Dragon Bond: Chap 1 - The Choosing

The clock wouldn’t move. It seemed like every time Cleo looked up at it, the damn thing wouldn’t budge. This wasn’t the case, of course – Master Zealand took care to keep his classroom clock working and accurate – but to Cleo, it seemed as though time had actually halted completely. The worst part was that she wasn’t sure whether to groan internally and wish for the last ten minutes of class to fly by, or to breathe a sigh of relief that time was slowing. It was one of those days.
Master Zealand was by no means a boring teacher; he was enthusiastic and passionate about his subject in a way that made Cleo’s rants about video games and fantasy novels seem meek and calm. Today, though, the girl was so incredibly brain dead from the exams she had just taken that even Master Zealand couldn’t keep her awake. She fought the good fight for a long time, looking from the clock to the teacher, blinking slower and slower, slumping more into her chair as the motionless seconds ticked away. Soon she found herself in a half-asleep state, unwilling to let herself become completely unconscious, but too tired to stay entirely awake. As Master Zealand reviewed for his class’s final exam, his words began to form Cleo’s half-sleeping hallucinations.
“Since before history was recorded,” Master Zealand said, “three races have lived on our world of Caden. On the eastern continent, we humans once lived in the western lands of Tiniri. The Ibari lived in the island nation of Rykar, and the Krahe resided to the east, secluded in Narcen.”
Cleo could see the map displayed behind the teacher in her mind’s eye without a second thought. The eastern continent of Caden – where she lived – had formed into a nearly rectangular chunk of earth, with a roughly oval shaped hole in the center, where the sea of Rykar and its forty islands resided. There was only one waterway that connected the sea to the ocean beyond: the Straight of Rahu, a highly tactical area which the Ibari used to control.
Used to.
“The Ibari kingdom, Rykar – for which the sea is named,” Zealand continued, “had become the largest and most prosperous of the eastern countries, and prevailed over its neighbors.” Cleo heard him begin to pace around the front of the room as he spoke. Normally such a thing would cause her to leap up in embarrassment before he noticed her, but she was so tired that afternoon that she hardly cared.
“Now, who can tell me which Ibari king was in power in the year 2587?”
The silence of the class unnerved Cleo into waking a little more, and she cracked open an eye to see that her peers were glancing around at each other. Most of them knew the answer, but were unwilling to be the first to speak, a strange phobia which Cleo shared.
“… King Tyrobis the Terrible?” a boy in the back spoke up.
“Very good!” Master Zealand said. “Now, as you all know, Tyrobis was extremely power hungry, even for an Ibari. His mother was thought to have spoiled him throughout his childhood, and when he inherited the throne, he only desired more. He was unsatisfied with the great piece of world which he already controlled – the entire sea of Rykar, every island within, huge swaths of land on the continent itself, and the Straight of Rahu. He wanted more.
“King Tyrobis’s father is known for the incredible army and navy which he built to protect his empire before his death. The soldiers who thickened the ranks were unmatched anywhere else in the world.” Cleo began to envision a squadron of Ibari warriors, horns of ebony and ivory protruding from polished steel helmets, tails swishing impatiently and making chainmail shirts jingle. Perhaps it was her fried nerves, or maybe just the mind of a teenager speaking, but the half-asleep girl found herself thinking, “I could totally take one of them on.” If she was awake, she may not have harbored such a foolish thought.
“King Tyrobis used this military to attack Tiniri and Narcen, and did not stop for ten years. Every year, more and more human and Krahe lands were lost to him.” Master Zealand paused for a moment. “Now, we humans have never been very good at magic, but the Krahe are very good at it. So good that they’ve figured out how to combine elemental magic and technology, which they call black magic.”
Of course it’s black magic, Cleo thought. Everything to do with them is black. They’re more obsessed with the color black than I was in 8th grade. I mean, I get that their wings are black, but come on.
Master Zealand continued. “So, when the Krahe faced either total annexation by the empire of Rykar or the annihilation of their race, they finally decided to retaliate. They focused all of their black magic on creating a living weapon with an instinctive hatred for the Ibari, and built in a natural shield to all Ibari magic. With such a creature, the Krahe could theoretically defend all of Narcen and Tiniri.” The teacher smiled up at his class, gesturing for them to help him finish his following sentence. “And they called their weapons…?”
