A tray covered in sandwiches was sitting on the table as we entered the house. Gregory passed me one while he took a bite of another. We both ate in silence which was fine with me. It gave me time to come up with some sort of pn. Of course, he finished first. I was starting to get the impression that all dragons seemed to eat more and faster than anyone else I had seen. Or maybe it was only full-blooded dragons that ate like that. Victoria didn’t seem to need as much nor eat as fast as either Marcy or Gregory.

  Following him back outside, I swallowed my st few bites. “Stretch while you ask the questions I know you have,” Gregory said as he sat on a carved stump. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember if it was here before now or not.

  “What are the other dragons like?”

  “Most are pretentious and arrogant. Those dragons want to either see everything else serve them or die at their hand.”

  “And the others?”

  “They tend to ignore everything else in their bid for power. Not that they go out of their way to kill or ensve others. They just don’t care. If given a choice, a few would do what they could to avoid a few deaths but that’s about it.” He held up his hand for some reason, “That doesn’t mean they are not to be avoided. All dragons are power-hungry and willing to do anything to get more. Your best bet is to avoid ever interacting with them”

  “I kind of figured they were. It is in all the myths about dragons loving their treasures and power. Willing to kill to protect both and gather more.” I sat on the ground, reaching for my feet with my hands in an effort to stretch my legs and back. “How old are you?”

  Gregory chuckled, “I don’t mind you asking but I would refrain from doing so with either of the girls. My one thousand fifty-first birthday is in seven months.”

  “How long do dragons live?”

  “Depends on how much mana they can gather and how fast. The average dragon can live around six centuries. Those who are zy live only to about four hundred. The oldest in our recorded history died soon after passing his tenth millennium. Noth that most die from old age.”

  “What do they die from if not old age?”

  “Duals to the death, stupidity, and accidents. But that is not what you want to know, is it?”

  Rolling my eyes, I moved into another stretch before saying, “Fine, what about Victoria? How long will she live?”

  “As old as you will.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense? Why would my age matter?”

  “Because of the bond. The moment either of you die is the moment the other has part of their soul shredded. Very few can survive that.”

  “Ok, how old will I get?”

  “As old as…” I growled at him. The sound of it surprised me, causing it to cut off. He just smiled and chuckled, “You will need to learn to control those impulses, but to answer the question, probably two to three hundred years as you are right now. If you both keep growing in power, maybe a millennium or two.”

  “While I know that is a long time, I kind of feel bad that I cut her potential lifespan.”

  He shot me a questioning look, “What do you mean?”

  “She is a dragon, isn't she? Shouldn’t she have the ability to live longer than that?”

  “She is only half dragon. That comes with some of the benefits along with some of the drawbacks. Now,” he stood up and tossed my wooden weapons to me. “Back to training.” Both weapons hit my head as I was bending over precariously in another stretch. The impact was enough to push me over. “If I was here to kill you you would be dead. You need to start reacting faster. You will not be given time to prepare for a fight.”

  Grabbing both weapons, I jerked myself up and attacked him a few times. It was enough to burn away the annoyance of his underhanded attack. As soon as my head had cleared, I changed my target. Ignoring his body. Targeting his weapon instead. If I could take that out then there would be little he could do to stop my attacks.

  At first, nothing seemed to happen as our bdes met. But after nearly five minutes of back-and-forth attacking, a small crack appeared in his bde. It wasn’t much, but it was a good start. “You are forgetting to use your mana,” Gregory said as he blurred at me. His bde smacked the back of my head as he passed me.

  Stumbling forward, I moved my feet as fast as I could to stop myself from facepnting. A soft grumbling growl came from within me as I turned to face him. My left shoulder area burned as I swung at him. I didn’t know how I was doing it but each swing was accompanied by a tiny fre of mana.

  With each fre, the attack blurred as I targeted his weakened sword. Eventually, it, along with mine, snapped in half. That didn’t stop me though. With one swift motion, I tossed the broken hilt at his face. As his arms flew up to protect him, I charged in after it. My dagger caught him under the armpit as my body tackled him to the ground.

  “Got you,” I said through my fast ragged breaths.

  “You did,” His voice was oddly calm as he continued, “But it wasn’t really you. It was the beast inside you. While I had hoped it wasn’t this far, I was hoping that you would also learn to control it before it controlled you.”

  I let him up, but I kept myself prepared to attack him again as I asked, “What do you mean beast?”

  He waved my question off. “It is just a byproduct of the bond. You will need to talk to Marcy about it.”

  “You mean you don’t know anything about it?”

  “I do, I just don’t feel like going over that.” Gregory dusted his clothes off and turned to leave.

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “You broke both of the training swords. I need to go make new ones. You are free for the rest of the day. Go rest and rex. Tomorrow will be even harder.”

  “But what about our deal?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” With a flick of his hand, Gregory sent something flying at me. Grabbing it out of the air, I looked down at a small red gem that hung on a chain. “That is a small dimensional storage. Think of it as a mateing gift. Um…a wedding gift in human terms. Pass some mana into it to pull items into and out of it.”

  “Thank you for this, but I never saw you use such a thing throughout training,” I said as I put the thing on around my neck. It sat just below my colr. Deep enough that it was impossible to see yet not far enough to swing all over the pce as I moved.

  “Just a small trick. As you push mana into the gem and tell it to retrieve or take in an item it produces a stream of mana to a spot in front of you. All you need to do is, using your mana control, redirect the stream to where you want it to pop in and out of. There are a few limits to this but it will come in handy.”

  As Gregory resumed his walk, his entire outfit changed. From one step to the next, his workout outfit changed into that of metallic armor. Another step and it changed into a long robe before finally returning to his workout outfit.