Meeting The Ex Again

The handsome man seemed not to notice the crowd. Only those familiar with him would notice the slight curve of his narrow eyes. He walked towards Andrea neither fast nor slow with his hands in his pockets.

"Dre, it's the big day, right? Congratulations. Even if we've broken up we are still friends, right? I'm on my way to a dinner. Would you like to join? We can raise a glass to your successful hatching." He stopped at a polite distance from her. After he didn't get a response for a while, he took half a step forward with a worried expression, "Andrea? You don't look so well, did something happen?" He glanced at the small ball in her arms covered in a soft blanket. "Did something happen?" He paused, "I have the Unbinding Crystal from our battle with the Crazed Youler last year. You-"

Andrea's gaze snapped away from the flying mount. Her big eyes sharpened. Her arms tightened around her pet as she took a large step back.

Her piercing gaze bore into him. The man secretly gulped.

"Derrick Lan Hudson, you had someone switch my Silver Earth Traveling Mount for a Quarry Tunneler, didn't you?" She had asked a question, but it was clear from her tone that it was a statement.

A brief moment of shock flashed through his eyes.

Just as he opened his mouth she spoke again, "Do you honestly believe I will come crawling back to you over such a thing?"

She stepped forward and looked straight into his face. Her doe eyes usually seemed to carry a tinge of sorrow and helplessness now looked right through him to the deepest, darkest hidden parts of him. Her voice carried a domineering strength he'd never known her to own. He nearly took a step back in the face of her intensity. But due to his unwillingness to give in to her, he stubbornly didn't move.

"When you suppressed my uncle's store in order to bring me under your wing, I accepted it. When you put all my summons on your card, I accepted it. When you sold my healed summons under the store's name, I accepted it. When you made me work for no pay, I accepted it. When you asked me to be your lover, I thought you believed 'what's mine is yours, what's yours is mine'. I forgave you. However, when I asked for 5% of what should have been mine to pay for my other's medical fees, what was your response?

"You told me I should learn to support myself as an adult. Well, I am. No matter what you throw at me, I will persevere. Even if I must scrimp and save to do so. Something you very much look down on.

"Maybe you should take your own advice. Because I will never cover my eyes about your faults again. And I will never lower myself to an unpaid labor force."

With a flash of Periwinkle, she had moved to the edge of the crowd. The crowd parted for her. Their whispers quieted as she neared.

As she disappeared Derrick was knocked back to reality. His sight landed on someone holding their finger up to record the scene. His face distorted. He called after her, "Andrea, you can't slander me like this!" He hurried after her and grabbed her arm, "If you apologize to me now, I'll let this go. For the sake of our past, don't make me sue you for slander."

His voice sounded kind but the threat in his words was obvious.

When Andrea's arm was tugged, her hold on her hatchling was thrown off and it was nearly thrown to the ground. Her fierce eyes widened and brows twisted into fright. She left as if her world was about to end. She quickly shifted her body to catch it. Several of the onlookers gasped with her.

"Derrick," A calm voice with an overbearing tone was heard above the murmur of the crowd. He did not raise his voice, but the powerful force behind it told it belonged to someone of high authority. The crowd's eyes converged on the Demonic Space Cracking Swift. A man with the powerful aura of a king sat astride the Swift. His aura had been restrained until now and was thus overlooked in light of the flying mount. Now that he was seen, it was difficult for people to take their eyes from him.

He belonged to a regal race. Their elongated skulls and the contours of their faces assumed their advanced evolution beyond that of Homo sapien sapiens. The race looked as if they'd been so ingratiated with technology it had been worked into them over the course of years of evolution resulting in luminescent tattoos and eyes.

His race was odd-looking. However there was something that overpowered his appearance. The aura that accompanied him made the other races have the urge to bow. The crowd couldn't help but lower their heads to reveal their necks. It was instinctive, many of them didn't even realize they were doing it.

He looked down from his Demonic Space Cracking Swift. His eyes had no visible pupil and his race's stiff neck joints made it difficult to know what he was looking at, but from his lowered eyelids his gaze was directed towards the fighting pair in the center of the crowd.

"Time to leave." The voice said. It was a command instead of a suggestion.

Derrick acknowledged and turned back to try and get a reply from Andrea. Before he could even open his mouth though, the swift had already begun its ascent. It hadn't landed the entire time so it would quickly be out of reach if Derrick didn't go now. He rushed back and hopped the two-story height without a problem.

Andrea watched him go. Her tense muscles finally relaxed.

She also turned to sneak away from the crowd before they surrounded her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the luxurious group flying away. The swift proved itself worthy of its name as it was a dot in the sky in just a few seconds. Before it had gone too far, Andrea felt as if those luminescent eyes had turned back to look at her.