It's not every day you find out that you are a rider of dragons.
Especially if you had spent almost half of your life in an oppressive orphanage, doing chores, working like a slave and trying to survive crazy children and evil housekeepers.
For year...
"My darling girl, When are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage."
— Aunt Frances, Practical Magic
The girl was chatting happily with someone behind her, talking animately about something, until she noticed the other girl in the room.
The group stopped at the entrance, seeing Lily and then, without any warning, the fire-red hair girl screamed.
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The first thing her brain registered was that a piece of steak had cruelly decided to choke her before her time, not even letting her start new adventure; also, someone was patting her back, trying to help her shallow down.
"Emma you need to stop doing that!" a male voice shouted angrily, barely heard over her coughing "One day someone will have a heart attack because of you! Look at her! You made her choke!"
"I'm sorry ok!" the girl shouted back, equal in anger "but she is the last one, and she is a GIRL!"
A glass full of water appeared in front of her watery eyes, and Lily gratefully accepted it. She drank it and finally gulped down the meat, coughing a few more times, trying to take some oxygen into her lungs.
That was not how she wanted to meet the other riders.
"Are you ok?" a gentle feminine voice asked.
The girl in question was a pretty one with oriental features, probably the same age of her, twenty-one and behind her a young man maybe a little older. The girl had black hair, dark kind eyes and white skin with pink strawberry-shaped lips. She vaguely thought she resembled a doll. The boy was lean but athletic, light skin, a jet of messy almost black messy hair that almost obscured the blue intelligent eyes that shined out in his nicely shaved face.
"Yeah... thanks" Lily finally managed to crack out. She looked around the room and noticed the other boy and girl that were still arguing with loud voices, hands jerking in angry movements.
"You will get used to it" said the boy near her, sounding a little exasperate "They can't stand next to each other without bickering. I met them two days ago, and they still have to stop"
"Who are they?" asked Lily putting the glass back on the table and looking at the quarrelling duo.
"They are Emma and Mattia. Even if it doesn't seem, they are twins" responded the other girl, sitting next to her.
Lily observed for a minute the two bickering couple and, in fact, noticed some resemblances here and there. They both surely had beautiful dark-green eyes, the same right nose, chin and tan skin. However, Emma had vibrant red wavy hair that reached until mid-back and was smaller than the boy, but still tall enough to reach his chin; Mattia had light brown hair, with some beard on his slightly squared jaw and a muscular body that had to been built up under hours of hard work. They also had to be around her age.
