The first morning broke early and loud, with the woman who had met them with the wagon at the train station (Pyre? Perta? Agadart grimaced at herself for not remembering) ringing a loud bell as she walked through the barracks. They all rolled out of their hammocks, quiet and grumpy in the brisk cold of early dawn as they did quick ablutions and changed into the simple tunics and leggings they had been instructed to bring with them. Class and region were marked by the outfits, sewn in similar styles but with a wide range of fabrics and sometimes with unique cuts that labeled the maker as from one area or another. Agadart had made hers from simple sack cloth, the house mistress helping with the cut as she cried copiously about Agadart’s future. The high waist and broad hems gave her away as a being from the Orange Hills of Battenruck, although she had been careful to keep from using any material that was too fine or too local. The others had similarly tried to hide their origins, so despite the differences, they all still cut a very bland, monotonous picture as a group.
Agadart saw the girls who had ridden up in the wagon with her the night before and tried to give them a friendly smile, but word must have somehow spread of her mysterious run-in with the headmistress, because all the polite greetings of the night before were gone. No one wanted to look at her, and the women on either side of her did their best to lean away from her as they all stood in lines out front of the barracks lodge.
Mistress Seraphinite appeared in clothes not so very different, if more solidly constructed and with some embroidery around the edges of the high-necked collar. Tall and formidable with her braided mane of stiff black hair that was shot through with gray, she was intimidating in a familiar way for Agadart, since she was very clearly the daughter of Agadart’s eldest aunt. Not that such an observation would be welcome.
“The first week will primarily be tending to the compound along with classroom lessons. There will be a significant amount of reading and tests.” There were a few quiet groans at that from those who, presumably, had little schooling outside of what was required in their previous lives. Mistress Seraphinite gave them all a scathing glare, and everyone settled down again.
“You will be given your new names today as well. We expect you to sew them on your outer tunics.” She tapped the space over her own heart. “It is a large class this year, as expected as the queen readies her dragons for possible political instability. We expect your complete loyalty and dedication to this training. We also expect proper behavior and strong moral fortitude. You are not here to have fun or make friends. Am I understood?”
Everyone chorused “Yes, Headmistress!” as if they had already practiced it a hundred times. She nodded curtly, then released them to have breakfast.
The food was plain but plentiful, and Agadart noticed at least a few of the girls shoving their portions into their mouths as if they had been starving. It occurred to her that maybe they had.
Breakfast was followed by lessons in the same room, a blackboard rolled in once they had all cleared away their dishes and cleaned the kitchen as instructed by the cook. They all sat back down at the long tables with the pencils and notebooks they had been issued, looking toward the front where a squat, squinty-eyed maid of at least seventy years old was glaring at them.
“I’m Maid Ajoite. I will be your primary instructor for the next week. However, before we start—” She pulled out a simple elegant box. “Time to pick your new name.” She put the box down on the table in front of her. “Your tables are numbered. As I call out each table, you will come up and pick a stone from the box. That stone will be your name going forward. Table one!” She shouted the last part and the girls at that table scrambled to get up and walk to the box.
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Agadart was at table eleven, about halfway through, but the box was full of stones so she was not too concerned. When it was her turn, she looked down and was immediately taken by a small chunk of stone that was so green it was almost black, with a copper-colored marbling. It was craggy and almost brutal in shape, all pointy edges. She picked it up, mesmerized by its fierce beauty.
“Maid Aegirine,” Maid Pyrite announced, and her assistant scribbled it down in a ledger. Agadart saw her maiden name listed there, no mention of her former or family titles, now followed by “Aegirine the Fourth.”
“There are four of us?” she asked in surprise.
Maid Pyrite frowned at her. “In all of the history of the Corps, yes. When a maid dies her stone is returned to the box.”
Agadart felt her eyes widen, and clutched the stone to her chest as she quickly returned to her seat.
After that, things settled into routine quickly. The first week was almost entirely classes in the main lodge that started as soon as breakfast dishes were cleaned. The recruits did everything, from serving themselves to cleaning the kitchen after the cook left, and other meals were no different. Their only breaks in lessons were to help out at the camp’s barn, milking cows and cleaning the goat hatch. It was all new to Agadart, who had previously only theoretical knowledge about where the cream for her tea came from, but she threw herself into it as best she could.
Her cousin, whom Agadart stubbornly refused to acknowledge outside of required interactions with her as the headmistress, seemed determined to mostly ignore Agadart in turn. That was fine with her. Bertrag, being years older than Agadart, had decided to pack up and join the Dragon Maids Corps when Agadart was a child. She remembered her cousin as sour and bitter and mean.
It seemed that little had changed, even if Bertrag had managed to find herself at the top of Dragon Maids Corps hierarchy.
The only excitement to their days was when the dragons flew out on practice maneuvers or simply for fun (it was impossible to know their purpose just from watching). Agadart counted nineteen, including the iridescent dark green behemoth who was obviously Duke Raudolf, or as he was more correctly referred to by the maids, Admiral Leonteinparre. They were all majestic beasts, though, and mesmerizing to watch.
Unlike her, most of her fellow maids had not seen too many dragons and certainly not as up close as they did watching them flock out of the fort. Agadart was familiar with dragons from court, the queen’s flight always in attendance and on rotation for who was flying and who was walking. The queen’s flight was only seven dragons, not counting the queen, and had been scrupulous about keeping their distance from the human women who served as the queen’s handmaidens. Everything about them was steeped in the powerful magic of the queen herself, and Agadart never felt the pull to watch them fly as she did the dragons of Endestern.
When the dragons launched out of the aerie, the maids all came to a standstill, their heads tilted up to the sky. Agadart was as transfixed as the rest of them, her heart clinching with a strange jealousy as she watched the dragons fly free. She had wanted nothing but her freedom from the day she married Baron Stewardt, and while his treachery and execution had freed her from a wretched, dangerous marriage it had sentenced her to a decade of harsh service in the Dragon Maids Corps, far from home.
She imagined flying as free as a dragon could, and her soul ached.
Some nights she drifted off thinking about the dragons, and dreamed deeply satisfying flights of fancy where she soared above the clouds, calling out for others, although when she woke she was not entirely sure who the “others” had been. They were lovely dreams nonetheless, and she began to look forward to them as a welcome escape from the plain life she found herself in.