The Elementals- Chapter 1 Bedtime story

“Once upon a time fierce dragons controlled the earth” I hear the soft deep voice that always soothed me to sleep. “All dragons are black, but not all dragons are the same. Eyes are the windows to the soul and a dragons eyes will tell you what it is really like. Golden eyes are for fire dragons, they are short tempered, but passionate and fiery like a flame. Blue eyes are for water dragons, they are calm and cool, yet wild and unpredictable like the sea. Green eyes are for earth dragons, they are the most grounded, connected to nature and solid like the ground. Grey eyes are for the air dragons, they are free spirits drifting peacefully through life like the clouds. Not all dragons are dangerous, but humans could not tell the difference and so hunted them to extinction.
In amongst the chaos, one love survived the slaughter, let me tell you the tale of the birth of the beautiful dragon princess…”

Beep, beep, beep!

I wake up from the most pleasant dream I have had in a while reluctantly, annoyed that it couldn’t continue. The only way I get to hear my fathers voice now is through dreams and fuzzy memories. That was my favourite story, one he had made up just for me and written down in a book that I illustrated myself, not my finest work, but not bad for a 3 year old. I make a mental note to read the book later to finish where my dream left off, but I know that I don’t have time for that now.
I drag myself out of bed and survey myself in the mirror. Make up smeared over my face, hair a tangled mess and still in the same skimpy dress from last night. Ok so my plan to be a good student this year and not spend most of my time drinking and partying may have been off to a bad start. Undeterred by the hangover I feel kicking in, I jump in the shower, throw on some comfy clothes and head off to my lecture. I poke my head in the door to check on Rain first, my beautiful roommate looks unfairly pristine after the night we had last night and is still sleeping peacefully. It makes me incredibly jealous so I say an overly loud good morning to her before slamming the door on my way out.
I manage to grab a bacon roll on my way to class, I don’t think I would have survived the 10 minute uphill cobblestoned walk in the pouring rain without it. Edinburgh is a beautiful city, but it’s only been sunny a handful of times since I started university here last year.
As I walk into class, I try not to make eye contact with anyone until after I have time to debrief what drunk me may have done last night with Rain. I am greeted by a smiling Rose.
“Hi Lily! Come sit beside me” She beckons me over. Honestly I don’t know her very well, we met in freshers week and she assumed that because we both have flower names and study botany we would be best friends. Names aside, we have very little in common, but she is very friendly so I sit beside her.
“Where is Rain?” She asks. Rain should be beside me in the lecture, even though she is studying Marine biology, we have a lot of joint generic biology classes together. However Rain is a very go with the flow kind of person and last night the flow of alcohol was too strong for her.
“Not feeling very well this morning” I explain.
“Hmm, I bet she was at that party last night, I will never understand why people poison their bodies with alcohol.” Rose says disdainfully. As I said we don’t have much in common. I’m saved from the argument by the lecturer starting and I try my best not to nod off to his monotone presentation.
After the lecture I quickly make my excuses and rush home to debrief with Rain before work. Rain is still asleep when I get back even though it is well past noon and is not responding to my pestering her so I use my secret weapon and throw Peggy on her. Pegasus, Peggy for short is my dog who has been with me since before I moved to the orphanage making him my oldest friend. He obligingly pumps up and down on Rain and licks her face until she gives in and gets out of bed to wash her face.
“Stupid mutt, it is not polite to wake me so early in the day!” Rain complains.
“Its 2 o’clock, you missed the lecture and I need to know if I did anything I will regret last night before I go to work.” I explain.
“Fine, but pizza first” Rain insists. I don’t complain, hungover pizza and gossip has become a tradition.
As we stuff our faces with pizza Rain works through her memories of last night, barely containing her laughter “and you were dancing on the table doing the macarena, i’m pretty sure everyone saw up your dress, but you had that pretty red thong on so its ok.” I cringe at the image, I don’t remember any of it, but I really love the macarena when I’m drunk so I don’t doubt that it happened.
“Well I remember you were too busy lap dancing some 4th year guy to join me!” I throw back at her and she joins in my blush.
“you were surprisingly boring on that front, you only spoke to one guy all night” Rain says.
I realise a breath I had been holding, I promised myself that after a year of one night stands and awkward interactions I would be more sensible this year and it meant that I would not have to duck and hide on my way to work.
“wow I don’t remember that at all, who was I talking to? Did you recognise him?” I ask
“Haha ye, 10 tequila shots will do that to your memory. Of course I recognise him!” she teases but just winks and fills her mouth with more pizza.
“Come on, put me out of my misery, who was I rambling to all night?” I beg
“Sky!”
I freeze, remembering our old friend and my secret crush. My cheeks heat up so much that I swear they are actually on fire and my heart races so fast that it might be a heart attack which would probably be a blessing right now. I knew he went to the same university, but after not seeing him for years, I assumed he was busy and Edinburgh was big enough to never cross paths, I guess I was wrong.
“Sky? Like our Sky? Do you know what we talked about?” I ask when I have recovered.
“Oh just all that nerdy superhero stuff you always used to talk about, Ember and I gave up trying to follow your conversation after about 5 minutes.” Rain explains.
“Oh Ember was there too?” I ask.
“Of course, she is his girlfriend after all”
Yep the heart attack would have been more preferable than hearing that.