Page 197 of The Discount Damsel

Lung Shang.

Bradley hadn’t paid much mind to the strangely colored luck dragon, or any of the others, for that matter. His focus was on discovering what his newly awoken wild magic could do. And challenging authority.

Yet amidst those days, there was one afternoon that proved fateful for the both of them, though Bradley hadn’t realized it until now.

Rejected from the classroom for disrupting the professor’s lecture—again—Bradley found himself on the wrought-iron bench outside the dean’s office. The dean was currently occupied, so Bradley had to wait for his scolding. In the rain.

The rain didn’t bother him like it did the other students—he’d spent his whole life more wet than dry as a fisherman on the Cut. In fact, he was grinning. He couldn’t wait to see the look on the dean’s face when he traipsed into the office soaked and pooling water on the rug after being told “not to move so much as an inch” from that spot on the bench.

And Bradley wouldn’t have moved from that spot had he not heard a soft weeping above the storm. Following the sound, he crossed the gravel path and ventured into the lilac shrubs that bordered the campus lake.

The rain had pulled the weaker lilac blooms from their branches, and spots of purple mottled the green grass everywhere. Where the shrubs grew tall and dense, little alcoves of dry patches could be found, and Bradley expected to find the weeping creature in such a place.

But it wasn’t there. It was on the grassy banks of the lake, sitting on his rear haunches with his head thrown back and bawling into the rain.

His heart constricted in his chest at the rawness of the grief before him. The rain muffled Bradley’s approach until he was within an arm’s length of the little luck dragon.

“Why are you crying?” he asked. “I thought all luck dragons loved the rain.”

The luck dragon choked on his sob, golden eyes widening with embarrassment and fear. He sprang into the air, and Bradley threw up his hands.

“No! I’m sorry. Please stay. I’ll go. I just heard you crying and . . .” Bradley shrugged shoulders heavy with sodden robe.

The blue luck dragon wiped the snot from his nose with a claw and lowered into a hover at eye level. “Luck dragons love the rain,” he blubbered, “but none of my littermates will share it with me. They’ve all flown off.”

“Oh.” Bradley looked around at the soaked grass. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

“Why would you do that? I thought humans didn’t like getting wet.”

“I’m not like most humans. And I’ve been told to wait for the dean, and the grass is far softer than that iron bench. That is, if you don’t mind?”

The luck dragon cocked his head curiously to the side. “I suppose not.”

So Bradley lowered himself and settled his elbows on his drawn-up knees and pretended not to notice the baby luck dragon watching him. Bradley lifted his face to the sky, closed his eyes, and smiled. “We don’t get this kind of rain back home. It’s large and harsh, and it stings. It’s so soft here.”

“It’s called a drizzle,” the luck dragon offered the word.

“Drizzle. Hmm. That’s a funny word. I like the way it buzzes on my tongue.”

“Like a hummingbird!”

Bradley cracked open an eye, and the baby dragon seemed embarrassed by his outburst.

“I-I mean, their wings make a funny buzz, too,” he explained. “It tickles my nose if I fly really close in their wake.”

“I bet it does. Say, you wouldn’t mind if I practice some of my magic while I wait for the dean, would you?”

The dragon shook his head, scattering the rain.

Bradley stretched out a hand towards the lake. “Forma,” he murmured in High Aetherial. “Forma draconis.”

A serpentine dragon, wingless like the luck dragon next to him, rose from the water. It was as clear as glass, its watery hide rippling with each droplet of rain. The figurine corkscrewed around the luck dragon and flicked him on the snout with its watery tail. It was a behavior Bradley had witnessed the other dragons do when they wanted to instigate a game of tag.

This baby luck dragon squealed with delight and gave chase.

“Sweet mother of pearl,” Bradley gasped as he realized just how fast the luck dragon was.

The apprentice shot to his feet, really concentrating now, and guided the baby dragon on a merry chase after the figurine. They dashed over the surface of the lake, rose into the sky, wiggled around the lilacs. A few times the baby luck dragon almost caught the figurine, shouting, “Rats!” whenever he missed.