There were days when Liam was glad to have left Usearous behind. After eighty-some years of exploring, the continent had started to become more familiar than he would have liked. He had explored many of its secret nooks and discovered quite a few surprises along the way. But Eltica was the only place that had humans. Liam's fascination with the busy creatures had begun shortly after he'd arrived on the continent nearly a year ago. He had been watching them ever since, often shapeshifting to take a form similar to theirs.

But not entirely. His skin was rough and had an almost green, scaly tint to it, and his eyes were unmistakably reptilian. But Liam had accomplished the two arms and legs, an oval head, and even their alarmingly small jaws and snout. Getting rid of his tail had been a difficult but necessary evil; none of them believed he was human after they saw his tail! And even with all of his hard work, his physical differences made most of the humans at Elt's Gape keep their distance. They didn't trust his sharp looking fingernails or the frightening weight of his strange eyes. And, after being chased away from a small family by a man with a spear, Liam was almost feeling defeated.

He sulked under the overhang, listening to the weak waterfall pour into the thermally heated pool while he searched for flat rocks. "Stupid humans," Liam grumbled under his breath. He picked up a smooth, brown stone from the bottom and glared at it. "I just wanted to say hi!" He chucked the flat stone as hard as he could, sending it skipping over the water.

At least that was something he could do right!

The gypsy had the walk of a woman who knew she was lovely- all confidence, with dark eyes that taunted and laughed as her hips rolled with the sensual rhythm of a dancer. As she walked, the anklets that embraced her left ankle jingled a pretty tune, though the light, cheerful sound was muffled under the fabric of her skirts. Light-hearted and free from the strict regulations of the Romani though she was, allowing her legs to show in public was simply not something she could allow herself to do. So, she kept them hidden underneath a simple skirt, dyed to a rich purple. Atop her skirt hung a decorative wrap that was awash with hues of reds and accentuated by the coins that were sewn onto the edges. One of her hands distractedly rubbed one of the coins- perhaps for luck, or from nervousness, or perhaps out of sheer distractedness.

She walked along the bank, carefully avoided getting too near to the water, but delighting it in cool feel of the smooth rock beneath her feet. She sat on a small boulder not too far away from the hot springs, gazing happily over the pastoral scene it made. Suddenly, the wind picked up and rushed through the holler, tumbling over her with an almost insistent force. The wind tossed her dark curls behind her, taking with it the ends of the lively red scarf that she bound her hair with. Soon it was not just the ends of the scarf of wind demanded, but the whole thing, and Jaelle reached to tighten the fabric just as the playful wind decided to take it from her.

As she half-skipped, half-ran after the scarf, her pretty, pouting mouth shouted words that were considerably less attractive than the lips they came from at the wind. It took her scarf over the pool, and since she would rather lose the scarf then swim to its rescue, she tried to scurry around the pond in order to snatch it before the water claimed it. She was so focused on getting it back that it was only thanks to her grace and sure-footedness that she turned just in time in order to avoid hitting a young man, whom she only really saw peripherally. Muttering something that could be taken for an apology, she turned back to the chase, only to be disappointed to see that the wind had stopped as quickly as it had started, leaving her poor scarf sinking slowly in the middle of the pond.

that was my favorite one, too.

--she sighed, her voice a charming, musical one that was a little deeper than those of most women, but was still extremely effeminate. She sat on a boulder in a huff, like a petulant child who had just been denied candy, glaring at the pool that she had only moments ago thought so charming.

hi.

Her voice was reluctant, as though she didn’t really want to talk, but felt that she should. After tossing a quick look at the man that she had almost bulldozed without really looking, she returned to longing gaze back to the water.

The brightly dressed woman on the shore would have attracted his attention even if she wasn't doing a peculiar dance. Liam watched her, his frustration at the humans entirely forgotten thanks to the unfathomable antics of a single person. The words she was shouting were attracting attention on their own; scandalized looks from some people, and chortles from a group of young men bathing in the shallows. That, too, was a curiosity that Liam hungered to understand. Their noises and shouts and peculiarities! What did they all mean? He was often this way with new things; sporadically obsessive until he lost interest entirely.

The woman further intrigued him when she inched around the pond instead of plunging through the water. Needless to say, Liam was all but staring with starry eyes by the time she came to sit on a rock right next to him! Had he been in dragon form, he would have been preening frantically. As a two legger, he did his best by squaring his shoulders and trying to mimic the powerful stance from the man who had chased him earlier.

But he was still uncomfortable in his human form, despite the many days he'd spent practicing. Liam didn't realize it, but he looked ridiculously awkward. "Hi! I'm Liam." He paused to follow her gaze over the water. "Is it the red thing? Um. I could get it for you...?" He looked at it again. "Though really, I dunno why you'd want something that's red. Green is much better." Shaking his head, the dragon-turned-human waded and then swam across the pool to retrieve her scrap of red cloth.

It took some searching and swimming around, but Liam was determined and he had been watching when it fell. With a triumphant shout, he thrust the hand with the red cloth into the air and headed back toward the human. His smile was wide enough to split his face when he strutted over to her rock, abnormally proud of his accomplishment.

But really, he was a dragon. It was an accomplishment that he hadn't eaten her yet! "Here, I got your red thing. But, um. It's wet..." he held it out to her, his smile fading into an uncertain grimace.

