Peace?

Haalfrin awakens again, except this time, he's surrounded by a spatial barrier, and mana-sealing cuffs are curled around his wrists and ankles.

There, sitting across from Haalfrin on a small wooden stool, is Dakka. With how huge and muscular the dragon-man is, it looks like the second he wobbles too hard, the stool's frail legs will break.

Looking at the dragon, who is staring down at him, Haalfrin lifts up his wrapped-up wrists and the cuffs binding them. Gesturing to them, he gives a sarcastic laugh, "So, old 'friend'… I'm surprised you guys hadn't killed me yet. Does the Queen still need me for her mana farm? Is that it?"

"I think you're misunderstanding a few things here, bro," Dakka replies with a smile.

Seeing this big, dumb dragon give a big smile just makes Haalfrin annoyed. 'Here I am,' he thinks, 'imprisoned and betrayed by my best friend, and here this lizard is, laughing at me.'

In Dakka's mind, he's not thinking of the gravity of the situation; instead, his head is filled with that one moment when he got to smash Haalfrin in the face. After thousands of years of being called the loser between them, it was truly cathartic to finally beat the human in a single hit. Dakka can't help but smile at this.

Dakka looks at Haalfrin's serious face, and his smile slowly fades. "You don't have to get so upset, bro. I got Mrs. Fina to agree to stop the war. Shouldn't you be proud of me?"

"Mrs. Fina?" Haalfrin blurts out. Then, he shakes his head. "No, Dakka. You can't trust that one. She's just trying to trick us into lowering the Death Energy barrier trapping her here. You know she wants to eat all the other Rehkin tribes!"

"She wouldn't dare!" Dakka thumps his chest proudly. "I'm stronger than her! Being an Elder dragon now, the mana I passively gain just from aging makes me grow faster than she ever could! She'll never catch up to me!"

"… How long have I been unconscious?" Haalfrin asks with a tired sigh. Given how different things are around here, Haalfrin has the feeling that it's been a REALLY long time. If a huge amount of time has passed, then a lot could've changed in the meantime.

A man can undergo significant character development several times in just a lifetime a few decades long. Just think about how much someone can change in thousands of years?

Thinking about this, Haalfrin decides to stay rational and listen to his friend's explanation at least, even though he's probably not going to like it.

---------------------

Over the next hour, Dakka excitedly explains his side of the story. He started off by talking about how he woke up and defeated the Queen.

When Dakka gets to the part where he "persuades" the Queen to marry him, Haalfrin resists the urge to throw up and poke Dakka's eyes out. If the Queen hadn't mercilessly tortured him and slaughtered his men over and over again, he'd have felt sorry for her.

Still, when Dakka starts going on a diatribe about how "beautiful and fierce the Queen is – both on her feet and on her back", Haalfrin suddenly gets furious.

The human holds his hand up and says with a scowl, "Shut up! I don't go into sappy detail about my life with Freyya either, so you should just keep that crap between you two. I don't need to know about how good she is in bed."

'Honestly,' Haalfrin scowls even harder, 'Shouldn't that kind of stuff be kept between the couple themselves? Why do people feel the urge to talk about their s#x lives with their friends?'

In Haalfrin's mind at least, s#x is a special thing, and something is no longer special if you share it with everyone.

In Dakka's mind, s#x is just something that couples do with each other. To him, he was just trying to be sociable AND compliment his wife at the same time.

In his eyes, a woman who is strong enough to rival him, pleasant to be around, AND likes to be physically intimate with him – a woman like that must be every man's envy!

Of course, people like Dakka and Haalfrin will never see eye to eye on this. And so, Dakka tactfully moves on with his story.

Next, Dakka talks about how adorable the little Ants are, and how he's been helping himself to the seed storage Haalfrin's men had carefully hidden away earlier. He then taught "the children" how to farm, and he figured out alongside them how to build crude houses at least.

It's around this time that Freyya lets herself out of Haalfrin's soul realm and appears in their room. She's about to sit on Haalfrin's lap, but when she notices that someone else is in the room, she gets red in the face and sits next to him instead.

Dakka goes silent, and Freyya feels everyone in the room look at her – no doubt startled by her sudden arrival.

"…What are you all waiting for?" Freyya spits out with crossed arms. "You guys were just talking."

"…Right," Dakka coughs as if to clear his throat. "As I was saying…"

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Out of everything that Dakka talks about, what surprises Haalfrin the most is when he learns about the Queen's backstory – about how each of the Ants AREN'T summoned clones, but fragments of her grey-colored soul.

This puts into perspective a few things he's noticed over the years – how the Ants seem to behave drastically differently than the Queen.

What intrigues Freyya the most is the part in Fina's story about the strange, Featureless creature that broke into her soul realm and sole her very soul away.

