Is That the Phrase? [Open]

He'd happened to be drawing a long sip from the drink while she'd jabbed about his intelligence level. His mouth was too full to snap back at her, so he opted for a sharp squinted glare, letting her continue while clearing his throat. She fought a bear, was she stupid? What, was she trying to start a pissing contest or something? "No I didn't fight her, or try to fight her, not even because she was a fucking dragon." He didn't just pick quarrels with people unless they deserved it, or unless Kai pissed them off accidentally. No, he didn't even exchange words with the lizard, and admitting the truth was harder than he'd imagined. His stomach flipped in what was probably guilt. "I, uh. I was a thief," The words came out small and strangely lacking in his normal boastful masculinity, and his eyes angled down at his drink. "That's how I survived in Blackwell. That was only thing I could do well."

Kai jolted upright at her laughter, unable to find what was funny about his past as a thief, but his surprise diffused at her explanation. She didn't judge him for thieving? He expected a lot of people would've, which is why he was afraid of telling her. This was another case of Fern's personality deviating pleasantly from the general audience. Her eyes had taken on a somberly empathetic glaze that he reflected back at her, then to her hand. Giving her welcoming short fingers a long stare, considering it momentarily, but shaking his head once. Instead, his usual sarcastic smirk returned, though perhaps forced, as he asked, "Just a black bear?"

Kai sat deadpanned through the duration of her story, his eyebrows scrunched together. Finally, he opened his mouth, pausing as if to figure out the best course of words he could take. "A bear roars at you, and your response is to slap it in its face?" His words break off into an airy laughter that expressed some end of exasperation. "Shit, and people tell me I get into unnecessary fights." Drawing the plastic cup close to his face and shaking it vigorously, he hummed at Fern's question. Just how many quarrels had he gotten into, that had decent stories behind them? The only good one that was fresh enough in his mind, aside from the Great Arcana Shop Heist of 2012 (but that one was too embarrassing, not to mention long), was.... Kai extruded the last bits of frozen coffee with his straw, letting out a sigh, and sat the empty container down. "Alright. I'll tell you what happened with Amira, and how I got here." He was planning on telling her anyways eventually, but it was funny to be mysterious and watch her squirm. To hell with it.

Kai shook his head with a grin, muttering, "Necessary," back at her. Balling one fist to cover his mouth, he cleared his throat unnecessarily, as if preparing a long speech. Which might be the case, but only Kai would know that. He unfurled his hands, carding them on the table while meeting Fern's inquiring eyes. "Blackwell is a big city. It's known for three things: the heat, women, and drugs. Others might try to tell you it's a nice place, and to them it might be, but they don't know what goes on behind clay walls." He glanced behind Fern to catch if anyone was watching him, but everyone seemed to be minding their own business, he continued in a softer voice anyways. "I worked with people like that. I didn't want to, but just like any other fucking homeless brat, you get sucked up into it. So, a few months before I came here, I tried to cut my ties with... some bad people." Hesitation hung up on specific names, who fucking knew if talking about this could somehow bite him in the ass? Better safe than sorry. "I didn't just help out myself. There were other kids, ones that were too young to help themselves. I provided for them what I could get. This combined with my own safety were the reasons why I stopped working for dealers and professional criminals. Instead, preying on rich tourists worked well for a while. Until I accidentally picked Amira."

He could still remember how the golden light of the sun shimmered off her scales in the plaza, how she looked lost but somehow still confident. "Dragons aren't usually seen around the city, seeing as how its population is primarily human, so vendors were all over her. Which is why I wore a hat most of the time, to cover my ears and blend in. But it made it really easy to just," He gestured reaching into something and pulling an item out with a flick of his wrist, "Take her wallet. But her senses weren't human, obviously, and I hadn't anticipated such a heightened awareness. I had her coin purse in my hand and was walking away, but she noticed me, yelled out something. So I dipped." Kai shrugged, as if that was the obvious thing to do in that situation. The tall dusty brick buildings had loomed over him that day, perhaps the city was warning him of what was to come. "I knew the streets better, all the ins and outs, and I used that to my advantage. Giving her the slip was no big deal, even if she was a dragon." He let out a frustrated puff of air through his nose, "Or so I thought."

Meanwhile, apparently I'd wronged a group of fine gentlemen who worked for some shitty smuggling operation. They found me in an alleyway far from where I'd lost the dragon lady at, accused me of taking more than my share, threatened to break into the place I was staying at if I didn't cough it up. Of course I fucking refuse because
A. I didn't take more of my share, they were idiots for believing that rumor.
B. I had kids staying at my place and that would probably not go over well if some thugs just busted in on them. Fuck no."

Kai paused, looking down at his drink and lifting the straw out, playing with it as he recalled more of his story. "I was cornered. They had weapons, I could see the hilts of knives on their belts, I think one even had a gun. And, of course I was stupid enough to leave my home without anything to defend myself with. So I was rightfully panicking internally. They start approaching me when they realize that I'm not going to give in easily, and there's no where to run. Just as I think, gee I lived a fulfilling life, I look up towards the rooftops. I don't know what prompted me to do it, but I saw something sitting there watching me get mugged."

