"Heh. 'Fantasy: The Ultimate Escape', eh? I guess Chase did do her research after all," Avery muttered to himself as he eyed the whiteboard set up well away from where he'd be delivering his speech in a little over twenty minutes. A few people had already shown up, seated on the grass near the stage. Avery's hands trembled, which he decided to mitigate by shoving them into his pockets and straightening himself out of the slouch he just noticed he was stuck in. Shaking his head, he turned away from the whiteboard, only to practically run right into Isabelle, who had come to check on him.

"So, you never told me why you're doing this. I mean, no offense but a seminar? That's not just something you do on a whim."

"Coraline Chase--"

"The creepy PR chick?"

"Right. She figured out that I used to do this regularly, years ago. She figured it would be a good way to promote myself."

Isabelle cocked an eyebrow at him and leaned over to the left. She opened her mouth to speak but instead let out a sigh, trying to come up with just the right words to express her feelings.

"And I'm just hearing about this now?"

"Like I said," Avery said, trying to force out a chuckle to keep the mood lighthearted but in actuality only making things more awkward. "It was years ago. I didn't figure it was too important."

"Well, now it kind of is, considering it's part of your new job."

"For some reason."

"Fantasy: The Ultimate Escape," she said, finally deciding to read the whiteboard in front of her. Immediately thereafter she recoils with a laugh. "You weren't always that pretentious, were you?"

"Worse," Avery replied with a sigh.

"Wow."

"I know, and now you know why there's some parts of my life I'd rather leave in the past."

"Can't be any worse than this," she could barely spit out over her fit of laughter. Without a word afterwards, she turned away from her husband and made her way over to the small circle of people near the stage.

"You don't know the half of it," Avery muttered to himself as he made his way over to the stage to make any last minute adjustments. He wondered as he walked; whether or not Miss Chase would find ways to drag up any other parts of his past. He hoped the answer would be no, but then again he wasn't sure what to expect with that woman.

Twenty minutes later, and an ample crowd had formed in front of the stage. Avery looked up from the watch around his wrist and approached the microphone stand that sat on the other end of the stage, almost hanging over the edge. Taking one look out into the crowd, he grabbed the mic off the stand and backed away from it, towards the center. A hushed silence fell over the crowd, as they waited on baited breath for Avery to begin. All except for two people: "The Aerial Knight" Johnathan Heartsford, and Isabelle. Johnathan rolled his eyes at the crowd and the speaker alike. Isabelle on the other hand, found herself drawn to a shimmering light in the corner of her eye.

"Thank you all for coming out here, today. My name is Avery Martin Alden, though I'm sure that's a little obvious," he began with a weak chuckle, that got most of the crowd laughing, while others looked on with wide eyed confusion.

"Fantasy. The faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable. The cause of myths and legends, tales that reflect both the best and worst of humanity, and on top of all that, a way of coping with the evils of the world. Now, some of you may be wondering what I mean by that last part, and let me explain a little bit further. By nature, human beings think themselves above the evils that surround them daily. Much like adolescents have a feeling of invincibility in thinking that nothing can happen to them, humans put themselves on pedestals and cling dearly to the moral high grounds that they just so happen to have. To them, an ability to commit atrocities is a disorder, a problem in and of itself. Look all around you. In media, when aliens are depicted, they are often times the brutal, bloodthirsty types that seek to stomp out or enslave all humanity. Hardly ever the other way around because we all think we could never do that. Now, of course I use the alien example because we all know that aliens aren't real but it could work with any non-human entity."

Just like that, one hand shot up in the air. Avery, who just so happened to be looking over in the general direction of the hand, closed his eyes and looked down at the stage floor for a second before bringing his head back up.

"I'm sorry for not saying it at the start of the program, but please hold all questions until the end."

"Well, good thing this isn't a question," Johnathan shot back. "We're kind of teaming with an alien this week, in case you didn't know."

"Thank you for the interjection, Mr. Heartsford. But please, if you would be so kind, leave it be until the end."

"No, this is important. Because if you're so delusional that you really think there's no such things as aliens, I can't help but wonder what Sir Azrael saw in you to warrant being his number one pick."

