Valhalla High (A Magnus Chase Fanfic)

Dragon Breeding

February 3

In Biology we were breeding dragons. Mimir had been teaching us lately about Mendelian genetics. He explained how some traits are recessive, others are dominant, and still others are co-dominant. Then, things got more confusing when he explained that still others traits, like height, are controlled by multiple genes. "And even if you have a gene, it still can be turned on or off," Mimir said, "it turned up or down like the volume on your YouTube videos. Think of a calico cat. It's cells have roughly the same DNA (some mutations can arise) and yet its pelt is multi-colored. This is because different genes are turned on in different cells, resulting in its striking coat."

    After he finished lecturing, Mimir handed out papers with our dragon breeding assignment and had us split into pairs. There was an odd number of people, so Magni and Mothi were both paired with Gunilla. "I'm donating the mitochondria," Magni said, puffing up his chest.

Gunilla rolled her eyes. "Guys don't donate the mitochondria — women provide it."

Alex and I paired up and sat down next to Mallory and Halfborn who were arguing over who was better at drawing dragons. "I've seen your sketches," Alex said, "and I don't feel like drawing, so yeah."

I smiled and got out my colored pencils. "I will be more than happy to draw."

"After we finish all the wonky gene stuff," Alex said.

"Of course," I said. "I always prioritize the wonky gene stuff."

    The wonky gene stuff consisted of each of us rolling a dice to determine which gene we passed onto our offspring. "Are we going to name this thing?" I asked.

    Alex looked dead at me in the eye and without missing a beat answered, "Of course we're naming our child."

    Our child. . . Okay, this was a little weird. Alex still had a poker face, but I wondered how long that could last. Next to us, Blitzen and Hearthstone were already drawing their dragon. "How about we don't name it something stupid?" I suggested.

     Alex grinned. "We won't name it something stupid like Winner, Loser, K8thrine, or X AE A XII."

     "Or Mangus," I said, remembering how kids used to butcher my name.

      Akex patted me on the shoulder. "Our child willl have a respectable name like—"

     "We are not naming our child Twiceborn!" Mallory said, speaking so loudly that she drowned out Alex's voice.

    "But it's a good name," Halfborn said. "I'm half and you are four, so we make two."

     "Four?" Mallory asked. "Why am I four?"

       "You said you were born in four hours," Halfborn  said.

      "I was a fast baby," Mallory conceded, "but we're not naming our child Twiceborn; that makes it sound like we're going to center a new religion around it."

      "Alright," Halfborn conceded.

       "Guys," TJ said, "it's a dragon. You don't need to be so uptight about it's name."

     Mallory shook her head. "We already named our dragon Emberflinger234. We're making a list of potential baby names now."

"Well you better start putting away money for your kids' college tuition," I joked.

Alex and I returned to our paper. We finished selecting the traits for our dragon. It was to have four claws on each foot, green scales (I'd rolled blue and Alex had rolled yellow, so our child was green), sharp wings (as opposed to butterfly ones), and spikes on its tails (as opposed to a club). It had yellow eyes and breathed fire. "I think we're ready to start drawing."

"Nice use of the royal we," I said as I started sketching the dragon's head. "Any ideas for names? I'm stumped."

"What about Montezuma?" Alex said. "He was one of the last Aztec rulers."

"Did the Aztec's believe in dragons?" I asked.

"My grandpa told me stories of Quetzalcoatl and how he was a 'feathered serpent'" Alex replied.

"So our child should have feathers?" I asked.

"Sure," Alex replied, "but stop calling Montezuma our child. Show some respect and use his name."

Her light tone told me she was joking. I smiled as I sketched our child (Montezuma). I did it in pencil guest and then colored it in. I was pleased with the end result and Alex seemed to like it. "You are a really good drawer, Maggie," she said.

"Do you think this could rival the Mona Lisa?" I asked.

"I like it better," Alex replied.

"Remember, you have five minutes left to finish your project," Mimir said.

Alex and I exchanged glances. We looked over our papers to make sure we'd included everything (including our names because they're really easy to forget to write down) and then I turned it in. We went our separate ways for Learning Lab and I looked over my lines for the Shakespeare play.

      After awhile, I shut my laptop and rested my head on the desk. Shakespearean English was so. . . flowery. Plus, I got confused by all the thous and thees. What even was the difference? I wondered if people a few hundred years from now would feel like that about our current language. Probably; even slang from a few years ago could become dated so fast.

    In ASL, we were practicing real-life situations. The first one was ordering something at a restaurant. I didn't know the sign for croissant sandwich (the menu we were given did not, sadly, include Middle Eastern cuisine), so I signed "I want this" and then pointed to the item on the menu.

    I thought it was genius, but Vidar was concerned and began signing extremely rapidly — so rapidly that I was having trouble understanding him. I stood up until I was close to Vidar and signed the word "calm" until the teacher regained his composure.

Vidar explained that this was his first year teaching and we were one of two of his ASL classes. That meant we were basically the guinea pigs; I loved being the guinea pig. Vidar then said what I had done was smart, but it caught him off guard. He didn't resume his normal lesson, but instead began teaching us how to communicate to deaf people when we didn't know the word. It was a really interesting lesson, though most of it was overview to me thanks to Hearthstone. Man, I loved that elf — whoops human.