He sat quietly on his throne, his men standing nervously in a line directly in front of him. He narrowed his eyes. They were sweating through their suits.
He snorted. The men all jumped. Well. They had seemed all high and mighty on the train, but that had been against two measly teenagers - not even. Teenagers that beat the Jaxopose, a tiny voice in his head reminded him. He shook his head vigorously to get rid of it and dismissed the nagging feeling that the voice might be on to something.
He addressed his henchmen. "Come forward!" he barked at them. They took a small, terrified step forward. He fixed them with an intense glare. "Why have the Gondar filth not been eliminated?" he demanded, staring at each of them in turn. "Why have you not gotten rid of the family line?"
They stirred and mumbled, shuffling their feet back and forth. He chuckled at the sight of powerfully built men in handsome suits trembling like children under his very gaze.
"Answer me!" He thundered, his booming voice echoing around the bottomless cavern. They squirmed.
One brave servant put himself in danger and said, "Sir, we will immediately extinguish those two little pieces of garbage at the nearest opportunity possible."
He snarled at him, and he jumped back. "Fools!" He spat at them, keeping his voice low. "Your opportunity is now. Eliminate the dragon spawn before I eliminate you."
The men tripped over each other in their rush to exit the cavern. He watched them go, his cruel face curled into a smile. For the children didn't know that the leader of the Movopare was coming after them too.
___________________________________
Emma woke early that morning. She tried to prolong her sleep by keeping her eyes shut; she had been having a strange, wonderful dream where she had been taken away... And she was being taught to use magic.
She sighed. It had been such a wonderful dream. She smiled, thinking about the food chute and how her parents' favourite foods were on it.
Emma knew the matron would be coming in to wake her up soon, so she opened her eyes and began to get out of bed.
Then she realized this was not her bed. Her bed at the camp did not have crisp sheets that opened with an audible crack when she lifted the quilt up. Her bed did not have a sweet - smelling lavender eiderdown that was soft to the touch. Her bed did not have a pillow that moulded perfectly to the shape of her head.
Emma looked around the room and found her brother snoring in the next bed. He looked so peaceful while sleeping. She grinned, then noticed a door to her right. Her bathroom. Looking inside, she remembered its luxurious hot shower, the oval shaped jacuzzi and the wall high mirrors that slanted this way and that.
She shook her head and went back out to take her clothes out of the high-efficiency laundry machines to her immediate left. They were soft and warm as she retrieved them from the softly whirring silver contraptions.
Emma immensely enjoyed having her first hot shower, then putting on her crisp uniform and looking in the mirror. She noticed that the outfit was perfectly formatted to her size - it curved perfectly around her hips, the width was just right and the pants weren't too long for her to walk in. She frowned. How did the tailors here know her measurements? She continued looking in the mirror, and even as she watched the camouflage pants became stretchy leggings and her black shirt became more fitted and feminine. She crinkled her forehead and thought about the fact she had a magic mirror in her bathroom.
When she emerged, she heard the sound of the shower running in the room over and assumed her brother, too, had discovered the luxury. She dismissed it and made the beds, smoothing out the crinkles and fluffing the pillows.
When she had finished, her brother was still in the shower, so she went over to the food chute and ordered them some bacon and eggs. She had just finished when her brother emerged, his hair glistening with water.
Emma put her plate in the disposal chute and sat across from Noah. He looked at her as he chewed his bacon. "Do you think we should practice?"
"Practice?"
"In that training room. We might make a better impression of we know some of the things that they're teaching us."
Emma thought about it, and decided it couldn't hurt. "Well, you better finish your eggs fast, because," she checked her watch, "We're supposed to be in the corridor by 7:30, and it's 6:00." Noah nodded, his mouth stuffed with scrambled eggs.
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They entered the training room cautiously. Emma glanced towards the weapon range and decided, "We'd better start there."
Noah looked at her. "You're going to sword fight?" He chuckled a little.
Emma smirked. "I challenge you to a duel, good sir," she responded, mocking tipping a hat off.
Noah turned bright red. He answered, "You're on."
They headed to a separate room that housed all kinds of weaponry and chose their tools of destruction. Noah chose his regular gleaming sword, while Emma veered towards a knife that was engraved with a dragon filling a dark sky with flames.
"You're going to fight this," he gestured to the sword, "with that?" pointing at her knife. Emma shrugged, a devious smile on her face. She had a plan.
They exited the room and positioned themselves on the mat. Emma said, "Okay. So we're only allowed very minor injuries, like shallow cuts, the goal of the match is to disarm your partner."
Noah snorted. "Good luck, I beat Ravetin the first day here." Emma was a little surprised by that, but she still was confident her plan was sufficient to best her brother. "Okay, so those are the only rules - agreed?"
"Agreed."
"Then let's begin." They prowled in a circle around each other, waiting. Suddenly Noah leaped forward, his sword aimed directly underneath Emma's knife, trying to knock it out of her hands. But she jumped back, and flipped in the air to land behind him. She caught the hilt of his sword on the point of her dagger and pulled it away. She expected it to clatter onto the floor, but Noah had twisted his arm out of her grip.