Meanwhile, the allure of the shimmering light was too much for Isabelle to bear standing still anymore. As she turned around to see the source of the light head on, she's blasted in the face with a blinding flash of golden illumination. Closing her eyes and putting one hand over both sets of closed eyelids, she made her way towards the source of the light, brushing haphazardly past members of the crowd, who cursed her rudeness under their breaths. Once she was finally free of the mob, she opened her eyes and pulled her hand away, to find the light still shining bright in front of her, but not quite blindingly so. Taking one look back to the crowd and then at the stage where it looked like Avery was getting into it with his back talking attendee, she turned back to the path and took off sprinting towards the source. After a few seconds, she found herself in front of a couple of bushes on the perimeter of the park. Underneath them, the gleam was at its most intense. Light swelled, and as she went to part the pair, she found the source laying on the ground inbetween them. A pendant.

Despite the light it gave off, the pendant itself wasn't particularly shiny. Instead, it was a dull bronze color, except for the center. In the center was a stone of some sort, showing a flowing sea of blue and red that caught her eye almost immediately. And as soon as she laid eyes on the item, she snatched it up off the ground and put it around her neck, her eyes going wide as she did so, surprised at her own actions. She reached for the pendant but stopped herself just before grabbing it to sprint off towards a patch of grass, before dropping down to her knees and stabbing the earth with her fingernails. Within seconds, she started digging, jaw dropped and eyes wide at the hole she was creating. Dirt caked up underneath her nails as she tossed more and more displaced pieces of grass and soil aside. One involuntary swipe revealed to her the existence of something buried. Her fingers ran into something that wouldn't budge no matter the force she exerted onto it and looked down. A black, scaled semi circle poked out from the dirt, radiating the same shine into her pupils. More determined than she was a few seconds prior, she continued her dig, peeling away layers of earth without a second thought as the shape grew larger and wider. Finally, when it was completely free and lay on its side in the hole she had created, could she make out what it was.

It was a black, scaled egg of sorts. With the same involuntary action as her previous decisions, she snatched the egg from the ground and dusted it off with her hand, before turning around and heading back to the stage with her new possessions in tow.

In the longish walk that followed, she debated with herself over why she felt so drawn to these items and why she had taken them, and though she couldn't really find an answer for either, she kept both the pendant and the egg with her. When she finally made it back to the stage, she saw that most of the crowd had dissipated, and Avery was no longer on the stage. Instead, he was on the ground in the middle of where the swarm was, arguing with a smug looking man she recognized, but whose name she couldn't come up with. The pair seemed to be having an argument of some sort, though she couldn't quite make out either side's words until she was right beside Avery. She heard the man chuckle and clear his throat as he looked over at her.

"I have to say, it really is funny that you continue to debate the existence of otherworldly things when the universe is so deadset on proving you wrong, Sir Alden. Look at your girlfriend here, carrying a dragon egg of all things!"

She wanted to say something back but she couldn't. Not as in she couldn't find the words to use, she had thought of most of that the second she laid eyes on him, but she felt something tugging at the back of her tongue, hindering her from forming her mouth to say anything other than an anguished gurgle.

"Are you crazy? There's no such thing as dragons! See, I'll show you!"

Avery snatched the egg out of Isabelle's hand. Part of her was relieved to no longer be carrying the thing, but that didn't stop her from from reaching out and trying to take it back. Avery held the egg in his hand for a moment, running his fingers along the scales before chucking it at the ground, shattering it on impact. Out of the wreckage of the egg, crawled a baby dragon. Scales as blue and red as the stone in the pendant, and with almost fully developed wings, large relative to the rest of its body. After a couple steps, the wings began to flap and it flew off, out of sight in an instant as Avery stared dumbfounded at the shards of egg.

"Called it. No such thing as dragons, eh?"

Johnathan's gloating was cut off by a thud however. Both men looked over to Avery's left to see Isabelle, collapsed and sprawled out on the grass. Eyes rolled back into her head and eyelids lazily falling shut. Avery kneeled down to pick her up, noticing something about her that he hadn't before.

"Where'd she get this from?" he asked, running his finger along the pendant before peeling her off the grass and cradling her.

"Why are you asking me? Of course I don't know! Though I think I might know someone who could answer that question."