After minutes of trying to decide the best course of action, Damon finally came to a more or less sound decision. When he did, he stood up, and went back to the cavern.
He was extremely nervous, not about the possibility of the act itself, but convincing Isolyn to go through with it. He was a total rookie when it came to the department of charming women, after all, he was a gigolo, nothing more.
He got paid to sleep with women, mostly older women at that, who were nothing if not straightforward about what they wanted. He never had a girlfriend, or gone to dates before.
Damon was truly clueless about women, and only knew few things to be true about most if not all of them and that is, they lie, manipulate, cheat and discard you like nothing when they are through with you.
Though women terrified him, he never developed a phobia because of their actions towards him, knowing that as long as he had something they wanted from him, they would always come back. And that's all he ever really wanted, to be needed, as pathetic as it may sound.
When Damon reached Isolyn's sleeping area, he found her looking up at the stalactites, impossibly quiet and still to the point Damon almost thought, she was dead if it weren't for his enhanced eyes and ears alerting him of the opposite.
He got to the strange bed, and sat on it. He started to nervously come up with the best way to broach the topic of sex without coming off as creepy.
'Who am I kidding, there's no way I wouldn't come across as creepy if I ask a girl I barely know about having sex with me.'
Damon ran his hands through his face, and exhaled a deep breath. He laid on his back, and faced the stalactites and admired how brilliant they were, and so very different from the one's he learned about back on earth.
The more he stared at them, the calmer he started to feel. He was about to start his selling speech when he heard Isolyn's sweet, calming voice.
"In your world, do you have sights as hopeful as this?"
Damon didn't even hesitate to reply or ask what she was talking about as it was already obvious, "no, there aren't, at least not the sights I have seen."
"What kind of sights are those?"
"The kind of sights infested by human greed, dreary in their nature, disgusting beneath their beautified disguises, terrifying, hopeless and most amazingly... hollow in their display."
The cave became hauntingly silent for awhile before Isolyn said something, "Is this how things really are in your world or is it how you yourself sees them?"
Damon gave Isolyn a mirthless self-deprecating chuckle, "Is there really ever a difference when it's all the same even when you perceive anything through the eyes of others or the lenses of the world? In my experience the world is just as terrible as the people who live in it. It's why it was created to begin with, to punish those undeserving of cruelty and reward those undeserving of such beautiful gifts."
"That's not true, the world isn't cruel only the people who live in it," Damon heard Isolyn stir where she was laying to argue what he said.
"Is that so?" He asked in a sort of detached tone.
"Y-yes, I'm.. certain."
Damon didn't say anything, and although outwardly he didn't display any exaggerated emotions, deep inside he was kind of envious of Isolyn. As he now understood why she is adamant on destroying the dragons. It has nothing to do with lingering feelings towards the people who view her as nothing more than an abomination and a weapon, and has more to do with the beauty this world has to offer even when there's so much trash occupying most of its space.
If Damon was in the same situation as Isolyn, he couldn't exactly say he would feel any kind of obligation towards his own world. He would mostly watch it die out without even trying to save it, that's how much it broke him.
"Isolyn, you say you want to destroy the dragons, right?"
"Yes."
"How are you going to do that, as weak as you are right now?"
Damon focused his hearing towards Isolyn's heartbeat when he asked that question and he seemed to have been spot on. Isolyn's heart skipped a beat, and her breathing became irregular.
"What's that supposed to mean?" There was edge at the end.
"What I'm trying to say is, I don't know much about dragons. All I know about them is that I have their bloodline in me, just like you," It's actually a dragon gene, bloodline is a whole different thing, but Damon figured that's were the harmless white lies come in. "But I do know this, even though your "God" Calythera's power lies in creation, she was still a powerful being who still couldn't defeat the dragons, what does that tell you?"
Damon waited for Isolyn to reply, not getting ahead of himself, and ruining everything. He had thought about this properly, and even if he were to bind Isolyn to himself and successfully tame her, defeating the dragons was wishful thinking.
He was now on the same but different path, one that led to him killing two birds with the same stone. He would definitely strive to tame Isolyn, but also to convince her to go back with him to his world to live to fight another day.
'Otherwise, she might get me killed if she was to try and convince me to fight the dragons, fucking dragons! There's no way I would be getting out of that alive.'
[Ding! Host has no need to worry about the dragons, if you're able to successfully tame the target, you'll rip the best rewards.]
'What does that mean?'
The system didn't reply, but it's answer from before gave Damon the necessary motivation to push for the taming. But if that doesn't pan out, he has a plan b that unfortunately will involve time and effort.
"It means the dragons are a lot stronger than I can possibly imagine," Isolyn finally replied after awhile, sounding a little deflated.
Damon sat up, and faced Isolyn, "It means exactly that, but there are two ways you can become stronger. But the second method is a little unorthodox, and I'm a little uncomfortable talking about it, but the first method I think is a little better and might be best suited for you."
Isolyn's face slightly transform, and Damon could tell she was a tiny bit hopeful about the two ways that could make her stronger.
"Tell me about the first method first," Isolyn said.
Damon appeared hesitant before he replying, "well.. the first method is that you head back to the same people you ran away from, and convince them to take you back and train you in order to awaken your Siren gene. It will probably be both humbling and humiliating going back to those people, but... It's better than the second method."
For the first time since he met her, Isolyn's smile slipped. She gave Damon an obvious, "I won't be going back to those people" kinder look.
"Tell me about the second method," Isolyn said.
"Are you sure, I don't think that method is best suited for you."
"Just tell me, please.."
Damon visibly exhaled, "It's related to your dormant dragon genes, and this method might even awaken your Siren genes making you even more powerful, but.."
"But what?"
"You see, I also have dragon blood flowing in my veins, but mine come from promiscuous dragons, basically what I'm trying to say is that my dragon blood flowing in me can help awaken your dormant genes, but for a price I'm not certain you're willing to pay."
Isolyn started to appear hesitant and unsure where this was leading towards. But Damon could tell she was a little desperate for power beyond wanting to destroy the dragons, but because of something else, after all, she wouldn't be called the Mistress Of Pain in the future for nothing.
"What price?"
"You're going to have to lose, I don't know what you call it, but in my world we call it virginity but here you might call it maidenhead? Well, that's the price, it's the reason why I didn't want you to choose this method, it's barbaric and something you do with the person you love or husband but certainly not a stranger."
Damon purposely added husband, so that Isolyn would think back to the times he kept asking her to be his wife, though a cheap move, it was all he had not to feel too guilty.
Isolyn regarded him with a thinly suppressed smile, before nodded to herself, "Okay then, let's go get married?"
Damon's eyes became wide, and he wondered if he heard her right, "and how do you suppose we do that?"
Isolyn sighed, and she looked like she just swallowed a bitter fruit, "we will head back to my village, and ask the Island Chieftess to merry us."
"Um.. say what again?"
"I'm saying we're getting married."
Damon didn't know what else to say, because in his point of view this woman is crazy. She has no problem going back to her village if it means marrying him but has qualms with the village and it's people if it means them training her.
'This is madness...'