Bonus Chapter: Lord Fheldin's Full Story of How He Met Mistress Arla

Without waiting for Haalfrin's acknowledgement, Fheldin goes on tell the tale, "Haha! Yup! We met in a forest. Well, I met her first. She was picking herbs on a cliff face. I saw her little phoenix body flitting around cutely, so I decided to scare her. I swooped down, and she was so startled that she fell off and nearly crushed her head on the ground."

"What?" Haalfrin laughs, "did you swoop down and catch her? Did she then praise you as her hero and instantly fall in love with you?"

"…No. She caught herself and landed safely." He pauses, then goes on. "Anyway, I used an invisibility treasure and stealthily followed her from above as she went into a human town to trade goods. She's good at hiding her Felkin features, so this wasn't a problem for her."

"What?" the human jabs, "you're a stalker now? Kinda creepy, dude."

Fheldin actually gets embarrassed being called out like this. "S-shut up! Dragons are hunters! Sneakily following stuff is in our nature."

Haalfrin shakes his head. "Stop making things worse for yourself. Now you're a predatory stalker. I feel sorry for Mistress Arla."

"Stop interrupting me! Grr!" Fheldin growls. "ANYWAY, I saw her selling her herbs for money, but the boy at the stall was oogling his eyes at her. That human was way too ugly and weak to eye by treasure, so I got a little annoyed."

Fheldin scratches behind his ears awkwardly at this next part. "I was worried that she would recognize me from scaring her earlier, so I wanted to do something that would make me look good…"

Haalfrin instantly gets a bad feeling at this. 'Oh no…,' he thinks, 'did Fheldin kill someone? Did he murder that boy?'

"So…," Fheldin continues, "I grabbed a large cockroach and… while still invisible, I snuck up behind her and gently placed it on her bare neck."

Haalfrin slaps his forehead.

"WHAT!?" Fheldin growls defensively, "She certainly freaked out and started screaming. Good thing I was right behind her, ready to rescue her from the roach. Once I grabbed the monster and heroically threw it away, I offered to buy her a drink. She naturally accepted."

(What Fheldin still doesn't know to this day is that Arla accepted his invitation purely because she was thirsty, and she recognized the plethora of expensive enchantments on his clothing; she figured he could afford to pay for a drink.)

"While we were both drinking away, I ended up asking her if she was single. She said yes. After that, I asked if she had anyone she liked…"

Haalfrin cringes hearing that. Isn't the first date a horrible time to ask stuff like that?

Well, it's not like he's gone on any official dates before, so he's not one to judge.

"After she said that she has nobody in her heart," Fheldin continues, "I asked her if she hated dragons. She said no. I then asked her if she would ever live with a dragon. She said that she would only do that if he was rich and had a lot of room to plant her herbs.

"You see, she complained about how she's the youngest in her household, and that they were cramped onto a small section of a mountain. There were human kingdoms on all sides, you see, and they were confined in the most undesirable, most unreachable place imaginable, for fear of being found.

"Because of this, Arla dear didn't have very much room for herself. She wanted to move out but had nowhere to go.

"So, I then showed up at her mountain the next day, kicked down her mother's door, then flew off with her that afternoon! Of course, a whole flock of pissed-off Felkin chased after me.

"Look!" Fheldin rolls up his shirt. "My grandmother-in-law gave me this scar. It's a mark of my love for Arla! And look, you see this burn mark? That's from…" He goes on to go down his list of scars, as each scar has a story to tell.

This whole time, Fheldin sounds like a crotchety old person showing off pictures of his family to complete strangers… except his scars are the pictures.