59. Aurora
AURORA
I tried to push my worries to the back of my head as I got ready to mount L’eesha’s saddle for the very first time, later that day.
Ryse had already been over every bit of tack and the saddle itself with a fine tooth comb.
He’d examined the girths that strapped around L’eesha’s chest and made sure the stirrups were the right length for my short legs.
He’d even added some extra straps that would wind around my thighs to keep me in the saddle.
At last, L’eesha got restive and sent me a plaintive thought message asking if Ryse was ever going to let us fly.
“He’s just being thorough, sweetheart,” I told her, but I added to Ryse, “L’eesha is asking when you’ll be finished.”
“I just want to be sure you’re safe when you’re in the air.” He frowned. “I still don’t like the idea of you flying by yourself. You’re too light—you might get thrown out of the saddle.”
At this, L’eesha snorted and glared at him indignantly.
“She says you don’t know her at all if you think she would ever let me fall,” I told him, trying not to smile. What she’d actually said was,
“Tell him to stop being stupid and let us fly! I love my Auri and will keep her safe.”
But apparently, M’alex told him exactly what she’d said because he frowned and shook his head at her.
“Listen, I know you love Auri—we both do. But you haven’t been flying for long and I just want to be sure she’s safe.”
“She will be safe with me! M’alex—tell him!” I heard L’eesha say.
The huge Midnight Gold-wing, who was on the flight ledge beside us, snorted and looked at his rider.
At last Ryse sighed and took a step back.
“All right—you can mount up,” he said with obvious reluctance. “Remember, M’alex and I will be flying nearby at all times. If you need me, just shout.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, hoping it was true. And then I was swinging up into the saddle of my very own dragon for the very first time.
Ryse came up and checked that my feet were firmly in the stirrups and made sure I had a good grip on the reins and that the extra straps were tight around my thighs. Then he mounted M’alex and the two of them beat up into the sky. Clearly, he wanted to be already in the air when we took off.
“All right, L’eesha,” I said to her. “Are you ready to go?”
“i am ready, my Auri—let’s fly!” came her answer in my mind.
Then came the most hair-raising moment of my life. Because instead of beating her wings to raise us into the air slowly, L’eesha apparently decided to try something different. And being L’eesha, she didn’t do anything halfway.
I watched with horror as, rather than beating her wings to rise slowly into the air like M’alex always did, she took a running start and dove headfirst off the cliff, towards the valley below.
“Oh my God and Goddess—what are you doing?” I gasped.
“FLYING!” she replied and I could feel her utter glee at being in the air with me on her back.
My stomach seemed to have been left behind on the Flight Terrace and I was suddenly extremely grateful for the extra leather straps around my thighs which kept me from rising out of the saddle. I looked up to see that Ryse’s face, as he and M’alex hovered nearby, was totally white with terror.
M’alex bugled and dived after us and I could tell he was giving L’eesha instructions.
“i am flying—stop bossing me!” she protested.
And then, just as I was sure we were going to smash into the ground and split open like a pair of rotten melons, she spread her wings and caught an updraft, and we went soaring upward.
I caught my breath, trying to slow the pounding of my heart as Ryse flew nearer. I could tell from his face that he was bespeaking his dragon and that M’alex was still lecturing L’eesha.
“i saw other dragons do it like that—i don’t always have to fly like you do,” I heard her tell him. “Auri is holding on tight, and you made sure she was tied down—I knew she wouldn’t fall off my back!”
But Ryse must have sent something so severe that she suddenly became contrite.
“all right, i didn’t mean to scare you,” I heard her telling M’alex. “tell Ryse I said i am sorry. i won’t do it again.”
I was afraid that Ryse would tell M’alex to order her to land—we’d barely gotten started—but eventually he pulled back and the two of them flew to one side and a little below us. It was as if he was trying to be there to catch me in case I fell.
“You really shouldn’t have scared Ryse and M’alex that way,” I told my naughty golden dragon.
“i know—I am sorry.” She really did sound contrite. But then she added, “but wasn’t it fun?”
“L’eesha…” I sighed.
“oh, look—the others are flying, too!”
