Third Time Lucky (mdu)

[Anonymous]

The dragons in their infinite wisdom had seen fit to make that morning very chilly. Admittedly it was a rather beautiful sunrise but the air was cold. Not the most pleasant experience for an early morning flight but still, it was part of her morning routine.

     Despite the stereotype of less-than-feminine women not being morning people, Latona was happy to say she challenged that myth. In fact, she was a morning person, she loved mornings and if anyone was ever fortunate enough to catch her between the hours of four and nine o’clock they might get a pleasant surprise, her actually in a good mood. But it was very rare that the more gossipy, annoying and overly friendly pilots were up at that time unless they had to be. And if they had to be it was usually for work reasons and so they didn’t have time to annoy her.

     In fact Latona found it amusing that some of the pilots, despite having to be punctual as candidates, went back to their old ways the minute they had a dragon at their back or relied heavily on the disgusting black liquid that was coffee.

     Her teeth starting to chatter a bit, Latona decided to land on the roof of the ATC. She was supposed to meet her new candidate in a bit, a girl for a change. So far she was not having much luck with candidates. First she had been assigned a boy named Nika who after an unfortunate….misunderstanding, she had scared off. So now she was doing all the official part of mentoring him, and Intram was doing the real work. Then she had taken on a candidate she discovered herself because no one else wanted him, an annoying idiot named Setrul. But he had been killed by some psycho who the dragons had yet to find.

     Hopefully it would be third time lucky. She had considered being really cruel and making ‘Calico’ meet her at what most would call an unearthly hour, four am. But then she realised were she to give the girl a tour the dragons might not appreciate being woken at that time. So she had settled instead on eight thirty. Their classes normally started at that time, so it shouldn’t be a problem for Calico.

     Forgoing the escalator or stairs, Latona exited the roof area by simply jumping down to the pavement below, using her huge angel-like wings to slow her descent, frightening two stage one candidates in the process. They’d get used to random things falling from the sky, they always did. But she still stretched her wings to full width just to tease them a little more. She didn’t know whose candidates they were but their mentor could hardly berate her for risking her own life by jumping off a roof and then stretching her wings. Not that she wasn’t used to being told off, and besides a lot of the other pilots probably wished she would jump off a roof and not glide to safety. Meh, they could all go to hell anyway.

     Smirking to herself as the candidates walked very quickly in the opposite direction, she checked the time, eight twenty. She would have time to spare when she reached her destination. The last two times she had arranged to meet her candidates for the first time in classrooms. So in case there was some kind of bad luck at work, this time she was meeting Calico in one of the laboratories. Maybe she could turn off all the lights, and have all the colourful chemicals and the burners floating so it looked like the room was haunted. Muahahaha! …Nah, that would be stupid and besides all the idiots with black wings and no fashion sense would just go on the pilot’s blog, climb up onto their high horse and mock her. Stupid black winged whore.

     Latona took a deep breath, it was before nine, she shouldn’t get so worked up so early in the morning. She stepped into the laboratory she had chosen and found Calico wasn’t there. Well she still had five minutes and as long as she was less than thirty minutes late she just might escape punishment. It depended on what she was like. If she was anything like Nika or Setrul the girl was going to get punished even if she was a second late. She didn’t want another blood-controlling sociopath or hopeless moron whose brain and genitals were interchangeable. Though the chances of that with a female candidate were slim, but considering Tenebrous who had insisted on her taking Calico, it was going to be a no-talent, lesbian, jackass. And the fact that Alei had discovered them could only be a bad thing.

[Anonymous]

In the week Calico had been admitted to the candidate program, she had yet to speak with any Pilots other than Alei. In fact, she was dreading the experience. Although Alei had been kind to her, from what she had been told about Latona she had reason to be scared. The woman was well... a bitch from what she'd heard.

Calico was also yet to meet her roommate. She hadn't been told anything about who or what they were, or even if she had one. She hoped it wasn't the naga or the blood boy. They sounded... cruel, thought that may still be her Pilot-phobia talking.

Calico closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she neared the spot she guessed she was meant to be... No not guess, she was a psychic; what she was doing was sensing ahead of where she was. She was feeling things around her beyond normal people's senses.

She'd been told she was to go to the laboratories but she wasn't sure where they were or which one she was meant to go to. She checked her watch as she came to the right door. A sigh of relief escaped her lips when it said 8:25am. She still had five minutes.

Nervously, she rapped on the door and waited to be called in. No answer. She rapped a little louder. No answer. Panicking, she looked around the corridor hoping that one of the ones around her would feel better. She hadn't been shown any way to use her psychic abilities yet - the barrier around her mind was still intact. Only slight vibes could pass in or out.

