With a great creak and rumble, the massive behemoth gates slowly open. I'm faced with a line of Wyris atop wyverns. The doors creak to a stop, completely open. All the Wyris slide off their mounts in unison and begin to clap.
One of them breaks away from the line and approaches me. She looked familiar . . . she was the Wyri who had ridden the lightning wyvern when the Initiation first began! She stops right in front of me.
"Good job," she says, a hint of what looked like a smile on her lips. When she spoke next, all the Wyris were speaking with her.
"Congratulations, R'zya. You have completed Part One of your Initiation."
Suddenly, I'm distracted by high-pitched female screams that pierced my ears.
"R'ZYA!"
I whirl around, just in time to catch a glimpse of my attacker before they charged into me. I was drawing breath to whistle Moonlight, when I realize I'm not being attacked. I'm being hugged!
The person who had charged me releases me and steps back. I recognize that slim build, sleek black hair, blood-red eyes, and coppery skin . . .
"Ka'ni?" I ask, my voice warped with exhaustion and surprise.
"I can't believe you're here!"
My old childhood friend, who's family had moved to a different colony a few years ago, was right here! We had both passed the first part of the Initiation!
"No way! The odds of us both . . . Oh, I missed you so much!" I hug her back.
"When you're quite done with the touching reunion, Ka'ni, perhaps you could do your job and show R'zya here the base." An arrogant male voice interrupts us.
I turn around, a growl in my throat. A tall, slender boy who looks about thirteen, my age, faces me. He has a sharp, pointy face, bright blue eyes, and shiny black hair.
"Ugh, whatever Lnar. C'mon R'zya!" Ka'ni grabs my hand and pulls me along.
"Who was that?" I ask once we're out of earshot.
"Oh, he's just Lnar. He was in my colony, and he's one of us, but the Wyris use him to keep us in line."
"He's kinda hot." I breathe.
"R'zya! You better be joking!" Ka'ni slaps me on the back of the head.
I grin. "I'm joking, I'm joking!" Mostly joking.
"Wait, did you bring your dinos in here?"
"Oh, I have Snow on my shoulder here, and Moonlight followed me in."
"Oh what cute names!" Ka'ni emits a strange squee noise and flails her arms. She's just as I remember.
"Anyways, lets take 'em to the stables!" Ka'ni races ahead of me until she reaches another behemoth gate. Walls four-high stretch on either side of the gate.
She leads me in, showing me how it all works.
"See, we have all these sectioned off areas. When you get here, someone puts your name on a sign and that area is yours!" She points at a sign that's beside an empty pen. "That's yours!"
I mount Moonlight and lead her inside. "May you regain lost sleep." I murmur, rubbing the top of her head.
Then I remember Ka'ni's love of animals. "Ka'ni, can I see your pen?"
She grins and leads me to one of the fuller pens.
Two terror birds and a jerboa are snuggled up inside. Ka'ni clicks her tongue. "Mira! What are you doing in there?" She extends her arm and the jerboa hopped on.
She points to the pure white terror bird with the light gray beak and legs. "That's Arctic, and-" here she gestures to the flame-orange one with light tan beak and legs, "That's Flash, and this is Mira, obviously." The tan-striped, brown jerboa chirps at me by way of greeting.
Now she leans down and whispers in my ear. "You're not supposed to tame anything more once you get here, but I want to tame a thorny dragon. Plus, if you don't get caught, they let you keep it!"
I grin. "Sounds fun to me!"
"That's what I said!"
I can't hold back another smile. Ka'ni is just as funny, energetic, and enthusiastic, and perhaps even reckless, as I remembered.
"Anyways, I'll show you to the barracks! Well . . ." She trails off, a thoughtful look smoothing her face. "Technically it's the dorms until we get wyverns and become full Wyris. Then we move to the barracks."
I frown. "Why? Sounds like extra confusion for no reason."
"Honestly, that might be why they do it. This place was set up to be annoyingly challenging and inefficient on purpose, to test your endurance and willpower."
"Sounds smart." I shrug.
"Yeah, but obnoxious."
"Touché!" I laughed. Ka'ni grins and punches my shoulder playfully.
She leads me over to a wide, squat building made of adobe. Garish graffiti slathers the tan walls, in colors of black, red, orange, dark green, dark blue, and sky blue.
"See, there are some . . . gangs here. Lnar acts like a perfect little doedicurus around the Wyris, but he's actually the founder of the Blue Moon, they're the dark blue.
"We also have the Wyvern Shadows, they're the black. Red is Bloodletters, orange is Flamers, dark green is Nature's Revenge, and sky blue is Skyspears."
"Do the Wyris mind?"
"No, they don't really care. If they catch a gang adding to the graffiti, they'll 'arrest' those members, take 'em in for questioning - they'll ask who the other members of the gang are and whatnot - and have them erase all of their gang signs all over base."
"What if they don't catch them, like, they just wake up and there's more gang signs? And-"
"Well," Ka'ni breaks in, "that's what's super weird about this place. The Wyris don't really care what you do if you do it without getting caught. How cool is that? Anyways, yeah, what were you gonna say?"
"Yeah, that is kinda weird." I remark. "So what was I saying? Ah yes, what about the other gang signs?"
"No, they only make you erase the ones for your gang. It's not like anywhere you've been before, R'zya." Ka'ni grabs me by the shoulders as I turned to face her, stopping me in my tracks. "This place . . . it's not like a normal school or training camp or anything. It takes some getting used to, and you need to be careful, understand?"
I grin. "If you of all people are telling me to be careful, then I really need to be careful!"
