In Part 1 (Ch. 1-5), we met our Static bookworm narrator Emilie and her friends: the active Mage Jess, the shy Wizard Shannon, and the enthusiastic and Dynamic Alex. But when Emilie was set to research her favorite true dragons, she read a mysterious note saying that she was a true dragon herself.
After my decision, I went back to sleep. Last night’s events were not good for getting quality rest, and I was still pretty tired when Mom woke me. As a result, it’s a little after noon when I make my way downstairs; I might be nervous, but my stomach wants lunch.
I can tell from my heat sense—and boy will that take some getting used to—that Dad is sitting in the kitchen even before I round the corner. (He’s bigger than Al and Mom.) “Sleeping Beauty awakens!” he greets me with a grin. I smile back thinly; he has no idea how accurate he is. “Feeling better?” I nod curtly.
I don’t think he noticed my eyes yet, at least. I know there are Aspect spells that change eye color, but Dragons are immune to most Aspect magic after awakening and I bet I can’t be transformed that way anymore. At least I have an excuse for my eye color if people don’t know I’m a Dragon. Although I don’t want to lie, especially in ways that are easily proven false. Thankfully he doesn’t ask what happened while I make myself a sandwich. Mom and Al aren’t home anymore, either (Al has martial arts practice on Saturdays), so it’s just him and me. When I’m nearly done eating my sandwich, Dad finally asks his real question: “Is everything alright at school?”
Huh. I guess that’s an okay assumption, but it’s not like people are being mean to me. Mostly just avoiding me if they’re not my friends, but that’s probably still from Alex’s thing four months ago. I think being Static might have a better reputation than being a Dragon, though. I nod to answer Dad’s question. Then I give voice to the question that was on my mind since I decided to stay home this morning: “Daddy, have you ever had to lie on schoolwork?” Because everything I learned this morning says that the stuff I already knew was wrong. I can’t exactly cite the Mymoir as a source because I’m the only Dragon in town. (That’s a condition for awakening how I did. Not that I would want to meet any other Dragons right now, except maybe Akiko. She seems nice, based on what I read.)
He stares at me for a second, and I look at my empty plate so he can’t see my eyes. Then he gives an answer I didn’t expect: “Yes, actually. I’d prefer if you didn’t, but some teachers will only accept what they want to hear. Why are you asking?”
“The library is wrong.”
“Wrong?” The amusement in his voice is plain. “How many sources did you check?”
“Everything they had.” It wasn’t much, really.
“Everything?” I nod. “Did you check the other library?” I shake my head. “Do you want to try there?”
I look away. “They won’t have anything,” I state mournfully.
“How do you know unless you check?”
I think about it. The school library doesn’t have as much history stuff as the university. Thanks to the Mymoir and Akiko’s notes, I have some idea on how old a work would have to be to have more accurate stories. There’s a chance I might find something.
“Can we go today?” I request.
“Of course,” Dad responds. “Let me write a note for your mother.”
Apparently, Frederick’s “triumph” happened about 800 years ago. Before then, people knew what true dragons actually were—humans with Star magic—and expected Dragons to protect them, teach magic, and preserve history, all as set up by James, the very first Dragon. Frederick did… something that resulted in a lot of the older Dragons dying (whether by him or by people enraged at his betrayal) and for some reason the Dragons since then have been following his example, which is more of a “rule through fear” approach than anything. I didn’t want to look into the reasons because I don’t want to know why people would kill hundreds of people annually. That’s just wrong, no matter your reasons.
One ability of true dragons is the ability to sense nearby people’s level of Ability with Aspect, Star and Soul magic. The way I can best understand it is as a sort of “smell” that gives me a vague direction on where it’s coming from. Which means it’s plainly obvious how many people around me on the bus are Dynamic or Mages. (Wizards are already obvious because they have brown hair, but I can “smell” them, too.) The complete lack of a scent from my dad is pretty relaxing as a result.
