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Using a title this time, but it's just part 4 of this sub-series. More stories from Jarzyl. Sorry they're coming slow, but I'm also working on a couple of big stories too.

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Mini-series chapter 1: https://sofurry.com/s/Rnoz2Yxm

Previous chapter (chapter 3): https://sofurry.com/s/rnaQK05n

Atlas took much longer to shower than Jarzyl normally did. But this was nothing new. He did have only one forepaw to soap himself up, and he was generally a more careful, patient person than her.

When he stepped out of the washroom, Jarzyl was lying on her bed. The young dragon had her wings wrapped around herself in a cosy, comfortable pose, with her forelimbs exposed so she could hold onto the sandwich she was munching on.

Jarzyl flicked her neck frill and grinned at her friend, trying not to look smugly content with herself. “I made a sandwich.” She raised her sandwich like a salute, which made some of its filling slide out from between the bread slices—it was slices of ham and diced egg, applied thickly.

Atlas chuckled, and his casual smile made Jarzyl feel warm and happy. He strolled over towards her, stopping at the edge of her bed. “You’re getting crumbs on your bedsheet.”

Jarzyl stuck out her tongue and licked up some of the egg which had spilled out of her sandwich. “Also, I made you one too. You’re welcome.” She nodded at her bedside table, on which there was another sandwich on a plate. Then she snapped up another bite of her own sandwich, which was already half gone. “Mhm. I’m hungry.”

“It was quite the workout we just had.” Atlas picked up the sandwich she’d made for him. “Thanks.” He took a bite, but sat back on his haunches and remained on the floor beside her bed—Jarzyl made an annoyed noise.

“Hmmf!” Unfurling her wings, she flipped onto her front and slid to the edge of her bed, so she could rest her chin on Atlas’s shoulder. His scales still felt damp from the shower he’d just taken. For a moment she pressed her snout against his neck and sniffed, enjoying the familiar way he smelled, though it was faint underneath the scent of soap. “Uggh. That’s good.” Then she rested her chin on his shoulder and resumed eating her sandwich. “Mhm.” The two fledglings leaned against each other, enjoying the cosy comfort of a shared companionship.

Jarzyl ate much faster than Atlas did, and she’d started first. He’d barely gotten through a quarter of his sandwich when she was done. “How’s your headache?” Atlas asked her.

“All gone. Or mostly gone. I don’t feel completely normal, but it feels like a faint pain in my head. I can ignore it.” Jarzyl wrapped her forepaws around Atlas’s shoulders and hugged him, getting in the way of him eating the sandwich she’d made for him. “Atlas…”

Atlas chuckled. He seemed to think for a moment. “It’s weird.”

“What is?”

“I’m not really a touchy person. It’s always felt very awkward or uncomfortable when someone touches me. But… nowadays I really enjoy hugging you. Somehow its different with you. Different from how it used to be, and just better. But only with you.”

“Hehe.” With a giggle, Jarzyl hugged Atlas even tighter. “Only me. Mine.” Now finished with her sandwich, she opened her jaws and tried to bite at her friend’s neck. “Mgnaw… Mine.”

“Sure.” Atlas resumed eating the sandwich she’d made him, casually ignoring her playful attempts to nibble his throat.

“It is true though. I like hugs, I like hugging people, but hugging you is different. And the kissing was weird at first but now it’s addictive.” Jarzyl nodded. “Hurry up and finish your sandwich, so you can kiss me again.”

That got another laugh from him. He swallowed, then turned his head and the two fledglings kissed again. This went on for a while, until there was the faint sound of wings flapping from outside, as another dragon flew by at low altitude. Jarzyl hurriedly pulled back from their shared embrace. “Is that…? No, they’re flying on. I thought that might be my parents coming home!”

Atlas chuckled, and her embarrassment faded. But there was a way he looked at her—it was different from the expression he had with anyone else—more warm, more relaxed, and cosily intimate. Jarzyl tilted her head as she thought about it. Was he looking at her different? Or was it just her own perception that had changed, and he had the same friendly expression he’d always had? Wait, was she looking at him different?

“It’s been a good afternoon,” Atlas decided. He gently bumped his snout against hers, then he picked up the half-eaten remnants of his sandwich and resumed.

For a second, Jarzyl contemplated lunging off her bed and tackling her friend in a hug. Her tail tip flicked and her hindlegs tensed up, but instead she leapt over him and landed gracefully in the middle of her room. “Distracting. You are so distracting, you know that? Look at the time, I’ve been home for two hours already?? It feels like I don’t have enough time in the day, because we could just spend hours hugging and kissing you and I don’t think I’d get bored.”

