“Ah. It always feels so foreign, seeing them so early. Ginger, welcome to one of our many farms. This just so happens to be where we raise our transport.”


    Ginger beamed at the sight of the horses. As they stood on their hind legs, their manes whipping about in the cool morning air, clashing against the early sunlight, he was momentarily dazed. He hadn’t thought he’d be reminded of a distant, pleasant memory from the Wild because of the scene.


    ‘Oh, Ancor…’ he thought with a sad smile.


    There was a thud right then. Something had fallen to the ground.


    Shan had dropped her bag, and with more vigor than Ginger had seen her exhibit between today and the last time he saw her, she jumped over the fence in front of them and rushed towards the five horses. A small smile was etched onto her face, hardly enough to express all the joy twinkling in her black eyes.


    The horses circled around each other for a few seconds, and then they noticed the girl approaching. It was as though they had spotted a particularly large carrot.


    They all whinnied and galloped towards her. One of them, a silver gelding with a peculiar mane – a tangle of braids woven with black and white hair – left the others in the dust, charging more energetically towards Shan.


    Seeing this, Shan came to a screeching halt and then started sprinting in a different direction. She was… fast. Ginger was taken aback by her speed. Her legs were a blur below her fluttering skirt and her hair, which lagged behind, drew a straight, black line in the air. It might have been Ravi’s first serpent-shaped kite.


    The horses gave chase. Four of them galloped right behind Shan, quickly closing in, but the silver gelding took a different route. It drew an arc in its charge, intending to intercept Shan.


    It succeeded. Shan stopped before she crashed into the horse. Ginger heard her excitedly shout, “Alright, alright! You caught me! Calm down!” as the silver gelding and the others bit at her jerkin and nudged her with their heads. She stroked their chins and muttered sweet nothings with a face that continued to constrain the fullness of her brimming passion.


    “She… really likes those horses,” Ginger found himself saying.


    Fai laughed.


    “Oh, that’s putting it lightly. They adore her in turn,” he said, a look of pride on his face. “She raised all five of them on her own. They take after her. Silver Stroke is her favourite though. She tried to be impartial at first, but she couldn’t help herself.”


    Ginger resisted the urge to say, “I never would have guessed”, but he had indeed noticed how familiar and fond of Shan the gelding named Silver Stroke was. It was not a mystery which one it was.


    He was a little jealous… and also, a little apprehensive. When Shan jumped onto Silver Stroke’s back and rode him around the field with the others following behind them, he instinctively felt for the back of his thighs.


    It had been a while since Ginger had ridden a horse.


    There weren’t that many creatures that could be domesticated in the Wild. Most of them were either enemies, food, or both. Those with qualifications for affable – non-food related –relations with humans were scarce; and that was to say, horses were an endangered species in the Wild.


    Of the few that could be found, most were wild and extremely difficult to tame. Of course, that also meant that if you were lucky enough to find someone who was selling a horse, they were likely to be charging an arm, a leg, a heart, lungs, and a kidney for it.


    Once, Ancor had spent a fortune to get them two horses. (Those were the Shaman’s words. Ginger suspected that he had Charmed the owners and stolen them.) They had already been tamed and trained, which made the experience all the more enjoyable.


    However, both Ginger and Ancor hadn’t known how painful it would be to slowly but surely, adjust to having the flesh of their thighs turn raw and blistered after each long ride. Procuring horse-riding equipment, or the suitable equivalent hadn’t been easy. By the time the two found some, they had already gotten used to riding raw.


    The bond Ginger shared with Bito continued to haunt him. If the horse had passed naturally, he wouldn’t have agonized for years, as he had done, but, well…


    A loud voice came from the stables once again. Ginger turned away from Shan and the horses. Fai gave an “Ah!” of urgency, picked up Shan’s bag, and beckoned Ginger to the fence and then the stables.


    Ginger had once again been distracted by Shan and the geldings on the way when Fai suddenly yelled something in a language the dragonling couldn’t comprehend.


    The dominant rule of dragons (as Ginger was beginning to truly understand) filtered into many facets of the social establishment. All races on Ravi were mandated to learn the language of the Qin Asha before any others. Ginger had gotten so used to everyone speaking it (and fluently too), even in Proin, that hearing the unfamiliar tongue just now took him by surprise.


    They had just reached the stable sentry when a figure walked out.


    “Vess!” Fai cried, a bright smile blooming on his face. The figure didn’t reciprocate his enthusiasm though.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    He barked something in an unknown tongue, something rather harsh, given Fai’s reaction, but Ginger hardly heard it. He came to a stop, suddenly vigilant.


    The best way Ginger could have described this other figure was… an overgrown caterpillar with shaggy vermillion furs. It towered over him and Fai, half its body upright, with six pairs of human-like arms adorned in dirty black gloves on their human-like hands. Twenty-eight other limbs, similarly humanoid, and almost certainly hands, held the rest of its body up from the ground.


    A small face was attached to the creature’s front end, neckless. It was also human-like and nestled within the wild, vermillion furs. It had a triple threat of unsettlingly large features – huge beady eyes, a huge button nose, and a very wide mouth that escaped the bounds of its face.


    When the creature opened its mouth to speak, great rows of sharp, yellow teeth showed from inside it, giving no reassurance that they were simply for civilized dinners prepared by a wife.


    Ginger was barely containing the impulse to jump back, but when the creature’s glossy black eyes turned to him, he couldn’t help but mobilize his Kardia.


    “I thought I was mistaken. You really brought a little dragon here? Barely feels like one,” the creature said in the common Qin Asha tongue, and its unnervingly wide mouth stretched wide. “You never bring dragons here, Fai.”


