The coming weeks passed much the same. Amjazel came down almost every morning, except for two days per week of Arxet’s choosing, to begin lessons. They ranged from reviewing the dragonology classes that Arxet had ignored at the academy (Tiamat had clearly passed along her poor scores in the class to Amjazel), to endurance training, long drawn out conversations to practice telepathy, and some of the basics of actual magic.
Rubis and Emren joined in on the lessons frequently to either act as a partner in conversation for telepathy practice or simply to help answer questions for Amjazel that Arxet seemed to have trouble understanding. Rubis had a knack for rephrasing things in ways the younger dragon could understand more readily surrounding ‘telepathic hygiene’ and much of the basic magic Arxet was learning. The new dragon was still something of an open book in conversation, but she had less slip ups with the others when an inside thought ran away from her.
Magic was coming slower, and she still hadn’t managed to breathe her first flame even after two whole weeks. Amjazel seemed especially concerned about Arxet’s development there. Apparently, it took most dragons only a few days to breathe fire for the first time. Arxet was behind in many respects, as much as Amjazel tried to hide it from her, but she progressed nicely once the work was put in everywhere else. She was going up the stairs just fine, completing short sprints, making it through the small obstacle course Rubis had set up for her, performing short glides from the rooftop, and had even learned to swim. The flame though? She hadn’t produced a single spark.
Emren seemed confident she’d figure it out eventually, but some of Amjazel and Rubis’s concern couldn’t help leaking across their mental connection during their attempts at flame training. It certainly wasn’t helping Arxet get anything done when she felt a portion of everyone’s anxiety. How did dragons live feeling a small piece of everyone else’s emotions all the time?
“The same way everyone else does.” Rubis informed Arxet, snapping her out of her train of thought in the middle of her training. “It’s not that different than reading people’s expressions once you’re used to it. Haven’t you ever felt happy when you saw someone smile? Or sad when you saw someone cry? Spotted a lie in someone’s face? It’s just a little more direct and specific is all, once you’re used to it. Now, again, from your flame heart, not the diaphragm.” The red dragon bent down and released a puff of fire over Arxet’s head.
Arxet flinched back from the heat. Dragons were supposed to be fire resistant but she didn’t relish the chance to test it. She’d been left alone with Rubis and Jiru for training today, apparently Emren and Amjazel had some sort of business at the ministry they needed to attend to. “Yeah, NOT the diaphragm, like every other fucking time I’ve tried.” She lowered herself down and clenched that special muscle in the bottom of her chest that Amjazel had helped her identify and tried to push. Once again, she released nothing but an embarrassing and painful wheeze. She’d been at this for hours without any change. It was beginning to feel like a humiliating waste of time.
“Come on, it looks like you’re doing it right. We just have to figure out what you’re missing. Let’s give it a few more goes!”
“No. I’m done. This is a waste of time.” She snarled and shook her head. It had been this over and over and over again for up to an hour a day for weeks. Inhale, then puff. Inhale, then puff. It came out the same every time. What the hell was the point even? If she was doing it right then it would be working!
“Arxet…” Rubis started before realizing it was a lost cause. “Want to just work on flight practice? I heard you’re almost producing lift, that gives you a few more days to figure out flight and beat my time for it.”
“You’re on.” Arxet growled with eagerness and ran for the steps up to the roof. Rubis caught fairly early on that Arxet was the competitive type, so she’d started goading the younger dragon into challenging her own times for development milestones. So far, Arxet had managed to figure out running sooner and had produced her first mage light earlier than Rubis did at her age (and wouldn’t let her forget it).
The little dragon scaled the steps in good time, prepared her flight stance, and launched herself off into the courtyard. Sure enough, Arxet did manage to almost gain a bit of altitude at the end of her glide with some well placed flaps, but ultimately sank down and made a soft landing on the claw-marked stone.
“Nice!” Rubis jumped to provide some tips and praise her on what she got right. “You’re using your tail to adjust your center of gravity in the air and straighten yourself out, that’s good! It’s a lot easier to balance when you use your whole body, just make sure to keep your head down. If you raise your head like that, you can get back heavy. Remember, unless you’re doing fancy maneuvering or landing you should be straight as an arrow.”
As Arxet scampered back around to the stairs for another run a titanic shadow passed over the sisters and circled back around to land in the center courtyard. Amjazel and Emren had finally made it back. Emren hopped down first and beamed at Arxet. “I saw that! You almost flew! Come on, come on! Try again!”
