Talon's of Life & Death

4

We were in the right place.

"Where is everyone?" I murmur, glancing at the profound emptiness of the grounds we now stood on.

"Probably training," Nikos says in a quick response. Manoeuvring his bow on his back, he slides off of Roan with a graceful leap, exposing his leaned figure under the warm afternoon sun. Could those suits get any tighter?

I dryly swallow before following him, much better done than the first time. "Thank you Roan!" I turn to meet his large green eyes, the Dragon had been carrying me for a long time. Even with his gigantic build and my petite body, he probably didn't like carrying an extra person on his back for hours on end.

Nikos raises an eyebrow in surprise as Roan blinks and bows his head in response.

"I can't believe we're the first back!" Flora calls, walking towards us as she removes her gloves. On instinct, she begins to flex her fingers as Zola tends to an itch at the back of her wing.

"Zola's the fastest."

"And Roan's the slowest."

I let them bicker among themselves and take a long look at the mansion stood before me. I was supposed to live here? I suppose it beats living in a shack in the middle of the woods. I'd give anything to sketch it, or even Nikos and Flora. Not to mention the Dragons. Perhaps I could do it from memory. I might not see them again.

"We should head inside." Nikos says, he was beginning to remove my bags from the saddle. I move to take it from him, but instead he moves it away from my reach and offers me a timid smile. "You must be hungry?" He questions before looking back at Roan and heading for the mansion.

"That's a Nikos thing," Flora says as she stands beside me. "Always the gentleman."

"I'm not used to gentlemen."

"Trust me... Nikos is the only gentleman around here." She gives me a wide eyed look before making her way after him. I'm quick to follow, taking one last backwards glance at Roan and Zola.

"What about their saddles?"

Flora doesn't answer me until we're way inside the house, the door shut closed behind me. "Dragons are trained to wear them daily. Every saddle is handmade for that specific Dragon, welded to become a part of them, rather than an object strapped to them. They can sleep with them on, and their made in such a way that they can remove their own saddles if they want to. Or we can obviously do it for them." I raise my eyebrows in apprehension at her words, locking the information tight inside my mind.

"I remember the day Roan got his first saddle built." Nikos appears out of nowhere, my bags and his weapon no longer visible.

"Where's my...?"

"In your room." He blinks before smiling.

"Room," I mutter, staring around me and the giant foyer we were now stood in.

"Theory classes are taught in the Academy, a rather annoying ten minute walk but we do have to act like we're students at this place. Practical classes are obviously taught in the arena or in the skies." Flora says, her unusual eye colour glittering at the last part.

"When do classes start?"

"As soon as everyone's back from doing the tests." Nikos says before leaning his head to follow him as he moves into the next room. The room opens into a large library. The shelves spiral all the way to the ceiling, it was dark but a comforting scene, with numerous amounts of desks, sofas, chairs and stationary. Everything you could need was in this library. "As you could probably guess, this is the common area, we study, hang out in this room."