The 'Dragon Defender'

Trainer In Training

"Go!"

Selene dives downwards towards a boulder, then pulls up when she suspects it's the last second possible to do so. She's close to the rock, but she could get a lot closer before she has to dodge it. "Again!" I shout, watching as she repeats her trick. Again she takes off too early.

"You can easily get closer," I tell her. "You only need to keep flying for a split second longer to make an improvement. Don't think you need to cover too much more distance, any improvement is still an improvement."

She nods and dives again, this time pulling up a little later. She could still get closer, but there's less distance now. "Good!" I shout. "Again!"

We repeat this again and again until she's practically mastered the boulder. "Okay, now we're going to use a different obstacle," I tell her, gesturing to a tree. "Use that. Trees are tougher to gauge, so you should have a harder time with it, but if you can master one tree, you can master a whole forest."

"Well this can't be that hard after the rock," Selene shrugs before charging towards the tree... and promptly hitting her head. I wince on her behalf and fly down to her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm... fine." She replied, standing up and shaking her head vigorously. "But I don't like that tree anymore."

"It's not the same rock, so you shouldn't assume it'll be the same to avoid," I explain to her. "Can you just show me how to do it, Indi?" She asks hopefully. "Sure," I agree. I've been practicing my flight techniques and manoeuvres ever since my first morph, so I know how to do this.

I fly up and backflip around before zipping towards the tree. At the very last second I backflip again, successfully avoiding the trunk. My tail lightly taps the tree as I right myself, proving that I was leaving no room between myself and the tree.

Selene watches in awe. "You've gotten used to your wings so fast!" She says. "How did you do it? My old friend was born in human form and when she morphed she didn't understand this stuff at all! It took her almost a year before it was second nature!"

"I've just been training with my partners a lot, I guess," I shrug. "I've always trained pretty hard. Now that I have another form to get used to, I've been working on dragon form a lot and I've been following the same training exercises as the Short Wing dragons back home so that I can work on it properly. I guess our training is just more advanced than I thought."

"It must be," she agrees. "All dragons that belong to your pack are very capable. As far as I'm concerned with the matter, of course. I've only really seen you and Stylive... oh, and that Camo."

"I'll have to take you to the sanctuary at some point," I offer. "Though you'll have to do as my Alpha says while in his territory and the last time I told someone this I took three plasma blasts to the chest and then got my first taste of the abilities of an Alpha."

"I heard how badly you took it," she said. "Camp explained. Apparently a Typhoomerang almost thought you were going to consider leaving the pack again."

"That would just make it worse," I point out. "Then other Alphas could affect me. At least if I submit to Alpine, I know that I'll only have one Alpha to worry about. Plus it ties me to my partners. I'd never leave the pack without a better reason than stupid fears."

"It's not stupid, a lot of dragons are scared of the power," Selene shrugs. "Your father used to be, too. He always thought it was far too much capability for one dragon."

"Exactly," I nod in agreement. "It's just too much. To be able to take free will... it's too much."

"I feel the same, though I don't fear it," she says. "At least while you're here he won't have a reason to control you." "He said he wouldn't unless he had to," I tell her. "I understand why he did it the first time, but I wish that he didn't do it either way."

Selene nuzzles me affectionately. "Your morals say that you can't let a dragon get hurt. But now that you know you're a dragon too, you need to consider keeping yourself just as safe as the others. Your Alpha wanted to keep your morals intact on you just as much as himself. Evidently more so."

I nod slowly, knowing that she's right. I'm going to have to rethink my morals now. I put the whole pack before myself, but now that I'm included in this, it can't be the same. The safety of dragons has always come first for me, but if I'm a dragon does this make myself the number one priority?

I shake the thoughts from my head. No, I can't think like that. The others will always come first. Nothing will change. This is who I am. I'm happy with who I am. My life is dedicated to protecting all dragons, as well as taking out all those who harm dragons, and defending my pack. Nothing more, nothing less.

As if she knew exactly what I was thinking, Selene nudged my side. "You shouldn't think that all other dragons come before you. You're worth just as much as any other dragon, if not more so."

"I just want to defend us all," I huff. "We should be safe to thrive, not... this. Not cowering away from humanity because of what they do to us."

"You've got the best of both worlds with you," Selene muses. "I'm sure you can work something out. You are the Dragon Master, after all."

"I don't like that title," I sigh. "Makes me sound like I have power over dragons. I don't, I only defend them."

"Hm..." she mutters. "Well you could always say you're the dragon's version of your myth... how about calling yourself the Dragon Defender?"