"This isn't what I was hoping for you know?"

  Aqua tilted her head quizzically. Dragons don't have all that many facial features, we're more built to last than we are to make silly faces, so it's a given that she doesn't know how to really use the human features that her current body has.

  "How so?" she asked. "This is exactly what you asked for, a walk along the beach."

  "Yes- but-" I couldn't really articulate what I wanted to say properly, it wasn't exactly something easy to explain either. "The sunset is beautiful, isn't it?" I asked.

  She turned to look at the distant sun.

  We had to fly to a western beach, in order to get the setting I wanted for our date, and I even caught our dinner along the way, a gigantic eagle-like monster, hopefully it tasted just like chicken.

  "I... suppose so?" she said, noncommittally. "I wouldn't really know, honestly, your sense of beauty is more than a bit bizarre to me," she spoke. "Though I suppose it's a given, since you had to raise yourself."

  "Well at least we're starting to talk about each other and of ourselves," I reasoned out loud. "That's a thing people do on dates."

  "Is it?" she asked. "Well then we can talk about each other and ourselves, as people do on dates, if that's what you desire."

  I hummed as best as I could and laid my large body down on the sand. It was coarse, and rough, and it was absolutely going to get everywhere, but that would be someone else's problem to fix once I got back and had my as of yet unnamed guards, maybe Order of the Dragon? No, that one was taken- wait, it's only taken back on Earth I could-

  "Are you listening to me?"

  "Yes," I lied.

  "Then what did I just say?" she asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest, a bit awkwardly. She had mastered moving and hunting with her human body, apparently finding it exhilarating, but still had a way to go before she was truly comfortable in that skin. "I thought so," she continued while I admired the look of her body.

  I had convinced her to put on a showy, stylysh swimsuit, with one of those transparent half skirt things hanging from her waist and covering one of her long, muscular legs, and a top that was a cross between a regular bikini and one of those genie or dancer outfits that I remember seeing in vaguely middle-eastern themed costumes.

  The dark navy blue contrasted nicely with her lighter hair.

  "I give up, I really wasn't listening, I was looking at you instead," I admitted.

  "I was saying - you really don't know anything about dragons, our societal norms or our ancestry as a species, do you?" she asked, seemingly interrupting herself. "Not one bit... were you not born with any knowledge? At all?"

  "Nope, none," I said, freely. "I'm as close as you can get to plucking someone from another world and plopping them down here as they are," I said, nonchalantly as I could. It was kind of fun to straight up tell people the truth but in a way they didn't believe me. Maybe I can be some wise draconic mentor some day, talking in riddles to a young, plucky hero.

  "I see... That only makes my loss even worse," she said, freely. "Hmm... Your scales shine like silver, yet, they are durable like adamantite..." she walked up to me, leaving footprints in the sand behind her in the shape of the anachronistic sandals I had created for her, until she reached my flank and put a hand on it. "Your power and your strength are second to none I've witnessed."

  "Ohh, flattery will get you everywhere with me," I said, and perhaps in one of the few cases where I miss my human form, I thought I should be wagging my eyebrows at her. She didn't seem impressed by my ability to flirt. "So is there something you think I should know?"

  "Not much, beyond what happened between us, I suppose," she said, turning around and walking towards the ocean, crouching to put a hand on the shore, the water reacting by rippling fiercely, waves greater than the incoming ones generating as she applied her power over the saltwater. "At the end of the day, we are not so much a society as we are individuals. Power speaks. We don't follow the rules, we make them," she said, standing up, raising both hands and then crossing them, wrists in front of her face, before she swept them both aside.

  The water exploded into motion, a massive tidal wave forming then breaking the laws of physics by crashing against nothing, creating a wall of foam, mist and impossibly calming down in mere moments.

  "So if you have the power, you make the rules," she spoke.

  "Oh... right, that makes sense."

  Of course it did. We're creatures that can make the laws of nature roll over and play dead on command. We did this by pure power. So of course it made sense that we didn't see rules as inviolable as the lesser races did... the rules were only worth as much as the rulemaker's ability to enforce them.

  "I really want to know what's up with your name though, you said your name was Water Dragon and you took it from the previous Water Dragon, right? How's that work?"

  She turned back to me. "That is quite simple. Only one Dragon can have the authority over an element at a time. There are many who have power over the element, but only one can truly be the Dragon that represents it," she began, raising her hand again, and counting off with her right hand, starting with her thumb and stretching a finger for each word she said. "Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, Light, Darkness, Time and Space," she finished, having to add her left hand when she ran out of fingers. "The way to take the title is to find the current Named, kill them, and take it."

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  "So you can't just... give it up?" I asked.

  "Yes... but it has never happened in a hundred thousand years," the Water Dragon said, shrugging. Of course. "I don't know what happens if you do abdicate a name."

  I see. I looked up at the sky. The night was starting to settle, even though I could still see the distant sun in the west, the tint of orange fading to a blue hue, the light of the distant stars reflecting through the atmosphere and creating a very colorful display before diffusing completely and losing the vivid hues.

  She seemed to be curious. "You're a strange one," she spoke, her voice filled with honest inquiry. "But I don't find your way of life disagreeable... beyond forbidding me from eating Strananas."

  "You really have a problem, you know?" I sniped back.

  "It's only a problem when I run out!" she accused, pointing a finger at me. "And how dare you invent the fermented Stranana juice-"

  "It's called wine you philistine!"

  "-and not let me have any of it!"

  Surprisingly, Strananas did not have an inherent effect on humans if consumed just as they were. If fermented, however, they made Everclear look soft by comparison. It was also unbelievably fucking flammable, I'm talking, it combusts at room temperature kind of flammable.

