Ghosts & Dragons

Legend

"talking"

"YELLING/SHOUTING"

'thinking'

"talking in another language"

"YELLING/SHOUTING IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE"

'thinking in another language'

*Sound effect like a hiccup, or a boom*

"So, where are we going to eat Danny?" Tohru questioned him.

"Well, there is this restaurant that shares a similar name to mine, called Donny's (1), but depending on who serves us there it might be a hit or miss," Danny replied.

"Oh really, well if you like it then it should be good," Tohru said with a shrug.

"Yeah, in the mean-time though, can you tell me a bit of what your world is like if you want," The human of the two said.

"Well, there are many different races there, Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, and several races that seem to come from regular animals like cats, lizards, and many, many more," The Draconic girl said.

"Huh, well I guess that your world is a kind of like a generic fantasy world then," Danny said, though he sounded interested.

"Well, I wouldn't know if it is a generic fantasy world, but then again, I don't know what constitutes for one in this one," Tohru said, shrugging once more.

"Well, what about legends and stories that are common amongst dragons?" Danny asked, "that is if there any that come to mind."

"Well, a lot of them are the same, featuring humans or other races being rather foolish and trying to steal from a dragon and either succeeding or failing, based on the lesson trying to be told in it, with the events in the tales being different," she answered, "but there is one legend, where in it a Dragon and his half-elf companion train a militia to take down a tyrant king that wielded the same powers as a dragon, it's so old that the names of the main characters in it have been forgotten."

"Really?" Danny questioned rather intrigued, "Well, how does it go?"

"Well in the legend it starts out that the half-elf was originally training the king when he was a prince, to take over as a more benevolent king than his father who was also a tyrant," she began telling the tale, "When they were done training for the day they went on a horse ride through the nearby village, when the boys' father and his knights began to attack the village because of suspicions that the peasants there were planning a revolt."

"And they were," Danny said, knowing events from history where similar situations happened.

"Yes, they were, but one of the peasants was actually able to get his pitchfork to not only pierce the kings' chainmail armor, but actually kill the king. The prince seeing this, tried to run to kill the peasant that killed his father with his sword, only to be pushed out of the way when a girl that was barely in her teens tried to get at one of the kings' knights causing him to fall onto a sharp piece of fence and causing a horrible wound," she continued, "the half-elf seeing this, rescued his charge and took the prince back home to be healed by some of castles' healers, but unfortunately the fence the young prince fell on was for a pen of pigs, so it had caused a terrible infection that the healers weren't skilled enough to get rid of, the only options left were to let the prince die a slow agonizing death, or go to a cave that housed a dragon and plead with it to help save the prince, they made their choice and went to the dragons' cave."

As she was talking Danny was entranced, this wasn't like the stories and legends behind the constellations of his world that he has heard a thousand times, and read to the point that he could recite them in his sleep, it sounded more like an actual history lesson, but somehow far more captivating as if the whole world had stopped to listen to Tohru tell this tale.

"When they entered the second to last room in the cave the dragon spoke, "who dares to enter my home uninvited and unannounced, speak now and you may keep your lives, if I don't find your reason to be satisfactory you will be punished!" and so, the queen and half-elf explained themselves, wishing for the dragon to heal the boy, the dragon though was not willing to do so at first, explaining that it could sense the evil in his heart that he had inherited from his father, but the half-elf had retorted that he and the queen were the ones who had raised the prince, not his father and that he knew the prince would not become like the king, so the dragon relented and did something that dragons nowadays do not know how to do," she spoke, her voice taking on a different tone and pitch when speaking as the dragon from the tale.

"What did he do?" Danny asked.

"He gave the young prince half of his heart, and in doing so, not only saving the princes' life, but also bestowing the prince with draconic powers he would have had if he were born a dragon, with the prince healed the queen and half-elf gave their thanks and left," Tohru answered, smiling at how enraptured Danny is with her storytelling.

"Half of his heart, is it possible for a dragon to live with only half a heart?" Danny questioned, stopping at a crosswalk and pressing a button to get traffic to stop for them.

"Depending on the dragon and their magical abilities yes, it is possible, they'll regenerate the missing piece of their heart, those without sufficient magical power WILL die," she told him with a very serious look on her face.

