Dragon's life in college

Ch 40

Aunt Mer’s oldest daughter once accidentally got her tail stuck in a clam, and suddenly everyone at court was walking around with live clams stuck to various parts of their bodies. It was ridiculous.”

“The only good part about it was that we had entertainment for boring banquets,” Turtle said.

“So, if that’s the case, then why isn’t Turtle’s habit of wearing his art projects considered high fashion?” Nigel asked.

“Mostly because he’s been that way from the moment he hatched. Also, the fixation tends to be on the female members of the royal family.”

“Rude,” Turtle snorted. “I happen to have excellent fashion sense.” He spread his wings out in a show that would have been magnificent if he didn’t currently have stone dust, ink, paint, and leaves stuck all over him.

“Right,” Oceania said with a raised eyebrow. “Anyway, that’s why most dragons don’t follow his ‘fashion sense.’ They do follow your older brother’s style though.”

“That’s because he wraps himself in whatever seaweed he found floating around and comes up with a mile-long explanation of what it means and by the time he’s done everyone’s forgotten that it’s just seaweed and suddenly wants to wear ‘ethereal time on a wave’ or whatever he’s called it.”

Nigel broke out into giggles at that. “That sounds like something my little siblings come up with to explain why Father’s suddenly walking around with neon pink scales with smiley faces.”

“And does it work?” Turtle asked.

“Every time. Although I think it’s also because Mother personally enjoys it and Father’s learned not to say anything.”

“But exactly my point. Come up with a long enough explanation for something and people will believe it.”

“Well, maybe we should come up with a long explanation for our teachers as to why we’re not bothering to turn in final projects or show up for the finals,” Ryu said.

“You had to mention school,” Oceania groaned.

“What? Is our future queen not interested in learning how to govern a kingdom?”

“If it means sitting through three more years of classes plus whatever teaching torture Aunt Mer has planned for when I’m home, yes. Who knew running a kingdom involved so much school work.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’ll be able to put your heir through this eventually.”

“Or maybe I’ll just tell them to run away and save them the agony of surviving college.”

“You’re going to do that to all of the females of the royal family?” Nigel asked. “That would be quite an undertaking considering they’ll eventually run out of places to hide.”

“Argh,” Oceania replied, throwing a talonful of water at them. “But Ryu’s right. The long, complicated explanation might work on court dragons and parents but it does not work on teachers.”

“Personal experience?” Ryu asked.

“Yes, I had to listen to Turtle craft his explanation as to why he couldn’t turn in his homework when he was in Busy Dragonets Daycare.”

“They had you turn in homework.”

“When the daycare is run by your aunts and older cousins, yes.”

Turtle shuddered at the thought. “But I did have a good reason for not turning it in.”

Oceania raised a brow. “I accidentally dropped my homework in front of a tuna who ate it, and then the tuna got eaten by a shark that was passing by, and as I swam after the shark it got caught in an volcanic eruption, cooking it. After which, the cooked stomach of said shark was blown a hundred feet into the air and landed at the top of a mountain where it got eaten by a stork. Yes, Cousin Aqua definitely believed that one.”

“Well, I thought it was a good reason.”

“Was that an explanation or a short story?” Ryu asked.

“Short story,” Nigel said.

“Explanation,” Oceania chimed.

“The truth,” Turtle protested. The others looked at him skeptically. “Ok, I thought it would make a good truth.”

“That’s true,” Ryu conceded. “But if your daycare teachers didn’t believe it, I highly doubt college professors will find it even more believable. And I for one, do intend on passing my first year without having to retake any classes.”

Nigel winced slightly at that thought. Despite the constant practice, he wasn’t any closer to being ready to retake Incineration Class than he had been when starting college. So far, none of the ideas Ryu or Oceania tried seemed to do anything.

“Don’t worry,” Oceania said, sensing his thought. “You’ll be able to retake that pesky class soon, I believe in you.”

“We all do,” Ryu said.

“Sure,” Turtle chipped. “Besides, your inability doesn’t bother us at all.” He held up a wing. “Fireproof, remember. You can blow your fire around all you want and the worst you could do is make it very warm for us. Well, theoretically you could drop us in an enclosed body of water and then heat the water up until it boils us alive. But I trust you not to try that.”

“Who knew Turtle could have such morbid thought,” Ryu commented. “Although that is an interesting idea. I am interested as to why it was never tried during the war.”

“Probably because the amount of time it would take to get a captive water dragon all the way to an enclosed water body is just too long for practical use,” Oceania said. “We water dragons are great at escaping and finding hidden waterways.”

“Maybe I could find one and use that as a valid excuse for not turning anything in,” Turtle muttered. Oceania wacked him over the head.

“You are going to turn in your projects or I will report back to your mother that you love the names she picked for your siblings and want inspiration for your future dragonets.”

“That’s unfair,” Turtle protested. “Using my unborn dragonets names against me. But, I will turn everything in. Even if it means I don’t get any sleep from now until the end of the semester.”

“I feel that,” Nigel agreed. “In the past week I think I’ve only gotten about three hours of sleep each night.”

“What are you staying up studying? Aren’t you the math genius who probably knows more than all the math teachers combined.”

“I do take other classes than Accounting. I have history papers to finish and other projects which have to be turned in right away.”

With that, the friends disbanded. As much fun as discussing the intricacies of royal fashion and how to kill dragons was, schoolwork is relentless and due dates do not change. And with the end of the year rapidly approaching, everything that could be due was due.