That night, after Myrkr left the library, she met with Azure Star in the Immortal Land. Currently, she was going through drills, bending emerald dust into many, many objects. The Eltrí brought crystal arrows for Myrkr to shoot from her emerald bow. This was to demonstrate the tension weapons and armor would possess when taking attacks. Since this meeting was in a dream, Azure Star was able to create a bowstring for Myrkr to use.

    A hiss escaped from Myrkr when she accidentally released the bowstring, loosing the nocked arrow and letting the bowstring slap against her left hand. She instinctively dropped the bow, the emerald body shattering once it hit the ground. The crystal arrow had stopped in midair since Azure Star caught it. "Better than last time, Myrkr. Your progress is going well."

    Myrkr snorted. She reassembled the emerald dust into the curve of a bow and picked up the bowstring. It had no markings, since that would have been pointless and too complex. "At least you don't need to worry about continuing to train me in enchanting or rune magic. That's what I'll be doing tomorrow, if I don't sleep half way through the class."

    "You are not there to learn, Myrkr, but to get the information we need. We need to know what Silver Wings is planning, and if he has any weaknesses. And since you and Sanguine seem to be targeted or recognized by Seaglare, this process must be accelerated. She may know who you two are. Avoid Silver Wings and Seaglare if at all possible without raising suspicion. After all, Cí'mehia and ruby dragons often went to the Ziixi Academy, anyway. Speaking of which, have you seen any other Cí'mehia in the academy?"

    Myrkr nodded. "There's Maple the Swift, a cat-born Cí'mehia. She tried to convince me to go to Mion, but I refused, and for now she seems to respect that."

    "What about one Cedric?"

    "There is one," Myrkr said, shifting on her feet. "But he's a lycanthrope. He had no Cí'mehia limbs about him."

    "Hm." Understanding seemed to fill Azure Star's eyes. "Alright. Sleep well, for this will be an art you must perfect."

✦ ✦ ❦ ✦ ✦

     Myrkr woke from her dreamless sleep to the sound of shuffling footsteps. Why is someone trying to be sneaky? They should know better than to do something so stupid. She stayed where she was, still and ready to fight, when a small, pearlescent glow shone from Luna's bunk. What is that light? Myrkr then saw the black wings with white on them, something she hadn't seen before, on a humanoid figure, and her heart rate immediately sped up. The wings then landed swiftly on the Cí'mehia, and, as she lashed out and definitely drew some blood, she heard a hissed curse and "Myr! Stop, it's Luna!"

     The soft command was startling. The wing smelled like Luna, and the voice sounded like Luna. "What did you tell us about familiars on the first day?" Myrkr whispered. The instinct to identify the dragoness with a question hadn't been a conscious thought.

     There was a brief pause as the dragoness thought. "I said that the student would need to be present. I was never sure what yours would be since I don't know your race, Sang's would be a small ruby dragon, mine a night dragon—or, now, since you know my race, a song dragon—and Shim's a small ice dragon. Good enough?" The wing removed itself from on top of Myrkr, and she saw Luna standing there, hands at her side and wings folded back, one with a small trail of blood on it. She sighed, stepped back, and motioned for Myrkr to follow her out of the dorms.

     When they were out in the hallway, Luna shook her head and fully turned into a dragoness. The hallways were built to house many different races of Mythics, so it was easily wide enough and tall enough for a fully grown dragon to fly, which Luna wasn't. When the black dragon lifted off, the Cí'mehia noticed the white-blue symbols of music and the moon phases glowing. Turning into a cheetah, she followed Luna all the way to the courtyard.

     Luna was gazing at the inky sky when Myrkr approached, and turned back into her Hybrid form. Luna stayed a dragoness. "Myr, we all have secrets," she started in her normal quiet voice. "You must not tell anyone of this."

     The Cí'mehia saw the moon. It was full, glowing the same white-blue as Luna's scales. "What are you talking about? More importantly, why did you wake me up with your wing?" Her response was just as quiet.

     Luna gave a small smile. "It wasn't my wing that woke you up. You were already awake. You know this to be true."

