"That was... interesting."

"I thought it was fun!" The two boys had an hour before dinner started and they'd decided to get a head start on their homework. Professor Thornborne had asked them to come back with three interesting facts about one of the Consul positions. Then they had to try and research what breed their dragon was.

With the help of the map they'd both been given when they'd arrived at the school, they were able to find the library.

Kyle had never seen some many books in his entire life. There seemed to be endless shelves that stretched up to the tall ceiling. Ladders were used to reach the books at the top and the front half of the library was covered in long oak tables.

A librarian was walking around and picking up books the students had left on the tables. Second and Third years walked around the library casually, talking to each other in hushed voices. Occasionally, they'd see a random first year who, like them, had decided to finish their homework early.

"This place is so big, how are we supposed to find anything?" Kyle looked at a random book on the shelf. "Look at this, Creatures of the Cavernous Caves."

"Ha! Written by Jestie Joolen!" Axel pointed out, making the two of them laugh.

There came a loud shush and the two boys looked for the source. Chloissa sat at the end of one of the long tables, she was surrounded by books. He stepsister Clare was scanning over a thin book, well at least she was pretending to. He eyes were glancing everywhere but at her book.

"That girl really gets on my nerves sometimes." Axel said a little too loudly for Kyle to be comfortable with.

"Let's just find what we're looking for."

"The History of Dragon nails? Since when do dragons use nails?" Axel had pulled off a book and was holding it in his abnormally black hands. He flipped the cover open.

"I think it's talking about a dragon toe nails Axel." He pointed to a diagram showing a labelled sketch of a dragon's toe. Axel had to contain his laughter while Kyle gave a look of disgust. "Who'd write a book about this?" He continued.

"The question is, why is it in the school library? Who'd actually research this stuff?"

"Sh!" The librarian walked past and snatched the book from Axel's hands and placed it on the bookshelf. "Can I help you?" She asked sternly.

They exchanged a nervous glance.

"Uh... yes! We're looking for a book."

"Well, you came to the right place." Irony stained her voice. No one seemed to be paying attention to them, which made Kyle feel a little better.

"We need a book about the Wing Rider's Consul positions and something to help us find our dragon's breeds."

"This way." She flicked her hand and led them down one of the long corridors. Bookshelves towered above them on either side and candles had been placed in odd areas to light their path. "Beginners guide of the Consul and its positions." She mumbled pulling out a thick book. "I'd suggest reading the glossary."

"Thanks." Axel took the book. The librarian disappeared before returning once again. The book she held was wider than the two boys put together. "Dragon eggs A through to Z." She looked down on them with a snobbish glare before passing them the book. "Happy hunting."

When she was gone the boys found a table and dropped the books on it. There bang from the books weight echoed. Another round of shushes came from Chloissa and the librarian's directions. The sides of the table were carved into a small sculpture of a dragon with not limbs, curling around the table.

Axel had opened the Consul book and was searching through its glossary. "Here we go." He flipped through pages as Kyle rummaged through his saddle bag. He pulled out his fountain pen, paper and class notes. "The Consul itself consists of five riders each with their own set of skills and experiences, blah, blah, blah... there's the Healer, Ambassador, General, Historian and the High Rider." He read aloud.

"I think I'll read about the High Rider, sounds the most interesting."

"I'm going for the Ambassador."

They soon were both leaning over the book and quickly jotting down notes about their chosen consul member.

"Anything interesting?" Axel asked after a while.

"Just the stuff Chloissa already mentioned in class. Maybe I should pick something else? How about you?"

"A few things actually." He flipped to the Ambassador page and put his finger underneath the words as he read. "The Ambassador is one of the highest ranked consul members alongside the General and High Rider, he makes sure the relationships between dragons and riders run smoothly." He spoke slowly.

"Sounds like a big job."

"It is, without the Ambassador we'd most likely be at war with the dragons as we speak."

"Why? I kind of thought everything was fine between dragons and riders..."

"Maybe with the dragons who are bonded, but most other dragons are a little on edge when around Riders." Chloissa stood behind the two, putting her books back onto the shelves. Clare was gone, Kyle guessed she must have run off as soon as possible.

"Yeah, but why?" Axel replied rudely.