She gritted her teeth. He was good, she gave him that. But strength sometimes had to subdue to strategy. She summoned her magic inside her body while dodging Noah's attempts to part her with her knife, making sure to apply what Damgatia had taught her.
Soon, Emma had created gaping holes all around the practice room. She knew she was nimble enough to leap between them, but her brother had always been a little clumsy. She danced around the holes, forcing her brother to walk narrow walkways and leap to make it to safety. He didn't know there was only clear water at the bottom of each hole.
When Noah was faced with a particularly small ridge, he looked behind him to go backwards, but Emma had made it disappear. He was stuck. "You know Emma, this really isn't fair."
She laughed. "You might have wanted to say that when we made the rules of the duel."
He clucked his tongue and looked around. There was no way out except the narrow ridge. Emma herself tiptoed across it, being careful not to fall. She supposed she could levitate out again, but she didn't know if she had the skills. Once she got to him, she tried the same maneuver as before, but since he wasn't able to move, it worked. The sword fell from his hand into a great abyss with a resounding splash.
He was angry. "Emma, that was a magic sword? Why the hell did you throw it away?"
"Calm down." She felt a tingling through her fingers and soon the sword lifted up and was in her brother's hand. He was mollified, but still irked that she had manipulated him.
She smiled and checked her watch. "It's 7:25 - we should probably go." Noah forgot about his defeat in the prospect of finding out why they were here.
Emma and Noah stepped out into the hallway.
___________________________________
Damgatia came to collect them, leading them through the complex to Ravetin's office. It looked like a comfortable place, with squishy chairs set up in the corners and a large, gleaming desk. Bent over it was Ravetin, in his towering form, his hands clasped together worriedly.
When his eyes reached them, they looked kind, but tired - too tired for someone in the prime of his life. He motioned towards the chairs, and with a sweep of his hand two cups of steaming tea sat on his desk.
Emma cupped her hands around it and took a tiny sip. It scalded her tongue but soothed her throat and warmed her insides, calming her nerves.
Yet she still did not know why she was here.
Ravetin took a long breath before he spoke. When he did, it was in a controlled, quiet voice. "A very long time ago, dragons roamed the earth, almost as common as humans themselves. Of course, they scorched farmer's fields and collected their prey, which did nothing to please the people, but it was their only way of finding food. One day, there was suddenly only one dragon left.
But this was not like other dragons, because this one was in love with a human, a woman by the name of Hope. She travelled a long way to a wizard, who gave her a dragon pendant necklace. Whenever she pressed her fingers to the pendant and said, "Transform," she would become a dragon.
While transformed, Hope became pregnant. The child she gave birth to was the first human-dragon hybrid, if we don't count Hope herself. Thus began the race of the Dragon Warriors, with only two representatives left. The Gondars."
Emma's tea was long gone, but the warm feeling that soothed her had remained. Now that too left her, leaving her body shivering and her mind reeling.
It sounded like a fantasy, like one of the storybooks that used to line her shelves. But the man in front of her was telling her she was living a fantasy, as though she was one of the characters in the stories. And she thought, if magic was real, and this place was real, why couldn't dragons be real too?
Beside her, Noah seemed dazed, as though the wind had been knocked out of him. It was a long time before she spoke, but Emma eventually said, "So where do we go from here?"
Ravetin smiled sadly. "Well, there are dark forces, derived from the people who's property the dragons destroyed. They are called the Movopare. You must fight them the rest of your life, if you want to survive."
Emma shrugged. It certainly seemed better than her old life, anyhow. "How do we start?" her brother asked. It was the first time he had spoked since he entered the room.
"With these." Ravetin handed Noah a watch with a dragon on the face of it, and Emma a necklace with a dragon pendant.
Immediately, Emma thought the dragon might turn out to be more of a pet than a piece of jewelry. It might have been her imagination, but it almost looked like it was waving at her.
___________________________________
After they exited the office Ravetin gave them the tour. There were five main buildings on the campus: Dorms, Administration, Recreation, Training and a mysterious palace of sorts that Emma was told belonged to the Great One.
They began with Administration, which was where Ravetin's office was located. It wasn't that interesting, mostly just a box of offices and meeting rooms and filing cabinets. When they reached the bottom level, a squat man with short red hair came rushing to greet them.
"Mr. Ravetin," the man said pompously, then shook the children's hands. He seemed like a nice enough man, but Emma saw something brewing behind his eyes that made her wary.
"That was Mr. Kwaad," explained Ravetin. "He takes care of all our filing and administrative needs." Emma decided to put Kwaad out of her mind for now.
Next they examined Training, which was a high rise building made of what looked like every type of brick in the world. It was mainly a large room filled with weapons, survival stations, practice mats, magic areas and instruction areas.
After leaving this building, they made it to recreation, an angular, low lying building with rooms everywhere. A pool, tennis court, ice rink, library and arcade were only a few attractions.