"And how come no dragon nowadays know how to transfer half of their heart to someone else, is it some secret lost spell, or something?" Danny continued questioning.

"Well, the thing is that one dragon I know does know how to, but she won't tell because she's afraid that if humans find out, some of them will try to force the dragons to give them half of their hearts, so she keeps the knowledge of it to herself," Tohru answered again.

"So, what happened next?" Danny urged.

"Well, when the prince awoke and found out that he had half the heart of a dragon he began to experiment, and quickly found out that he the power to create and manipulate lightning, flight, minor regeneration, enhanced strength, speed, reflexes, and had some scales on various locations of his body," she continued with the tale, "using his new powers he began to subjugate the peasants, especially those that killed his father, when the half-elf learned of this, he confronted the newly crowned king, a battle swiftly ensued with the half-elf on the defensive, with the mentor of the two trying to reason with his student to get him to stop, but the newly crowned king retorted that was only using the half-elf to get stronger, but now that he had powers greater than the half-elf, he was useless and with a final push sent the half-elf tumbling out of the castle and into the surrounding moat."

"Did the half-elf live?" Danny asked her.

"Yes, he did though he was heavily injured," Tohru answered him.

"When he was sufficiently recovered, he went back to the cave where the dragon resided to kill him, believing that he had corrupted the boy, but the dragon had already left after hearing what the new king had done. When the half-elf couldn't find him, he swore that he would find and kill him, no matter how many other dragons he had to kill until he got the right one," Tohru went on.

"Wait, the half-elf was willing to kill as many dragons it would take to kill the right one?" Danny questioned incredulously, "But if that dragon could survive tearing out half his own heart, how could he kill him?"

"Well, while it is rare, there are some warriors that are capable of actually killing dragons with that powerful of a healing ability, whether it be from powerful spells, or magical items that they either found, or had made for them," Tohru explained.

"Wait, there are people capable of making items that powerful in your world Tohru?" Danny again asked incredulously.

"Yes, though they are very rare, only one to every seven-hundred fifty thousand from what I know, and they tend to be rather secretive and withdrawn from society," She continued to explain, "but most items on that level tend to be granted to mortals by the gods themselves."

"Anyway, five years passed and, in that time, the half-elf had killed twelve different dragons, all of whom did not know the location of the one he was looking for, until one day they met again, though because the dragon that had given half of his heart hid in the shadows the half-elf did not know that, and so they fought with the half-elf using every skill he had to keep up with the dragon, until eventually they ended up in a stalemate with the half-elf in the mouth of the dragon, with only his sword keeping the dragon from chomping down on him as it was stuck in the roof of the dragon's mouth," Tohru continued with the tale.

"That must have been fun for both of them," Danny said, holding in a chuckle at how it must have looked to anyone looking at it from outside the fight.

Tohru shrugged before continuing, "After a couple of hours the dragon finally forced the half-elf out of his mouth, and after pinning him, came up with a solution for both of their problems, he gave the half-elf a deal, either he keeps hunting dragons until he died, or the half-elf and the dragon could team up and con peasants out of money, the half-elf tired from fighting agreed reluctantly."

"Oh, we're here Tohru, let's continue the story after breakfast," Danny said, interrupting her.

Going into the restaurant they were greeted with the sight of half-full booths, and waiters/waitresses taking trays to and from the kitchen.

"Hello, please follow me to your booth, and you'll be served soon after," the somewhat cute looking hostess with mousey hair said.

After sitting in their booth, and opening their menus Tohru decided to ask Danny a question, "So what do you suggest, Danny?"

"Well, any of the pancakes and waffles are good, but for your first one I suggest the Belgian waffle platter with maple syrup, butter, and some grape juice," Danny replied.

"If you say so," Tohru said with a smile.

"Hello, and welcome to Donny's', what will be your order today?" asked their waiter, a handsome twenty-year-old man with red hair and brown eyes, focusing mostly on Tohru's breasts

"Yeah, I'll have the lumberjack breakfast sandwich with some black coffee," Danny replied, lifting an eyebrow when the man gave him an annoyed glare.

"I'll have the Belgian waffle platter with maple syrup, butter, and grape juice," Tohru told the waiter, going with the suggestion Danny gave her.

"Thank you, your order will be ready in fifteen minutes," their waiter told them, before leaving.

