A Woman is like a teabag part 2

Since my name isn't Hiro Mashima, I guess that means I don't own Rave Master.

Dinner was rather quiet. Everyone sat at a long dining room table that had a few extra chairs added to the sides because of the extra visitors but nobody felt squished in. The only sound that could be heard was chopsticks coming together. The group of travelers had quite the time trying to figure out how to use the new utensils; Ruby especially became frustrated because of his lack of fingers.

Haru's eyes shifted all through out the room. He pondered a good conversation topic to lighten the mood. "Um, so… Commander Runner what's it like-"

"There is no talking at the dinner table." Jegan quickly cut in to silence Haru.

Haru was pretty shocked to hear that. No talking at the dinner table? What an un-natural thing for a family to do. When he was at home, his uncle and older sister would go on about their days while eating dinner. It wasn't long before they were all laughing and a meal that normally would have taken 15 minutes to eat, would take an hour. This silence was not something Haru was used to.

"Now it's alright Jegan. He does not know of our culture." Julia's father interjected. "But I do have something important to tell you all. The baron himself has offered to perform the wedding service! I asked him the day after Privet Jegan asked me to marry you, Julia."

"Oooohh! What an honor!" Mrs. Runner squealed.

"Oh pardon my outburst." She stopped herself from getting too excited. Mrs. Runner, like all female dragon race learned that it was un-lady-like to raise her voice above that of normal speaking level for any reason. Her husband gave her a smile that clearly said he had pardoned her for it. After all it was great news.

"This calls for a toast." The commander exclaimed as he rose from his seat. "I shall get the wine. Would you please get the dissert, dear?" He addressed his wife.

"Of course." She also rose from her seat and went into the kitchen, leaving the younger people of the table alone with each other.

"Belnika looked to Jegan and spoke. "So we are told that you are Commander's strongest recruit. How long have you been working under hi-"

"This is twice, woman that you have spoken without being spoken to first! Do all human woman not know their place?" Jegan snapped.

"Hey calm down! She was asking a simple question!" Haru snapped at him.

"What do you mean her place?" Let seethed, although he was sure he already knew the answer. Julia kept silent the entire time. Her head was down just low enough that no one could see her expression.

"Women are fragile beings that need men's guidance. Therefore they must show respect and gratitude." He answered.

Let could not believe what he was hearing. This guy was Julia's fiancé?"

"What are you talking about?" Haru asked confused. "Julia's got to be the toughest fighter I've ever seen."

"A female fighter? How absurd. Don't fill my bride's head with such nonsense. She knows what she needs to, and that's all. Her delicate mind needs protection from thinking such frightening things like having to fight." Jegan spoke as he reached over and touched his fiancé's hand. She didn't pull away, but she didn't allow him to see her face either as she turned her head away from him. This action only made Let angrier.

Not knowing what to do next, Julia sat up and with a slight bow simply stated. "Would it trouble anyone if I were to step out side? Truly it is a warm evening and I do believe the air would be good for me." She used every bit of acting skills within her not to show what she was really feeling.

"I shall escort you." Jegan offered as he stood up from his seat at the table.

"Thank you, but I shall be fine. I do not want you to miss dissert just for me. Please sit down and enjoy yourself. I will come to you if anything should happen." She replied.

At that moment Mrs. Runner came back with a warm blueberry pie she made herself. Unfortunately she did not count on Jegan standing right there, and she walked right into him, dropping the pie and staining his clothes.

"Oh goodness, I-"

"Are all females forgetting their manners tonight? If you were not my commander's mate, I would teach you a lesson! For the sake of all of the future son's Julia will bare for me, I hope they will not inherit your insolence, woman!" Jegan yelled at Julia's mom.

Mrs. Runner's eyes went wide with fear and regret for what she had done to him. At the sight of her poor mother's terrified face, Julia wanted to grab Jegan by the throat and smash his head against the dinner table until a big red stain appeared. How dare he speak to her mom that way!

It wasn't fair, Julia thought. If only she was male. Then she could say and do what she wanted, not just grind her teeth and bite her tongue when something like this happened. She had to get out of there before she did something she would regret. She turned around and subtly stormed out the door, like she had planned to earlier.

