Thank you for all of the reviews! Some of you have some very perceptive thoughts! I feel like I will have to work extra hard now just to keep up with you.
A Dragon's Heart – Chapter 7
She was a younger woman than he imagined. Barely past the girl stage really. Her body radiated confidence and youthful vitality but lacked the awkwardness that plagued school age teens. He'd eat one of Hotaru's bug cameras if her age was any more than two years away from his.
Her face was certainly more than he had hoped for. She wasn't exactly traffic stopping gorgeous but she was definitely well above average. It was a natural beauty too; one without the aid of smelly cosmetics and perfumes that were usually offensive to his heightened sense of smell. A solid eight and a half out of ten if he could judge objectively. Of course, there was nothing objective about the way he was seeing her and responding to her. He had long since lost control over his erratic breathing and crazy heartbeat already, but now his palms were sweating and his face couldn't seem to decide if it wanted his jaw to go slack and hang open, or break into a silly grin. Neither expression was appropriate for a person of his supposedly dignified position. As she started to move closer to them, his eyes tried to take in everything at once, but got caught on her eyes.
That was the most obvious and most predominant feature before anything else could even be noticed. Her eyes were incredible. Up until now he had never really had a chance to see them, and only now did he realize what a travesty that was. They were large, luminous, and extremely expressive. He'd never seen such eyes. The rest of her face was pretty and balanced out nicely with fine cheekbones, a pert nose, and a cute pouty mouth, but it was those eyes a man could get lost in.
Wading the last few meters towards him, Natsume realized belatedly that she held a battered backpack in one hand. "Sorry for leaving like that. I forgot my bag." She said halting Japanese while giving a sheepish grin.
Much to his horror, Natsume found he couldn't move or speak. Instead he stood there like a statue staring at her until her grin started to falter. Say something stupid! Hello! Pleasure to meet you! Anything! He yelled at himself, but his facial muscles refused to listen to him. He had no idea what expression finally ended up on his face, but judging from the nervous looks she was giving him, it was not friendly. Great. Nice first impression Natsume. Scare the hell out of her. It was the one time he really didn't want to be scary or intimidating.
Aoi came up beside him "Hello my name is Hyuuga Aoi and this is my brother Natsume. I must say it is very surprising to see a sea dragon here. There hasn't been a sea dragon spotted in these waters for decades."
The strange woman gave an unusual expression of understanding. "Ah, well that explains why the water was acting so strangely."
Aoi tilted her head puzzled "Acting strangely? How so?"
"As soon as I touched the water around here it started acting so happy and jealous. It wants me to stay and play with it and pay attention to only it. It must miss its sea dragons terribly to be so possessive."
Natsume couldn't blame the water for its feelings since he was pretty much in the same predicament. While his sister was speaking, the sea dragon's focus had redirected to her and Natsume found the loss of attention irritating. He wasn't particularly vain and usually didn't care what others thought about him, but right now more than anything he wanted the sea dragon to look at him and only him.
"I never knew water could have such feelings. It sounds a bit like how we control fire."Aoi speculated while Natsume involuntarily looked down to where the water was swirling around her thighs and hips.
It might have just been his imagination, but the waves seemed to curl around her like fingers trying to pull her back into its depths. And now that he was seeing that, it also seemed like the water was trying to push he and his sister back on to shore away from the sea dragon. The waves that were hitting his knees were unusually strong for being so shallow.
The sea dragon made an irritated sound and swirled her free hand along the surface. The water swirled along with her hand and fingers of water appeared trying to curl around her wrist and pull her back. Looking down she started to make quiet soothing sounds almost as if she was reassuring the water. Natsume became momentarily entranced again when all of a sudden the waves that were pushing and pulling the three of them dissipated to nothing.
"We should probably get out before it changes its mind." She warned.
"What did you do?" Aoi asked.
"I promised I would come to play later." She said and the three sloshed out of the water before the lonely sea tried to pull her back in. If it were him, Natsume doubted he would have let her go with such a vague promise. But then again, he had yet to even get her to look at him. He needed to do something and he needed to do it quick. He was blowing his first impression on her. Talk stupid! Say something! He yelled at himself. He had to do something get the sea dragon who still hadn't given her name to stop paying attention to his sister and start talking to him.
"So what do we call you? Or should we stick with polka dot panty girl?" a gruff voice asked. It took him a horrifying second to realize it was his own.
Oh.
God.
Tell him he did not just say that.
The sea dragon froze in her tracks to turn and glare at him. A mixture of rage, embarrassment, and insult poured through her energy and hit Natsume like a whip crack.
The two of them stood there staring at each other for the space of a few heartbeats before she looked down at herself. When she saw what she was wearing, she let out a startled shriek. "What happened to my clothes?" she asked. Upset to find she was only wearing a hospital gown instead of the clothes she remembered. And since the thin cloth of the gown was soaking wet, it was completely transparent, leaving her virtually standing there in her underwear.
With as much dignity as she could muster, she trudged the rest of the way up the beach and yanked the blanket he had been sitting on from the ground and wrapped it around her like cocoon.