“Dragons!” half the class declared. Cleo jumped in her seat, and woke up for a moment or two. Master Zealand shot her a look, but didn’t seem to be angry with her; rather, his expression was forgiving, almost.
“Exactly!” he said. Then he shook a finger at the class and continued pacing. “But the Krahe didn’t realize just how powerful they had made their new creations. It wasn’t long after the first successful dragon became sentient and awake that they rebelled against their creators, rejecting the slavery of war they had been born into. Upon their escape from the Krahe labs, they wandered for two whole years, desperately trying to find a place to call their own in a world they were never meant to exist in. They killed anyone who got in their way; human, Ibari, and Krahe alike.”
Master Zealand chuckled a little. “Now, when they first escaped Narcen, the war was still two and a half years from completion, so you can imagine what kind of havoc they wreaked against both sides.” The class forced a chuckle as well, but most were paying closer attention to the seemingly unmoving clock than to their teacher.
“The Krahe tried to approach the dragons, to try to coax them back into the keeping of the Narcen government, but the dragons were not foolish enough to be tricked. The Ibari, too, tried to gain their support in the war, but the loathing for Ibari that had been programmed into the brains of each dragon was too strong for them to consider such an offer. Finally, in an attempt to right the wrongs of the Krahe, the humans sent a group of their best diplomats to befriend the dragons. Now, I’m not going to go into the story of Vash and Wren; you’ve heard that one enough times to recite it to me.”
The class groaned sadly; that particular tale was the most famous of the saga regarding the founding of their country. It would have been a nice mental break, since everyone already knew it. But Master Zealand was having none of it.
“But don’t you forget!” the teacher said. “Vash Riko and Wren, the first dragon pairing in history!” He cleared his throat and continued. “Anyway, the dragons trusted the humans much more than they did the Krahe or the Ibari. So when the mission succeeded, the dragons and humans forged a magical soul pact to connect our races, which still lasts to this day. Can anyone tell me the Three Aspects of the Pact? … Cleo?”
Cleo jumped awake and sat up in her chair, sputtering for a second. “Oh, um, yes. The Three Aspects. Right.” She cleared her throat. “Aspect One: One third of the population of humans and dragons each shares their soul with a member of the opposite species. Aspect Two: Only a dragon can detect this connection. It manifests itself through a scent incomprehensible to humans. Aspect Three: After coming into physical contact for the first time, the magical affinities of the dragon begin to affect the human, allowing the latter to use advanced magic normally beyond them.”
Someone in the back of the class muttered something just loud enough for Cleo to hear. “Which would explain her whole magic thing earlier.” The voice, and another beside the speaker, began to chuckle. Cleo turned bright red and sunk back into her chair, embarrassed and angry. She had half a mind to march back there and sock the offending girl in the jaw. It was one of Resha’s friends, of course. It wouldn’t have been anyone else.
“Well done, Cleo!” Master Zealand said; he gave her a knowing look, but said nothing about her dozing off, and didn’t seem to have heard the girls in the back making fun of her. “After the soul pact was created, the dragons and humans bound together and pushed back the Ibari military from all human and Krahe territory in a matter of months. They protected the shrunken borders around the Rykar fiercely, putting down any Ibari effort to reclaim lost territory, and even managed to take back control of the Straight of Rahu. Trapped in the sea, their military torn to shreds, and an embargo placed on their trade, Rykar was utterly defeated and unable to retaliate for much longer.
“And now, the dragons and their companions reside in this, the fourth country of the eastern continent, granted independence from Tiniri by King Urick in 2600, 476 years ago,” Master Zealand concluded. “To this day, we humans and our dragon counterparts serve the same two purposes as we did back then: to protect our borders and keep the Ibari in check. And that’s the history of our country, Miilan, the Republic of Dragons!”
In the time it took for Master Zealand to finish his review, Cleo found herself drifting off again. So when the bell rang, she startled awake and nearly jumped out of her seat. Master Zealand rolled his eyes at her, but said nothing in reprimand.
“Alright, everyone, go home and study!” the teacher said. “And if you do nothing else, at least go over that basic history I’ve just given you a few times in your head. Let’s have everyone pass this year, shall we?”
The class began to get up and hurry out of the room, eager to grab their possessions from their lockers and meet with their partners outside in the quad between the school’s two buildings. Cleo, still feeling a little sluggish, took longer to pack up than her classmates, and as a result, was caught alone with Master Zealand at the doorway when she tried to leave.
