The Warlock's Shadow

Dreams of Dragon Riding

We made our way to the courtyard where an assembly was taking place. Sasha and I found seats and listened. An older elf walked up to the podium. His hair was long, straight and silver, his ears wiggled as he walked and he wore a very expensive looking suit. His face was lined with experience but his smile was warm and kind. A number of people were sitting lined up behind him, who I could assume was the faculty.

“Welcome everyone to a new year, here, at Wyvern Glade Academy,” The student body gave a half-assed applause. “Yes, yes again welcome welcome. As most of you know, I am Principal Ashrith and have governed and guided this school for the last seventy-five years. To kick things off we’re pleased to welcome back our riding instructor Mr.-, or rather I should say Master Elowyn who has been away for the last two years completing his mastery of riding and dragon biology.”

Again, the half-ass applause as the man I assumed was Master Elowyn stood and took a short bow. “You will also be pleased to know that we will have a special announcement come the winter in regards to the Winter Dragonis Festival. So stay tuned.” He went on to briefly introduce the faculty before laying down basic ground rules that all schools have. No bullying (yeah right we will see how far that goes), no discrimination, “appropriate” clothes, and as always do our best. Honestly, it kind of made me sick.

“Go now, and learn, grow, and be great,” Principal Ashrith dismissed us and let us go to our first class.

The first half of the school day carried on fairly uneventfully. The student population was pretty diverse, but then again I wasn’t sure what I would have expected otherwise. Aside from other humans there was also a fair amount of elves, half elves, and half fae, like Sasha. The half elves passed for humans, save for the pointy ears. Elves had an unusual grace and athleticism about them that usually garnered a lot of attention along with much longer pointed ears. Most elves had their ears pierced in different ways with varying amounts of piercings.

The half fae had lots of different presentations. Some presenting like Sasha but there were more showing as either being male or female. Some being very serious to a scary level, others super aloof like a hippy, and a few naturally mischievous like Sasha. But all sharing one common trait, of having some bright neon hair. Some red, some pink, some blue and all amazing.

Sasha and I shared a couple classes together, including botany and numerology so far. Occasionally between classes, we met in the hall next to the auditorium when we could be near some vending machines. I walked over to the machine that held all the salty snacks and pulled out a few coins, called Favors, to pay for one. A couple hundred years after the initial convergence all money at that time had become completely useless. So to stop the global economy from collapsing, the Fae, as a favor, gave us a global currency to be called Favors. Most people carried coined forms of Favors, but they also came in paper bill forms with different colors and Faery wing patterns.

As soon as I put the Favors in and made my selection the bag of chips got stuck. Because of course it did. I pounded the machine without success. The halls were beginning to thin with class getting ready to start. I looked around to make sure there weren’t any teachers around and asked Sasha to play a bit of lookout. I reached out and placed my hand on the glass. I did my best to push my will to the barely hanging bag of chips to levitate it. I asked Sasha to play lookout because open magic use was not allowed in school outside of controlled settings. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t move the blasted bag of chips.

Sasha noticed, “here, hang on.” and held out a couple fingers and effortlessly unstuck the bag as it fell to the bottom.

“Thanks,” I said, dejectedly. I grabbed the bag as we went on our way. Even in a place of magic, the vending machine still eats your money.

Inside of the school, for the most part, looked like any other school. Stone walls, drop ceiling, tile floors, the occasional eldritch horror haunting a bathroom. The usual.

Botany was interesting; it was taught by an eccentric fae woman named only, and oddly appropriately, Leif. She made sure that any honorifics or addresses weren’t used with her. On our first day with her, we had a rundown of all the earthly herbs that had lookalikes of poisonous and edible versions, as well as Faewild ones that had made their home here on earth.

Numerology was a misnomer in that it was basically mathematics. Mr. Brown was in charge of math. From the whispers I heard around me not only in class before it started but also in the hallways, he was the stereotypical sort of human that other ignorant fae born peoples would assume how all humans were like. Drab, boring, monotone, vanilla, had no extracurricular interests whatsoever. I wanted to say it wasn’t true but, even his briefcase was plain and boring with nothing exciting about it. Not even patterns in the leather. To top it off he wore a disgustingly drab tweed suit. However, Mr. Brown did say that we would eventually get into the divination portion later in the year. Sasha seemed pretty happy with it all especially when they heard we could use numbers to divine fortunes and possible futures. For as goofy as Sasha was, they really liked how orderly everything was with numbers and seemed to have a bit of a gift for them.