Arxet’s confidence shrank away at the two as their attention landed on her. Rubis was older, sure, but she felt more like a friend than an elder, like the other urchins that had taught her thievin’ as a wee ratling. Rubis had lived as a kid on the street for years before Amjazel chose her almost a hundred years ago, and she and Arxet saw eye to eye on plenty. She’d even asked Arxet about her pick pocketing techniques.
Amjazel and Emren approached her very differently, and she always felt the weight of expectations, even as the couple insisted they had none. The whole ‘we’re so proud of you’ act made her scales crawl every time.
“Well go on, dear! You were so close!” Amjazel beamed down at Arxet.
Even when she was more than halfway up the steps Amjazel towered over her. Deep down she knew that the two would never be the same size and it felt deeply wrong, almost intimidating. How could dragons deal with that? How could she ever feel equal as an adult? As a child, she always felt so intimidated by every adult being so much larger than her, more powerful than her. A memory flashed through her mind at the thought, the last time she ever saw the inside of her childhood home as her father dragged her from the manor and tossed her down the outside steps for the guards to haul away-
“Arxet!” She was snapped back from the memory as Amjazel’s alarm and horror rang through her mind. Everyone in the courtyard was staring at her with concern. “Is that- was that a memory? Oh Arxet I-”
“You weren’t supposed to see that!” She scrambled back up the steps away from her but slipped. She wasn’t quite good enough at moving with this body to go up stairs backwards yet. She nearly fell off the side before Amjazel put up a wing to catch her and push her back up.
“Arxet…” She seemed at a loss for words after seeing a small taste of the younger dragon’s childhood. “I knew they- that you- but to…”
“You. Weren’t. Supposed. To. See. That.” Arxet reiterated. “If I wanted to talk about it, I would, but I don’t.”
Emren slipped by her wife and up the stairs to check on the smaller dragon. “These aren’t the types of things you should just bottle up, Arxet. We’re here to listen if-”
“NO!” She snapped and backed up against the wall. She felt like a cornered rat. “I’m not telling you shit! It’s none of your business what my family did to me!”
“They’re not your family, dummy.” Rubis’s concerned face joined the lineup. “It’s pretty clear that you haven’t been a part of that family for a long time. You can have a new one, if you like. And we. Should. Not. Push. It.” She directed a glance at her mothers, who both seemed to realize what they’d done and backed off. “Come down, we can be done for today if you need.”
The dragon and catfolk both moved back some to give Arxet a bit of space. They seemed unsure about letting it go but at least recognized the panic in Arxet’s eyes from the encounter.
Arxet was still struggling to get a hold of herself. She hadn’t been that afraid in a long, long time. She knew it was possible for memories and thoughts to bridge mental gaps they weren’t meant to, but even in her wildest dreams she never anticipated something as personal as that being shown to the entire room. It felt violating. She wanted to rant and rave and blame the others, but deep down she knew that she needed more practice. The last thing she needed was for them to see- nope. Nope. Don’t go there, brain. Even thinking about that right now was a mistake.
Amjazel seemed to pick up on her trying to shove something even worse down and craned her neck down to bump her nose against Arxet’s shoulder. “Focus on me, Emren, Rubis, anything else. Trying not to think about it you’ll just bring it up for us to see instead. Deep breaths, bring something else to mind. A warm bed, a delicious meal, a beautiful sunset. Anything else. Good, good. Just relax.”
It took a few minutes for Arxet to fully steady her frayed nerves. Emren helped her back down the steps and went to bring her some food. Rubis stuck close to her while Amjazel slipped down into the tunnels, saying she needed to spruce up, whatever that meant for a dragon.
“Did we ever tell you what my story was, Arxet?” Rubis broke the silence after a few minutes.
“No. I just know that you lived on the streets for a bit like I did, and Emren was your birth mom.” She glanced over in the red dragon’s direction before returning to examining the scales on her front paws in detail.
“Mom, Emren I mean, she used to be involved in The Roots.” That got Arxet’s attention. Her head snapped up to focus on Rubis. The roots were the biggest criminal organization in Ti’Aval. She didn’t even know they were that old. Their operations were mysterious, and finding out too much usually meant you’d be found dead or trapped in service to them. She’d tried to join before, it would have been a much better life for her than being a common criminal, but they were never interested in her. She had just told herself she was better off solo.