     Myrkr felt her heart rate speed up again. "How do you know?" she asked. She then remembered Luna never explained the ability she used on the ship. "And what did you do on the transport? What is going on?!"

     The song dragoness looked up at the sky, her gray eyes lost in the shine from the full moon. "Song dragons are sensitive to changes in sound waves. The vibrations are like wind currents, I think. Only pulse-like. We can use them to see, like bats, and locate our prey, so if we go blind, we have better echo-location. Some use it more than others, and I am one to fully utilize what I have." Luna looked back at Myrkr. "I felt your heart quicken with either the fear or excitement that meant you were about to attack. I also felt your pulse rise just a moment ago.
     "As for on the Cloudy Skies, the transport, I can persuade people to do as I say, though few know about it. It's a song dragon talent, or charm, whatever you would call it."

     "That still doesn't explain why you were up in the night, or why you felt it was necessary to trap me under your wing." Myrkr's voice was almost a growl.

     "Ah," Luna said, shifting on her talons. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask about that."

     "I don't forget things of importance."

     "So it seems." Luna turned to gaze at the moon. "It's a story for another time, Myr. This isn't how I want to tell it."

     "Okay," Myrkr said. She did understand not wanting to share something. After all, she was now the Emerald. She wouldn't like having that be common knowledge. "Do the others know?"

     "Shimmer never asked," Luna answered, carefully. "She doesn't seem too interested in it. Cedric, though, he's a clever one. He, Shim, and I have fought together for years. Once, during a battle, it got really intense and I had to reveal that I was—" Luna hesitated, and started over. "The fighting was bad, and I couldn't do what I needed to to protect myself and them. So I shifted into my dragon form, and Cedric..." She trailed off.

     Myrkr was slowly trying to piece the information together, to try and figure out the secret. "Somehow, with your dragon form, he figured out what your secret is?"

     Quietly, the black dragoness replied, "Yes." She wouldn't meet Myrkr's eyes.

     Myrkr and Luna watched the sky as it turned from inky to pink to orange to yellow. "Please don't look it up when you have a chance, Myr. Respect my secret, please, even if you don't know what it is."

     The Cí'mehia sighed. "Alright. You're lucky I have no clue what you are hiding."

Luna gave a small half smile as she locked her gaze on Myrkr's. "Indeed I am."

✦ ✦ ❦ ✦ ✦

     The class came, and Myrkr found that the teacher was an elf woman.

     "Welcome, Mythics!" she sang. "Welcome to magic and enchanting!"

     Myrkr immediately loathed the elf's cheeriness, but at the same time welcomed it. Waterfall was just cruel and irritated; the elf woman would at least make class interesting.

     Introductions were made, the elf woman turned out to be Resiviora, a fitting name, Myrkr thought, for the nature-loving race. She always welcomed helping one of the less magiclaly-talented students, and Myrkr got started, secretly creating a flat emerald with a diamond-shaped (⋄) rune surface with the sides cut straight the size of her hand, and the two flat edges gave way to the typical and simple cuts that books often described within her mist bag. (AN: this is similar to typical video game emerald cuts.). She already had a plan to what she would do with the enchantment. Myrkr pulled out the gemstone and held it in her left hand.

     As she picked up the enchanted chisel—which let one easily take only small portions of the rune surface away in order to not ruin the surface—a golden-scaled dragon made his way over to her side of the room. Considering there were empty places near her, Myrkr paid him no mind, like the other students who passed her by. That is, until she felt the small scales on a wingtip brush her shoulder. They didn't move, so she glanced at the dragon.

     The golden dragon was handsome, but the same way all jewel dragons were: polished scales that shown in the light, and some glows throughout the scales. His eyes—which were locked on her own—were a striking pearlescent-white, and the light reflected in many different ways. It took her a moment, as she was processing this information, to realize he had greeted her. "Oh," she started, startled. "Hello, there. Is there something you need?"

     The golden dragon shook his head. "No," he said. Myrkr noticed his voice was a bit deeper than Sanguine's, but he couldn't have been much more than a few months older than the ruby dragon. "I just thought I would introduce myself to such a lovely chimaera. I haven't seen one in a while, and your ilk is getting harder and rarer to see."

