Chapter 8: Training Session

She bears no will to watch them grieve, As babes are plucked and nests are cleaved. So steals she forth with cloak and blade, Through night and stone and forest shade. Ryuki The next day, the dragons show no signs of leaving their queens, so I decide to take the time to work with Tyffyn and Soma. After bonding with Bynjym, my life changed dramatically. I went from scrounging for food and wondering every day how I was going to make it to the next, to having plenty of food every day. Granted, my diet is mostly protein, since that’s what Bynjym hunts, but me and the other riders have started coming up with ways to eat other foods that we find in nature, either eating it raw or cooking it on a fire. When you live with dragons, fire is always easy to create. Now, without the need to find food every day, I have a lot more free time. Flying with Bynjym fills most of my days, but in times like this, I don’t have a lot to do. So, rather than being idle, I use the time to help strengthen our thunder. Since we’re not sure if Ylys will attack Tyffyn because she’s sitting with an egg, we stay on the opposite side of the mountain to where her nest is. “Alright, Soma, your goal is to strengthen your thigh muscles. Tyffyn needs to be able to move quickly, turn on her wing, and even flip upside down without having to worry about you falling off her. Tyffyn, you need to put Soma in real life situations so she can strengthen her legs, and you can feel confident that she can stay on your back no matter what happens. “Okay, Ryuki,” Soma says. I crouch on the edge of the mountain and watch as Tyffyn begins taking them through maneuvers to help Soma build her strength. “Faster, Tyffyn,” I call out when she maintains a slower pace. She moves a lot faster than this during a fight. If she didn’t, she’d be injured every time we go up against the royals. Tyffyn moves a bit faster, but Soma becomes unsettled, so she slows down again. I hear Bynjym growling in my head. He's been watching through my eyes. ‘You heard my rider, Tyffyn. Move faster,’ he growls at her, keeping the link open so I can hear him too. Once again, Tyffyn starts going faster, but Soma becomes wobbly on her back so she slows down. I understand the dragon’s need to protect her rider, but by doing so, all she’s doing is making herself and the thunder weaker. I hear Bynjym growl in my mind and then I feel him lift off the area where he’s been sitting as sentinel. The silvers and bronzes are taking turns finding food and bringing it to Ylys so she can remain on the nest with the queen egg. I expect that this is what Bynjym is doing, going to get food, so I stay focused on the dragon and rider in front of me A few moments later, Bynjym dives out of the sky above Tyffyn, aimed right at her screeching a battle cry. Tyffyn screams and jerks to the side, evading Bynjym. Immediately, Soma falls off her. Tyffyn drops quickly to catch her rider, then flies back up to where Bynjym is floating in the air, waiting for her. ‘This is why you need to practice, Tyffyn. You are not training your rider properly. Since you are not willing to train her on your own, you will now train with me and Ryuki,’ Bynjym says, turning to look at me. ‘On my back,’ he says, flying toward me. I judge the distance as he flies and I leap off the mountainside, into the air, knowing, without a doubt, that my dragon will always catch me. It’s the very first lesson he taught me. As soon as I land, I race to my spot on his back, the place where his shoulders meet his neck. It’s the thinnest part of his body and the place where I’ve learned to keep my seat. ‘You MUST have a rider who can keep her seat, Tyffyn,’ Bynjym growls at her. “Soma! You have to be able to keep your seat, no matter what your dragon does,” I say, ignoring how pale her skin is. I can tell she’s terrified, but these are very important lessons for her and her dragon. They have to be pushed to get stronger. “Watch,” I say, knowing Bynjym is about to show them what she needs to learn and why Tyffyn isn’t helping her by coddling her. He swings up on his side, turning on his wingtip. The first time he did this, I fell off. The tenth time he did it, I stayed on, but felt like I was going to vomit from the feeling of free-falling. And that was nothing compared to when he flipped upside down, like he does now. He slowly lets his body flip over as gravity begins pulling him back to the earth. I tighten my legs around his neck, watching as he dives toward downward, then extends his wings and pulls us out of the dive. Then he begins to climb back up to where Soma and Tyffyn are watching. “I can’t do that!” Soma says. “You are a dragon rider, Soma. A red’s rider. You WILL be able to do it by the time we’re done with your training. BEGIN!” I command. For the next couple of hours, Bynjym nips at Tyffyn, forcing her into maneuvers she wouldn’t normally have done, making Soma fight to hold on. When he finally calls an end to their training, we follow them back to the mountain. Soma slides off Tyffyn’s back and crumples to the ground. “Well done, Soma,” I tell her, walking up to her. “I can’t feel my legs,” she says, massaging them. “That’s to be expected. Relax today, we’ll go again tomorrow,” I tell her. “Ryuki!” she calls as I start to walk away. I turn back. “Was it this hard for you?” she asks. “I’m a silver’s rider, Soma. This is nothing compared to what Bynjym put me through,” I say. As I walk away, I hear Tyffyn giving Soma the reassuring clicks of a dragon trying to make their rider feel better. I only know the sound because I asked Bynjym about it. Only the reds, blues, and greens do that to their riders. The silvers and bronzes have higher expectations of their riders. They don't coddle them. It makes me wonder what a queen’s expectations would be of her rider. ‘More,’ Bynjym says in his usual, cryptic way. When I return to the fire where the group has been collecting food for us to eat, I sit. “Well, how did it go?” Shao asks. “Tyffyn needed some encouragement to train Soma properly.” “Ymyl was the same,” Mara says of her red. “They just love us and want to take care of us.” “If they wanted to take care of you, they’d make sure you could keep your seat, Mara. What they do is coddle you,” I say. “He’s right, Mara. Being a liability to your dragon isn’t good. They need to push you the same way our dragons push us,” Shao says. “But we’re not the higher ranks. Do we really need to be as strong as the two of you?” Dion asks. “Any weakness in the thunder, is a weakness to us all. What if you fell and Nythyn didn’t catch you? What if those humans got ahold of you and began torturing you. What would that do to your dragon, knowing he couldn’t get to you but he could feel your pain?” I ask. “Do you really think they would torture us?” Carme asks. “They steal our eggs. Why wouldn’t they torture us for information about where the eggs are located,” Shao asks. “But we don’t know where the eggs are unless it’s our dragon’s nest or our dragon mated with a nesting female,” Mihal says. “Yes, but they don’t know that, and I doubt they’d believe you if you told them you didn’t know where the queen egg was, especially now that you do,” I say. “Better to keep your seat on your dragon than to find out what would happen if they did capture you.” Soma finally manages to drag herself back to our campsite. Everyone welcomes her, but no one attempts to help her. We’ve all been there. We’re dragon riders. We have to become stronger for our dragons. “Eat a lot of protein,” I tell her when she sits. “It will help.” She nods looking at the fire before looking at me. “Tyffyn says she’ll start training me properly tomorrow.” “Good. It will make both of you stronger individually, and much stronger as a bonded pair,” I tell her. After dinner, I find a quiet spot and watch the sky as it turns to night. I listen to the sounds of the dragons around me, and the ones higher up on the mountain. Ylys is talking to the egg, encouraging her - to grow or be healthy, who knows. But the sound of her clicks and rumbles along with the sound of the silvers crooning and cooing is oddly relaxing and I find myself falling asleep earlier than normal.