So intent was she on stewing in the torment of her lost scarf that the young man who stood next to her was practically forgotten until he spoke again. Jaelle whirled to face him, her long dark hair whipping gloriously around her shoulders to frame a face that would have been pretty, if a little plain, were it not for her huge, dancing dark eyes that made her heartbreaking lovely. Those eyes did not betray that she found him odd, and though sweet- impossibly awkward. Her reputation as a dancer and a fortune teller lay in her popularity, and it did not do to offend potential customers. To Jaelle, everyone was a potential customer, especially when times were scarce. The wide, winning smile she graced the strange boy with only made her more beautiful- it was a smile that had broken army captains and soothed offended patrons. Her smile was a lethal weapon, and Jaelle knew how to use it.

baby, if you get me my lucky scarf i will dye it green and buy a dress to match

Her voice was infinitely sweeter now; she was so pleased at the prospect of a returned scarf that the embittered whine had all but vanished from her tone, and in its place was the silky sweet call of a genuinely thrilled woman. She watched intently as he paddled around carefully, looking for her missing length of fabric, and broke into delighted laughter when he resurfaced with a triumph that suggested he had won a war or survived a siege rather than reclaimed her errant scarf. Jaelle found it darling. She took it gratefully, her hands brushing his as she collected her scarf and wrung it out, careful not to let the water drip on her. There was nothing she hated more than being wet.

But then she saw the uncertainty in his eyes, and for a moment felt an odd emotion that, at first, she couldn’t quite put her finger on. As he squirmed, she realized that emotion was… sympathy? How odd. It struck a chord within her, and she threw herself into his arms (despite the fact that he was a strange man, and, more importantly, a wet man), thanking him profusely and rewarding him with a peck on the cheek before disentangling herself and backing away.

if you aren’t just the sweetest thing. i swear this is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

It was only when her playful brown eyes met his unsure reptilian ones that she began to feel a slight pit of uneasiness in her stomach.

To say that Liam was a little in awe of the human before him wouldn't have been untrue. The bright smile was not lost on him, and remembering it made his stomach twist in not uncomfortable ways. But it was her voice that he found the most appealing. Without the whine, it was foreignly feminine in a way he didn't understand coming from a human. But he wanted to.

The warmth of her hands brushing against his when he returned her scarf made him smile. Liam felt his cheeks do an odd thing they had never done before - get warmer! Turning his head, he nudged his cheek against his shoulder with a confused frown. His inner fire was a tightly leashed force inside of him, and he hadn't been encouraging it. There was no reason for his cheeks to be warm!

"I, um." Liam was learning the human language in bits and pieces. There were many phrases he knew and understood, but real understanding would only come with time. At the moment, their conversation was about as meaningful as his attempts to mimic the speech of the birds and the beasts. Just another puzzle to figure out - a curiosity that he would soon tire of.

Or that was what he was trying to tell himself when Jaelle threw herself into his arms. He caught her around the waist with a startled laugh, instinctively turning his head into the kiss - as if he wanted to return it. But Liam didn't understand the gesture or what it meant, and he only looked more confused when she pulled out of his arms. "It was nothing. The water..." Liam trailed off, trying to think of the appropriate phrase. "It does not bite? But you fear it?" He shifted his weight, feeling wet and sticky in his clothes now that he was mostly out of the water.

"Liam," he said, pointing at himself. He was blissfully unaware of her growing uneasiness. With some distance between them to keep his body from reacting in strange ways to her laughs and touches, his confusion had dwindled back into joy at having found someone to talk to. "Your name? Are you from around here?" Those were all things he had heard the other humans asking each other, but it wasn't what he really wanted to know.

What Liam truly wanted couldn't be obtained in a second, minute, or even a day. True understanding took time, no matter how eager he was to reach it. "Would you - perhaps we can sit somewhere and talk? I'd like to know." It didn't occur to him to specify what he wanted to know.

When she peeled herself away from the dragon-man, the front of her clothes clung to her in the very same way that the clothes of the man clung to him. As though she weren’t fully aware that the white cloth top that adorned her did not stick to her in the most indecent manner and come perilously close to being transparent as the water seeped through, Jaelle stood proudly before him as she heard hoots and hollers coming from the men who lounged in the comfort of the springs. Dark, glittering eyes darted in their direction, and her delicate chin jutted out a little more, almost imperceptibly. When the curious man before her spoke again, she had forgotten about the curling ball of angst she felt when she looked at him, and it was his insecurity that brought all of her attention towards him. He asked about the water.

I fear it. I cannot swim.

She spoke with an attractive curve to her plush lips and a lilt to her already musical voice, as though her greatest fear was nothing more than a walk in the park to her. There had been no traumatic event in her life involving water, no particular reason to detest it to the point that she did- except for the fact that it left her powerless. She could imagine what it would be like to drown- clawing, dying in a brilliant blue-green grave, which would let her sink almost jubilantly to the bottom and then continue to flow, as though she had never been there. As though she had not died there.

She sat again, her dark eyes flitting away again, just for a moment- to send a fierce, silencing glare towards the men who laughed. She was not afraid of them, nor did she long to be accepted by the nude idiots who lazed in the hot springs- she simply did not want to tolerate them. It was better to wander alone, she found, and befriend people along the way than to stay in one place and be chained by one set of customs. A soft sigh passed her lips, content now that the men seemed sufficiently intimidated by the gypsy. It was only because they thought she would curse them that they listened, but that was enough for her.

I am Jaelle-

She breathed, her words an ethereal gasp of pleasure and confusion that he would still linger by her. After all, it was clear she was a gypsy, or at the very least, an outcast. Most respectable men did not linger to long after that. This conclusion brought her to think that he was not respectable.

-and no, I am not from here. I'm not from anywhere, really. Are you?

Despite her recent decision that he was in no way a reputable gentleman, she lingered by him. It’s not as though she was the most reputable woman. She schooched over on the large rock to make from for them both to sit, then tentatively patted the empty area with strangely wide, shy eyes.