He slapped his hand on the table abruptly, "It was the dragon! The dragon was fucking watching me get cornered by these stupid men! My guess was that she'd tracked me from the plaza all the way there from the rooftops, something I've never seen anyone do before. So I kind of just sit there staring at her with my mouth open, nearly forgetting that I'm surrounded by beefcakes, when one of the thugs says something like, 'Cough up the money or we're taking your tongue!' I was snapped out of my stupor, quickly realizing that they hadn't noticed we were being watched, and told them that I was still using my tongue and that they couldn't have it. That apparently didn't sit well with them."

Kai raised his fists, reminiscent of his fighting position used with Fern, this time with a cheesy smirk on his face, "So these big bulky men run at me, okay? By now, they've got their dirks drawn, cursing at me, and 300 pounds of burliness are coming at me. I manage to duck and roll out of their way because I'm smaller and faster, and I see a small hole I could fit into to escape! I almost managed to get to it, too." His eyes hardened, a sharp crease forming between his eyebrows. "One of them grabbed me, threw me up against the wall. Then I heard this clicking sound, and I realized the other had drawn his gun and was pointing it at me."

'As soon as we're finished with you, we're going to find where you kept the money and burn everything else,' he said. Now, I remembered thinking, I was truly fucked, and so were the kids. One of them'd ripped off my hat and they realized I was part elf, to which they started throwing slurs at me, like that was some crime in itself. I was terrified, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, thought I was going to die. I remember looking back up to the rooftops and seeing huge teal wings in the distance, too far to see clearly. I was clawing at the thug's meat hand that had a hold of my shirt, but I could hear him laughing at me."

"But then," the darkness in his expression lifted, morphing into bewilderment and awe. "Then this weird green light shot out of my arms, blinding the shit out of me! And suddenly I was just dropped, but I could hear them screaming and stumbling away beyond this whooshing sound. After a few seconds I could see clearly what was happening - the ground and their clothes were all coated in these roaring green flames." Kai shook his head rapidly in disbelief at his own story, looking at his innocent, normal hands. "And they were running away. I just sank to the ground, staring at their shrinking backs, wondering what the hell just happened. I stayed like that for a few minutes, but then I heard this voice I didn't recognize above me. 'That was quite the show, kid,' I looked up and it was the dragon, sitting on the wall behind me, fucking nonchalant." The voice he used for Amira was low, but still on the feminine side. "'You're an elf, too! This is my lucky day,' and she started going on about this school and I was just like, slow the fuck down. I asked her, 'You're not angry at me for stealing your wallet?' And she just laughed at me, saying as long as I give it back then we were good. This offer for a school where I wouldn't have to fight to maintain my survival everyday was offered, and I couldn't believe it..."

"She said she was watching and preparing her own attack, but that I beat her to to punch." Kai smiled genuinely, crinkles appearing beyond his eyes, "She helped me with the kids, got me a place here, all because I accidentally did some kind of magic. I owe Amira a lot." He raised his gaze to Fern, tilting his head. "And that's it."

Kai hummed, bending the straw he was holding to test its flexibility instead of denying her accusation immediately. "I guess. I don't like to take credit for that, though, because I think it was more instinctual shit. I haven't been able to do it since," He mumbled. Growing up with other magical people might've helped, but it was a bit too late for that. The amount of time spent focusing on fire, or ~looking into himself~ after that occurrence would go unsaid. "Yeah, I'm taking classes for it, but no luck so far. Doesn't seem like I'm the only one though." He thought back to his elemental magic class, to the other students who also had yet to produce so much as a spark. However, letting this discourage him was against his nature.

He hadn't expected the question about the kids, letting a small smile bloom as he explained. "They were set up with foster homes in bordering countries. We don't really have great places Blackwell, after all. It's such a big city that I couldn't have gotten them there without the school's help."

Did she just call me a tadpole? Kai's face flattened darkly at her comment. "I'm not weak! A weak person couldn't have done a fire blast that big or with that range." Of course, he was just repeating what Amira had told him to convince him to come. Unbeknownst to Fern, the feeling like he didn't belong at this school was an overbearing weight on his shoulders. "Your water squirt was an excellent demonstration of how powerful you are," he hissed, resting his cheek on his fist. Kai knew she had a decent amount of magic (what was the determining factor, anyways?) considering she could manipulate water well enough to dry him off in a matter of seconds, but he still felt like insulting her back. "I'm probably just not doing it right, or something..."

Kai blinked at her hand briefly covering his, understanding what she was getting at. He wondered if physical comfort was common where she grew up, in the pond that she frequently talked about. It sounded nice. He gave her a pointed skeptical stare at her request to concentrate, but obliged regardless. Taking a deep breath, he let the flashbulb memory go off in his head of the moment. He recalled a number of details: the putrid sweat of the meatheaded thug that was laughing down at him, the feeling of his fat pink hand tangled in Kai's shirt cutting off some of his air supply, the insults his interrogator had used... He stared down at the water building on Fern's fingertips, his lips parted in wonder. Though she'd used this exact prank on him before, he fell for it again, the water spraying his cheek, nose, and forehead respectively. He flinched, but didn't move his head back when he realized what Fern was doing. Kai deserved it, probably.

He sighed, water rolling off his face and dripping down his arm. "I suppose I felt... embarrassed? Hopeless? Angry, definitely, but if that was the key to magic then I'd probably have known by now."