     Myrkr had a bad feeling, though she forced herself to not reveal she was irritated or suspicious, so she kept her tail and ears neutral. She didn't like how the golden male called her a chimaera, but Myrkr also realized that could be of help. "Is that so?" she said, a smirk upon her lips. Maybe opportunity chose me to be the popular one, and Sang to be the unknown. That's fine. "And who do I have the honor of addressing?"

     The golden dragon smiled, his white fangs showing. Definitely a bad feeling about this. "Porael Gílrae. Nice to meet you." He dipped his head respectfully. Immediately losing interest, he glanced at the half-chiseled rune Myrkr was working on. "What are you trying to do?"

     He didn't ask my name. That's fine. "I'm not trying to do anything, Porael. What I am doing is writing a rune for an explosion. I want this to be like a grenade."

     His eyes widened. "Isn't that difficult to do? Is that even allowed?" Porael glanced in Resivora's direction. The elf was helping Sanguine—who was never good at rune-creation—by describing an easy rune.

     Myrkr shrugged. "Guess I get to find out, and no, not anymore. I learned runing when I was young. Don't you need to make your rune, or whatever she assigned the others to do?"

     "No. I'm done with my rune." Porael pulled out gold, which looked nearly just as big and polished as Myrkr's emerald rune. "It's done." He placed it back in a little pouch on one of his wings. The bag had gold scales on it, maybe old ones of his. "You learned to do this when you were young? How old are you?"

     "Fifteen," she replied. With a brief glance at Porael's rune, she took note of it's simplicity. "A smokescreen?"

     "That was the extent to which I could manage," the golden dragon said. "I talked to Resivora before class so I could look up a few techniques. I never was good at channeling magic." That's the same with Sanguine. Is that a thing with jewel dragons?

     "Well, to place you in perspective, the explosion one is about five times as taxing. Magic comes as muscle, though. The more you know and exercise, the easier and more you can use it." Myrkr chiseled away a little more of the emerald, keeping the tiny shards in a neat pile. Porael noticed. "It also decays just as easily."

     "I can throw those away for you," he offered, reaching a gold-scaled talon toward the pile.

     Immediately Myrkr dropped the chisel from her right hand to cover the small pile. Her ears were flat, but her voice was level. "Thank you, but no." As if to assure Porael that she wasn't just being nice, she swept the emerald shards into her mist bag. "I like to keep them." Her reason was weak, she knew.

     Porael noticed the brief hostility that Myrkr had displayed. "Sorry, sorry, er—what was your name?"

     So he finally asks. "Myrkr. No problem, I just find gem shards to be...useful."

     Porael laughed. "No surname, eh? And the shards are as useless as a rock, unless you want to stab someone."

     Myrkr didn't trust the dragon, but she had a feeling the gold dragon might have popular friends. So she kept playing along. "It's Mkhoal, happy? And you know nothing about me. Those shards are useful."

     The golden dragon's eyes widened at the mention of her last name, but said nothing directly about it. "You're right, I know nothing about you. I think we should fix that. Want to hang with me at break?" The pearlescent eyes were sincere in their offer, and Myrkr felt a small twinge of pity, for she might have been a  bit too harsh.

     At last, the Cí'mehia said, "Sure. See you then. I'll let my friends know."

     Luna, Maple, Shimmer, and Sanguine were all near each other, and they were bunched together just enough to indicate they were a group. Myrkr gestured toward them. Porael's eyes lingered longest on Sanguine, as if he were jealous, but again said nothing and nodded. Myrkr returned her focus to the emerald rune she was creating. Much of her magic had gone into it while she had been talking, but she hadn't chiseled the symbol on it completely, so it was harder than normal. She was tired when she finished soon after.

     Resivora dismissed the class a few minutes early and let everyone keep their runes, and Myrkr got a head start into the cafeteria line.

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦
     What do you guys think about Porael? Is he good, bad, or just a typical player, pompous because his scales are golden? Does he want something from Myrkr? What do you think about him calling her a chimaera? That idea came from my reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but Myrkr's race didn't. Not many questions this time.