“I’m going to be writing you up, both for your insubordination and for your dangerous flight maneuvers,” he said, pointing at me. “You’d better pull yourself together, Cadet, if you want to have a hope of passing my class!”
I could feel L’eesha wanted to lunge at him and bite him, so I put myself between them. She was no longer a tiny hatchling who could get away with nipping someone’s calf. If she bit now, she’d likely take off an arm or a leg and a dragon who did that would be destroyed.
“Be still!” I ordered her, putting steel in my voice for the first time. “Biting the professor won’t do anything but get both of us into more trouble! You have to learn to control your impulses!”
I had never spoken so strongly to her before, and I could feel her immediate response.
“i am sorry, my Auri,” she sent in a small voice. “i was only having fun. i didn’t know I would get you into trouble.”
“I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” I told her. “But you’re getting bigger and stronger everyday—that means you have to learn to think before you act.”
She lowered her head and nudged against my thigh, her rainbow eyes whirling with sorrow.
“i didn’t mean to be bad! do you not love me anymore?”
Her tone of pure anguish broke my heart. Professor Humbolt had stalked away so I was free to put my arms around her neck.
“Of course I still love you—I’ll always love you,” I told her. “No matter what happens, you belong to me, and I belong to you. But we need to be careful, sweetheart. I know all the dragons listen to you, but humans aren’t like dragons—they’re more stubborn.”
“i thought he would be happy that I made his dragons fly in a good formation without those silly flags,” she said.
“Yes, but dearheart, those flags are his entire class,” I pointed out to her. “If you make it so the riders don’t need them to communicate between Wings, then what is Professor Humbolt supposed to do with himself?”
“he should find something new to be interested in,” L’eesha sent rebelliously. “maybe he could help herd the sheep. there is no point in using flags when I can tell every dragon at the Academy what to do and how to fly without them.”
The idea of the crusty old professor herding sheep almost made me smile, but I did my best not to.
“Well, that may be true, but using flags to signal during battles is an Academy tradition,” I explained. “The Academy has a lot of traditions and not all of them make sense, but the people in charge really like them.”
“then there ought to be new people in charge!” was L’eesha’s opinion.
But that seemed to be the end of her little rebellion because shortly afterwards, she went back to the part of the Caverns reserved for the juvenile dragons without any protest. Part of her acquiescence could have been due to the fact that she knew a juicy goat was waiting for her, but I could also tell she still felt bad for getting me into trouble.
I wanted to talk to Ryse about it, but there was no time. We both had to hurry off to our next class so the next time I got to talk to him alone was after dinner when we were in our room.
60
AURORA
“Whew—that was quite a scene with Humbolt today,” Ryse said, when it was just the two of us.
“Yes, I hope I can pull up my grade enough not to fail,” I said unhappily.
“You should be able to as long as you can rein in L’eesha,” he said, frowning. He put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me down to sit on the bed with him. “You don’t know how scared I was when she dove off the cliff with you strapped to her back. It’s such a dangerous, risky maneuver—especially for a fledgling dragon.”
“I’m sorry she scared you—she scared me, too,” I admitted. “I guess I haven’t been strict enough with her, but I’ll try to do better.”
“You’ll have to,” he said seriously. “She could have killed you both.” He drew me into a tight hug and pressed his face to my neck. “God and Goddess, I was so scared I would lose you.”
“But you didn’t,” I reminded him. “Ryse, I don’t mean to pry, but it almost seems like you’re upset about more than just the stunt L’eesha pulled today.”
“You’re right, I am.” He pulled back, looking at me. “Do you remember how I told you I always listen to M’alex because he’s always right?”
“Yes, you told me that when you were explaining how you happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch me when I fell off Woody,” I said, nodding.
“Well, back when I first became a Wing Leader, I had a young cadet—Georges was his name—under my command,” he said. “Georges was out of control—I can see that now. But at the time, I thought he was just high-spirited—the kind of guy who’s always pulling pranks on his Wingmates—you know.”
I nodded. I did know that kind of person he was talking about. The kind of cadet who thought everything was a joke and never took anything or anyone seriously. I had classes with males like that—they were funny sometimes, but also annoying, especially if they were being disruptive when I was trying to learn.