Atlas shrugged his wings lazily. “Time well spent.”

“But I had plans. There were things I wanted to do today.” Heading over to her storage chest, Jarzyl took out a large, flat rectangular box made from painted wood. It resembled a container for a board game, but when she lifted the lid off the box, instead of playing boards, figurines, or cards, inside was contained a circular disk with numerous small compartments running around the circumference.

With her paw, Jarzyl lightly bumped the disk, and it spun about on its central point, reasonably well balanced. Each of the different compartments contained various different materials, and was marked with a symbol.

Atlas grinned. “That toy again?”

“It’s not a toy.” Jarzyl flicked her neck frill. “It’s a tool. Just… not a very reliable tool.” She placed the box firmly down on the ground, and sat back on her haunches in front of it. With her paws, she gestured over the box with its circular spinning disk. “Magic in all its forms and types. Interacting with the world, natural and built. But you can’t use every kind… So what affinity will I have? What will you have?”

“I remember,” Atlas interjected, “you liked to play with that when we were just hatchlings. Always diagnosed me with different types of affinity. There was one month you said I was going to be an acidspitter, then the next month you said it would be air affinity instead.”

“That’s different. We were just hatchlings, it was just fun. But now we’re fledglings and we’re really about to get magic—if ever there was a time that magical affinity could be detected, it would be now. To be a fledgling, you need to fly. But to be a drakken, you need magic. You need affinity.” Jarzyl spun the disk, her paw hovering over the compartments as they went round and round. But rather than letting the disk come to a gradual halt, she stopped it mid spin. “But there are so many flavours of magic. Which will it be? Perhaps…” She opened the first compartment and withdrew a small glass vial, sealed with a cork. “A drop of acid, from an acidspitter. Venom which has been so enriched by magic that it can melt through steel and stone, leaving flesh untouched. The most basic of drakken affinities.”

Atlas nodded his head. “Believed to be the first type of magic, before any of the other types of magic arose. Very practical. With acid affinity, it’s straightforward to get a job in an industrial sector—or to find a place in an industrial clan, for that matter.”

“Booooring,” Jarzyl insisted. She put the acid vial back into its compartment. “Acidspitting is so common. If I end up with acid affinity, I hope I have a second affinity too. Some type of magic that’s more fun. That would be better. Hmm, let’s do a ranking!”

Jarzyl scampered over to her desk and retrieved a roll of paper, as well as an inkpot. Sitting down on the floor again, she uncapped the inkpot and dipped her tail tip inside. Then with smooth movements of her tail back and forth, she slashed the appendage across the piece of paper and drew lines, dividing it up into five equal segments. Then with another quick movement of the dextrous appendage, she numbered each segment. “Five tiers. One to five, highest to lowest. What tier is acid spitting? How good is it? I feel like it should be four. Not awful, but bad. It’s very boring.”

Atlas shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. Acid affinity is three. It’s the most middle of affinities. Not fantastic, not useless, but very practical, very common, very routine. It deserves to be middle of the tiers.”

Jarzyl picked up the vial of acid and stared at the liquid. “But it’s boring. If I got acid affinity, I wouldn’t feel average. I’d feel I got worse than average. Boring should be lower.”

“The city has annual acidspitting competitions. Range and accuracy. That’s not boring, that’s a fun game.”

Jarzyl flicked her neck frill. “Fair enough. Fine, acid affinity gets a three.” She put the tiny acid vial into the middle row of her paper sheet. “After acidspitting, we have… firebreathing.” With a dramatic wave of her paws, she opened up another compartment from the toy spinner and withdrew a small whitish crystal. “Flame affinity! Burn!”

Atlas’s amused expression showed a distinct flicker of concern. “Is that crystal inert?”

Jarzyl held the crystal firmly, then nodded. “Yeah, it’s all drained. Let me get a new one.” She walked out of her room and to the kitchen, returning in half a minute. Now she was hopping on three legs, using one forepaw to hold a similar whitish crystal. “Got this from the stove store box! I can feel the fiery magic in this one.”

Atlas shook his head. “That’s the opposite of what I meant. That is a fire risk. You’re going to set your room on fire.”