Calico focused her mind, silently repeating the mantra please work, please work, please work. Finally she found it. The room she had tried was directly above where she should be so she scampered off to the lift, grateful that she had set off early. She really didn't want to get her Mentor mad on her first visit.

Calico rapped on the door she was meant to be in front of. She was shaking slightly with nerves and a few strands of patchy hair ha escaped her hat and were hanging over her face. She tucked them behind her ear and knocked again.

[Anonymous]

Latona sat down on one of the benches, checking her surroundings, waiting for a blip to appear on her psychic radar. And it didn’t take long, mere seconds after sitting she sensed a novice psychic mind on the floor below. It went from one door to the next until eventually it got on the elevator. It was obviously a candidate because its mind was very much open but there was some psychic ability there so it wasn’t an ordinary grunt soldier. The candidate was trying to sense their way to their destination. Even if they weren’t very proficient with it, it was definitely promising.

     Latona leaning back against the wall and waited for Calico to reach the right door. She even gave her a little psychic nudge to lead her in the right direction. And then came a knock; that was interesting, they had manners. Something she had to admit she lacked.

     “Enter,” Latona said psychically using her most intimidating mental voice as she used her telekinesis to open the door.

     Standing there was a nervous looking girl; with, would you know it, calico coloured hair. The poor kid’s parents certainly had a sense of humour. And she thought ‘Arrow Archer’ and ‘Vyomini’ were bad. ‘Calico’ made her sound like a cat-girl, but there was a definite lack of kitty ears and tail. At least there wasn’t going to be another Trance running around.

     “Candidate Calico Smith, right?” Latona asked.

     There really wasn’t any need to ask, just like all new candidates her mind was just like a computer. She could pull files out at will and picking out names was easy.

     “I’m Pilot Cardinal Latona Eisurin, you may call me Pilot Eisurin,” Latona said, “And I’m your mentor. Any questions?”

[Anonymous]

ENTER

The command terrified an already nervous Calico, making her grateful she'd decided to skip breakfast. That along with the door opening made Calico freeze, the hairs on her nape rise and have the urge to bolt in the other direction. It took a few moments of staring at the pilot before she was able to take a few distrusting steps into the room.

Calico nodded, causing her hat to topple from her head and multicoloured hair tossle about her shoulders. She made no move to pick the thing up or say anything. She wasn't sure she trusted herself to speak just yet. Pilots were fickle and she didn't want to say something she'd later regret. She stood there trying to decide how nice her mentor really was. At least, she guessed, Latona was in a good mood.

“I’m Pilot Cardinal Latona Eisurin, you may call me Pilot Eisurin,” Pilot Eisurin said, “And I’m your mentor. Any questions?”

Calico bit her lip. What could she possibly ask? She was in illiterate, untrained psychic going into the most intensive training programs on Aedolis. 'Can I pick up me hat?' she asked, immediately flipping out for asking something so stupid.

[Anonymous]

Latona felt a little bad when Calico panicked at her command and making the door open, she didn’t want to scare off another candidate, but then again she didn’t want them to be cowards either. Well maybe over the next few years she could scare Calico gradually and not all at once so she didn’t end up TRIMed. She certainly did seem very nervous. It would make a change from cocky.

     Calico had impressed her a little with her presence of mind to use her abilities to find her, as well as not freaking out when she saw her mentor had wings, a lot of people did.

     As she was speaking, all the while she was listening to Calico’s thoughts. Well untrained wasn’t a problem, most candidates entered with very little grasp of their powers…Wait did she just say ‘illiterate’?

     ”Tenebrous? Did you happen to know about that?” Latona asked the grouchy dragon.

     It was a stupid question really, of course he knew, he was a dragon and he liked torturing her.

     There was a muffled yawn inside her mind before Tenebrous replied, “Interesting candidates are the most rewarding to teach.”

     Great, this was going to be a pain.

     “Can I pick up me hat?”

     Latona was surprised by the girl’s question. Of all the questions to ask. She couldn’t help but laugh though. Calico certainly seemed different.

     “Unless I say you can’t, assume you can pick up any items of fallen clothing.”

     The accent was interesting too, obviously she was from a lower caste, but Latona already knew that from her file. That didn’t matter though, when you were first stage candidate you were equal to all the other first stage candidates whether you were lower caste or upper caste.

     Latona slipped down off the bench and started heading towards the door.