“Hey,” he said to stop her. She looked up at him, and saw that the teacher wore a concerned expression on his face. “Are you alright?”
Cleo nodded and shifted her backpack on her shoulders. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Master Zealand sighed, and seemed to struggle internally with how to word his next phrase. “… It doesn’t happen to everyone,” he said. “There’s always one or two every year.”
“Well, this year it might just be one,” Cleo replied tersely; she didn’t want to get into an argument with Master Zealand, but she was really in no mood to discuss this.
He looked at her for a moment, unblinking. Then he shook his head. “I’m just saying that… Maybe, if it doesn’t happen tonight, you’ll find other ways to fill the void inside of you.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “No one should have to go through what you went through. Maybe you’re mistaking that for the emptiness that comes with a soul pact.”
Cleo politely moved away from Master Zealand’s hand. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Truth be told, that very same possibility had been on her mind ever since she applied for the Delara Town’s Dragon Master Military Academy. But as she walked away from Master Zealand and toward her locker, Cleo couldn’t help but pray that she and her teacher were both wrong.
She only had a few hours left before the deadline, after all.
When the girl emerged from the school, she was greeted by the sight of her fellow human students greeting their dragon counterparts on the school quad. Big-dragons strutted around with their human partners on their backs, some pairs talking with groups of friends, and some pairs taking off into the air, so that they might hurry home and study. Medium-dragons sat by their partners on the grass, preening their feathered wings and waiting for the last busses to pull into the parking lot. Cleo ignored them, grumbling in internal resentment, and concentrated on removing the last of her books from her locker.
She was almost finished when someone leaned up against the locker next to hers and struck up a conversation. “Hey Cleo!” The girl glanced over to see her best, friend Loki Shinju, the edges of his sky blue eyes turned up in a smile, his messy black hair falling in his face and tamed only by the rubber band at the nape of his neck, which pulled the unruly locks into a tail. As always, he wore a screen printed t-shirt – today it was some blue pattern symbolizing wind, Cleo guessed – and a denim vest that was frayed at the shoulders.
“How was your day?” he asked, still grinning.
Cleo sighed and continued emptying her locker. “Part of me was hoping you’d ask, but most of me was praying that you wouldn’t.”
Loki frowned. “Uh oh, that bad?”
“Pretty much,” Cleo answered. She paused for a moment to look over at him as she spoke. “First of all, I’m all but certain that I failed my magic exam this morning.”
He hissed sympathetically. “Ouch.”
“Then I couldn’t remember the formula for scale salve in my First Aid final,” the girl continued. She turned and shoved one last book into her backpack. “And now I’m going to go home and…” Cleo slammed her locker door shut, drawing the brief attention of multiple students in the vicinity.
Loki sighed and followed her as she began to storm away into the quad. “Hey, come on now, Cleo,” he said. When he caught up, he placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her into a half-hug. Cleo fought the embrace, but only half-heartedly. “It’s going to happen tonight, I know it!” Loki insisted. “I mean, everyone else in our year has been chosen!  Odds are that you will be, too!”
The girl pulled away and swiveled around to face him, anxious rage building up in her chest. “Yeah, but I haven’t been, Loki!” she snapped. “You know the rules; if I don’t get chosen before the school year is up, then I’m not going to get chosen. Dragon’s adhere to the choosing schedule strictly, and they won’t choose anyone who’s already passed the 9th grade! Come tomorrow afternoon, you and I will be 10th graders, technically, which means that I only have one more night to get chosen, and if I don’t get chosen, then I can kiss my goals of joining the military goodbye!”
Cleo only realized that she had begun shouting toward the end of her tirade when she had calmed down enough to notice the startled look on Loki’s face. The girl immediately regretted having raised her voice.
“… Sorry,” she muttered.
He chuckled a little. “It’s okay,” Loki said, taking her hands in his. “Listen, I know how stressed you are. I’m stressed for you, too.” He shot her a smile. “I grew up with you, Cleo; I know how much this means to you.” When she looked away, he patted her arm. “Just go back to the cliffs today like normal, and maybe you’ll get lucky this time.”
The girl sighed and forced a smile in return. “I sure hope so.”
Satisfied, Loki’s goofy grin returned, and he released one of her hands. “Look, why don’t we give you a ride home?”
