Smokey POV

Gleam and I sat outside of a towering grey mountain that reached beyond the trees, turning blue-purple from the nearing evening. We had been sitting in a field a ways away from the grand entrance to the castle, where hundreds of dragonets swarmed now, trying to register in the noise. Gleam was feeling overwhelmed at the panic and noise and commotion, so we moved away until everyone had left. I liked the oak tree we had chosen to sit under; its canopy stretched far and wide across the slightly pink sky. Far across the field to the cave entrance, I occasionally caught glimpses of the stressed, overworked faces of the dragons signing people in. I found myself pitying those poor souls that dealt with entitled parents and rude dragonets. But they knew what they'd signed up for; this was, after all, the largest school in all of Agati. 

Also, they were ShadowWings, so that practically meant they were born into a jerk tribe. They totally deserved all this commotion.

Once I grew bored of watching the dragons cluster around the tables of registration, I turned my attention over to Gleam. She had her nose buried in a book I'd lent her, the third book of Wings of Fire. It was about the RainWing Glory. Since Gleam was half RainWing, I thought she'd like it; and she did, very much. Her glasses, which I'd stolen from the optometrist of the Slush Kingdom when I discovered Gleam was nearsighted, constantly slid down her slender snowy snout, so often so she held a talon up there to push it back up when it fell.

in other words, she looked adorable. Especially with her concentrated, worried face. She'd been so worried when we left the kingdom with Current, who was currently in line with Oak to get inside, I practically had to drag her to the mountain. Halfway through she wanted to turn back, but I told her I couldn't make it through the school year without her, and she grinned and gave in. She was so adorable when she was flushed and embarrassed or nervous. it just fit her so well.

After a minute or two she noticed me staring at her observantly and blushed. We both laughed it off, smiling. She was so amazing. "You're so adorable, Glee," I said, using her favourite nickname. She rolled her cute purple eyes, giggling. "Says you, 'Key," She replied in a snicker. We joked around until the sun left the horizon and disappeared behind a smokey purple mountain and only a few dragons hung around, registering calmly. "We should probably go now before they close up," Gleam suggested. I was surprised that it wasn't me who said that; She must be mentally prepared now. Or insane. Either way, I was so nervous I had the whole zoo rioting in my stomach. But I knew it was now or never.

I nodded in agreement, and we began walking across the field to the school where we'd live for the rest of the year.

~A couple of minutes later~

We stalked up to the line, the frosting-over grass crunching satisfyingly under our talons. I shivered, the cold evening air stinging my throat. I took comfort that Gleam couldn't feel the cold, being half IceWing, and she wasn't going through the discomfort everyone else felt. We looked at each other silently, held gazes, then burst into fits of giggling, and repeated, until the line melted away and we were suddenly standing at a registry table. A tattooed, pierced, bored-looking ShadowWing girl sat across from us, examining her talons. When we stood across from her, she jolted to attention. I could see the confusion on her face at the sight of us, and I couldn't blame her. ForestWings like me ALWAYS kept to themselves, with their own school and community. I felt a wave of embarrassment wash over me, my green scales turning a dark shade of pink. 

Gleam was also a rare sight, but not because of her tribe. She was a DazzleWing, right? Well, DazzleWings are usually either tough, very proper (some go overboard; I saw one wearing a  flashy red bowtie and a top hat), or looking tired. Gleam was, however, excited and hyper. The dragon just shrugged it off, though, not caring. I let out a silent sigh of relief. "You guys wanna register?" She said in a stained, rough voice. You could tell she's been through some bad shit.

"Yeah, please," Gleam offered. The navy blue ShadowWing scoffed, her coloured flecks flashing mahogany. "Alright. Names, ages?" She demanded, glaring at us in the eyes. "Uh, I'm Smokey, and this is Gleam," I said, "And I'm four, she's three." She nodded forcefully, scrawling down our names untidily on a piece of organized paper. I didn't like this dragon very much; she was worse than the super formal dragons of the Slush Kingdom. 

"Mkay, Charming over here, if he would WAKE UP, will lead you to your room." She pointed to a handsome dark teal ShadowWing with golden blue flecks, who stuttered awake when his name was uttered. He blinked rapidly and muttered, "Huh, what--Oh, right this way, please." He adopted a much better posture and stood up, beginning to walk to the entrance of the mountain a couple hundred feet away. "Oh, wait," The first ShadowWing said, "Here are your time tables and class groups." She then leaned forward so close I could smell her raspberry breath and lowered her voice, although the few people that were talking next to us didn't care at all about our conversation, and whispered, "Be careful out there. You never know who might betray you." Then she leaned back nonchalantly and called out, "Next, please." 

