Caltyr rolled over. He felt the silkiness of his pillow brush his cheek as he moved, and he opened his silvery eyes to look skyward.

He tried not to blink. When he did, he didn’t let his blinks drag on for too long. Whenever he closed his eyes, the jeering faces of his classmates appeared behind his eyelids.

They sniggered and looked between each other, exchanging ideas on how to vanquish him most painfully.

Vermonisys had interfered just in time.

Caltyr found himself wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t. He had the teachers like Miss Tavren to protect him, but her inattentiveness lately had him wondering if she would even lift a claw if he were getting beaten to the ground.

Caltyr sighed heavily, a hot breath traveling through his long neck. It was nighttime now, and the sun had fallen behind the wall hours ago.

He was in his den, which was built into the side of the mountain, just like the dens of his peers. The elders said they lived in them to prepare them for ‘real life’, which he was apparently not living now.

He assumed ‘real life’ would include a lot more combat, like he had experienced today. He had heard the elders whispering about the dragons in his class being ‘too soft’ when they were off having one of their council meetings.

They thought their meetings were private, but they almost never were.

He and his classmates had been informed that they were being trained to defend themselves when the humans came, armed with their specially formed spears and daggers that pierced a dragon’s scales—and the dragon magic that they would use against them, the dragons.

In private, Kraven roared that they needed to stop teaching cutesy little apparitions the hearts and spheres. He thought they needed to learn to cast offensively, shaping swords, daggers, clubs.

Dragons were supposed to be fierce warriors with scales as their armor and their teeth as their swords, he insisted. But Miss Tavren wanted them to have their childhoods.

Maybe it was the blue dragon in him, or maybe he was being naive, but he always wondered if they could just do half-and-half. Half fight days, half leisure days. Surely some of the humans would agree that they all needed a break sometimes.

He was interrupted from his mental distractions when he heard a faint sound in the distance.

Knock, knock.

Caltyr rose his head from his pillow and peered at the door. Had somebody just… knocked? On his door? This late? Not even a lick of sunlight peeked beneath his doorway. The azure dragon’s nostrils flared.

Considering the timing of the knock, he was skeptical. Was somebody trying to catch him alone so that they could vanquish him now that he was confirmed to be corrupt?

He could picture the silhouette of a dragon outside his door, crouching, holding a weapon. They had elongated, gnashing teeth and beady eyes.

Knock, knock.

Caltyr approached the door. With the tip of his tail, he grabbed his dagger from his bag as he passed it. He wasn’t just going to let himself be snuffed out.

“Hello?” he asked, narrowing his silvery eyes. He pressed his earhole to the slats of the door. He heard steady breathing on the other end, but there was no response.

Caltyr resolved to add a little window to his door later so he could see who was knocking next time. Slowly, with his weapon prepared securely in the curl of his tail, he opened the door.

He quickly relaxed when he saw the shiny purple scales on the other side.

“Hurry up and let me in. I’m not supposed to be out here,” urged T’allyandria Morriganha D’Llarkhen’s voice in a hurried whisper.

Stolen novel; please report.

Caltyr ushered her in and shut the door behind her, sealing his den with haste.

They both waited by the door for a moment, silent, to ensure they hadn’t been followed and wouldn’t give themselves away with the sounds of their voices. They let their trapped air free after a minute.

Suddenly, they were alone. He had a guest. Caltyr looked behind him to check if his room was presentable.

Most of his space was eaten up by a large, pillow-like circular mattress that sat on top of a heap of bottle caps. There was such an abundance of them that the mattress was raised slightly, floating off the ground with the sheer amount of metal that had been shoved beneath it.

A dragon almost always slept on their hoard, and Caltyr was no different.

“So you hoard bottle caps,” T’allyandria observed with feigned interest.

“Yeah,” Caltyr responded as neutrally as possible. He had plastic ones, metal ones, shiny ones, deep ones, shallow ones, you name it. He had several favorites among them, which he kept in a small jar on a side table. “I have to go close to the human places to get them sometimes,” he said, attempting to appear cool after his spectacular loss.

“That’s cool. I have to go to the human settlements to get my stuff too,” the plum-colored dragon responded, not betraying what she collected.

“Have you ever gotten caught?” The blue dragon caught that she didn’t say out loud what she was hoarding, but he figured maybe that was on purpose. They didn’t need to say stuff out loud all the time.

“Nope. What I hoard isn’t valuable to them anymore, just to me. Kinda like how nobody misses a bottle cap when they’re done with their drink.” T’allyandria decided the time for smalltalk was over. “So, you lost,” the purple dragon said flatly.

“Yeah,” Caltyr hissed regretfully, “I was so close, but I fell into the stupid water and got electrocuted. If only I’d just stayed flying a few inches higher, I might have won.”

“Well, I guess you’ve officially joined me over on the dark side. Welcome to the evil club,” T’allyandria congratulated him. Her face lit up, right down to her violet eyes. She seemed truly eager to accept him in.

“Thanks, I guess. But I hate it here and want to leave. Why do they even think I’m evil? It’s not like I did anything to them.” Caltyr scoffed.

The dark plum-colored dragon’s scaled eyebrows rose. “You ripped up a mouse for show-and-tell with like, no warning. It bled on my book.”

Caltyr shrugged dismissively. “We’re dragons. We hunt live prey all the time! Even Sara does it, and nobody calls her evil.”

“Yeah, but her friends are all up her butt so far they don’t think it stinks anymore. Anyway, why do you even care if they call you evil? We’re dragons. We steal stuff and sleep on it for fun.” T’allyandria gestured toward the mountain of caps.

Caltyr began to pace, an uncomfortable energy building up in his limbs that he couldn’t shake. “I care because they’re trapping me in this box I don’t belong in.” He paused, carefully considering the next part of his sentence before reluctantly tacking on. “And what if Miss Tavren thinks I’m evil too?”

T’ally giggled annoyingly in response. “Oh, so that’s it. You’re worried your dragon mommy won’t like you anymore.”

Caltyr’s face turned deep indigo. “Wha—don’t call her that! I just don’t want the person who’s supposed to be teaching me light magic to think I’m not worth it.”

The dark dragon’s facial expression drooped. “That’s stupid. The teachers are lucky to be teaching the great T’allyandria Morriganha D’Llarkhen and the one other member of her vile, villainous club.” She flashed her pointed teeth at him in a toothy smile.

Caltyr watched as she pranced over to his bed and hoisted herself upon it, twirling around in a spiral before laying down like a scaly dog. For the first time since losing the battle, looking at her face contorted in joy, he wondered if T’allyandria was enjoying her brief moment of not being the only one in a team of one.

Was there some kind of benefit to his loss after all? Until now, she had been the sole dragon in their class bathed in darkness.

“Did you come in here just to tell me I lost? Because believe me, I know.” The azure dragon rolled his wrist and felt his bones and muscles protest wearily from beneath his skin.

“Nope. I came here because I have something to tell you.”

“What is it?”

T’allyandria pursed her lips into a line. For the first time, Caltyr saw a flash of doubt ripple through her face like a wave. But then she opened her mouth to speak. “Do you remember how you foolishly outed your flesh powers to the whole class during show-and-tell?”

Caltyr squinted at her dubiously. Her words sounded offensive, but they had no hatred loaded behind them.”How could I forget?”

“I have a non-elemental power too.”