She was looking up and I saw that the Battlefield Signaling class was flying in formation. Or trying to, anyway. But some of the cadets kept getting the flags wrong and the result was a pretty sloppy maneuver.
“look at that—they’re doing it all wrong!” L’eesha exclaimed.
I could see that Professor Humbolt probably thought the same thing. Even from a distance I could make out the disgusted look on his weathered face.
“what are those things they are waving? the colored cloths?” L’eesha wanted to know.
“They’re signaling flags,” I said and explained how every flag meant a different action and how the riders used them to communicate between Wings during formations.
“they don’t need those,” was L’eesha’s opinion. “they just need someone to tell them how to fly!”
Then, to my surprise and dismay, she raised her mental voice and shouted,
“HEY! YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG! LISTEN TO ME!”
To my surprise every dragon in the class—and they were all older than her—turned their heads to look at my Golden Queen.
L’eesha proceeded to tell them exactly what to do.
“FIRST PUT DOWN THE SILLY FLAG THINGS—YOU DON’T NEED THOSE!” She ordered. “JUST ATTEND TO ME!”
After that, she had them flying in formation in no time. Even from where I was, I could see the surprise on Professor Humbolt’s face as the ragged, messy line of dragons suddenly tightened up and started swooping and diving in perfect unity.
I had never seen anything like it. It was like L’eesha was a conductor, leading an orchestra
“That’s enough L’eesha,” I told her, after she’d had them do some difficult maneuvers that we weren’t even supposed to cover for a few weeks yet. “Let them go.”
“i am not holding them against their will—they like listening to me,” she told them. “they know i am helping them.”
But she agreed to fly back to the Flight Terraces—I think because she was getting tired—and we left the class behind.
As we touched down, M’alex came to a light landing on the terrace beside us.
Ryse was off his dragon’s back in half a minute and pulling me off L’eesha’s back the next second.
As he crushed me tight against him, I realized that he still wasn’t over my Golden Queen’s little diving stunt at the beginning of our flight.
“I thought you were going to die—I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured, pressing his face to the side of my neck. He didn’t seem to care that there were other riders there, watching us. He just held me tight, breathing me in and trembling.
“That was just L’eesha trying something new,” I said uncomfortably. I couldn’t see over his broad shoulder, but I could feel my dragon watching us in consternation.
“That’s no excuse for risking your life!” he exclaimed.
Pulling away from me, he rounded on my dragon.
“Don’t you know that only the most experienced dragons are able to pull off a dive like that? If you had gotten the angle wrong—even by a little—or your wings hadn’t been strong enough to snap out and catch the wind—you’d both be dead right now!”
I got a mixture of shame and defiance from L’eesha.
“Tell him I know what I’m doing!” she demanded.
I frowned at her.
“I really don’t think you want me to say that,” I sent back.
“You’re grounded for the next week—no flying with Auri until you can prove to me you’re going to be more responsible,” he snapped at L’eesha.
She glared at him angrily.
“He can’t tell me that we can’t fly together!” she exclaimed.
“I’m afraid he can—Ryse is our Wing Leader,” I reminded her.
To be honest, I was sorry we wouldn’t get to fly together again for awhile—I loved soaring above the clouds with her. But Ryse was right—she had to learn a lesson about being reckless.
In the meantime, Ryse was still upset. It seemed to me that there must be something else besides L’eesha’s antics that was upsetting him.
But before I could take him aside discretely and ask, Professor Humbolt landed his Cerulean Silver-wing beside M’alex.
He slid stiffly out of the saddle and stalked over to us, frowning.
“All right—whose idea was it to take over my class and subvert my orders?” he demanded.
I felt an instant stab of guilt. I hadn’t considered how my professor might react to L’eesha’s interference in his class, but I supposed I couldn’t be surprised that he was angry.
“That was my fault, Sir,” I said humbly. “Er, it was my dragon who sort of, took over. I should have reined her in.”
“Yes, you should have, Cadet!” he snapped. “I’m giving you a failing grade for that little maneuver—an F which is most definitely going to affect your final grade in my class.”
