Ana-Lucia Cabellero

16 | Female | Rider | Mentions: Syvne, Geneviève

The morning of the first ride Ana-Lucia had twisted her long dark hair back into a singular large braid, pulling out a few side pieces to help frame her face. She had woken up early that morning, anxious about the day's events, and not wishing to wake up her dormmate. During her early morning time, she had gone for a walk in hopes of calming herself down a bit. There was a lot riding on her success, especially with her being the only rider in her family. Unfortunately during the choosing ceremony the week prior, she had come with her older sister to attend the event, and only she ended up with a dragon. She was disappointed for her sister Gene, yet thrilled for herself. This was the adventure of a lifetime, and Ana was excited to take it on.

During that week she had been working diligently in her classes, absorbing what she could about her dragon and what she needed to know for the first ride. In addition to her classes, she had also received a dorm room, and a partner to share it with. Never having been apart from her family for more than a week Ana did feel a bit homesick, the only thing the young girl was not missing where her parent's constant critiques. So she immediately brightened when she heard the voice of her sister from behind her. " Ana-Lucia! "

Lifting a hand she waved in Gene’s direction, a smile spreading across her face. Ana was standing in front of her dragon, and she kept the creature in the corner of her eye. Syvne was a magnificent animal, but an intimidating one as well. She could tell the ice dragon was uncomfortable, based on the claw marks on the ground around her claws, and the way she positioned her tail to keep any others at bay. Ana could hear Syvne mutter something, but couldn't make it out, she nearly asked her about it, but thought better of it and looked back towards her sister. Despite not having actually started the first ride, the young girl's heart was already pounding, and she was sure her dragon could hear it as well. Are you nervous for the first ride Syvne? She asked the dragon through their link.

She turned the face the creature before kneeling down to sit on the grass, plucking a long piece and twirling it around her fingers. Ana-Lucia didn’t wish to disappoint her parents if she fell from her dragon, and the thought of falling did make her nervous, but that was a problem she was willing to face in order to officially become a dragon rider. Her attention was drawn to her feet, as metal pieces on her riding boots clicked together, as she moved to sit with her legs crisscrossed. Ana-Lucia’s outfit was simple, she wore a cream color blouse, a looser piece of clothing with bell sleeves that cinched at her wrist, along with a pair of semi-fitted black pants. Ana was never one to go for extravagant outfits, she preferred a more simple style. She had stuck to this so much so, that even today she had not put on her normal jewelry. And Gene happened to have lots of desirable shirts that Ana had looked at in the past, speaking of her sister's wardrobe, the shirt she was wearing that morning had been stolen from her sister's room. Ana figured Geneviève wouldn’t notice if she had borrowed it, and so far it seemed as if she hadn't.

Brontes

Water dragon | 259 | Male | M: Nico, and others[indirectly]

This year's choosing ceremony had only taken place a week ago, and the fresh faces had the water dragon reminiscing the day he and Nico had bonded. The day Brontes and Nico had their choosing ceremony, Brontes had been lurking in the river. Just sitting among the weeds at the bottom of the river bed. He was blowing puffs of air out of his nostrils and watching as the rings floated to the surface, Brontes didn't really want to leave the water and was debating making his human find him, but eventually realized that wasn't possible. Now he normally was not one for dramatics, however, this was a special occasion. Brontes had burst from the water, launching a good 10 feet in the air, and landed on the ground, letting out a loud dominant screech. He proceeded to stomp, which, unfortunately, came across as a less intimidating version of a waddle, over to his human. He had felt the bond become stronger the closer he got, and had eventually spotted Nico.

From there Brontes had puffed out his frills, let out a deep grumble, and shook himself off. Unsure if he had accidentally sprayed his human, he stared the tiny creature down and lowered his head to meet his gaze. Brontes had stopped inches from the boy's face and let a puff of air out, in an attempt to blow back his hair and see his entire face. It was not long after this, that their bond snapped in place. But to his dismay, Nico had just cracked a half-smile at him. Mission failed.

With that Brontes had proceeded to try and drop Nico, not once, but twice during their first flight in order to try and strike some fear into the boy. He couldn't tell if it had worked since he couldn't see his expression during the ride, though in the end, they turned out to be a strongly bonded pair. He wouldn't choose a different rider. Returning to the present, the large Dragon knew that some of the new riders before him were nervous, and a part of him wished to offer them advice, but in his opinion, some of the best advice he could give them, was nothing at all. The first ride was not something one could really predict, and every experience was different. The riders must learn by doing, not everything could be taught verbally, they would just have to figure their techniques out now that they were well equipt.

“Back in our day, we didn’t use these fancy contraptions,” The water dragon spoke, aiming a wing at the handcrafted dragon saddles. Head coiled partially around Nico. “All we had was our Witt and grit to get us through,” the rhyme had the dragon let out an amused snort, how the first ride had changed in seven short years. The saddles may make it easier for the new riders to hang on, but not every dragon would make the first ride easy, Brontes sure hadn't for Nico. Today would be interesting.

⸺「 Ava Aldine 」⸺
Female || 18 Yrs || Rider || M: Nico { ind. }, Dragons { ind. }, Riders { ind. } Shoteka { ind. }

⸺⸺⸺⸺⸺⸺⸺⸺

Usually, Ava would be all for judging these worthless 'riders,' but in this case, she was sitting on a large boulder, a book in hand, her eyes scowering the pages. Granted, she didn't give a flying fuck if any of these bozos' die, but she didn't plan on dying herself. Even as much as tempting as it was to distract herself and shove these morons into the dirt beneath her boot, she couldn't let that get the best of her! Focus. Focus. FOCUS.

With one knee extended, hanging off the side of the rock, she held her other leg over the other, resting the book ontop of it, as her finger followed each and every line, mesmerizing every single word. Ava wasn't a nerd, not a book worm, but her literal life depended on this. And her dragon, her dragon wasn't going to go easy on her.. they never do, and she highly doubts this dragon would be different on their first ride. Ava was lucky when she was chosen by such a large, incredible dragon, now she needed that luck on this first ride. Man. Would these pages even help? Would they even give her the advice or even encouragement she needed? Gods. This sucks ass. She missed one day of studying, and she's basically missed everything on basic First Flight training!

Her fingers latched onto the golden necklace that wrapped itself around her throat, her fingers rubbing back and forth against the golden tooth that hung from the silver chain. In all honesty, she has no clue as to where she found or even got ahold of this, but for as long as she can remember, it's been there.

Looking up from her book, she glanced over to "boss" of this group. Nicodemus. Such a weird name.. he began speaking, instructing something? Probably something she should have listened to, but she paid no mind to it, she stared back at her book, reading the endless lines of words.