“But Bel said that…” Kre began before the priest waved him off dismissively.
“Dragons say a great many things,” he said, ignoring the boy’s complaint. “You will soon find that only a small portion of their hissing is true. But let’s not talk about that now. We have something we want to show you.”
The devilishly handsome man spread his arms out wide and slowly turned in a circle. “What do you think?”
Kre took a moment to consider the man’s words. It was in that moment that his brain seemed to finally catch up to his eyes. Everything in his vision seemed to recede slowly, with darkness slowly settling into his peripheral sight. Just as he was about to black out completely, everything snapped back into place, as if the world had been stretched out on a rubber string that had suddenly been let go.
“Cottony poop!” he yelled, causing the priest to take a hurried step back. The older man contorted his face in one of those looks that indicated he might be dealing with an insane person.
“Well,” the priest said, clearing his throat. “That’s quite the rustic phrase. You Tehynshins are certainly an odd lot, but oh so curious. Whyever did we not encounter you before?”
“It’s just something we started saying on the ranch,” Kre explained, as if the other man had asked. “When you sheer sheep, you need to watch out for the poop that sticks to the fleece. No one wants that in their wool, so we started yelling it out whenever we came across any.”
“I… didn’t ask,” the priest said, clearly completely thrown off his normal game. His eyes darted around, as if he were looking for someone more important to talk to, but he quickly remembered that it was his own illusionary world and Kre was meant to be his only focus.
“Were there any people like mine here before?” Kre asked. “I know that we Tehynshins came to this land about two hundred years ago, but surely there were other folks like us. Folks different from yours and the Ylveryans, I mean.”
The priest shook his head. “Let’s get one thing straight first,” he said, smiling wryly. “Those sharp-toothed traitors that you call Ylveryans are nothing more than rodents, stealing grain from our stores when they think they can get away with it. They are, and forever shall be insignificant in my eyes. It would be best if you do not mention them again and, if you must do so, at least mention them only as you would an insect.”
“That’s so incredibly rude,” Kre snapped back. “What have the Ylveryan ever done to you?”
The gaze that the priest leveled at Kre was one filled with venomous hate. His eyes dripped with deadly poison and his sneer could stab through a block of thick ice. “They betrayed my people. They brought us to the ruin, the very state that you see in your time.”
Kre’s eyes turned curious, oblivious to the potentially dangerous territory he was broaching. “What exactly happened?”
The priest regarded him levelly, as if he were pondering if Kre was being earnest or if he was trying to goad him. “You are a very strange sort of person,” he said finally. “I can see now why Bel would keep you around.