by Ramy Vance
It was a video of them sitting next to each other, encouraging her to quit trying to fit in with everyone. They said that if people were worthy of her time, they would make themselves evident.
Alex almost laughed when she saw the message. The whole situation seemed so hard for her to understand now. She wasn’t concerned with a gnome picking on her, not anymore. There were orcs who wanted her dead, an army at the Dark One’s orders. What were bullies compared to that?
For a moment, Alex thought about sending her parents a message to let them know what had happened over the last twenty-four hours. She thought more about it and decided it wasn’t a good idea. Even she didn’t quite understand what had happened over the last day.
There had been lunch, a joust, and then an invasion by orcs and a dark wizard. That wasn’t something you sent in a casual message.
Instead, Alex pulled up her HUD visor and said, “Hey, Mom! Hey, Dad! I just got your message. Things have been going a lot better. That bully I was talking about? We’re not friends, but we also don’t hate each other anymore. And I have a really cool roommate. Also, there’s a hot dark elf. Hope everything is going well. I love and miss you guys.”
Alex ended the recording and sent the message. That was probably the most her parents were going to be able to deal with. She did say there was a hot elf.
Next was getting out of bed and getting ready for the funeral, the real part of the day. Jollies still hadn’t come back from breakfast so Alex had the room all to herself. It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t feel like enjoying her solitude.
The door opened, and Jollies fluttered into the room. She went straight to her bed and laid down. “Hey, dude, everything okay?” Alex asked.
Jollies rolled over and said, “Breakfast was hard. There were a lot of people missing.”
That was one of the reasons Alex hadn’t wanted to go to breakfast. She didn’t want to know the extent of how many cadets had been lost during the battle. It was ultimately unavoidable, but seeing it would hurt.
Jollies sat up and wiped tears from her eyes. “Almost time to get going, right?” she asked.
Alex came over to Jollies’ bed and rested her hand next to it, palm open, for the pixie to climb onto if she wanted. “Yeah, it’s getting to be about that time.”
The funeral took place in the Great Hall. The Wasp’s Nest had repaired itself, and It looked like nothing had happened. But the cadets knew.
Caskets were lined up before a podium, each of them open, each of them honored.
Myrddin stood behind the podium, his face grim and settled. The rest of the instructors sat behind him, all of them wearing black. Toppinir and Roy sat close to Myrddin, looking uncomfortable.
Alex filed into the hall with the rest of the cadets, trying to ignore how few there were now. She remembered it had almost been impossible to count how many cadets there were in the mess hall. Now she could put them all in her dorm room.
It felt like a defeat to see how many cadets she hadn’t saved. The hall felt bare, empty of souls.
At the front of the hall, Myrddin stood. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was magically amplified to a soft boom, a resting thunder in the ears of the attendees. “Today we are gathered to honor those who have fallen.”
“The simple reality of what we face is death. There is no easy way to say this. Each and every one of us must face it. That being said, there are noble deaths, and there are cowardly deaths. Those who rest here today went down the noble path. They died in service to the realms. They died trying to keep the Dark One from destroying our lives.”
“I know this doesn’t make it easier for any of you. These were your friends, your family, and now they are gone. There is nothing I can say that will take away your pain, and I will not try to. The simple truth is, we were attacked. For seemingly no reason, the Dark One struck the Nest. Why? Intel? To cull our ranks? Maybe, but we believe the Dark One saw an opportunity to strike fear into our hearts, an opportunity to dull our resolve. New magics and technology are in place to prevent this from happening again. Security has been increased. We will not be caught off-guard again.”
Myrddin hung his head for a second as he gathered his words. “I have asked a great deal from all of you. I understand that, and I want you to know I understand. None of you has to be here. I will not hold you prisoner to agreements made previously. Now that you have seen war, seen loss…”
Myrddin’s voice cracked, and he stepped away from the podium. Roy stood up and took Myrddin’s place. “I think what Myrddin is trying to say is that we ain’t asking y’all to die. None of us are. What happened was terrible. We didn’t see it coming. I wish we had, and honestly, these deaths are on our heads.”
