"You ever stop to think that not everybody wants to be that upfront?" Trent offered as he took a slow considering sip of his beer. "I mean everybody's got secrets one way or another, maybe some folk like it that way."
Ashton definitely wasn't harming the school, but he'd seen the dark underbelly of the black dragon up close and personal and he'd only survived the encounter because of who he was. Anybody else? Would have died that day.
But that wasn't the cause for the secrecy, it was more to do with Ashton's past and what had happened to his parents. A long standing belief that if anybody knew what he was then they might come for him and Trent wasn't about to expose him to the world. Not until he was ready. The whole reveal was Ashton's call, nobody else's.
"I can't imagine you've been all that upfront with all your secrets," Trent observed. "I mean, who does that anyways? I figure everybody's got a right to be as private as they wanna be." He tipped his head to regard Leon closely. "Maybe it's not so much a conspiracy and more a consideration for the fact that revealing themselves is their choice nobody else's."
There was no point denying the fact he was friends with a dragon because he was and from the sounds of things his goose was cooked anyways so why waste his time?
"I guess if we're expecting the dragon to reveal itself then we gotta do somethin' grand in return like opening up our closets an' lettin' the world see all the skeletons we really wish they wouldn't see."