Riding My Dragons (The Dragons Of Tellus #1)

CHAPTER 2

Byron

Curious thoughts followed me up the front steps of the History Museum as a crowd continued to gather.With the time for the ceremony getting near, people were now pouring into the courtyard.I looked over my shoulder as I walked up the short staircase in front of the museum entrance and saw Elliot still standing near Jenna, and the two of them continuing to glance at each other in a very obvious way.All I could think was, is something really going on there?

It wasn’t unusual for Elliot to take an interest in a human female.Scaler males slept with human females all the time, and no one thought anything of it.But this Jenna didn’t seem to be Elliot’s type--or Cade’s or mine, either, for that matter.She was so young.Cade and Elliot were both twenty-five; I was twenty-six.As a college student, Jenna was certainly at the age of consent, but she had to be just on the brink of twenty.In most cases five or six years was not such a big thing, but five or six years in that age bracket was enough to make you at least stop and think.The question was, exactly what was Elliot thinking?

At the top of the front steps, with the ceremonial fire pit sitting in the middle of a rock garden to my left, I immediately had other things to think about.Over an audio system came a voice from inside the great marble-walled building: “Welcome, citizens, to the Pendrake City Museum of History’s opening ceremony for Reconciliation Week.We now present Mr. Byron Ledger, representing the Ledger family and the House of Dragons, for our opening address.”Applause began to well up from the crowd.

Yes, that was my official designation.I was the representative of my family in public functions that required a dignitary, where others of my family who actually held public offices or administrative functions in the government were either too busy or not interested enough to put in an appearance.It wasn’t that my family was uninterested in Reconciliation Week; it was only that the more highly placed of us were attending other Reconciliation functions with other more highly placed people.To represent my family at things like this ceremony, which was for the general public and not the higher-ups, they would call on me.

And if I were honest, this was the way I liked it.I didn’t mind ceremonies and socializing, but slithering around in political circles and having to deal with all the deal making and the little power plays disguised as polite mingling and fraternizing always bored me.The one part of it that didn’t bore me was the women.I always got on well with the women and always managed to go home with someone, to my place or hers, for negotiations that I enjoyed a lot better.But there were better ways to find beautiful female company than by spending the evening in the mock sincerity of the political world and its sea of ulterior motives.I preferred to let my family and their political and business associates screw each other in one way, while I did the kind of screwing that I liked best.

Meanwhile, in the crowd in front of me, there were Elliot and Jenna, and Cade standing with them, just as I’d left them, and the college girl and Elliot were still trading glances.Did I hear correctly that Elliot offered her a free pass to his wrestling match tomorrow?When Elliot offered a female a pass to attend one of his competitive events, it always led to one thing.He couldn’t possibly mean to have it go that way with someone no older than nineteen–could he?

I had no time to dwell on that now.I raised my hand, both to welcome the crowd and ask for a simmering down of their applause so that I could give my speech.

“Thank you.Thank you”.I said amid a softening hubbub.“Today we begin the celebration of the greatest change in the history of our world.So many changes in life are not for the better.But Reconciliation was for the best.Reconciliation was, and is, about foes becoming friends, about rivals becoming partners, about a divided world learning to coexist, and ultimately about making our world a better place by sharing its gifts.

“We live today in a world of peace and plenty, where there is no pain or hunger or want, because those who came before us learned the lesson that the world and its gifts are there for all of us, not just one species of us.Long before any of us here were born, our ancestors lived in a world of greed and war, hatred and distrust, where cooperation and friendship and love were thought to be only for our own kind and not for the ones we thought of as ‘others.’That was the way they once divided the world, into ‘us’ and ‘the others.’Could a world like that have ever survived without Reconciliation?It might have–or maybe not.Just think, though, about what kind of ‘survival’ that would be.Would a world like that have been worth surviving in?I’m not so sure.”

There was a little more hubbub from the crowd.I looked back at the college group, and Elliot and Cade standing with Jenna.Kids all through school, up through college, learned about the days of the Old Wars and how Reconciliation ended them.Some young people, human and Scaler, took courses and even pursued entire majors in Reconciliation History.My family employed interns and staff members who had majored in it.None of us had asked Jenna what her college major was.From the way it looked, Elliot was liable to find that out–among other things.

After pausing to let the crowd go quieter again, I continued.“What saved the world from being less than a fit place to be in–or just being destroyed–was learning to share the Ambience.The power and energy of the Ambience are all around us, like the rays of the Sun and the many different energies they bring.We may not feel it, but we move through it all the time.The Ambience is always with us, everywhere.Our ancestors knew the Ambience, and had just started to learn its secrets, even while Scalers and humans fought each other.It’s a credit to both our species that those who came before us learned how to use the power of the Ambience not to punish, destroy, and kill; but make things better.It’s to their credit that they saw what the Ambience could do, for good or ill, and chose to use it for good.The prosperity that all people, human and Scaler, enjoy today, we owe to the wisdom and compassion of generations before us.

“The Old Wars were fought between people who thought the differences between humans and those who were human and dragon were more important than the things we have in common.On the Scaler side, some believed that having two bodies makes you superior to those with only one.On the human side, some believed that being only human made you a more ‘pure’ being.The great lesson of that history is that ultimately it doesn’t matter how many bodies you may have.

We may have two bodies or only one, but each of us has just one heart.You may have only a human skin, or you may turn your human skin to scales.And you may have another body with wings, horns, and a tail.But there’s one heart to a customer, and what’s in your heart makes all the difference.In any body, hearts that love and care, that have kindness and compassion, can change the world for the better.That’s what Reconciliation means.”

A museum employee stepped out of the building when I started my speech.She carried a long golden staff with a dragon head on one end.With another wave of applause rising up from the crowd, the woman from the museum stepped over to me and handed me the staff.I held it up to the crowd and was met with louder cheers.I smiled at those gathered and willed myself to morph.My neck lengthened and my skin broke out in shiny blue and green scales.From the slits in the back of my suit came my wings and tail.My head took on its horned reptilian shape.

Spreading my wings to their full span, I raised the staff above my head and called, “In the name of our ancestors who made the world we love today possible, I now welcome this week of celebration.Happy Reconciliation to one and all.”

I pressed a surface along the length of the staff, and the eyes of the dragon head lit up like two bright sapphire stars.From out of those eyes leapt brilliant beams of blue light–the energy of the Ambience, drawn out of the air and space around us.They flashed and stabbed into the fire pit, and in its bowl was an eruption like a giant flower of fire.That burst turned into a tall, glowing, dancing plume of flames that the onlookers greeted with another enthusiastic wave of applause.I greeted the fire with a flick of my dragon tongue and a short bow of my dragon head before releasing my shape back to human.I handed off the staff to the museum worker and joined the cheering crowd in clapping at the fire.

Once again, I looked into the throng of onlookers to where Elliot and Cade stood with the college kids and their professor.Just as I expected, my athlete friend was still right next to the shy brunette Jenna.For the moment, the two of them and Cade had their attention fixed on the blazing pyre that I’d just lit.Soon enough, I knew, they’d be glancing at each other again.

“Happy Reconciliation Week,” I had wished everyone.Did the week ahead have in store for Jenna Callaway what I suspected it might?None of us, Elliot, Cade, or I, were ever given to self-denial with females.Not to boast, but we were Scaler males, and had no inhibitions or hesitations about going for whatever–or whomever–it was that we wanted.If Elliot wanted Jenna Callaway, he’d make sure she knew it.And I had a distinct feeling that this Reconciliation week could be one that Jenna would not soon forget.