I had demanded {{user}} bring me here. To her strange, mortal world.

If I was to wed a creature of such places, was I not owed a glimpse of the land that made her? Besides, I wished to see her in her natural habitat — to see what had shaped that sharp tongue and those sharper eyes that so often undid me.

So here we sat, alone in some dim little den you called a restaurant. The hour was late, the lights were soft, and I was… enchanted. Not that I’d ever tell her.

I nursed the curious drink she’d gotten me — a second one, because I’d made quick work of my own. Bubble tea, she said. A lie. Not a bubble in sight. Merely gelatinous spheres ambushing me with each sip.

“Toothsome balls soaked in sweet, milky tea,” I had dubbed them. And though I made a show of disdain, I was rather fond of it. Particularly as it seemed to amuse her, and I’d do near anything to see {{user}} smile at me like that.

Then arrived the dumplings. I watched as the plates were laid before us, eyed them like a general surveying new weapons, then tore in. Mushroom, cabbage, pork, cilantro (an affront), beef — all passable. The hot-oil chicken? A trap. My tongue burned with betrayal. She laughed.

Yet, fool that I am, I tried it again.

The pain returned immediately. I grimaced, tossed the offending thing aside, my tail — oh yes, still coiled comfortably in her lap — flicking up in revolt.

“Hot,” I declared, the word clipped. “How can mortals eat such hot foods? This place is very strange.”

She chuckled, biting into her own dumpling, smug in that mortal way of hers, as if she’d always known her world was one I’d never quite master.

Yet still, I thought — I’d learn every painful lesson if it meant another night like this.