The other class I had at this point was history. Which was fairly interesting going over the subject matter being some of the original fae wars nearly a thousand years ago all the way up to the last convergence. It was taught by an Elf woman who asked us to call her Ms. Nephinae. She was the typical Elf in that she wore high end fashion, was graceful in her walk as well as her mannerisms and overall seemed flawless and ageless. Few boys and girls in class, as well as in the school itself, were completely transfixed on her. During her short lecture when she touched on various points of history, and summed them up, I was luckily able to avoid being a point of interest in class when the fight with Blight came up. Since my Dad played a key role in killing the Warlock that tried to mess with the last Convergence when I was just an infant. I didn’t know the fine details, but I didn’t really want to. All I knew was that my Dad was a hero, and that was enough for me.

Once it was lunchtime so we made our way to the cafeteria. Which was equally as boring in appearance. All the cafeteria equipment was galvanized steel and all the eating utensils were made with either wood or a degradable plastic, since fae people couldn’t touch anything made of steel or iron directly. The zinc coating on the counters and equipment helped prevent any accidental injury. As we got our food I pointed out an elf girl in our year.

“Want to sit with her? She’s all alone.” The whole circular table she was at was empty. “She was in my history class. She’s definitely not like other elves I’ve met.” I said. Which was true. As I said before most elves wore what looked like expensive clothing and shoes, and carried themselves with an air of extreme confidence. Except her.

She dressed all in black with some tasteful accents of pink. She wore heavy, buckled platform boots, black jeans, and a black band t-shirt with a spooky mask and the band name ‘Soul Umbra’ emblazoned across it. A studded leather choker adorned her neck to finish it off. Her long pointed ears were decorated in a typical elvish fashion, in this case accented with a few rings near each tip and one ear cuff on her left ear, which stood out from her fiery red hair.

Before I knew it Sasha, in their infinite friendliness, approached and sat at the table, “Hey, mind if we sit with you?” I walked up behind and sat with them.

The girl glared at Sasha momentarily before finally muttering, “fine.” She went back to toying with her food.

“So um, your name was Lisandrea, right?” I asked. “At least that’s what I think you said in history class?”

“Uh huh,” she said, disinterested. Sasha and I looked at each other and back to her.

“Well, I’m Alex and this is Sasha,” I said introducing ourselves. She was hard to read as she had a pretty apathetic demeanor about her.

“Cool,” she said, cool as a cucumber. Man, this girl was strange.

“I noticed your shirt, the band is the same as my family name, “Umbra”,” I said awkwardly trying to make conversation. “Are they your favorite band?”

“That’s cool,” she said. “And I suppose you could say they’re my favorite.”

“What cool stuff do you like to do? I’m sure you got some pretty freaking cool hobbies, huh?” Sasha said in their extroverted way.

She shrugged. “I like experimenting with potions and testing them on my little brother to see all the different effects I can make.”

“Wow,” Sasha said in an almost dumbfounded voice. Maybe she would be the first to leave them speechless. “That’s so cool,” Sasha started to rattle off questions at lightning speed. “How many times have you had something go wrong? How many times have you killed your brother with a potion? How many times have you brought them back?,” Nevermind.

“Right,” she said slowly. “Hey, did you guys have the dragon riding class already today? I was kind of curious about it.”

We compared schedules and found that we all had that class the period after next. Lisa and I happened to have alchemy right after lunch. Over the lunch hour we slowly started to get more and more friendly with each other as Lisa slowly started to open up. We laughed a bit and bonded a little. Through all the conversation she finally said, “by the way, call me Lisa. Only my Mom and Grandmother call me by my full name.” We gladly changed it up as Lisa definitely fit her better.

The bell rang. We all gathered our things, Sasha went on their way to history, probably to fall asleep part way through while Lisa and I made our way to alchemy which was taught by a very serious and grim looking Fae who asked we call him Draught. I began to sense a theme among the Fae teachers.

Draught was a tall and lanky Fae man who, like Sasha, had stark white hair gently combed back, wore a dark colored lab coat and had eyes as black as onyx.

To Lisa’s disappointment we didn’t get to do any fun potions or change base metals. Today it was just instructions of what to do and what not to do in the name of safety. To pile on to her disappointment, we found that we would not be experimenting with certain ingredients that she had been using at home. Later on telling me that the ones she uses at home were not always the most legal of substances. She expressed her frustrations with the teacher quite vocally.

“So you’re telling me that things like Wire Seed, Bleeding-cups, Corpse dill and Crown Poppy are illegal and we can’t use them? How are we going to make Essence of Death, Delerium potions, or Madness Extract?”

“We simply won’t, miss uh,” the instructor looked at his roll sheet. “Amara. And the fact you know of these concoctions is unnerving to say the least.”

“What about turning lead to gold, or making philosopher stones?”

