Jollies was flying back and forth, her equivalent of pacing, and talking rapidly to Amber. It was odd to watch the riders talking to their dragons. Most of the riders spoke out loud, but Alex could only hear Chine, not the other dragons. She and Gill were the only riders who communicated strictly telepathically with their dragons.
Alex could therefore only listen to one side of the conversation. Jollies was usually thinking out loud, like now, when she was complaining about being bored. Brath, on the other hand, often voiced his frustrations with those around him.
Alex stood and stretched and called Jollies over. When the pixie finally came, Alex motioned for her to take a seat in her palm. “You know, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break.”
Jollies sighed, her body shifting to light blue. “I know,” she admitted. “I don’t usually care about getting up and going, but I’ve been cooped up in the Nest for so long.”
“How long were you guys training before I got here?”
Jollies screwed her face up as she tried to remember. “I think I’ve been training for two years as a cadet,” she answered.
“Are you serious? Two years?”
Jollies smiled and nodded as she stood up and pranced around Alex’s palm. “Yep! That’s probably why Brath was so mad at you when you showed up. We’ve all been at the Nest for a while, much longer than you two humans. Jim wasn’t even there for a day.”
Alex tried to come up with something to say that didn’t sound like she thought it was ridiculous how quickly she had moved up the ranks. She did think it was strange. “You know, it probably has to do with the VR program we were in,” Alex suggested. “It was supposed to be like a recruitment thing, but probably it also doubled as training.”
“That would make sense. Most of us didn’t even think there were dragons when we applied for the program.”
“Wait, you just applied too? That’s how Jim got in.”
Jollies leaped off Alex’s hand and danced in the air for a second before letting herself fall. “Yeah, that’s how all the other races get in. None of us had a VR game of Middang3ard, only the humans. I heard it’s because none of us needed to be convinced there were other realms.”
“Why’s that?”
“We already knew about them. Humans are the only ones who lost touch with magic. We might be fantasy creatures to you, but to us, you’re just humans—one of many races.”
Gill walked over to Alex and took a seat beside her. “The anchor power you chose worked really well. You made a wise decision.”
Alex wished she could hide under a rock, but she managed a smile instead. “Thanks,” she muttered. “Are you immune to other elements, or is it just fire?”
“Generally, any elements found underground. That’s where we drow are from originally. Intense heat, dark magic, necromancy, and things of that sort don’t affect us.”
“That’s really cool. Also, you did a great job of calming down the firebright. I don’t think I could have done that. Back on Earth, I was terrible with kids. They hated me.”
Gill brushed the hair out of his eyes as he smiled sweetly. Alex’s heart melted once again. It was a wonder it wasn’t a permanent puddle by now. “I’m the oldest of six. Most of my life was spent minding children,” Gill explained. “My mother said I exuded a calming air, more so than other drow. We have a bad reputation.”
Alex looked at Rocten. “Yeah, I noticed the way he was talking to you,” she admitted.
Gill laughed as he leaned back against the hill. “That’s nothing. Wait until you see how other elves treat me.”
“That sounds rough. But I can understand people treating you differently for reasons you can’t control, like Brath.”
Gill looked at the gnome and laughed. “Oh, him? He’s a jerk to everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re blind, strong, or handsome. Any defining feature is fodder for him. He’s warming up to you, though, as he always does.”
Alex thought back to the last time she and Brath had spoken and what he had told her about Gill. She wished the gnome had kept his big mouth shut. “Uh, I gotta go,” Alex muttered as she walked toward the meadow behind the hills.
Jim noticed Alex was leaving, and he stood and called after her, “Hey, you mind if I tag along?”
Alex stopped dead in her tracks and let out a heavy sigh, one that felt as if she were exhaling every irritating thing in her life at the time. She hadn’t joined the dragonriders to get wrapped up in some Victorian love triangle. “Sure, Jaws,” she said without turning around.
Jim jogged to catch up with Alex. She didn’t bother slowing her pace, though. If she could have, she would have started running and not turned back. She did turn around, however, and when she saw Jim’s smiling face, she forgot about everything.
The two humans walked down through the meadow. It was spring, and the harrigolds were in full bloom, their twisting yellow petals casting themselves to the winds to be carried away. Jim walked up beside Alex. “So,” Jim started. “I heard through the grapevine—”
Alex interrupted Jim, nearly shouting, “That I was blind!”
Jim practically jumped back from Alex’s tone of voice. “Whoa, no, not like that. I mean, I wasn’t trying to say it like that. It’s just, I had no idea. You never mentioned it in—”
“Because I prefer not to be known as the blind girl. It gets pretty old.”
Jim nodded as he thought about what Alex had said. “I would never think of you as ‘the blind girl.’”
“Yet here you are, asking me about being the blind girl.”
“No, here I am asking one of my close friends about what’s going on in her life.”
Alex stopped walking and glared at Jim. She had no idea why she
