The Odd Dragon Out: Reckoning of the Cinder-Born

The two boys sat quietly in the study for quite some time. The vacant seats all around them gave them the perfect environment they were yearning for right now.

Silence.

'I should have expected it. There was no way we weren't going to get caught,' Ginger thought begrudgingly, the verbal curse he was most familiar with fleeing from his mouth. 'At least we didn't get expelled.'

That's right.

If he were to take that dream he had seriously, then he hadn't lied when he had cried to the figures standing above the sand dunes that he hadn't abandoned them. He hadn't let them down yet.

If he wasn't expelled yet, then all this so far, wasn't for naught.

It was rather lucky for Ginger and Reiss that Madam Agathe had not tied their misconduct to Professor Alexandros. She didn't even seem to think they were out loitering because they wanted to!

While this was good for Ginger, he didn't feel any better about the matter with Professor Alexandros.

As much as he tried to comfort himself, he couldn't shake off a nasty feeling that clung to him.

A moment later, he turned to his side.

'I guess he has a strong reason for coming to this school too,' he thought.

Reiss was taking this experience very, very badly.

He was huddled against himself on a chair, his diminutive figure rocking back and forth without making the piece of furniture budge at all. His head hung low, sunken within the enclosure of his arms, not a trace of calm exuding from it.

Ginger felt guilty. Somehow, he felt that – even while not believing it – he was responsible for what happened tonight.

"Reiss..." he said. "What really happened? How did we get into the Professor's office?"

Reiss looked up and sniffled. He wasn't crying, but he looked to be nearing that point, a sight that struck Ginger with a hard chill. It still looked strange to see Reiss like this when it usually looked like nothing fazed him.

The short boy remained silent for a while.

"If you really don't remember what happened, then you must have been sleepwalking," he said with another sniffle.

"What?" Ginger said, frowning.

Sleepwalking?

"I was doing my bit of pre-sleep reading when you suddenly hopped out of bed, put on your shoes, and started running off somewhere. It was so sudden. You weren't going to the bathroom, so I followed you, curious to see where you were going. When I saw that you were leaving the dorm, I tried calling you, and when you didn't stop, I tried to knock you down. That was when you dragged me along."

When Reiss said he had tried to knock Ginger down, the plump boy had been sucked out of the morbid story, but he quickly reeled himself back in.

This was odd.

Really odd. He didn't remember any of this. Frankly, he couldn't believe it. Perhaps this was why Reiss had suddenly turned more reasonable after Ginger had insisted that he had no knowledge of everything that happened.

But still, there was no way all this could be true. Right?

Reiss continued.

"Maybe it's because I'm... well, shorter than the average dragon, but you moved fast... very fast, down the stairs. It barely took us five minutes to reach the third floor. And you were mumbling something too as we went."

Ginger's eyes shot up.

"Something like... what?" he quickly asked, getting a bad feeling.

It couldn't be, right?

"I don't know... you were telling someone named Ankore to stop or something?" Reiss said, unsure and confused.

But for Ginger, it was as though he had just been smitten by lightning. The realization hit him hard.

Ancor.

He looked down, his face dark.

'I was screaming Ancor's name in my dream. No way. So... it was all true?' he thought in horror.

Reiss was oblivious to his turmoil though, or perhaps he couldn't bring himself to care right now. He simply continued his narration.

"You took me into Professor Alexandros' office. He was asleep on his desk when we came in, and you... I don't know... I just remember hearing you taking a loud breath. You kept holding me until you approached the Professor, and when you released me, I rushed to close the door... and I missed what happened. There was a loud thud and then he fell out of his chair to the floor... then you just walked up to the fire... and stared at it."

Ginger kept staring at Reiss.

All that?

He did that?

The short boy stared at him too.

"I was too scared at first but... I figured that you might have a strange condition or something... If you really didn't remember...." he said.

"I don't remember any of it. And I've never sleepwalked in my life before!"

Reiss pressed his temples. A glow of interest was shining in his eyes, but he quickly subdued it.

"Right," he said and dropped from his chair. The fall lacked any trace of grace, unfortunately. Ginger thought the boy might have twisted his ankle. "I'm going to bed."