“what is he saying? why is he giving bad grades to my Auri?” L’eesha demanded, sounding distressed.
M’alex must have explained to her, because the next minute, she got angry.
“you tell your rider he’d better not give my Auri any of those nasty Fs!” I heard her telling Professor Humbolt’s dragon. “you tell him to behave and leave my Auri alone!”
“No, L’eesha—don’t say that!” I begged.
But it was too late—clearly the professor’s dragon had told him exactly what L’eesha had said because he turned to look, first at her, and then at me, with an incredulous expression on his face.
“Cadet Lysandra, are you actually telling your dragon to threaten me?” he demanded.
“No, Sir!” I said quickly. “I’m very sorry if she spoke out of turn. She’s only been hatched a little over a month and she’s very headstrong, I’m afraid.”
He shook his head.
“You expect me to believe that your dragon came up with that threat herself? Dragons don’t act in that manner!”
“I’m afraid L’eesha does, Professor,” Ryse said, stepping in smoothly. “She’s a very unusual dragon, as you can see. There hasn’t been a Golden Queen in the ranks of the Academy’s dragons for over a century.”
“I don’t care how long it’s been since her kind of dragon has been here, there’s no excuse for her disrespect!
” Professor Humbolt blustered. He pointed at me.
“And don’t think I didn’t see that dive you took off the cliff when you first took off.
That’s dangerous and against all the flight safety rules the Academy has laid down to keep you youngsters from killing yourselves. ”
“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir,” I said miserably, knowing there was nothing I could say or do to change his mind.
“I’m going to be writing you up, both for your insubordination and for your dangerous flight maneuvers,” he said, pointing at me. “You’d better pull yourself together, Cadet, if you want to have a hope of passing my class!”
I could feel L’eesha wanted to lunge at him and bite him, so I put myself between them. She was no longer a tiny hatchling who could get away with nipping someone’s calf. If she bit now, she’d likely take off an arm or a leg and a dragon who did that would be destroyed.
“Be still!” I ordered her, putting steel in my voice for the first time. “Biting the professor won’t do anything but get both of us into more trouble! You have to learn to control your impulses!”
I had never spoken so strongly to her before, and I could feel her immediate response.
“i am sorry, my Auri,” she sent in a small voice. “i was only having fun. i didn’t know I would get you into trouble.”
“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” I told her. “But you’re getting bigger and stronger everyday—that means you have to learn to think before you act.”
She lowered her head and nudged against my thigh, her rainbow eyes whirling with sorrow.
“i didn’t mean to be bad! do you not love me anymore?”
Her tone of pure anguish broke my heart. Professor Humbolt had stalked away so I was free to put my arms around her neck.
“Of course I still love you—I’ll always love you,” I told her. “No matter what happens, you belong to me, and I belong to you. But we need to be careful, sweetheart. I know all the dragons listen to you, but humans aren’t like dragons—they’re more stubborn.”
“i thought he would be happy that I made his dragons fly in a good formation without those silly flags,” she said.
“Yes, but dearheart, those flags are his entire class,” I pointed out to her. “If you make it so the riders don’t need them to communicate between Wings, then what is Professor Humbolt supposed to do with himself?”
“he should find something new to be interested in,” L’eesha sent rebelliously. “maybe he could help herd the sheep. there is no point in using flags when I can tell every dragon at the Academy what to do and how to fly without them.”
The idea of the crusty old professor herding sheep almost made me smile, but I did my best not to.
“Well, that may be true, but using flags to signal during battles is an Academy tradition,” I explained. “The Academy has a lot of traditions and not all of them make sense, but the people in charge really like them.”
“then there ought to be new people in charge!” was L’eesha’s opinion.
But that seemed to be the end of her little rebellion because shortly afterwards, she went back to the part of the Caverns reserved for the juvenile dragons without any protest. Part of her acquiescence could have been due to the fact that she knew a juicy goat was waiting for her, but I could also tell she still felt bad for getting me into trouble.
I wanted to talk to Ryse about it, but there was no time. We both had to hurry off to our next class so the next time I got to talk to him alone was after dinner when we were in our room.