text: Ieder looked up at his mother, a massive 15-foot dragon that towered over him. As much as he hated it, she was leaving him behind. “Now remember what me and Baba taught you.” Ieder looked up and nodded silently. “Be nice to the others. It’s best not to grieve their mothers” Nod. “Don’t bare your claws or teeth, for danger it brings.” Nod. “Never swing your tail or open your wings.” Nod. “And finally, don’t...” Ieder sighed, “Point my horns at anyone.” “Very good.” Ieder’s mother smirked before taking a step back as she opened her wings and checked around her to ensure no one would get struck by her flaps. Then, she lifted off. Ieder, a child baby-blue dragon, was left alone. Along with other children. Some the same, some different. As he turned and looked behind him, he saw multitudes of children. Some dragon, like him, some human, some elf, some centaur. He wondered how he was going to fit in. \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ All the children were being gathered up, and Ieder thought- hoped they would be split into their species groups for classes. He always heard about the other species, and was taught to be nice and helpful. At the same time, he felt that since dragons grew to be the biggest-est. He sat on his haunches at a desk, told to do so by a teacher. Somehow, they were having a lot a lot of trouble with other teachers, and were all told to sit, be still, and make friends. Ieder only saw one other dragon in the room and she was sitting on the other side, already chatting up with a girl centaur. Ew, Ieder thought. He continued to look around at the walls, covered in bright paper. They all hadmarks on them that Ieder thought was writing that they would read. In front of him was a human child, blond hair pulled up into two trees on both sides of her head. A white shirt with rainbow striped on the sleeves sat on her shoulders. They were the only two sitting at a group of bright white desks with thick round legs. At the other desks though were also groups of two, three, or four kids. “What’s that on your head?” The human looked up, and saw Ieder staring straight at her. She didn’t seem scared. Her eyes seemed huge through the thick glass frames sitting on her nose. Ieder’s dad told him about theses. Sometimes, centaurs and humans had trouble seeing, so these magical tiny windows helped them see, but that never made sense to Ieder. “Um, my head?” Ieder, the proud dragon repeated. “Yes. What’s those two ‘horns’?” The human reached up and felt her hair sprouts. “Ponytails, I think.” “Huh,” a centaur child said from a nearby table. The human pointed to her hair sprouts again, “These are ponytails.” The centaur huffed, “You can’t say that; you’re not a pony!” The human kid blurted out, “Neither are you!” The centaur started, but then grew quiet, and continued talking with the other students. The human continued with what she was doing. In front of her were colored sticks, paper, and something Ieder hought looked like a pink water bottle. The dragon looked down and saw her leaving coloured marks on the paper. As he looked harder, all he saw was bright blue smudges. “So you’re a human.” The human looked at herself, then her arms, then back at Ieder, “No, I’m a kid.” Wow, she’s dumb, this is gonna be easy. Ieder looked at the teachers in the room, still talking with each other. He got up onto all fours, then walked over to the human’s side of the desks. “Can you fly? Like super high?” The girl replied, “No,” she continued making marks on the paper with the colored rods. “Can you?” Ieder didn’t want to say he wasn’t allowed to fly. Not yet. “Yea, I flew a million feet high once.” The kid only said, “I once flew on a place once. I got to be above the clouds too. But I got sick easy. It wasn’t fun.” Ieder realized flying wasn’t amazing her. “I have scales. If something hits me, I don’t get hurt.” The kid looked over, and said, “Doesn’t that make it hard for you to put on clothes?” Ieder sat on his haunches, “Why would I do that?” The human kid said, “I mean, what if you get cold? What happens?” Ieder remembered the time he was standing too close to a cold section at the meat market. His mom and dad had to breathe fire on him to let him move. He felt so scared being stuck, and unable to move. Normally, grown-up dragons can handle cold better, dragons his age weren’t able to, and it can get dangerous. Something about warm versus cold-blooded things. “I have horns. I can hurt anyone.” Ieder quickly quieted down as he saw an elf teacher look over, probably hearing what he said. Ieder smiled, and quickly played innocent. The teacher continued talking with the other teachers. The girl spoke again. “They don’t look sharp.” It was true. Ieder and his mother had to file down their horns and claws. Mother had to do it for work, and Ieder had to start getting used to it two months before school started. The first time hurt in a funny way, like hound spiders crawling up his back. Ieder was about to ask another question, when he saw the paper again. It looked familiar. Like... “Who’s that?” The human held up the paper, with the blue blob, the black strokes coming out the top, and the light brown dots near the top. “It’s you.” Ieder couldn’t talk. He saw how the human tried to draw his blue body, his black horns, and his brown eyes. He took a deep breath, then jumped when the girl swung the paper away. “Don’t burn it!” Ieder felt bad for trying to show the human up, “I wasn’t. I wanted to say... it looks cool.” The human girl got out another piece of paper, “Want to try? Here’s your crayons.” Ieder did want to try, but he looked at the humans hands. They looked like thin twigs on a rock, moving away from each other like swaying trees. He looked at his own hand, and saw what looked pudgy and short compared to the human’s. He tried to open them and close them, and spread them, but he could barely spread them. And he couldn’t control them one-by-one like the human could. They looked like bear paws. They were paws. Not hands. In front of him was a chair, and on the desk was some paper and colored rods, er. crayons. He moved the chair and got up on his haunches and placed his front paws on the desk. He saw a red colored crayon on the table and reached out his right hand to pick it up. No matter how much he pushed his hands into the desk, the crayon would rise up a bit, then fall. He tried both hands, using the dull, filed claws to pick it up. He got the crayon cradled in his claws, but when he moved one hand to grip it, it fell to the desk again. “Need help?” the human asked. “No.” Ieder was getting frustrated with the stick, until the human grabbed his hand. “Does it hurt if I do this?” She slid her fingers between his, and spread them slightly. “No.” he watched as she took the crayon and slid it between the spread fingers. She let the fingers on his paw slide shut around the crayon, then Ieder took over and tightened his grip. “I’m Heather.” With one hand with the crayon, and another on the paper, he began marking on the paper. “I’m Ieder,” he said One lines became two became four, which became a rough mess on the paper. Ieder dropped the crayon on the desk, “I can’t do this!” Heather looked over, gazing at his mess. “Oh, wow... that’s- a byootiful- thiiiiing.” It took some strength in him to not start to cry. Dragons don’t cry. Remember what Baba said. “Practice, practice, practice.” Huh? “Practice helped me get to the drawings I have.” Ieder looked at the drawing Heather already seemed to be wrapping up. Heather reached out to the pink water bottle sitting on her desk and put it in front of Ieder, past the paper. “Use the red crayon. Draw that.” Ieder got to work. He saw the rectangular shape of the bottle, and made an outline. Then with less care than he had for the outline, he drew in the shape of the bottle. Somehow, he was pressing down so hard, the crayon broke. Heather looked up again through her thick glasses. “Yea, I broke them too.” She was about to start again, then she gazed at the dragon. “What was your name again?” “Ieder.” “Nice to meet you, Ieder.