“I’d appreciate that,” Cleo said with a sigh.
Loki let go of Cleo completely and raised his hands to his mouth to amplify his voice. “WINDIGO!” he shouted. “Get your big butt over here, buddy!”
From across the quad, a deep voice bellowed, “I’m coming, I’m coming! Hold your horses!” Cleo watched as a Big-dragon leapt into the air with two mighty flaps of his wings and glided down to where she and Loki were standing. He landed gracefully, but his sheer size still caused a thump when his feet touched the ground.
Windigo was certainly not the tallest Big-dragon at the school, but he was still huge. He stood eight feet and five inches tall from the bottom of his great, brown paws to the tip of his smooth, ebony horns, and he was thirteen feet long from nose to tail. His scales sported green markings on top, which ended in a stark line in the middle of his body where an earthy brown took hold. His mane was a similar earthy color, and ran down his spine from his six pointed crest to the tip of his muscular tail. And his wings, which he tucked in upon landing, were covered in scales and a thick membrane. Windigo scowled down at his human partner through brown eyes as he trotted close.
“Patience is a virtue, you know,” he said; his voice was already extraordinarily deep at fifteen, and would only get deeper as he aged into adulthood.
Loki smirked at him and patted the dragon’s great neck. “Would you have me any other way?”
Windigo snorted into Loki’s hair, causing his bangs to flutter backward. “Perhaps,” he said playfully.
“Mind if we give her a ride home, big guy?” Loki asked his partner.
“Not at all,” he said, smiling at Cleo. “Hop on~”
Cleo returned the expression and rubbed his side. “Thanks, Windigo.”
He purred a little, though his size made the sound more of a rumble. “My pleasure.”
The girl mounted the dragon’s back with ease, having had the pleasure of riding him multiple times in the past. Loki tried to climb up after her, but Windigo moved away from him.
“And just what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, a deceptively stern look in his eyes.
Loki frowned and furrowed his brow. “Um… Getting on your back?”
Windigo raised a single brow. “My back, or my ‘big butt’?”
The young man rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, you know I was just kidding!”
While they argued, movement out of the corner of Cleo’s eye caught her attention, and she turned to see a blonde girl and her black Big-dragon hurrying toward Loki. Cleo recognized her instantly; there was no mistaking those carefully straightened blonde locks, or those honey colored eyes, or those carefully situated breasts. And if there was any doubt left in Cleo’s mind, then the pure black dragon – a rare color, indeed – following close behind would have given away the girl’s identity instantly.
“Uh, Loki?” Cleo said.
“Oh come on!” her friend was protesting to his partner, “You know I was just kidding!”
Windigo snorted again. “And you know that I’ve been trying to lose weight for the past month! It’s a sensitive topic!”
Cleo leaned down and waved to get Loki’s attention. “Loki, get up here NOW.”
He and Windigo frowned at her, their argument forgotten in favor of the urgency in her voice. “Why? What’s wrong?” Loki asked, moving to climb up behind her.
It was too late. The blonde girl, sensing his immediate departure, had hurried her pace and stood behind Cleo’s friend, tapping his shoulder.
“Hi there, Loki!” she said when he turned to address her.
The young man forced a smile. “Oh, um… Hi Resha.” When she wasn’t looking, Cleo and Windigo exchanged an expression of illness at her presence.
Resha grinned at Loki. “So, what are you doing this weekend?” she asked. “I just found this great restaurant that I thought you might like, and I was wondering if you’d like to go on maybe… Sunday, at six?” She began to avoid Loki’s gaze and fiddle with her hair. “I mean, it’ll probably be the last time we’ll get to see each other until we’re done with our summer assignments, don’t you think?”
Loki chuckled uncomfortably, but Cleo answered her before he could respond.
“He’s busy on Sunday,” she said.
Resha seemed to notice her for the first time, and her coy expression quickly shifted to one of annoyance and disgust. “Oh, right. I forgot you two were still… friends.”
Cleo wrinkled her nose at the girl, and, after a second’s thought, retorted. “Gosh, Resha,” she said in her most falsely nice tone, “is your vocabulary so terrible that you can’t remember what the word ‘friend’ means?”
“Or do we just detect a hint of jealousy in your voice?” Windigo added.
Resha glared at Cleo. “Excuse me?” she said, her voice quiet and angry.
“You heard us,” Windigo said.”
