The Odd Dragon Out: Reckoning of the Cinder-Born

The sensation was so sudden.

The sack he felt holding the Kardia was tested, as he imagined the substance suddenly swell to almost four times what he had felt just now!

Ginger felt so sure that he was going to explode.

What was happening?!

His organs seemed to have moved back to accommodate his sack's growth, and a stinging burn cried from them, as the Kardia seemed to grow hotter with the volume, its temperature leaking through the thin membrane of the sack.

It was overwhelming.

So overwhelming, yet also short-lived.

Ginger felt a tight grip on his shoulder, and he was pulled out of the fire viciously. He was then dragged to the desk while everyone looked at him strangely.

'What... what...' Ginger was deathly pale.

The feeling of casually grinding against death just now faded, but he couldn't forget it. His new organ was still there, seeming to hold the same amount of Kardia it had before its frightening explosive growth just moments ago, but it was hard to tell. He felt like it was... swollen.

His other insides seemed alright though.

While he was still thinking of all this, Ginger heard Professor Mara speak again.

"Place your hands on that."

Ginger weakly looked to Professor Mara with his mouth slightly open to take in more air. He really needed it.

Judging by how the Professor had suddenly dragged him out of the fire, he had thought that perhaps the handsome fiend had seen what was going on, but now, he wasn't so sure.

Professor Mara never wore his emotions on his sleeve, much less his face.

Ginger took a deep breath and placed his hands on the Othoni-Kardia's glass casing. The smoke within it was settling on the bottom again, looking weak and lazy.

How would the smoke react?

How fast was the flow of his Kardia going to be?

What about the strength of his Kardia? Its volume?

'How much do I actually have? Didn't it suddenly... just now...' Ginger thought. He was half-expectant, with the other part of him urging him to run away and look for a better fire to jump into.

A moment passed. The smoke still settled.

Then another... and it moved.

The voices of the other students made Ginger feel even more conscious. It occurred to him only now, that the other First Years thought he might have been special because he was escorted by a Professor alone.

The bushy-browed girl and the thin boy looked curiously at the lamp, no doubt to see if Ginger truly was special.

If Ginger had it in him right now, he would have been feeling bad for these poor souls, but he didn't have the time nor the charity to worry about others.

The smoke turned a little darker but retained a weak shade. It barely rose the first time, and the second time it made an attempt – much like a hiccup – to inflate itself, it only ended up reaching half the way towards the marker below the halfway point.

Ginger was stunned.

That was all?

But he felt like he was about to turn into scrubbed-off-the-wall surprise from the sheer amount of Kardia that filled him up.

Murmurs rang around the room.

"Hmmm..." the old Professor hummed while scratching his chin. He looked quite a bit surprised. "Well, it isn't rare for some dragons to have such little Kardia. That is why we have Squires."

This seemed to be some cornerstore-priced encouragement that the old Professor scrounged up for Ginger. The old man behaved this way seemingly because of how rude Professor Mara had been, and this supposedly extended to Ginger justly.

At that moment, a small spark sputtered from the smoke in the Othoni-Kardia, and then it all fell to the bottom, becoming as weak as before.

"Oh. At least the strength of your Kardia isn't too bad, along with the speed of its flow."

Ginger slumped.

He heard snickers from the other First Years, and he bit his upper lip.

'Shunting Shamans...' he cursed, disappointed.

Professor Mara grabbed his hand.

"Thank you, Professor Gregory," he said before dragging Ginger, who didn't resist, out of the office.

Ginger just barely heard the old Professor let out a child-friendly curse and a, "It's Professor Alexandros!" before the door slammed shut behind him and Professor Mara.

What was to become of him now?

From the looks of it, Professor Mara had seemed 'eager' to see if he was something worth keeping at the school through whatever measure of collaboration he and Ira had. That was what Ginger thought at least.

He imagined that now, Professor Mara would take him back to Ira and break to him the bad news, despite the 'sacrifice' Ira had made...

"Listen up. You will now be taken to the dorms. I suggest that you keep a low profile, lest you want the other First Years who saw how little Kardia you have to pick on you. Let me tell you now, I don't do favorites, and I certainly don't have time to deal with a defect from the Wild," Professor Mara said.