“It’ll be fine. I grabbed a small crystal—this one doesn’t even have enough energy to boil a full pot of water. Just don’t crush the crystal, and we won’t have any fire problems.” Jarzyl carefully put the fire crystal on her paper. “If acidspitting is tier three, firebreathing must be tier two. Setting things on fire sounds awesome.”

“Firebreathing is pretty common. But very practical. Lots and lots of industrial jobs for a firebreather. I’d agree with tier two.”

Jarzyl glanced at her friend. “It’s not all about job potential! Magic isn’t about a job. It’s about who you are, about how you can change the world! It’s about power!”

“The power to earn an income, maybe.” Atlas gave her another of his delightfully judgemental expressions. Jarzyl idly wondered what it would be like if she got to see his face every day—it was a pleasant idea—his smile, his frown, and so often, that thoughtful but sceptical look. “Unlike you, I don’t have cosy connections all across an apex clan, and would much appreciate if I get a type of magic that gets me into a vocational college.”

“You don’t need magic to get a job. You’re too smart. But still… fwah.” Jarzyl raised her head and exhaled sharply, imagining that she was spitting fire from her jaws. “Lots of jobs for a firebreather. Forge work. Heating. And of course, cooking! If I was a firebreather, I’d grill my own food every day! Mhhhmm!! Delicious!”

“Hahahe!” Atlas burst out into laughter, and Jarzyl grinned. “Tier two, then.”

“We are agreed. Firebreathing is tier two.” Jarzyl grabbed another crystal. “Now the least common of the breath magics. The most easily forgotten. Say it with me now… cold affinity.”

“Frostbreathing,” Atlas said. Their words overlapped but didn’t match. Jarzyl giggled.

“Ice cold! Chill! I think…” Jarzyl carefully considered her chart, then put the frost crystal next to the vial of acid. “Tier three. Frost seems uninspired.”

“We are we even basing these rankings on?” Atlas asked. “Since you don’t want to just be considering the job prospects of that affinity?”

“Personal appeal. How much I want to get that type of magic.”

“Very well. Then let me point out that if you had ice affinity, you could make your own ice cream. Isn’t that worth tier two?”

Jarzyl considered this. “That is a point. But I'm pretty sure it’s harder to make ice cream with frost breath, than it is to grill meat with fire breath. And cooling things down with your breath isn’t as fun as setting them on fire.”

“One last point then. Extremely low temperatures are used for thruster propulsion in airships and the city itself. That’s frost magic. If you had frost affinity, that’s a pathway to becoming an engineer aboard an airship. And you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Jarzyl paused—froze, perhaps. Since young, she’d harboured a deep fascination with airships. “Oh, you know me! That’s a good point. That’s an excellent point. The propulsion thrusters use superchilled, superconducting flux coils. And airships are so interesting. Hmmm…”

Atlas grinned. “Made you think, didn’t I?”

“Indeed.” Jarzyl slid the frost crystal upwards on her sheet. “Fine, tier two point five. Halfway between three and two.”

Atlas laughed. “That’s not allowed! It’s either tier two or tier three. Be decisive.”

“Oh, ho! I’m decisive.” Jarzyl slid the frost crystal back down. “Tier three, then. Because there are plenty of other ways I could find a job aboard an airship anyway.” Turning back to the spinner toy, she removed a different set of trinkets. “So that’s the breath magics. Next is the elemental magics.” Picking one specific crystal, she held it in her paw and extended it towards Atlas. “Hey, can you tell what magic this crystal is tuned for?”

Atlas reached out, but the moment he touched the crystal there was a soft snap and a tiny arc of energy jumped from the crystal to his paw. Both fledglings flinched back. “Ow,” Atlas said.

“Oww! Hehaha,” Jarzyl squealed, then broke out into giggles again. She thumped her tail against the ground.

Atlas frowned at her. “You did that on purpose!”

“Electric affinity! Sparkcasting!” Jarzyl rubbed the crystal vigorously against her bedsheet, until she could feel all her scales tingling, then she extended her tail tip towards Atlas. He hopped to his feet and out of zapping range.

“Hey! Stop it,” he muttered.

“Fine, fine.” Jarzyl instead touched the handle of her storage chest, which was made from metal, and all the accumulated static electricity discharged in a zap. “Ow, that’s stings. Nice.” She put down the crystal and beckoned her friend. “Ok, come back now.”

Atlas came back from across her room, though he remained a short distance away from her. Jarzyl flicked her neck frill and shifted her own position so she could lean against him. “So electric affinity. The power of lightning. Becoming a sparkcaster. That’s very good magic, right? Tier two. Maybe tier one.”

