Dragon's life in college

ch 36

Around her neck was a string of purple scales. Purple scales that looked exactly like an amethyst necklace. A marking he had seen before.

Shocked, Nigel glanced over at Oceania at the same time Ryu, who had spotted the same thing, did. Both of them stared at their friend for a second, before a voice cut through the air answering all of their questions and raising a lot more.

“Oceania! How is my favorite niece?” Queen Mer exclaimed as she leapt off the stage and began hurrying through the crowd straight toward them.

                                                            Princess Oceania

“Niece!”

“What!”

“I’m going to leave.”

“Aunt Mer, please!”

The only word which could describe the school was confusion. Those close enough to hear and see everything gaped in astonishment, while those on the outskirts craned to see what was going on. Even the royal party seemed somewhat confused by everything. Although it was the quartet of friends which were the most shocked.

Ryu stared at Oceania in pure shock, his mouth hanging open as any and all dignity fled from him. Nigel also stared at the scene, frozen in shock until Queen Mer literally pushed him out of the way to throw her wings around Oceania.

Possibly the only one not confused at the moment was Turtle, as he tried to slip through the crowd and get away. Unfortunately, Oceania’s tail whipped around his ankle, keeping him firmly in place.

All around them, everyone stared in confusion as they tried to comprehend what was going on.

Ryu, fortunately, put it together fairly quickly, recomposing himself as best as possible.

Oceania, surprisingly, was slightly confused by everything although mostly the confusion came from having her friends physically shoved out of the way by her aunt and herself embraced (tackled) by said aunt.

After a few moments of awkward confusion and whispers, Queen Mer finally unwrapped herself from Oceania.

“Oceania, my favorite niece!”

That got a few stares from the surrounding students.

“Aunt Mer, please, not in front of the whole school.” Oceania protested.

“Nonsense. Besides, what else am I suppose to call you, my future…”

“All right, Aunt. I am glad to see you as well.”

It didn’t take an expert to guess what the queen would have said. Everyone knew that while technically the future rulers were selected through a series of trials, the current rulers often selected their heir ahead of time and everyone else just played along for royal tradition.

“So am I. Why didn’t your parents tell me that you were attending school here? I would have come to visit you so much sooner. Although I should have guessed that you would attend the same school your father teaches at. Where is he anyway?”

“If he’s smart, probably halfway to the other side of the ocean by now,” Turtle muttered, still trying to get Oceania’s tail off of his ankle.

“He’s with the other teachers,” Oceania answered, giving Turtle’s ankle a harsh tug. “I’m sure he’ll greet you as soon as the official ceremony is over.”

“Oh, right. I almost forgot that we are here for official business. Well, once that is over bring yourself, your father, and Turtle over. I haven’t seen you since the Peace Celebration.”

“I will Aunt Mer. May I bring my friends as well, I’m sure you’d want to meet them.”

At this, Nigel gave a frantic no signal. The last thing he wanted to do was meet one of the Dragon Queens. Surprisingly, even Ryu signaled his reluctance to do so. Oceania narrowed her eyes in response, subtly nodding toward her still very close Aunt. The implication was clear. If she had to suffer through her Aunt’s rather exuberant greeting and visiting, they were going to do so with her. Nigel nodded, resigned to his fate. Maybe he’d be lucky and all her Aunt would ask him was his name and his major and that would be all. A dragon can hope after all.

Yes, a dragon can hope but it didn’t necessarily mean that it would happen. Case in point, after Queen Mer rejoined Queen Eldur on stage and they finished the ceremony, which Nigel remembered none of due to nervous and preventing Turtle from escaping, Queen Mer proceeded to pull Oceania and all of them aside and them drowned them in questions and attention.

By the end of it, Nigel never wanted to answer another question for his entire life. What he wanted to do was go and hide himself away in a dark cave somewhere at the top of a mountain and solve math problems in peace and quiet. Maybe he’d bring Turtle with him.

For as much as Nigel hated the interview with Queen Mer, and she had been polite and overly friendly, Turtle had hated it so much worse. It did make it easy for Nigel to understand why Turtle hadn’t been thrilled about Winter Festival celebrations at his aunt’s. The amount of times Turtle tried to slip away was ridiculous, at least once every 3.174 seconds, yes Nigel had done the math. Sue him. He needed a mental break from having everyone’s attention on him.

Ryu, unsurprisingly had handled the interview perfectly fine. But then again, Ryu was training to be able to interact with royals on a daily basis, so he likely viewed this as a real life learning experience. He had, understandably, toned down his usual intimidating attitude although there was no doubting his natural bearing still remained very visible. As witnessed by Queen Eldur, who had briefly accompanied her fellow Queen in greeting her niece, much more calmly this time, commenting on it. That had Ryu puffing up in response. Nigel had a feeling that he would be hearing Ryu talk about this for several days.

Eventually, the talk was over and the three of them were free to escape. Except for Oceania, who got dragged away by her aunt for some more “bonding time.” Nigel was fairly certain that it was code for checking up on her progress and asking why she wasn’t wearing a full, matching jewelry set.