Ka'ni puts her hand to her chest in mock horror. "I cannot believe that you would say such things, R'zya!" She pantomimes wiping a tear from her eye. "I would never do such things as you're implying!"
I throw my head back and laugh. "Yeah right!"
Ka'ni smiles and shakes her head affectionately. "Anyways, it's getting dark. C'mon, you can sleep in my bunk."
The sky is darkening and losing color. The hot air hangs thick around us, like a pelt blanket, but it's already cooling down.
"Yeah . . ." I say.
Ka'ni flings open the rough-hewn door. "Sup, guys!"
Inside, there are several people our age. They all look up at Ka'ni, though their gaze immediately flicks to me and stays there.
"This is R'zya, she got here." Ka'ni explains, introducing me.
Some of the people murmur "Silkie" in a scornful tone and some of them smile encouragingly at me.
"Silkie means a new, uneducated person, by the way," Ka'ni informs me. "The word 'silkie' refers to their skin not being roughened by the sand."
"Thanks for the dictionary definition, Ka'ni." one of them says dryly. He stands up heavily, the bunk-bed creaking as he heaves himself out of it. His cloth armor is black with bloodred highlights.
"I'm Gtir, silkie. I'm gonna be nice today and give you a warning. I founded the Bloodletters and you best not storm with us, m'kay?" He tilts his head at me, his jaw jutting in what I assume is supposed to be a threatening pose.
"I wasn't planning on storming with you or your gang." I say evenly. Then I calmly step to the side and walk past him.
"Hold up, silkie!" someone else calls. Soon, I'm completely surrounded. Cloth armor of all different colors overwhelms me.
"Welcome to the training!" a girl with white hair and green eyes says.
"Good luck!" says a tall boy with dark skin and red eyes.
"Hope you get a wyvern!"
"Don't storm with me, or my gang, got it?"
The voices envelope me until I can't think over the tumult.
"Hey, Nature's Revenge is always recruiting, you wanna join?"
"No one wants to join your stupid green gang, Kjar."
"What'd you say, you punk?"
"You heard me! Nature's Revenge is crap, dude!"
"Oh, you did not! You little Flamer drought!"
"Storm you, dude! You're a drought!"
Fighting soon breaks out. The two boys, a tall, brown-haired, green-eyed boy with cloth armor in all shades of green, and a pale, black-haired boy with orange eyes and orange armor, wrestle on the ground.
Everyone instantly forms a ring around them. "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
I notice Lnar enter the room, his nose wrinkling with disgust as he watches the fight. He pokes his head back out the door, only to jolt it back in with fear striking his face.
"Wyri incoming!" he howls. Immediately, in a great scrambling and clattering of feet, the room clears. The bright spark in everyone's eye vanishes, replaced by a dull, bored glaze. The room goes from tense and joyous to boring and mundane in seconds.
"What exactly is going on in here?" A female Wyri with sharp icy-blue eyes pokes her head in.
"Nothing." All the Wyris-in-training drone in unison.
"Good!" She disappears behind the door and slams it shut. There's an awkward moment as everyone lets their breath out.
Ka'ni leaps up first. "C'mon R'zya! Lemme show you our bunk!"
I follow her up the spiral staircase to the second floor. She crosses the tiles confidently, her feet clomping down as she strides to the other side of the room with her head raised. When she reaches the window where the last of the sun is beaming through, she stops and faces me. There's a bunk bed on either side of the window.
"Guess which one is mine." She ordered, raising her nose in a mock-prissy manner.
I grinned. One of the bunk beds is flat and clean and gray. The other has purple bedclothes on the bottom bunk, and random things strewn about everywhere, like tufts of pelt and preserved argentavis talons.
"Hmm, it's a real hard guess . . ." I say, sarcasm dripping from my words. "I'm gonna have to go with . . . purple."
"Correct! You get top bunk!"
I smile and hop onto my bunk to flop down. The sun hadn't even set but I'm exhausted. I just closed my eyes when a thought strikes.
I lean over the edge to peer at Ka'ni. "Aren't we supposed to have an Initiation Supper, or something?"
Ka'ni raises her eyebrows at me. "We have a 'congrats-you-got-here-without-dying' supper, but that's after everyone arrives. So not for a while. And the actual Initiation Feast, not supper, is once we're truly Initiated, with wyverns and everything."
"Ah. Got it." I yawn and roll back over. My pillow seems to grow softer every time I put my head on it. I'm so tired . . .
"Hey R'zya!"
I jolt out of my almost-asleep stupor. "Muh?"
Ka'ni rolls out of her bed and looks up at me. "The dinner bell's ringin'. You want food?"
My stomach growls. I haven't had real, good food, since I left the colony, which feels like years ago. Sleep, food, sleep, food. Hmmm . . . ugh, food.
I slide down the ladder and follow Ka'ni out of the dorms. She leads me through the dusty maze of sand and chipped adobe buildings to a cluster of benches laid out in the open. She sits down and I sat next to her, wary.
A male Wyri with pale skin and bright yellow eyes - I'm gonna be honest, I did rather like his looks - slides hunks of grilled meat across the table to us as he walks by. Another Wyri, a chocolate-brown female with hair as white as Snow's, dropped a few rockarrots and longrass in front of us. I glanced around, still wary, then dug in.
After the fullest meal in ages, I yawn, stretch, and ask Ka'ni to lead me back to the dorms.
I slip into bed as the desert rapidly darkens. "Night, Ka'ni."
"Night, R'zya."
Then, with a full stomach, assured that I'm safe, and in a warm, soft bed, I fall into a deep sleep.