Gleam and I exchanged glances. That was weird. I saw the concern in her eyes and knew I was probably mimicking that look. Again, it was adorable. "We don't have all day," Charming chuckled. Gleam and I both blushed; that was embarrassing. Grinning, he led the way to the doors, us following sheepishly behind with our papers in our talons.

I relished the cool feel of the early fall night breeze caressing my snout gently, and the sound the grass made as the frost crumbled off of it when I stepped on it, and the refreshing sting that brushed my side when Gleam and I came too close. I realized that I might not experience those three things again for a while. Saddened at this thought, I looked to the ground. That is until we got to the entrance.

I looked up at wonder at the structure. Just the entrance stood easily at five dragons standing upright high and five laying down outstretched across. It was carved out of the rock of the towering mountain, but that doesn't make it necessarily bad. In fact, it was great contrast against the hundreds of dragons flying around and making friends. Gleam hesitated, but Charming continued on, so I just said, "It'll be alright," and she nodded and we continued.

"You guys know how to fly?" Charming asked when we got inside. I didn't respond immediately since I was observing the entrance room. Across from us were a couple chairs surrounding a glass and metal blocked fireplace. There sat some prissy-looking FrostWings, or IceWing NightWing hybrids, who'd obviously either scared off the people who'd sat there before or who'd gotten here before everyone. Sitting on the floor were tons of dragons, every colour you could imagine. From hot pink to sky blue to smokey brown to almost pure white. It was mesmerizing, all those colours moving. on the left and right of the room were staircases that lead up to the second floor and disappeared into hallways filled up with dragonets.

On the left and right wall next to the staircases was another hallway on each side, with more rooms. Dragonets cluttered the halls, a mess of colour and noise. Oh, did I mention the noise? It sounded like a slaughterhouse but run by scavengers and the sheep were pterodactyls. Oh, and all the animals, including the pterodactyls and scavengers, were screaming because they didn't want to get eaten by the pterodactyls. It was that loud.

Finally Gleam replied to Charming's question, with a, "Yes, but Smokey here's still an amateur. But I'm sure he'll be fine." I shot her a quick smile. She knew I sucked at flying; we'd tried it the month prior, on a nice day. I ended up getting coated in slush and looking like a total idiot in from of my best friend, who laughed it off. Snapping back to reality, I looked at Charming and his hazel eyes. Charming nodded. He flicked his tail, an indication to follow him. He then leaped gracefully into the air, propelling himself up with strong, star-speckled wings. 

Gleam tugged my arm as I watched the ShadowWing, and then she leapt up and tirelessly hovered above me, her coloured spots turning pastel yellow, my favourite colour on her. Unable to hold back a smile, I jumped up and flapped my small wings, managing to hover unsteadily. I could already feel the fatigue cross my vision. Gleam noticed my distress, grasped my talons, and helped me as we passed thousands of dragonets to catch up to Charming.

Okay, I might've lied about something. There were not hundreds of thousands of dragonets here, obviously, that's too many. Maybe there were like 800 or 750 or something, not that many. All this was a hyperbole. Sorry for lying?

Charming fluently led us to the second floor, right passage. Second floor, right passage. Second floor, right passage. I had to remember that, in case I get lost. We landed on the stairwell, at the top, which held a couple of people writing in journals or talking or playing cards. We trudged down the hallways with dragonets moving their stuff into their rooms and tapping in passwords. It was like a hotel, which I'd read about in a book about ShadowWings. Apparently, they were really advanced in technology, with electricity that lit up lights instead of using flamesilk or some substitute plant. It was really interesting.

At the end of the hall, he stopped. "Alright, bad news. You guys can't have the same room. We only have two rooms available for one person, everywhere else is filled up. Smokey, You're here, room 213. Gleam, you'll be in room 257 in the hallway across the way. I'll show you there. Smokey, are you okay on your own?" Butterflies bit at the side of my stomach, but I nodded. I didn't want to inconvenience Charming.

I waited until Gleam and Charming had left, Gleam and I having exchanged a hug as goodbye, to see where my room was. The room next to me was 217, meaning that room a little further down was 216, which meant the next was 215, and so on. I sighed in nervousness, and began to walk down the hall to my room, me bag that hung from my neck feeling like it was 500 pounds. I watched the room doors as the numbers slowly went closer to mine. 215, 214...

I stopped at my door. The door was dark ebony with a metal doorknob. It had a couple scratch marks from over the years. My heart running a marathon in my chest, I lifted my talons and tapped the doorknob. Knowing there was no turning back, I let out a deep breath and opened the door quickly.