Toppinir nodded as Myrddin took a seat next to him. “We all lost friends,” Roy continued. “Those friends died heroes. That don’t make it any easier, though. Not at all. So, we’re here to honor them. Here to honor their sacrifices, and those who stay will make sure those sacrifices were not made in vain.”
Roy sat back down, and Toppinir stood and walked to the podium. “Now we will allow a viewing of the departed. Please feel free to pay your respects,” he said softly before sitting back down.
It took a while for the cadets to rise from their seats and approach the coffins at the front of the hall. Most of the cadets were teenagers, and it was the first time they had been confronted with death. Alex was the first amongst them. She stood and marched straight to the front.
Alex wore her blindfold during the service, but she pulled it off as she headed toward the bodies up front. The light was blinding, but she forced her way through it until it felt normal. Then she looked upon the dead who had fallen for the sake of Middang3ard.
At first, Alex didn’t recognize anyone, but that didn’t matter. They had all been living and breathing individuals with goals and fears and loves, and now they were gone. That was what mattered.
Then Alex’s eyes fell on Primerose. She was laid out with the cadets, her scales shimmering in the crystal light of the Nest. Her eyes were closed, a golden coin laid upon them like the rest of the dead. Her many arms were folded over her chest. She looked peaceful.
Alex leaned over and kissed her forehead. She didn’t know what else to do. She’d had no idea Primerose had been killed in the battle, and that knowledge rocked her to the core. Alex felt like she needed to sit down. It was all becoming too much.
Alex made her way back to her seat and watched the rest of the cadets pay their respects. She saw Gill, Brath, and Jollies make their way past the cadets and instructors they knew.
Once the living cadets had paid their respects, they returned to their seats. At the podium, Myrddin stood and cleared his throat as he wiped away his tears. “Even amongst the horrors we experienced, we will always have reasons to live, to celebrate, to continue forward,” he said.
“Bravery does not come easily and often is never commended. I would like to take a moment to do just that. Many of the people here are indebted to Alex Bound.”
Alex’s heart jumped in her chest. She stared at Myrddin, who was looking right at her. “Alex Bound,” Myrddin continued, “organized a party that rescued many of our cadets. She also freed our dragons and led the final stand against the Dark One’s forces.”
“She was accompanied by Jollies Dust, Gill Lowborn, and Brath Gimbel. These four individuals showed bravery and valor beyond their years.”
Myrddin started clapping, quickly joined by Roy and Toppinir and the rest of the instructors. The hall broke into cheers as the cadets stood up, clapping, and grabbed the four named cadets if they were close enough.
Someone hugged Alex tightly and thanked her. She didn’t know what to say or do. She just stood there blank-faced, trying to determine how she felt about what was going on around her.
“Alex the Boundless saved us!”
Alex didn’t know who had started the chanting. The hall was echoing her name.
Alex pushed the pe
rson who was hugging her away, then turned and ran out of the Great Hall.
Back in her room, Alex sat on her bed, trying to find words. She couldn’t understand why anyone would praise her. She had just done what she should have. And so many cadets had died. Who was she to be praised?
It hurt—all of it. There was nothing she could do about it.
Alex leaned over and clutched her stomach. A searing pain had started in her bowels and was working its way through her chest up to her throat. She ran to the bathroom in her dorm and knelt over the toilet.
Boundless—that was what they were chanting, the name she used in VR. But this wasn’t VR. Nothing about this was virtual. It was reality, plain and simple, and the reality was too much.
Dead orcs flashed in Alex’s mind, her knife stabbing one of them—the knife that was still on her side. That knife had killed. She had killed. The Great Hall was full of dead cadets.
Alex’s body convulsed as she threw up. Stomach acid burned her throat as she coughed and tried to pull herself up. It didn’t work. Her legs were too weak, and her entire body was trembling.