In the meantime Hotaru pulled out a weird looking gun and shot it at his head causing him to grunt in pain and glare at her. The gun was probably one of her freaky creations. It had a weird 'BAKA' sound at the discharge and left him feeling like he had been slapped hard. On his other side, Aoi swiftly whacked him in the arm "Natsume! How dare you say such a thing to our guest!" she hissed. Wow. Who knew girls could be so violent?
Although he probably deserved it. Even he had no idea what the hell had possessed him to say such a thing. Maybe all those years of being a cold unfeeling bastard had damaged his social skills. He needed to apologize, but apologies did not come naturally to him. Not only that, he was still so nervous that he didn't trust what might come out of his mouth next. Instead, his sister rushed up to the sea dragon and started gushing apologies for him. Aoi started making bold statements about how Natsume could be a rude jerk at times, but he was still a nice person. Nice person? Him? Since when? Cold, callous, cynical, bitter, insulting and hostile were all perfectly good adjectives to describe him. But nice? He had no experience with nice.
"It's all right." She muttered while she started to dig through her torn backpack. "I'm not ten years old anymore. I know I won't die from embarrassment if you all see me in my underwear. It is not like it is much different than a bikini. I just didn't like the way creepy, pervert-guy over there noticed it." She paused for a moment in her rummaging and gave him a heavy look. "You're the red from before aren't you?" she asked, and her tone made it sound like she regretted coming to his aid. He tried not to be bothered by it, but he couldn't. Her clear disappointment in him pissed him off.
Keeping his expression cool, he nodded. "I can't decide if it was brave or stupid of you to barge into a fight like you did yesterday." He said and cursed his mouth again. Idiot! You're supposed to say thank you for helping me, or something along those lines. Not make it sound more like an insult than a compliment. He yelled at himself. Somewhere in the forever plains, he was sure the gods of air and fire must be keeling over in fits of laughter at his total ineptitude at talking like a normal, nice person.
"Yesterday? I've been out for a whole day?" she asked the group in general, clearly startled by the news.
"Yes. You were injured so my brother took you back to our place to take care of you." Aoi said.
The woman made eye contact with him. "Thank you for that." She said absently but for just a brief moment Natsume was sure he sensed something in those expressive eyes of hers.
"Thank you for coming to help my brother." Aoi responded sweetly.
The sea dragon shrugged at her and gave her a little self-depreciating smile. "It's okay. Your brother is probably right that it was more stupid foolishness rather than boldness or bravery that made me jump in. My family has a long and ugly history with dragon hunters and scientists. If one of my cousins or uncles had come across the same thing I did, they wouldn't have hesitated like I did."
She calls smashing into the hull of a very large boat hesitating? "I wouldn't call the way you rammed that boat hesitating." Natsume said quietly.
The woman waived off his comment. "In the water nothing like that could compete with us. Even ramming it the way I did, I could have easily crushed it, but my heart wasn't in to it. I'm not much of a killer and I think I was hoping they would just leave." She gave a little sound like she was thoroughly disgusted with her weakness, but Natsume didn't think it was weak at all. He was a killer enough for both of them, and probably ten or twenty others. It didn't bother him one whit that she didn't want to kill because at least her soul wasn't as decayed as his was.
"Speaking of my family, I should call my family to let them know where I am." She said while continuing to rummage through her bag. The air dragons watched as she sifted through a multitude of zipper locking bags. Clever Natsume thought admirably as he spied a larger zippered bag that contained a complete outfit of t-shirt, shorts and undergarments, all completely dry.
The sea dragon made a frustrated sound "Where on earth is my cell – oh." She cut off abruptly and pulled out a clear plastic zipper locking bag that was pouring sea water from a large tear along the side. Inside swam the damaged remains of a smashed cellular phone. "And another one bites the dust." She said with a sigh.
"We could let you use the phone up at the estate if you need to. You could also get cleaned up there if you want." His sister suggested.
"Oh, no I couldn't. If you could just direct me to the closest hotel…"
"Nonsense!" Aoi talked right over her. "The least we can do is offer you a bit of hospitality for coming to save my brother!" she replied cheerfully. When the sea dragon still looked leery Aoi added, "I know we are still strangers, but we are all dragon-kind here and if we were planning to do something bad to you we would have already done it when you were unconscious."
The young woman seemed to ponder the logic for a bit and Natsume tried his best to appear harmless when she glanced his way. "Thank you. I probably shouldn't, but I really do need to call my family and I would love to wash up a bit. A hot shower would be heaven." She said gratefully while still wearing the blanket.
Inside, Natsume was crowing in triumph, but somehow he managed to have his expression under control. He had to make sure he didn't do anything that might scare her off. He had plans for this little sea dragon that didn't include her leaving any time soon. As she was repacking her bag she paused for no apparent reason to give him a curious look and he got the strangest feeling she knew that he was pleased that she would be staying.
I will do my best to have a chapter out next week, but the holidays is a busy time for me so I can only promise to try.