“First off, we use magic and alchemy in this class, and no amount of that can change the base properties of one metal to another. Think of the repercussions. The economy would collapse overnight should that have ever been possible. Secondly, the act of making philosopher stones has been illegal for centuries, especially with the main ingredient needed in its creation.”

Lisa sat back down with a huff. The tips of her ears and the rings on the tips bounced and swayed. She spent the rest of the class with her arms crossed staring daggers at Draught.

Finally, it was the class we were waiting for. Dragon Riding. This took place in the central courtyard of the school. It was a wide space, about the size of a football field and carpeted with the low bluish grass native to the Faewild. Native fae plants occupied the borders of the courtyard similar to the front and perimeter of the school. The plants and flowers were strange. All of the foliage was a similar bluish color to the grass, with some flowers being pitch black, others with beautiful vibrant colors that were probably poisonous. A hummingbird flew by and observed the flowers and started to drink from a bright orange chrysanthemum looking flower. In an instant the flower opened up like a mouth with rows of teeth like a shark’s and chomped down on it leaving only a small puff of feathers where the bird once was.

“Alright, everyone. Eyes front and center,” said the riding master, Master Elowyn. He was a tall and muscular half-elf with a high-and-tight haircut like someone in the military. He had a stern stonelike face and a booming voice that commanded attention. The smooth backed, copper colored dragon on his shoulder seemed to have a similar personality as it chirped and chided as if it was repeating his human companion. “Today is your introduction to Dragon riding,” he began as Sasha, Lisa and I found a space to get a good view as the other couple dozen students fanned out in front of Master Elowyn.

Sasha was bouncing on the balls of their feet in excitement while Lisa gave an attitude of complete apathy. I, on the other hand, was transfixed on Master Elowyn’s every word. “In this class you will learn how to, obviously, ride the dragon you will be selecting in a couple of days. Just like this,” he extended his arm out beside him as the dragon walked down it and as it jumped from his hand and extended its wings, which were about twice the span of its body fully opened. It glided about ten feet away and started to grow in size and turned back and landed behind his human. The dragon was now the size of your average horse.

Master Elowyn turned and mounted his dragon and called out, “Fier. Go,“. The dragon flapped its now enormous wings. The air pushed us down a bit as Fier quickly rose in the air. They flew around for about a minute showing us the majesty of a dragon and its rider. As they approached the ground Fier began to shrink back. Our teacher landed safely only having dropped about ten feet and in one fluid motion Fier was back perched on his shoulder, wings wrapped around his massive shoulders.

“Keep in mind this is just an introduction. As you progress and if you wish to continue this program you will get the chance to become elite Knights and perform harrowing missions and duties as assigned by The Council.”

The Council was the governing body in our world. Rumor was they used to operate in secret before the initial convergence over a thousand years ago but since then, they have assumed the role of helping the masses in living with magic and regulating its usage. Including sending Knights, like my Dad, to perform duties that were much too dangerous for the small military we now had. I felt a bit of pride well up inside of me thinking of all that I could do and face in the future. That I could be a hero too.

“However,” Master Elowyn continued. “Dragon Riding is much more than that. It’s not just about being heroes. In fact, don’t even count on being one. Dragon riding is more about communing with your dragon, learning how to care for it and how to hatch it how to-,”

“Wait, we aren’t getting dragons right away?” Someone chimed in, with an unhealthy amount of arrogance, causing our teacher to take a pause and glare.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Sylas Brenlynn,” he said. He looked like he was a human like me, but based on his clothes and demeanor, he must have been fairly well-to-do. Master Elowyn walked up to him, eyes laser focused on Sylas’ pointing all five fingers on his right hand towards him.

“You will make sure you do not interrupt this class again,” he said in a booming firm voice. Fier squawked and hissed in turn. “Do I make myself perfectly clear Mr. Sylas?”

Sylas gave a defiant look and muttered something under his breath.

“I didn’t hear you,” he shouted, Fier copying in a louder squawk.

“Yes. Crystal clear. Jeez,” Sylas said, crossing his arms.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” Master Elowyn continued. “You will learn to care for your dragon eggs while they work on hatching. This will allow you to create the psychic bond needed to speak with your dragon.” He began to move around the students and continued his lecture. “You will also learn how these ancient creatures also enhance your own magic.” He swirled his hands in front of him, all sorts of colors moved and swam with him. He spread his arms apart as various swirls of colored light expanded out, moving and popping in an amazing light show leaving the class in awe. “Questions?”

Lisa instantly raised her hand high.

“Yes, your name?” Master Elowyn said.

