Tribulations of a Dragon

Yaysies! Won’t be long until I’m on my way home for the day. It’s time for a long weekend of no studying and plenty of reading! Holidays on a Monday were the best.

I’ve spent far too much time studying lately, and while I wasn’t a straight-A student, mostly because of those darn gym classes, I’m certainly no slouch, either.

Being on the shorter side, and not all that interested, I just didn’t do well with sports, so I may have had a tendency to oversleep. Now studying! Studying, I did very well; it could even describe it as my specialty!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t always about studying subjects I needed, much to my teachers’ chagrin.

Enough of that, who needs it when it’s long weekend time! I’m gonna get to hang out with my family and it’ll be great!

“Kira, pay attention, school isn’t over yet.” Ugh, he just had to remind me. Still a couple of hours left, one of which is gym, which I’ll easily get through by skipping it. Hah, take that, gym!

Unfortunately, gym wasn’t the last class of the day, I had chemistry as the final class. I liked chemistry well enough. So many exciting things could happen in that subject, none of which happened today.

I mostly just sit around waiting out the clock, twiddling my thumbs and doodling in my books. A few other students got too loud, so they got chewed out by the teacher, but other than that, it was a typical uneventful day.

I make my way to the parking lot, dodging the obvious risks, like overly excited jocks or being recruited into a Dungeons and Dragons session. It wouldn’t be awful to play some D&D, but it just takes so much time away from you. And EVERYONE is into it.

I have heard that the nerds and geeks used to get made fun of for playing it, now they get made fun of because of their character builds not being meta. Stuff sure does change.

Even so, I have successfully navigated through the treacherous plains of the parking lot and made it to the public street.

Time for me to grab a smoothie and head to the train station. There’s a particularly great store on my way to the train station, they always make fresh and delicious smoothies.

I went with a delicious banana blueberry smoothie because potassium is important, even if it makes you more attractive to mosquitoes.

“Hey Kira, you bitch. Why didn’t you wait for me?!” It suddenly became very clear that I underestimated the dangers of the sidewalk.

“Hi Clara, how’s stuff?” Nailed it, a classic diversion to have her do most of the talking. Now we just wait for the annoyed look to pass aaaand…

“Ugh, everything sucks! Honestly, how do they expect us to learn anything in this place? It’ll be so much better next year. Speaking of, which college will you be attending?” Oh no! The unthinkable happened! She took an interest in someone else!

“I think I might take a year off and kick back, just enjoy life a bit. We’ve got so many years left, right?”

“Right… That’s not much of a plan, are you sure that’s a good idea?” It probably wasn’t, but I felt like it was necessary anyway. I’ve been doing way too much studying lately, and I think it’s getting to me.

“Who knows, but I think I’ll stick to that plan and travel to the western lands.”

She gives me a look. She’s probably gonna say something like ‘That’s a bad idea, Kira, you know those lands aren’t as civilized as Immarderen.’ I can almost hear it.

“You’re thinking I’m gonna say something gross, aren’t you, Kira?” Whaaat? I’d never.

“Not at all, Clara!” Hah, a perfect defense.

“Right…”

The rest of the walk is mostly just idle chit-chat. Clara is very reliable for idle chit-chat and making time pass faster.

We’ve made it to the train station, so it’s time to get my train pass ready as Clara and I go our separate ways. I love train passes, a one-time fee, and you can ride the trains as much as you want; super convenient and a great deal.

Not a lot of folks on the train today, so that’s nice.

I do prefer some peace and quiet on my way home. It isn’t a problem most of the time, but some folks don’t really get that the “Speaker” button on their phones makes their conversations very public. And who needs to hear some old guy talking to his doctor about genital warts? That’s just gross.

Luckily, none of that happened today; in fact, not a lot of anything happened today. It has been a delightfully uneventful day.

Most folks have gotten off the train, so I’m practically alone now, that’s unusual.

I get up and walk around a bit. I don’t really find anyone, that is very unusual. It’s just a normal day, the train shouldn’t be packed, but it also shouldn’t be this deserted.

It’s starting to feel kinda odd, like a tingle saying “Hey, Kira. Something’s wrong here.”

It’s still a while until my stop, so I’ll just wait it out.

Huh, some folks at the next stop didn’t get on, what’s with that…

They just look at me as the train starts moving again, maybe I should’ve gotten off and just walked. Oh well, I didn’t, so creepy train day it is.

As unnerved as I suddenly find myself, the train pulls into the stop without incident, but I can’t shake that eerie feeling. The train has stopped at a medium-sized city, ish. My hometown. Not a thing is out of the ordinary as far as I can tell. We’ve got tall buildings, not-so-tall buildings, shops, homes, all the things you’d expect from a perfectly unremarkable city. I guess remarkable cities have that stuff too, but there’s no reason to get into that.

I get off at my stop and start walking at a brisk pace. Whatever this feeling means, I’m just gonna get home and sleep it off. A good rest mends many things.

I make it home without incident, so why do I still have this dang eerie feeling?

“Welcome home, Kira, how was your day?” Mom, reliable as always, is always interested in hearing about my day, and she’s just great. I tell her as much as I think is interesting, of course leaving out ditching gym, she doesn’t need to know that.

Looking my direction, she asks me, “Did you ditch gym again?”

Witch! How did she know?!

“Yeah sorry, I just don’t like it.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie, it’s okay. Not everything is for everyone. I’ll just talk to your teacher on Tuesday and we’ll get you an exemption. I don’t want you to feel bad about it.” Best mom ever, she always gets me.

I’m actually not that bad at sports, I just, I don’t know, I feel like something is wrong with who I am. Like all the parts of who I am are working correctly, but they aren’t the parts that are meant to fit together to be me, whatever that means.

