Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
I noticed that Ryse and two other cadets at his table were the only ones with the valuable golden Dragon Custard. Jorn-o had said it was reserved for the riders who had bonded to a Gold, Silver, or Bronze-wing dragon. Were Noble-wings that rare that only three of the twenty-five cadets were bonded to one?
I supposed I would find out if I ever visited the Dragon Caverns located on a much higher level of the Academy but for now, since I couldn’t see the dragons, I looked at the riders.
It was hard to believe that the upperclassmen at Ryse Skoren’s table were only a year older than me and Jorn-o. They all looked so much bigger than us. But, to be fair, everyone in the whole Mess Hall was bigger than me.
I remembered the pitying eyes of the women serving food in the line. I must look terribly scrawny and malnourished to them. They thought they could give me enough food to make me shoot up a foot and grow broad shoulders like Auren had, but I was never going to get much taller than I was. I might fill out some, though—which would be a good thing, I thought. It wasn’t right to be so skinny I could count my own ribs in the mirror.
Just hope no one else is going to be counting them later at bathing time, I thought and had to swallow down a lump of fear. But no, I wasn’t going to worry about that now. One thing at a time. Right now, I wanted to eat.
Jorn-o found us a seat at the First-year table with some of the other boys whose fathers worked in and around the Academy.
“This is Jakes but we call him Toady—because of his mouth, you know,” he said, nodding at a boy with wide, rubbery lips and flat eyes who did, indeed, look a little like a toad. “And this is Tomas but he goes by Bugs,” he went on, pointing to a cadet with thick glasses. The lenses magnified his large green eyes, which did make him look kind of bug-eyed.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, nodding at both of them. They nodded back and Jorn-o went on with the introductions.
“This is Clay but we call him ‘Leaper’,” he said, nodding at a boy with carroty hair and bright blue eyes.
“Leaper?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Oh, it’s an old nickname,” the boy said, looking embarrassed.
“His father is the Flight Instructor for the First-years,” Jorn-o explained. “But he wouldn’t let Leaper play on the Dragon Flight Simulator when he was little without supervision.”
I stopped with a spoonful of stew halfway to my mouth.
“What? There’s a simulator?” My father had never mentioned anything like that.
“’Course there is—how else to you think you get practice riding a dragon until the one you Impress is big enough to ride?” Toady asked. He followed this question with a smacking of his lips as he ate a big bite of lamb stew.
“Anyway, Leaper here wanted to get on the Flight Simulator so badly—“ Jorn-o started
“That he leaped right onto its back!” Bugs continued.
“And then I fell off and onto the net,” Leaper said, rolling his eyes. “Big deal—lots of people fall the first time they try to mount.”
“Yeah, but not everyone jumps from the observation balcony,” Jorn-o pointed out. “It’s twenty feet above the simulator,” he added, speaking to me.
It sounded to me like Leaper’s nickname should have been “fearless” or maybe “foolhardy” but I didn’t say it out loud. I just nodded and put another spoonful of lamb stew in my mouth. It was the best thing I’d ever eaten, and it was hard to pay attention to the conversation around me when I was so hungry and the food was so good.
“Who’s you’re new friend, anyway, Jorn-o?” Leaper asked, looking me up and down.
“Oh, this is Auri.” Jorn-o nodded at me. “He’s a Lysandra,” he added.
“Huh. Looks more like a runt to me,” Toady remarked.
“Yeah, Runt—that fits him,” Bugs said and Leaper laughed.
And that was how I got my second nickname.
Again, I thought about protesting, but unlike when Chud Larson had called me the same name, there didn’t seem to be any harmful intent. And all the rest of them had nicknames, except for Jorn-o, and I was the smallest one at the table. At any of the tables, unfortunately. I was probably going to be called worse than “Runt” before my time at the Academy was over. I was just going to have to grow thicker skin and get over it.
So I just grunted in what I hoped was a masculine way and kept shoveling food into my face.
I ate so fast I didn’t realize how full I was getting until I saw that the only thing left on my plate was the bowl of golden Dragon Custard.