Firebolt(24)

In return, Sammy told me more about the Dragons, with Becky's skillful interruptions whenever she felt Sammy's explanations lacked color.

Sammy hated every single one of Becky's interjections and glared at her constantly. I didn't care. My ears were glued to what both of them had to say. The Night Villain was black and breathed acid; even his saliva could burn a hole right through a shield. I met the Sun-Burst, and they called the green dragon a Green-Vapor. They had the ability to lie through their teeth and owned the gift of persuasion. They were also chlorine breathers.

We took the path that wound past the Parthenon Dome and walked to a forest with rocky mountains in the distance. I laughed when Sammy said a young Moon-Bolt, like George, would get banned from casinos, because Moon-Boltscould predict the dealers’ cards. Her hands moved wildly through the air as she spoke. I wondered if they were tied up, would she be able to still speak. Nevertheless, I couldn't take my eyes off her.

Suddenly, I slammed into Becky, who stopped walking in front of us.

“Sorry, Elena. I didn't think anyone would be here,” Becky apologized.

I looked at what she was staring at and saw two dragons. They were big. One of them had a bronze shimmer to his skin, and the other one had a silver glow with huge swallow-shaped wings.

“It's a Crown-Tail and a Swallow Annex,” Becky whispered.

The dragons stared back at us and the silver one bowed its head in my direction. My heart thumped again.

“What are they doing here?” I asked nervously.

“They come here to be in their true form.” Becky grabbed my arm and pulled me back the way we had come.

“Are they students?” I asked. Both nodded.

“It's Becky's and my sanctuary. We love the trees, and there's a nice spot by the lake where you can clear your mind. Sometimes I help Becky to improve her fighting skills,” she explained.

“What do you mean?”

“Fight, Elena. Sometimes Sammy is my sparring partner.”

“In my dragon form,” Sammy added, which gave it a whole different meaning.

“Are you insane?” I shouted.

Becky laughed. “C'mon, what do you think Sammy's going to do. She can't even hurt a fly.”

“Oh yeah? Remember that when I light your ass on fire next time,” she warned.

We turned around and went back to our room.

When I got inside, I couldn’t stop staring at my bed. “So, what's going to happen if the other girl comes back?” I asked, scared Master Longwei might chuck me out of Dragonia Academy.

“Vicky?”Sammy fell on the couch.“I don’t think she will be back any time soon. Sometimes a quest takes up to a year in order to figure out what your destiny is.”

“Especially the way the Viden predicts them.” Becky opened the fridge door.

Sammy gave her the glare she had been giving whenever Becky interrupted her.“She's a Crown-Tail, and on a self-discovery quest.”

“What's a self-discovery quest?” I remembered Becky mentioning that term earlier, while I sat on one of the other couches.

“Sometimes the Viden sees something that leads to a self-discovery quest. She'll see something that you must find. Whether it's something emotional or hidden, we can't choose. I don't know what she has seen with Vicky, but I remember the state she was in when she came back,” Sammy said.

“Vicky disliked the Viden very much. She hated her even more after the day she got her foretelling, but we are obligated to see her at least once a month. Do you remember how obsessed she got?”

Sammy nodded.

“She spent most of the time in the library, just searching. When she started to miss classes, Master Longwei forced her to go on a self-discovery quest and she was ordered not to return until she found whatever she was looking for."

“They let you go on quests alone?”

Becky tossed us each a soda and sat down next to Sammy.

Sammy nodded.

I didn't like the way they forced things here, and after all these stories, I sure didn't look forward to meeting the Viden.

While we sat there sipping our sodas, Sammy explained how a self-discovery quest took weeks to plan. You had to do a whole statement, explaining the reasons you wanted to go. The members of the Academy board arranged a meeting and decided if the reasons were valid enough for a full fund and whether you absolutely needed to go.

After this started to border on tiresome, the conversation switched over to dragons again. I listened in awe as Sammy explained, in detail, the rest of the Metallic ones. The Crown-Tail had bronze colored skin, and most of them went into law, they hated cruelty and loved the human race. She said that a lot of them disappeared the night of King Albert's death. The Copper-Horns, like Dad, loved telling jokes, riddles, and pranks, but the good clean kind, not what George had pulled earlier. The best part of what she told me was that Chef was a Copper-Horn too. They were also one of the Big Three, the largest of all the dragons. The Night Villain and Sun-Burst were the others. The Swallow Annex was silver and loved to fly. They had the biggest wings of all the dragon species and resembled the shape of a swallow. I felt proud remembering the wings were the first thing I noticed when we found them this afternoon. They had the ability to heal human injuries.