Dragon's Wings

Chapter 14

Shiori Olaga Matautia was woken up by the loud ringing of her alarm clock. Opening her eyes, she waited for the loud crash that heralded her roommate's departure from their bed and entrance into the kitchen. Despite living together for quite some time without doing any massive layout changes, Shiori's roommate constantly knocked over a chair on the way to the kitchen. After a minute, with no crash occurring, Shiori suddenly remembered that her roommate wasn't home currently, and likely wouldn't be for some time considering they were out on a mission.

The alarm went off again.

Once the alarm clock had been turned off properly, Shiori got up for the day. Her morning routine begun with brushing her hair and going to the bathroom, before getting changed and double-checking her travel bag. She's been home for little under a week now, so the bag didn't need to be changed or repacked or anything. With her morning routine completed, she considered the kitchen and debated whether it was worth going through the fridge to find something to eat.

Most of the breakfast foods kept in the small apartment were non-perishable, due to the nature of their jobs. As a result, most fresh food wasn't kept for very long and grocery shopping was left for last minute. All in all, this means that without looking through the fridge, Shiori was very much aware that there was no bread or milk in the apartment, which ensured she couldn't have cereal or toast for breakfast.

Rather than opening the fridge, she stuck her head in the pantry and gives it a cursory glance. Nothing stood out to her for breakfast. "Maybe I'll check what the communal kitchen is serving this morning," Shiori said to herself. The communal kitchen always had food, but also served meals three times a day for a few hours. It made everyone's lives much easier and helped the whole program run smoother.

Decision made, Shiori exited the apartment, waving to her neighbour, and headed out into the courtyard. Despite the hour, a lot of people were already up and about. But it didn't look any busier than normal, which meant that there wasn't any emergency declared overnight. Not that Shiori had expected such a thing to happen—she didn't want it to happen either, but it would make her life more exciting and give her something to do. With any luck, though, she'll get an assignment sometime today.

The communal kitchen was serving porridge, bacon and eggs, and waffles as the cooked foods for that morning. The latter was quite a surprise, but the rest were as Shiori had expected. Naturally, there are the non-cooked foods as well, but Shiori steered clear of them. There was a reason the apartment didn't have any cereal or toast currently, beyond her laziness. After grabbing herself a plate of bacon and eggs, Shiori took a seat next to someone she knew more by face than anything else.

"You have an assignment," she was told just as she takes her first bite.

Shiori pulled a face in response and chewed her mouthful of food before swallowing to speak. "Do I need to immediately report?"

Shyama shook his head. "No. I just thought you'd like to know. You've been looking bored as anything for a few days now."

"I have been back for a few days," Shiori replied. "Everyone gets bored after that when there's nothing to do. I'm not on leave either, so it's not like I can head off for a few weeks. The dorms are home, yeah, but they're not where I want to stay for longer than a week, especially when you're alone."

"Roommate's out?"

"Yep."

"That sucks," Shyama said between bites of his own meal. "It gets lonely as without them. How's Kensho?"

Shiori smiled at the thought of Kensho, her beautiful brown mare. "She's good. However, she's been seeming bored recently apparently and trying to get out when others lead their horses out of the paddock."