"Are you okay? What happened in there?" Dax was the first one to greet me as I exited the cave. Sloan stood next to him while the majority of the student body crowded the stadium. I looked around dumbfounded, to my right were the professors and the Dean within earshot of our conversation.
I furrowed my brows, "Yeah I'm fine, why?" I asked, but now all Dax seemed to do was stare down at my egg.
"Dilyn, you've been gone for hours," Sloan explained, worried, "everyone else returned within half an hour."
"Well yeah," I said matter of factly, "Why didn't anyone tell me that there were dragons in there?" I asked. That seemed like a pretty important piece of information to leave out, that the eggs were guarded by their mothers.
Dax immediately shot his head up to look at me, finally breaking contact with the egg, "What?"
"Did you say dragons?" One of the administrators finally stepped forward from their group, trying to keep his voice low.
"Well I don't know about 'dragons'," I emphasized the plural, "but yeah I saw one, she gave me her egg," I explained.
He then abruptly grabbed my arm, "Come, we must go inside. Dax, Professor Treaney, meet us in your office, we have things to discuss," he ordered, leading me away with him.
As we walked I could overhear the rest of the teachers attempting to calm the students from their chatter, the rumors were already beginning to circle. My heart sped as we power walked to Professor Treaney's office. What was wrong now? I went into the cave-like everyone else, so what if it just took me a little longer than usual to find my egg. I don't think that would be anything to panic over.
"Can we slow down? I'm gonna drop my egg," I pleaded with the man who still held onto my arm. Dax followed not too far behind along with some professors I hadn't met yet and Dean Milano as we weaved through the hallways.
"We're here," he stopped, pushing open the large doors to what I assumed to be Professor Treaney's office. I clutched my egg tightly as the rest of the group filed in, standing around me.
"Professor Treaney, could you please try and figure out what breed of dragon that is," Dean Milano spoke up. I was confused, but I figured that they just couldn't tell from off the look of it. Professor Treaney approached me and gently took my egg from my hands. I reluctantly handed it over. "Now Addilyn, I would like you to explain to us exactly what you encountered in the cave," Dean Milano now brought his attention to me.
"Why? What's wrong, did I do something wrong," I asked. I was beginning to feel like I was in trouble like this was the exact reason why they had put me on probation in the first place.
"No, we just need to know what you saw."
"Umm," I grabbed onto the ends of my hair, playing with it, a nervous tick, "well I had to walk quite a ways down into the cave before I began to hear a piercing ring inside my left ear, so I followed that noise. Although there was no tunnel to my left, the noise was definitely coming from inside the cave wall. Then I found a section of boulders that looked moveable like there had once been a passage there so I created my own entrance and crawled through," I explained, "and that's where I encountered the dragon, she was just sleeping in there beside her egg before she gave it to me-"
"My God," Professor Treaney then huffed out, cutting my sentence short. We all shot our heads around to where he was examining the egg. He had it propped up on a gold stand with a book open beside him. "Could you describe the mother to me, dear?" he asked.
I nodded my head, "Her scales were definitely red, but they had a brown, shiny tint to them which made her a dark burgundy color. She looked massive, although I don't have any experience with dragons to compare her to another. Oh, and she had these horns that curved over the backside of her head like they could be handles." I described the dragon as best as I could.
"What is it?" Dean Milano rushed over to the professor, looking down at his book like he was trying to work out what it meant.
"The mother is definitely a Welsh Red Dragon," Dax spoke up, piecing together my description, "that doesn't explain what the egg is though."
"No, it doesn't," Professor Treaney answered, flipping through multiple pages of his book, "see these red cracks in the egg here," he pointed to the designated points, "these distinguish the Welsh Red dragon breed, but these ashy grey patches distinguish another-"
"You're saying two different breeds of dragons bred together? Th-that's impossible," one of the other professors said.
"Well not impossible, but up until now it has never happened before."
My heart had felt like it was in my throat, I didn't understand enough about dragons or my abilities or why all of this was happening to me in the first place.
"What dragon did she breed with?" Dax finally asked the question everyone was dying to know.
"The Ligurian Grey," Professor Treaney took off his glasses, turning to look at us, "we've never had a student matched with a Ligurian Grey, let alone one that has been bred with another Great Dragon."
I looked around at all the teachers' expressions, most of them were in a state of shock. Dean Milano looked to be in utter disbelief, tensing up like he was afraid of the dragon egg that sat beside him and afraid of me. Thankfully though I had one person in my corner, Dax, he was excited for the hatching of this egg.
"Now this is new territory for us, therefore I won't be able to determine the exact strengths of this dragon until it has hatched, but the mixture between the Welsh and the Ligurian could explain at least a portion of why the wall split on her Choosing Day," Professor Treaney explained. My ears perked up at this, finally someone who had at least a little information for me.
"I think this might be best if we discuss this alone first," Dean Milano immediately cut the Professor off before he could go any further.
"What? No, I want to know!" I came off more aggressive than I intended. This was my dragon though, and it was my own right to know why all these occurrences were happening to me.
"Addilyn I'm sorry, but this is above you," the Dean spoke calmly.
"Above me? All this is about me, I have a right to know," I was growing angry now.
"That's enough!" he ordered. "We will discuss this and let you know."
Everyone in the room was silent, you could hear a pin drop, I don't think anyone dared to talk back to Dean Milano once his word was final.
"She gets to keep her dragon though, right?" Dax asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence. I wanted to scream at the Dean, I was sick of getting shut out, but I held myself together.
"Unfortunately, yes," he paused. Unfortunately? Why was this unfortunate? "We cannot separate a dragon and its rider when their two souls were placed on this earth to eventually meet, it's absolute," he said as he was sighing, "Professor Treaney if you could come with me please."
I watched as the professor shuffled out of the room behind Dean Milano, his book in hand. I was fuming by now. The rest of the teachers seemed to follow in suit, Dax stayed behind though.
"Well I better get your egg to the incubator," Dax said, walking over and gently picking up my egg.
"Incubator?" I asked, finally breaking my stare with the door.
"Yes, it's time for this baby to hatch, our incubators help with that," he smiled, although he could tell I was disappointed with the lack of information I received, "listen Dilyn, as shitty or scary as this may feel for you because of Dean asshat-" I let out a small chuckle at that name, "you've finally got your dragon and they can't do anything to change that, so just focus on him or her," he said, looking down at my egg. I smiled. "Now start thinking up names and I'll take good care of it for you."