Rise of Venus

R.D.A

Tearing open the door looking like a madman Venus called out to his dad and continued quickly walking through the house. He finally ran into his dad who was just coming in the front door. "Hey dad have you-"
"There was a letter for you in the mail."  His dad handed him a fancy looking brown envelope with a red line around the opening, sealed with gold wax. On the front of the envelope was their address, and the familiar dragon crest in the opposite corner.
    "This can't be for me."
    "Has your name on it" Even if his dad had returned the pantherilla there was no way they would be able to detect him that quickly, would they? No It shouldn't be possible, it took Venus months to find out which of the little rats had thrown charred muffins at him from the sky. But the pantherilla belonged to nobles, they had the time and extra help to do it fast, in less than a day? "Are you going to open that? Or just stare at it until it disappears?" his dad said, in the most serious tone he had heard from him in awhile.
    Should he open it? He could just take it out back and burn it, if they ask questions he can play dumb act like he never got the thing. With his dad looking at him and the letter he didn't think he would be able to get away with it. He slowly opened the envelope while trying to stay as far away from it as possible, expecting some horrible thing to come out and get him any moment. But that moment never came, all that was in the envelope was a small piece of paper folded in half. He took it out and unfolded it. The first thing he noticed was the fancy lettering in gold ink that spelled out the academy's name 'Royal Dragon Academy' . Such a creative name, Venus rolled his eyes.
    The paper had those burned edges that made paper look old, which Venus would think was cool if it hadn't come from a school filled to the brim with fire breathing rats. Just under the gold lettering was the word 'Invitation' written in plain black ink, this was not good. He skimmed over the letter quickly, only really catching a few of the words that stood out.
    "They" Venus needed a moment to form his words, "they've invited me to go and train at the Academy."
    His dad looked at him with confusion and a little bit of shock. "Did they say why?"
    "Apparently there is growing confusion in the night kingdom and they want more trained riders just in case.  They said I could be a good match based off of my report card from my last year in school."
"That's odd, they don't usually call in people like us unless they're in dire need. Never for confusion. And it's been two years since you left school, wouldn't they have sent for you a little sooner?"
"They want me to go in and take a test to make sure I'm actually good enough." Thoughts were racing through Venus's head at that moment, most of them questioning the real reason behind the letter, some of them relieved they hadn't mentioned anything about him being one of the dragons. Sometimes when situations were bad enough they would enlist some dragon shifters to gain some leverage on the field. Usually the dragon shifters would work in pairs, one to be the dragon and the other to obviously be the rider. Even then they were never really in danger in a war, they just sent in shifters when they got tired of the noise complaints, mostly coming from other dragon shifters.
"When do they want you in?" his dad's comforting brown eyes looking into his own.
"When the second sun is closest to the castle."
"Bright and early then, the pantherillas won't even be screamin'." His dad looked away from him and they stood in silence for a while, the older man making his way to his chair in the living room. He muttered something, too quiet for even Venus's ears to catch it. Then he spoke up. "They don't know, do they?" he asked quietly, not looking at Venus.
"If they do, they didn't mention it." His words did little to relieve the tension he could see in his dad's shoulders. He couldn't help but feel like he had disappointed his dad somehow.
"Tomorrow when you go you have to be careful, they'll have a close eye on you."
"I know dad."  Venus shifted his weight. When his dad didn't say anything else before turning on their tv, Venus decided to go to his room.
He shut the creaky door behind him and opened his heavy curtains to let in some of the dull light. The second sun was starting to set but he could see some dark clouds making their way across the sky. While the first sun, though it was the biggest and didn't move much it was incredibly dim, it almost gives as much light as the setting sun in the Inbetween. Or the brightness of the night kingdom lanterns, but the night kingdom lanterns would probably be brighter if they didn't have to eat away so much darkness. He didn't think it would rain but he hadn't checked the weather schedule for the past month, though he supposed it was about time for a little bit of rain to water their farm and what little plants there were in the wilderness.
He went into the bathroom and took the leather string tying his dull purple hair back out, quickly changed into his bed clothes and started brushing his teeth, though he wouldn't be sleeping. Partially because of nerves and partially because he had slept the other day. The longest no sleep streak he had was twelve days, but his dad told him that was unhealthy so he went back down to the usual three. He thought it was weird how the people in the inbetween had to sleep everytime the sun went down and he often wondered what would make them so tired as a kid, but now he understands that he is the weird one. Along with the rest of the people who resided in the day kingdom who didn't have to sleep for several days simply because they were used to it always being bright enough to see. And that's why they used heavy duty curtains.
The first drops of rain began to fall as he was walking back into his room, it was also a little bit cooler than what he was used to, usually keeping his window and curtain open during the day and closing them at night. But he wasn't cold, though that wouldn't stop him from wrapping up in his blanket. He curled into the corner his bed was up against under his bed sheet and started reading a book from his shelf, smelling the scent of the rain as it fell.