Positive thought.
Positive thought.
If you don’t carry your parents’ drugs, they’ll report you for selling them.
No. Positive.
Your parents’ income is more stable than you thought, assuming they began selling drugs before they forced you to.
…That’s not very positive.
You’re riding the slide way towards school suspicious packages sitting in a pack between your wings. In your pocket, tied around your neck, is a note detailing exactly where and when to bring the packages.
The 4th season air makes you shiver. The sun is rising, making the melting snow sparkle like the ocean. You wish you lived near the ocean. Then you could swim 30 drains to Mundi Máz, like the dragon Brekke did when they were the first one to reach Endin. Endin quickly became a peaceful dreamland, while Mundi remained a tyrannical silverscape. Over the eras the two biggest islands on Toto switched places, and you were born on the metal one.
Positive thought.
Positive thought.
You can still go to school. Your doe parent was just joking about denying you an education. If you can call ler sick, almost experimental pranks “jokes.”
Better. More. Think about your web.
You have one of the healthiest webs in the school, you think. You feel warm and aroused just thinking about them. You spent about a season of drama before you fell in with Weston Dell Hill and Jack Starr Davis. Jack brought with him Kayy Polly Evanson and Dirk Orange Ares. You connected Dirk with Weston, and so did Kayy. Since then the five of you have been close partners, possibly close enough to last until you dry out naturally.
You smile and rest your head between your talons as you lay on the warm belt. You try to disconnect from your thoughts on that happy note. The rest of the ride is uneventful, and soon you hop off the track and skate to a stop in front of the Tetherdown Late Youth School. The school is in the center ring of your hometown. The lawn is brown and muddy, not yet touched by the fourth season’s life. Dozens of dragons tread through it in distinct clusters of partners from the same fawnhomes. You have no fawnhome, and therefore no cluster.
So what? “Cluster” is just the word you’re using. You don’t walk in a group, but you still have a group. So stop trying to make yourself feel inferior. You already have plenty of reasons to feel—
You shut your brain up and start toward the brown-brick facade of the building. You file through one of the door flaps. You receive several words of greeting from various dragons you don’t know all that well. “Waterbird, hi!”
“It is good to see you.”
“ Been swimmin’ it down at the pool?”
You also notice, per usual, that the milling crowd inside the entry hall is giving you a wide berth. How can you be both well-liked and repulsed among everyone? Their romantic callouts seem strained and shallow, when you think about it. Maybe they’re all just acting, to avoid offending you? Or maybe you’re just projecting your anger onto everyone else?
You ignore yourself and head over to the meal line. Most of the dragons in the large, low-ceilinged room are not eating; most of them ate at home. The entry hall is mostly dotted with dragons lounging around until school starts. Or those who felt that their daily meal was too small. Or those who have no daily meal at all.
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Your parents tend to eat in the evening, when there’s less eaters and lower prices. Villa or Dallas surely did not make this wise decision; only Ruth uses strategy like that. Dallas’ threat last night was not an empty one. He did, and frequently does, deny you a NEGATIVE THOUGHT.
Look! There is no line. Few eaters means no line. The self serve counter is flooded with various meats and fruits. They all look different, but in your eyes, it’s all just food. You grab a basket and fill it with as much random food as you can fit, then pick it up between your teeth and wander into the crows of dragons eating and chatting. The routine feels normal enough to make you forget that you’re carrying things you’re not going to think about.
You spot your partners waiting, in their usual spot in a far corner of the room. You approach them, stepping around groups of dragons talking, sleeping, eating, and set your basket next to where your web lies together, almost in a pile. They all look up when you arrive.
“Oh… hello, Drew!” Jack greets you. He sounds halfhearted, but you know he’s sincerely happy to see you.
“Hello,” you say as you lower yourself onto the floor.
“We… we have missed you.”
“You missed me? Why? I saw you yesterday.”
Dirk lays an arm over your neck as you eat. You rest a wing on his back.
“Jack possesses concern over your well-being. I would say that we all hold similar worries. I believe you already have this knowledge.”
“My house is safe.”
“‘Safe’ does not always equal ‘healthy’”.
“I am not sick.”
“You have no sickness, but you are being deliberately dense.”
You swallow a piece of venison. “I have appreciation for your concern, as always, but there is nothing you can help with. I am stuck.”
“We can help you not be stuck after school. I like it when you are not stuck.”
Kayy begins to explain about the swim team tryouts that are happening at chime 6 today. You already knew about them, and you believe that you would do well in them; however you have no plans of joining the swim team, because…
“With what items am I going to pay for the trials? I can not join the swim
team.”
Kayy frowns. “That was a not sincere statement. You know that we are able to get items to pay.”
“I do not want you to pay for me.” You consume two melons at once.
“That was not sincere. You are angry. Anger means you are afraid or in sorrow, or otherwise upset.”
“Yes, it does mean one of those things.”
“You trick others for profit very often. We trick with you and we do not pay you. Being paid makes you feel embarrassed.”
You jerk your head to the right. “Yes, it does make me feel that.”
“We are going to trick others to help you pay for the trials. You will like it. You find it fun, and it gives you a rush.”
“No, I will not like it. I do not want to trick anyone.”
“…You do not?” Jack asks, confused.
“No I do not!” You hiss. “It is so… insincere. Messed up. Silver!”
“…But we do things like that all of the time, and you enjoy it.”
“Well, maybe I’ve developed a conscience about those things.”
“You make me sad,” Kayy says.
“I have remorse. What am I doing?”
“You are upset.”
“I am upset. Goodbye.”
You throw off Dirk’s arm and climb to your feet, weighed down by the packages on your back, and walk away. “Walking away is a healthy coping skill,” you hear Kayy saying behind you.