"Why did that man glare at you Danny?" Tohru questioned him.

"Most likely my parents," he answered, "you see, because they have an obsession with ghosts, so much so that they practically make it a very big facet of their lives, publicly so, it made them be seen as the town kooks, and because I'm their son, it's enough to make me a social pariah."

Tohru frowned; she was actually a little angry, just because Danny was the son of a couple of enthusiastic ghost hunters, that didn't mean that others had the right to turn him into a social pariah.

"Here are your drinks, your food will be out momentarily, and miss, in case you get tired of babysitting, my number," their waiter said in a tone that was somewhat suave, while handing Tohru a piece of paper, before walking away.

Tohru stared at the numbers a little perplexed before Danny spoke up, "Oh, he thinks you and I are going on a date, and is trying to show how much better he is by flirting with you Tohru."

Tohru just stared at the paper before ripping it up and pushing the pieces as far as she could away from her saying, "Well, I'm not interested."

Danny chuckled before taking a sip of his coffee before spitting it back into the cup with a noise of disgust, "This coffee is cold, I'll have him bring me another one."

Tohru's brow was twitching now, this 'man' was starting to annoy her, but the upside of this to her was the fact that others thought this was a date between her and Danny, so she didn't say anything, she just remembered what Jazz spoke to her about concerning Danny.

(10 minutes before Tohru and Danny left the Fenton house)

After transforming her scales into the clothes, she would be wearing today Tohru was all set to go before Jazz spoke up, "before you go, I want to know, how does courtship work amongst dragons?"

"Well, it's different depending on the dragons, but the most common thing between them is cutting off their tails and offering it to their hopeful mate to be, to eat," Tohru told her with a smile.

"Uhhhhhh," Jazz said, more than a little disturbed at that little factoid, "Humans, at least the ones in this world, don't mutilate themselves before giving a limb to someone they like".

"Then what do you suggest I do then Jazz?" Tohru asked her.

"Well, Danny is actually quite dense, he doesn't even know that Sam is crushing on him, but I suggest you wait a bit before you start to make any kind of romantic advances on my little brother, two months should be enough time for you two to get to know each other more, and even then, you're going to have to be a little blunt about it," Jazz told her.

"By the way, why do you approve of me more than this Sam, Danny is friends with?" Tohru questioned.

"Well, while Sam is a good person, she unfortunately has some qualities to her that would make a relationship between her and Danny rather difficult," Jazz said, before continuing at Tohru's prodding look, "she is rather pushy when it comes to being unique, such as calling herself an 'ultra-recyclo vegetarian' despite the fact that it's just veganism (1), she tends to get into arguments with her parents, particularly her mother when it comes to clothes, I've actually seen her use a pair of shears to cut a beautiful and expensive dress in half before using a can of spray paint to paint it black, she didn't even try it on first before doing all that just because it wasn't goth. The worst part of the whole dress thing is that it was in public, she could have just asked her parents to get a refund for it and use that money for charity. I don't really meet her that much outside of school, but I have seen her at soup kitchens and homeless shelters volunteering her time to help them all while trying to get her parents to donate more money towards good causes," Jazz told her.

"I'm guessing that these arguments show that she is too stubborn to try to go for a compromise whenever an argument happens," Tohru guessed.

"Yeah, don't get me wrong it's okay to be stubborn at times, Danny is himself, but she is a little too stubborn, not to mention that she is way too pushy when it comes to being vegan, so she might try to force Danny and any kids they might have to give vegan food a try or make it what they would primarily eat (2)," Jazz went on.

"So, anything I should know about Danny before I leave?" Tohru asked who she hoped would become her sister-in-law one day.

"Well, there are a few things, but the only thing I'll tell you is that he wants to become an astronaut, he easily has the grades to make it into a good college, but he needs to be in a club, do some volunteer work, or have a part-time job in order to pad out his application, but because he's a little too young for a part-time job, the best he can do is volunteer for a charity while being in a club until then," Jazz answered, "the rest you'll have to ask him yourself."

Tohru got up and headed to the door, but before she left Jazz spoke up, "oh, one more thing before you go Tohru, don't think of this as a date no matter how many others might think or say otherwise, that is desperation, and desperation is not attractive."

