⭐ Illusions & Fire ♨

Drake was enjoying himself a little too much, given how much he smiling about this whole thing. His face seemed about as red as hers, though it was only from the effort not to laugh. He failed when she clung to the tree like a stranded cat when it moved to lower her down, her hands and legs clinging to the bark. Drake turned and laughed into his elbow, which was blanketed by him pretending to cough. He snorted and straightened up, biting his bottom lip. "Sorry. Whoo! Maybe I just need some water or something?" He 'coughed' again.

When she growled at him about his suggestion for helping her with the Gorgon's saliva, he raised a finger as if disciplining a small child. "Ah-ah-ah~! Let's speak a little nicer to the wizard who only saved your life." He shifted one hand behind his back sneakily, digging out a tiny bottle with a small cork in the top. It was good thing he kept the Bottle of Draco from all those years ago. "And saved you from a saliva problem!" He spoke in a different dialect that was really just a bunch of gibberish, and pretended to cast a spell with visible hand waving at her tunic. Unbeknownst to anyone but him, the saliva was stripped from the tunic's fabric as if it were as easy as moving a leaf from the ground. The very moisture was visibly stripped from the clothing, where it floated towards his visible hand. Before it could turn to the hidden bottle, he twirled in one quick motion that allowed the moisture-sucking bottle to get all the saliva too quick for her to notice. Shoving it in to his sleeve like a cardsman, Drake struck a pose and relaxed just as quickly.

"Problem, solved!" He said, knowing the tunic and her own skin would be completely dry. " Though you'll probably still smell like sweat., you will no longer attract any unwanted hypnotists! Now, where were we...?" He snapped his fingers as he remembered, and tossed his large pile of firewood to a spot before his boots. He wasn't sure how long the fire would last with only a few sticks, so he settled for a large amount. The wizard began to conjure himself a fire ball, but he stopped short of spark when his eyes glanced towards her.

For some reason, it occured to him how frustrating it might be to not be able to perform magic the way she usually might as a dragon. To not even be able to defend herself with anything could make for a worse feeling. He frowned a little and looked her over again; oh, how he hated sympathy. "Um...How would you like me to teach you basic fire magic? If a regular human like me can perform such a feat," he shrugged it off as nothing special. "Then yknow....Maybe you can still make fire without being a dragon?"

Well, it is very easy. In many crime-filled places, it is used for self-defense and in safer spots people use it for entertai ment. "He wouldn't admit it aloud but her expressions were adorable sometimes, and completely unrestrained. She didn't even try to hide her excitement at the thought of creating fire, and he wondered if dragons usually showed more emotion to each other than humans did. It was an intriguing thought, but not one that he cared to dwell on for long. Watching intently, he blinked widely as she entered a teensy bit of personal space and left them with a bit more than two feet between them. He considered how he was taught to create a fire spark, and recalled the first step.

He folded his fingers in between each other and pressed his palms out, satisfied when his joints popped. "First, you get the fingers popped and relaxed...If you've ever done that before." He glanced at her hands curiously if she dared to try, and then shook his head. "If not then don't worry about it. Next, just press the first two fingers you have to your thumb." He demonstrated, as though he were about to snap his fingers and waited for her patiently. It was odd--being nice enough to wait up for her. He supposed that he'd want someone to do this for him, if he were in her position.

Cautiously, he took a stride closer to her side and hoped she wouldn't move away. He held up his free hand and made a fist. "Okay. Now this part is the hardest, so do exactly as I do!" He warned carefully and curled his fist around the closed fingers. After waiting again, he breathed in sharply and stared coldly at his fingers. "Fumus! Scintillam! Flamma!"

He snapped his fingers immediately after those words, and it was as if the tips of his fingers had become a candle stick. A medium sized flame blazed brightly in a purple color, but slowly shifted into blue before turning back to purple. It was a hypnotic sort of phasing, the way each hue rolled into each other as flawlessly as the Gorgon's hypnosis. "Everyone's fire is designed to match their inner selves. Some have two colors, like me and others have more." He spoke suddenly, snapping himself out of his own fond trance.

His fingers split apart and the fire vanished entirely. "Now you try. Remember the words: Fumus! Scintillam! Flamma! Exclusively in that order!"