No one noticed Julia's anger. They were all to busy watching Jegan's rage at his stained clothes. The only person to see Julia leave was Let and he couldn't blame her. He was furious at the moment too. In fact, he decided to take a queue from Julia and storm out of there himself. He followed in her direction.

"BRRRAAAAAHHHHH!" Julia screamed into the night sky. Letting go of all the frustration within her, she let out a large fireball from her mouth and aimed it upward.

The woman stomped her feet and threw a temper tantrum like a little child who was sentenced to her room without dinner.

"THIS SUCKS! I CAN'T SPEND ONE MINUTE WITH THAT ASS HOLE! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE WITH HIM AND HAVE HIS FRIGGEN KIDS?"

"Then why did you say yes?"

Julia turned her head in the direction of the male's voice so fast that she almost got whiplash. She calmed herself down when she discovered that the male's voice belonged to Let who was standing a few yards away, and not someone who would get her in trouble for acting un-lady-like, but even though she wasn't surprised anymore, that didn't mean she wasn't angry anymore.

"You weren't supposed to hear that! I was talking privately to myself, and what are you talking about? Said yes to what?" Julia snapped at him.

"Say yes to marrying him! The man is a complete and utter prick with a capitol P! What could have possibly possessed you to take that damn ring? Are you mad?"

"Awe, Shut up Let! You don't even know what you're talking about!"

Let walked a little bit closer to her, closing the distance between them. "I would know if you would just enlighten me!"

"It's none of your Business, ass face!" Julia screamed as she gave Let a rough shove back, causing him to fall down on his behind.

Let glared at the woman with eyes that clearly showed that he had had enough of her behavior. Just as Julia was about to storm away, Let got up and shouted at her.

"HEY!"

Julia turned around to see what the man had to say, only for the most unexpected thing to happen to her. Let had just pushed her on to her butt the same way she had just done to him.

Even though she was staring right into Let's eyes when he did it, she had never saw that coming. No one had ever done that to her. After the initial shock wore off, she got up and yelled at Let.

"You can't push me! I'm a girl!"

"Calm down! I didn't push you any harder than when you pushed me! Besides, remember equality among genders? Well it doesn't get any more equal than-"

Let never got to finish his sentence. Julia charged at him in revenge for his last assault, knocking them both over in the process. The next thing either of them knew, they were both rolling threw the grass, tumbling on top of one another. She squealed, and he yelped in surprise as the continued to roll on and on.

Finally they came to a halt. The male dragon race landed in the grass with a soft thud and the female landed right on top of him. They both stared at each other face to face for a moment, trying to get their breathing under control from that unexpected ordeal. Then without warning, they both just suddenly burst into laughter. Neither of them knew what was so funny. Laughing just seemed appropriate for the situation. They laughed loudly and heartily for a full minute until they had to catch their breaths again.

Julia slid off of Let as she sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Me too, I mean I'm sorry." Let replied.

They both lay on their backs for a few minutes, looking only at the beautiful stars that lined the gorgeous night sky. The mountain air was so refreshing. They were both in silent bliss.

Unfortunately, the moment did not last forever and Let still had questions for her. "Just tell me Julia, why are you marrying him? It just doesn't seem to fit you."

The woman sat up as she contemplated how to answer that. "In this state, women are given considerably less rights than men."

Let stared at her as she explained

(Flash back to a few weeks ago.)

It was exactly 5:00 Am on a Wednesday morning and Julia was already out of bed and ready for the day. She wore the same out fit that she always wore every morning, a pair of black Capri pants, Spartan sandals, and a silk Chinese sleeveless shirt. She could not let anyone know that she owned a pair of pants. I mean come on, girls wearing pants? Ridiculous!

She tiptoed quietly out of her bedroom and past her parent's room. Her father had already left about 15 minutes ago, so she didn't have to worry about him, but her mother was still sound asleep at this hour.

The young female dragon race slipped out the front door and made sure to shut it quietly behind her, trying not to make a sound, Just as she did every morning. When she was out of the house she looked around the empty street, just to be certain that no one was looking. Of course, there was no one, that was to be expected at this time, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

When she knew the coast was clear, the young woman quietly transformed her beautiful, human-looking body into that of a large dragon. It was at times like these that Julia was glad to be born with a black dragon form. It was much harder for anyone to spot her before daybreak. Quietly, the female beast spread out her massive wings and took flight, heading in the same direction that all of the male dragon races over the age of 13 just did 16 minutes ago.