"Aren't you a goddess?" Dakka asks with surprise. "I thought you'd know about this thing."

Freyya looks down and mutters, "No… I've never heard of anything that can break into someone's Soul Realm without getting permission first or knowing your Names. Plus, traveling through the Void between Soul Realms is impossible."

(After all, if space and time doesn't exist, then there is no 'WHERE' or 'WHEN'. Without there being a 'where' and 'when', then it's impossible for something to be THERE since it is not 'THERE' but 'NOWHERE.')

Suddenly, Freyya rubs her arms and shivers. "I'm getting a strong feeling. We need to stop talking about that thing right now."

Haalfrin looks down thoughtfully.

*SLAP* Freyya's delicate hand leaves a red mark on Haalfrin's face. "AND DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" Haalfrin can see clearly how scared she is.

Dakka, of course, doesn't understand the severity of the situation; maybe he thinks that with his current strength, he doesn't need to be afraid of anything.

So, the dragon lifts his head up and gives a roaring laugh, "HA! Telling someone not think to about something will just make them think about it more!"

Suddenly, Freyya leans in and gives a big fat smooch on Haalfrin's lips. She only stops when she feels her man get red in the face and get that excited, lusty look that she's well familiar with.

Knowing that his mind is full of *other thoughts* now, she leans back and throws a pillow at Dakka. "Anyway… On with your story."

---------------------

Finally, after Dakka is done explaining everything that's happened, Haalfrin considers telling his side of the story.

However, talking about a long and monotonous war that ended in the Queen maiming and torturing him and his men…

... Something about talking about this to Dakka just feels wrong to Haalfrin – especially after Dakka just spilled his heart out about how much he loves his wife.

At the same time, Haalfrin is deeply unwilling to accept Dakka's marriage for many reasons – one of which is obvious; he just hates and distrusts the Queen. So, being told that he has to make peace with her doesn't sit right with the man.

Haalfrin also knows that the Arkin soldiers all hate the Queen a million times more than he does, and he has the feeling that things won't exactly go well if he tries telling them

In his mind, he thinks:

"Oh, the Queen who's mercilessly ripped you guys apart over and over again and treated you like disposable farm animals? Yeah her. She's suddenly changed and wants to make up with us now. Also, remember that dragon we were hoping was going to save us? Yeah him. It turns out that he's just a horny teenager who fell in love with our enemy and married her. Don't be angry with him. Pinky promise?"

It all just sounds so ridiculous to Haalfrin.

Really, the timing for this all is really bad. This entire time, his men had been diligently training in the Death Realm and preparing for the war to start again. They'd all been so excited when he finally awoke with his Advanced Dra Name; they could all feel how powerful he'd become, and they were looking forward to finally killing the Queen.

Now? Telling them all to accept peace just feels like it's coming out of nowhere. 'If I were them, I wouldn't accept peace…,' Haalfrin concedes to himself. 'This is going to be an awkward conversation…'

---------------------

So with his thoughts sorted out, Haalfrin holds his hand up again and says to Dakka, "Brother… I… Would this peace you're proposing even work?"

"That's what I was wondering myself!" Dakka chirps happily. "I was wondering if you could... you know... take the barrier down? The war's over, so there's no point in keeping it there."

Haalfrin rubs his temples. "The way this barrier works is that it can't go down until either myself or the Queen is dead. If you want to leave with your wife, I'm going to have to die."

Dakka goes cold, and his tail thumps unhappily on the floor. "Bro, I'm not going to ask you to kill yourself!"

"You could always fight me to the death," Haalfrin offers blandly.

"…Fighting a 6-horned dragon is the same as killing yourself," Dakka replies just as dryly.

Freyya feels Haalfrin's muscles twitch, and she sees the dangerously furious look in his eyes. Before he can throw something sharp at Dakka, she puts her hand on his chest.

Immediately the man calms down.

Feeling helpless, Haalfrin looks at his wife and thinks to her telepathically, 'Why can't these people just fight me the way I want? Whenever someone more powerful than I shows up, they always spare my life. This is getting seriously annoying.'

Freyya looks up at him. 'It's fine dear. I've gotten it all figured out. Just focus on getting your last Name Advanced.'

Haalfrin doesn't really understand what Freyya is talking about, but he DOES trust her a lot; hearing her reassurance calms him down.

Feeling more rational now, Haalfrin looks Dakka in the eyes and says, "I'll talk to my soldiers and see if they have anything to say about this."

Dakka is about to protest by saying something like, "Can't you just not summon them? They can't continue the war if you don't want them to."

However, Haalfrin interrupts sharply, "These men have suffered far too much to just be dismissed, Dakka! I'll only agree to lay my sword down if they ALL agree to it. This is their war just as much as it is mine."

To this, Dakka bows his head. "I'm sorry, bro. Take all the time you need."