Curiosity and Satisfaction

Fedora sighed and looked at her sword. Sure it did repel the dragons but it brought all sorts of nasty little critters in their place. In a span of two days she had been attacked by three times the amount of monsters her luck permitted. She was now tired and annoyed, and waiting for her wizarding friend to log on.

His cat ears had apparently increased his magic by ten fold. A little fire ball could kill a high level monster in one shot. When Ushi-chan had discovered this completely by accident he practically glued the ears to his head. He would not remove them under any circumstances, for fear that they would lose their power... or something like that. Fedora thought it was very silly, but she just suspected that Ushi was like any other mage. He liked to hoard objects. He probably had a place for storage and everything.

That was not what she should be thinking about. She had to be productive once in her life, as hard as that was. Slowly, and with all the grace she could muster in an outfit that would have weighed over a hundred pounds in real life, she made her way to the nearest town.

Little did the knight know, that the town was in complete and utter chaos.

A bright orange and yellow something made its way through the streets of Midway Eltia. Everyone, even the NPCs moved out of the way for whatever it was, and they were very surprised when the orangish blurry thing decided to stop in front of a store.

The virtual fabric around the creature seemed to pulse for a second before visibility increased.

The shopkeeper, and everyone in the general area nearly jumped out of their skins. 

It was a dragon. Smaller than most of the in game creatures, and much more exotic than anything in the game. It was either a illegal character edit or something totally different.

It was something totally different.

In fact the "it" was a "she", and she was a Bishen dragon.

The Bishen dragon set something on the shopkeepers desk and bluntly asked, *How much can I get for that?*

The shopkeeper shrugged. The dragon was still a customer. He picked up the object and traced it with his fingers, "It's pretty rare, a crystal unicorn horn, correct?"

The dragon nodded.

"I can give you five hundred GP." 

The dragon snorted. *You are joking? That thing is worth twice that! Do you have any idea how long it took me to convince that unicorn to give up her horn?*

The shopkeeper sighed. "All right, then how about one thousand GP?"

*Herm... I think I'll take it to another store, thank you for the appraisal! You'll find a little surprise in the back of your shop.* With that the dragon bound off.

Mister shopkeeper rolled his eyes as he made his way to the back of the shop. Five minutes later their was a ear shattering scream of joy ringing through out the marketplace.

The little dragon giggled as she made her way to the closest inn.

For once she was showing herself in "public." It was fun, but this would probably be the only day she would do it. Today was the day she would find a bondmate, and then everything would go from there.

Ushimo could not help but blink a few extra times. He knew that Fedora had been having problems with her sword, but what she was describing was ridiculous. It was times like this that he was happy he had bad luck with finding rare items.

"You know, you could just sell it to someone."

It was Fedora Lita's turn to blink in surprise. "Do I need to remind you how rare this item is, as a matter of fact have you even bothered to check the items index?" 

"OH! Right, I forgot to tell you they did update and put our items on the list. Heck, they say their one of a kind give a ways." He nearly jumped off of the bar stool to hug his companion.

"Enough of that," She said edging away so that he could not even give her a hug. "Is there anything else you wanted to say, before I tell you what I've been observing?"

"Besides all the odd critter popping up?"

The knight nodded.

"I have nothing to say then."

So Fedora began with a sip of her drink--wait? Where did her drink go? She looked the counter up and down and so nothing, not even her friend's drink. "Ushi-chan...?"

"What?"

"Where did our drinks go?"

Ushimo's eyebrow cocked up. Why would Fedora be worried about drinks at a time like this? He looked down and saw that his glass had apparently grown legs and walked away, since it was not in its' rightful place.

He was not sure if it was a game glitch or something else. He looked around the tavern... they were the only ones in it.

He loosed his shirt in real life. Something was wrong. "Do you think it's just a game glitch?"

"I... doubt that."

"So... something bad?"

"Most likely."

"Argh...." Ushimo's head was greeted by the table in a rather odd fashion. It did not matter in the least bit, because it did not really hurt him.

Fedora shook her head. "All right!" She stood up and drew her sword, brandishing it at thin air. "Whoever you are come out where I can see you!"

Something giggled, and with an odd clink sound the glasses appeared in their proper spots.

Logically speaking this place could not be haunted, but logically speaking Fedora Lita should not exist, so it may have been possible. Doubtable, but possible.

Her doubts stopped when, with a very loud pop, a brightly colored orange dragon greeted her by appearing an inch away from the knight's face.

The knight stumbled backwards but caught herself on a table. "What the heck are you?"

Ushimo was already half way across the room with a magic spell prepared.

The dragon smiled. *I'm your bondmate Miss Fedora Lita!*

"Are you now?"

The dragon bobbed her head. She was a rather interesting character to look at. She looked nothing like any of the other dragons, and was much smaller than any dragon Fedora had seen.

"Do you have a name...?"

*Jadzia Rai de Kikime et Teshi.*

"Right. Do you have a nickname?"

She giggled. *Kiki.*

"And why exactly am I your bondmate?"

The dragon shrugged. *I guess you're like me, as in... we have the same interests. This game for one. I've been around for a while, watching you and your friends play, and you seemed like my best choice.* Her head tilted, *Why don't you log off anymore?*

Fedora blinked. She had a dragon for a stalker. That was lovely. Then again, it didn't seem that bad. Kiki... seemed nice, and utterly harmless.

Ushimo thought the shame and discharged his magic. "You wouldn't happen to be the "mysterious angel" wandering around the game? I heard that people saw an "orange angel" a few time in the game."

Kiki shrugged. *People see what they want to see. I suspect a few people who saw me today, saw a person rather than a dragon. Sometimes these games have a weird way of playing with gamers minds.*

No kidding.

The dragon bounced in place. *I was wondering... Fedora, since you're here all of the time, do you want to come with me to see something very special? If you want you can bring your friend but... it may prove dangerous.*

"What's a little danger!" The mage said rolling up his sleeves.

It could very well mean the end of Fedora's live. She knew that, and so did Kiki. Odd. The young knight looked to the Bishen dragon. "I trust you Kiki."

*Good. Then we can be bondmates.* She giggled joyously. This was going to be the greatest fun ever.