It only took her about 5 minutes to get there by flight, and Julia made sure to land not exactly in the training grounds, but about a half mile away. This made it even harder for anyone to spot her. She then changed back into he human figure and jogged the rest of the way, giving herself a good start to the long and strenuous exercises to come.

The young woman jogged her way up to a tall-wired fence. It was to keep out any intruders. Dragon races hated to be disturbed during their training. That was just fine for Julia. It meant she could see them, but they would be too distracted to see her, perfect!

In Makai, it was a law that every male dragon race was to join the army when they came of age. When they turned 21 years old and completed basic training, they could choose to either quit the army or become a vassal for the Grand Baron of Makai. However this was for the male dragon race only. She couldn't let anyone find out she was there.

The young female dragon race stared in awe at the strong men before her. They were all in dragon form, standing in a perfect line, not moving an inch unless they were told to do so. They were all good soldiers. Julia may have hated their customs, but deep down she was very proud to be one of them.

"BLOCK!"

"HYA!"

"PERRIE!"

"HYA"

"BLOCK!"

"HYA!"

"PERRIE!"

"HYA!"

Standing in front of all of the rows and columns of dragon soldiers, was Julia's father, Commander Runner. A swift movement and battle cry would follow up every order he gave from every cadet there. Standing behind him were a few of the other senior members of Makai's army who were lucky enough to have made it to the title of vassal, and behind him was the Grand Baron himself, supervising the training silently.

"COME ON!" One of the other Vassals shouted. 'YOU'RE ALL WORTHLESS AND WEAK!" Yup, this was boot camp.

Julia watched on and mimicked every move they made. No one noticed when she gave out a battle cry. There were too many shouts to notice just one, and she was way in the back, beyond the fence, no one would hear her anyway.

For the next five hours, Julia mimicked every move she saw. Every push up, every kick, every punch, she paid close attention to every thing they did, even in the exhibition matches. She trained with the same intensity as any other man out there.

"OKAY, YOU SISSIES! TAKE FIVE!" One of the vassals shouted.

Some of the newer, younger recruits fell to their knees from exhaustion. One five-minute break, every five hours? That was going to take some getting used to on their end. Julia had been doing this for a while so she was all right. She wiped some sweat of her brow and looked out at the soldiers. The young ones, the senior ones, the blond, yellow eyed ones that were staring right at her.

"OH FRICK!"

A thousand alarms went off in Julia's head when she realized she was staring directly into the eyes of one of the cadets! In all of the years she had been doing this, no one had ever seen her. No, no, no, no! She was in deep shit now! She looked around as if looking for some way to get out of this predicament. The only thing her frazzled mind could come up with was getting the hell out of there! And so she turned in the opposite direction so fast, it made her head spin. She charged away from the area like a speeding bullet, not looking back once. She was already half way home when she remembered she could just fly there.

She flew like a rocket until she reached the village and turned back into a human-looking creature. She got many stares from the people she passed by, because of both her strange attire for a female, and because she was running like a maniac.

She headed strait for her family's house, and being very thankful that her bedroom window was unlocked; she opened it and jumped right through it, landing ungracefully on the floor in the process.

Within seconds the young woman was off the floor and shutting her window tightly, locking it up behind her. She them pulled down the shades, as if somebody was following her this whole time, and by locking her self up in her room would keep her safe.

Finally after all of that, she stopped to take a breath. She didn't even realize that she was panting heavily.

"UGH! I really need a bath right now!" She wailed as she tried to shake off these freaked out feelings.

She reached into her back closet and pulled out a large washtub. After getting it completely set up, She went out into her back yard to the well. After making several trips of pulling up buckets of water to fill up her washtub, it was completely full and ready for her.

Trying to get some normalcy back into her day, she did what she always did before getting in the tub. She peeled the sweaty clothes off of her body and after spraying them with perfume to cover the smell of perspiration; she tossed them under the bed. She would have to wash them later. For now she had to hide them from sight and mask the odor. Dragon race had an impeccable sense of smell and she had no idea what her mom would say if she found out her daughter owned a pair of pants.

Once her work clothes were nicely hidden she proceeded to lay down in the bath. The washtub was just big enough for her to lie down in with only her head and feet sticking out of the water.