“She wasn’t a full member, but she did a lot of work for them.” The older dragoness continued. “My dad took off before I was born and left mom with his gambling debt. The roots came knocking for it, and she had to find other ways to pay it off. So they put her to work. She’d worked in logistics for a huge trading company out of Narovir for years, they just told her to keep doing what she was doing, but help move some of their product along at the same time. She helped them cook books, steal supplies, move who knows what, even helped cover up a few things when they went wrong.“
“I barely saw her as a kid. A neighbor mostly took care of me til she passed when I was 7. The Roots kept Mom too busy to watch me, so I started getting involved with the street kids in the city. I had a home to go back to and food on the table, but no one with the time to give me direction or keep me company. I spent plenty of nights either running around those streets with other hooligans or crying myself to sleep, wishing Mom would come home. She rarely did.”
“Then, when I was 11 or 12 I want to say… well. Mom got caught. She never told me what they got her for, but I got the impression it was worse than what the Roots usually had her do. So Narovir sent her to a labor camp. Suddenly that food on the table and roof over my head was gone. She didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. One day, she just didn’t come home. I had no idea why. After all, she wasn’t going to tell her kid daughter that she was working with criminals. I was just left to my own devices without explanation. The landlord kicked me out after two months, and suddenly the friends I’d made on the street were all the family I had. I… was fully convinced that she’d just abandoned me the same way my father did. I was furious with her. I felt betrayed, worthless...”
This was certainly starting to sound familiar to Arxet. She knew Amjazel had a type for who she made into dragons, but this just made it so much more blatant.
“I stayed in that city for years and years. Got to be a pretty good pickpocket, learned the art of the scam. The Roots even started offering me odd jobs. I had no idea that I was following in my mother’s footsteps to some extent. I thought that I was spiting her by going down that path. I pushed my limits to get away with more and more, thinking I could really make a name for myself. But of course, eventually, I got caught.”
“When I was 16 or so, Amjazel showed up one day for some business with the mayor. I was an idiot and once again decided to bite off more than I could chew. I ran distraction with Amjazel’s old rider, Dytax, while my friend picked his pocket. He got away without Dytax noticing him, but he noticed his coin purse was missing before I could slip away and quickly put two and two together. I didn't make it far before Mom, Amjazel I mean, tracked me down and caught me. She couldn’t bring herself to turn me in when she got a good look at me, and, well. She had been considering taking a child that year, so… she had Dytax extend an offer, and I didn’t see much option but to accept.”
The story was sounding more and more familiar to Arxet. “So what happened to this Dytax guy? How’d Emren become her rider?”
“Oh, he retired eventually. He and mom were best friends, but he found someone he wanted to settle down with. We kept in contact until the magic from his bond wore off and he got old. He only actually passed two years ago. That does lead me into what comes next though. After ten years in the labor camp Mom got out, and she went looking for me. I was long gone, I’d been a dragon for a few years at that point, even changed my name-”
“Rubis isn’t your real name?” Arxet wasn’t too surprised, it did sound very… dragony. But she was curious.
“Of course it’s my real name, it just isn’t my original name. I used to be… Hm... I actually can’t remember anymore. Maybe Mom does. It doesn’t matter though. I renamed myself Rubis, since my scales shine like rubies. But the change did make it even more difficult for Emren to find me. She asked around, pulled a favor with an old Roots contact, and found my old gang. They told her I’d been pinched by a rider with a purple dragon and taken away. So she started by tracking down that rider and dragon. By that time Dytax had retired and Mom was between riders. Emren went through every prison anywhere near to where I’d been ‘pinched’ before she finally made her way to Fellrock and started tracking down Amjazel, as she’d finally uncovered her name. She was fully convinced I was dead and Amjazel was to blame, so she was out for blood.
She decided to join the riders to get closer to the dragon who’d tragically taken her daughter from her, trained hard, and used every trick and underhanded tactic she’d learned from her time with the Roots to make a name for herself and garner Amjazel’s attention. And when the choosing day came… Amjazel realized who she was: my birth mother, there to collect a debt that didn’t even need paying. Emren made quite a show of leveling a challenge at Amjazel, and Mom played along as a sort of test. I had no idea any of this was happening. Obviously Amjazel couldn’t have been killed, there were too many other riders watching, and Emren couldn’t have anticipated just how magically powerful her opponent was, not to mention her size. A lone mortal without magic has no hope of taking on a full grown dragon.”
