Dragon Makers XXI

Rionwei awoke in the middle of the night, in a dead panic and a cold sweat. She was breathing heavily and for a moment didn’t know where she was. She sat up in bed and felt Kandra roll over beside her and remembered that she was safe in this place. The school, the Academy; that was all she knew it as. She looked around, out at the window then down at Kandra as the young dragon maker lay slumbering peacefully. Rionwei didn’t want to disturb Kandra’s rest, so she snuggled back down beneath the blankets with as little movement as possible. She clung to the blankets, shivering from a cold that seemed nonexistent, except for in her mind. The room was warm, she was sweating even, she could feel the heat radiating from her body, but still the blankets felt cold.
Rionwei lay still, trying not to shiver and trying to remain calm about the odd predicament she found herself in. She put her hands against her face. They were icy to the touch. The shock of feeling just how cold her hands were made the girl gasp a little and stick her hands at once under the warm blankets. She cast her mind about for warm places, the sunny garden of Bann’s castle, the astronomy tower on a sunny day. She knew few places besides these, having hardly been anywhere in the world besides.
The meditation was beginning to work though, she had stopped shivering anyway, but still felt uncharacteristically cold. The sun. She focused solely on the sun and all of its energy and power and light. Rionwei sighed as she felt warmth wash over her. She snuggled farther under the blankets with every intention of keeping that warm feeling with her as she drifted off to sleep again. But as soon as her mind began to float away from her control, her memory instantly skipped back to the day the assassins came, the day that Goiya nearly died and Cross all but did die. Her dreams had only to brush that memory ever so slightly, and little Rionwei was awake again, wide awake and freezing again.
It wasn’t an elemental or a magical problem she was having, it was merely the cold feeling of dread she had felt when the assassins had broken in, magnified tenfold by her fancy free dreams. To ease her worry, Rionwei clung to Kandra, who didn’t seem to notice the cold. Was it something only Rionwei felt? It must have been, for as the little girl snuggled closely next to Kandra, the older girl did not seem to feel her chilly touch, Kandra didn’t even seem bothered by Rionwei’s touch at all. She merely allowed Rionwei to cling to her like the scared child she was.
But when the morning came, Kandra awoke to find her arm had fallen asleep, kept at an odd angle all night by Rionwei’s grip around it. Kandra gently pried her arm out of the little girl’s embrace, and quietly snuck out of bed. Rionwei always slept later than Kandra, though the young master never knew why.
Kandra couldn’t let her mind rest on such matters as Rionwei’s sleeping patterns however, for today was the first test day for her classes. Each student would be put through the obstacle course, graded accordingly, and then given the rest of the class period off. Kandra wanted to get as many students graded today as possible, because she knew that they would have other final tests and examinations coming up in their other classes. Kandra had purposely scheduled her class to have their final examinations sooner than the majority of the other courses, because she did not want the students over stressed. Such a state would make for a poor performance. She had decided to randomly choose the students on the spot, feeling it also an important lessons that they learn to always be ready for anything at any given moment.
Kandra had warned her class about her plans for their final exam, she knew that they knew what to expect from her, though telling them almost defeated the purpose of a random selection. Still, no one could know when they would be called, not even her until a few seconds before she chose the student. She had been setting up the obstacle course for just over a week, making sure every detail was to her liking and specification. Little did she know just how random today was going to be.

“Goiya, wake up.” Cross whispered loudly into her master’s ear, his eyes snapping open at once in response.
“What is it Cross?” Goiya groaned as he sat up in his small bunk and stretched, shaking out his ragged head of hair.
“You wanted to watch Kandra give her students their final exam.” Cross reminded the old man, sitting calmly on the floor beside the bed and watching her master slowly awaken.
“They can have started this early?” Goiya said as he looked out the window. It was well past sunrise yes, but still early.
“I’m afraid they have. The class is as eager as she is to see what this test is comprised of.” Cross explained, backing up as Goiya swung his legs off the bed and rested his feet on the floor.
“Such insanity.” Goiya shook his head good naturedly, “I will never understand this generation.”
“Or any for that matter.” Cross agreed slyly, rising from her sitting position and walking over to sit beside the door, waiting patiently as Goiya slowly made his way about the room. He tied back his hair with hardly a fuss, splashed some cold water over his face, and changed his tunic.
“Now then, where can we go to watch the examinations without being spotten?” he asked as he searched for his shoe.
“The trees are always a welcome hiding spot.” Cross suggested, but Goiya shook his head silently, reaching under the bunk and feeling around for his elusive shoe.
“Not at my age they’re not.” he groaned, rising stiffly from the floor with one shoe in his hand.
“Then I suggest the astronomy tower.” Cross offered as an alternate location, “We won’t get the best view, but it does overlook the entire campus.”
“What about her classroom?” Goiya asked, turning to look at Cross hopefully. He didn’t want to walk the many flights of stairs that carried one up to the astronomy tower.
“It would be empty since the class is outside,” Cross nodded thoughtfully, “I suppose that could work.”
“Excellent!” Goiya laughed as he pulled on his other shoe, then walking over and joining Cross beside the door. He opened it, and carefully looked out into the hallway. The occupants of the servants’ quarters were all either asleep or at their early morning posts. Goiya didn’t serve his post until dinner, and would have plenty of time to see all of Kandra’s students put through their paces in her obstacle course.

