Kire grimaced. She wished Daryll was here to explain better. “Dragons are—were like gods back home. Big as buildings, old as magic, with great leathery wings. In the stories we have of them, some are savage as beasts with nothing but bloodlust and their appetite on their minds, others cunning and wise. My family—we’re supposedly descended from them. Legends, tall tales, you know, until I was given the power. What it did was awaken the dragon-blood.” [i]Akuma…was she…?[/i] “I don’t know if the portals were dragon magic. They’ve disappeared from Amria, or were hunted down to extinction, or both.” She paused. “I did find a dragon, once, when I had first gotten the power. Nearly bit me in two. Gave me huge scars on my back instead. But I fought it long enough to annoy it back to sleep before it could wreak destruction. It was [i]enormous.[/i] I’ll tell you the tale another time.” She almost grinned then. Once, she would have told that story more grimly, a bittersweet memory that had given her painful reminders of her limits, and of the burden that had been put on her shoulders, the scars she was both proud and ashamed of. But there were things that she thought important and painful half a year ago that didn’t seem so now. Not when she’d lost and been humiliated so much. 

As for his request, Kire sighed heavily and wondered what Rulitus thought of it. Did Envy already ask him? They weren't going at each other's throats, certainly, but they weren't exactly getting on too splendidly. “I can do it. Though I’m a stranger everywhere, I would need some instruction on that front, too. Don’t want to go offending a whole city out of ignorance.” Kire frowned; if it had only been herself she had to worry about, she’d have no compunctions with teaching the intolerant a lesson or two, but as someone sent on behalf of the refugees of Ziad, she knew she couldn’t disturb their arrangement. “When I’m able to do so, I’d gladly help. Rulitus and I are better suited for the task at least.”