(Back to the present)

"Hey man, can you please get me another coffee? the one you gave me is cold," Danny asked their waiter, snapping Tohru out of her remembrance of earlier in the morning.

"I'm sorry sir, but unfortunately the coffee machine broke down after the first pot, so what you have will have to do, unless you want something else," their waiter said with a smirk, lying through his teeth.

"Really? You could have put it in the microwave to heat up, wouldn't taste as good, but it would definitely be better than room temperature, or maybe it got fixed since it broke down, after all, the man across from us seems to be enjoying his hot cup of joe," Danny questioned while pointing at another customer who was wearing a suit, with a trilby hat on the table revealing his salt-and-pepper hair and had some large bags under his eyes.

Narrowing his eyes, the waiter left them to get Danny another cup of coffee, without taking the old cup.

"Man, that guy is being a prick, can't he just do his job and leave any flirting for after work," Danny whispered, a frustrated frown on his face.

Tohru just made a noise of agreement before asking, "so Danny, what's your favorite color?"

"Navy blue," Danny stated, raising his brow again, curious why she was asking.

"Mines forest green," Tohru told him with a smile.

"So, I have a question about your name, did your parents name you for the god Thor?" Danny questioned her.

"No, I was named for an author from this world, though I don't exactly know who," she replied, "Jazz told me you wanted to be an astronaut, what exactly is that?"

"Well, basically I want to be in outer space helping make new discoveries, like new planets, or even an alien species, the effects of outer space on things are really interesting, such as liquids taking a spherical shape..." Danny went on about space and all of the interesting things about it, while Tohru just looked at him with a smile.

'Danny is so cute, especially when he starts talking about something he likes,' Tohru thought to herself a smile and a small blush on her face.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, when they heard the voice of their waiter coming to deliver Danny's coffee, "here is your new coffee s-WHOOPS!"

Their waiter "tripped" and the boiling hot coffee flew out of the mug it was in, and towards Danny's face.

Luckily for Danny though, Tohru was quick and used one of the menus to block the hot liquid from burning his face.

"WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!" Tohru yelled at the waiter.

"What, I tripped, not my fault it went towards the kids' face," he said with a shrug and a smarmy smile.

"Yeah, no young man, I saw what you did, you deliberately threw a cup of boiling hot coffee at this young man while pretending to take a stumble," the customer Danny had pointed at earlier said standing up.

"So, you don't have a camera on you, so you can't prove it, and you're not a cop" the waiter said, a grin on his face.

"While I don't have a camera on me, the cameras in the corners there, and there will easily provide evidence," the man said, pointing to some cameras in the restaurant before taking out a wallet, opening it and showing his I.D. with a gold-colored badge "and, I'm actually a night shift detective who was just about to start his very belated lunch break on a very massive amount of overtime when all this started to go down, so listen sonny, you're going to get the manager, we're going to explain all of this, you'll serve the boy and this lass, you'll hand in your two weeks' notice, then you'll be on your way out of the door, and so help me, if I hear anything about you bothering these two again, you'll be in prison faster than you can say 'oopsie', especially since this was attempted assault on a minor."

The waiter just stared at the detective for a few seconds before turning around and speed walking to the managers' office.

"Thank you, sir," Danny said to the officer.

"Ah, think nothing of it young man, that guy was being a bit of a prick, now here is my number if he bothers either of you again just call me and I'll handle him," the officer said, handing Danny a card that revealed his name to be Hadrian Willows.

"I will officer Willows," Dany replied, putting the card in his pocket.

"So, what are the two of you doing out of school?" officer Willows questioned them.

"Well, my parents gave me a four-day weekend for getting into high school with good grades, but Tohru here actually graduated early and is just enjoying some time off before going to college next year," Danny answered, fibbing about Tohru.

"Well, if you say so," officer Willows shrugged, not really caring.

After that the waiter came back with his manager, a woman in her late twenties with strawberry blonde hair, and sea green eyes.

After explanations, their waiter, who was apparently named Edward Davidson, was fired on the spot, with their meals comped, and after they were done, Danny and Tohru left and continued with their tour, though unknowing of a little tag-along that started to follow them.

This tag-along appeared to be a child of about nine years of age standing at 3'11 tall, with white-lavender hair tied into a pair of pig-tails adorned with three dark blue braids each, wearing a white caplet with a fur collar, pink blouse, white frilly skirt, and a pair of pink doll shoes.