The young woman let out a sigh of comfort as she heated the water herself using her dragon race abilities. It was just like breathing fire from her mouth, but instead of releasing the heat that she let build up inside of her, her just let it build up within until, anything she touched began to boil. She could make the water as warm as she wished. Sometimes it was good to be dragon race.

After ten minutes of cleaning herself to get the stench of sweat off of her, and another 20 minutes of just soaking in the soothing tub, she had almost completely forgotten about her fiasco this morning. A nice long hot bath always seemed to calm her down.

When she was finished she dried herself off, again by using her heating abilities, letting all of the water on her turn to steam. She dumped out the water and put the tub back where she found it. she then went to pull out her outfit for the day. It was a simple white kimono with a red flower pattern. This was a much more acceptable outfit for a woman living in Makai.

When dressed she continued to work on her hair. It was still a little wet from when she washed it in the bath, but that was nothing her heating abilities couldn't fix. She took a lock of moist hair and twirled it around her left hand finger. The heat her finger was giving off acted like a curling iron. Not only did it dry her hair, but it gave it a nice wave to it as well.

She was about to work on the rest of her hair, when she heard a knock at the door.

"Julie sweetie, can I come in?"

"Okay mom." She answered her mother as she got up and unlocked the door.

Mrs. Runner looked at her daughter's moist hair and said, "Julie, it's almost lunch time. Did you just get out of the bath? You always oversleep."

Julia blushed at that comment. It wasn't true, she always got up very early, but it was better to have her mother think she was sleeping all this time instead of out training with the boys. "Sorry mom. It's a bad habit I know."

"Well hurry up and finish, we've got a big day today."

"I know mom, the veggies are coming in really nice this year. We've got a big harvest. I'll be out to help you in a minute."

Every day, around this time, Julia and her mother would transform themselves into their dragon forms and dig up the rocky mountainous earth to tend to their vegetable garden. Tending to the garden was just about the only things women were supposed to use their great dragon race strength for, since there was less of a chance to get hurt gardening than fighting, and only dragon claws were strong enough to dig through mountains. They would plant vegetables and then cook their family meals with them.

"Oh no sweet heart that can wait until later. What I mean is your father is home early today and he says he has big news concerning you."

Julia froze with that comment and all of her problems from this morning came crashing back down on her like a ton of bricks. She turned back to her mother with a pale face, doing her best not to show that she was trembling with anxiety.

"D-d-d-d-did h-h-he say what that news was?..." Julia stuttered nervously.

Her mother didn't notice. "No, he said he wanted to tell us both together." And with that she shut the door behind her, leaving Julia by herself.

A thousand alarms went off in her head! GYAAAH! CRAP! CRAP! CRAPPIDY, CRAP! FRICKEN DYAAAAH!" Just about every word that she could think of including those she just made up ran through her head at a trillion miles per hour!

This is it! This is the worst-case scenario! My dad knows that I've been following him down to the training grounds to learn fighting! I am so disowned! When this gets around I'll be an outcast through out the entire state! NOOOO!

Julia was so frustrated that she had no idea what to do with her own body. She fell to the floor; she got up and ran in circles, and she flailed her hands about in a flurry of unbridled adrenaline until she had no energy left.

When the young woman was finished with her tantrum, she slowly trudged out of her bedroom, towards the living room, completely forgetting about her hair, which was almost dry at this point anyway. The walk to the living room felt like a prisoner sentenced to death row walking from his cell to his execution. This was the end of her life as she knew it.

When she made it to the living room she saw her mother sitting at one end of the long couch and her father standing in front of her mother with a rather broad smile plastered all over his face. Wait, he was smiling? Maybe he had gone insane with rage. Maybe he'd kill her in his crazy bloody fury and then make her mother clean it up?

"Ah, there you are, sweet heart. Come, sit down next to your mother I have something important to tell you." Her father said as he turned to her.

Julia said nothing; she just silently complied, trying her best to keep all emotion off of her face. The last thing she need was to look guilty and crack before he even said anything.

Her mother waited patiently next to her and looked to her husband for an explanation as to what this might be about. He had not told her yet.

"Julia." Commander Runner spoke to his daughter sternly. She sat perfectly still, not wanting to look him in the eye, but she was sweating bullets. "I know you were at the training grounds this morning. One of my cadets saw you."