Atlas snuggled back against her side, wrapping his wing against her back. “Tier one. Electric magic is wonderful. It would be my top affinity to get. Maybe top two? But still very high ranking.”

“Elaborate.”

“Electricity is everything. Airship and city propulsion relies on electric repulsion against the planetary magnetic field. Power for the city comes from capturing lightning bolts. The lights in every building, the elevators, appliances like your light field projector—maybe they have their own types of magic, but they’re powered by electricity which converts into other types of magic.”

“Tier one,” Jarzyl concurred. She pointed across the room, at her radio set which was still playing music softly. “I have an uncle with electric magic. He can… he can do what that thing does. The radio. Not playing music—but messages.” Jarzyl flipped open her wings and spread them. “He spreads his wings and lets electric current flow across them, and that’s like a second sense of hearing. By running electricity over his wings, he sends messages, using his wings as antenna. It’s called sparkspeak.”

Atlas nodded. “Electric affinity is great.”

Jarzyl folded in her wings. “Uncle Decarn also told me that when he was younger, he used to go lightning surfing. That’s when you fly out into thunderstorms and let lightning strike you. Because if you have electric affinity, the lightning bolts don’t hurt you. Apparently sparkcasters form groups to go fly in thunderstorms. No other affinity would dare to do that. Doesn’t that sound awesome?”

“That sounds incredibly dangerous.”

“No, lightning is safe when you’ve got electric affinity. But you might still go deaf from the thunder, so you have to wear ear protection. And also you have to be damn good at flying, so you don’t get tossed out of the sky by wind shear. Also, you have to be careful about hail. Actually yeah, it is very dangerous. If I turn out to be a sparkcaster, I don’t think I would go lightning surfing. Maybe just once.” Jarzyl nodded. “Tier one.”

“On to the next.” Atlas picked up another crystal. This one was irregularly shaped like a cluster of jagged spikes bound together, and cloudy rather than translucent. “What’s this one?” He held it for a moment, then peered close. “There’s no magic in it. It’s not even facetted into a proper shape.”

“It’s a raw needlemir crystal, from Mizalin-on-Sky. From that time we went to the floating mountains, and a floating boulder almost killed us both—you remember that?”

Atlas hefted the crystal up and down in his paw. “I remember the crystal you took being a lot bigger than this.”

“Well, we were younger and smaller then. But this is also just a fragment that splintered off the whole crystal.” Jarzyl pointed at the shelf above her table, where there was a much larger crystal of similar shape—jagged and pointy. “This little chunk is small enough to fit into the compartment. And it represents stone magic.”

Atlas nodded understandingly. “Tier two? Stone magic is solid, dependable, and there are so many useful jobs that rely on stone affinity. Almost all of construction is done with stone affinity.”

“Two? Really? I was thinking tier three.” Jarzyl set the rock crystal down on her paper chart, besides the others. “Stone affinity is useful, sure. But it’s boring. My father has stone affinity.”

“Yes? So that means there’s a good chance you’re getting stone affinity too.”

“But I don’t want stone affinity. Being a rockshifter is boring.”

“Your father is an architect, and he carves sculptures as a hobby—these seem like good things.”

Jarzyl nodded. “Yeah. Good things. Good hobby and good job, but boring. If I wanted a stone carving, I’d ask him for one, but I don’t want to do one myself. Not when I could be riding lightning bolts or flame cooking my own food. So it’s tier three.”

Atlas laughed. “Heh. Jarz, you’re just ranking the magical affinities by how boring you find them. Boring is low tier, interesting is high tier.”

Jarzyl perked her neck frill up and put on a haughty, nose-high expression. “To be boring is to be forgettable, and to be forgettable is to be forgotten. But to be interesting is the highest compliment I can give. And you?” Standing up, she leaned close to Atlas, her snout brushing against his neck, then sliding up to place a gentle affectionate lick against cheek. “You are so very fascinating.”

Atlas chuckled warmly. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” Jarzyl sat back down on her haunches and looked over her chart. She picked up a small but dense looking chunk of black stone. “Ok let’s keep going. Metal affinity! Does that count as its own thing? Or does that count under stone affinity? My spinner toy doesn’t list it as separate, but I remember in science class they had them as separate things. So I bought this lodestone from the market.”

