To The Hand of Clawed Fingers

“Keep your chin up but your eyes down!” The woman who was the White Dragoness said for the fifth time. I was sure by now that I was never going to be able to get those words out of my head. Actually, that was probably exactly what she wanted. I strained my chin up while looking at my nose, only to have the whip stick, as I was now calling it, hit my nose with a very light sting.

“Your nose is to smell with! It was not made to make you become crossed eyes! Now, looking down does not mean at your feet as it does in the States. Looking at the ground is looking at the floor till your eyelids droop. That's it! Yes, your getting it, that's very good.” In all honesty it did feel more natural like this, but right now my pride was hurting and I wasn't going to admit she was right.

We had been at this for almost the whole morning and all she has been teaching me to do is how to stand and walk! I always believed I was a graceful person, but in the presence of the Dragoness Queen and what she was trying to teach me, I felt like a horrible klutz. A blush quickly adorned my face when I cane out of my own self evaluation and looking up to see the queen starring at me, hands behind her back. She gave me that knowing look and told me to sit on one of the large rock formations by the steaming pool. The steam from the water had heated the stone and as I sat on it, it quickly warmed my body, the steam warming my face.

The queen walked over to a hole in the wall and talked into it as if it was a phone. A hollow sounding reply followed her request a moment later. She said something else and walked over to where I was sitting.

“Zoning out is a good skill, but only when used at the right time.” I groaned at her statement and laid backwards. “Does everything I do have to be wrong and calculated?! This is outrageous!” I cried in an unexpected outburst. “Your majesty.” I added lamely at the end. She nodded and didn't seem at all surprised by my outburst.

“For someone as strong headed as you, I'm amazed you made it this far without a break out of complaints. That's good, much better than when I was taught these things.” She sprawled out over the rock next to me, letting her fingers play in the water. Her long hair, which she had braided, drooped into the water also. She had changed out of the formal white dress she had been wearing and now had on a pair of blue jeans with a brown long sleeve blouse and boots.

Her lips were a medium size and as she stared into the water they seemed to form a small contemplative smile. The silence was killing me, and with all the questions running through my mind. I at least needed to talk!

“ So what exactly is that hole in the wall anyways?” I asked, not really sure what else to bring up. But when she looked up she seemed startled and looked around till she noticed the hole she had talked through earlier. Realization dawned on her face and she looked at me curiously.

“It is a hole that runs into a central room. The central room had more than a million holes in it with a small piece of thin cloth covering them. The holes themselves are outlined on the inside with silver, a metal that is not porus, therefor if you speak into it the sound will echo clearly all the way down to the central room. When someone talks onto the central room the cloth falls off on a string of whatever hole was spoke through. Each hole even has its own marking to tell them apart.”

She looked at me to see if all of that had gone over my head, I'm sure, but I took a moment to think through everything she had just explained to me.

“So it's a crude type of phone system, the control room being the people that patch messages through to other rooms?” I asked finally piecing it together in my mind. A huge smile appeared on her face, like I had just won something, as she sat up.

“Exactly!...” she said pointing at me. She seemed like she was going to to say more but a thumping came through the tunnel and then a boy stood at her doorway, in a white robe holding a platter of food. To call him a boy would be rude, for he looked about seventeen to nineteen, older than me. 'Though seeing hes a dragon he is much older than you.' My mind nagged just to get me to stop staring at him. He really did have a nice figure. The Dragoness called him over and he set the plate down, giving me a quick smile and walked out as quickly as he had came.

When I had finished watching him leave I noticed the queen had a kiwi in her hand and her eyes trained on me suspiciously. Putting my head down as I tried to hide the blush I grabbed a pear and wondered what her look ha been all about. For the next ten minutes we stayed in silence and ate the plate entirely clean. Seeing as I hadn't eaten a thing days I was amazed I hadn't fainted yet.

“Today we shall finish the basics of walking, talking, and falling. And tomorrow you will use your new skills in the central room. After your shift is over you will report to breakfast with the rest of the girls then report back here for more lessons. If you learn what I have to teach you effectively then you may go back to your quarters to sleep.” My eyes were closed as I tried to suck in all that she had just said to me. The silence dragged on and I soon realized she wanted my confirmation. Opening my eyes I nodded quickly. She was standing in front of me, stick in hand and a look of amusement on her face.

“Then let's get this standing and walking out of the way so we may move on.” With that she grabbed my shaking and confused hands and began her lesson more vigorously.
'What in the world had I gotten myself into?'

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That day I had learned how to fall gracefully, fall into a curtsy, what to do with my hands, how to walk without making a sound, how to introduce myself, when to keep my mouth shut, and what all the different colors of the dragon's means. And yet the only thing buzzing through my head was one word the dragoness had said. I groaned and jumped on the bed, head berried in my pillow.

“Basics.” I cried before I tried to get some sleep for the night to come.