DragonDrune

Chapter 2

Neptune is not to be trifled with," Rhion said. She was sitting in her seat with her arms crossed. They had been in space for about an hour, with a week and a half left to go.

    Thalya nodded absently, still thinking of the weightless moment of zero gravity when they left earth's atmosphere. She would never forget it.

    "Neptune used to be a large ball of icy gas, back in the 2000's," Rhion continued, "But in the year of 3012, humans discovered a way to solidify Neptune, make it so we can walk on its surface; live there, even though it is icy and cold. If you leave base without a suit or a ship, you will be a dead block of ice before you can even feel the cold. The suit also protects us from the extra gravity of Neptune. Neptune's gravity is about 10% more than earths. Say you are a hundred pounds. On Neptune you will be 110. The suits also keep us from dying because of lack of oxygen. Neptune has almost no oxygen. The gist of this, wear your suit. If you leave base, even for a short amount of time, you must be accompanied by at least five other people, and you have to be careful traversing It's surface, as there are still spots where the ground is thin and people have fallen through, never to be seen again. Through vast testing, we have discovered that the only creatures who can safely touch, live in, or do anything to the gas-mist under the surface are the dragons. The very creatures that you go to fight. You have to be constantly aware of your surroundings. Dragons have a way of randomly popping up from the ground."
Like whack-a-mole, Thalya's brain wandered. She had heard all of this a million times and wasn't really paying attention.

    "You will probably be disoriented from the light change," Rhion said, "A day on Neptune is only about 16 hours, but a year is about 165 or our earth years. Any questions?"

The group was silent.

Rhion nodded. "Once we get to base, you will be led by my good friend Chayne to your dorm at the end of the facility. Your dorm is directly next to the training room where Chayne and I will complete your DragonDrune training. You will unload your things and then you will have approximately 24 hours to get comfortable, make some friends, get some sleep, explore, and then we begin your training."

    ***

A week and a half later, Thalya was dying to get off Celestae. It was cramped aboard the spaceship and pretty much everyone was sick of eachother.

"FINALLY!" Cried a girl named Rachel. She had made sure she was first in line to get off the spaceship. Her trainer did not look pleased that she was being so loud.

Rhion was standing, straight faced as usual, next to Thalya.

"What should I expect?" Thalya asked Rhion, her breath fogging up the glass of her helmet.

"Expect ice, cold, frozen wasteland wherever you look." Rhion said. "But, when the sun shines just right on the ice, you can sometimes see a rainbow. Nothing like Earth's rainbows. It is an unexplainable beauty."

    "It sounds amazing," Thalya said wistfully, desperately hoping she would be able to see one.

    "It is, and the sunsets and sunrises here are almost as spectacular."

    The door to the spaceship opened. Thalya was immediately swamped with cold. The kind of cold you would feel on a chilly fall morning, crisp and clean and promising.

    "This is barely any cold at all," Rhion called over the wind. "I believe it is currently -373 degrees fahrenheit! You would be dead before you could blink were you to take off that helmet."

    They stepped outside and Thalya's gasp would have been audible, had the wind not been rushing so fast it was hard to keep balance. The whole landscape was a white/blue/gray wasteland of ice and snow. It was gorgeous and fascinating, yet horrible and scary. Thalya couldn't imagine anyone living there, much less her. And yet she had to try.