Racing the Storm

Chapter 19

Devon stared at the green grass under his feet. Nuri sat beside him, staring at the same spot a few inches off. Flowers of all kinds lined the top of his vision

The journey back had been a horrible one. Thalia wailed the whole way, inconsolable. The noise had been burned into the minds of everyone who had been there that day.  They had to wait to get Tuuka's body from the mountains. The Gican kingdom only allowed it after the dean got on her hands and knees and begged.

The body was practically falling apart on the way back. The cut had split his body and two, they ended up having to fly with his back to the water so none of his organs would fall out.

The funeral had been ok. Everyone showed up to mourn The Reaper. There had been a week long oath of silence and break from school after his body was in the dirt. 

Everyone tried to rally around Thalia but she couldn't be saved. The sheer heartbreak caused her to pass. According to Cordelia she'd died in her sleep without a sound. 

Cordelia had to be in therapy for several months after her passing, since she found the body. Devon did too, just to cope with the grief.

Objectively Noah had it the worst. He ended up being sent to a mental hospital to have round the clock attention. The guilt he felt for being the reason she turned back had been so much he'd dropped out.

The hockey team and the racing committee decided to retire Thalia's numbers. She was, after all, a hero. She had prevented a war and saved not only hundreds of dragons, but put her life on the line for her classmate too.

Devon scoffed when they had announced it. A hero. How could they say such a thing. Devon didn't want her to be a hero, he wanted her to be alive. Instead he had to deal with the fact that Thalia was so damn selfless she got her own dragon killed because she cared that much.

He gave up on wiping his tears away by now, instead watching as the teardrops ran down the small blades of grass and sank into the dirt.

Every time the women's hockey team left their locker room and travelled to the bench they touched the frame that held her jersey up. In white letters the name O'Callahan was forever immortalized in the Ridgeview Ironwings ice rink.

In the halls of the school there was a beautiful painting of her and Tuuka. They fit right in with the others. In the painting Thalia was sitting with her left leg crossed over the right while sitting in a red throne. She was wearing a black lace dress that went down past her knees. Beside her was her dragon, his pupil-less eyes gazing over her shoulder to look in to the halls of the academy

The bodies of Tuuka and Thalia O'Callahan were buried at the racing finish line, eternally in first place.

Every time a Ridgeview racer came in first, they raised their fist into the air.