Paige

I.
“But I don’t want to be a warrior.” She scowled defiantly up at the Instructor. At least, she was trying to be defiant. It was hard to be defiant when tears kept leaking from the corners of her eyes.
She bowed her head to the Instructor and whispered “I just can’t…hurt anything.”
The Instructor shrugged with a deep, heartfelt sigh. He wanted badly to be done with her. “We have an opening in…” He mumbled something.
“The where?”
“The nursery ward.” He rubbed his eyes as the Coatl girl perked up. “They could use someone like you over there.”
Meaning what? Paige wondered sarcastically. Emotional and weak?
She didn’t say that. Instead, she hurriedly bowed and scurried to the nursery.
The staff were all on break. Unsure of what to do, she sat among all the hatchlings and let crippling disappointment wash over her, leaving her just as teary-eyed as some of the babes.
But before long, she was engrossed in the small dramas of helping to raise hatchlings. Feeding, playing, teaching, holding…soon there was no time to be disappointed in herself.
And such is the story of Paige: tears, then moving on.
II.
Paige’s clan has been through several changes in organization and purpose. For a long while, it was made of nomadic warriors. And those were the worst times—full of hunting and hiding, shading the hatchlings’ eyes against needless bloodshed. She was raised during this, where every spare dragon had to be trained in the arts of war.
Through it all, she didn’t realize that she’d built strong emotional walls that only a hatchling’s innocent gaze could penetrate. As a nursery worker and thus not respected, she sat back and watched as the clan’s arts fell to the wayside, making room only for strength and brutal power.
The raiders—the night their village burned and the old ways fell away—was the worst, the darkest moment before a dawning day, and she remembers it vividly in nightmares…
III.
Sundown, full black, many stars. The hatchlings were slumbering, nestled against her to chase away the autumnal chill. She was drowsing off, content not to wake them, when she smelled something burning.
As a dragon who worked many late shifts in the kitchens for extra rations, the scent was particularly offensive. But she didn’t want to move yet. So sleepy. Drowsy. Warm with the hatchlings…
She snapped awake. Light—eerie, fluid and shifting—had flooded through the hole-windows of the makeshift nursery. Snatching a hatchling in her mouth and bundling the rest on her back, she stumbled outside just as the hut roared into fiery life.
She gaped, stunned.
Not for long: a thin howl rose into the air, and she shot back into the building with a snarl. Others would later praise Paige for her bravery, but this was sheer instinct—shoving away burning straw, flipping scalding wood out of the way. At last she pried the final little Wildclaw free. They made it out, back to the wailing children. All were safe, all gathered back onto her breast.
With horror beating at her heart, she fled into the forest with them.
Anger mingled with fear there, once safe in the shadows. Anger and melancholy—a long, weary trail of Why. Why are we fighting? Why are we fleeing? Why are they doing this?
She was so tired and cold when Daria came and struck Pallu across the chest. More eerily, though: the hatchlings all around Paige had fallen silent as the dead.
Paige knew then that things had to change. She wanted a safer world for all the children to grow up in, and she wanted them to enjoy the fullness of life, and not just learn the ways of being warrior. She quickly volunteered to help Daria however she could.
IV.
Since Daria has come, Paige has felt better. Safer. There’s something about the bold Wildclaw—how she moves with a vision—that has softened Paige’s own inner walls. It helps that the brave leader has a soft spot for hatchlings, too.
The pair of them are closer than ever and work hard to preserve the safety of the clan.