class of the ungifted

A soft golden light echoed throughout the ocean, giving vaguely uncertain promises of discovery and adventure. As if it was searching for something hidden for centuries, water gently lapped into caves yawning open. There was a cliff overlooking the endless waters, and day after day the young NightWing dragonet perched at the edge of the rocks, her star-studded wings open in a gesture of longing, of searching for something more. At this hour most of her tribe was soaring off to sleep to avoid the day with its searching intensity, yet the dragonet loved the warm openness of the sun and its illumination of countless different colors, colors beyond her imagination. Even her dark scales shone more purple and blue in the sunlight, more like a flower of a galaxy than one of the unusually smooth pebbles down at the beach, each one looking exactly the same as the next. She hated this thought of being the same as others, like one of these shoreline pebbles with not even an ounce of creativity or new thoughts. Looking at the line of greyish-sable pebbles, the night dragon felt a stab of sadness and pity; none of these rocks knew how depressing it was to be exactly the same as everyone else.

As she let these thoughts course through her mind like the waves below her, a tear glistened at her cheek. It shone like an odd silver scale in the midst of deeper colors, the symbol of a mind-reading dragon. For a moment she felt special and wanted, yet these thoughts faded as the tear slid down her awkwardly curved neck. Ever since the dragonet was born, she had looked at these powerful, gifted dragons with envy; they had knowledge she could only dream of, and friends she could only wish she had. Even from a young age, these dragons were the most boastful and stuck-up creatures she had ever seen, taking every single opportunity to boast about their mind-reading skills or bringing doom and darkness upon the world with their visions. The NightWing dragonet had promised herself that if she ever got these amazing powers, she would be the most humble and kind dragon in the entire Night Kingdom. Everyone would come to her for help, and she would welcome them with open arms, always nobly lending a helping claw.

But heroes in stories were special, and she was not. In fact, none of the dragons she had ever met seemed like the type to be a hero. They either had great ideas but were useless, or were powerful and stuck-up. With a sense of shame she placed herself into the former category, trying to reassure herself that both of these were equally horrible. A small part of her, however, would rather be an awful dragon with powers. At least they were loved and admired, even if they did not deserve it.

There was one place where the dragonet felt wanted, however, and it was not even on these cliffs or with her family and their overexaggerated admiration of her uselessness. It was in scrolls, where she could retreat for hours on end to indulge herself in the stories of heroes: real heroes, not like these dreadful impostors that surrounded her day after day. In these stories the hero was always nobly magnificent and always carried a tortured air about them, but never placed themselves above others. They were always alone and rejected because of their skillfulness, but never let that stop them. The NightWing dragonet, however, was loved enough, but this love always felt detached and unnatural. She wished she had a destiny like these heroes and an excuse to beg for recognition; yet no future-seeing dragon ever made a prophecy about her, and no mentor ever sent her on a dangerous mission throughout all of Pyrrhia. The dragonet was always mentioned in an odd, offhanded way, as if she were one of the hapless dragons the hero managed to save when they were constantly in danger. Even that, she figured, would be infinitely more amazing than anything that could happen in her life. If she were lucky, she would one day be mentioned in a great story about a hero, even if she was useless in the end.

A thought leapt into view... perhaps she could search the lands for an animus dragon and beg them to give her some special power and a destiny to go along with it. The dragonet shook her head, realizing that while this was completely possible, it was highly unlikely she would even know where to find an animus. Even if she did find one, begging and sobbing to be someone special was something intensely un-herolike, and the truth would eventually come out, her legend being tarnished forever. There was no way she could stand out among an entire tribe of special and talented dragons. She was different, but in all the wrong ways. No hero woke at odd hours of the day to look at the pearly blue sky, or collected pieces of driftwood at the beach trying to imagine there was land beyond the water. And if a hero failed in school, it was not ever the fault of their own pathetic laziness; they always worked hard even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Starchaser tried to shake these thoughts out of her mind, or at least put them aside for later, but it was incredibly difficult. Every day almost all she thought about was heroic exploits, and the only thing she wished in life was to be special. Her gaze turned to the black rocks at the beach, which, she figured, were rather like her. None of them were special, and while some of them did not notice or care about this fact others must realize it and wish things were different. Her pale blue eyes hardened with anger, and she snapped her wings open, hurling herself off the cliff. The wind hurled gusts of fury at the dragonet, who struggled to land amongst the raging blusters.

At last her claws touched the rocky beach below, and Starchaser panted hoarsely, her chest heaving from exertion. She grabbed one of the pebbles beneath her, squeezing it tightly in her claw. White scrapes shone through the black, evidence of her anger. The NightWing dragon glared out to sea, the shining waters giving her a veritable headache. As her eyes hardened and narrowed even more, she raised her arm as high as it could go and threw the rock far into the ocean. It skipped a few times before landing with a satisfying plop and falling into the depths of the ocean.

"There!" she cried, driving her claws deep into the rocks. "I hope you're special now!"