Cleo startled as the black dragon behind Resha – who had remained silent up until then – finally spoke. Or rather, he snarled. “Stay out of this, you fat greenhorn!” he said.
Windigo was outraged. “Greenhorn?!” he snarled back. “I’ve been partnered with Loki for twice as long as you’ve been with Resha, Zakai!”
The black dragon Zakai sneered at Windigo. “Then why is it that I managed to wipe the floor with your ass during our last combat practice?” he retorted. Then he laughed. “Oh, but then I’m forgetting the part about you being fat, aren’t I?”
“Why you--!” Windigo roared, baring his teeth and preparing to fight Zakai, with or without Cleo still on his back.
Before anything could happen, a teacher pair galloped past, shouting. The human sat astride an abnormally large Big-dragon, who barreled in between the two students before a fight could break out.
“That’s enough!” the human teacher shouted. “Knock it off, all of you!”
His dragon partner snarled something to Windigo and Zakai in their native tongue of Daggish. Cleo wasn’t entirely sure what was said, but it was certainly enough to make both of the young dragons back down.
When the teachers had left, Resha cleared her throat and shot a glare at Cleo before re-addressing Loki. “So, um… What do you say? Are you actually busy on Sunday, or…?”
Loki sighed and shook his head, forcing a smile again. “Sorry, Resha,” he said. “Cleo wasn’t lying. I am booked for the weekend. My dad scored a few days home from his deployment, so we’re going fishing.”
Cleo was absolutely certain that this was a lie. She visited the Shinju residence too often to not have found out about something as important as his father’s return.
“Oh,” Resha said, disheartened. “Well, I hope you have fun.”
“Uh, thanks,” Loki replied. He began to climb onto Windigo’s back. “Look, I really can’t stay. I’ve got to get home to study, and I need to drop off Cleo beforehand.”
Resha locked eyes with Cleo and feigned a concerned expression. Here it comes, Cleo thought.
“Why can’t you fly yourself home, Cleo?” she asked.
Cleo glared at her. “Don’t be a bitch.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Resha said, returning the glare and smirking. “I’d forgotten.”
“Bullshit, ‘you forgot’!” Cleo yelled.
Loki sighed and shook his head as he situated himself on Windigo’s back. “Resha, please just drop it. Cleo’s had a hard day.”
Resha sneered and said, “Oh, I’ll drop it once they drop her from the sophomore list.”
Cleo snapped. She tried to jump off of Windigo to attack Resha, and the only thing that kept her from doing so was Loki’s iron grip around her waist. “SAY THAT TO MY FACE, YOU BITCH!” she screamed. Her face felt hot, and she fought back the urge to cry. “WHEN I GET MY DRAGON, I SWEAR TO GOD, HE’S GOING TO KICK YOUR SORRY ASS, AND THEN—“
With some effort, Loki covered Cleo’s mouth. “Let’s get out of here before she kills someone, Windigo.”
The Big-dragon snorted, looking as though he would have liked to help Cleo fight Resha, but did as he was asked, and began to walk away.
Cleo struggled out of Loki’s grasp after a second, but didn’t try to get down again. Instead, she clenched her fists and glared at Windigo’s neck. Behind them, Resha called out once more.
“Oh, and Cleo!” she said, “I hope you get your dragon soon! Maybe Windigo will attract one for you! He is much prettier than you, after all!”
Before Cleo could even think about responding, Zakai added, “Even if he is fat!”
Windigo whipped around, nearly throwing both of his passengers in the process. “You want to say that to my face, you overgrown piece of—“
“WINDIGO!” Loki bellowed. The dragon halted and went silent, turning to see his partner glaring at him. “Ignore him,” he said. “You know that he’s an idiot.”
The green dragon snorted once. “Fine.” He turned his back to Resha and Zakai once more, began to gallop, spread his wings, and was soon airborne.
When they were out of earshot, Cleo roared as best as she could and said, “I can’t STAND her!”
Loki nodded. “Yeah, well… Neither can I, but I’m not going to try to kill her for it.”
Cleo rolled her eyes. “That’s because you get along with everyone.” Part of her still wanted to be angry, but Loki’s sheer presence and lighthearted way of conversing made it hard for her to do so.
He laughed at her. “Trust me, that tendency is more like a curse when girls like Resha approach me.”
“Oh come on,” Cleo said. “I bet you couldn’t keep a straight face and tell me that it really bothers you all that much.”
