In Part 4 (Ch. 26-36), Emilie finally told everyone just what she was, and what that meant for the future of the town. More specifically, she let them know that there was a threat of extreme violence hanging over her head. To prepare, she’s been added to the high school’s combat training, while everyone else also gets ready for a fight.
In the past few weeks, I’ve only been back to Rich Creek once, but that time I did get to bring Shannon with me. To keep panic down, Jess stayed behind, but she did get that Invisibility wand so I got to just fly there. I told Hikari ahead of time and we came in through the main gate, but I also shifted back to small before Shannon ended the spell. The folks there are nervous enough about my dragon form without it suddenly appearing with no warning.
Rich Creek is a really small town, but it has everything needed to be a town. They don’t have a Defense Force, but they do have a town guard. What was surprising was Hikari’s answer when I asked what they do about beast attacks: “Those do not occur often.” In Blacksburg, they’re like once a week! They only get past the walls maybe once a month, but still. Shannon said that’s probably because Rich Creek doesn’t have much “environmental entropy.” (Per magic class, “entropy” is another name for the source of magic. “Environmental entropy” is entropy that isn’t stored in anything. When something is full with Aspect-matched entropy—such as when a person reaches their limit without casting anything—then the entropy goes to their surroundings, which is nicer than the Star-matched entropy thing of forcing me to dragon form. Monsters can use Aspect-matched entropy in place of food, even if it’s environmental, so hungry beasts will seek it out. No wonder we get so many attacks.)
In other news, while reading the Mymoir, I came across a few references to Dragons’ “journals.” There wasn’t an entry specifically about journals, but there was one about private writing. That means I can write stuff (including spells!) without other Dragons knowing about it or even being able to see it, at least until I die. I… can read journals of dead Dragons. There’s a lot of them, and most are really, really long. How did anything manage to kill them?
Anyway, that was how I spent one entire training session writing a spell that would detect and make obvious created objects around me. I studied the spell that changes heat numbers into colors and did my best to figure out what makes a created object different by having Crane make a few things. It took a bunch of tries to get it right, but now when I cast Emilie’s Creation Detector, created stuff shows as a brilliant white. I picked white because it’s obviously different and if there’s anything that hot near me, I should be cautious of it anyway. And since this is a magic sense and not actual light, it can’t blind me. And since I wrote the spell and understand how it works, I can always change the color if for some reason white isn’t different enough.
It's a little odd to see my name on something in the Mymoir, even if no one else can see it. Other Dragons have loads of spells, especially the older ones and Fred. And of course they talk with each other all the time. The “private writing” section made note that two Dragons can also do secret talks with each other, so I bet that’s why I haven’t seen any active planning between them. I hope I still have some time.
Last night, it snowed again. It’s been snowing a lot this winter. I think there’s three feet on the ground right now, although obviously that didn’t all happen at once. It just hasn’t melted. I’m glad I take a main road until well inside the forest, because at least that gets plowed. The gate guard has learned exactly who my friends and I are by this point, although he still does his checks when we come back. I don’t think that everyone in town knows that I’m the Dragon yet, but Alex says my flights are no longer newsworthy. I guess two months is enough for that to change.
As for today—today is my twelfth birthday. It feels odd knowing that this is probably the first of hundreds of birthdays where I don’t look all that different. I was probably supposed to start growing up this year, but being a Dragon all but put that on pause. I guess every Dragon feels this way. Others might say that we found the “fountain of youth,” but honestly, I just feel like I got robbed. Other girls can look at records of their mothers as teens and know they’ll be that pretty in a few short years; for me, it’s so far off I probably shouldn’t even think about it.
Winter birthdays stink. In summer you can have sports or picnic parties, but in winter you just sorta sit inside. I guess the snow means we could have a snowball fight or go sledding this year, but normally it’s just cold. Jess always had that fire aura wand, so it didn’t bother her much. This is my first year of having any method besides good clothing and chemical hand warmers to make cold weather bearable. I mean, I’m grateful—it’s more than Al has. But he has a late summer birthday, so it doesn’t matter as much for him as far as his party is concerned.