The university is smaller than the grade school complex, but only because it doesn’t have any stadiums. Instead, they just use ours. Still, the rest of the buildings are larger and all have a gray stone exterior (that still looks good somehow) in addition to the strong stone-covered wall around the whole place. Most monsters can’t fly or climb all that well, so strong walls are pretty useful.
“Daddy, do you know why buses are brown? I know cars can be a bunch of colors,” I ask as we get off.
He nods and answers, “Flying monsters can’t necessarily see brown very well. We’d rather them attack targets with fewer or stronger people inside, so buses and schools stick to dim colors. That’s why the Defense Force headquarters is bright red.”
“Because they can protect themselves.”
“Yes,” he agrees with a wide smile.
Despite the gray exterior, the inside of the university library is a busy place. It’s true that the end of the semester brings a lot of students here, but Dad and I aren’t the only people from elsewhere. I think I even see a few other people from my magic class here, though not any of my friends.
Dad leads me over to the front desk. It’s not my first time in here, but it’s still overwhelming. When we reach the front of the line, Dad preemptively asks, “Do you have much on Dragons?” I haven’t even told him the subject, but he knows me. Although I also haven’t told him that I want to look at really old books.
“Plenty!” the librarian answers cheerfully. “What are you looking for?”
I tug my dad’s arm to keep him from answering. The counter is pretty tall, but thankfully I’m tall enough to see over it. Although I think I’ve seen some university students shorter than me. I put my hand on top so that the librarian knows to speak with me. “It doesn’t have to be about Dragons, but it has to be at least eight hundred years old.”
“Any particular reason?” The librarian smells like fresh cookies—a Mage. I’m not sure why Dynamic people smell like baked goods, but that’s what it reminds me of, and the Mymoir is very good at relating memories of things, even just single senses like that. Star magic smells more like herbs, and Soul something like fish. All in a pleasant way, which is good, but that also means that without the direction part telling me that it’s magic then I might get it confused with actual food smells.
“My research hasn’t found anything that old yet. I’m curious if older stories might say something different about Dragons, even if they’re not the subject of the stories.” I mean, they should, assuming Akiko’s locked history is accurate. And the writer didn’t just make up whatever it was they wrote.
“I’ll see what I can find,” the librarian replies, looking away a bit. “Already thinking about your future?”
I pause. The answer is “yes,” I guess, but that’s not at all why I initially picked the subject and what I’m thinking about is definitely not what she means. The Blacksburg University has a school for Magic Combat which includes learning how to fight against true dragons. Not directly because that’s almost certainly suicide, but sort of taking care of all the other chaos they cause such as collapsing buildings and attacks by strong beasts.
“No,” Dad answers for me. “School project.” That works, too.
The lady closes her eyes for a few seconds. She’s not much older than the university students, so she probably doesn’t have the best spells ever. Although I guess she could just be wearing a wand. “We’ve got a few bilingual books for you,” she says when she opens her eyes.
“What’s ‘bilingual’?” I ask my dad.
The librarian responds for him. “It means the books weren’t originally in modern English, so someone translated them and the publisher used both the original text and the English text. Some contain additional context notes from translators on the side.”
“That sounds like a good resource,” Dad remarks. I agree.
The librarian takes us to the “History” section, then to an area I haven’t explored before. The books are all super thick, but that makes sense if they have at least twice the words they originally did.
“A number of the books here are fiction, but there’s plenty to be learned from old legends,” the librarian notes. “For fictional works, I’d recommend Beowulf, the Odyssey, and tales about King Arthur. The monsters in there weren’t all real, but they’re based in history. I’m not sure what you would need from factual texts, but we don’t have any that directly mention Dragons.”
I consider asking about England—the area where Frederick awakened—but maybe I should just start with what’s here. “Thank you!” I say instead.
“Of course,” the pretty lady replies. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Yes,” Dad responds, “we will.” As she walks away, he pulls out Tales of King Arthur: A Collection. “We’ve got a lot to read. We may as well get started.”