Song of the Dragoons

I waited on Juniper to come along behind before I followed Grace, who had already burst through the door the commander and Alvhir had indicated. The room below the commander's office was indeed a laboratory. Four tables were organised at the edges of the room, with a huge metal furnace sitting in a corner and a high stack of several pear-shaped ceramic pots in another. Other devices and contraptions littered the tables, with phials containing a number of mysterious chemicals and several that definitely contained either quiet or quickblood resting on small shelves on the walls. Alchemical vessels seemed to have a premium here, with all sorts of porcelain, glass, metal, and stoneware flasks, bottles, crucibles, and chalices sitting around, some of them organised neatly in rows in shelves hanging beneath the tables, and others sitting atop metal rings that spouted flames tinged red with bloodcraft pyromancy and continuously spewing forth steam or some other vapours.

Three cushioned chairs sat against the wall opposite the door, each one reclining about halfway back. Smaller end tables sat next to them, all currently empty of instruments. There were unmistakable ruddy stains indicating blood on both the chairs and the tables. In fact, the entire atmosphere of this room smelled so heavily of the sweet iron scent of blood that it was a wonder it wasn't perceptible in the commander's office. Juniper backed up, shaking her head back and forth and pawing at her nose. I knelt down and scratched her ears. "I know, Juni," I whispered. "It's such a new place. We'll find somewhere you can sit down and relax soon, I promise."

Alvhir set his small box on one of the end tables and opened it, revealing three metal tubes tipped with a long needle at one side and a set of rings at the other. I vaguely recalled from a physical textbook I'd glanced at years ago that it was called a "syringe". He also retrieved four small glass phials.

"Each of you two afflicted, take a seat," he ordered. "And please, order your dog not to enter. I'd rather not deal with whatever contaminants it carries."

I bristled at the word "afflicted", even though I thought I agreed with that assessment, and then fully glared at him for the way he spat the word dog. Even so, Arthur and I took our seats while Alvhir cleaned off his instruments. I wasn't really affected by the prospect of having blood taken, but poor Arthur moved stiffly and froze when he sat down. He kept glancing at the needles, then pointedly looking away.

"It'll be fine," I said, tapping the back of his hand. "It doesn't hurt as much as you think it does."

He shook out of his frozen state. "Have you had this done before?" he asked.

"Yes," I lied.

Alvhir flicked his finger against the needle, causing the hollow syringe to emit a weak chiming sound, and he nodded with satisfaction. "Be grateful I don't intend to bleed you for this," he muttered as he approached me. "Quacks have become all too familiar with techniques that experts such as I have left behind, and I've known it to be the death of several good fellows."

Colour again drained from Arthur's face at that.

Alvhir grabbed my arm at the wrist and I reflexively yanked it back. He stared down at me. "Child. You'll need to give me your arm, unless you would prefer for your veins to be torn if you shake during the process."

I gingerly held my arm out, maintaining eye contact the whole time as Alvhir clamped down on my wrist with one hand and used the other to stick the syringe into the inside of my elbow. The pierce of the needle stung and burned, but I'd been shot with guns before. This was nothing. He pulled the plunger back, and a long glass window along the side of the chamber showed it filling up with dark red blood. Alvhir's eyes stayed cold and calm during until he slowly pulled the needle back. He finally let go of my arm, and retrieved a small damp cloth that he rubbed over the tiny wound. I drew in a sharp breath. The touch of the cloth stung like he'd rubbed salt in the wound. I had thought it was just wet with water.

"Good," he said. "Now, you."

He did the same to Arthur. Arthur closed his eyes and grimaced, pointedly turning his head away even though he couldn't see. It was all over in only a few moments, with a second syringe full and Arthur hissing at the touch of the cloth. Maybe it was soaked in some kind of cleansing acid? That was all that made sense to me.

"It's finished," declared Alvhir. He inserted the syringes into the phials and began to drain the blood into the tiny glass bottles. "You have no more business there. As Commander Cynthia said, the refectory is at the opposite end of the keep. You should eat."

"I agree…" Grace groaned. She laid a hand against her growling stomach for emphasis. I was starving, too. I felt a little woozy as I stood from the chair, and I suspected it was more from having not eaten since yesterday afternoon than the blood loss.

Grace sped out of the room, waving after herself for us to follow. I inclined my head towards Alvhir. "Thank you," I said. "For helping us."

Alvhir harrumphed. "It is my duty."

I hurried after the others down the stairs and back into the keep's halls. There was quite a bit of twisting around rooms and adjusting slightly to the sides as the halls wandered through the building, but apart from small tables and a handful of simplistic paintings sparsely placed throughout, they were austere and largely undecorated. Wherever windows provided light rather than gas lanterns, I could see stretches of stone along the walls where it hadn't been bleached by exposure to the sunlight despite lying directly in it. There must have been more decorations here that were removed. Maybe old cuirassier stuff the dragoons got rid of after the empire fell? I thought to myself. A part of me despaired that the place wasn't as fancy as I had expected, but pragmatically, I knew that part was really the least of my concerns.

