Tales of Malenatu: The Blue Dragonlady

Blaenik and the Infirmary

Blaenik and the Infirmary

After constant complaining from Samantha one day, Liam decided he had had enough.

"If you don't quit complaining, I swear I will bash your face in with this shovel." Liam said while they were working the coal.

"I'm not complaining, I'm telling you the truth, and you ain't doing your job right."

"Shut up or I swear I will." He replied. She was so frustrating, he started muttering rude comments under his breath.

"What did you just call me?" Samantha asked in her sassiest way. She got dangerously close to his face as she said this menacingly.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I had to talk slower around stupid people." he replied with a calm, collected attitude.

Samantha picked her shovel back up, then turned so she was facing Liam. Her face was bright red. She raised up her shovel and swung downwards with a bloodcurdling crack. At this Liam hollered in pain and Dileth roared, but this did not stop him as he smacked her across the face with his shovel. Samantha lay out cold on the floor. A crowd had started to form around her motionless body. I sat, watching in disbelief. Did... did he just... really... did that really just happen? Oh my gods.

Once again, Headhouse Faronur came in to see what had happened. As soon as he saw Samantha he told everyone to move back as he took Liam and Samantha to the hospital.

Liam had turned out fine with only a broken collarbone, whereas Samantha had completely shattered her right orbital bone leaving her blind in that eye. It took her a seven day to heal, and not one person - not even her mom - came to visit her and see if she was okay.

Wow. This felt so... free. The dragons from our syndicate were now almost full grown, and everyone was having their first flying lesson. We were up high in the sky, green pastures and gray rocks below us. By now, Liam, Caden, Megan, Kimmy, Robert (commonly called Robbie), and I were great friends. We were usually all seen together, and even Gaddie, Dileth, Kimmy's gold Litherith, Megan's green Twisp Aemarinth, Caden's gold Aethelswith, and Robbie's bronze Hehth had back-to-back sleeping quarters. Sith had her own place up in the high chambers, but she sometimes switched places with Aethelswith. Samantha was not happy about that at all. She, of course, thought that Sith deserved the "best."

The feeling of having a living being underneath me was incredible. I was free to go wherever I wished. We all were, when we weren't on duty. We would be able to ride our dragons freely. High above the ground without a care in the world and nobody to tell us otherwise. All of our dragons got more plates too.

A long, low trumpet sounded somewhere in the distance. Everyone knew what that meant. But we had no training. No idea what to do. In an instant, all the dragons' eyes turned white from the danger. The Group deputy threw something at all of us. I was so surprised, I almost dropped it. It was a small bag, filled with something hard. The bag was a purple color. I opened it. The inside was sooty. Just black. And very dusty. I coughed when I opened it. I recognize that smell from being around it so much.

"Ratliff! Pay attention! This is a life-and-death situation here, fighter! Now prove to me you're focused and devoted enough to do this! Give me the salute!" He glared at me and I decided I'd better listen. I put my less dominant hand, my left, in the center of my chest. Fingers out straight, elbow pinned to my waist. Then I did the same with my dominant, my right hand, and placed it on top of the left. My thumbs met in the middle, facing each other, and my hands went out at the sides. The shape of my hands looked kind of like a dragon. I suppose that's the point. Making sure my tamer locket was sitting on top of my hands, I stared straight ahead, no emotion showing on my face. I sat up as straight as I could and kept my head level to my dragon's back. I managed to do it just like I was taught. We all were. Every Nestling that tames a dragon has to go to a special school immediately after that trained us to be dragon tamers properly. It ends when we reach the age of 19. "Good, fighter. Feed the contents of your bags to your dragons. It's coal. You all are old enough now. Just fly and breathe fire at it. Kill it. Caden, you and Aethelswith go into your bunker with Kimmy and Litherith. Samantha, you and Sith too. GO!" he yelled. Then I saw it. Blaenik. The ugly substance was falling at a rapid plummet to the ground.