I decide to just spend the rest of the day at home and help mom out with the chores and dinner.

As we’re setting the table, dad gets home. He’s great too, I feel quite lucky to have two incredible parents. I give him my best hug because he deserves it.

“Hey Ki, how was your day?” Even after a long day, he always has time to hear about mine. So I tell him, but of course I leave out the gym bit again. Unlike my mom, he doesn’t mention it, he just ruffles my hair. Gonna have to teach him to not do that; I spend enough time already dealing with tangles and whatnot.

We sit down and enjoy a pretty great dinner together. Dad talks about a new commission at work and mom talks about everything from events at the park to various sales. They both listen to each other with interest. As we finish up dinner, dad preps the leftovers while mom and I start doing the dishes. It’s a system that just works and I like it.

Once the dishes are sorted, mom and I go join dad in the living room. “Hey Ki, wanna play a board game? I’m feeling lucky today!” Most of my friends would be appalled at that, but honestly, it’s so much fun, and I win a lot, which certainly adds to the fun.

I decide on a simple game with dice tonight, not really in the mood for something complex.

The three of us spend a few hours playing, and it seems dad was indeed lucky, because I am not winning tonight. What’s weirder is that I can’t seem to get any decent rolls; I usually do pretty well with dice.

Having been beaten thoroughly in our game, we just sit and talk for a bit, enjoying each other's company.

It’s getting late, so I decide to head to bed. I tell them both goodnight, and we finish the evening with hugs.

I sleep well enough, but still end up pretty tired the next morning. I don't know what that’s about; normally I’m quite well rested.

I brace myself for the day and get the early morning chores done.

I have plans to go meet up with a few friends, but that eerie feeling is back and I feel like canceling, but I’ve been a bit cancelly lately, so I don’t think I should this time.

Mom and dad are both up, so hugs for days! I tell them about my plans for the day, and dad hands me a few credits. “Don’t go spending them in one place! Unless you want to, I’m not your boss.” He says, ending with a shrug. He’s a silly doofus, but I appreciate the attempt.

More hugs for the parental units as I head out to meet up with my friends.

We mostly just spend the day hanging out at our usual café, not doing much of anything. The old shopkeeper, one of the scalefolk, tends to shoo away young folks like us, but for some reason we’re allowed to stay and sometimes we even get free drinks. I ask my friends why they think that is, which apparently spurred Matthew into action, as he just goes and asks the shopkeeper. She immediately replies with “because nice kids, good for business with nice kids, good atmosphere, more customers, more sales.” That’ll do it. Trust a business owner to smell an opportunity.

Scalefolk are interesting, they’re basically big lizard people, but you’re not supposed to call them that, because lizards are animals and scalefolk used to be slave labor in Immarderen. So there are some unfortunate implications with the comparison. Dick move, humans.

Based on what we’re taught in school, the scalefolk were liberated by a great evil who was also responsible for the death of some king. But who knows, hard to verify ancient history.

Luckily, scalefolk like us a lot more now that we aren’t dicks about their autonomy. They’re still pretty rare though.

As a species, they’re just bipedal people with those knee ankle legs and beautiful scales all over.

Their country is in the Western Lands, and it’s called The Lands Beyond Death, which is remarkably ominous for such nice people. We don’t know much about their region, but Immarderen, our country, does trade with them.

Circling back to their scales, they’re so beautiful and come in all sorts of colors. The shopkeeper has pale yellow scales mostly and lighter colored belly scales. Must be cool to just have a natural armor, like, look at me, my claws are weapons and your weapons are useless, rawr!

It’s getting late, so we call it a day and start packing up our stuff. We sort out our bill and prepare to leave.

I tell the shopkeeper goodbye and wish for her to have a great week. She thanks us for our business and wave us off. We head out and say goodbye to each other as well. Most of the others live in the opposite direction, with the few who don’t living in other directions anyway, so I’ll be heading home alone. Not really a problem, since it’s a safe city and well-lit.

I walk at a brisk pace to get home, looking forward to dinner. I believe mom mentioned lasagna today, which is just great. You’d be nuts to not like lasagna.

Usually the walk home is uneventful, but this time it turns unusually eventful as I suddenly find myself dragged into an alley.

Some guy is holding onto me and covering my mouth, I try to scream, but not much happens. My struggles are in vain too.

“Shut up, bitch. Just let me do this and we can both go our merry ways happier!”

Fuck, I have to get out of this. How do I get out of this?! I continue to struggle as much as I can and manage to get a scream out, but I doubt anyone heard, or at least nobody is coming to help. I thought this was a safe city.

“I said shut up! Do you wanna get stabbed?!” We’re stabbing people now?! What the hell?

That certainly wasn’t the way to make me struggle less, and I suddenly feel a pinch in my abdomen. Appears he was serious about the stabbing. I can feel my blood trickling down my body. That bastard pulled out the knife. Don’t pull out the knife, guys, that’s a real easy way to bleed out, which is what I am currently doing.

Considering that this blood was just inside me, it’s remarkably cold. That’s sorta interesting.

“Now look what you made me do, bitch!” Me? This entire thing seems like it’s definitely not me doing it! I keep struggling, but I can feel myself getting weaker, I think he might have hit something important.

Oh, I think he let me go. My reason for suspecting as much would be the contact my face just made with the pavement. Hitting the pavement hurt a lot less than I feel like it should have, but I’m not exactly an authority on pavement-face-relationships.

I seem to be unable to get up. This sucks… I wouldn’t mind a rescue right about now, but I don’t think anybody be here in time.

What a shame, I was having a pretty good life.