Chapter 14: Dormitories

            They did behave very oddly, as they had done when I first met them. I gave Jan a smirk and a confused look. She giggled. ‘You do know why those two are a bit odd and always so close?’ she asked.

            ‘I thought I did but now I’m not so sure.’

            She giggled. ‘They’re twins. They go everywhere together and are hardly apart. It sounds unhealthy but maybe with their dragons they might not want to be around each other all the time.’

            I looked back at the Eduram doors though the twins had now vanished inside. ‘You can’t tell though. I just thought they were seeing each other.’

            We were walking inside too and Frain had flown up seeing Storm perched on the roof. Jan was still giggling and she flicked her hair to the side as she answered. ‘No, neither did I until they told me. Everyone we know thought the same as you and I think there’s still a few that believe they’re together.’

            As we stepped across the entrance hall, she led me off through a few doors and we came to a wide, extravagant staircase. ‘Where are we going anyway?’

            ‘Well, I was going up to my little place in the dormitories upstairs.’ I was so confused. ‘Didn’t you know? Where do you think I spend my nights... out in the open? Hehe. Anyway, do you want to come and see?’ she asked, bobbing up and down on her heels at the bottom of the stairs.

            I smiled back, sort of half-heartedly. ‘I’m sure Frain can take care of himself without me around for a bit.’

            ‘Yay!’ And she rushed up the stairs with me running up behind her.

            Along the last corridor we walked there were rooms on either side; each turned out to be a dormitory and there was a bustle of young Tamers about Jan’s and my own ages. Now I knew where a lot of the Tamers spent their time; it did make a lot of sense.

            ‘Hey, hey. You should see if there’s a spare room then we could always see each other,’ Jan exclaimed, sounding more girly by the minute.

            ‘Jan, I live with Doran. That’s my home now and I don’t have much need to move. Oh, Doran is my dad by the way; I was meant to say ages ago.’ That sparked up some new wonder in her features and she grabbed my hand and pulled me along until we reached her room.

            The doors all had locks so she had to get out a small brass key. Her room was just as big as my own and she had her own bathroom which I guessed was a relief considering the amount of teenagers and young adults all in one area. She had a decorative, glass shaded lamp on the bedside table and a long desk to the left of the window. She had a single bed with comfy looking bedding on and the carpet was soft and bouncy.

            ‘So this is my room. You have lots to tell me. How on earth is Doran your dad? You’re not even from this world, not originally. You are now I mean but...’ She finished her ranting and sat on the edge of her bed.

            I stepped over to the wall opposite her and leant against it. The next five minutes I spent recalling, and telling, how Doran and I had found (or rather figured) out that we were father and daughter. It was all a little complicated and I had to go off track now and again to explain smaller details better so that Jan could understand everything. By the time I’d finished, I had lost track of time.

            ‘Wow, that is awesome. Strange though and to me it seems coincidental.’

            ‘Hehe, trust me. Neither he nor I had any idea until I told him about my mum. Anyway, things aren’t awkward anymore and we spend most of our time avoiding each other.’

            ‘Why?’

            I sighed a dropped my hands, I had them folded in front of my chest all the while. ‘So we don’t get the opportunity to ask questions. There is little more I want to know about what happened between my mum and him.’

            She crossed her legs and leant back supporting herself on her hands placed on the bed behind her. ‘You don’t call him dad?’ she asked, sounding a little surprised.

            I shook my head. ‘No, I haven’t been able to. He’s fine with it though.’

            ‘Sounds weird but I’m not you so there we go.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Is it weird seeing those two dragons that you saved? Out of their eggs, I mean.’ She changed the subject rather quickly.

            ‘Yeh, but at least I know they’ll be in safe hands. There are still some more out there but we have no idea where yet. Doran said we should let things settle down again and then maybe we will get another lead. What he means, I don’t know. I just wished I had saved them all in one go; it takes a long time tracking people down and getting to places before they leave.’ Now I was the one ranting on; I took a deep breath and slid down the wall so I was sitting on the floor.

            ‘Is Frain alright after that fight?’ she asked, her voice now holding a tint of guilt.

            ‘He will be. Don’t feel bad, it’s not your fault nor mine of what happened. Jeta scratched some lines down his left flank but we went to see a healer and she soon patched him up. How is Jeta?’ I asked, returning the favour of concern.

            Turning her head, she looked out the window and her arms seemed to draw into her body. ‘He is fine physically but he seems to have changed. There’s something about Frain that he doesn’t like and he won’t tell me. I have asked him but he stays quiet on the subject. I know it was his fault that the fight began and I can understand if you expect me to say Frain was the first to say something.’

            That proved that Frain was telling the truth but it still left me, and Jan, none the wiser of what was said between the two dragons before Jeta let out that first flare of fire.

            ‘I don’t blame you and I did expect you to think Frain started it but that was before you said that Jeta told you the truth. Sorry if that sounds like I think Jeta is a bad dragon. Private relations between dragon and Tamer are always different,’ I explained quickly before she got angry.

            She stood up and came over and knelt beside me with her back to the wall as well. ‘Yeh, I thought exactly the same about Frain before Jeta told me what happened.’

*****

            It was in the very early hours that I woke up and stayed awake as I thought back over the eggs I had saved and how I did it. It was long enough ago that I couldn’t remember everything but there was one moment that I remembered more vividly than all the rest. The time that I chased after one of the men from the inn and found out that it was my own brother... that was my memory.

            I was sleeping on a spare mattress on the floor in Jan’s room. She had suggested we have a little sleepover and we had spent most of the night talking about our secret love lives. I had learnt of her that there were a few good looking boys, a little older than myself, that resided in these dorms. We shared a few giggles between us yet there was an absence in her tone and her eyes that would have suggested she was really interested in them. Somehow, and I couldn’t recall how, she managed to get me to talk about Ky; I hadn’t spoken of him to anyone but Frain and Doran.

            ‘No way!’ she exclaimed when I first mentioned his name. ‘But he’s not a Tamer...’ She was sat on her front with her legs in the air as she lay angular to her bed.

            I let out a wild laugh and sat up from lying on my back on the mattress. ‘Hahaha, no. No, he isn’t. I don’t really know what he does. I don’t know if you know. I’d say he was some sort of errand runner but I believe he is more than that.’ As I spoke about Ky, my vision blurred and all I saw was the memories from my inner mind’s eye. ‘As he lives in Itra, I hardly get to see him,’ I added, keeping the fact I had ridden of to specifically give him a visit.

            Jan gasped and then hit me round the head with her pillow. ‘Have you kissed him yet?’

            My lips pursed together in a thin smile and my cheeks flushed red with blood. ‘No, he kissed me first and I acted like it meant nothing to me.’

            ‘Buuuut?’ She clung tightly to her pillow under her chest.

            I unwillingly let out a giggle. ‘When I left his last, I kissed him on the cheek. What else could I do?’ I asked in retaliation to her awing.

            ‘You could have properly kissed him,’ she hinted.

            ‘And that would just have landed me in a whole new world of problems. I know he likes me and I like him but it would just never work no matter how you cut it.’ Without letting her see, I grabbed my own pillow from behind me and hit her with it. ‘That’s for hitting me with yours.’

            ‘Ah! That’s not fair.’ And she hit me again; it went on as a pillow fight with her kneeling on her bed and me ending stood up.