This is Kanna Kamui, a dragon like Tohru, and she has just found Tohru in order to get Tohru to take her back to their world, but as she heard Tohru talking about one of the greatest legends that every dragon knew of, she decided to wait, just to hear Tohru tell the story again. She was a much better story teller than her dad, Kimun Kamui, whenever he would tell one.

"So, what happened next in that legend," Danny prompted.

"Well, while the half-elf and the dragon were conning peasants, the woman who had caused the king his terrible wound had snuck into the castle, having planned to kill him while he was eating, but unfortunately the king had seen her in the reflection of his knife and caught her, but instead of killing her he had decided that she would become his queen, whether she wanted it or not," Tohru went on with the legend, "but with the help of the kings' mother she was able to escape in the dead of night."

"What a creep," Danny said, a frown on his face.

"Yeah, but anyway, the way that the woman escaped led to a village that the half-elf and the dragon were conning, and after seeing the dragon sneakily exit a lake that he had pretended to fall into after being 'struck' by a ballista bolt, tried to convince the peasants that they were being conned, but with the half-elf making some convincing arguments, the fact that the locals of the village had never seen her before, and that no one else had seen the dragon exit the lake, the other peasants just threw her out of the village," Tohru went on.

"I'm guessing that after that she waited and then followed the half-elf in order to find the dragon?" Danny asked her.

"Yes, in order to convince them to fight and take down the king that has been ruining the kingdom with his subjugation of the peasants, but the half-elf didn't care, claiming that he had originally helped raise the current king, but after he had been wounded the day his father died, and consequently had been healed by a dragon sharing half of his heart and 'corrupted', he decided that until the king died, he would not serve or help anyone unless he was offered money, the dragon however countered what the half-elf said, saying that he had never heard of a dragons' heart corrupting a regular person, unless there was some outside factors, or if the dragon was a lich," She continued, before Danny asked another question.

"Wait, dragons can become liches?" he questioned her.

"Yes, although it is very difficult for a dragon to become a lich, after all they would need to find a phylactery large enough, and strong enough to contain a dragons' soul," she told him, before continuing, "at first the half-elf vehemently denied that the king had inherited his fathers' malicious nature, but the dragon convinced him to at least seek out a wizard that lived close to the border of the kingdom in order to learn the truth regarding dragon hearts. After about two weeks of travel they had finally arrived, and much to the half-elfs' surprise, the wizard they had gone to see was the court wizard of the worlds' greatest king, someone everyone had assumed died about three and half millennia ago, though apparently the wizard himself had half the heart of a dragon as well, explaining his long life span, after hearing the half-elfs' question, he thoroughly explained what happens when a dragon shares half of their heart, the person who gets half a dragon heart obtains the powers they would of obtained if they were of draconic heritage, and extended life span to the point that even normal elves would metaphorically age and wither away before them, although they obtained one weakness that they shared with the dragon, should either the dragon or the person with half their heart die, the other would as well, but like as was said earlier, unless there are outside factors or the dragon is a lich, the personality of one receiving half of a dragons' heart would not change in the slightest," Tohru continued to spin the tale, and explain what would happen when a normal person gets half the heart of a dragon.

"So, their only hope was for the dragon to come out and tell the half-elf that he was the dragon that he was looking for," Danny stated, though unknown to both him and Tohru, Kanna had her cheeks puffed out from Danny constantly interrupting the story.

"Yes, and he actually did, although he expressed that in the time he was missing, he was in fact looking for a way to seal away the powers of the tyrant king so that he wouldn't have to die, when the half-elf learned of this, he called the dragon a coward, though the dragon retorted that he was more interested in keeping the only family he had left safe until they could hatch, and then raise them until they can defend themselves. The half-elf, upon hearing this, apologized and asked if the dragon found anything about sealing, the dragon's answer though, was a rather disheartening no, the only way to seal away the kings' draconic powers was to use a metal called dimeritium (3), to completely block the king from using his magical abilities. The issue, however, is that dimeritium is incredibly rare, about as much as platinum, in order to get any, they would have to go to a nearby dwarven clan, as dwarves are typically the only ones that go deep enough to encounter veins of dimeritrium," Thoru went on, her face taking on an apprehensive look upon mention dimeritrium.

