Dragon's life in college

Ch. 47 Lessons with Deep, part 1

“All right, Nigel,” Deep said as soon as Oceania and Ryu had left. “Let’s begin your lessons. The first one, your posture.”

“My posture?” Nigel asked, unsure what that had to do with his fire breathing.

“Yes,” Deep said. “Come with me, there’s a better place to practice this than the middle of a training field. Try to keep up.”

With just that as a warning, Deep spread his wings and sprang lightly into the air. Caught off guard, Nigel took a few moments to spread his own wings and follow. By then, Deep was already a good distance ahead and flying steadily in a direction Nigel had never gone before.

Nigel quickly followed after Deep, wondering where they were going as Deep soared over the walls marking the college boundaries, then headed down the cliff the college was built on.

Stormcrest Academy was built on the edge of a tall cliff. The lake, which also doubled as the dorms for the water dragons, was one of a series of deep spring lakes. This one had been selected due to its isolation from any other body of water. However, just outside the school grounds was a series of lakes feed in part by a mountain stream and by deep springs. This series of lakes ended in a waterfall which plunged over the edge of the cliff. The cliff was tall enough that even from the air, Nigel couldn’t see the base of it, which disappeared into a cloud of mist. He could hear the waterfall crash into the ocean below them.

Deep lead them down the cliff, soaring below the first layer of mist. Nigel followed him, wondering what in the world was going on. Maybe Deep had thought it best to have him practice well out of sight of the school, therefore no one could see how much of an embarrassment he was.

Deep soared down to a small ledge, large enough to comfortably hold two large dragons but not much else.

“This is one of my favorite spots to go to be alone,” Deep said as they landed. “I find it much easier to relax and clear my mind without the presence of others. I imagine that you find it the same.”

“Yes, I mean, well,” Nigel fumbled for an answer.

Deep held a wing up to his mouth as though shushing him, something which hadn’t been done to him since he was a dragonet. “There’s no need to speak, at least until necessary.”

Nigel nodded. He didn’t understand Deep yet, but he had a feeling the slightly eccentric dragon had a reason for everything he did. Although why Deep felt the need for silence was beyond him.

Well, maybe not complete silence, considering the crashing of the waterfall beside them. And considering how Deep was now lifting a stone cover to reveal some sort of mechanism, maybe there would be more noise.

“Come over here,” Deep said, waving him over.

Nigel approached, helping him to lift the stone cover off. Underneath was a complicated mess of gears and other machinery, none of which made sense to him. There also appeared to be channels carved into the stone base, which Nigel guessed that carried something.

“What is this?” Nigel asked, then almost swallowed his tongue remembering Deep had told him to be quiet.

“A new invention of mine,” Deep answered. “Something which I hope to make a little more practical soon. But for now, it’s something I enjoy. Here, let me show you how it works.”

Deep picked up a large bucket and flew back over to the edge, where one arm of the waterfall broke off from the rest and fell into a shallow pool before spilling back over the edge. He filled the bucket up before returning to the machine and carefully pouring the buckets contents into the channel.

As the water traveled through the channels, various parts of the machine began moving and making strange sounds, or at least to Nigel they sounded strange. He glanced up at Deep, wondering what in the world this was supposed to be.

“Just wait,” Deep said, settling down. “And relax, it won’t bite. At least, it shouldn’t.”

Nigel sat down, still wondering what was going on. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Oceania’s father, he just didn’t know what Deep was doing. Somehow, it didn’t make sense that this was going to make him better at breathing fire. Unless, Deep’s machine somehow breathed fire for him, which while technically cheating he was at least willing to consider.

As Nigel continued watching and listening, the random noises finally began to coalesce into a coherent, and pleasant, sound. Nigel couldn’t exactly call it music, since it was still a bit too mechanical and disjointed for that, but it did sound nice.

“What do you think?” Deep asked.

“It sounds…nice?” Nigel ventured to say, uncertain what Deep wanted to hear. Apparently that was the correct statement as Deep nodded.

“It’s my water music,” Deep said. “The idea is to place these in the palace, to create a pleasant and relaxing background without having to have musicians playing all day. Of course, they wouldn’t be everywhere, just in the large, officials areas where having a pleasant ambiance would be appreciated. However, I haven’t quite gotten it perfected yet. It still sounds like noise, not like music. And it’s still a bit unwieldly.”

Nigel looked at the machine in front of him, which consisted of a large, and heavy, stone circle of different layers with different machine parts to it, plus the lid he had helped Deep remove earlier. He imagined that trying to install one of these, let alone multiple, would be a challenge. Not to mention he didn’t quite think it would fit with the décor of the palace from what he had seen on his visit.

“Ocean informed me that you’re good with math. I was wondering if you could help me figure out the optimal size for this. I have the basic dimensions written down, but I am terrible at trying to figure out proportions and ratios to get everything sized exactly right for something smaller than my test subjects.”

“I can do that,” Nigel said, feeling confident for the first time since the meeting. Math he could do.

“Well then,” Deep rummaged around in another stone alcove, “these should be helpful. Let me know if you need anything. I have to tweak some of these gears.” Deep shoved a rather messy stack of papers covered in even messier handwriting at Nigel, before turning back to his machine.

“Sir,” Nigel asked hesitantly, shifting the stack of papers into a more neat pile, “wouldn’t it be simpler to just build a few music boxes and just place them around the palace. That way you wouldn’t have to adjust the size either.”

“Simpler, yet,” Deep said. He paused his work and looked at Nigel. “But as fulfilling, no. Besides, my sister-in-law was very firm when she told me that she wanted something new and something that relied on water. Music boxes require a dragon to turn a key, or for a lid to opened or something similar. And I didn’t want to give myself the work of trying to get a box to open underwater and then stay open and be able to hear the music, so I decided to try to eliminate having a dragon turn a key and get the water to turn the components themselves. Also, this design will be more adaptable which will be better for my sister-in-law’s decorating tastes. You’ve seen them.”

Nigel had. And while the palace had been beautifully decorated, he could definitely tell that the Water Dragon Queen had a more grandiose style of decoration. And thinking about it, he could imagine how annoying it would be to have a bunch of servants have to wind up music boxes to the exact same tension and then return every few minutes to do it again.