Flight School: Prey

Dragonfly

The night shivered with a release, breathing a sigh of the winter's breeze that swept the grounds. A quiet air hummed; it's lulling factor putting the music to sleep as predators began to retreat to their quarters after the evening ball.

This silence settled comfortably round the dragon and his student companion as they continued on their journey towards the palatial library in the East wing of the campus.

Io wasn't particularly curious about the library—not now perhaps, since there was something else in his cage that allowed little room for books and dragons. There was a spring of excitement, however, that laid in the prospect of the library and that was the simple beauty of its scene at night.

Io had never been to the library after curfew. As a matter of fact, he hadn't been anywhere at all in the late hours of the night. It was simply unthinkable; unfathomable, then. Now he wondered how things had come to change all of a sudden. Now.

Now—

He was no longer afraid.

"What strange little thoughts you have, bird-like youth!" Falrir mused with a smooth of his greyed beard, hobbling alongside the student. "Splendidly entertaining."

Taken aback, Io apologized for his folly. He hadn't realized that he had let his thoughts escape through his lips in the form of verbal words.

"Ah! Do away with apologies, young thing. Do away. Opinions are fascinating—they speak of the same things and yet sound so different on the tongue."

"You don't mind, sir?" Io asked incredulously, glad that they had finally arrived at the grand double doors that marked the entrance to the library.

The dragon laughed heartily; then began to cough after two seconds of joy. "Of," cough, "course not little light," wheeze, "I am rather accepting of all ideas and conventions. As long as they aren't too radical, or too destabilizing. Forgiveness and acceptance; yes, that is all we need."

"All?" Io questioned, looking up at the Lord. "Really sir?"

"Oh yes," He smiled as the boy held open the doors for him. "Forgiveness and acceptance; perhaps a little forgetfulness too. One can never remember too many things. Not at my age, I suppose—you do, I hope. Youth is perfectly troublesome."

Io laughed, following Falrir into the quiet air of the library. Their voices touched the stillness of it all, almost as if they were a drop of rainwater upon the still surface of a pond.

The ripples faded, and soon they were one with the silence—though strangely content.

"Where is your friend, sir?" The boy felt compelled to whisper. There was no one in the library; not the librarian; not a student; and perhaps not even a single soul.

He was wrong however, for there was a tiny existence that came to light.

Lord Falrir smiled, making his way deeper into the quiet place. Slowly.

The anticipation of a new companion shook the bars of Io's cage, rattling his senses.

His heart was loud in the hush of night.

They came upon a flight of wooden stairs—hidden behind a dark shelf by the corner of a section. It was winding; supported by the trunk of a tree that rose from floors beneath. Io marveled at the effort they had made to preserve the tree despite the architecture. It pleased him very much.