Lotus

Chapter 9

"I thought there were only seven dragons in each winglet." I looked around the large cave. I counted 11 dragons, including myself and Sienna. I could barely handle being in a group of five, let alone 11 and counting! I looked back towards the entryway and saw a few more dragons scuttle in.

"There are," Sienna said, and I turned my attention back towards her. "We're pairing up with the Ruby winglet today. The school is a little short-staffed, mainly because several of the other tribes are rather uneasy about working in a place like this. I mean, Queen Alabaster of the IceWings barely let a few students come here to learn, which is probably why you're listed as an IceWing instead of a RainWing. Anyway, there aren't enough teachers for all of the winglets, especially with Gulper and Marmoset prepping the Library and Healing Center."

I opened my mouth to ask Sienna another question when a large MudWing hobbled up to the front of the class. "Good morning, class. My name is Copper. And yes, I'm much younger than I actually look." I wasn't sure that was possible. He looked almost ancient, barely able to stand. "Before anyone pesters me with questions about how old I am," he took a moment to send one glare across all fourteen of us. "I will tell you right now. I am not any younger than 602, but not older than 2,004."

I was pretty sure he was joking, since most dragons didn't have that long of a lifespan. It was hard to tell, though. He said all of it with a straight face, seeming almost dead-serious about it.

"Now, where were we?" He mumbled something unintelligible, sifting through a few scrolls on one side of the room. After a few minutes of everyone waiting silently for him to continue, he seemed to remember what he was saying before, dropping the scroll he had just picked up in the process. "Ah, yes. Introductions. Seeing as I don't really care and probably won't remember any names anyway, we're just going to skip that."

I glanced at some of the other dragons. I was surprised to find that almost all of them seemed to agree with him. Well, all except for Sienna, of course. I figured she was just going to introduce herself to everyone later, anyway. I, for one, was thinking the same thing as everyone else: Yay! I don't have to talk about myself in front of all these strangers!

Copper then proceeded to ask the class if they had any questions. A bright, yam-orange SkyWings forearm shot straight up into the air. Copper looked over at him. "Yes, you."

"I-it's Nimbus." The SkyWing gulped, and with a worried look on his face, continued. "Um, is there any way we can go to another cave for this class? A bigger one? See, if the ceiling were to spontaneously collapse right now, it would kill all of us before we had the chance to move. Also, if--"

Copper interjected before Nimbus could continue. "No, we can't switch caves. This is one of the largest in this school. And no caves are going to collapse on us. After the disaster with the dragon Darkstalker several decades ago, a few animus dragons pooled in their power to fortify this mountain, making it almost impossible to physically destroy."

Nimbus let out a sigh of relief and relaxed again. "Thank goodness."

"Now," Copper continued. "As I was saying, this school was built several generations ago by the so-called 'Dragonets of Destiny'. If, for some reason, none of you were ever told the history of our school, the names of these dragons were Clay, Tsunami, Glory, Starflight, and Sunny. If I were you, class, I would write these down somewhere so you don't forget them. We will have a test on them soon."

The entire class groaned, and a few dragons pulled out small scrolls to write on. Nimbus then let out a small yelp, with a shocked look on his face. "A test?! Already?! Oh, no…" His breathing started getting faster and he started mumbling to himself, clearly freaking out.

Copper sighed, then started shuffling over to him. "Not another one of these. It was hard enough last year with that SandWing." Then with the help of a few of the dragons next to him, Copper started to calm Nimbus down.

Everyone else started watching what was going on. When they finally realized this was going to take longer than a few seconds they turned to their neighbors and started talking with each other.

I did my best to tune all of it out, though, both not particularly interested in talking to someone and not wanting my anxiety to spike even more due to the noise level than it already was in this new environment. Deep breath in, and let it out.

"I bet it's nice to see someone just like you in this class, freaking out over every little thing." I turned my head around, looking behind me. Dignity sat there, with a small smirk playing across her face as she watched me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Copper move back towards the front of the class. Instead of saying anything, I just rolled my eyes in response to Dignity's comment, and turned back around.

The lesson continued rather slowly, with Copper trying to get the information to us but being continually interrupted by Nimbus and various other dragons. No one really had the attention-span for the rest of the lesson, but even if Copper noticed, he didn't care.

Finally, the gong signaling the end of class rang, halting Copper in the middle of his sentence. "Oh, crawdads and frog-maggots," Copper mumbled. He looked towards us, and probably saw how eager we were to leave. "I guess I'll have to finish this lesson next time. You may go."

In a flurry, everyone hurried out of the room. It took me a moment to realize I was still sitting in the cave. Copper turned to me, asking if I needed something.

"Um...no. Thanks." I smiled awkwardly, and hurried out. I glanced back once to see Copper by the scrolls again, talking to himself.

"Students these days."