"That guy was strange," Arthur said abruptly.

Grace raised an eyebrow. "You mean 'Alvhir'?" she asked. "I thought he was just a Church chaplain. He had the Cross on his clothes."

"I haven't seen vestments in that style before," said Rosalie. "They seemed like a cenobitic habit. Monk's clothes. Which is rather strange, given that this place is not a monastery."

"The commander said he was a liaison with the 'Schola'," I pointed out. "Is that some kind of Church order?"

Rosalie pressed a hand against her temple, deep in thought. "I…don't know," she finally said. "I haven't heard the term before."

Grace shrugged. "Well, he seems to be working here, at the very least. I'd trust him as much as the commander. He looked like he knew what he was doing when he took you two's blood."

I hugged my shirt tight against my body. "I don't think we can let our guard down completely." My voice was morose. "We still don't know what exactly they want us for."

"I'd bet they just want us to join," said Grace. "That way, we all win. They get to keep an eye on us and figure out what exactly is the deal with you, and we get food, lodging, adventure, and payment!"

"Let's not make assumptions now," I cautioned. She was practically radiant with excitement, but I couldn't fully compromise our safety to keep her in her bubble. "Just keep the thought in mind."

I could smell the refectory before we heard it, and hear it before we saw it. The airs that drifted down the hall were laden with the scents of meats, two that I recognised immediately as goat and mutton, and one that was new; it was a scent I would have once called foul, but for some reason, now it was as enticing as the others. There was an altogether less appetising mesh of other smells, too: bread, butter, and several different kinds of fruits and roots. The noise coming from the room was a low din, only a small amount of conversation and clinking of metal and stone amplified by the acoustics of the keep.

It didn't have proper doors, only a large arch that led into a large rectangular room. Three sets of long, white-painted wooden tables lined with benches took up the majority of the space, with two slabs of smooth grey stone sitting on squat wooden legs perpendicular to the other tables serving as additional seating near the back. Behind the stone tables, there was a counter and small arched opening set into the wall, with a door sitting next to it. From here, it looked like a combination of food storage and kitchen. The room was tall, with a balcony wrapping around the space on the next floor up, just below the vaulted ceiling.

Despite the room easily able to fit well over a hundred people, I only counted about twenty humans, most of them in plain burgundy and brown uniforms, though a couple wore other clothes with a noticeable burgundy patch on their right shoulders. All of them had the same symbol that was on Cynthia's epaulette on their shoulder, theirs lined in white rather than gold. They all had tin trays with various cuts of meat, small loaves of bread, and a variety of fruit, some of them already half-eaten, as well as glass carafes filled with water.

There were also eleven dragons in the room. They had a variety of colours, but most trended toward a similar build: half a foot or so taller than me at the shoulder, with spikes or fins running down their neck and tail, and horns at their temples or the backs of their skulls. A few had features that stood out from the group, though. One had a smooth protruding dome surrounded by a crown of small spikes that rose from their skull and a heavy club of bone at the tip of their tail, while another had feathery wings and arms and a thick, ruddy brown mane that covered its neck. They sat at the stone tables in front of servings that were piled directly on the stone. To my disappointment, most of the dragons' food was an assortment raw meat of some sort, with a small portion of apples, rhubarb, cloudberries, or lingonberries to the side. At least some of them seemed to be cooking their meat on the spot, blowing a small puff of bright orange flames out before scarfing it down. They also had peculiar stoneware vessels for their water, with a long neck that bulged in the middle and a wide, round base. At least they didn't lap water up from a bowl, like I thought they might have after how I had struggled to drink normally on the way here.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Of all the humans in the room, only two were seated at the entire leftmost table, one at the nearest end and one all the way at the farthest. The nearer one caught my eye immediately. Over their burgundy uniform, they had on a slate-grey cloak with the hood pulled up, so I could only see the bottom half of their face. But against their cloudy-white skin, I could just make out vermilion scales that spread over their cheekbones.

I made a beeline right for them. I heard Arthur say he was going to get the food, but suddenly my empty stomach no longer bothered me. There was a third. Someone else to share the burden with.

I sat down at the bench across from them, with Rosalie and Grace trailing along behind and sitting a few feet away from me. My eyes were locked on the stranger as they awkwardly stopped shovelling mutton and some kind of pale white meat into their mouth and began picking at their food much more slowly. Their eyes were a striking yellow, and they kept glancing up at me for only a moment before looking back down at their tray.

