By the time Charlotte got ready, Janine was still lecturing Dylan over his carelessness and rambled on and on about the dangers of his magic being discovered. With the appearance of Charlotte, the lecture was forcibly cut short, much to the relief of both Dylan and Fir.
"Let's go!" Charlotte energetically shouted. She was dressed in denim shorts and a striped shirt, cute and refreshing. Charlotte's dark brown hair was tied into two pig tails that fell upon her shoulders and she hopped about in excitement, her hair bouncing along with her.
The trio (plus Fir) walked out of the comfortably air-conditioned apartment and was instantly hit by an intense heat wave. Janine sighed with discomfort while Charlotte was too excited to notice the heat. Dylan cheated and secretly had Fir emit cold air. This was his innate skill as a Sylphice. They were spirit beasts of the snow and naturally had an affinity with the cold and would constantly emit cold air. Dylan usually had Fir suppress that cold air and restricted to it just his feathers but…It was just too goddamn hot!
Dylan: Frin was a cold place, I cannot be blamed!
Janine glanced at Charlotte and noticed the anticipation in her eyes before looking away and swallowing the words down her throat. She couldn't possibly suggest not going after seeing the look in her eyes, could she?
As they walked to the car park, Janine noticed something strange. When she walked beside Dylan, he felt strangely cool and refreshing and when she walked away, the annoying heat blast at her again. Janine glared at Dylan with realisation.
Janine: You dare defy my orders?
Dylan cleared his throat and spoke with righteousness in a quiet voice. "This is not magic. Fir just emits cold air naturally. It's just not noticeable when it's not hot."
Janine was suspicious but she didn't know enough about magic to refute him. She reluctantly allowed him to have his way and walked beside him to ensure that he didn't pull off anything suspicious again. It was not because of the cool air, totally not because of that!
"Where do you wanna go, Lotte?" Janine asked when they got into the car.
"To the city!" She announced.
And thus, they drove to the city and went to one of the shopping centres there. Charlotte justified that the best way to show off the clothes was a place where people went to buy clothes and so here they were. They walked through the shopping centre, the two ladies in front and Dylan maintaining three steps behind them. Dressed in his military uniform, he looked like a bodyguard guarding two young misses.
The busy shoppers could not help but to notice him. He was dressed unique but handsome clothes and had a domineeringly elegant and graceful aura floating about him. Along with this elegance was a hint of loftiness, making him seem unapproachable, or maybe that was just because the cool air that was emitted from Dylan/Fir. It gave off the impression of being unreachable and out of this world.
When the passersby snapped out of their love-stricken daze, they noticed the beautiful white and green bird that was tinged with a bit of blue. It was perched on the handsome man's shoulder, looking like it was only natural for it to be there and not at all strange when one thought of common sense. Strangely enough, it indeed didn't look out of place. The beauty of the bird was like an accessory to the man's charm and only served to further boost his level of attractiveness.
"Ah, that looks cute. Let's go check it out." Charlotte pointed at the clothing store before dragging Janine in along with her. Dylan quietly followed suit, remembering his past.
He used to guard the princess when she went out incognito to the market. They would dress in a merchant's clothing and the naïve princess would charge at everything that caught her eye. It was obvious to anyone that she was a sheltered and pampered daughter of a rich man so it was Dylan's job to ensure she didn't get scammed or kidnapped or robbed, not a single hair on her head was to be touched. Dylan did his job very well and took it very seriously but when the princess grew up, she no longer desired to go out into town and worked hard to serve the country. Dylan too, worked very hard, eventually becoming the country's strongest knight.
Dylan looked ahead. The scene of Janine and Charlotte picking out clothes together overlapped with that of the princess and her maidservant. Charlotte being the young princess and Janine the mature maidservant.
"Fir, do you sometimes think about Diva?" Dylan asked Fir telepathically.
"Yeah, I think about mummy and daddy and my friends a lot." Fir honestly replied.
"Do you…blame me for taking you away?" Dylan asked yet again.
"No, I like being with Lyn. When I left home, I knew that the journey was going to be dangerous and I could die at any time, so I was prepared for it." Fir rubbed his head against Dylan's cheeks to comfort him. "Don't blame yourself Lyn. I like this world quite a lot, there are a lot of fun things here. Ah, but the spirits can't bring me snacks anymore, uuu, I'll miss that."
Dylan chuckled and rubbed Fir's head with his finger. "I still have a lot of fruits in my storage. And besides, the spirits live in the spirit world. Who knows, maybe they'll visit this world in the future."
"I'll look forward to it!" Fir chirped.
Dylan lightly laughed before calmly speaking or more accurately, telepathically speaking to Fir. "I thought that I would never miss Diva. Much of my life there was spent in hardship and my final days only consisted of sorrow and pain. So, when I arrived here, I never even considered going back. Yet now, here I am, constantly remembering minor details about my life there."
"Does Lyn want to go back?"
"No, Earth is like a place of my dreams. It doesn't have magic and cute spirit beasts but they have science and animals in their stead. I no longer have a lord to serve, but I have a woman I love and friends I can trust. Compared to Diva, Earth is much better."
Dylan continued to talk to Fir about random things while they waited for Janine and Charlotte to finish shopping when a shy girl and her friends suddenly approached him.
"Excuse me, ah, um, can, can I, t-take a photo with you?" She asked bashfully whist twittering her thumbs. Neither her nor her friends could look directly at Dylan and kept their heads low with red faces.