Dragon's life in college

ch 41

It was a crazy last couple of weeks as everyone scrambled to turn in projects, study, and pray that they could pass their final exams. No one in the school bothered with sleep, except for a few lucky dragons who somehow managed to budget sleep and school at the same time. Not that it mattered to the rest of them. Plenty of time to sleep after the year was done.

“Well, one year done,” Oceania announced several weeks later, exams finished and one year of college wrapped up.

“Three more to go,” Nigel commented, sprawled on his side.

“Please, don’t remind me,” Turtle begged. “We just finished one year and I want to sleep for a month straight, not think about returning.”

“At least we’ll be returning to each other,” Ryu commented.

“True,” Oceania acknowledged.

Nigel nodded from the ground. One year ago he had been too terrified to even consider surviving four years of college, but despite how hard it had been, he found himself looking forward to it. Not to all the work, but to the chance to see all his friends again. While plans had been made to visit each other during the summer, it wasn’t quite the same as getting to see each other every day. Still, sleeping for a month sounded nice right now. He was certain Ember and crew would let him, as long as he brought them with him on his visits. Mother wouldn’t mind too much.

                              Second Year

As Nigel packed his things, not everything since he had left some at college, he thought back to a year ago when he had hidden away from his older siblings. While they still weren’t close, they had left him alone which was a nice change.

“Nigel not need to go to mountain this year?”

Nigel looked down at Ember. In the past year his little siblings had all started to shoot up, although Ember remained a little on the small side. Seemed like his sibling might have the opposite problem as he did, although they could all turn out looking like stereotypical dragons and he would still view them as cute little dragonets. Not that he told them that. Ember and crew had enough trouble convincing Mother that they were grown up enough to fly all the way to the Water Kingdom without being carried for half of it. They had still ended up hitching rides along the way, not that Nigel would expose their secret.

It had taken a little begging to get Mother to allow him to take them with him to visit Oceania. In the end, Mother had agreed with the agreement that they would write to her if they needed anything. Nigel was honestly a little surprised that it had been that simple, but it probably helped that his older siblings were also busy during that time so Mother and Father had a dragonet-free weekend for once in many years. Nigel had half been expecting them to announce a new clutch of siblings when they returned, but thankfully they didn’t. They did have a lot of children so it was unlikely they wanted more.

As expected, Ember and crew had loved visiting Oceania’s family. Even Oceania’s aunt, the Queen, had fallen captive to their charms had soon had all four of them following her around on official business. Thankfully, Comet had been able to restrain himself from painting over the royal castle, something which Nigel was certain would not have been well received at all.

Nigel had been slightly surprised to see the above-water portion of the Water Palace. While Oceania had assured him that they had above water lodging for fire dragon guests, he hadn’t expected it to be as beautiful and large as it had been. For some reason he had been expecting a few caves on an island, rather than a beautiful palace. When he had mentioned it to Oceania, she had laughed.

“A few caves on an island. We have the Fire Queen visit us regularly, what would it look like if we told the Fire Queen she could stay in a cave?”

“A lot of dragons stay in caves, fire and water,” Nigel had pointed out.

“Dragons do. Not royal dragons. Decidedly not a visiting queen. No, the Floating Palace, as we call it, was constructed shortly after the end of the wars. It’s been added onto and expanded a few times, but the original is still there. It’s quite easy to spot, since the original architect was fascinated with symmetry and mathematical pleasing lines.”

That had, of course, peaked Nigel’s interest and he had spent the rest of the trip measuring and calculating the proportions of the original core. At the end of the week, he was quite satisfied to see that the original architect had indeed balanced everything perfectly as well as ensuring that everything was mathematically proportioned and pleasing.

All in all, it had been a nice week. It was slightly disappointed that Ryu couldn’t make it, but his family already had plans. But Turtle had been there, with his new siblings in tow. The family had already tried to come up with normal nicknames for all of them, although Sarcastic Fringehead had been stuck with Sarcastic or Sarcasm.

“She’s going to live up to that name when she’s older,” Turtle had announced.

“She’s going to have to,” Oceania had commented. “I mean, even for your mother that is a terrible name.”

“Blame Kelp.”

“We already do.”

“At least someone managed to talk her out of Nudibranch,” Nigel pointed out. That name had had the smallest statistical likelihood of being chosen, but it was still something.

“Just because Father told her she could only have one dragonet with a name impossible to shorten. I mean, at least Sarcastic can be shortened even if it is a terrible name. But Nudibranch? What would we have called them? Nudi? Branch?”

Turtle shivered. “Anyway, it’s been great having little siblings. I understand why you’re always talking about Ember and crew.”

“It is quite nice,” Nigel said. “You haven’t dropped any of them yet, have you?”

“Only Sea, but he bounced so I don’t think he broke anything important.” Sea was short for Sea Hare, another name Turtle’s mother couldn’t be talked out of.

Oceania raised a brow. “I guess we’ll find out when he’s older.”

Fortunately, Sea had shown no sign of any permanent injuries from his brief trial as a bouncing ball, and considering his family’s history Nigel was fairly certain that he would be a little odd no matter what.

It had been sad to leave at the end of the week, but at least Oceania had flown back home with him. A good choice since he had been sent back with so many gifts he needed the extra wingpower to carry them all and give Ember and crew rides.

As expected, Nigel’s mother was delighted to see Oceania and would likely have kept her for another week if Oceania didn’t have to get back to the palace.

Several weeks later, Nigel and his siblings were on their way to visit with Ryu.