"I'm guessing that from the look on your face, that dimeritrium is much scarier than what you're telling me?" Danny questioned.

"Oh yes Danny, it doesn't just cut off someone from their magical reserves, if it stays on for long enough, it can not only cause someone to permanently lose their magic, but also drive one to madness due to the fact that when one has dimeritrium placed on them anywhere they begin to hear voices within their head," Tohru explained, a look of utter seriousness on her face.

"Yikes, if that metal existed here, the use of it would have been banned by the Geneva Convention just for the last bit alone," Danny grimaced.

"What's the Geneva Convention?" Tohru asked, a questioning look on her face.

"It's basically a list of laws concerning war, such as treatment of prisoners of war, civilians, soldiers, and those who are neutral like medics, and establishing what is and isn't a war crime (4)," Danny explained.

"Oh," Tohru said, her face taking on an even more perplexed expression, finding the term 'war crimes' confusing, but not asking for an expansion on the new knowledge she learned before continuing with the legend.

"Anyway, after taking a three-week long trek to get to the nearest dwarven clan, they had run into a problem, while the dwarves did indeed have a stockpile of dimeritrium ore for emergencies, they wanted insurance that the next ruler of the kingdom would give them the same rights as humans, after a couple of hours the dwarven clan and the half-elf came to an agreement, they would supply him with enough dimeritrium to lock away the tyrant king permanently, as well as help train a militia to besiege and storm the tyrant kings' castle. After that the half-elf and the dragon went around, going to villages, both those they have tricked and those they haven't, eventually gaining close to five hundred volunteers. After an additional three and a half months, they had trained the volunteers to a point they felt was acceptable and begun the war against the tyrant king, by going to the nearest fort and destroying any who chose to side with the king in it, after about seven months, they captured almost every single fortress, village, and town, with only the capital remaining, and they even gained allies amongst the other races, the elves, the beast folk, the orcs, and even the fae themselves, bringing their forces to around fifty thousand strong. On the night they started the siege of the capital, the tyrant king himself attempted a 'peace talk' with the resistance, the half-elf and the dragon decided that was the best opportunity they had to imprison the king in a casket made completely out of dimeritrium, though what they didn't know was that they had traitor in their midst that had alerted the king to their plan to seal him in the casket, and when the resistance was just about to spring their trap, the tyrant king sprung his own counter trap, causing a battle that ended up with either the capture or killing of the resistance, with the exception of the half-elf, the woman that the tyrant king wanted to make his bride, and the dragon fighting the tyrant kings' army on the drawbridge, it was becoming apparent that it was a losing battle, especially when the tyrant kings' army fired ballista bolts with ropes attached that were also made with dimeritrium at the dragon, causing him to fall onto the bridge, with their backs figuratively to the wall, the dragon asked the half-elf to do something," Tohru went, coming to tales climax and near end.

Danny, who remembered the one thing that Tohru told him about weaknesses for those that had half a dragons' heart guessed, "he asked the half-elf to kill him didn't he?"

"Yes, and even though the half-elf initially disagreed with the request, after hearing the king loudly proclaim that not only would he force the woman who had killed his father bear his children, but he would take great glee in personally beheading each and every member of the resistance before subjugating the rest of the world the half-elf, with great sorrow, took his spear and thrust it into the dragons' heart, causing the tyrant king, who at that point was flying on above the battlefield stopped, and began to fall before hitting the drawbridge, and after it was determined by several of the knights close by that the king was indeed dead, the majority of those that were fighting for the king then and there threw their weapons down and let the recently captured prisoners go, causing the rest who still sided with the tyrant king to surrender, and from there the nation began to slowly recover. The half-elf was crowned king, had a statue of the dragon built in his honor, and with the help of the woman who had killed the first tyrant king in the beginning, who had become his queen, raised the dragons' last family member from egg until she could defend herself," Tohru ended the legend, a smile on her face as she saw how transfixed Danny was on her, before grabbing his hand excitedly, "now that I'm done, how about you show me the rest of this town

Though before they could step up their pace to get on with their tour, Kanna spoke up, "lady Tohru," her soft voice causing both Danny and Tohru to stop, and look at her.

"Kanna?" Tohru asked surprised that Kanna was here.