In response to Aredis' berratement and inquiry, the dragon lowered his head a little...and snorted at him  Was...was that a [i]snerk?[/i]  Well, yes it was.  His senses were so much sharper as he was, right now.  He could smell the sweat of fear, see the attempts to keep calm in the face of a dangerous creature.  Without a god to protect him, this elder man could be snapped up like nothing, in his eye, but the fact is that he was just so thoroughly pleased with himself at the moment that he did not care to.  Just to be in this form after countless lifetimes of denial was good enough.  They didn't know.  It may not have existed for them.  Was it ever...?  Argh, the confusion again...  The dragon fought it to the back of his mind.

Then, someone shouted at him, quite loudly.  Actually, there was [i]alot[/i] of shouting going on, all of a sudden.

First, there was a man who clearly did not like dragons - which was understandable, since he'd suddenly manifested himself in the full right in the middle of town - and then the ork from before was trying to play peacemaker, quite unexpectedly.  He wasn't a [i]normal[/i] ork, was he?  All the orks the dragon had ever met were warrior-kind, strong and proud.  This one had to be the most easy-going member of their race he had ever seen...and that was surprising.  This was so intriguing that he was actively ignoring that people were threatening him, like the paladin woman.  He was trying [i]really hard[/i] not to think of her, because she was making him think of two people who weren't really there.

It was when the demon spoke up that his attention returned to the situation at hand.  He thought that this was about showing him superiority?  Oh, NOW the dragon began to laugh.  If any of them had ANY experiences with dragons, they probably never saw them do that, throwing back his head and chuckling quite loudly.  He returned his gaze to the demon.

[h3][color=a0410d][b][i]"I have been sealed up for many lifetimes, demon.  Nobody ever questioned what I was, then.  Now that I have what was denied to me for so very long, you can understand why a man impugning my lineage might get underskin.  It isn't about proving who is best.  It was about the truth."[/i][/b][/color][/h3]

This thunderous dragon voice in english clearly taxed the jaws of the fully-formed dragon, and he soon reverted to his humanoid form, basically rippling back down into the armored creature from before.  He was still facing the demon, now, toothy jaw still twisted into a big fang-y smile.

"After all, you wouldn't want people to call you [i]goat man[/i] or [i]minotaur half-breed[/i], now would you?  It wasn't some pathetic name-calling.  He actually [i]believed[/i] it.  So, I educated him."

Then, there was a pause, as he recalled that the...the [i]elf[/i] had said something in the midst of all this.

"What're you going on about?  What [i]job?[/i]"