Chapter 4 Clearing Thy Identity

It was not Arkadiuz's day. Not only did he wake up late and not find any hunt to feast on, but he got spotted by the one thing, the one race, he had been trying to avoid since the end of the Great War; a human. And this human saw his face and his actions, which were more than enough to give away his identity.

"You saw..." he spoke after swallowing a mouthful of horned rabbit meat, crackling some electricity.

Mylene noticed the action and put her hands up. "Wait! I'm not what you think I am!" she tried to speak.

Arkadiuz did not bother to listen, as he sent a beam of electricity her way. Mylene managed to dodge roll away from the attack, as it struck the ground where she stood, and created an electrifying explosion, one that left the very ground charred, and the grass around it burnt to crisp.

To say she was baffled upon seeing this would be an understatement. Mylene knew of how dangerous dragons could be, but that sort of destruction?! And she knew for sure that the dragon before her did not use his full strength in that attack.

"I'm amazed you dodged that," said dragon spoke, snapping her out of his thoughts, as she turned and saw his body crackling with electricity. "Don't expect the same thing to happen twice!"

"Wait! You have it all wrong! I swear!" she tried to reason.

Unfortunately, Arkadiuz refused to listen to her, as he unleashed another beam of lightning at her, prompting the girl to narrowly avoid it once more.

Mylene could not believe how bad her luck was. There she was, a Dragon Lover, with one of the very few free dragons- if not, the only free dragon- left in the world, and that dragon wants to kill her. Then again, how could she even blame him? After what happened at the end of the Great War, what the human soldiers did to the dragons? It was only reasonable that those who escaped such fate would harbor nothing but hatred towards them. But even so...

'How do I get him to see that I'm not one of them?!' Mylene wondered.

The Dragon Lovers did not just love and respect dragons; if anything, they were actually in very good, equal relationship with the dracos, quite like next door neighbors sort of relationship. While not all dragons have visited every Dragon Lover village, they were aware of there being several of these villages. However, that was before the Great War. After the war, not only did dragons suffer a humiliating defeat, but all Dragon Lover villages were destroyed, and many residents living in those villages were killed.

Just as how Mylene did not think there was still a free dragon out there, she knew for sure that Arkadiuz would never have imagine there being a Dragon Lover survivor right in front of him. All she had to do was show proof of her affiliation. Only one small problem, though... Well, two problems, actually.

"Quit moving around, you damn human!" Arkadiuz shouted, not stopping his relentless wave of lightning attacks.

"Just calm down and hear me out for a bit!" Mylene yelled, doing everything she could to avoid each beam. If she were to even attempt to prove who she was to this dragon, the possibility of her being alive by the end of it was dangerously low at the moment.

"And let you capture me just like your people did to my kin?! No way!" Arkadiuz charged up some more lightning in his right arm and threw a punch, unleashing an even powerful lightning at Mylene.

The hunter knew she could not avoid that attack and tossed her quiver of arrows at the blast. As soon as the lightning hit the quiver, a strong explosion occurred, powerful enough to blow her into a tree, and knocked it down.

Arkadiuz did not give her time to recover from the blast and rushed at her, singlehandedly grabbing the girl by the neck and pushed her harder against the log, as she clawed his hand for release.

"Don't blame me for where you'll be heading to. You only have that damn bastard you people call 'hero' to blame!" the dragon in human appearance said as he raised his arm, dangerously coated in lightning.

Mylene knew she was definitely going to die if she did not prove her identity at that moment, and swallowed her dignity. She hastily removed her chest guard and, as Arkadiuz brought his arm forward, ripped the left side of her shirt down, revealing her left breast in full. Specifically, she had revealed a certain mark on her breast.

One sight of it, and Arkadiuz stopped his attack, hovering his arm just above Mylene's chest, close enough for the girl to feel a bit of spark on her skin, as the dragon stared at the mark on her chest.

The mark was that of a side view of a dark red dragon, as dark and red as dried blood. Not all of the dragon was there, as it seemed more faded from the body and parts of its widely unfurled wings. However, it was not the mark's appearance that caught the dragon's appearance, but what it resembles. Arkadiuz knew that symbol anywhere, and became even more suspicious of the person he had in his clutches.

"Why do you have this mark?" he questioned with a dangerous growl.

Rather than give in to fear upon the act, as she felt more embarrassed in having to show her heritage this way, Mylene only looked at the draco in the eye and replied, "Why do you think?"

Sadly, that was not a favorable response, as Arkadiuz slightly tightened his grip around her neck, making it harder for her to breathe. "Try again. Why do you have this mark, human?!"

Despite her struggle for air, Mylene wheezed out, "Because... I am a survivor... just like you! To be exact... I'm the last Dragon Lover!"