The last few days (or weeks, she didn’t know) had finally caught up with her. Everything she had been pushing down, pretending it wasn’t driving her crazy, came bubbling up to the surface. It needed to be gone. She needed to get it out.
Alex pulled away from the toilet and cowered in the corner as she sobbed. She tried to keep herself from crying. This was her life now.
She caught her tears in her hand and held it out. Alex had never seen herself cry. Part of her wanted to look in the mirror to see what this pain looked like.
Alex heard the door of her dorm room open and close. She jumped at the sound, worried that it might be an orc running into the room before she remembered the battle for the Nest was over. There were no orcs. It was just her roommate.
It hardly took any time to wipe her tears off and compose herself. She stared in the mirror, finally seeing herself. There were bags under her eyes from not sleeping the night before.
Alex didn’t recognize her reflection, but she had only seen it a few times. Is this me, she wondered. Is this who I am?
Alex walked out of the bathroom. Jollies was waiting for her, a plate of food next to her. “I thought you might be hungry,” Jollies said without meeting Alex’s eyes.
Alex was hungry. She had forgotten how hungry she was. “Thank you,” she managed to say.
Jollies took a deep breath before speaking. “They were chanting your name,” Jollies whispered. “Alex the Boundless.”
Alex forked a piece of bacon into her mouth and assumed it was obvious she couldn’t talk because her mouth was full.
Jollies didn’t relent. “Is that weird? I mean, do you feel weird about all that? People? Just all of it?”
Alex looked up from her food. “Yeah, I do,” Alex admitted. “It doesn’t seem right. With all… With everything that happened. No one should be saying my name. All I did was try to help, and I didn’t. Not enough. Not nearly enough.”
Jollies fluttered over and landed on Alex’s shoulder. She nestled close to Alex’s ear. “I know,” she said. “They were chanting my name, Gill and Brath too. It felt weird, like they shouldn’t have been doing it.”
“Myrddin made it sound like I saved everyone. I didn’t. You saw…you saw the funeral. I didn’t save anyone.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Alex tried to focus on her food. She still couldn’t get over the fact that she was seeing without Manny and not relying on the blindfold to numb her senses.
Jollies pulled Alex’s ear. “You didn’t save anyone. We did. All of us together.”
Alex laughed. She didn’t know where the laughter came from, but it was genuine. She couldn’t express how much she appreciated Jollies at that moment. “You’re right. It wasn’t me. It was all of us.”
“We did the best we could, and that’s the important thing. We can’t beat ourselves up about what we didn’t or couldn’t do. We did all we could.”
There was a knock. Both Jollies and Alex jumped at the sound. Alex went and opened the door.
Brath and Gill were standing looking haggard and unhappy. Alex opened the door wider and motioned for them to come in. Brath sat down on Alex’s bed, while Gill remained standing over by the door. “How are you guys doing?” Alex asked.
Brath pulled out his family’s knife and held it in his hand. “You didn’t stay for the rest of the funeral.”
“I couldn’t. It was all too much. I-I had to get out of there.”
Brath picked at his fingernails with his knife and nodded. “Yeah, I understand. I wish I hadn’t gone. It didn’t help. None of it helped.”
Gill walked over to Brath and rested his hand on the gnome’s shoulder. “We needed to pay our respects to the dead.”
Brath leaped off the bed and pushed Gill away. “Did we?” he asked. “Did we have to see everyone we couldn’t help? Did we have to lay coins on their eyes and hope they’re guided to the afterlife in peace? I don’t think we did. It didn’t matter if we were there or not. They’re dead.”
Gill walked away from Brath and sat at Alex’s desk. He hung his head, running his hands through his hair as he tried to find the right words. “We needed to be there,” he said. “It was important. We can’t run away from any of this.”
Gill looked at Alex, his face older than Alex had ever imagined it could be. He looked as if he had aged forty years, yet he still managed to smile. “We helped. We did everything we could. That’s what’s important. That’s all that matters.”
