"Aw, don't give me that look," Ladon drawled casually, leaning his cheek against his palm. "I thought you'd be happy to see me. Didn't you miss me?"

It had been several centuries, after all. Sure, Ladon had left their homeland of Skyreach, traveled the land under the guise of a human man and meddled in mortal affairs, settled down for a bit under the guise of a human woman, had a child, felt bad about the deception and revealed that he was actually a shapeshifting dragon, been spurned by his family and left the child with the father, felt bad again and come back, learned that he was a grandfather (grandmother?) and had a major fight with his child, then gone back to traveling as a "mortal" man.

All in all, a rather busy life for a dragon.

Ladon had always been a rebel among his isolationist kind, with a sharp disregard for tradition and a taste for the unknown. His kin drove him mad with their stuffy rules, impossible standards, and unwillingness to change. How beings that could shapeshift were so insistent on staying in one place doing nothing for millennia was beyond him.

"What's with that face?" Ladon asked in mock offense. "You haven't seen me in centuries, I tell you all about how I had a kid, which granted we're expressly forbidden to do with species not our own, but still! You should be like, 'Wow, congrats,' but nooo. Anyway, now that you've finally decided to leave that awful, stuffy, boring old mountain, I figured hey, I know the lay of the land. So here I am, offering my services as a guide out of the goodness of my heart, and this is the treatment I get. Rude."

Ladon shook his head and sighed dramatically, then glanced over at the other dragon again. "Okay, maybe I missed you, maybe I'm lonely, and maybe I'm just fishing for excuses to hang out. Or maybe I'm kiiinda hoping to rekindle our torrid—"

Ah. That was a kick to the face. Ladon remembered these. Ow.

"You know, I'm not a complete jerk," he protested, rubbing his sore cheek. "Just about 90% jerk. I deserve some credit for the other 10%!"