Soon, Ginger was left alone in the study. Just him and the many variations of thought that spun in his head.

***

The next day of the Stride began as darkly as possible for Ginger. Aside from the fact that he hadn't managed to sleep, fearing what he might do, he discovered that Reiss was avoiding him.

Despite the light of understanding the short boy had been carrying towards the latter half of their uncanny night, it seemed he could only tolerate so much of Ginger.

Well, what could Ginger say? It was to be expected for Reiss to avoid him, right? Not only was he responsible for getting him in trouble, but he had also exposed to the dwarfish dragon a weird part of himself that he had never known till now.

Sleepwalking?

And with such a series of aggressive actions.

He wouldn't be surprised if Reiss was freaked out.

He was too. He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

Worse yet, as Reiss had confirmed that Professor Alexandros was alive, and would probably wake up, Ginger thought up the dark possibility that perhaps he would investigate what happened to him.

Maybe he had some semblance of awareness while he was knocked out or asleep, or whatever happened to him.

Dear heavens... what if he knew?

Ginger may have escaped Madam Agathe investigating what they had been up to, but if the hunchbacked dragon figured it out...

Gulp.

However, as the plump dragonling thought about all this, his mind also raced to a point that had been gnawing at his subconscious.

'It can't be related to... THAT... can it?' Ginger thought with a shudder.

There was something that only Ancor knew about him. The Shaman was the one who diagnosed IT earlier in Ginger's life but without a hundred percent certainty.

Perhaps, it was, but... Ginger doubted. How did this event tie in with it?

There was no way, and he wouldn't expose that fact either.

In a few hours, Ginger found that he had underestimated how hard it was to deal with what happened to him without someone to talk to.

By the time he walked into class, he felt as though he was carrying a fat version of himself over his shoulders that loudly repeated yesterday's events, dream and all.

The fact that Professor Lyall came in that day with important notes and announcements about the Second Burning only made the running of the day way worse.

It was a delay of the inevitable.

Ginger was expecting Professor Lyall to spill it already, but she didn't.

"...and that is why Kardia, in additional to being called Kardia Aeras, can also be termed as Kardia Avir," Professor explained, her lips which were drawn into a taut V stretching lightly.

Ginger scribbled down half of what she said, completely missing that the latter term she said, adopted the language from the Wild.

"Now, just so you know, the other classes – First Red and First Silver – will be having their Burning sessions at the same time as ours next Stride. After that, you will find the days to be very eventful. Many Professors and students from different Out Courses will approach you, attempting to persuade you into joining their groups. While you can take as many Out Courses as you want, I strongly encourage that you limit yourself to one. Don't be too ambitious. With only two terms in the year, you will overburden yourself for no reason."

Out Courses were practical courses that depended most of all on what kind of Kardia you had.

In another world, they would be called clubs, though they were significantly more important.

Ginger looked hollowly at Professor Lyall. The excitement he had been feeling over the past four days about things like this had vanished. He barely even paid attention to much of what his Prime Instructor was saying. His ears were only open to a single piece of news he was waiting for.

And soon, it came.

"Reiss Adel and Ginger," the thickly woman called the twos' names with her lips drawn tauter than before, her eyes alternating between the positions they sat in. "I would like a word with you two in my office after this."

The look on Professor Lyall's face adequately promoted the nature of what she wanted to see Ginger and Reiss for.

The duo's classmates all turned to them, making it all the more harder to concentrate on everything Professor Lyall said next.

The whispers of several theories that followed about the two's misconduct did not cease until the class was over.

Ginger followed after Professor Lyall along with Reiss.

Before they left the class, they heard Fillys sneer, "Eager to get expelled already?" but neither of the two had strength enough to react.

Thankfully, Professor Lyall's office was also located on the fifth floor. It was the only other teacher's office in the Frost Mount's Tooth, a fact that made the silent, tense journey more bearable for the two 'convicted' dragonlings.

Soon, Reiss and Ginger were standing before their Prime Instructor's desk while she sat on a fitting chair on the other side.

Her angled lips seemed to fake a smile as she stared at them.

Professor Lyall spoke only after a sufficiently uncomfortable silence had made the atmosphere as unsettling as possible for the two students.

She looked at the plump dragonling.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Ginger," she said.