"We weren't always at peace with dragons, it was only when Merak's great, great, great grandfather bonded with a dragon egg did the war between dragon and man end." She spoke to them like they were children and placed a book on the table. "I know what breed your dragons are, you'll find it in here."

There was a silence before Kyle spoke. "Thanks."

"You should be thanking me, I saved you a whole three hours of searching." She picked up the dragon book the librarian had given them and walked back to her seat.

"Know-it-all." Axel murmured under his breath.

"This is getting me nowhere." Kyle grabbed the dragon book and flipped through its pages. In it there was several large chapters. He read some of the titles and realized they must be different class of dragons. There was Tidal, Terrain, Nature, Glider and Blaze.

He'd only just opened the book and his head was already spinning. He wasn't in the mood for all this research. He began flipped through the pages starting with the Tidal chapter. His egg was a deep blue which to him, had a water type of feel.

An egg caught his eye. It was very wide and covered in white stripes over a pale sandy shell. Two horns twisted out of the egg. The page title read, 'Northern Sea Serpent'.

Suddenly he found himself captivated by the type's eggs and all their crazy names. He must've been sitting their reading for over half an hour. An old grandfather's clock ticked by the entrance to the library. In the book there were Mantrais, Weeders, Moonblight's, Jawthorns, Terrain Horncurls, the Devil's Scolder, Armourscales-

"Found it!"

"Found what?" Axel was still flipping through the previous book.

"My egg. It's an Armourscale." He pointed to a sketch of egg that looked similar to his. Water paints had been used to colour the sketch. It had the same blue shell as far as Kyle could remember, but the spikes had dark green tips not fluorescent like his. The spikes were bigger, but it was hard to tell when he didn't have his egg to compare with. "Chloissa wasn't lying." Axel said reading over his shoulder.

"Wasn't lying about what?"

"About your egg being classified as rare." He pointed to the curly writing. The page only seemed to contain a limited amount of information, such as hatching conditions and egg appearances. "They can be hatched above or below water... the mother usually leaves before her eggs hatch."

"Mother of the year." The demon-like boy mumbled.

"Well there's no need for her to stay. They're called Armourscales for a reason. The eggshells are nearly impossible to crack, and the hatchling's natural hunting instincts kick in straight away. So, there's no need for the mother to be around during the birth except for special occasions."

He grabbed one of his notebooks and began jotting down notes. "You can try finding your egg now."

"Maybe later, dinner's going to start in ten minutes. I don't know about you, but I could eat a whole Vehre." Axel was beginning to pack up his things. Kyle thought of asking what a Vehre was, but he couldn't be bothered. "Do you think we can take the books with us?"

They both looked around, but the librarian was nowhere in sight. "Well, technically it's not leaving school grounds." Kyle assumed. "Oh!" He suddenly gasped, snapping out of his almost sleepy state. The library's quietness was incredibly contagious.

"What?"

"I need to hand my phone in to the office before dinner it's in the dorm."

"Phone? Oh yeah, your weird Hyrin tech-thingy. I'll come with."

"Sure, I'll show you what a photo is."

Axel flinched at the flash. "Here, look this is a photo." Kyle held his phone in his hand. Back in Hyrin others would constantly mock how out of date his phone was but Axel looked at it with an overwhelming amount of awe. "That's me!" He shouted pointing at the screen.

"Yep."

"But you didn't sketch it, you just-"

"I pushed this button." He held it towards the window and took a photo. "And the phone takes a picture."

"So, this is a camera?"

"Kind of. My phone has a small camera inside it but this," he handed Axel his phone and began rummaging through his backpack. "This is an actual camera, well it's a polaroid camera, it prints the picture once you take it." He held up his prized possession.

"Prints?"

"Let me show you." He put the white polaroid to his eye. "Smile."

Axel stood by his bright green bed. His comics littering the floor and posters hanging on the wall. The afternoon sun glowed through the window, which gave a perfect view of the derby court in the distance. There was a clicking noise and Axel watched in surprise as a small square shaped photo came out of the camera.

Kyle took it out and shook it. "It helps to reveal the picture." He explained before showing it to Axel.

"This is awesome! Now I understand why you were so cross. Do another!" This time he laid on his bed and pulled and funny face. Kyle laughed before taking another. "It's a shame you gotta hand it in."

"Actually, I'm thinking of hanging on to this." He put in back into his backpack. There was a small wooden box that he had filled with more palaroid film than he'd known what to do with.