     “Right, time for the tour,” she said brightly, “We’ll go see Tenebrous first, that’s my dragon partner. Though he’s more like my boss.”

     She had to pay back Tenebrous for landing her with an illiterate candidate. By now he had probably fallen back to sleep so she’d have to wake him up again.

     “I warn you though Calico, he’s very grumpy in the mornings.”

     Tenebrous had already had a talking to from the other dragons about breaking a certain annoying harpy’s wings and insulting a certain spiky alien freaks candidates so he tended to ignored people’s candidates when they visited or at least be relatively civil with them. Latona wasn’t going to punish Calico for Tenebrous being a huge jerk? Hence the warning about his attitude.

[Anonymous]

Calico felt the familiar feeling of a worm wriggling inside her head, telling her that there was a psychic in there. This time was was calmer about it though, guessing it was something that happened often around Pilots: not something to panic about. Hello? she thought within her mind.

Calico's shoulders slumped and she sighed when Latona laughed. She didn't seem even remotely like what the other candidates had said. Psycho mentors didn't laugh in a cheery manner. Oops, I wasn't meaning any insult Pilot Eisurin, she said and immediately stopped thinking of all the horrid things people had said about the Pilot. Strangely, her accent didn't show up in her mind. Perhaps it was because the mind didn't always think in words.

Calico scooped up her hat as she hurried out after Pilot Eisurin and tucked her hair under her hat once more. It was a little messier than when she had arrived but she didn't want to keep her mentor waiting.

The idea of a tour sounded nice. She hadn't been offered one yet so she'd been relying on rudimentary map reading skills, asking directions and the occasional lucky "guess" to help her around. 'Thankyou,' she said, then after a pause she ventured out a little more nervously, 'what are dragons like?'

[Anonymous]

Calico saw psychic contact in her brain as like a ‘worm’? Well that was different. Latona decided not to mask her psychic connection though, pilots being in your head was part of being a candidate. And as long as she didn’t say something outright treasonous she couldn’t really punish her for thinking. Even when she was thinking that her mentor was a ‘psycho’, and then apologised for it.

     “I can’t punish you for your thoughts,” Latona said, “But trust me there are worse mentors than me. One used to carve his name into his students, one’s a pervert who always makes his students strip during their first meeting and that’s only two.”

     Even though Marshal, whom she had been referring to, hadn’t been her mentor but he had made her strip. She had never really forgiven him for it because, well stripping she could handle, worse things happened to candidates during the program than that. But it was because Marshal was a huge pervert who deserved to be neutered like the animal he was…Okay maybe he wasn’t psycho so much as lecherous…

     In comparison she was a nice mentor…okay she’d only had candidates recently but she didn’t have crazy eyes like Intram and wasn’t going to carve her name into them. Dyerlich had only gotten away with it because no-one would dare mess with him. She knew she’d probably end up injuring her candidates some time, it was a part of the learning process, hell she’d been made blind and had her wings broken on her first day. Maybe she’d do something later, when the happy morning mood wore off.

     “Well, the dragons are like big lizards really. And their personalities vary, some are nicer than others. Tenebrous isn’t very nice, Alei’s Dragon Reise is pretty friendly though. He’s the one who discovered you, right?”

     Again, the question wasn’t necessary; she already knew that from Calico’s mind and her file, she was just making conversation. She suspected Alei would have been angry when he found out the candidate he discovered was having Latona, his biggest rivalry during candidacy, as their mentor. At least he would have been angry if he was normal.

[Anonymous]

Latona's reassurance did little than make Calico more worried. It occurred to her that she had been incredibly lucky that it had been Alei that had found her rather than one of the other candidates. She shuddered at the thought of what said Pilots would have done if she'd bolted away from them. ''Re all Pilots like that?' she asked, not wanting to use the word "crazy" or anything else that might upset the Pilot in front of her. Latona did genuinly seem normal though, even friendly and well, more human than Calico had been led to believe.

'I'm not scared of dragons,' she said. It was true, the only creatures Calico had ever been frightened of were Pilots. Even before she knew what the word "psychic" or "Pilot" meant she had burst into screaming cries at the sound of them. Whenever her parents had mentioned them when she was a newborn, they had had to say "you-know-what's" or on some occasions, just stop the conversation entirely.

Calico nodded when mentor asked if it was Alei that had found her. He'd been quite nice to her, it's just that he had caught of off balance by pinching her and that she'd only been in the ATC for a short time. 'He seemed v'ry nice. If he weren't a Pilot and such a...' she really didn't want to say "fairy" unless Latona was a friend of his, 'different person I wouldana bolted.'