Roma shrugged a little, as if brushing off what had happened, but the idea still made him tense a little until it was obvious that he wasn't going to be touched, spoken to like a dog, or harmed. It was a difficult habit to break and one that Rance might find annoying if he was adamant that he stick around Roma. Perhaps the dragon would get tired of him and do what dragons seemed wont to do to him. Looking around, he studied the man and leaned back to stare at the sky. "I don't know." He admitted after a moment.

"I... guess I'm human. I... I came from a very small race I assumed was human. We all had... elven qualities to us, though. Pale hair, pale eyes, a general look of elegance, so our elders said. We retain our youthful appearance and master magics the way mages do, but we aren't mages. We didn't really have a name for ourselves because we were cut off from most other humans, never encountering them or seeking them out. Until I suppose a patrol found us and automatically assumed we were... some sort of threat..."

Roma breathed in and sighed, looking at the water in front of him and squinting when he saw the shadow of a fish swimming underneath in the more shallow water. "I don't know." He muttered. "I... just do. I do this because it's what I know. Since I live in the forest it's less... trouble. I don't face people, I don't have to use this power... Maybe I'm just more afraid of death than I am of what's hiding in the shadows. I know what's there. It's a danger I can usually take care of. But after death, I fear... I fear my people will be angry at me for surviving. Or not coming to their aid."

He paused and looked behind him, where the dragon was. It was calm. Kinder, so far, than most others he had to face.

Roma tensed immediately at the unsolicited touch. This was a frustratingly persistent man, that was certain. He bit his lip and puffed out a breath. "The world is made dynamic, forever changing and shifting, for a reason. My kind thought that. That was why our only history was told, never written down, never... documented more than from mouth to mouth. Stories of our origin changed every year, and it's hard to detail our first elder. Our first healer. Our first teacher. We understood that nothing lasts forever and that is just a fact of existence. We came about without warning, and we're supposed to leave with little struggle, leaving very little, if anything, behind but our physical body. But to be massacred the way they were... that was never our hope, and that I did nothing to stop it... it might breed animosity. Anger. And I wouldn't blame them."

He closed his eyes and shook his head, bringing a hand up to twist his hair the way he would when he was nervous, or thinking, or had no idea what else to do with his hands. The way he was known to do among his people.

Roma's breath caught, a bit surprised when his hand was captured. "Our history is ever-changing. Though I survive I have no one to tell our history to. Who would believe that I am the last of a people who live as long as dragons? Who are not mages but practice magic flawlessly just because they were born with the power? Who would simply leave me alone when they knew that?"

He bit his lip and pulled his hand back, feeling a tingling spread through his fingertips. "I would be hated by them by not joining them. We were a large family, we lived together, so we died together as well. I never died with them, nor did I use my magic to try to help. But I only do destruction magic... I only harm. It's all I've only done, so I would have harmed my own people as well as the attackers... I live in a... a limbo of fear of death and fear of life, because I was foolish enough to hide while I watched my family be slaughtered." He shook his head, turning his back and curling in on himself. Rance's eyes were... clear. They spoke strangely.

Roma shook his head, kept shaking it until Rance met his lips. It wasn't forceful, not malicious, but there was a different push behind the simple kiss that caught Roma off guard enough that he didn't try to pull away. His hand, clenched in Rance's hand, sparked with a power he hadn't used yet and most likely sent tingling fingers of energy into Rance's entire arm until he pulled back. Roma shook his head when he was released, a more final type of gesture, and tried to ignore the sweet taste in his mouth that hadn't been there just a moment ago.

"I haven't yet because I don't want to use this..." He clenched his hand again and the power abated, but still, a gentle tingling had settled in his stomach. "I never have because it's only good to harm. What good is there in harm? And what good is there in telling you stories that I don't fully remember from elders who learned it from their elders, who don't even know if what they're telling is the truth, who know our pasts are constantly changing because no one can remember everything?" He closed his eyes, tried to escape Rance's clear, heavy gaze. It was impossible to meet those eyes for more than a moment.

Roma shut his eyes tighter, feeling a bolt of energy escape his hand when it was touched. It was an effect he just couldn't turn off and came out when he was under stress, something like this. The idea of liking the little shocks his hands would often involuntarily set off was... almost laughable. But he wasn't laughing when he forced himself to open his eyes and meet the ones in front of him. They pierced through as if their owner could dig into his chest and sort through his heart.

