"I do not believe the creature is paying us any attention."

"I do not believe so either. A unique experience."

"An insulting experience, Hymre. We are not gnats to be disregarded."

"You never were very good at pricks to your pride."

"I should not have to be!"

The gold-scaled dragon sighed. "Mortal. To spare Rykeg's patience, are you aware enough to answer our questions?"

I heard lingering threads of threat in that question. If I answered wrongly - or worse, didn't answer at all - one of them was more than ready to burn me away on the deepest levels. I stammered out something that was meant to be an agreement, hoping enough of my intent made it across for that to be clear.

"I'm going to assume that was an agreement and not the completely nonsensical statement it seems to be." She swung her head toward the assembly of corpses in identical chairs and I had to stop myself from sighing in relief as the slit pupils found another target. "Are you the one responsible for...this?" I couldn't tell if the disgust in her tone was my imagination or actually present.

"That wasn't me. I was almost in one of those chairs just now, but I don't know why they're here."

"He's lying." The maroon dragon's voice had gone from a rumble like distant thunder to a sound closer to an army of horses bearing down on me. "The mortals will say anything to spare their own skins."

My voice went high-pitched immediately. "I'm not! I'm telling the truth."

"And you just so happened to be in this place at the exact time that we were awakening? You want us to believe that you were not coming to inspect your insidious trap for its latest victims?" The shadows flickered between his sentences, accompanied by a surge of heat. I was certain that he'd exhaled a streamer of dragonflame and very nearly flinched out of pure instinct.

"I was Shadewalking! I wanted to know what was in here and apparently that chair was altering my thoughts, trying to draw me into it. I don't know how to make you believe me." Phantoms, I hated dealing with dragons. I always ended up begging somehow, an experience I'd pay an absurd sum to avoid for the rest of my life and any others that came after.

"It seems like he might be telling the truth. Mental alteration would explain some of what I saw while trying to put him back together," Hymre said.

I pushed myself up to look at her, hoping that her companion wouldn't take it as a threat. "What exactly did you see?"

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"Not memories, if that's what you're concerned about." She blinked, sideways eyelid flickering. "But there were a great many cracks and a high concentration of what seemed to be mental cobwebs."

"Of course he's cracked in the head," Rykeg growled. "He's mortal. They're all insane to some degree or another."

"It's more than that. I didn't manage to delve him deeply but I saw at the center of his mindset a core that seemed to have been forged from pure determination. It's remarkably similar to the one at the center of your own mind, if I'm being perfectly honest."

Delve me? She could do that? I asked as much out loud, never mind that she had said she hadn't; even the chance that she could have picked up something from one of my memories and wasn't letting that slip was too much of a chance. I may technically have been born into this life yesterday - assuming that it had passed midnight - but I wasn't going to pretend that my previous life didn't count. There were things in there that no other being should be allowed access to, especially if I wanted to have half a chance to have some peace and quiet this time around.

Apparently my face had twisted as I thought about the ways that someone seeing my memories could go horrifically wrong. "I said I didn't see anything memory related. You have nothing to worry about, whatever secrets you have."

Might as well try to dissemble while I could. "Secrets? Me? I was just taking offense to being lumped in with him." I raised a weak hand and pointed at the maroon dragon. "I'm not seeing it."

They both snorted, Hymre in what I thought was an amused way and Rykeg in a much more displeased form. Four jets of flame shot out from the expressions and I saw for the first time that Hymre's dragonflame was a harsh blue. I wasn't sure what it meant, but there had to be something important about that difference. I threw that idea in with the rest of the things I would investigate when I found an actual repository of information to raid.

"You could only wish to be compared to me, fledgling. You haven't come anywhere near glimpsing the faintest portion of the kinds of glory I am capable of accomplishing. Your cultivation isn't even pure," he spat.

My cultivation wasn't what? "Now wait. Hold on. What do you mean by that?"

"You are an imbecile. Your clan has failed you or you have failed them. I can't even tell what you've done to yourself from how severe the damage is." His voice slid from idle anger to an active, roiling hatred as he spoke, and I still had no idea what had set him off.

"Stop insulting me and explain what the hell any of that means! How can my cultivation be damaged? I only started two days ago!" In this life at least, but there was no reason to let them in on every secret I had.

Rykeg looked, as best as I could tell, completely aghast at that. "Two days?"

"Maybe. Does it only count when I was awake? Because then it's about one day."

"Hymre. Hmyre, I want to go back into the sleep. This era is terrible already."

"We haven't even seen the countryside, dear. It's too early to put ourselves back under for another Changing."

"What could they really have that was worth it? If this mortal's cultivation has become this debased in two days of cultivation, the world may have gone back to the days of corrosive animus pervading everything."

"I hope not. But that Changing had such wonderful fashion sense, Rykeg. Would it really be so bad to see a resurgence?"

What in the Abyss's true name were they talking about? And was this what they felt like when I was ignoring them earlier? No wonder they had been so irritated at that.