  I fear the moment one of them discovers molotov cocktails.

  "You're not paying attention again," Aqua pointed out, calling my attention back to her. "I'm participating on this mating ritual that you insisted on, the least you could do is at least be engaged with it!" she accused.

  "... sorry."

  Yeah... that was embarrassing.

  "I was thinking about fire and stuff."

  She sighed. "Right..." she said, shaking her head. Her neutral expression was a little strained. "Are you going to mate with me at the end of this 'date' as you said?"

  "After a couple... I need some romance in my life, I want to spend some time just talking to each other, enjoying each other's company, see if we're compatible, you know, I want a little love in my life!"

  She sighed.

  "And besides, we'd have to wait until you can regain your true form," I said, "because I don't mean to brag but there's no way I'm going to fit," I said, raising one of my claws and gesturing in her general direction with a wave, turning my clawed hand palm up, paw? Whatever.

  I had two of my claws together, then I pulled them apart.

  "Needless to say... that's not gonna end well."

  "Why would it matter?" she asked. "We're dragons..."

  "Yes but- size is still size!" I insisted. Then I got an idea, making a sphere of latex-like fabric and then filling it with air to demonstrate, overfilling the balloon-like sphere until it exploded and then faded into nothing. What? Just because I can doesn't mean I want to pollute the world with needless plastics. "That's what's gonna happen."

  "... no that... won't happen," she said, sounding confused. "Right, I forgot for a moment there," she said, shaking her head. "Especially with how powerful you are, you simply have to assert your will over nature and deny the natural outcome. Same thing you do to do basically everything else. Because we're-"

  "Dragons."

  Right. It's like some sort of mental block. I guess there's a part of me that's still human, still thinks in human terms, and still thinks that there's a lil' bit of unintended horror in cross species romance.

  "L-Let's talk about something else," I said, "oh, right! Kobolds! You mentioned Kobolds before, I think!"

  "I... might have, I should've really taken the Kobolds, humans are dumb," she muttered, "what do you want to know?"

  "How do I get them?" I asked. "And are they like, dogs, or lizards?"

  "You don't get them, you make them," she said.

  "Yeah but, how?" I asked, insisting. "It seems to me like they'd be really useful, having minions that just do what I say with no back sass and who worship me like a god and-"

  "... like the people of Argentum?" Aqua asked, tilting her head again.

  "... that's fair," I admitted. "I still want bipedal dogs or lizards doing my bidding though."

  "The creatures of your forest are way too strong for kobolds to survive so you're unlikely to find them there. You'll find lizards near volcanic systems, mole types in cave systems, sahuagin types in saltwater, merfolk in freshwater lakes, wolf types in forests or bird types in mountains."

  "Wait, there's that many types of Kobolds?" I asked.

  "Yes- of course there would be, they're descendants of the Kobolds originally made by other dragons," Aqua explained. "Or you can also make your own, I suppose, just find a creature to use as a base and then apply your power to twist their form to serve your purposes. A Kobold is a Dragon's servant, regardless of the form it takes, it's still a kobold, no matter what species it was before it became a Kobold."

  Huh.

  That... was interesting. So basically I could make whatever kind of Kobold I wanted to make...

  "Can we do it to humans too?" I asked.

  "Yes?" she seemed surprised to see me asking. "Wait- you didn't know?" she shook her head. "As successive generations of humans survive under the umbrella of your influence they become affected by the power you're constantly leaking into the land and air and the forest, you've affected the ecosystem simply by living in it - the plants and animals have become soaked in your power, and the humans that consume it have as well," she spoke. "And you didn't even know?!"

  "... generations?"

  A sinking feeling struck me.

  "How long- how long do I sleep on average?"

  "Your longest was an entire season, but frequently, your naps last at least seven sunrises and can frequently last an entire lunar cycle. How long did you think you were sleeping!?"

  ...

  "Would you believe me if I said a couple days at a time on average?" I said.

  "Unfortunately, yes, yes I'd believe that. Did you think your people learned an entire new language system and complex mathematics in just a matter of days?" she asked.

  "Nnnnnooo?" I lied again.

  "Yes you did," she accused.

  Okay, that, at least, made it make so much more sense for how I could wake up from a nap and the Stranana wine was already finished.

  "I've been living a lie!" I lamented, "I thought- all this time, I thought I was only sleeping a couple days at a time on average, and you're telling me that I should've been counting in weeks instead!"

  "Correct," she said.

  "... man... I guess this explains why the Priestess always looks kind of weird when I see her and I have trouble recognizing her, she must be changing a lot," I reasoned to myself, looking far in the distance.

  "No that's just you not paying attention," she countered.

  "Shush, I'm making excuses here!" I countered. "You know in hindsight I probably should've been able to tell, considering how much progress gets made on my totally reasonable requests after I go to sleep," I said, standing up and putting my claws on the sand.

  "Well, we've talked, a deep conversation if I may add," Aqua said, "can we assume the date is complete and thus we can move on to the important part?"

  "... I don't put out on the first date, what do you think I am, some kind of dragon slut?" I asked, trying my best to sound, and act, scandalized.

  "You confuse and frustrate me at every turn," she said.

  I guess at the end she's still thinking about the objective. I can appreciate a focused woman... kind of.

  "Well, if you show me how to make some Kobolds, I'll consider going to bed after our second date," I said.

  "... fine," she said, shaking her head. "The easiest way would be to just grab some humans and use their bodies to-"

  I snorted hard, one nostril flaring with fire, the other, pushing icy white wind. "I said no human sacrifices, dammit!"