Back To Class

"Siya!" The man I had nearly melted with my fire breath stomped his way over in front of my desk and lifted his arm out to me to shake hands. "I see you're finally back."

I timidly raised my arm for a moment before pausing. 'Wait… Isy told me about this, didn't she? This is the men's greeting. For me to use that with a guy I have to be the one that starts it, if he starts it what does it mean again? Wait, she never actually said that part, just implied it was something really bad.' I slowly pulled my hand back and lowered it to the desk again. 'So he's insulting me? That's a rather tame way of doing it… I should still greet him back somehow though right? But I'm sitting down…' "U-uhm…" I awkwardly stood up, and nervously coursied, even more embarrassed as everyone continued staring at us. "That's right… I'm still a little tired… So I probably won't be able to go to physical training… But I can't keep missing class so I uh-uhm… So I'm here…"

He folded his arms as everyone around us started to gossip. I couldn't help but listen in.

"Did you see that?"

"Wait, he just did what? She'll bloody murder him."

"Wow, and she's still coming to class after that? Amazing…"

"No, she's not even mad."

"She's so level-headed. I would have knocked his teeth out."

"She's So freaking cute…"

I jerked back slightly losing focus of my hearing at the last one. 'I-i'm what? Am I really? I mean sure Mom said that a lot, but she's my mom…' Feeling myself turn even more red I slowly sat down again. 'Phew… Good thing I asked Isy about this stuff… But… He's still standing here, what do I do now?' I slowly turned to look at her, starting to sweat, but she just smiled and waved like everything was fine. 'You traitor… You're chickening out because you're scared of him aren't you!'

I nervously turned back to him cupping a hand over the lower half of my face, trying to hide. "Did you need something else?"

His eyes stayed locked on mine. He gritted his teeth. "I challenge you to a duel… What's with that stupid expression, you're hiding your face now? Are you scared"

"No… Of course not… It's just…" 'What's a good excuse? Uh… OH!' "I'm just worried I might breathe fire again, and it would kill you at this range. I don't want to hurt anyone."

Once again everyone around us began to gossip, although this time it seemed to be him that was embarrassed.

"She's so sweet."

"Wow… He can't get to her at all."

"Did she just threaten to kill him?"

"Scary…"

"Didn't you hear? Some girls tried to break into her dorm during the first week and one of them wet themselves right outside when they saw her. Apparently, there's a stain."

'Uh… ha ha…' I glanced over to Isy who didn't seem to be paying attention to the background noise, thinking that was probably for the best. 'So there are even rumors like that…'

"Oh yeah… Didn't she also dismantle a whole guild before the guild war even started because one of them interrupted her while she was eating noodles?"

'These rumors… Got a little bit out of hand didn't they?'

The man in front of me slammed his fist into my desk to take back my attention. "Do you accept it or not."

'Oh right… Has my hearing gotten sharper? Or am I just more easily distracted…' As I looked back I could see he was starting to blush too, more likely than not starting to feel as awkward as I was. "Wait… Accept the duel? Why would I though?"

He moved back slightly, almost choking on his own words. "What does that mean?" his voice cracked.

"Why should I bother… Like… What do you have that I could possibly want to win from you in a duel…"

He gritted his teeth. "So you won't fight me then?"

"Not if you don't have anything I want. The terms of a duel are that the stakes must hold equal weight. But I'm pretty sure you don't own anything I would consider as valuable as you consider the chance to beat me in a fight… Much less whatever else you might ask for." 'is he going to snap…' I tensed my muscles, readying myself, but he just sighed and relaxed, walking away with a growl. 'I guess he's not as hot-headed as I thought… It's a good thing I didn't just tell him to piss off…'

The teacher walked in and immediately put me on edge with his presence, my breath catching in my lungs. When he turned to look at the class I reflexively flinched and hid under my desk…

"Lady Adalade… You're your roommate."

She chuckled nervously. "She's here I promise! She just dropped something." Leaning back she looked down at me. "What the heck are you doing? You're embarrassing me…"

'I'm embarrassing you… You're the one that made me come back before I was ready!' I shakily climbed back up onto my seat staring down at my desk feeling defeated somehow. I couldn't look at him, or even raise my hand to say present… But he saw me, so he moved on.

He cleared his throat. "Right. Everyone is here, so Today will be the last theoretical lesson before the exam. We've gone over various types of beast-type monsters, but today we will go over simple dragon biology. Some people say all beasts descended from dragons, and regardless of whether or not it's true, they share at least some similarities with almost every beast and monster. They are the ultimate combination of strengths from every living creature we know of. Because of this, concepts used when discussing dragons can typically transfer over to most animals that you will end up fighting, giving you some ground to work on if you end up facing an unfamiliar opponent."

I slowly forced myself to look at the board as he unrolled a massive biology diagram of a female dragon and put it into my photographic memory before staring back down at the desk. 'I couldn't even find books on this… They were in the section of the library locked for graduates only…'

scanning over every part I almost instantly figured out the basics… And if I was being honest it made the first half of the lecture feel redundant. For the most part, it was either just basic stuff like how dragons protect their young, and weird facts like how they apparently lay eggs… But also give live birth? But the eggs hatch into dragons too? Of course, then there was some really uncomfortable information about dragon scales, how the softest scales of a dragon were semi-flexible and lined their digestive tracts, and how to gut them properly… However, all that really did was give me another new fear of growing scales where I definitely didn't want them… Dragons had incredible senses and could breathe fire, but the fire didn't hurt them because of the scales and mucus they produced, which they also happened to sweat out, being capable of completely engulfing themselves in flames, which was a scary thought. Apparently they also just loved breathing fire in general, as it helped them to calm down, and soothed them. That at least explained why I felt the need to do it, even though it hurt so bad… There was some other stuff too, but nothing important.

Not to say it wasn't useful information, but I only had one repeating thought. 'How much longer till this ends…'