And the answer really was what Pearl dreaded, alas.
"Oh, I am here to be your mate, from what King Antyny told me."
"What?!!?" exclaimed Pearl, completely appalled.
"Oh, don't worry," smiled Turquoise with a bored tone of voice. "I don't fancy you either. I told you, I'm a human inside. I used to be one. So I do not think dragons, male or female, are attractive. I prefer human ladies. Plus, I hate pink. Too cliche and girly, if you want to know. So if King Antyny wants me to mate with you, he's going to be sorely disappointed."
That was more than fine for Pearl. As if she wanted to be penetrated by Gareth, of all guys or dragons! Gareth, who must have been incredibly incompetent for Antyny to seize power! But the former prince was still stung by Turquoise's comments. He had thought those himself, but to hear them out of the mouth of someone else was completely different. If Gareth thought he could be a jerk towards her, then he'd have something else coming to him. Pearl did not want to tell Turquoise he was the missing prince. He did not know how he would react. But he could still be as mean as that idiot.
"Because you still think of yourself as a sex magnet, perhaps?" she jeered. "Are human women attracted to paunchy idiots? You are chubby and you have a gut, in case you didn't notice. I prefer muscular males, thank you."
And it was true. If Gareth had been toned and muscular, it was clear that he was now a dragon who was overweight. Not overly so, not to the point of obesity, but with a pudgy stomach and fat accumulating elsewhere on his body. The sort of fat which indicated not a natural shape of the body but greedy indulging in food.
"Yeah, well, keep your disgusting lizard vagina out of my face," answered meanly Turquoise. "I won't touch you. Don't worry about that. Keep your sappy scales away too. Too sugar-coated and cutesy for me."
Turquoise went back to his nap and Pearl stayed on her own side of the cage. What an idiot! To think he had been head of the Prince Guard! What a joke! No wonder his parents had fell, with a clown like that! At least, that moron would not touch her. But sharing a cage would still promise to be a real torture...