Dragon's life in college

Incineration class

Several weeks later, Nigel had, to his complete surprise, managed to survive. But survival was about all he could manage to do. All of his worst fears about college had come true, and they were much worse than he had expected.

His siblings were no help, not that he had expected them to be any. As soon as Mother had left all four of them had distanced themselves from him as quickly and as much as possible, except to spread stories around the college about their scaredy-cat brother. Now everywhere Nigel went it wasn't just his siblings teasing him. And unlike at home, with Mother around to keep a firm claw on everything, this teasing wasn't limited to slide remarks.

Every time Nigel tried to find a place to be alone and escape the teasing, more dragons seemed to find him and tease him. And if it wasn't teasing dragons, then it was Ryu. Which was worse.

Ever since Nigel had figured out that Ryu was the terrifying dragon he had run into, Nigel had tried his best to avoid Ryu. But it was a lot harder than he had expected, and not just because they were roommates. They had three classes together, Drama, Math, and Incineration. Fortunately, they weren't seated close to each other, but Nigel still had to steel his nerves just to be able to walk into class. Although he probably would have done so anyway even if Ryu wasn't in those classes with him.

All of his classes were a constant source of terror for him, except for his math classes. But even those classes were made less enjoyable by the presence of Ryu and the sly teasing from his classmates and even from his teachers. But it was much better than Drama class and an entire universe better than Incineration class.

Nigel shuddered to himself as he, once again, sought out a place to be alone. Fortunately, after being at the college for several weeks, he had found a spot where neither teasing dragons, or siblings, or Ryu ever showed up. It was a secluded spot next to the enormous lake which housed the water dragons. The spot Nigel had found was close by the entrance between the under and above ground areas of the lake. Surprisingly, very few dragons used that particular entrance to access the two points, and the few that did never came above water.

Nigel liked the water dragons, probably because they were the only dragons that did not look horrified at his inability to control his fire. Although that might have been because they didn't have fire of their own and thus didn't care if a fire dragon was having trouble. They didn't seem to have any trouble controlling their wind breathe, though. Nigel had watched them practice and had been shocked at how powerful and how accurate they were. The only more shocked he had been was when Ryu had first shown off his fire.

It had been the second day of Incineration class, and the day Nigel had been dreading. Today they were going to aim their fire at a target, after which their instructor would evaluate them and decide what they still needed to work on.

Dragon after dragon had stepped up and displayed perfect control over their fire, all while Nigel coward in the back. He watched as Ryu, as lordly as ever, took his place.

Every single dragon had been shocked when Ryu opened his mouth and pale, almost colorless fire with faint yellow tinges shot out of his mouth. With absolute perfect control and precision, and fire hit the target squarely, turning it into a pile of ash in a few seconds. No one had said anything when Ryu turned around, and Nigel hadn't been more terrified of his roommate.

Ryu's display was miles better than any other dragon, and years better than what Nigel could even dream of. When Nigel's turn had come, it had taken him three tries to even get fire to come out. And when his dangerous looking green flames had finally come, it had been a weak little spurt that had barely traveled three feet before falling to the ground.

At least I didn't set anyone on fire by accident, yet, Nigel thought to himself as he landed in his sheltered spot. Tall bushes grew up around the point, sheltering it from the view of any dragon who might be wandering around this remote part of the college grounds. A few trees also spread their branches high above him, blocking him from any aerial view. It wasn't as nice as his cliff back home, but it worked.

Nigel sniffed as he thought of home. Almost worse than the constant teasing and fear was the homesickness. His mother had assured him that it would pass and eventually he would start feeling comfortable and at home in college. Nigel was convinced that that would never happen though. Only a few weeks had passed and it already felt like he had been gone for years.

More tears came and Nigel let them come. As long as he didn't end up sneezing out fire and burning down his shelter, he would be fine, although considering how his fire worked, he wouldn't be too surprised if that did happen.