"They're fool's lessons. Nothing but stupid children stumbling across coincidences. Short-sighted adults trying to stumble their way through life and bigoted elders trying to dictate the way our world was supposed to move. What kind of lessons would they convey? I never liked listening to them anyway. What stories could I possibly tell?" He gritted his teeth bitterly and lowered his head to take away from Rance's powerful stare.

Roma sighed, hiding his face in his arms for a moment, breathing in the scent of water and grass and whatever the red and gold tunic was made of. "I..." He bit his lip. "I'm tired..." Voicing the idea was almost a confirmation to his body, which was just leaving its mode of shock. A lethargic feeling was creeping into his very bones, and he sighed, lying on his side and curling up to cover his legs the best he could. He shook his head and his hair decidedly covered his face, blocking out the sunlight somewhat.

Roma curled into a tight ball, feeling a sudden coolness settle in the midst of falling asleep. But he didn't manage to focus in on it before he was swept away. He felt almost at ease as the sound of water manifested in his dreams, lapping up to meet his toes and eventually pull him down and under, but oddly, he could breathe. He could breathe until something grabbed his neck and started pulling hard, pulling down despite his struggles, his clasping hands pulling hard. Then something grabbed him and pulled him upward. Strong arms. Familiar almost. He wouldn't let go, kept grappling for hold somewhere, grass that kept pulling up with his fingers.

Roma tensed. Someone was there... He'd crawled out of the lake with the help of someone. Someone that stayed behind him, so Roma couldn't see them. Then he heard the torment. Anger, mixed with fear, and small explosions, slices through the air. He went forward and gasped when something held him back. "It's bad, don't go."

"They... they're dying... They're being killed---"

"Shh." A hand went over his mouth, damp from the water. "They'll hear. They'll hear you and kill you too. Or they'll do something worse. You're a pretty boy, they might like you. See them? They're big men. They can do anything they want and what can you do? You're too afraid to use your power. You can't do anything."

Then arms were around him again. Squeezing him. Roma moaned in a mix of fear and confusion, going back against the form he couldn't see.

The scene went black, like someone slapped their hands over his eyes and grabbed him from behind. He gasped and lurched forward, a sudden heat and light blinding him and a surge of power boiling his blood, sending his hands up as they crackled with a mix of fire and electricity, two of the strongest destruction powers he had learned. It didn't go forward, but it scorched the grass under him when Roma recognized the forms. "What? No... No... Nono..." The thing behind him had been Rance. But it hadn't sounded like him... so was it? The dream---nightmare---confused him dreadfully, and now he was blinded by the sun.

There was a mix in the fear, something there to quell it. Something to ice the heat in his blood and make his energy fade. He curled against Rance despite himself, this solid form different than the thing that was trying to keep him terrified before. It wasn't real, the thing. A manifestation of his own guilt. "They're always there." He muttered shakily. "When I sleep they find me. They keep telling me. It's like they're already haunting me..."

He pushed away, standing, shaking and breathing in quickly. "Why are you bothering with me? I'm not worth your time and you have your own business." He turned away, stepping into the lake until the water was knee-high. It was cold, and clear. "I have a feeling you can find someone much stronger in body and spirit than me. Less damaged." Less guilty. It had to be annoying, clinging onto him, trying to tell him nothing was his fault when in fact it all was. He could have at least saved one of his own, and yet, he hadn't.

Roma clenched his hands to bite back a tingling sensation. He growled and narrowed his pale eyes. "And if it's not forced into being by dragons, then can it not be natural elsewhere? I don't know why you want to try to get on my good side, I have far too many damned trust issues, I don't have the capacity to love anyone because everyone I've ever loved has always left me, always abandoned me somehow! And you think you'll be different? Really. Why? Because you're a stubborn, bull-headed clan leader? Because no one has ever stood up against you and if they did you always came out on top?" He stepped back and crossed his arms.

"I may not have a dragon but perhaps your pairing, your pair with their own dragon, is somewhere still. Perhaps you're just wasting time with me. Perhaps this predestined meeting and connection means something more and you're dooming someone else to a solitary life by trying to find who I used to be."

Roma looked away from Rance's direction and masked a roll of his eyes, rubbing his shoulder against his cheek to hide a stray tear. Of course he knew what it was like, didn't he just say that? Maybe Rance had a bad habit of not listening. But he was one to talk---he never gave anyone a chance and as usual, he was pushing someone away before they had a chance to make a mark on him.

"Fine." He crossed his arms, glaring at the water and the shadows that undulated beneath the shivering surface. "But if you ever leave me I'll never forgive you." He turned to return the glare he could feel the dragon give him. "Either of you!"