9 Chapter 8: A Meeting (Jangras POV)

I ran off, I was super lucky, any other dragon including my father would have got me into a lot of trouble. I didn't know the deputy well but I was thankful she didn't take me in or tell my father. I would never be the future leader if he would have found me listening.

To dragons, listening on conversation was frowned upon, if you were listening to your leader's conversation then you could be put in a prison or kicked out like 1 dragon had a few years ago. I was lucky she was kind enough to do that, she probably did not want my father to make that sort of decision.

I just really wanted to know what was going on... Yikla would not tell me anything, even though I had tried tricking her since I was the son of Himla, she was smart enough to know that I was not nearly old enough to be a deputy or an important dragon.

I went back to my cave and my sister and brother were in there. My mother was surprisingly nowhere to be seen anywhere, maybe she was with Himla, and Opla and I had not noticed. She had seen a bit upset that the dragon was in our camp so you never know.

My brother Plok, had told me once that my father had been in love with a black dragon and that was why my mother hated black dragons so much. Honestly I believed it because the way she had treated Yikla in that encounter had basically proved that it was all true.

"Hey Jangra, where have you been all day? I've been looking around for you, I figured me and Plok were going to do some training." She said to me. I looked down at the ground sadly, all I could think about was Penta denying my love earlier, everyone had told me that she would accept it.

Plok was looking at me and I shook my head at him. I didn't want to many people knowing about it. People made fun of dragons that had their love denied and I did not want to be one of those dragons. No matter how much everyone would tell me that they wouldn't because my father was leader.

If Penta had not wanted to come after me because my father was leader than I doubt it would be any good for me. I sat back and just stared at the ground.

"I've been alright Mik, just really worried about what job I'm going to get." I said to her. She moved over to me and nudged her head against me as her way if saying sorry. She then sat down and stared at me for a few moments.

"Don't worry too much about it Jangra...  You will get the job that you are worthy of and the job you will want, if a dragon is lazy and does not care they will get a boring job or no job at all." She said to me. I shook my head once again a bit scared to even think about that. I couldn't imagine cleaning out caves or sorting through rot piles. Much less sitting there all day and doing nothing.

My mother had told me that my father would not let me get that kind of job no matter what. I wasn't too sure about that however, me and my father were not exactly close. I don't even think my mother was that close to him. He always seemed to not really care when she was around.

It brought me back to what everyone had told me about Himla's first love. I shook my head and just sat back as my sister cleaned herself up with a little bit of fire and some water that was in the cave.

Another job was supplying a lot of caves with water, our cave was lucky and it seemed like we had an endless supply of water, however I was not too sure about other caves, I knew Penta's cave had quiet a bit of water in there as well.

That's also because Ipsle was of a group called the elders that were old and gave my father good advice. Normally Ipsle would have retired and just lived his life walking around the territory and living in his cave but he was an elder dragon.

It was another role I thought my father would give me, but I realized you had to be at least 300 years of age so if he even did it would be strange and it would be way in the future. I couldn't imagine getting advice from my son who was also very old.

I shook my head not wanting to think about Pinta anymore, Plok walked over to me and nudged me just as my sister did, it was a dragon's friendly way to greet someone and show their appreciation for them. I sat there still looking a bit sad and I knew that he was smart enough to know what I was thinking about.

Plok was a smart dragon still, smarter than most, but to be qualified to be leader you had to be extremely smart and that usually passed through lines of family of leaders or just pure luck of the draw. I was on a next level of smart compared to a normal dragon though.

I knew I was smarter than Penta and her reaction earlier was very dumb, I was starting to feel better and now happy that she had said no now, I wouldn't be surprised that at some point she would come after my friend Kota, even though it was normally the male dragon that came after the female dragon.

I had heard of some instances where the female had gone after the male though, like my mother for one. I felt bad that my father still seemed to pretend he had no feelings for her. I loved my mother so much, if I was older then I would have definitely accepted her request.

To be fair though, my father techinically had accepted her in, but he always just seemed not to care. My mother was almost like the father figure to me, which is weird to say when your father is the leader of the dragon tribe.

"Don't think about her too much Jangra, you are bigger and better than her..." Plok said to me. Was I being too obvious I suppose so. My sister had not seemed to catch any of our conversation which I was thankful of. My mother had practically yelled it too the group that had taken Yikla in though.

"I know... It still just hurts me because I really liked her for such a long time. Everyone told me she would say yes... But instead she just attacked me." I said to him. He nodded his head and then sat down and looked at me. He looked at me with those sad eyes he always had when you could tell that he felt bad for me.

"Jangra... Some day you will find a female dragon, I may be coming up on 60, but I have a few dragons in mind, it isn't always going to be a dragon your exact age, when you get out there you will meet bigger and better dragons." He said to me. I nodded but I still was just staring at the ground. It hurt me so much and it would take me a while to get over it no matter what anyone told me.

