Dragon's life in college

chapter 13

Holding his breath for terror that Ryu would suddenly come over and jerk the blankets off, Nigel carefully tore a small piece off the paper. Then he wrote down the instructions for the problem and very, very, very, cautiously slid the piece from his side of the room over toward Ryu.

As soon as the paper was in place, Nigel pulled the blankets tight around him and did his best to pretend that he was asleep. But he couldn't keep himself from carefully watching.

Ryu, perhaps disturbed by the sudden movement, stopped his work and turned to look at Nigel.

Nigel held his breath, sure that at any moment Ryu was going to act. But, much to Nigel's relief, the dragon didn't. Instead, his attention was focused on the scrap of paper Nigel had slid across the room toward him.

Nigel watched as Ryu picked up the paper, read through the instructions once, looked up and stared at him one more time, read the instructions again, then set the scrap down next to the sheet he was currently working on and began reworking the problems.

Nigel watched in frozen silence for ten more minutes, as Ryu finished the problem he was working on and began working on the other. Relief flooded Nigel as he realized that not only was Ryu not going to kill him, but that he might have found a way to assure his continued existence throughout the rest of the semester.

While he continued recovering, Nigel continued slipped notes across the room to Ryu whenever he noticed the other dragon working on math. Every time, Ryu would pick up the note, read it, glance over at Nigel, and begin doing whatever Nigel had suggested. After a while, Nigel noticed that Ryu's time spent doing math homework decreased dramatically, as did the pile of discarded paper from failed attempts. Whenever Ryu was done he would burn his final answers into a metal sheet, stack the sheet neatly in its place, look at Nigel one last time, and then leave the cave.

It was a good system, Nigel thought, after he had finally somewhat conquered his fear of Ryu suddenly grabbing and biting his arm off whenever he slid a note across the floor. When he told Oceania about the situation she approved whole-heartedly.

"I told you Ryu wasn't going to harm you," she said.

"I'm still not sure about that," Nigel confided. He was still sure that Ryu might damage him at some point, but at least now he was fairly certain that Ryu wasn't actually going to kill him.

"After all, if he does kill me, who's going to help him with his math?" he asked Oceania as he explained this to her.

"No one," Oceania replied. "Which is why you don't even have to fear him harming you. After all, you're not likely to keep helping a dragon who hurts you, are you?"

"No, but what if I do something he doesn't like. Or he's just feeling aggressive and decides to take it out on his coward of a roommate?"

"Not going to happen. Besides if he does do anything to you, he'll have to answer to me for it. And female dragons can be quite terrifying. Also, I don't have anything to fear from his fire."

Nigel had to acknowledge the point, but it still didn't help his fear of Ryu. Ryu might not have a reason to kill him anymore, but Nigel still didn't feel safe around him.

After Nigel got better, it was such a relief to him to be able to leave his cave and resume his classes. Thanks to Oceania, he wasn't behind in any of his classes and was able to pick back up with the rest of the class without any issue. But he did continue one thing he had done while recovering.

Every evening he would slip Ryu a note detailing how to do the assigned math homework. And every evening, he fell asleep feeling a little safer knowing that Ryu wasn't going to kill him in his sleep.

As Nigel though about it one evening when Ryu was gone, it wasn't a bad arrangement. He was assured life through the rest of the semester and Ryu was assured help in math class for the rest of the semester. It was a much better arrangement that Nigel could have ever dreamed of, and he hoped that it continued. He didn't think that it could get better for both of them.