Loki shook his head. “Fine, you’re probably right. But still.”
They were quiet for a while, the wind ripping through their clothes and hair, watching the rural landscape of Delara Town pass beneath them, as though they were standing still and the earth was the thing that was flying. As they began to approach Cleo’s little house in the woods, Loki cleared his throat.
“So, I know I’ve probably asked you this before,” Loki began, “but I’ve since forgotten. Which size dragon are you hoping for? Big or Medium?”
Cleo chuckled. “Or Mini? You can’t forget the Minis,” she teased.
“Sure you can,” Loki replied, laughing. “Maybe if they chose partners more often, I’d be inclined to count them in, but fact of the matter is, they don’t.” He leaned forward a little and shouted to Windigo over the wind. “When was the last time someone was chosen by a Mini, buddy? Do you remember?”
“Last I checked,” the dragon replied, hardly having to raise his voice to be heard, “it was almost three years ago. I’m fairly certain that the Mini in question still goes to our school.”
Loki looked surprised. “I know the one you’re talking about,” he said. “She and her partner are seniors. But really? She was the last one to choose a partner in recent years?”
“The last one in all of Miilan, even!” Windigo confirmed.
“You’re getting distracted, Loki!” Cleo teased.
He shook his head and turned back to Cleo. “Sorry. So, Big or Medium?”
“Medium!” the girl replied. “You know how bad I fight on dragon-back. Hell, I’m lucky that I’ve learned how to stay on top of Windigo in times like this!” She shook her head. “I’m better suited for fighting on the ground. So, a Medium, not a Big.”
Loki nodded. “True enough,” he said. Then he laughed. “I guess I’d forgotten about that one time you fell off of Elder Ignasi during combat training earlier this year!”
“Oh, shut up,” Cleo said.
Windigo turned his head a little at the mention of this. “Oh, do tell!” he pressed. “I wasn’t around when this happened!”
“It’s nothing, really,” Cleo insisted.
The dragon grinned mischievously at her. “Uh huh.”
Meanwhile, Loki was still laughing. “It was hilarious, Windigo, I wish you had been there!” he said. “So, she got up onto his back just fine, but when she tried to straddle him, she—“
Embarrassed, Cleo began to poke Loki furiously in retaliation. “We agreed to never speak of it!” she laughed.
“Ah, the pain!” Loki said, trying to fend her off while giggling uncontrollably. “Windigo! Save me!”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Windigo said, “We have arrived at our destination! Ejecting in 3, 2, 1.”
Cleo might have shouted, “Wait!” had she been given the time. She also might have gotten a better grip on Windigo’s mane, but she had no time to process his words before the dragon tilted just enough to send her plummeting to the ground. She yelped as her stomach leapt into her throat, but hit the ground an instant later with no more than a bruise. Though she hadn’t noticed it, Windigo had dove down until he was skirting the ground at no more than three feet before tossing her off. For such a big creature, he was incredibly elegant when he wanted to be.
The girl rubbed her head, which she had hit with her backpack a little upon landing, and looked up to watch Windigo circle back around and higher into the air with ease. He hovered for a moment, twenty feet up, with Loki securely on his back; her friend had always been better at riding than she was.
“What was that for?” she shouted playfully at them, shaking a fist.
Loki pointed at the house behind her. “That’s your place, isn’t it?”
Cleo glanced around impulsively. Indeed, her family’s little brick house in the woods stood a few yards behind her. “Yeah, so?”
Even at a distance, Cleo could still make out Loki’s grin. “I told you I’d drop you off!”
The girl scrambled to her feet, shouting, “You shithead! Get back here!” Still, she was unable to suppress a laugh; the fall had startled her, but it was ultimately harmless.
“I’ll bring you some of my mom’s dinner later, kay?” Loki called.
“She’s making steak!” Windigo declared in a sing-song voice.
Cleo waved at them. “Thanks, guys! See you later!” They waved back, and soon disappeared over the tree tops. The girl rummaged around in her bag for a moment before pulling out her house key. Then she unlocked the door and entered.
The house was dark inside, lit only by the sun streaming through the windows. It was vacant of people, too, aside from Cleo and a chocolate-pointed cat, who was blinking at her tiredly from a carpeted tower against the stairs at the back of the living room.
Cleo smiled at the cat. “Well come here, you lazy cat. I’m home, aren’t I?”