While I was trying to figure out what to say, they let out a breath I didn't see they'd been holding, and their fork clinked against the tray. "What do you want?" they asked. Their voice was soft and brittle, like the drizzle that follows a thunderstorm.

"Here you go!" Arthur interrupted as he arrived at the table, deftly carrying four trays on his arms. He set one down in front of me. Just like the stranger's, it had a collage of lightly-cooked meats, with a small pile of cloudberries on the other side.

"I asked for dragon rations for us," said Arthur. "Hope that's alright."

It was. The food smelled positively divine. But more importantly, Arthur's comment and the clanking of metal on the table finally made the stranger look up, first in confusion, then in shock when they saw my face and the scales that covered my ears. Locks of slightly wavy dark beige hair fell to the sides of their face. They put a hand over their mouth.

"Are you…?" they trailed off.

"I think I am," I finished. I smiled my friendliest smile, trying to shake the bristles out of my demeanour. I discreetly took some of the meat from my plate and handed down to Juni who sat just behind me. She sniffed it for a moment before greedily devouring it and then setting her head on the table, looking up at me with eyes that pleaded for more.

Seeing the big dog seemed to calm the other ersatz's nerves. "You must be new, then," they said.

"I am," I confirmed. I gestured to the other three sitting in our little line, receiving a wave from Grace and Arthur and a slight bow of the head from Rosalie. "We are. We got here…maybe an hour ago."

The person's eyes widened even more when they noticed Arthur too. "Oh. Oh, wow."

I held a hand forward. "I'm Belfry."

They tentatively met the handshake. "Griffin," they said. "Griffin Fairchild."

The others all leaned forward to give their own introductions. I caught Rosalie and Arthur share a glance before they discreetly switched places, letting Arthur get closer to Griffin. Everyone seemed full of enthusiasm except for Rosalie, who only upgraded her usual cool bearing to a mildly intrigued one.

"I thought I was the only one," Griffin whispered. "Wow. I'm really happy to meet you."

"You too," I agreed. "It's good to find more people to commiserate with."

Confusion furrowed their brow again. "Oh. I don't know about that. Misery?"

"Not as in 'I'm going to make you miserable'," I said quickly. "I mean, to share the burden. Just talk about things so that we can lean on each other's experience, you know?"

Griffin shrugged. "I don't know," they said. "I don't know. I don't think I would call it a burden. I think this is all pretty great."

I blinked. "What?" I said, a little louder than I should have. I could already feel some eyes watching us, but now I could hear whispers about "newcomers" and "dragon-people". The dragons at their own table were clearly having some sort of discussion too, only in a series of barks, chirps, whistles, and growls that I couldn't understand. The back of my neck started to feel hot.

"I mean, I don't know how your experience has been," Griffin continued. "I've had fun. I like being stronger. And bigger. Fire's neat. Flying…flying is really good. It's really good, I like it a lot. So I wouldn't call it a 'burden'. It's more of an 'opportunity'."

I just stared at them. I couldn't comprehend that line of logic at all. I couldn't say that I didn't enjoy flying, or being able to take a gunshot and sleep it off, or being strong enough to crush a mutated bandit like the bug it was….

Wait. I had to restart my train of thought, staying silent for an awkwardly long time outside my head. Where had that thought come from? I didn't enjoy hurting people. I didn't enjoy hurting anything, really. I had sympathy for those people, whatever had happened to them. I did. It must have just been something intrusive. I didn't really think that.

Arthur slowly leaned forward to look me in the eye, bringing me back into the conversation. "I don't really get him, either," he muttered loudly.

"Them," Griffin immediately corrected.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," said Arthur. I relaxed as soon as he said it.

Griffin waved a dismissive hand. "You know now," they said. "I think it's probably also fine that you don't 'get' me. It's probably pretty weird, how I think. I used to dream about things like this. I just wish I was actually able to go out and do something."

"Have you been here long?" asked Grace.

"Only a month," said Griffin. "I flew straight here after I, er…." They rubbed the back of their neck. "Ate that rock. I figured it was my chance." Their hand fell down again and they shrugged. "I guess they don't have a lot of people yet though. I'm training with a partner, but I don't think he likes me very much. And I haven't been put into one of their 'flights' yet, or put through their 'initiation'."

"A whole month, huh," said Grace. "You must have learned some neat tricks by now. Who's your partner?"

Griffin jerked their head towards the other end of the table. I hadn't taken immediate notice of the person sitting there at first because of Griffin, but they had a more impressively muscular build than almost anyone in the room. They seemed at least as tall as me, too, from what I could tell of them sitting down. They were bald, with a thick, rounded dirty blond beard. There were several scars, most being single jagged lines, all over their head and weathered, pale sandy face. They had a shiny, black amulet, the details of which I couldn't see from here, and a black wooden cane with a sharp metal tip that leaned up against the bench beside them.