Still she sat unmoving although at the sound of her father's last words her heartbeat began to speed up rapidly. This is it. Here it comes… He put his hand on her shoulder tenderly.

"So you wanted to see your old man at work, huh?" The commander said. His lighthearted tone broke Julia's train of thought. He didn't sound upset at all.

"I think that's sweet, Jules, that you wanted to see your father doing what he's best at, but next time you want to watch me work, don't sneak around. Just tell me. That way I can protect you and tell you when to close your eyes when things get too scary and violent for my little girl, okay?"

Once again the alarms went off in Julia's head but this time it was in a good way. He didn't know she was training? He thought she went there for him? Realization hit her. YES! He didn't know! She'd live!

She wanted to jump for joy. She had just survived that close call, but she did well to contain herself. She just put on a big happy face as she responded to him. "Yes daddy! I wanted to see the biggest and strongest man I know do his work, cause I'm so proud of you!"

"Yes, well was there anyone else you noticed out there, sweetie?" Her dad unsubtly hinted at.

This confused Julia. What did he mean by that.

"Jules have I ever mentioned my subordinate, Jegan Jeid?" He asked

Did he ever. He would go on and on at the dinner table about how good this solider was, how proud he was of this guy, and how he'd probably become a great vassal someday. "Yeah, daddy. You've mentioned him before. What about him?"

"He's the one who saw you there this morning and told me about your little appearance. You ran off scared of the violence taking place before I got a chance to speak with you though."

Damn tattle tale! Julia thought to herself. She didn't go running off because she was scared of violence, she ran because she knew she'd get caught. She only knew Jegan through what her father said about him. She had never personally met him, but so far she didn't care much for him, especially now that she knew he was a snitch.

"Well privet Jegan said he was very impressed by how pretty you are, and guess what? He asked me… for your hand in marriage!" He blurted out.

At those words Julia stared up at her father with big round eyes and her mouth hanging open. She was completely speechless. Her mother was not.

"Oh, my goodness, my baby is getting married!" Mrs. Runner squealed in happiness as she wrapped her arms around her daughter. The commander beamed down at his two favorite girls and he placed his hand on Julia's shoulder again.

"Oh Julia! He's everything I ever wanted for you! He'll be a great provider! I cannot wait for you to meet him!"

Julia just continued to stare up at her father completely stunned. "I….I'm…Getting…Married?"

"Oh honey, I'm gonna show you all of these great cooking recipes and how to properly clean, and a whole bunch of things to make your husband happy! Your gonna make the best wife!" Her mother exclaimed, still hugging her.

"Oh course she will, she takes after her beautiful mother." The commander commented happily to his wife.

"Oh honey." She blushed at him.

Julia's parents smiled and went on about how wonderful this whole arrangement was. They compared it to their own, talked about the ceremony, completely oblivious bout how sick Julia was beginning to feel at the pit of her stomach.

Julia trudged to her room in a daze and threw herself on her bed. "Married? Couldn't they just disown me like I thought they were going to?" She muttered to herself.

She knew this would happen someday. All dragon race females had to one day be tied down to a male of their father's choosing, but she never really gave it all that much thought. She was only 19 years old. She felt much too young to be married off.

Julia always believed that it would be a long time before anyone would even think about her that way. Even though no one knew her secret, people still considered her to be weird. Sleeping in, sneaking off, etc. Man, if this Jegan guy knew her at all, than he wouldn't be so eager to make her his wife. Or maybe he planned to mold her into a good wife. Maybe he'd try to change her into something she wasn't and make her live like that forever. She shuddered at the thought.

The young female dragon race stared out the window as if she could see all of the things she would forever have to give up once she became a wife. She let out a sigh of despair. If she were born in any other country, heck in any other state, she wouldn't have to deal with this.

While Julia had never left her village before in her entire life, she had read about other places and cultures in books. Far off lands where a man would go to a woman directly to ask for her hand and she could just refuse if she chooses. Lands where girls could get jobs outside of their homes. Even some lands where woman could rule over everybody as a leader. It was incredible.

The more Julia thought about it, the more she realized she was getting the short end of the stick. In the end all of the hard work that she had secretly been doing all of these years added up to nothing in Makai. No matter how hard she worked the best that she could ever hope to accomplish is to be the daughter of someone great, the mother of someone great, or the wife of someone great. Even if she were to wed a Makai baron, and one day become the Grand Baroness, it wouldn't mean anything other than a title as wife of the Grand Baron. Even the Grand Baroness herself had no actual power.