The cat made a quiet “Mow!” and hopped down off the tower, greeting Cleo from the couch where the girl was busy dropping her backpack. She chuckled and petted the feline, picking her up to cuddle. “That’s a good girl, Sowin,” she said. The cat meowed at her again and began to clamber onto Cleo’s shoulders, where she perched with her tail curled around the girl’s neck.
Cleo moved back toward the front door to turn on the lights. As she reached for the switch, her fingers brushed against a framed photo sitting on the table by the window. She flicked on the lights and picked the photograph up, staring at it for a long time.
It depicted a four person family – six, if you counted the two dragons present as well. A middle aged man with dark hair stood next to a middle aged woman with brown hair. She leaned against him and smiled lovingly at the camera; clearly they were married. A teenage boy with the same shade of honey brown hair as his mother stood in front of them, his arm slung playfully around a little girl. Her hair was also honey brown, and her eyes were bright green. She grinned toothily at the camera, though one of her front teeth was missing. The dragons were both slightly faded out, as the camera’s autofocus had not included them very well.
Eight years had passed since the picture had been taken, and though Cleo was glad she was no longer as awkward and toothless as her seven year old self, she couldn’t have been more envious of that little girl than she was right then. It was a moment in time frozen by the photograph which Cleo had wished over and over again could have been preserved in real life as well.
After all, she and Sowin the cat were all that remained of that once happy family now.
As though reading her thoughts, Sowin made a noise which almost sounded like a sympathetic meow. She began to purr lightly, though the rumbling did nothing to sooth Cleo. She no longer mourned her family, but days like today certainly made her think about donning black clothes again.
Cleo sighed after a while and put down the picture, reaching up instead to pet Sowin’s head. “I’m going to go back down to the cliffs today,” she said. “You coming with me or what?”
Sowin meowed enthusiastically and jumped off of the girl’s shoulder, scratching at the front door. Cleo chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”


It was always a little more windy by the Carath Province canyon than it was around the rest of Delara Town. Cleo wasn’t entirely sure why. Sometimes the wind would even blow up out of the great crack in the earth, as though the planet itself were sighing. The air carried with it the calls of the dragons who lived there. Some lounged on the stone ledges outside of their cave homes, chatting with the neighbors. Hatchlings darted through doors made of thick curtains, spurred home by the calls of their mothers, eager to have supper. Some dragons were just coming home from a long day’s work, swooping down into the canyon gracefully and landing on the outcroppings of rock, their claws scratching up the stone. None of them noticed Cleo, sitting in the grass a yard or two from the edge, her knees pulled to her chin, clothed in pajamas, a cat sleeping next to her in a ball.
It’s getting dark, Cleo thought. Dragon parents were just as strict with their children about staying home after dark as human parents were. In a few minutes, it was unlikely that any dragon her age, restless from their unfulfilled bond and eager to find their partner, would be leaving their cave to come and find her. Cleo had tried not to get her hopes up; dragons rarely chose partners on the final day of choosing. But the ache in her heart was there, nonetheless.
She ran her hands through her hair. “Maybe Master Zealand was right,” she muttered to herself, holding back tears. “Maybe I was just mistaking the loss of my family for an unbound soul.” She had wanted a simple fix for her sorrow, and thought that being bonded to a dragon would help. Clearly she had been wrong.
Cleo sighed heavily and shook the cat beside her gently until she woke up. “Come on, Sowin,” she said, getting up. “Let’s just go home. I’d better go fill out those enrollment papers for regular High School.” Dejected and heart-broken, the girl trudged away with Sowin in pursuit.
Meanwhile, on a rocky slope leading down into the canyon, a tiny dragon watched her leave. He frowned a little and ran over to where the girl had been sitting. Carefully, hopefully, he sniffed the grass for a moment. It wasn’t long before he smelled it: that scent, incomprehensible to humans, which was the Third Aspect. Overjoyed, the little dragon ran after Cleo, following her through the woods as she headed home.
Cleo was unaware of the dragon’s presence until a light jingling sound from behind caught her attention. Startled, she whipped around to see what was following her, praying it was not some pervert or wild animal. To her surprise, she spotted the tiny dragon instead. He was the size of a large cat, and sported pure white scales. His face bore a single black dot beneath his left eye – a stunning blue – and the rest of his body was littered with similar spots. His paws, muzzle, tail tip, and wing bends looked as though they had been dipped in black paint, and each of the spikes running down his spine also bore a black spot at the tip. He had four ribbed, ivory horns – the top two larger than the bottom two – and his wings were leathery.