"I hear other people talk about him," said Griffin. "Some of the others call him 'the Ogre'."

Grace's eyebrows shot up. "He's got a title?"

"He didn't pick it, I don't think," said Griffin. "His real name's Ingo. He's real strong. He doesn't talk much, though. But he can be kind of mean, when he does."

"Why did you choose him as a partner, then?" asked Rosalie. "Or did you get paired up without your choosing so?"

"No, we decided to do it ourselves." Griffin hunched their shoulders forward over their now empty tray. "I didn't think he'd get picked by any of the other dragons because he's mean. He says he picked me because I'm real 'agile in flight'. I think it might be because I don't get into fights with him very much."

"That's really kind of you," said Grace. "But frankly, I feel like if someone is being such an ass they can't find a partner that gets along with them, then maybe they're not right for the corps."

I picked at the few scraps of food left on my tray. I felt an invisible weight set down on me then. I wished I still knew where my personality crossed into something Grace disagreed with, so I could figure out what to suppress.

A man strode into the refectory, arms behind his back, heading directly for our table. I had already pushed my tray away and halfway stood up by the time he got to us and said, "Belfry Lawcrest, Grace Lawcrest, Arthur Coslett, Rosalie Lecerf. Please come with me to the flight yard. The commander wishes to speak with you."

Even still, Grace was on her feet before me. "Got to go, Griffin!" she said. "Bye for now!"

Griffin nodded and turned their head down to face the table, letting their hood droop down to obscure their scales again. "Bye," they said. "I'm sure we'll meet again."

The rest of us gave our curt goodbyes before following the messenger out of the refectory and back down the maze of hallways, though this time we were only walking for about a minute before turning right into a door leading outside. Rather than back down into the pathways in between the raised courtyards, this door exited onto a path that encircled those courtyards, crossing over the lower trenches with a series of bridges. All of the wide-open grass-covered courtyards were clear except one, where Commander Cynthia stood alongside two other dragoons, all in their fancy show uniforms rather than armour or anything simple. The messenger led us right there, before bowing to the commander and taking his leave. The four of us instinctively shuffled into a rough line, shoulder to shoulder.

Cynthia had her arms crossed, and she bounced slightly on her feet as she studied each of us in turn. "Well! Did you eat well?"

We all gave a chorus of affirmatives.

"Good! Then we can go ahead with the second part of our offer. It's a simple one." Cynthia took a step towards us. "We'd like to get to the bottom of this problem you all have, and to do that, it would be most helpful to keep you around, to aid us in our investigations, whether that be through analysis of what information we can gain from you directly, or pursuing missions to gather knowledge from others."

She gave us one more once-over, measuring our reaction to each sentence. "Therefore, I, Commander Cynthia of Fort Caspian, am offering you the chance to join the Dragoon Corps. You will undertake a course of training to assess your strengths and establish a base level of competency, and then you and your assigned flight will be sent to one of our strongholds in the Vale. You will represent the corps and take part in ordinary missions to maintain peace and stability within your commission, and in return, we will provide you both what research the corps can itself undertake as well as the support of the corps to conduct whatever research you see fit.

"I must warn you: Joining the corps will not be a decision that you can undo. There is no going back once you have undertaken initiation. Our process of initiation will change you physically and mentally for the rest of your lives. Make your decision with that in mind. For any of you who choose not to join, we will escort you to Wrightsmouth to continue whatever life you have put on hold to come here. It is up to you."

She stepped away again. This same offer. Again. It didn't feel any less foreboding, but at least this time I was pretty sure that the "physical and mental" changes she mentioned didn't involve turning more of us into dragons.

Grace stepped up. "Yes!" she said, nodding her head with pride and resolution. "I want to join you."

I stepped up to join her. Juniper mirrored my movement, staying right at my heels, and my heart swelled, affirming my decision. "I'll accept your offer, as well," I said. "Whatever it takes to figure all this out."

"Me too." Arthur said as he met Grace's and my line. "Whatever it takes. And I'm always up for some adventure, if I can get it."

"I go with Arthur," said Rosalie. She remained where she stood. "If he is with you, then so am I."

Cynthia's head tilted to the side, letting her gaze at Rosalie with one eye. "Are you sure?" she pressed. "This is your decision to make, and yours alone."

Rosalie stepped forward. "I am sure."

Cynthia let those words hang in the air for a moment before uncrossing her arms and giving her head a deep bow. "Very well, then." She gestured towards the keep behind us. "Leo, we are opening the Ninth Flight bunks. Escort these novices there, and then fetch the ones still flightless. They've finally got themselves a flight."

She gave us a proud smile as the other dragoon, Leo, gestured for us to follow him back towards the keep. "You've got until initiation at dusk to change your minds. But for now, welcome to the corps!"