He ignored her reaction to their distance, but focused entirely on her motions. They mimicked his precisely. Her word mimicked his precisely. But the moment she snapped her fingers...nothing happened. Strangely, there wasn't even a sound accompanying her fingers. It made no sense, but perhaps it had something to do with the curse she was under? Drake rubbed his chin and sighed heavily. "Eh, some never get it until days after their first try. Keep trying and you'll get it. " He lied. Well, he had at least tried.

The wizard recreated his flame and puffed it down to the pie of sticks below. He glanced at her, noticing how her skin seemed redder than before. He smirked. "You know...you blush a lot for a dragon." With that, he rummaged around in his bag for a brief snack before bed. He knew he got snack cravings a lot at night and tonight would be no exception. He sat cross legged as he pulled out a small pouch of protein. Protein in the form of dried, pepper bathed strips of Beef and Ham. While it didn't need any cooking, he levitated it closer to the fire to warm it.

"So, Kendall," He began to speak, while the fires surrounded with the mouthwatering smell of grilling meat. "You seem fairly relaxed about me, even if you have your...odd moments. I'm going to assume that this isn't the first time you've been around humans. After all, how else would you have heard of me?" He levitated the meat back into his hands and pretended that it wasn't hurting his fingers or his tongue when he bit into it. "But I feel like there was...a before to your mingling with us. Maybe there's some curiousity to this cat that I'm traveling with? Curiousity about...humans?"

Did she know what a blush was, at all? Maybe dragons couldn't blush. In any case, he snorted when she touched her face in an attempt to feel herself blushing. "You won't know that easily! Not unless you're blushing really hard, then you'll feel a lot of heat from your face. "

"Describe?" He choked slightly on the jerks and coughed to dislodge it. That would make for a long talk, so he'd have to paraphrase things. "Well, if you want to keep up the appearance of being a regular woman, then you'd have to act like one, I guess. And I know, it's probably horrible to impersonate something 'beneath' your kind, but it's necessary in this state. Women around her like playing with their hair at random, walking around with their noses up and speaking like they're better than others! I'm certain you relate to one of those things."

He levitated another piece of protein over to her, and he nodded toward it. "Eat that. I don't want my employer to die of starvation or anything. " He chewed a piece of his own. "For males like me, well..we're supposed to be the serious ones, like you. Never smiling or anything. Being the world's greatest wizard does grant me more....mobility, I suppose. Do male dragons always act a certain way, like do they all like plundering kingdoms and setting people ablaze? Heck, I heard one literally invaded a dwarf kingdom, took it as his new home and now he's 'king under the mountain' or something."

When she tossed tossed back a question that seemed a mite too touchy, Drake paused for slowly and enthusiastically nodding. "In a cosmic sorta way, yes! I think you would." After all, even higher beings had to get bored at some point and use their abilities to quench their thirsty curiousness. He would to be a dragon, a powerful creature that could soar above everyone else and breathe fire without even trying to.

Drake smirked when she bit into the jerky, practically snarling just to get a piece off let alone chewed. He supposed it was a little tough even without the cooking, but he'd become accustomed to food like this over with lifetime. "People are more sensitive than dragons, and take offense to even one's appearance. Which is weird, even to me, but it's been like that for a while." He paused to eat a little more and went silent as he found nothing say or ask. "I don't suppose you want to ask me stuff about humans, or why we need clothes or something bizarre like that?"

Hah. Good. Wouldn't have answered that one." Drake listened and idly twisted the image of the fire, molding it into flaming pigeons and tigers and other odd animals in a slow, steady pattern. "Yep. That's us, alright. Layers like onions, you might say. " When she offered her question, he nodded slowly. Beneath his eyes, there was a distant feeling--something different than his usual snarky attitude. He was silent for moment, and then he blinked and the look was gone from his eyes.

"It's uh...heh. It's almost impossible to explain. It's just a...comfortable feeling. You're just constantly in the company of others like you. Sharing your thoughts and emotions. Connecting without words. " He explained, not quite staring at her, but at something else. Perhaps something only he could see; a mental image that moved. "Playing and laughing at things you both find funny. Sharing sadness, anger. " Drake nodded slowly, almost too softly to notice. "...Knowing that you aren't...alone, I suppose. To sum it all up."

There was silence for a tme, but it didnt last long as the invisible mental image vanished quicker than it came. After a short, jarring sigh through his nose, Drake unfurled the cloak from his shoulders and let it fall back. "Well! If you have any other questions, speak or hold your peace till morning. We have a busy day ahead of us, and I won't have coffee where we're headed. "He plopped back onto the cape as a crude sort of blanket and used his hat as the world's worst pillow.