The Sixth Dragon Rider

Part 23

Aura's foot tapped anxiously against the ground as she sat waiting for Janson in the dining hall. Nervousness kept her incapable of staying still and she soon found her fingers tapping a rhythm along with her toes as she shifted restlessly in her seat. Worried about being late to a meeting she'd initiated, Aura had left her last class as soon as it ended and rushed to the dining hall, but now she wished she'd taken longer, any embarrassment she might have suffered from being late couldn't be anything compared to the anticipation building up inside her now, it felt like a million dragons stampeding around her stomach. Part of her was excited, or ready at least if not excited exactly, to get some of what had been going on off her chest and talk to another dragon rider about it, the other part of her though wanted to run out of the room and hide, or throw up, or maybe both. Nirvana soon grew annoyed with Aura's inability to stop moving and flew off her shoulder down onto the table, casting her a disgruntled glance as she did so.

"He is coming right?" Aura asked Nirvana nervously.

"That's what he said," Nirvana answered as she yawned before curling up into a ball and closing her eyes.

"And he knew it was tonight, right? And at dinner?" Aura confirmed anxiously.

"Mmmhmm," Nirvana mumbled tiredly, only seeming to half pay attention.

"So then where is he?" Aura said, more to herself than anyone else.

"Doing back flips through the courtyard," Nirvana answered unhelpfully.

Aura sighed and gave the dragon a glare before responding, "You're a pain sometimes, you know that?"

"I try," the dragon said, in a cheery tone of voice before resuming her nap.

Aura gave the dragon another glare and was about to say something else when she felt something touch her shoulder and quickly turned around. Janson stood behind her, a laugh in his eyes and an amused half smile on his face. A strand of his brown hair was falling through his eyes, giving him a relaxed, easygoing look. Aura felt her cheeks go slightly pink when she realized he had heard her talking to Nirvana, who, seemingly, wasn't talking back.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" he asked, his smile expanding.

"No, nothing important at least," Aura said, giving Nirvana one last displeased look, before moving over so Janson could take a seat at the table beside her. The dragon only let out a small huff of air and curled herself into a tighter ball, ignoring Aura's pointed comment.

A bemused look crossed Janson's face as he watched the interaction and took a seat at the table beside Aura. Aura shifted nervously in her seat again, expecting him to ask why she wanted to talk to him, but he simply picked up the roll lying on his plate and began to spread a layer of butter on it. Confused, Aura picked up her own utensils and began to eat, watching him out of the corner of her eye the whole time. His calm manner and lack of expectation for her to say anything so far was off putting to her and she wasn't sure how to respond.

"You know I'm not going to force you to say anything right?" he asked, clearly feeling her confused gaze on him. When she didn't respond after a minute he kept talking, "Like I said earlier, you can trust me and you can talk to me about stuff and tell me stuff, but you don't have to, it's all your choice. So if there's nothing you want to say, then don't, I just want to be your friend."

He went back to quietly eating his dinner and Aura felt her nervousness slip away. There was no pressure with him, he wasn't going to force her to say anything. She considered not responding, or moving the topic to something simple, and unrelated to her, but she couldn't bring herself to do either. It was hard to keep up her walls around him, she didn't know why, but it just was. Maybe it was how genuine he was, or maybe it was his patience with her mistrustful habits, or maybe it was simply something about him, either way she felt like she could trust him, and so, before she could second guess herself, she started talking.