    Ginger shuddered. He hardly heard what the creature said. He was lost in its black eyes.


    Fai gave a sheepish smile and wound his arm around Ginger, giving him an invigorating shake.


    “Vess, Ginger. Ginger, Vess.” His introduction was as passionless as it was passion-filled. Clearing his throat, he addressed the giant caterpillar. “Ginger here is a little different, Vess. Astounding talent for Sorcery, niche goals, and a down-to-Ravi personality. I could sense it from the moment we met.” He gave Ginger a bright look, his ancient-looking eyebrows jumping up and down.


    The caterpillar, Vess, scoffed and moved deeper into the stable.


    He picked up a bale of hay and tossed it into one of the stable stalls. A large, grey horse within attended to it immediately. Fai followed the caterpillar, Ginger still tucked in his hold.


    “What gives you the idea that he is any different? You’ve had hundreds of little dragons on your little adventures and you’ve never liked any of them nomatter how powerful they were. Some of them even had prodigious talent in Sorcery, you told,” said Vess, right when a few of the horses still locked in their stalls whinnied and snorted.  “I’ve grown distrusting of your judgment by the Tally.”


    Ginger, gulped. He didn’t like how Vess’ legs barely made a sound as he moved to and fro. It didn’t help that where feet should have been, hands touched the straw-strewn ground, supporting his weight.


    Vess extracted a large syringe from what Ginger could have only described as somewhere, beckoned one of the horses he had yet to free, and with a surprising degree of gentleness, injected the creature.


    Only after he was done did Fai release Ginger from his grip and say something that made the plump dragonling feel a shiver run down his spine.


    “Ahem, you see, Ginger here, isn’t all the way dragon,” he said. “He’s a halfling, and he’s not merely prodigious. He’s a talent that could rival the Djuka and the Mimada. He saw both the badger and the snake in that little evaluation of mine.”


    Vess was just as dumbfounded as Ginger. It showed in how his legs suddenly lost all perfect coordination, nearly causing him to collapse in a literal heap to the ground.


    “What?!”


    “W-what?”


    To Ginger’s stutter, as he paled, Fai responded hurriedly.


    “Indeed. I know, Ginger. But it’s not exactly a secret, is it?” he said and his broad smile turned into a kind one. “I have a few friends who deliver supplies for your school. They hear things. While they didn’t have all the details, I had always been curious about why your eyes didn’t quite look like those of a dragon. I figured then that you must have been the halfling they were talking about.”


    The panic the plump dragonling had been suddenly introduced to mellowed.


    Last Breather, he had seen one of those carriages drawn by bizarre beasts heading for the school and Reiss had explained that they supplied a majority of Draggard-Phoenix’s Institute’s resources – raw and manufactured. It stood to reason that the individuals who dealt with this supply knew quite a bit about current news in the school.


    ‘And here I thought I had the luxury of telling them when I was ready.’


    “Er… I see,” Ginger said after the thought, and his eyes drooped. “How long have you known?”


    “Don’t feel so betrayed. I only got the suspicion after our meeting and snooped around for a bit of information. Sounds creepy, doesn’t it? Sorry, I couldn’t help it. Shan was eager to know more about you too. You can trust everyone here to keep it quiet. The whole of Proin does not know about you yet and I don’t think it will bode well if they do.” Fai turned to Vess. “And as wide-mouthed as he is, he is quite the introverted recluse. Gossip is not his strong suit. He’s a friendless loner. A loser. Wouldn’t bother anyone with enticing news.”


    Vess grunted but said nothing to the insults. Ginger hesitated to form an expression of relief lest the giant caterpillar took offense.


    ‘What would happen if everyone in Proin knew though?’ he wondered. Was there a support for halflings or something darker?


    Stabbing the dragonling with another look, Vess squinted.


    “I know a thing or two about discrimination and the isolation it brings. I see spots of it in your eyes,” he said. “It would take a hundred more Cycles for dragons to begin accepting hybrids as their own. You’re not having the kindest time among the others, are you?”


    Ginger desperately wanted to retort, but he held his tongue.


    Indeed, he could see how even in this world, a creature like Vess would be met with… dislike, to say the least, but Ginger didn’t feel isolated – starved of intimacy. Ever since he and Reiss reconciled with Caron, he’d felt smothered by blissful attention, in fact. He had no lack of connection. After all, he didn’t need many.


    What Vess saw – and he did see something with those black eyes – was the strange feeling of unease the plump dragonling had been hiding away ever since he saw the Great Godling and all those other dragons days ago.


    Ginger was not like many other dragons out there. There were things only he could see, things only he could sense. Things not many understood. The unease he felt because he had yet to solve what was going on with him was an odd kind of feeling he couldn’t properly place.


    But he couldn’t explain all this to Vess.


    The caterpillar didn’t dwell on him for too long.  He turned away and resumed his work.


    “It’s far beyond me to judge your choices, Fai,” he said and produced another syringe. “But I would wonder just how potent you hope to make a dragon you actually like and for what purpose? Ah!” Vess suddenly cried in pain.


    There was a whinny and a clatter behind the stall he standing in front of. He backed away.


    With the way he was shaking one of his hands, it seemed as though something had bitten him, something Ginger couldn’t see because of the walls of the stall. The something in question was much shorter than the horses.


    What was it?


    Scowling, Vess glared at Fai.


    “Since you’re here, how about you do the injection, Fai? I can’t handle this beast any more than Shan and Long! I told you to either kill it or discard it. It’s too wild!”