He used to do little jobs around town earning up for the camera and film. He kept the two photos and stuck it in one of his spare notebooks.

"What if Ms Wingoolie catches you?"

Kyle gave a sly smile and grabbed his phone again. "This isn't the first time I've had to hide something from a grown up. Come on."

They walked down to the ground level, making sure to lock their dorm room before they left. Ms Wingoolie was talking to the desk lady but looked up at the two boys. "You on your way to cafeteria?" She smiled sweetly.

Most students were heading towards the cafeteria, but it was surprisingly peaceful in the hallway. "Yeah, just came to drop off my phone."

"Oh yes, thank you very much. Did you enjoy your second class? What was it?" She thought to herself quickly. "History, right?"

"Yeah, it was great." Axel spoke a little too quickly before tugging on his friend's arm slightly. He'd been silent on the way down and Kyle could feel worry flow off him in waves.

"Is this all there is?" The vice principal held up the phone, her eyes searching Kyle's. It made him feel uncomfortable, but he was surprisingly good at lying when he had to.

"Yep!" Axel answered for him before Kyle could get a word in.

"Have a nice afternoon Ms Wingoolie. We'd better go." He led Axel away who had guilt written all over his face. "You're a terrible liar, next time let me do all the talking."

"Next time?"

The arrived at the cafeteria. It had a hint of a medieval theme. There were long sturdy wooden tables, candelabras had been lit as the sun lowered in the horizon and white and gold tapestry decorated the walls. A line for food had already begun.

Once the older students grabbed their food, they went to join the rest of their grade at one of the long tables. Kyle noticed the older and younger students didn't seem to mingle, it reminded him of his old school in a way.

To Kyle's relief the line moved quite quickly. The women stood behind the counter, serving up plates of food that each student would grab one at a time.

The two boys grabbed their plates and glass of some sort of blue liquid, it wasn't watery in fact it reminded him of milk. They took a seat at the table where all the first years were. Some students sat awkwardly, waiting for someone to start conversation. Others were loudly talking about the school, lessons, teachers and their homes.

Axel was one of those people. Kyle listened and began to cut into the meat on his plate intently as he explained the barren trading dimension, he called home. "It was so much fun, each year the Wind Riders would open all the Dimension Doors, allowing people from all over to travel to Phillisian to trade and sell items with one another." Axel explained to anyone who would listen.

"I think I've been to Phillisian, my father took me once." A girl with a strange hairstyle said.

"My father and I had our own stall."

"What did you trade?" Kyle asked, his attention captured.

"My father does amazing things with glass, you should see it. He specializes in glass statues. People would go up to him and order small glass statues. He even lets me help sometimes."

"What about you Kyle? What's Hyrin like?" The girl asked him. Kyle swallowed another piece of meat. He had told anyone he was orphan and had no family memories to share, but there were plenty of daily memories.

"Hyrin's very different from here."

"How so?"

"Well for one we've never had dragons-"

"Not true!" Chloissa was sitting a few seats down from them, she'd been chatting to Clare again when she'd overheard their conversation.

"Well, maybe there were dragons, but our only source of proof is just myths."

"Wrong." He wiped her mouth with her napkin now fully facing him. "You have real live proof that dragons once existed in your dimension."

"Oh, really?" His arms crossed as he leaned forward on the table.

"What do you think the dinosaurs were?"

Kyle wasn't given as much time as he'd like to think about that when the same girl from earlier asked him another questions. "Dinosaurs? What are they?"

"I guess they were what we called dragons- but not all of them had wings." He turned back to Chloissa, one eyebrow raised. She rolled her eyes in return. "Not all dragons have wings, burntbrain!"

"What happened to the dinosaurs?"

Kyle focused on the question. "Meteor struck the earth or something like that." Even Chloissa looked slightly surprised, he gave a smug grin.

"But Hyrian's use these cool inventions," Axel joined in. "He even has a device that can take a photo."

"Well, I 'had' a device." Kyle corrected him quickly and Axel bit his tongue.

"What's a photo?" The boy across from Kyle asked.

"It's like a sketch except all you have to do is push a button." Kyle leaned back in his seat as Axel began to explain the whole process like he was an expert.

It filled him with amusement to see all the first years beginning to listen in on the conversation. The look of wonder on their faces would forever remain in his memories.