It also featured a cafeteria and kitchen. Emma saw it was buffet style, but it was unlike any buffet she had ever seen. This table was groaning under every type of food imaginable. Now she wanted to see the staff that produced paper thin roast beef and strawberry ice cream at the same time.
But there wasn't a staff. There was one person.
"Hello, Opa," Ravetin said to a grandmotherly woman bustling around, tossing pizza dough and flipping burgers at the same time. She grunted in response and finished her work before wiping her hands on her apron and coming over.
"These are our new recruits," Ravetin said, gesturing to the Gondars. Opa smiled for a spilt second, and then her face was back to her usual scowl. Emma tried to return the favour.
Opa said, "I'm very busy, but you may visit anytime you like. Unlike someone," she added, glaring at Ravetin. He shrugged. "Well, you'll have to wait to talk to them tomorrow, we still have the Great One to see."
"Off you go then," she shooed them off, but Emma caught her smiling as she sliced a tomato for the pizza.
___________________________________
Noah inclined his head towards Opa as they exited the kitchen. He had a strange feeling as he grabbed an apple; he felt something was off about the entire aura of the place, the whole Dragon Warrior Complex. It felt different, somehow, from when they had first come in, and he had practiced swordplay. He shook his head and followed Ravetin to the final building on the lot.
While the other buildings had struck Noah as either old and decrepit or contemporary and new, this building had a timeless feel around it that Noah could not quite place. It was as though he was moving seamlessly through time, as though the passage of it did not affect him.
Noah craned his neck and stood on his toes to see past the stained windows that ornamented the building. It was not a high - rise; rather, it was situated quite close to the ground. The white marble roof twisted up the way you might expect to see on the top of a vanilla ice cream, but without the innocence. This building had been through much - a certain wisdom and power emanated from it.
They entered.
A long hallway stretched out in front of them. It was carpeted in a rich purple, complimented by gold statues that stood at intervals along the floor. They were all flawlessly decorated dragons; there were dragons solemnly flying through the air, or twirling gleefully through the clouds, curled up silently, their great eyes shut, or roaring into flight, their bodies alive with anger.
Noah stared at these dragons for quite a while, Emma by his side, her eyes also fixed on them. Ravetin let them admire; he seemed to appreciate the appeal. At last, he spoke. "Come along, dusk is slowly falling and we need to be back at the dorms before dark."
The Gondars tore their eyes away from the captivating statues and walked solemnly up to a great set of double doors that brought the hallway to it's end. A large brass knocker ornamented the centre. Ravetin clutched and knocked thrice.
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Boom, boom, boom. The sound echoed throughout the room, doubling Noah's nerves. He had the feeling that the person behind the door was not someone he would like to cross.
A deep voice that sounded ancient but powerful answered. "Come in."
Ravetin relinquished his grasp on the knocker and opened the door.
Noah peered around, wanting to take in his surroundings but not desiring to appear rude. He tilted his head slightly to the left, and saw a circular wall that curved all around the room; to his left, it was filled with books, and to his right it housed wooden shelves that held many objects, each more curious than the last.
There was a dilapidated case of daggers, a rusty old oil can, a gleaming ring, and a small porcelain figurine that seemed to show a man and a dragon fighting viciously. These were all the things that Noah could count before the person in the room turned his eyes onto Noah.
It was like being struck by a laser light; Noah felt almost like the man could see inside of him. If he tried to hide something, the man would know what it was. Noah looked up into his eyes and saw they were an electrifying blue, like his sister's.
The man wore a simple midnight-blue robe that was covered in tiny flashing diamonds, so it looked like he was wearing the stars. He had a mid-length beard that was pearly white, and a rather crooked hat on top of his head. He looked down on them kindly.
"Ravetin," he said, and when he spoke Noah could feel his voice pushing in on him from all directions. "I see you have brought them?"
"Yes sir. They have trained very briefly, but this is only their second day. Their training will resume again tomorrow."
The man smiled. "That is good. Listen, Ravetin, can you meet me tomorrow afternoon? There are things we must discuss."
Ravetin looked concerned, but he bowed his head slightly and agreed. "Of course, sir. Would you like to speak to these two now, or tomorrow as well?"
"Tomorrow, I think. It is already getting dark, and we will all have fresher minds. Bring them along when you come." He looked down at Noah and Emma. "I look forward to speaking with you."
"Thank you sir," they said together, and bowed their heads awkwardly like Ravetin had done. They turned to exit.
Noah smiled at the man as they exited, and the man smiled back.
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When Ravetin had dropped them off at their door, Emma turned to Noah and asked, "So what do you think?"
Noah was sluggish; his eyelids were getting heavier and his muscles lazier. He said, "Emma, I have a lot of things to talk to you about, but I have to," he yawned, "go to sleep."
As Emma yawned too, she agreed, "I suppose. Goodnight, Noah."
"Goodnight Emma."
A/N
Finally finished!
~ Ashley 💥