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Cedric grit his teeth as he listened to her plans. Of course men having magic wouldn't make them equal.

"Any contact is dangerous," he warned her, "But crossing worlds is what seems to really get people." He shrugged, not really knowing why himself. "Would you like to meet see the affects? Would you like to meet someone deranged?"

He snorted. "Of course you don't want to talk to me. I'm an offense to every thing you believe. But what would you have me do?" He asked this because if one of his relatives were to talk to her and learn more about Feretris, Feretris might suddenly be invaded. "Not many people I know know your language," he explained instead. "You would still need me to translate. And very few people know more than I do about it. That's why I brought you books, so that you could learn yourself. They're cryptic, but they might give you a better idea of what you can and cannot do. They tell stories about dragons and about our history with them."

Cedric smiled and held his chin up. "Yes, there are quite a few. If I had to guess, I'd say that at least half of the dragons you see flying around here are from my country."

He gestured for her to sit down, for this was a legend he didn't need to read out of a book. "The dragons used to live here, among my people. We migrated from the west, and when we came to the nice fertile plains that run up against the mountains, we stopped to make it our home. There were many indigenious animals to hunt but there was no sign of other humans or intelligent creatures such as ourselves.

"The dragons were living in the mountains that overshadowed our new homes, and we didn't escape their notice. They were there to protect the land and didn't know what to think of us humans at first. So they watched... and they saw that we farmed, and that we hunted the way that other animals do, and that we spoke a complicated language. So they decided to make themselves known to us.

"At first contact, the site of them frightened us. There was some sort of primitive sun worship at the time," Cedric waved his hands, not caring much about the details of that part of the story. "They found out some way to talk to us, I suppose, because we got along pretty well after that. So well in fact, that when the dragons asked us to do something strange, we agreed. They had decided to retreat to another world...this world here, but they wanted a link to the real world back home. And us? We get their power, their strength, and their everlasting kinship."

Cedric nodded to himself. "So you see, it all started where my people live now, with our decendents. Not all of my people are dragons. There were few dragons left at the time and they bonded with what later became the royal family. But most of the dragons here seem to be my people... We have been spreading the bonded through the world, I suppose, quite by accident. I didn't know what I was doing when I had you. The human instinct to procreate serves both bonded well, although for me it was less of a choice..." He cleared his throat, not wanting to go into his own personal story. She wouldn't understand how much he hated being a slave, and yet he could still enjoy some things about his slave life as long as he was stuck doing it.

"There could be bonded on the other side of the world, assuming it's round like this one." Cedric had not been the first to see the curve of this earth from a dragon's back, and since this world was smaller it was easier to see. No one had been on a dragon's back in the real world for many years, and the curve was a little harder to see any way.

"It started in the Royal Family," he clarified. "But truth to tell, they were only the Royal Family because they were the ones chosen by the dragons to bond. The same family is still in power, but there are many non-ruling relatives that are bonded, and it is my belief that not only is this trait in the common blood, as you call it, but spread to other countries. We used to have more trade with the seafolk who come from the west, and the family of bonded has long been so large that it is impossible to keep track of all the members."

He didn't know that she was a breeder, so he didn't know how much his next words would affect her thinking on the subject. "Looking back on what records we have on the family, if a family member marries another bonded there is, obviously, a bonded child. If they marry one who is not, it seems about half the children are bonded. Half the children I had are surely not bonded, and it is chance that you are. I have been taking care of some of the young dragons that appear here. When a dragon is born of a mother who is not bonded, as you were, it is complete magic. The infants are weaker than the others, unless they get enough nurishment in either this world or that one. That is why some of my relatives were sickly as children, I think, but always strong as adults if they survived that long."

You see, he had been thinking about it a lot and pouring over records, making informed guesses that had little way of being tested as of yet.

Cedric laughed at her. He knew he shouldn't, but to hear her suddenly go back on her unfounded suspicions of him tickled him greatly. And then to hear her ask how many other children there might be, as if he would know.

"I may have a guess to how many dragon children there are," he teased, "but why should I tell you that? Ask your own people how exemplary of a slave I was on the one hand, and how atrocious on the other. All I know is that the women kept coming back to me. They thought of me as rare stock because of my blonde hair and blue eyes, without knowing how right they were."

He wouldn't help her with numbers because he didn't trust her motivation. "Better to ask how many men have found out they are just as powerful as their masters."

Although it was weird coming from his daughter, Cedric had to admit that she had just called him handsome and that he could take a liking to flattery like that.

"What does that matter to you?" he shot back lightly, sticking his nose in the air. He was responding to her attitude, otherwise the question would have been more serious. "Call me father, call me Cedric, or call me Sir." That last one he threw in with a knowing smirk. She would never call him Sir.

"I'm glad you've finally come to your senses. If my skin wasn't so light you would have known right off that we were related. That comes from your mother, of course... and I haven't been out in the sun much." He shrugged because no amount of a tan would make his skin look terribly much like hers.

He lived in a house under trees, but the point about his skin wasn't worth arguing. "Of course, but it is the lineage of barbarians as far as you are concerned. Why should you want them?" he challenged. He was getting tired of this conversation, not sure that he could help his daughter any more unless she started telling him why she wanted some of these strange things. He didn't want to aid a Feretris woman with any thing that might make slavery worse for the men over there.

That and he was starting to think he should just grab her and take her to his place. He didn't want her to go back to Feretris: he wanted her to see what life was like in the rest of the world. But the problem with that was, though he was sure he could do it, then her dragon as well as her human form would both be in the real world and she could still get back to Feretris by switching places. He didn't want to let her know that was even a possibility. She might then try to bring unbonded people into the dragon world, as he had. There were hints of it in the books but let her figure that out herself.

Cedric decided to lie. He didn't like where this was going. He didn't like her attitude on breeding-- what did he expect, considering where she was from?-- and he didn't like what she might do with it.

"Well," he said in a grave, serious tone, "Those records aren't the easiest thing for me to get ahold of. You'll have to be patient. I may be family but I don't live with the ruling party and it would take a week just to get there." Most of that was true, since he had given up his throne to help keep peace. The lie was the idea that he would go there and try to get the records for him.

His heart was racing now, making his thoughts race. He didn't want Katrina to find his children. Being indistinguishable was the only hope they had right now for a better life in Feretris. He could only hope that they were mounting something against the ruling powers, if they knew about their powers, which one or two definately did. Cedric thought he might have a way to help save his boys.

"I've got to go. You see that dragon up there?" he said, pointing to a circling red one. "Wife calling."