In Part 2 (Ch. 6-17), Emilie found out what it means to be a true dragon, at least physically and magically. Keeping this a secret from her friends and society is something of a challenge, but she’s doing her best.
I didn’t have any issues flying that day, and Shannon used some canvas from her garage to shield her pants. Which helped, although my scales still tore the canvas and put small holes in her jeans. And the newspaper had another article about me that sounded like people might try to approach while I’m flying. Which is not great news. I’ll have to talk with Shannon again about that.
And, of course, school has started again. I did manage to finish my break homework—which all of us complained about, of course—so no worries there. But I did promise to sit with my friends again, so here goes nothing.
While the action itself is simple, the emotions behind it are not. I hid myself away because I was afraid that I might let something slip, or that my friends would hate me or something. Which Shannon almost did because she thought I was a Mage. I’m sure her parents find our friendship beyond confusing, and they don’t even know about the Dragon part.
Reassured, I take my normal seat across from Shannon and next to Jess. Addressing Jess, I quietly apologize. “Sorry about, you know…”
Jess nods. “It’s okay,” she whispers back.
The magic of my friends smells delicious and I’m glad I have my lunch in front of me. There are myths that Dragons eat people. I’m sure those are just myths because for starters that’d be cannibalism. For a second reason, I can’t eat in dragon form. My energy is purely from magic in that form, which is probably part of why I won’t ever gain magic while I’m big. But with these smells, I can’t say anymore there’s no reason for the myths. The scent may be faint but it certainly smells good.
And then Alex opens her mouth. “Did you guys hear about the Dragon?”
I take a deep breath. One thing I’ve learned about her is that my first impression was correct. She hates silence and has little to no filter on what she says. And while I skim the newspaper, she spends a decent chunk of her free time watching local news. Not that I could watch it anyway; scrying boards take a Dynamic person to turn them on. Alex’s family doesn’t have any Mages, so I’m not sure how they have enough magic to power the board… but I’m sure Jess’s mom could tell me if I asked.
“What Dragon?” Shannon asks between bites. Personally, I’m torn between hoping Alex isn’t talking about me and hoping she is. Because if it’s local news, I really don’t want there to be another Dragon around here.
“A big blue one,” Alex answers. “They had a record of it flying around and everything.”
So, almost certainly me. I let out a breath quietly.
Shannon continues to question her. “What’d they say about it?”
“I dunno…” Alex frowns. “Not much. They said it was probably new but it didn’t seem to be doing anything, and there wasn’t a parent nearby.”
“Parent” Dragons are the ones that show up to mentor/protect new Dragons. I bet in most cases it’s one of their actual parents, but since people don’t know how new Dragons happen, the “parent” thing is just a nickname. But if two Dragons get married, then all of their kids will also be Dragons, which probably accounts for most Dragons now.
“Right,” Shannon asserts. “Because if it had, we’d have heard about it. Right, Jess?” Oh, I see. I bet the DF would tell the whole town within a day if there was something super dangerous in the area. And if I was on the news, then they probably have been keeping a close watch on me. While I’m big, anyway.
I’m so glad they can’t scry me.
“Actually, Mom mentioned a possible Dragon a couple of weeks ago,” Jess starts. “A little after the attack that damaged the walls?”
I nod slightly. It makes sense that someone might investigate for an attack that large. And I did burn most of the park that morning. Dragons do tend to cause large attacks, but I think they normally do those on purpose. If I had any part in it, it would’ve been because I scared things away from Shannon.
Jess isn’t done talking. “She said the forest is probably the safest it’s been in years. Whatever prompted that attack managed to drive out most of the beasts in the area. Her coworkers are still looking into it, but even if it was a Dragon, it doesn’t seem very dangerous.”
I blink in surprise and—my eyes are wet. Shannon quickly moves around the table end and hugs my side. I don’t know what I’ll tell Alex and Jess later, but I’m so relieved I can barely see them. I know it’s not an outright statement of support, but for the DF to call me “not dangerous” is way more than I’d hoped.
True to herself, Alex doesn’t let me relax long after my eyes have cleared. “Wait—Emilie, do you know something? You’re the Dragon expert.”
I have no idea how to answer her. Thankfully, Shannon helps me one more time. “I think she knew before any of us. But for now, I think it’s best if we talk about something other than Dragons.”
I think Alex actually understood that. “Oh. Okay. So, um… wanna hear about what I got for Christmas?”
Okay, so, while I did manage to write a paper that both isn’t outright false and doesn’t use the Mymoir as a reference, it’s probably not what my teacher expected for the assignment. The project prompt said to pick a monster type and say what it is, where it tends to live, and what defines the category, plus any additional interesting facts. But I know now that Dragons aren’t monsters. And some of the other items there are hard to answer with just what is in books and records. So… my paper is mostly about Dragon personalities. I wanted to make it clear that Dragons aren’t all terrible.
What I gathered from the Mymoir (and sourced from legends) is that before Frederick did his thing, there were a lot fewer Dragons and they were a lot nicer, although they kind of mostly kept to themselves. If there was a big mean beast, the Dragons got rid of it or helped the heroes of legends win the fight. But when nothing was going on, you rarely could find them anywhere. There aren’t many history books or legends talking about the first hundred years or so after Frederick appeared, but after that point Dragons started showing up all over the place and terrorizing folks. There were names and genders mentioned for some ancient Dragons in legends, but the pronoun for Dragons nowadays is “it.” I feel like people once knew but forgot that Dragons are people, too. Not that I mentioned that part expressly in my paper. But I did note that some Dragons still seem to be operating by the old rules, such as the white dragon in Japan (who is definitely Akiko, but I couldn’t find her name anywhere).
