Update on this story has been awhile coming. I'm going to try and update this story as often as possible, rather than every Sunday. I'm hoping to post this serial at least once a week, so keep an eye out for more Strange Blessings!
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Tobias went through the motions in his classes, his mind on Donna's
advice. His hands managed to write assignments and he absently made
his way from classroom to classroom.
“...read
up on Chirik the Wise.”
Even though he had a load of homework, Tobias went to the library at
the end of the school day. It was in the northwestern quarter of the
main building, and was a long, vaulting room. Ladders patrolled
several stacked shelves against the walls. Students meandered along
the shelves or glanced through selected books on the study tables.
Tobias shouldered his book bag and made his way to the librarian's
desk. A green lizardman sat on a heavy wood chair, stamping books
with blue ink.
“Mr. Kia,” Tobias greeted. The Crin lifted his head and narrowed
his red eyes. It was a moment before he answered, and Tobias tried
not to fidget in front of the desk.
“Yes?” Mr. Kia rumbled.
“I...” Tobias noted other students glancing at the lupogryph and
sharing gossip under their breaths. He felt the distance between
himself and everyone in the library grow, and not for the first time,
he felt loneliness taunt him. It was another reason he didn't want
to be at the academy. He took a deep breath. “Where are the books
on dragon-riders?”
Mr. Kia hummed, yanking a large volume across his lower-level desk
and flipping through it. He ran a black claw across a page with
columns and rows scrawled all over with writing.
“Level two, section eight, numbers two-hundred thirty-four through
ninety-one,” Mr. Kia said, his voice flat like a cement slab.
“Anything else?”
Tobias shook his head, thanked him, and walked down the room, eying
the numbers on the shelves. He stopped short when he found Jodrick
under section eight of level two, perusing a book in his hands.
Tobias focused his eyes on the cover. It read: The Perils of
Dragons.
What was Jodrick doing reading about dragons? It couldn't be a
fictional book, as that entire wall, including the dragonrider books,
were non-fictional.
Tobias stood there for half a moment, dreading to go near the
hot-mouthed centaur, but at the same time, his heart tugged him
towards those shelves. He told himself to stop being a coward and to
ignore Jodrick.
He marched forward, head pointed stiffly at the shelves, and hopped
onto the nearest ladder to pull himself over to section eight. He
couldn't guess how Jodrick had got his hooves on a dragon-rider book,
but he didn't care to think of it too much. He grasped the shelf
edges hand over hand, and the wheels at the bottom of the ladder
creaked over.
Jodrick stumbled out of the way, and Tobias looked down in alarm.
“Watch where you're––” Jodrick stopped yelling and grabbed
the ladder. “Hey Ban-ban, what are you doing stalking me? Did
Donna tell you to spy on me?”
Part of Tobias advised him to keep his beak shut, but a larger part
ignored it this time.
“Mind your business and I'll mind mine, okay?” he snapped.
Jodrick sneered and backed away.
“Whatever,” the centaur grumbled, taking himself and his book
away. Tobias eyed him, feeling a sting in his heart for being so
rude, but he reasoned with himself that Jodrick had been worse to
him. He tried to shake it away and started scanning the titles.
He selected a few newer volumes and retreated to a table in the back
corner of the room. One book was on dragon biology and behavior, two
on dragon-rider history during the Banishment, and the last a
dragon-rider encyclopedia. The encyclopedia came in handy when he
scanned through the history books, as the biology book already
defined terms in its page columns and appendix.
He studied the second history book last, just minutes before library
closing and an hour before campus curfew. It was entitled
Conspicuous Events of the Riders: Volume XII. It had a handy
time-line throughout its chapters, and it recorded events up to
twenty years ago. Tobias breathed in the thick scent of the papers
as he flipped through the last chapter.
He stopped when he found a listing of prominent dragon-riders, and
his talon traced across the name of Chirik the Wise. Under each name
was a paragraph of information, and the more he read it, the closer
he was drawn to the page, and he had to read the section over again
to be sure what he saw was real.
“No way,” he whispered.
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