“Lisa Amana. How long does it take for dragons to hatch? I couldn’t find anything written, only that they hatch when they’re ready.”

“Yes, that’s correct. Typically the average time from receiving an egg to hatching is about four weeks, but there is no exact time. Any other questions?” Lisa raised her hand again.

“Yes, Ms. Amana?”

“Do we name our dragons or do they tell us?” Seems some people around were already getting a bit annoyed of someone asking questions as they just wanted to finish up class.

“That’s a bit more complicated,” Master Elowyn began. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” He smiled and had a knowing look on his face. As if it was some dirty secret. With that the bell rang. Lisa rummaged through her bag to grab the book she needed for her next class, Scribing, which apparently was a spell writing class and held it close to her chest. The three of us said goodbye for now as we each moved to our next destination.

As Lisa and I walked down a hall together, I just happened to be going the same way. “I’m actually really excited for this particular class,” she said, motioning to the book still clutched to her chest.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Well it’s something I think I want to do,” she looked slightly embarrassed. The flush in her cheeks played on the color of her eyes, which I just noticed were like fire opals, amber with flecks and swirls of greens, blues, oranges and violet.

“You’re not that interested in pursuing dragon riding?” I asked.

“Not really, but it was a useful class to add to the list,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Yeah I suppose so,” I said. “So you’re interested in writing, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s nice. I can be inventive with new spells that I can make my own. And it helps me improve my DIY potions as well at home.” We had an interesting short conversation about spell making and what she’d already learned and what she read in the textbook.

As we walked through the halls, Sylas came up behind and knocked the book Lisa was holding close out of her arms and onto the floor, where various students accidently kicked and stepped on it without care or acknowledgement.

“Hey, what gives?” I asked, but he was already too far away to do anything about it. Lisa went up and grabbed her book and brushed the dust and dirt from it.

“It’s ok, Alex,” she said. “Kinda used to it. Unintelligent humans fear what intimidates them, and they usually don’t act in a self-preservation kind of way.”

“Alright, as long as you’re sure,” I said. We happened to be next to her class and I to mine as we parted ways.

My next and last class of the day was astronomy. The teacher was more unusual than my other teachers and that was saying something. The classroom was on the far side of the school and had a small metal dome over it with a door to open for late night observation. The room itself was dark when we entered and the ceiling was dotted with imitation stars. We all worked ourselves around the dark classroom looking for seats.

“Welcome. Welcome,” a deep but friendly voice said in the dark. “Welcome to astronomy,” He flipped the lights on and we all covered our eyes at the sudden brightness. Once our eyes adjusted we got a clearer look at him. He was human but very tall, and thin but appeared to be in good shape. His hair was peppered with dark and gray and was conventionally good looking.

“This class will be different from your other classes,” he began. “Here we will look at the moon and other celestial bodies,” he started to pace around the room. “You will do your own observations of the cosmos and find new and wonderful things.” He was encouraging and charming and engaging. He was by far the most interesting teacher thus far. “If you stick with this class we will also be able to begin to track the convergence within the next couple years. It truly is something amazing to behold.”

The rest of the class had a similar feel. He went through equipment, some fast math as well as some quick terminology we will be learning. But all the time letting us know how important our observations were.

Once the bell rang it was a free time that was still during school. We were encouraged to explore the grounds and have a better time meeting people and take time making friends. I was able to eventually find both Sasha and Lisa. We all walked around admiring the various fauna around the school. After a few laps we found an area to sit in somewhat of a circle. We told Lisa about the bookstore we saw on the way to school this morning, about how creepy it was, about Crowley, how we got blinked out of the store, and showed her the strange book we received as well.

“Thisbook is weird,” Lisa said as she flipped through it. “I kinda like it. So you don’t know what any of it says?”

“No, we don’t,” Sasha said. “I’d have to ask some elders to see if they might know how to possibly read it or at the very least understand it a little.”

She continued to slowly flip through it. Taking in the fae script as well as the magical formulae, runes and circles. “Hey, I think I recognize this.” Lisa said.

“You do?” Sasha and I said together in surprise.

“Which thing?” I asked.

“Here, this circle,” she pointed out to a strange circle. It had many concentric rings around it and odd runes outside the perimeter that I’d never seen before and a star in the middle. “I just can’t remember exactly where it was that I saw it.” Lisa closed and handed the book back to me.

We all marveled at it as I threw a piece of scrap paper in it to bookmark the page. Didn’t want to do anything to damage anything in the book.

“Alex, you asked what it was I was here for,” Lisa said. “How about you and Sasha?”

