They all stared at each other.
“We’ve been searching for him for a hundred years,” Mabon said flatly.
“We’d wait in the rain for him,” Rux added.
“We’d burn down the world if he asked,” Urien finished.
“So...the opposite of mystery, then.”
“We’re very bad at this.”
Mabon snatched his phone back and kept scrolling with increasing desperation. “‘First date ideas: coffee shop’ - he works there, no. ‘Movies’ - can’t talk to him, no. ‘Walk in the park’ - we already followed him home, definitely no.’”
“What about cooking for him?” Rux brightened. “I could make that torte. Everyone loves my torte.”
“‘Would you like to come to our secluded estate where three strange men will feed you elaborate desserts’ sounds like the beginning of a crime documentary.”
“It’s romantic!”
“It’s suspicious!”
“Humans are very complicated,” Urien muttered.
“It gets worse.” Mabon turned his phone around. “Look at this article. ‘Red Flags to Avoid: Love Bombing.’”
“What’s love bombing?”
“Apparently, it’s when you overwhelm someone with excessive affection and gifts early in a relationship.”
Rux blinked. “But...but that’s courting. That’s literally what courting is.”
“For dragons. For humans, it’s a ‘red flag’ and a ‘manipulation tactic.’”
“So we’re supposed to court him, but not too much? Care, but not too obviously? Give gifts, but not expensive ones? Show interest but maintain distance?” Urien’s eye twitched. “How does this species reproduce?”
“Very slowly and with extensive therapy, from what I can tell.”
Rux slumped in his chair. “Maybe we just wait for him to notice us?”
“He saw us get rousted by police outside his workplace. I think he’s noticed us.”
“Noticed us badly.”
“Very badly.”
Mabon set down his phone next to his coffee mug. “Alright. New plan. We have to learn all we can about Sam. His actual interests, his actual needs. We observe…”
“We already tried observing. It led to law enforcement.”
“Discreetly. We observe discreetly. Then we approach him like normal humans.”
“But we’re not normal humans.”
“He doesn’t know that yet.”
“So we lie?”
“We omit. That’s the difference.”
