal human is evil and does not deserve to live. If he had his way, he would call upon every single dragon in existence to combat the humans. One time, he even challenged Ghandeev because he thought that action against the humans was needed. The only reason there has not been another dragon-human war is that Ghandeev is wise and decides to not risk all-out combat with the humans.

Well, it does sound impulsive for Yuiops to just think that he could rush in and defeat all of the humans. After all, humans did defeat the dragons before… no offense, I opposed that decision by the way.

No offense taken.

I walked out of the cave and realized that everyone had been staring at our conversation. “What?” I asked, confused about why they were all staring at me.

“Um… Hello Mensal?!! You just stared down that dragon without flinching or blinking an eye! And that dragon didn’t even scratch you! And then another dragon came in and it didn’t hurt you! And now that first dragon is gone! What happened in there?!!!!” Logarth exclaimed.

“OK, so that first dragon was Yuiops. I first encountered him when I first came into my room, and then I cured his daughter, the second dragon, with whom I bonded. Her name used to be Kuperos, but now it is Iris or Iris Shiner. She is also the ‘size-changing beast’ that you saw in the dome. Also, I was speaking telepathically with them; I can do that because of my bond with Iris. I was trying to convince Yuiops to allow you to live here. Be glad that he did not incinerate you to a crisp, so don’t wander off or threaten anything dangerous. He left because Iris was supporting me and he is one of the elder dragons which makes it harder to change his thinking. He supports the idea of leading the dragons into an all-out war against the humans.” I paraphrased our conversation and added details about who the two dragons were.

Raina and Hope just stared in silence. Tagarth and Logarth’s mouths were so wide that I thought they were trying to catch flies. Laura fainted, and Ted, her brother, caught her.

“W-what? H-how am I not sur-surprised, M-Mensal?” Logarth stuttered.

Raina breathed in deeply, then exhaled. “How is it that you have such an adventurous life while we have such boring ones?”

I shrugged, then continued, “Do you still want a magic demonstration in the order that we were going in for the demonstration at the dome?”

“Sure, why not!” Tagarth stated, and everyone except the unconscious Laura nodded.

“Actually, can we wait for Laura to wake up first?” Ted asked.

“No need to wait- I’ll just heal her.” I bent over and summoned my healing power to my fingertips. “There, done!”

Laura opened her eyes and blinked. “The last thing I remember is blacking out. How long have I been unconscious?” She looked at the sky. “Is it already tomorrow?”

“No, it’s still the same day,” I informed her. “I just healed you using my healing ability. Anyways, I’m going to do a magical demonstration. My dragon Iris is going to help me.”

“Yay!!” Laura cheered as she danced around. Suddenly, she tripped, then blushed and squeaked, “Nothing to see, nothing to see here!”

Ted chuckled, and soon enough, everyone was roaring with laughter.