– Tell me, beautiful girl, where in this city should the polyglot magician live?
She stared questioningly at the foreign tourist.
– Dan wants to know Russian without an accent. Then Dan tells the beautiful girl Alina why being with him is dangerous.
«But,» the sorceress became embarrassed, «I have never been beautiful.» I’m ugly.
He stopped abruptly and turned around, grabbing her hands.
– There is no such thing as an ugly girl, every girl is beautiful!
If he had paid attention not only to the self-critical Alina, he would have noticed how his dragon suddenly stopped and began to finish writing the poem.
– And also, Dan, it doesn’t matter to me that it’s dangerous with you, since only you can explain to me what happened to me. You saw it all. You were in non-magical Novosibirsk. And maybe you know who sent me the plane ticket. I don’t know where to go, who to look for, what is expected of me, why did I leave that life? Let me be by your side until I find the answers to my questions. My intuition tells me to do just that.
«No,» the necromancer snapped, quickening his pace.
– Yes! – the sorceress answered persistently, catching up with him. «I saw how helpless you were.» You don’t know how to cast combat spells, and your poet can’t even breathe fire on the enemy to protect you!
– I will show someday that Dan is not helpless and knows how to fight. But Dan does it at too high a price. He doesn’t do this over trifles like orcs.
The dragon jumped forward and, looking displeasedly at Alina, read in broken Russian, as he said, the quatrain he had just written from his brilliant poem.
The Black Dragon and the Russian know, And the ungrateful girl understands, She will be asking for forgiveness, When the Dragon publishes his book, And becomes a great author.
– Which of my ill-wishers taught you Russian? – the magician cursed in his native language.
«Idiot, do you still doubt that I am the most talented dragon in the whole world?» – the pet was offended and, sitting down by the side of the road, wrote down a couple more lines in a notebook.
While he was distracted by the manuscript, the sorceress returned to the question that there was no one to protect Dan. She, of course, admitted that she was not much of a magician, because she had never even studied at the appropriate school.
«You are a strong battle mage, Alina,» the necromancer praised the modest girl, «you use the author’s spell, you are a good warrior, you come with the first layer.»
The terminology is unclear, but certainly familiar. The girl began to remember the novels of Sergei Lukyanenko, where six layers of Twilight were noted. She even tried to tell Dan something about the books she had read, but the necromancer just shook his head and began to desperately convince her new acquaintance that all the stories from writers from the first layer never reflect the actual state of things, and promised to tell about the structure of the world as soon as he will be able to speak Russian without an accent.
The companion who had imposed herself on his head was frightened, but Dan only reassured her and added again that he wanted to speak with the beautiful girl only in her native language. From another compliment, Alina blushed again and walked, looking at the toes of her shoes.
All her classmates at school laughed at her at one time. Because of this, after finishing ninth grade, she went to college, but even there the ridicule of the tall, thin girl did not stop. If there are beautiful princesses in the world, then for balance there should also be stuffed animals with long ugly noses, thin lips, small, poorly developed breasts, chubby knees and narrow hips. You don’t choose your appearance, and neither do congenital diseases. Alina suffered from a weak heart all the time, but for some reason here, in the magical analogue of her own world, she stopped feeling pain in her chest. But all this is not so important… the foreigner called her beautiful. What bad taste this necromancer has.