I’ve heard that some places get school canceled for this much snow, but Blacksburg isn’t one of them. Obviously I never noticed before this year, but our buses have a fire aura below them to melt ice, as do most of the cars that people have fitted with snow plows. Between that and the normal heat that cars make, it’s probably safer to drive, but it takes extra entropy from the driver so that’s probably not standard. Honestly, though, this town isn’t all that big. It’s much bigger than Rich Creek, true, but although younger kids need the bus, walking or riding my bike to school would be fine.
Anyway, Mom and Dad get home well after the bus drops me and Al off, so now I’m trying to start up a diary of sorts in the Mymoir, thanks to that private writing thing. I thought to leave out Rich Creek, but if a Dragon killed me here, they’d probably find Rich Creek on their way in. It’s pretty close by. I think I’d rather keep a record of my memories while they’re fresh than forget about them because I was too afraid that other Dragons might read them.
Another problem with winter birthdays is that the sun sets so early. My party is just now starting at 5 and the sun’ll be down in an hour. I mean, the party is just my friends and I at my house eating pizza and cake, but it feels way later after the sun sets.
As usual, Shannon made her own way to my house, but Alex’s mom dropped Alex off. Alex’s family has a huge van, but I guess you might need that with four kids. I think most cars only seat five people. Not that anyone else was in it this time. “Do your parents still not like us?” Alex asks Shannon when everyone is inside.
Shannon shakes her head. “They’d probably be fine with Jess, but you’re ‘not helpful’ and Emilie is ‘a bad influence.’”
“Because I told you to go to the park with me early in the morning?” I ask, hopeful that’s all it is.
“No. That probably didn’t help, but they said that about Static people in general before we even moved here.”
“Well, that’s just mean,” Jess chimes in.
“Do they even know Emilie’s a Dragon?” Alex adds.
Shannon shrugs. “No idea. It probably wouldn’t matter since I can’t learn spells from her.”
Mom moves to stand in the middle of us. “Girls, let’s talk about something more positive.”
Since Mom didn’t provide a topic, the room is silent for a few moments. Eventually, I come up with something. “Do you think it’ll snow more?”
“I sure hope not,” Shannon immediately responds.
I nod in agreement. “Yeah, it’s been a little hard to get to the park, huh?”
Mom, now back to preparing the kitchen for incoming pizza delivery via Mr. Chesbrough, is next to speak. “How do you girls even get there with all this snow?”
“We don’t,” Alex answers simply. “The main road is plowed, so we just get to the nearest cliff and Emilie takes off from there.”
“I’m surprised you’re not afraid of cliffs, after what happened.” The wolf, she means.
“Well—! I was the first time!” I reply. “I know to be cautious, and I pick cliffs barren enough of trees that I can shift before taking off. It’s not like I’m so reckless I’d shift mid-fall!”
“Yeah, that’d be… reckless,” Jess repeats sheepishly.
Alex peers at her. “You do that?”
“She transforms faster than I do,” I defend Jess. “And it’s not like she does it off of cliffs.”
Jess nods and explains. “Sometimes I fly really, really high, then transform and fall for a few seconds.”
“More like two seconds,” I specify.
“It feels longer when you’re up there. Anyway, it gives me a bunch of speed for when I transform back, and I can just climb out of the dive.”
Before Mom can say something, I add, “I am never doing that as a dragon. I can dive perfectly fine without removing my ability to fly.”
“That’s good to hear,” Mom says.
I look towards the front door, however, because that heat is almost certainly Mr. Chesbrough and our food. He got it because he both has a car and has practice keeping pizza hot with a fire wand. Stores do sell insulated boxes, but they don’t work as well. But it was mostly because he has a car. “I think the food’s here!”
“Wow,” Shannon says quietly. “You’re better than my dog.”
Alex smirks. “I’d hope she’s better than a dog.”
Shannon and I chuckle. “You know what I meant.”
I enjoy these very much