A Dragon's Rider (Edited)

Chapter 13

"MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!" Chris was being a bit temperamental today.

'Someone must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.' Airre comments from her view in the sky.

More like the wrong side of the cave, I grumble back, and she snickers. The days have settled into a hard-pressed routine. Morning with Chris then afternoons with Berian and Airre.

Chris first has us do a hundred push-ups, seventy-five sit-ups, twenty laps, and two hours of hand to hand combat. As a warmup. Chris's idea of a warmup took the average man (or woman) three hours to complete. For me, it took two hours, 57 minutes. Not the best, not the worst, and I was okay with that.

Airre kept me updated with all the latest gossip from the dragons. Apparently, there was a similar system with the dragons; each one got an older student's dragon to work with as well as Hunter's dragon. She apparently got Tarch, James's dragon. He was smaller than normal but had a large personality and never-ending energy. He pushed Airre to the limit, waited for a second, then did it again - always stretching her a bit more, but never hurting her. Chris was the opposite. You either got in shape or got your butt off his field and back to where ever you came from.

He never singled me out, but I could tell that the other boys wanted me to fail. I would sometimes find a frog in my shoe or a lump of fast drying glue on my door handle. I would sigh, undo whatever they did, and just keep going. If they saw it affect me, the would just keep doing it. John wanted me to tell Hunter or Derreck, but I didn't. One day, I would be stronger than them, and they would wish they had been nice to me. I didn't respond to their taunts or jeers in the hallways, didn't respond to their constant pranks; I just let it simmer inside me, each day releasing my frustration when I was fighting. This couldn't be a permanent solution but it would work, for now.

As I am doing the first set of drills for hand to hand, a boy I had come to fondly know as Mr. Idiot #2 decides it would be a good idea to trip me and make me fall flat on my face. I don't say a word as John helps me up and we start to run again. However, I increase my pace slightly to catch up to Mr. Idiot #2 until I am keeping pace with him. He looks over in surprise, before smirking and trying to trip me again. I dodged, and he trips himself, going face first into the mud. His cronies laugh at him and taunt him for his stupidity.

Lessons with Berian were full of headaches brought on by hours of communicating with Airre in my head. He did not seem to realize that this was hard for me. Sure, Airre and I could communicate, but if we did it for extended periods of time it would hurt both of us. I tried to tell Berian multiple times but he brushed it off and said, "Practice will help." So we were forced to practice at least two hours every day, with supervision or otherwise. I hadn't seen Soul lately; I could only assume that he was stuck in his little cottage. Or he was dead. I voted for the first option. One night, as I'm walking back from Aaron's class (which had gone long again) when I heard something in the forest to my left. I stopped and the rustling stopped. I started and it started. I stopped it stopped.

"Who's there?" No answer. "I know you're there! Show yourself!" Still no answer but I hear a suspicious whistling. Then a medium grown dragon comes out. His scales are pitch black, his eyes glowing a bright blue, and his silver claws shining brightly against the black. He looks strangely familiar but I brush it off because if I knew him, why would he attack me? His lips are pulled back in a snarl as he lunges for me. I hit the deck, my training kicking in as he flies over my head. Popping back up, I look around me to see if there is anything that could serve as a weapon. The only thing I see is a semi-sharp piece of wood. It's about 6 feet away from me but I think I can get it. As the dragon crashes into a tree, I lunge towards the wood.

My fingers wrap around it just as a large paw grabs my leg and pulls. Every bit of exposed skin is torn and ripped on the hard ground. As the dragon is pulling me, I turn so my back is to the ground, ignoring the burning pain from my numerous cuts and scrapes. When I get close enough to the dragon, I drive the wood into its large paw. The dragon screams in pain and releases me, flying back into the dark woods. A strangely familiar voice floats into my head as my vision becomes veiled and dark. All I see is a black shadow running out of the woods.

My head hits the ground and I can no longer see or hear anything. My last thought before I pass out is Wow, someone really doesn't want a girl to be here.