"The Grand Baroness…" Julia thought. "I wonder if she felt this way when she realized the only thing she was good for was looking good on the Grand Baron's arm and giving him heirs. I wonder whatever happened to her." Only a short time after the Grand Baron married her, she disappeared and no one ever knew what happened to her. She was a very sickly female, right? She could have died, unless she ran away, or something like that. Maybe she went to one of those far off lands where her work would amount to something.

After that Julia just sat in silence until the craziest idea she ever had hit her hard. "No! No, no, no. I can't leave. I've spent my whole life here. I don't know anything else." She assured herself as she tried to quell these crazy thoughts.

"Then again the things I do know here are things that I hate. I do know that if I stay here I'll be forced to marry a stranger. I do know that my life won't get any better than what it is now. I do know that's not what I want." She said to herself.

The young woman stared out at the mountainous landscape outside her window. Traveling through those mountains by herself would be dangerous. She could crash into a mountain and then what would happen to her? Not to mention once her dad found her missing, he'd send every cadet to look for her.

No. She had to try. Either choose the path that is full of safety and misery, or go down the path that leads to who knows where. It could be better, it could be worse, but with the fate of being forever bonded with a stranger that would forever tie her down looming over her head, what did she have to loose?

That night, around 1:00 Am in the morning, Julia slipped outside her front door. She had everything she would ever need in a bag that she threw over her shoulders, including clothes, food, and money. She only took her work clothes with her. There was no need for dresses where she was going.

She looked towards the mountains where she was headed. Flying at night would be dangerous, but it was her best bet. As she quietly transformed herself into a beast she whisper out loud. "Good bye home…." She was ready.

With that, she took flight. Not looking back at what she would leave behind and doing her best to shake any fear or doubt away in her mind. This was the most difficult decision Julia Runner had ever made.

(End Flash back.)

"Women are frail and dainty creatures. They must be protected by their superior male counter parts, from scary things like violence, hard labor, and the difficult task of making big decisions. That is what we of the dragon race are raised to believe." Julia stated.

Let was shocked. Was Makai truly stuck in the middle ages? After hearing this, Let felt a little guilty for having accused her of agreeing to marry that jerk, Jegan. The teenager couldn't imagine how horrible it would be if some one else had to choose his spouse for him.

"So Jegan did what all dragon race males do when they fall in love, he went to the woman's father and asked if he could marry his daughter. That's how people are married here. It's the father that agrees to the wedding. The young woman is to be informed that she is now engaged latter. This is to protect us from the stressfulness of having to think about such an important choice as to who to spend our lives with." Julia spat.

Let could feel the bitterness just dripping off of every word coming out of Julia's mouth. There were still a few things that Let still didn't understand. "There is no way the Symphonian king would allow this to occur. Other states have female leaders."

"The king will only interfere with how a nobleman runs their state if too many subjects come to complain to him about how much they hate the way their noble does things. So far, other than me and the suspected Grand Baroness, not all that many women around here have a problem with the way things are around here, and even the few of those that actually do admittedly hate it here aren't willing to do anything about it."

"So you are telling me that you are the only girl around who openly has a problem with this?" Let asked in disbelief.

"You just don't get it do you. People are not born weak, weakness is distilled in them. If we all tell a person they can't do something throughout their entire life, eventually they are going to believe it. Woman here believe they are inherently weak because they grow up viewing that as a commonly known fact. Everyone believes it to be true so they don't complain."

There was more to this than what she was telling him. "So why don't you believe that all woman are inherently weak?" Let asked.

Julia took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "My dad is a freaking commander. That means he was chosen as one of the Grand Barren's elite vassal's to train other future vassals to be great. Of course he was expected to have at least one son that would be raised to be a great soldier, but sadly his wife only produced one offspring for him. Me, a girl."

Let just stared at the female dragon race as he listened closely to her bitter tale.

"In Makai only men can become soldiers and only men are given the opportunity to become vassals. It is believed that female's are so frail that we might faint at even watching violence. The only opportunities girls have are to become a housewife. The best my dad could hope for was for me to grow up and marry the kind of man he always wanted for a son.