Ginger looked up at him with surprise.

"What? I can still....learn here?" he said in a solemn tone.

Professor Mara's still face almost broke.

What foolishness.

"Draggard-Phoenix does not reject students who want to learn. All dragonlings who choose to come here to study are accepted despite the complications in their background. The only time you will be expelled is when you breach school rules. Excessively."

Ginger beamed.

So his hopes hadn't been lies after all?

As a boy who grew up without having gone to a school, as there were barely any in the Wild, Ginger didn't quite have a grasp on how they functioned. Given how much Ancor had shared about this subject, and his own experiences – which was nil – Ginger suspected Ancor had never gone to a school either.

Seeing the bright gleam on Ginger's face, Professor Mara scoffed.

His hand suddenly pulled on the scarf around the boy's neck faster than he could resist.

Ginger panicked.

His scales!

They were in full view!

Ancor had told him to keep them hidden, but now...

Luckily, there was no one near them at the moment, but still...

Professor Mara's gaze fixed upon Ginger's neck.

For the first time, his plastic face crumbled to show something other than stern coldness.

It was... it was...

Ginger didn't know a face could do that, or what it meant when a face took such a form.

Looking at his gingery, orange-ish scales, Professor Mara squinted.

He returned Ginger's scarf, and the boy quickly wrapped it around his neck again.

"Go back in there. You will be escorted to the dormitories soon. You can contact Ira if you need anything else. Your arrangement still stands," Professor Mara said before turning and walking away.

Ginger hadn't thought he'd have mixed feeling about seeing those ash-blonde locks disappearing from sight. On one hand, he was happy, and on the other...

'What does the color of my scales mean? Is it good or bad?' Ginger thought. He wished Professor Mara had said something or at least given a hint instead of wearing that odd face.

Ancor had said he didn't remember why dragons hid their scales, but it had to be important, right?

Ginger turned and pushed the door to the office again, which revealed the loud interactions within with startling intensity.

Eyes turned to Ginger again but with significantly less interest.

Ginger preferred it this way. As he heard some of the students talk about him, he stood a distance away.

The last of the First Years here were being tested now, and he simply watched silently... to his dismay.

One by one, the students that followed after him showed results that made their peers, and the hunchbacked Professor Alexandros pat them encouragingly, or shout "Goodness!"

It almost seemed like a ploy to spite Ginger, and the boy hated it.

'Am I that bad?'

On the bright side, he got to learn a lot more about the Othoni-Kardia, and what the effects it showed meant.

Apparently, the markers on the glass, the ones that indicated the volume of Kardia a dragon had – the halfway marker and the one just below it – meant above standard, and standard respectively.

Meeting the standard was expected, but being a little below it wasn't a bad thing, just like how being slightly above wasn't outstanding.

The above standard mark meant that a student's volume of Kardia exceeded the norm expected on awakening.

As for the texture and form of the contents within the Othoni-Kardia; making the smoke spark and turning it thicker, were varying degrees of Kardia strength and explosiveness.

How quickly the smoke responded to someone touching it was more or less easy to understand.

By the time the door to the office opened to reveal two students – a boy and a girl – one tall and the other short, and both in uniform, Ginger had wallowed in the fact that he had the worst results in this group long enough.

"Oh, I assume you are here to take away these diamonds in the rough?" the old Professor said before the two students had a chance to greet him.

A couple of nods and words later, Ginger found himself being led out of the office along with the others.

"Alright. Boys follow me, girls follow her," the tall boy said with a smile and marched away with the same grace as a trooper ant leading his soldiers.

Ginger and the other boys followed.

Altogether, there were five boys in this group including Ginger, which led him to wonder just how many boys there were among the First Years altogether, after all, as he had heard while they were still in the office, all the First Years had been split to make the Burning faster.

The group followed the male student to one of the thick pillars Ginger had entered with Professor Mara. It was then that the tall boy turned to them all.

"Alright. Hello, fellow dragons. My name is Fotini. I'm in my Third Year, and I'm a Monitor. I'll be giving you a rudimentary tour to the dormitories from here, and teaching you a few other things after that," he said as he clapped.

"Well, let's get to it before the Assembly tonight. Wouldn't want to be late for your first."