Draconic Amnesty

Chapter 2 - Pride

January 2, 2002

The nip at her tail, the one delivered by her senior classmate Ostyth, hurt enough for Wren to broadcast a telepathic yelp of pain. Ouch! Miss Tea, he bit me!

That’s because Wren keeps flying ahead of me when I’m concentrating! Ostyth pulled up alongside Teawoth, gliding into formation as he pled his case.

Wren, stop distracting Ostyth. Teawoth’s mental reprimand preceded her explanation. You’re here to learn from him today. Respect his seniority and observe.

The two green dragons soared in front of Wren, high above the Illinois city of Decatur, the target of today’s lesson. Already as tall as a mature white rhino at the shoulder and a few feet longer, Wren matched Ostyth’s size. However Teawoth, as to be expected of a century-old matriarch, dwarfed them both, more than doubling their height and length. That made following, drifting effortlessly behind Teawoth’s enormous slipstream, rather boring with little opportunity for Wren to exercise her wings.

She resumed her not-so-humble request. But Miss Tea, I just want to scout ahead, to make sure there are no planes or —

Silence, Wren. Teawoth’s thought was like a quick slap on the wrist. One more word from you, and you’ll be prevented from visiting human territory for a week.

Wren caught the image of Ostyth’s smirk, a thought sent directly to her without Miss Tea’s awareness. Unfortunately, she couldn’t complain, at least not openly. Doing so would invoke the punishment, a literal grounding, confinement to her home in Antarctica for an entire week. There was no worse penalty imaginable.

Even though most dragons never left Antarctica, the icy continent was a prison, one that deprived dragons of exploring nature’s full beauty.

It hadn’t always been that way. Less than a year ago, she’d feared the outside lands as much as her friends. However, with her tenth birthday, she, like all green or silver dragons, had been given the opportunity to travel, to scout, and to train while under matriarchal supervision. An exhilarating privilege. Ostyth would not spoil it.

They circled a vacant parking lot, its arc sodiums illuminating strange rectangular lines on the asphalt. Humans stopped cars — metallic, combustion-fueled boxes with glass windows — in those open rectangles. People drove those polluting cages, transporting themselves from one lifeless enclosure to another, rarely experiencing the world as designed.

Unfortunately, humans couldn’t fly, not without the help of winged machines, really just another box. Maybe if she were in the same situation — a tiny being, wingless and therefore confined to the ground — she’d also ride in those airplanes (as they were called), if only to taste the freedom of flight.

Together, as a unit, the two greens swooped downward. Wren trailed behind, a streak of silver had anyone been watching from below.

Of course, no one would be watching. Green dragons cloaked themselves when abroad, blending into their surroundings and blocking all means of detection. Wren did the same. She, like all silver dragons, possessed the combined abilities of green, red, and blue chromatics. Perhaps that trait, more than any other, explained why Ostyth was always so mean to her. Jealousy.

At twenty feet above ground, Ostyth opened his mouth and discharged an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), an invisible waveform neatly confined into a diameter that extended to the edges of the lot. The lamps-on-poles flickered and blackened, shrouding the area in darkness, all without affecting the large buildings nearby.

Very good, Ostyth, Teawoth sent. Your control has improved significantly. Wren, did you see how he managed to confine the emission?