"I thought she was the one... No matter what you tell me it won't make me feel any better..." I said to him. It was a lie, he had already made me feel better. I felt bad because it seemed like I was attacking and blaming him almost for this. I was not but he listened to what I said and he walked away.

I was fine with it because I just wanted to be alone right now. I needed to reflect and think about where I had gone wrong. I was just as good looking as Kota I don't know why she liked him so much. They were right I suppose, dragon's usually go after the leader.

Kota was technically the leader of our group of friends, but he was in no way near the leader of our dragon tribe. I don't know what she was thinking about.

Plok had told me that she probably had some mental issues. I agreed with him on that and I just sat down, it was a bit late, I wanted some sleep, it had been dark ever since I took Yikla back to our camp. I felt a bit weird about it though, she was just as big as my father.

All it could take was one swipe to the correct region to kill him. But with the deputy in there with him I doubt that there was any way in that being possible. She would yell to the rest of the community. I shook my head though again.

All it takes is taking out the leader to take down a whole tribe for a long time, as much as I liked our leader, she was no where near as good of a leader as my father. That was one thing that I could not deny, he was always a fantastic leader.

All of the sudden someone walked through the entrance of the cave. I opened my claws ready to attack in case it was Yikla here to finish the job of taking out our family. But I noticed it was just my mother as she walked in.

She looked fairly upset and she sat down next to me looking very sad. She stared down and I wondered what it was. I always told my mother all of my feelings and she normally did unless it was something our father did not want to tell us.

"What's wrong mother." I asked her. She looked around making sure that my brother and sister were asleep. Luckily they were. She then stood up a little bit and I could tell that she was really upset. I wondered what it was, she normally was not like this, she sometimes was when she had a disagreement with my father but I hadn't seen her quiet like this ever before.

"Me and your father Himla are splitting up..." She said to me. I let out a very loud gasp and she put her hand in front of my lips to keep me silent. Clearly she did not want my sister or brother to find out. I always knew that I was closer to our mother than either of them ever were.

"Don't tell them yet, we will talk about it later as a family. Me and him will still be sleeping together... When he comes in of course... But me and you and your brother and sister will be moving into another cave until you 3 find a dragon of your own..." She said to me. My mind went into so many different places at the same time.

If they were breaking apart... Normally it was the male dragon that took care of the kids, he was throwing us out as well?! I began to feel very mad at my father. He still had feelings for that black dragon? I was beginning to wonder if he was sneaking out and seeing her.

But what was mainly on my mind was now my odds of being leader... Maybe Penta was right now, Kota was one of the best dragon's in camp. Without my father really calling me his son then he could potentially be the leader.

I shook my head though, Kota was never interested in her. I could always tell, he was already with another dragon in our group of friends anyways. Even though Penta said she thought that it would not last very long.

That was just something that she was wishing for, it was not anything that she actually believed in. I should have known it was a bad idea this whole time to go after her.

My mother told me to at least shoot my shot, and my shot had failed, badly, she had attacked me and it almost seemed like she wanted to challenge me to a fight, fights had happened ever so often, depending on the fight then it was a fight to the death.

I had not wanted that and I had never even thought about that but honestly it would not have surprised me, even though realistically there was no reason for us the fight in the first place.

My mother sat there and she just continued looking at me sadly, it was almost as if she could tell what I was thinking about, sometimes I wondered if she had the sense that the medicine dragon had. I had hardly ever seen him or even heard of him.

"I am sorry about Penta, I did not know that she would have attacked you like that. Plok told me about it, and I'm sorry for yelling it out to the group..." She said to me. I nodded my head appreciating her apology and a sat there still thinking about Penta.

I needed to stop thinking about her though, she would no longer be a part of my life and honestly I was fine with it, I would be a warrior, I would be friends with Kota again and she would be so jealous of me, I could not wait to see the look on her face.

"It's okay... They weren't paying attention anyways. It hurts but I will get over it." I told her. It was halfway the truth, I'm sure the overheard it but most of them would have no clue what either of us were talking about.

I had noticed that Kip had heard it, but I had already told him about it, he was the only friend that I really still talked to at this point. I already knew that a lot of dragons stopped talking to their friends when they got older but he was still at least one that stuck around.

It was no longer a group really anymore, he said he talked to Kota every now and then but he said that he was in a different world at this point. I could not blame him, he probably didn't want to talk to his old friends, he had done a lot of dumb things when he was younger. He probably felt a bit dumb and didn't want to talk to his old friends incase they remembered it.

I had only remembered the good times that I had with my friends however. But I suppose I could see why Kota was the way he was, he was like a normal dragon, but he was one if the few that were smart. A long with Kip, they just were not as smart as I was.

"Do me a favor and wake up your brother and sister... We have a meeting.