If my teacher doesn’t like my paper, I have the start of one on floral dragons prepared. Someone in a heavily-forested Asian nation came up with a way to make monsters that exceed the normal size limits by using plants, since they can start small and get bigger. Floral dragons tend to act using the rules that ancient Dragons had, so it’s pretty inspiring, even though they aren’t actually true dragons. They’re people, too, even though they’re made of plants. And they have flight magic so they can manage to get their ridiculously heavy bodies off the ground.
“Good afternoon, class,” Mrs. Williams greets us. “I know I said you’d be turning in your papers today, but I thought we should start with peer review. This basket—” a medium size woven basket— “has your names in it; each pair I draw will swap papers. When you’ve all got your partners, I will hand out a grading and review rubric.” We’re almost halfway through the school year; people have learned to stop complaining about every new assignment. I’m just hoping I get paired with Shannon.
I don’t listen carefully to all the pairs, but I do notice when “Shannon Blunt” is called. “And… Gary Buttles.” And I drop my head to my desk. He’s not a bad kid, but I’d prefer someone who I trust to read my paper.
And then Mrs. Williams calls “Emilie Gaschler” and it’s my turn. “And… Alex Kato.”
Oh dear.
I mean, there’s nothing blatantly out of place in my paper, and Alex knows that I like Dragons, so it should be fine. But I also recall that she said she’d write on chimeras, so I expect her paper to be as disorganized as the category.
Alex takes the opportunity to move her chair next to my desk, paper in hand. “I hope you realize I’m not gonna know everything you do on Dragons,” Alex starts. I nearly roll my eyes before interrupting her.
“You don’t have to. I had Al read it first, and I know he doesn’t pay close attention when I talk about Dragons.” That, and he did this two years ago and I trust him to not go tell everyone he meets that I’m a Dragon even if he did somehow find out. He said his paper was on nagas, so I guess liking reptiles might be a family thing. Not that true dragons are reptiles, but they do have scales. And I think lizarkin are kinda neat, too.
Alex nods; “I had Lauren read mine.” I forget whether Lauren is the oldest or not. “So it’s not terrible, anymore.”
“What was it before?” I ask Alex.
Alex’s face heats up. “Well, you know, I wrote on chimeras. Like, all chimeras. Lauren suggested narrowing the topic a bit.” She hands me her paper as we receive the rubric.
The title reads, “Inorganic Chimeras.” I… don’t know the definition of the first word, but hopefully I’ll learn it today.
Okay, so, inorganic chimeras are monsters made from stuff that isn’t originally alive. Like wisps, or East Asia slimes, or, well, monsters made from rocks. Alex’s paper says that most of these are Servants that became wild when their masters died, and some have become rather common as a result. They don’t tend to die easily either, which is not really a problem because they also don’t tend to be violent, but it does mean that there are probably some really ancient ones wandering around. And some are sapient, too, but only a few because their makers didn’t want them to get lonely.
After reading Alex’s paper, I may understand the why of the Mymoir (beyond sharing spells) even if the how is beyond me. I think God set up the Mymoir so that Dragons could talk to each other, especially way back when there weren’t dozens of us.
As for the rubric, she definitely taught me something. There are some grammar errors here and there, but I’m not really sure I can grade her on “effective use of sources” without looking up the sources myself. I turn in my copy of the rubric and wait for Alex to finish. I read a lot more than she does, so it’s natural that I’m faster. I’m not sure she can sit still long enough to enjoy reading.
Eventually, she does finish, and we get to do part two of today’s assignment: discussion on what to improve for next time. “So… your paper says that Dragons used to be nice?” Alex asks me.
“Yeah.” I nod. “Mostly. There were still legends about mean ones, but mostly good.”
“What happened, though?”
I shrug and shake my head. “I don’t know.” I don’t want to know, but outside the Mymoir there wasn’t a source for it anyway. I’m certain it’s in the Mymoir, but whatever happened apparently convinced a whole lot of Dragons that they should be mean to people. I don’t want to be like that, so I’d rather not read it. Not from the Mymoir, anyway; it does excel at telling me exactly how the person recording a thing was thinking at the time. I don’t want to feel that way.
“Huh.” She’s quiet for a second. “Anyway, I thought you had to say where Dragons come from. Y’know, like what they’re made from, or who made the first one.”
I look at Alex to gauge whether she’s serious. Yes, that was on the prompt and rubric, but I think the Mymoir is the only source in the world with the answer to that question. Judging that she probably hadn’t paid attention when I talked about this before I knew I was one, I answer. “If anyone knew that, I would’ve put it in my paper. And I don’t think mean Dragons would be the problem that they are.” Although the second part isn’t strictly true. But it probably would be true if they were actually monsters like gryphons. Gryphons do hurt people, but they don’t attack entire towns very often, and our Defense Force drives them off easily enough. I don’t think a solitary beast would intentionally attack a city.
“Oh, right. Um… feedback for me?”
Her paper was actually good, so it’s hard to come up with something. After considering, I respond, “Maybe do a little more proofreading? I dunno.”
Alex’s eyebrows shoot up. “It was that good?”
I frown and shrug. “I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Not for content, anyway.”
Alex looks away, a little dazed. “Oh, wow. What do I do for next time?”
I snort. “More of the same, I guess.”