Children of the First

Children of the First is an ongoing serial webnovel about Shawn, a Dragonblood student at Raekos University. There are new chapters as often as I can write them (currently about once a week), and they won’t be stopping anytime soon. I hope you enjoy the story, and comments are always appreciated!
Read the rest of the About the Story (if you wanna).

I felt a little lost as I approached the check-in table outside Jacobson Hall. I was trying not to look like a clueless freshman, but that’s exactly what I was, and I don’t think I hid it all that well. “Uh… hi. I think I’m supposed to live here,” I said, which was dumb because I knew full well I was living in Jacobson. It said so right on the palm of my hand.

“Welcome to Raekos University. Last name?” The girl behind the table looked vaguely Dwarven, but I had never met a Dwarf before so I couldn’t be sure.

“NacRae’vyr,” I told her. Apparently that caught her attention, because she looked up for the first time.

“Oh. A Nedrak. How nice for you.” She glared at me for a moment before returning to her list. “Shaneer Soli?”

“Sha’anyr. Yeah, that’s me.”

“Alright then, here’s your key and welcome packet. You’re in room 314, the elevator’s to the right of the front desk.”

I thanked her, and she reminded me that there was a welcome dinner that night and I could bring my parents.

“Or you people could just go the hell back to your gold castles,” she muttered as I walked away. I brushed it off; some people still dislike or even hate Nedraka, and most of the others think we’re aristocratic bigots with huge mansions and piles of jewels in the basement. I’m inclined to agree with the aristocratic bigot part for the most of the Nedraka I know, and most Nedrak families are pretty wealthy (mine included), but not every Nedrak is an arrogant fuckwad.

I took the elevator to the third floor and found my room a little way down the hall. I started to fumble with the lock, but a voice from inside called, “It’s open, come on in.”

The inside of the room was pretty standard; cinder block walls, two beds, two desks, two closets, two little dressers, all in hospital tan.

“How you doin’?” My new roommate stuck out his hand. “I’m Retis.”

“I’m Shawn,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

Retis looked like a typical Saurian, much more lizard-like than Nedraka. He was covered in dark green scales from the tip of his tail to the top of the ridge on his earless, nose-less head. Like other Saurians, he stood on the balls of his elongated feet and wouldn’t have worn shoes even if he had found some that fit.

“I knew I would be rooming with another Dragonblood,” Retis said, “but I didn’t know it would be a Nedrak.”

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

He shook his head.”Not for me. If you’re warm with me, I’m warm with you. I’ve never even met a Nedrak before; I’m from this tiny fishing village in The Vale and it’s mostly all Saurians. Where’re you from?”

“Rowyra, right in the city. We don’t have too many Saurians, but there’re a few I’ve met. They seem to be the same mix of assholes and decent people as everyone else.”

“Well put,” Retis said, and lowered his voice a bit. “Are your parents here?”

“My dad’s gonna meet me here around six to go to the welcome dinner thing, why?”

“Awesome, I haven’t smoked all day. You wanna burn? I brought some killer veggies with me; it grows all over the place in The Vale.”

“You smoke vegetables?” I asked, and dropped my backpack on the bed with the rest of my clothes and stuff. We had shipped most of my belongings ahead of time and the university had put it all in my room before I got there.

“Well it’s not really a vegetable,” Retis laughed. He pulled a bag of shredded plant matter from his pocket and held it up. “Swiftreed. It’s not technically legal in Khartan, but where I’m from people tend to look the other way. I didn’t know if I’d be able to find any decent reed up here so I brought my own supply. You’ve never tried it?”

“Well I tried Yellow Moss a few times in high school, but I never knew anyone who smoked reed,” I said, which was true. I had heard about stuff like reed in school, and no one really paid attention to the warnings about drugs making you crazy with one puff, but it just wasn’t something many Nedraka did, and we made up the bulk of my high school class.

“Oh man, it’s awesome. You wanna try it?” Retis asked, giving the bag a shake.

“Thanks, but not today. I think I want to get settled in before I start my college experimentation.”

He shrugged. “That’s warm, kin, whatever you wanna do.” He reached into his backpack and rummaged around until he found a hollow cone carved out of a big seed or something and started packing it with the shredded Swiftreed.

“You’re gonna smoke that in here?” I asked, thinking that the school might frown on illegal drugs in the dorms.

“Why not? I assume our room is a designated smoking section, since you’re a Nedrak.”

“Well yeah, but my cigarettes aren’t illegal drugs, they’re part of Nedrak culture.”

“And this stuff doesn’t smell any worse than your Lune Leaf shit,” Retis explained. “No one will even notice.”

“Alright, well you’d know better than I would, so I’ll take your word for it.” I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I wasn’t the one smoking it, and I didn’t have much to worry about.
The reed smelled a lot like wood smoke except it was sweet and a lot lighter, with a noticeably swampy feel. Smell wouldn’t be the right word, because it was more than that; it smelled a little like a swamp, but it also felt damp and heavy. It was actually pretty nice—calming, in a way.

I had started putting my clothes away, but the reed smoke filling the room made me want a cigarette, so I cleared a place on my bed and sat down.

“What are you using as an ashtray?” I asked Retis.

“The carpet,” he answered, as though that were normal. “But I have a water bottle if you want it.” He tossed me the empty bottle and I lit one of the thick yellowish cigarettes I had rolled that morning. I always roll up a bunch ahead of time because I hate having to take the time to roll one whenever I want to smoke, but you can’t buy Lune Leaf cigarettes pre-rolled because, as my father says, “A Nedrak who lets another man roll his Leaf is no Nedrak at all.” It’s some traditional thing, like keeping the connection to Gaia through the Leaf or some horseshit like that. It’s a pain is what it is.

“Check it out,” Retis said, taking a long drag of his reed. He leaned back and tilted his head around in a circle as he exhaled, making a spiral that drifted toward the ceiling. It was mildly entertaining to watch him roll his head around, but the smoke trick was pretty basic. I decided to take the opportunity to show off a bit.

“Not bad,” I told him, “but watch this.” Retis looked skeptical as I took a drag of my cigarette. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the smoke in my lungs.

I didn’t try to bend the smoke to my will through normal magic; that would require complicated Aeromancy far beyond my ability. Instead, I focused on making the smoke part of me so that I could command it without even trying, like with your arm or leg—I want it to do something and it does it, without me having to ask.

I kept concentrating as I gently pushed the smoke from my lungs. It trickled out and hung in the air in front of me, slowly gathering together and forming the shape of a Forest Drake—the kind we keep as pets in Rowyra. I had the smoke-drake glide toward Retis, whose eyes were about as wide as they could get with three eyelids, and let it dissolve just before it reached him.

“That. Was. Awesome.” he said after the smoke dissipated. I grinned; I was always pretty proud of my smoke craft. “How did you do that?” he asked excitedly.

“All Nedraka have the ability, it just comes especially easily to me. I’ve been able to do stuff like that since I was a kid.”

“Awesome, man. Fucking awesome.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 7:12 pm and is filed under CotF Main Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.