Page 5 of Culture and Curiosities
For a human, she seemed to understand the problem with the locals…were they sure the humans in the area were in the dark about the whole dragons and mages thing?
“How about I promise that you can tattle on me to my mother if I say anything inappropriate?” That got a laugh as I waved my phone at her and she shook her head. “Some of us can behave.”
Just not the diner men.
And clearly some of them had been candle shopping recently.
Hmm.
They knew none of this stuff could go up their asses, right?
Chapter 2
Toman
“I don’t care what their celebration entails. I will not go.” Klynn looked a bit like a dragonling that was getting ready topitch a fitas those that spoke the human language English would say. “You cannot make me.”
I was beginning to understand what the local population meant when they said some dragons were very dramatic.
Before we’d come to Earth, I would have said he was even-tempered and what humans would call boring.
I would have been wrong.
“Thank you for practicing your English.” It’d only taken him two weeks to give in on that one, so we were making progress. “It has improved greatly.”
Praise was not helping the situation.
Somehow, it seemed to be making him angrier but that expression was fleeting.
“One of us needs to stay at the portal.” He frowned and shrugged as he gestured in the direction of the portal we’d used to come to the world of Earth. “You may deal with understanding their social rituals.”
Social rituals were an important part of getting to know any community, and it was especially important when it came to understanding the dragons and mages who’d been trapped on the Earth side of the portal.
Several hundred years had changed our people in interesting ways.
“I agree that guarding it is important until we establish formal communication, however, we have put up a barrier to prevent aggressive creatures from coming to this area, so I believe it will be safe for a few hours.” That wasn’t going to be enough to get him to go back into town, but it felt necessary to push back against the unreasonable behavior.
“No.” One of the only things Klynn seemed to have learned from the humans was a statement that no was a complete sentence.
It was an unfortunate lesson.
Others had been harder to assimilate but he’d found that one to be frighteningly easy.
“Fine.” Refusing to perform the human mannerism of sighing, I stood from the overturned tree I had been using as a seat and did the shrug movement. “I will go.”
I’ll go.
The human language English was fascinating, but somehow we had not absorbed it correctly.
“Enjoy viewing the mates celebrate their union.” Klynn turned back to the reading device he’d traded gems for. “I will guard the gate and practice reading English.”
For an unknown reason, he preferred the visual language over the verbal one. I was not sure why historical information and what the humans called poetry was so interesting but it was to him. I had always found reading to be necessary but tedious, however, I was starting to have questions about what he was learning.
“I will return with human food later.” I wasn’t sure what would be offered but we’d quickly learned that any and all social events would provide options for food, and if someone performed the act oflooking hungrythey would be provided with extra.
Our people had integrated with the locals so thoroughly that they had picked up a variety of extensive nonverbal cues.
“Thank you.” His manners had greatly improved after earning his path.