“I can take it from here.” Emren reappeared to cut the story off and placed a few huge shanks of meat before the dragons. “I overheard, you got a few small details wrong, I was in that labor camp for 9 years. I spent a year on the run trying to get back to you before I got recaptured. And the name I gave you at birth was Aizi.”
“Aizi! That’s right. I knew it started with an ‘ay’ sound. But go ahead, I wasn’t there for the fight.” Rubis started tearing huge hunks of flesh from the shank.
“Right, so there I was.” The lynx sat down between the two dragons and crossed her legs. “It took me two more years after I got out to actually track down Amjazel. I was certain that ‘Aizi’ was dead, and I suppose I was just out to either get myself killed avenging her or prove some kind of point. I don’t think I ever actually expected to win. I think Am picked up on my death wish. She didn’t take the fight that seriously, taunted me about my motivations, played with me. I couldn’t land any kind of hit on her, she just danced around me and kept herself on top of me but always just out of reach, but never actually striking back. Just singeing me with small spouts of flame, batting at me like a cat with a mouse. It was infuriating. I knew she was just trying to get a rise out of me. In my mind, she was disrespecting the memory of my daughter, but she was really just trying to figure out my intentions with hers. Soon enough, she swatted me down, disarmed me, and asked me what I’d tell ‘Aizi’ if I could give her any message.” She leaned over and placed a hand on her daughter’s massive paw. “I told her that I’d say I’m sorry for leaving her behind, and that I love her.”
“And I told you to tell her yourself.” Amjazel’s head poked back out of the tunnel. “And that I’d found my new rider.” She stepped out into the sunlight and Arxet saw exactly what she meant by ‘spruce up’. Her horns, claws, wings, and spines had been decorated with golden rings, piercings, and chains hanging from the membrane of her wings, between her horns, and over the tips of her spines. “I went and pulled out my old jewelry basket.” She set a basket the size of a bed before the three of them. It was filled to the brim with thousands of individual precious accessories. “I thought it might be fun to decorate our scales together. Are you interested, Arxet? I have plenty in your size from when I and my children were younger.”
“Is- is that the whole story?” Arxet was fighting with herself on whether she wanted to dig into the bounty placed before her or hear the rest. She could never in a million years expect her birth mother to come that far looking for her. Not after how… the memory surfaced against her will. The month spent on the streets near the manor, her mother coming to her in secret to sneak her food and clothes. And then the end of that short, painful saga of her life. Her mother showing up with the manor guard to personally escort her to the edge of town and telling her to never come back. The begging and pleading to be allowed to stay or come back. It was winter. There were three feet of snow on the roads. She barely-
A wing draped over her and pulled her in tight. Amjazel had wrapped herself protectively around her daughter. She’d seen the memory, without a doubt. Arxet cursed herself for her carelessness. How could she let- a massive droplet of salty water splashed down over Arxet’s head. Amjazel was crying.“Arxet, stop. Don’t feel like you- like you have to hide your past from us. Please. I feel your pain, I know you only share a sliver with me. I can’t imagine what you’re truly feeling. Let me help. All of us just want to help.”
Arxet felt as if she were going to throw up. A hard pit had formed in her stomach. Her heart was pounding in her ears, her eyes stung. She tried to respond mentally but her emotions were in such a tangle she couldn’t even gather the concentration to respond. A sob escaped her mouth. Hearing that story from them was like salt in the wound. Everything seemed so unjust. She’d been living with this for so long, hiding it within her mind where no one could see it so she could pretend it wasn’t as bad as it was. Even the smallest glimpse of her past was enough to horrify and alarm this family. Their reactions only reminded her of the feelings she’d long since buried deep: betrayal and fear.
The tears started to escape despite her best efforts. Amjazel’s sadness for her was overflowing back into her, and her own old but freshly raw emotions mixed back into Amjazel until the both were bawling. Outside of the canopy of wings and beyond the all encompassing dome of safety that Amjazel had cast over her, Arxet could even hear Emren and Rubis joining in. She was so overwhelmed she couldn’t close herself back off anymore or form a coherent statement to them. All she could do was let everything out until nothing was left, and she was left in warmth, and safety.