Adapting to Earth

Dylan continued to watch TV with eyes that shone like the night sky. Beside him, Sherry translate the subtitles in Divian so that he could understand what was being said. Just like that, the duo spent their afternoon on watching more and more episodes of this children's cartoon.

"Pepper Pig~! Oink! Pepper Pig~" Dylan sang along with the outro of the cartoon with his low tone and seductive voice. His pronunciation was already on the level of high proficiency and it was hard to tell that he had only been learning English for one day. This level of learning was truly monstrous and enviable. Even Sherry was wide eyed at this despite being perfectly aware that he absorbed things like a sponge. She also found it a little funny and adorable that this handsome grown up man was earnestly watching a cartoon made for young children and was even singing along with it. Sherry giggled and pressed next episode.

"I'm Dylan Von Kaiser." After another few episodes, Dylan began to practise his English. Watching the intro a few times was enough to memories these few words. He only had to replace the word 'Pepper Pig' with his own name.

"'I'm'." Sherry corrected. Although Dylan's pronunciation was almost perfect, it sounded forced and robotic.

"I'm Dylan Von Kaiser." Dylan copied Sherry and repeated a few times. The final time, he finally got rid of the strange intonations he used to speak.

"'I'm' is a conjunction of two words, I and am. So by saying, 'I'm', you are saying I am." Sherry explained to Dylan. Dylan nodded with understanding. The concept of conjunctions was known to him but he rarely used them. Only a few individuals chose to speak with shortened language in Frin.

"So, the two sounds of the two words have been combined to make one word with the same meaning. The same how it's is a combination of both it and is." Dylan said.

Sherry nodded. "Yes. You're a fast learner. Another way you can introduce yourself is 'my name is' followed by your name. 'My name is' is my name is, 'my' meaning my as in the possessive pronoun. This means that the noun belongs to the person speaking. For example, you would say 'my family'. Meaning my family; the family is your family."

Sherry continued to explain each and every word in detail with examples to further consolidate Dylan's understanding of it. Thanks to her teaching and Dylan's superb comprehensive skills, Dylan was soon able to fluently introduce himself in at least three ways.

"At this rate, you'll be able to hold a simple conversation in no time!" Sherry praised with delight. They both turned their heads to look at each other, freezing upon realisation that they were so close. Their shoulders were almost touching and their faces were mere centimetres apart. Dylan felt a slight tickle along his arms and found Sherry's hair touching it. Dylan's face flushed with red and Sherry's ears heated up. The warmth of the bodies radiated and the two maintained a dazed stare for what seemed like an eternity.

Ding dong ding dong. The doorbell rang and snapped them out of their daze. Dylan alertly grabbed at his rapier and jumped up. He stood in front of Sherry and looked left and right for any sight of an intruder or possible attacks. There wasn't any but he didn't let his guard down.

"Cast protective magic on yourself before things get too dangerous." Dylan spoke to Sherry in low whisper. His voice was not gentle but stern and serious. His round eyes sharpened and what Sherry was saw was no longer her gentle friend Dylan Von Kaiser, but the royal knight, Golden Fenrir. That was Dylan's nickname due to the fact that when he was in battle, his kind persona was cast away, replacing itself with a ferocious guard that was both swift and quick on his feet. His proficient use of wind magic also contributed to this nickname of his.

Sherry stood up in a panic. "It's okay. Someone is just at the door." She pat his tense shoulders and attempted to calm him down.

"Door?" Dylan asked. He relaxed his firm grip on the handle of his rapier.

Sherry nodded with a stiff look on her face. She was happy that he would protect her with such fervour but at the same time, she was deeply saddened that the littlest things would trigger his guard. He didn't used to be like this, Sherry could only try to imagine how he had spent that one year without her. It must have been extremely stressful, she lamented.

"The sound is made by a device called a doorbell installed on the front door. I'm sure you must've seen it on your way in." Sherry explained.

Dylan thought back to the front door. It was a dark steel mesh door and on the right hand side of it was a white rectangular prism. A grey button was fixed in the middle of it.

"The doorbell is similar to those handles that is nailed onto doors in Frin. You press it and it makes a sound so people inside the house knows that you're at the door." Sherry continued. By this time, Dylan had already relaxed and became warm again. He was now facing her, nodding and taking in all the information greedily like a starved beast.

The doorbell rang again. "For now, put away your sword. I've forgotten to tell you before but dangerous weapons like this are illegal on Earth so you'll get in trouble if people saw you with it. Its rather fortunate that only the kids saw when you were demonstrated your swordsmanship before."

Dylan obediently nodded and threw his sword into his storage space. It was a black swirling hole made by ripping apart the space and connecting it with another through the use of space-time magic. This was an extremely rare magic that was able to store and freeze the time of objects placed inside. The only restriction was that living things could not be placed inside.

"Coming~!" Sherry called out to the impatient person pressing the doorbell. She then lightly ran to the front door with Dylan just behind her. Opening the door, she found the kids standing closely in front of her door like a waddle of penguins. "Hmm? Weren't you kids playing at the park?"

"Sorry to bother you again, Sherry." Yasmin maturely said. "George fell down and twisted his ankle so we were wondering if we could borrow an ice pack or something."

As Yasmin spoke, she and the other children looked curiously at Dylan. They recognised him as the man from this morning and was guessing Sherry's relationship with him.

"Oh that's terrible. Why don't you come in and watch TV. I'll call your parents and let them know you're staying at my place. You can go back when it's time for dinner." Sherry invited.

"Uh, we wouldn't want to intrude." Yasmin declined but before she could continue, she was interrupted by Diana and Fiona.

"Yes! Thanks for having us over!" They chimed.

"Sorry and thank you for the trouble Sherry." George had his arm around Frank's shoulder for support. His eyes were red with tears and clothes dirty from falling. Frank helped him into the house and also thanked Sherry. Like this, Yasmin could no longer refuse Sherry's offer.