My parents always tell me that they love me, but I've seen how other male dragons tease my dad about how he'll never know the joys of seeing a son of his own grow up to be a man he can be proud of, to have a warrior."

Julia sniffled back some tears.

"I hated it, but I felt so guilty. Sniff….. I felt guilty just because I was born a girl…. I loved my father and I wanted to give him the warrior he always wanted so that he could finally be proud. So one morning… when I was 11 years old… I followed my father to the soldier's training grounds. I made sure he didn't see me… and I watched my father train the soldiers. I stood way in the back where no one could see me and I kept myself hidden. I listened to everything that he was telling the boys in training and I mimicked their movements. Dad never found out, but while he was training them, he was also training me.

I followed him every day to the training grounds and hid in the same spot, every day for years. In fact I still did that all the way up until I ran away. Most boys aren't usually forced to join the ranks until they turn 13 years old and are given the choice to either quit or become a vassal by the time they are 21. I had felt confident enough to kick the butts of guys much older than me by the time I got my first training bra.

Even after I realized I'd never be accepted as a warrior here, and that I could never allow anyone to know what I was doing, I still trained to be a fighter. I wasn't doing it for my dad anymore. I was doing it for me. I grew to love fighting. It made me feel empowered and special, like I could just break free from my role as a female dragon race."

By the time Julia had finished telling the story, she was smiling. Then she looked down at the ring adorning her finger and her smile fell. "That is until, he had to ruin it. When I'm married, I'll have to take on a whole lot of unwanted responsibilities. There's no way Jegan would take his eyes off me long enough to let me enjoy myself."

Let looked closely at her ring. He had seen something like that before. He had to tell her. "Julia My mom had a crystal ring like that."

She looked at Let surprised as he reached into his back pocket. He always kept it on him for luck and he was glad that even though he did not have all of his stuff with him at that moment, he at least had that.

He showed Julia a beautiful ring made out of a clear smooth crystal. It had different markings on it, but it was clear that it was made in the same way.

"That's a dragon race engagement ring. Men are supposed to make it themselves by applying pressure to a piece of coal that is only found in Makai with their own fire and strength, until it turns into crystal. Afterwards, they carve four symbols into it to make it unique."

Julia looked closely at Let's ring. She actually liked it better than hers. "The four symbols are ancient Symphonian. It's pretty much a dead language, but it is still sometimes used in cases such as these. "

She smiled as she pointed out the symbols on his ring. "See, this one's says 'love', that one is 'together'. The one next to it is 'man', and the last one means 'woman'. I like it a lot better than mine. Jegan carved 'obedience', 'devotion', 'superior', and 'beauty'."

"This was the only thing that she owned that she took with her when she first came to America. She was a foreigner and other than the clothes on her back, this was all she had to her name. She worked so hard, and she never once thought of selling it. It must have been very important to her, so I've kept it with me ever since she died." Let explained.

"I'm so sorry." Julia said feeling bad about his loss.

Let only stared back at her, before he smiled, putting his own hand on top of hers. "Don't worry. We'll think of something."

She gave Let a warm smile as she leaned her head on his shoulder. They sat there in peace, just looking on at the beautiful night sky.

Caaaan~ You feeeel~ The looooove~ Toniiiight~. I love Elton John love songs and they go so well with the ending to this chapter.

Next Friday you'll get to see what Let's plan is.

Holy crap, another long chapter! I gotta stop doing this. It's exhausting and I get worried I won't make my Friday deadline. Sorry for taking up an hour's worth of time for you. I'd rather have all my chapters around the same length, but I sort of ended up putting two chapters together with this one. The truth is I've always wanted to write long chapters like this, but it's a lot of hard work. So don't get used to it. It's back to 4000-6000 words a chapter as soon as I can make it.

By the way I want to explain that even though New Elie and Makai are so different culturally, they are still part of the same country. It's kind of like New York and Texas, or Hawaii and Kansas, etc.

As for this chapter, I'm not quite sure as to how this turned out. There wasn't much to it, other than foreshadowing, information about Makai, and some gooey Julia/ Let romance I'd like to know what you all think. Do you love it? Hate it? Find anything that could use improvement? I'd like it if you told me where you want this story to go and what you want to see in upcoming chapters.

So remember, if you love this story then review.