The little dragon peered at her curiously, and uttered a noise which she supposed was meant to be a word in Daggish, but instead emitted from his throat only as a, “Peep?”
A Mini! Cleo thought. For a split second, she had mistaken the dragon for a Big-dragon hatchling, but his double set of horns and spikes gave away his true nature immediately. Indeed, he was actually a moderately sized Mini-dragon, though he barely came up to Cleo’s knee while walking on his back legs. The girl crouched to his level and smiled at him, beckoning him closer.
“Hey there, little guy,” she said. It was likely that this dragon didn’t understand her, as English was not taught to dragons in their schools until they were in their late teens. But still, she thought her voice might prove that she wasn’t a threat to him. “What are you doing here, huh? Did you get lost or something?”
The dragon looked confused, but to Cleo’s surprise, he did seem to understand her. He smiled and waved his hands a little, peeping as he did so, as if to say, “No no no!” Then he pointed at himself, and then at Cleo, presenting her with a toothy grin.
Now it was Cleo’s turn to be confused. “… I’m sorry, what?”
The dragon peeped again and repeated the gesture. Then he held out his clawed hand, as though waiting for Cleo to shake it.
“… Wait,” the girl said. She could hardly believe it. Her heart pumped in her chest with anticipation. “Wait, are you… Are you choosing me as your partner?”
The dragon nodded happily. “Peep!” he confirmed.
Cleo reached out and took his paw in her shaking hand; the bond required physical contact to be completed. The instant her fingers touched his scales, a surge of joy rushed through her body. Every hair stood on end, as though she had been shocked, and it felt as though a hole in her heart had been mended. The little dragon shivered, and she knew that he was feeling the same thing. When the sensation had diminished, they both let out a simultaneous sigh of relief and grinned at each other.
Letting go of the dragon’s hand, Cleo jumped up and punched the air. “YES!” She declared, making Sowin – who had begun to cautiously inspect the dragon – jump and dart away a few yards. “Take that Resha, you bitch! I’ve been chosen after all!”
This time the dragon didn’t understand exactly what his new partner was saying, but did at least comprehend that she was happy. He peeped a few times and hopped around her as she danced and continued to punch the air.
When she had gotten it out of her system, Cleo looked back at the dragon and crouched down. “This is the best!” she said. “I’d tell you how happy I am, but I’m guessing that you feel it too.”
“Peep peep!” he said, grabbing one of her hands in both of his; her palms looked absolutely gargantuan in comparison to his.
“My name is Cleo,” she said, pointing at herself. “Cleo Sirus. What’s yours?”
Had Cleo doubted the dragon’s ability to understand English before, all such thoughts would have been blown away by what the dragon did next. He reached down to the ground and, with a clawed finger, scratched out the word, “Pepper” in the earth between them.
“Pepper, huh?” Cleo said. “Well then, Pepper it is!” She picked the dragon up and allowed him to clamber up onto her shoulders. “Come on, little guy!” the girl declared. Let’s go celebrate with some macaroni and cheese!”
Pepper peeped again and settled on her shoulders, his tail curling lightly around her neck and collarbone. Something glinted out of the corner of Cleo’s eye. When she turned to look, she discovered a dirty, golden necklace chain had become lodged between Pepper’s toes. In all the excitement, neither of them had noticed it, but Cleo supposed that this trinket had been the source of the jingling sound which had alerted her to Pepper’s presence earlier.
“Hm?” she said, taking the chain from the dragon’s foot. “What’s this?” He looked just as confused as she did, though. Cleo examined it for a moment. “… Well, it looks like it’s good quality gold. I’ll bet if I clean it, I can pawn it off in town and get a little extra money to send to Lord Kitzo for rent. Still,” she said as she pocketed the chain and continued her trek home, “I wonder where it came from.” The girl, the dragon, and the disgruntled cat disappeared down the path a moment later as the sun dropped behind the hills.
High in a nearby tree, perched on a branch from whence he had witnessed the entire conversation, a figure sat. His face was obscured by the shadows of leaves, but his yellow eyes – tracking Cleo’s progress as she went home – glinted ever so slightly in the light of the moon.