"Yes, Star Abyss was fair. In the face of competition, a backward, conservative, self-isolating race like ours would be eliminated sooner or later."
The white dragon lowered her head and looked at her reflection in the cup.
"But these are my kin."
"I know we're backward, weak, and hidebound, with plenty of discrimination within our own ranks, but..."
She looked at the other diners around the restaurant. People bustled about amid unceasing noise.
"This is our race. We speak the same language. Our ancestors lie buried here, and our young shed their blood here. Even if we were destined for destruction and decline... I really couldn't bear to let it go."
"What race or civilization could bear to watch everything it had be destroyed, trampled upon, stripped of its rights and dignity?"
As she spoke, she looked toward the other tables in the restaurant. "Those trolls over there—their empire was once incomparably glorious. People once considered troll fangs beautiful. Now, they can only reminisce about the past over drinks."
"At the table in the center, I just heard that a highly respected Old Dragon had died. She didn't want everyone to be too sad afterward, so she left a will asking for a banquet to be held for the neighborhood using her inheritance, so that before she departed for the Nether Abyss, she could see everyone smiling."
"And at the table beside the piano, those young men and women—a Bear-Human Dragonborn and a Sub-Dragonkin—they seem to be attending a matchmaking meeting for the first time. They're terribly awkward. The Bear-Human Dragonborn is holding a speech draft and has finished introducing his qualifications, while the Sub-Dragonkin girl is lowering her head and using a communication spell to ask her best friend to vet him..."
She spoke in great detail, her observations