Dragon Tamer

Chapter 2

All week, my brothers pulled me aside one by one to give me their sage advice.

Casper woke me up before the dragons and took me up the Mount Caspian trail, the very mountain he was named after. I grumbled at both the obscene hour (the sun was barely peeking through the valley!) and for the hike itself. If I wanted to go anywhere outside the village, Elesor gave me a ride. Where was she today? Sleeping. Like a normal diurnal creature. 

Casper laughed on our way up the heavily trodden path. It was one of the trickier trails, winding left to right seemingly endlessly up the mountain; the stones were loose after the heavy rainfall yesterday. I focused more on keeping my hands cozy in my fluffy sheep coat and enjoying seeing some colourful patches of grass along the otherwise rocky path to stay awake rather than how much I preferred to fly to the top. He said it was character building. Well, by the time we got to the top, consider my character built and sweaty. 

 It was a clear sunny day today, so there was no mist to block the village huddled between mountains down below. The Walan River trickled down the middle, splitting the village in half, though no buildings were near the river's edge. It was shallow around this time of year, but give it four more months and it would be easily twice as wide and wild. 

Sighing in relief, I plopped down on a large boulder other people had also clearly used as a seat with remnants of cloth piled up at my feet, of which I'd dumped because they were gross and soggy from the rain the other night. 

Casper stretched his arms over his head lazily like a big jungle cat. He'd shucked out of his jacket like I had and was glistening with sweat. I'm sure a lot of ladies would kill to get the view I had right now. 

But, instead of looking at my brother, I turned my attention to the rest of the valley. Mount Caspian was by far not the tallest mountain; we couldn't see what was on the other side of the valley at the highest point, which we stood on. Mount Ankar was the best one to hike--more like climb--if you wanted to see the rolling plains of Wala in the East. 

The valley itself was lain with colourful bushes, some of which might dare to be called trees, they were so tall, and clumpy grass sprinkled with all kinds of wildflowers. When I was younger, I used to run through the wildflower fields, hopping over the small creek that branched from the Walan River. These days I didn't visit the fields often, opting to play with the dragons in the more rocky parts of the valley, so their claws and rough play wouldn't tear up the beautiful flowers.

Just on the other side of this mountain, nestled between two others, lay the dragons' den, where our tamed dragon colony nested. We were too high up for me to see any of them, but I could hear the younger ones baying and hissing, trying out the various noises they could make.

"Casper, you know I like to exercise as much as the next girl, but what are we doing up here?" 

He grinned broadly, slapping my back. "Da asked us to advise you on your Rite of Passage with Prince Camden. I'm sure you'll hear all about how our brothers did it, so I brought you here to talk about something else." He took on a more serious poise, crossing his arms and giving me that "I'm your big brother so you listen to me" look that only he could pull off. The others tried it, but Casper had the most practice in it, only Kaden came close to achieving the gravity of his words with his eyes. 

"This is your first time leaving the valley by yourself, first time going to the capital. Don't give me that look, I'm not giving you directions, I know you know how to get there. You'll be staying at the castle for the night and will have dinner with the Acker family. Now, you're no lady of the court, they know that, but they are the royal family; you'll have to show some decorum, and I feel like we've failed you there." He bit his lip and sat down beside me. "Without Mom, you haven't had a woman's influence, someone to teach you to be more. . ."