Violet Winter~ Short story by Grumpy

One blue and gold wyvern, a young girl with blazing red hair, and another older girl with a mess of black on her head. Nearby some sheep watched in half-hearted interest and in the distant background several tall wooden buildings were swarmed with a rainbow of different dragons of all ages and breeds. The School of Dragons.

“Now remember, let the dragon fly herself”

“Got it”

“And don’t yank back on the horns too hard”

“Knew that”

“And don’t put your foot there”

“What?”

Aunrey looked at where Jurada, her instructor, was pointing. Her heel was wedged in the Monstrous Nightmares armpit, which wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that she would be trying to get airborne in the next minute. “Oh, right” Aunrey apologized.

Jurada smiled confidently at her. The girl looked about 19, maybe 20, and had a maniacs’ glint behind her joyful eyes. Her thick black hair enhanced that look, and it didn’t help that her outfit was a weird combination of red-stained leather and fabrics matched with light armouring made from a very, very dark metal of some sort. “Alright, then- Ace, you said your name was?”

“Yep”

“Let’s see if you can get along with Nyemeri. Onwards!”

Nyemeri, the dragon, launched into the sky with a jolt. Aunrey was almost thrown off (again) but managed to grasp her lower horns.

This turned out to be a terrible idea because instead of throwing the dragons whole head back, it just pulled her jaws open to make a gout of sticky flames shoot out in surprise. Nyemeri tucked in her wings, rolled to one side, and made a nose dive for the ocean. Neither Aunrey or Jurada had time to protest to those manoeuvres and all three were now floating in the waves.

“Nyemeri, what in the name of Odin’s eyepatch was that!” Jurada cursed loudly.

The dragon started paddling back to shore, clearly done with todays lessons. Muttering a few more severe informalities under her breath, Jurada grabbed a shell-shocked Aunrey and followed Nyemeri.

“I think we’re done with flying practice for today” Jurada puffed. “You should get up to the Hatchery before the rare ones go” she suggested.

Aunrey clutched her arm. It stung badly, as did a lot of the rest of her body, but there were no marks or burns. “I guess” she agreed.

No more than an hour later, she had managed to reach the magmatic hearth of the Hatchery(and the heat dried her off, which was a plus). Left and right, other students made b-lines for different nests and others made round trips a few times before settling on their first dragon.

Not Aunrey, though. She just stood there.

“Just give it a moment” a boy said to her at some point. “You’ll feel what’s right for you”

And she gave it plenty of moments. Enough moments for even the Whispering Death’s nest to clear out. The mother happily lay curled around the empty ditch, just like the rest of them.

‘Maybe come back tomorrow?’ Aunrey thought to herself, but even she was having a hard time keeping her spirits up. For now, she would just have to find something else to do. Exploring the islands would have to do for a distraction for now.

It was a weird sensation. Aunrey normally was in a constant state of optimism, but the type of sadness or disappointment in her right now was almost nothingness. A sort of emptiness in her chest, as if the ‘happy-go-lucky’ carelessness was now just ‘go’. Go somewhere and do nothing.

The Lookout was pretty boring. A plot of land was for sale but she had no coin. Groups of students took turns gazing through a telescope fixed to an outcropping but there wasn’t much on the horizon to get a better look at.

The Training Grounds had some more promise- the racing tower stood proudly on its own rocky cape, its height outmatched only by the Flight Club platform. Arena’s built into caves either side of the entrance added another layer to the cove but Fireball was strictly experienced trainers only and ‘Bullseye Lagoon’ had a faded ‘Closed’ sign nailed to its door. Aunrey couldn’t wait until she could explore the place properly with her own dragon- something that she was slowly fearing would never happen.

This only left the Wilderness to wander through, the only forested part of the island. It was where most of the Hatcheries eggs came from, according to Jurada, so it wasn’t unheard of for a student to go in there with just the one scaled companion and leave with two.

It was reassuringly quiet here. No other students. Any dragons that saw her turned tail and left silently. It was a good place to reset, and by now the sun was touching the horizon, adding to the serene environment.

In the distant forest, a pillar of black smoke billowed from the trees. Some boars burst out of the undergrowth, squealing and paying no mind to her in their blind fear. These were sure sounds of an injured or angry dragon- just the kind of thing she was looking for.

Racing towards the smoke, she grinned to herself as she pondered what could be the owner of the smoke. Smokebreath? Stormcutter? Hotburple? At this point any kind of dragon would be fine for her. She reached the place that the smoke was coming from, and found a patch of forest stripped bare by flames and gales. The ground was still warm- coals embedded in the tree trunks still glowed rather brightly. The tops of the trees melted into the dusk sky.

Then a beam of sunlight pulled itself from the rest.

She watched in awe as a dragon with fiery wings materialize out of the dusk sky, landing heavily on the other side of the field to her. They locked eyes, and Aunrey felt the connection. A Typhoomerang with eyes of light bronze, a face like white ash and a body made of fire, stood regal and proud. He was a powerful beast, but not without intelligence or kindness. Pale striping in his scarlet belly reminded her of the onyx geodes brought back from trading vessels, smoothed and buffed into shining stones as bright as his scales.

The dragon took a step towards her, growling. She wasn’t scared, however. And he didn’t seem defensive, either, growling more out of a test than to frighten her. He stopped rumbling and his pupils widened, taking another step forward. Their noses were almost touching. “Hi there” Aunrey whispered.

He sniffed her head, and made a strange gurgling noise. “Would you want to come with me?” she asked, hopeful.

It was a long shot, but there was no way she would leave this majestic dragon behind without even trying.

He slow-blinked, considering the offer. After a moment, he nuzzled her forehead, gurgling again. “You want a name?” she asked her new dragon, who was very quickly warming up to her. “What about Onyx?” she suggested, remembering the small stones again.

Onyx didn’t exactly object to his name, if anything humming even louder. She laughed, stroking his nose and horns, finally with her dragon.

Written by the AMAZING Wutend Bonfire^^ TYSM!