“Ka, you’re up!” Kandra called, and the audience applauded as the boy rose from where he had been sitting in the grass and walked over to Kandra, who stood at the entrance to the obstacle course. The students couldn’t see what it looked like since Kandra had partitioned off an area for her students to sit in where they couldn’t see what they would be put through. They could hear their classmates make their way through the different obstacles, only able to wonder what lay waiting for themselves.
To the rest of the school however, the course could easily be seen. And by the time Kandra was halfway through her first class of the day, students that did not have exams at the time, or who were on break from a written exam, had wandered out to the courtyard to watch the test. Kandra didn’t mind, she actually encouraged the crowd to cheer for her students as they completed their tasks. It was great fun, and she had to admit that she had taught these children very well indeed, they were all running through the course wonderfully.
“Are you ready?” Kandra asked Ka quietly, once he had made his way up to the entrance.
“Yes.” Ka said, determined to believe that statement himself. He only seemed half convinced.
“Then by all means, step through the doorway.” Kandra moved the tapestry aside and Ka ducked beneath it, Kandra followed after him, a clipboard in hand and blank grading form for her to evaluate Ka’s performance while running the course.
Ka paused for a moment once he laid eyes on what first lay ahead of him. It was a deep trench, too wide to jump, it’s edges lay outside the boundaries that had been marked, and nothing around to air him over the water.
“You are being timed, Ka.” Kandra said, motioning to the ten minute glass that sat on a pedestal beside her. Ka nodded without comment, eyes darting back and forth, thinking quickly on how to cross this forged river. After a moment he knelt down and gathered a handful of earth in both of his hands, breathing over his balled fists before moving to the very edge of the trench.
He threw the dirt out in a straight line over the river, exhaling as he moved his arms out and away from his body, and before the dirt settled on the water, it became solid stone, forming a path that he walked over quickly. Just as he reached the other side, the structure crumbled. He glanced towards Kandra, who had walked around the trench and now stood out of bounds watching him. She raised her eyebrows in an expectant way, and Ka looked quickly away from her, taking the cue and refocusing on what lay ahead of him next.
It was a giant wall made of earth, too sheer to climb, too tall to leap over, and with edges once again out of bounds. This one didn’t take Ka so long to figure out, he looked back towards the trench, and took a wide stance directly between the wall and the water. With one hand he reached out towards the trench, drawing the power of the water up his arm, collecting and concentrating that power in the core of his body, and then sending it out his other arm. Slowly he raised his free arm until his fingertips pointed to the top of the earthen wall, and then with a bit of difficulty, as though there were a force resisting him, he moved his arm down. The earthen wall began to melt away, turning to mud as Ka forced the power of water into it. Soon enough there was a passage in the wall that he could easily walk through.
The audience cheered as Ka made his way through the course, and Kandra couldn’t stop smiling at the boy. To tell the truth, Ka had to be her favorite student. Though it didn’t show in the way she treated him in comparison to the other students, she really had to admit to admiring the boy for his cleverness.
The next obstacle was not as easy to find as the first two. Ka paused again once he made his way through the wall, staring at nothing but a blank stretch of the course. He took one step forward, and Kandra conjured a small tornado right before his eyes. Though the boy didn’t seem too worried about this one. He smirked and looked over to Kandra with an imploring look. His element of choice was wind, this was too easy for him.
Once again he took a strong stance and a deep breath, gathering the winds at his back and forcing them forward with a fierce motion. The twister was spinning from left to right, so Ka aimed his air current to the left of the small cyclone, blowing against it’s flow and disrupting the winds that had created it. The obstacle dissipated in only one minute.
“Well, now this will be interesting.” Kandra commented lightly as she scribbled something down on Ka’s grade sheet.
“What?” Ka couldn’t help but look over to her.
“Well, your task is to use all four elements against the course. You’ve one obstacle left, and it’s fire. And you’ve only one other element at your disposal; fire.” she smiled, looking down at the end of the course. There was a small, simple arch that represented the finish line, the only problem was that in front of it Kandra had placed Ergo. His scales were bright red and orange, and smoke poured from his nostrils.
If Ka had been nervous before, he was about to faint by now. He took slow steps towards Ergo, still unsure of what he should do to counter fire. Ergo paced in front of the finish line, snarling and snapping his jaws, playing the beast Kandra had told him to play.
“How do you fight fire with fire?” Ka asked himself, stopping still several yards from the dragon.
“You’ve little time left.” Kandra commented lightly, glancing back at the minute glass. It was almost empty.
“Fight fire with fire.” Ka repeated to himself, mind racing, “Fire...fight....” he froze, eyes wide with a realization, “Not fight, defend.” he smiled somewhat slyly, regaining his composure and walking straight up to Ergo without fear. Still several yards away from the finish line, and getting much too close for comfort, Ka recalled what his teacher had said about feeling the sun on him. Not just his face, but his entire body. Sunlight surrounded him, and it was this that he drew fire from.
He continued to advance, the fire shield only growing stronger as Ka continued to breath steadily and pull more air in from around him. Ergo hit the shield with his own fire breath, but to no avail, the dragon only succeeded in making Ka’s fire shield larger. The boy walked right past him, dissipating the flame just in time to step over the finish line.
The crowd roared. That had been the best use of fire they had seen all day. And Kandra could easily say the same thing about Ka’s entire run; one of the best she had seen so far. While he was soaking up the audience’s attention, Kandra walked over to him at a leisurely pace, a wide smile on her face. She loved teaching, and if she didn’t know that by the first day of class, she knew it now.