Sasha sat and thought for a Moment. “Honestly, I kinda just followed what Alex wanted to do and went with it,” they said with their signature goofy smile. “But, if I had to put any kind of rationality behind it; I’d say it was because I really enjoy dragons. I love the magic they possess, and how that accompanies our own. How they interact with the world, wonder what their ancestors were like. Wonder if the old myths and legends of these massive mountain sized dragons were true? Like, did you know thousands of years ago, ancient humans believed that a feathered snake-like dragon was their god? Coocookan I think its name was. Or something like that.”

“That’s cool,” Lisa said, flatly. Though I’m sure she found it fascinating based on how intently she was listening. “And you, Alex?”

I thought for a Moment as well. “Well,” I started. “I wanna do what my Dad did. He was a dragon rider and he sorta died a hero. At least I feel he did.”

“I see,” Lisa said. “Was your Dad Maximilian Umbra, then? The one who threw that Warlock into the Void?”

“Yeah, that was him,” I said. I flushed a bit in embarrassment. I didn’t want a whole lot of attention about it. I mean, yes Dad died a hero and it’s not like I ever really knew him. But the fact that he went out doing what was right made me think it was worth it.

“Okay, but why?” She asked.

“Why, what?” I asked in return. I didn’t understand what she meant.

“Why do you want to die a hero? Shouldn’t you want to outlive your father and not follow his footsteps exactly?”

“Well…,” I honestly never put much thought into it. Why did I want to be a dragon rider? “I…I don’t know. All I know is I want to help people. I want to be a hero,”

“Maybe you should think about it,” Lisa said. “It’s just like Master Elowyn said, becoming a dragon rider isn’t just for becoming heroes and that you probably will never get a chance to be one.”

She was right. My heart sank. What was it that I wanted? Did I want to die a hero? Just blindly follow the father I never knew outside of stories from memories of him?

“So, Lisa, you said you wanted to go into spell writing?” Sasha asked, seeing the tension build and noticed my mind starting to derail.

“Yeah, I find it really interesting.” She went on to explain to Sasha what she told me about all the different practical applications it had.

“But we’re here at the Academy for actual dragon riding. Why not concentrate on that?” I asked again.

“I dunno,” she shrugged. “I’m just not into everything that goes into it I suppose. Why are you so hung up on this?”

I couldn’t understand why I was starting to get upset over it but Sasha, again, noticed and chimed in. “Hey, we all have our motivations for being here and they are all valid.” They said with a fanged smile. They moved themselves between us and wrapped their arms around each of us pulling us into them. “So some of us know what we want and some don’t? Who cares?” Sasha got up and started using dramatic poses as they spoke. “Just because we know doesn’t mean that’s what we will stick with. Ideas and ideals change as you grow. Like me for instance, when I was younger I wanted to be a Sidhe, a very old and ancient type of fae, when I grew up. But times change, and so do dreams.”

Perhaps there was something to that, I thought to myself. But I centered myself on being a hero, thinking what a hero was. How does one just give up on a lifelong dream to pursue something else completely? How does one not feel miserable that they aren’t following their initial dream?

“Can you just imagine? Me? A Sidhe? All high and mighty, haughty and proper?” They said as they acted out how royalty must have acted ages ago in their exaggerated way. Pretending to drink tea from a tiny teacup with their pinky finger extended as far as they could. We began to laugh at Sasha’s goofiness. By the way an elf’s laugh is something rarely heard as often as Lisa did. It was rich, genuine and strangely melodic.

“Hey, should we go back to that super cool bookstore we got kicked from this morning?” Sasha suggested. “Maybe Lisa can find some more interesting stuff like the book Crowley gave us?”

“Well, it sounds like you got completely kicked out,” Lisa said, getting up from sitting on the ground, brushing off the loose grass from her black clothes. “But, sure, let’s find out. Sounds interesting and he might have more stuff on spell writing.” She shrugged.

“Woo. Let’s go,” Sasha cheered and spun in place, twirling their skirt around in excitement. I got up and followed along with them, lagging behind a little lost in my own thought. My mind wandered and was stuck on if I should give up my dream. I’ve always wanted to be like Dad. I was enamored with the stories I was told of Dad’s past and the amazing things he did on his missions. That’s apparently how he met my Mom, while on one of his missions, or so she said. Though she never gave details no matter how much I pressed for them.

“Alex,” Sasha called out. “Are you coming?” I didn’t realize I had stopped walking. Lisa and Sasha happened to get further ahead.

“Yeah. I’m coming,” I shouted and jogged to catch up. Chasing this goal might be a pipe dream, and maybe I’ll have to cross that bridge when I get to it.

But that would have to wait. Not sure if we were ready for what we were about to see at Crowley’s Tomes, Oddities and Bookends.