Brath solemnly nodded as he continued to pick at his fingernails. “Yeah, I guess,” he agreed. “It still feels really crappy.”
Jollies flew off Alex’s shoulder and flashed bright pink as she fluttered around the room. “That is the important thing, isn’t it?” she asked. “Isn’t that what being a dragonrider is all about? We’re here to do our part. To protect the realms as much as we can. And we started doing that yesterday.”
Alex knew Jollies was right deep in her heart, but that didn’t make the pain go away. Maybe the pain would never leave. Maybe the pain was important, even necessary. “So, did they sing a song for us?” Alex asked. “You know, like those old odes and stuff?”
Gill laughed. “Actually, they did,” he said. “Myrddin led it. It was terrible. Like, really bad. The guy cannot sing. At all. When Roy and Toppinir took over, it got better, but none of the cadets can hold a note. You didn’t miss anything.”
“What now?” Alex asked. “After all this, what are we supposed to do next?”
Gill pulled down his visor and then turned it off. “We keep going. There’s training tomorrow.”
There was nothing Alex wanted more than a break. She didn’t want to have to jump back on her dragon and continue on, yet that was what was expected of her. She was a dragonrider. That was what she was here for. “All right. What are we doing?”
Chapter Eight
The next day, Alex rose with the sun and went to breakfast, surrounded by cadets who whispered her name as she walked by. She grabbed a seat by herself and was joined by Jollies quickly enough. Neither of them spoke much.
About half an hour into breakfast, Brath and Gill sat down at Alex’s table. The four of them ate their meals in silence before getting up and leaving.
When Alex got back to her room, she checked her messages to see if she had received anything from her parents. The only message in her inbox was a reminder of the training she had to attend in an hour.
Alex laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling. She wasn’t wearing her blindfold. Her sight was much better. Today might be the first day she didn’t need Manny to trail behind her. Now that she thought of it, she hadn’t seen Manny at breakfast.
If anyone deserves a day off, it’s that weird ball of eyes, Alex thought.
Jollies got back to the room a little while after Alex, and they both got dressed and ready for their training. Jollies flew over to Alex and
pecked her on the cheek. “It’s going to be okay,” Jollies said. “We’re all going to be okay.”
Alex playfully nudged the pixie. “Yeah, I know. We got this.”
The two left their room and made their way to the training field. The remaining cadets had already arrived, no doubt showing up early to avoid staying in their rooms and thinking about the last few days.
Brath and Gill were already on the field. They scooted over to make room for Alex.
Fier walked out onto the field. She looked tired, more tired than the cadets. “All right,” she shouted. “Today, we begin a new level of your training. I’m not going to waste your time trying to play nice about what happened. I respect you all too much.”
Alex felt Fier’s eyes on her, and she looked at the ground. When she looked up, she saw Manny at the far end of the field. The Beholder waved one of his eye tentacles and Alex waved back.
Fier paced up and down the length of the cadets. “Truthfully, I didn’t think any of us were going to survive, but here we are. Here you are, warriors in training. The Dark One is afraid of you. That’s why we were attacked. Take it as a backhanded compliment.”
Fier leapt into the air and wings spread out from her back. It was impossible to tell if she was mostly dragon or something else. “Get in the air,” she shouted. “Let’s get started.”
Alex raised her dragon anchor to the sky and called for Chine. She looked at the sun, its dazzling brightness, the blue skies, and the sparse white clouds.
Chine came to her in a flash of black smoke, faster than the rest of the dragons. Alex leaped onto him, and they took off.
Alex looked down at the other cadets. Many of them were still waiting for their dragons. I’m glad we made it through everything, Alex said to Chine. You and me.
Chine turned to look at Alex, his eyes dancing in a smile. I as well, he said. When we were trapped, I honestly wasn’t sure you and I were going to see each other again.
It’s weird. I feel like we never really talk. I mean, not as much as everyone else I see. Not as much as Jollies or Gill or even Brath. But I feel close to you. Like, if you weren’t here, maybe I wouldn’t be here.