The Blue Dragon

Chapter 9

For the next few days, Mewang as far as possible tried to avoid coming in front of Weaser Kiyoshi. She would avoid looking at him and ignore him if she met him in the classrooms and corridors. But since he seemed to take no notice of her what so ever, with a huge weight lifting off her chest, Mewang finally concluded that maybe he did not really know that it was her behind the door that night.

Mewang and Alyssa entered the dinning hall one morning when they saw their first year friends bent down over papers instead of food. They were all scribbling hard, ignoring the food in front of them.

“You guys didn’t complete your homework, did you?” Alyssa sat down beside Aaron while Mewang took her usual seat beside Yigdel.

“We’re writing letters,” Yigdel told them excitedly. “To our people back home. The dispatch riders are here to deliver them.”

Mewang felt a huge pang of utter guilt as she realized that in the middle of all the excitements about her classes and meeting new friends, (not to mention being mistaken as ‘The Guardian’) she had almost forgotten about her dad. Cursing herself for the terrible deed, Mewang grabbed a paper from one of Yigdel’s folders and wrote.

Dear Dad,

I’m sorry for not writing sooner than today. I’ve mostly been busy with my classes and friends. Everything’s awesome here in Zen Palace, dad. I really love it.

Dad, there’s something I need to tell you. Maybe you already got the news from people around. I suppose it has already been rumored around the village and possibly all over the nation. But dad, I feel like they’re all mistaken. I cannot be ‘The Guardian’. Can I?

I really miss you and hope to see you soon.

Love

Mewang

As she handed over the letter to the dispatch rider – a boy, probably a quiescent in green outfit – Mewang noticed that Weaser Kiyoshi was as usual sitting in the deserted corner of the hall and was simply slurping up his bowl of ramen. Mewang wondered why he wasn’t writing any letter to his people. Maybe he did not have a family. Or maybe he already sent one via that white crane the other night.

After a quick breakfast, the first year apprentices of North Tower all made their way towards their Principal Elemental Studies’ classroom where their dashing teacher, Master Otto was waiting for them.

“Today I want you all to imagine a world,” said Master Otto. “where everyone can animate elements and what would happen if there were no boundaries to their power.”

“The world would be in chaos.” Young Lee said.

“And why do you think the world would be in chaos?” asked Master Otto, looking down at the thoughtful apprentices with a charming smile.

“Since there are no boundaries to anyone’s power, everyone will be powerful and there will be constant wars with gruesome damages.” Yigdel answered.

“Exactly!” said Master Otto and Yigdel beamed. “That is why there are limitations to every power in the world, because without them, like Mr Ichiro said, there will be frequent wars and the damages will be absolutely dreadful. The best and the simplest example is the fact that not everybody in our world can animate elements. There are quiescents who are just normal people without any special power. And similar to that, there are certain limitations to every animator. Now I want you all to group yourselves into four groups, Fire, Earth, Water and Air and list down the limitations to your own animating art from the text book.”

The class got up on its feet and everyone started going round in search of their own element’s group members. Mewang did not know what to do. Master Otto seemed to have noticed it because he said, “Miss Sasaki can join Earth group.”