Atlas shrugged. “I don’t think there’s a clear answer. Even within stone affinity, there are some dragons who can only manipulate certain minerals—granite, sandstone, or something else—do those all count as separate affinities? Should it be a granite affinity, a sandstone affinity, then you’d have different metal affinities—steel, copper…”

“Bah.” Jarzyl slapped her lodestone down onto the paper. The black stone spun on the spot so it was facing the same direction as the needlemir crystal representing stone affinity, but they didn’t attract enough to magnetize together fully. “Tier two for metal affinity. Because it’s just stone affinity, but metals instead of minerals. And metals are just minerals, but more refined.”

Atlas looked thoughtful. “I think… tier two is fair. Because metal affinity is more practical for manufacturing jobs, which are more in demand compared to the construction jobs you might get from stone affinity.”

“Ok. So stone is tier two.” Jarzyl patiently nodded. She picked up another small glass vial also containing a few drops of liquid. “Aqua affinity—wavecutter dragons. Water manipulation. Breathing underwater. Swimming really fast!”

“Tier four,” Atlas muttered, looking suddenly sullen. Jarzyl found that intriguing.

“Four? You don’t like water affinity?”

“I like being in the air and the sky. Not being in the ocean.” Atlas shrugged his shoulders. “To be fair, you could argue water affinity deserves tier three. There are lots of industrial jobs that use water affinity for fluid control, cooling, stuff like that. But I don’t like swimming.”

“I like swimming!” Jarzyl flopped onto her bed and tucked her limbs close into her body. She wiggled from side to side. “I’m a fish! Blub, blub, blub. If I had water magic, I’d go swim in the city pools every week. And I could do day trips to explore the ocean, visiting all those aquatic communities of wavecutter dragons who live underwater! That’d be fun.”

Atlas sniffed dismissively. “Those are rural places, closer to the wild. I like the city and its comforts.”

Jarzyl grinned. “I remember what you once told me about water affinity. That you had this suspicion you were hatched in an aquatic community, except you didn’t have water affinity and couldn’t breathe underwater, and that’s why you were left at the clanless shelter as a hatchling. Is that why you don’t like water magic?”

Atlas hesitated. “No. Yes. Well, I don’t know if that is true. The records at the clanless shelter have no mention of why I ended up there. So it might be true. It doesn’t matter to me. I prefer to focus on the future, rather than the past.”

“You know, if that really was true that you were a hatchling outcast from an aquatic community cause you didn’t have water magic, that’s a good thing in a way. We wouldn’t be friends if you were living in the ocean.”

Atlas nodded but said nothing.

Jarzyl hopped off her bed and put the glass vial of water on her paper sheet. “Tier three. Water magic is… it’s alright, I think!”

Atlas looked dismissive. “Should be tier four. I don’t like water magic.”

Jarzyl shifted the vial. “Fine. Tier four, then. Just for you.” She winked at Atlas. “Or maybe you just don’t like water magic because you don’t like getting your scales wet.”

“That is true. My scales take much longer to dry than yours.”

Jarzyl stuck on her tongue and placed a long, wet lick on Atlas’s neck, moving slowly, sensually even. “Don’t like getting your scales wet?! Does it bother you when I do this?”

Atlas watched her antics with amusement. “You are funny. That is entirely different.” His paw caught her by the chin and he lifted her head upwards, till her mouth brushed against his in a soft, gentle kiss. “Jarz,” he murmured, saying her name in a way which no one else did—soft, tender, and like he wanted it. “Have I ever told you how pretty you are?”

A shiver went through Jarzyl’s spine, and she felt a flash of warmth in her core. “You definitely have. But you can keep saying it. And… and you too. I mean, you’re good looking too.”

Atlas chuckled. “I’m glad you think that.” He kissed her again, which made Jarzyl increasingly melt against him, her body leaning against his. “Hmm. Your mouth is warm.”

“Ahbrglarg.” Jarzyl made an incoherent noise, the she blinked and got her thoughts in order. “Oh!!! Is my mouth warm because I’m getting firebreath?”

Atlas laughed again. The three-legged, sooty-scaled fledgling had an amused grin on his snout. “You’re not that hot.”

Flicking her neck frill up, Jarzyl grinned back at him. She slid to a stand, even as Atlas remained seated on his haunches, and wrapped her wing around his back. “Oh, I’m not?” Keeping her eyes locked with his, she grabbed his paw with hers, and shifted his touch—from her neck, to her chest, then down her front, tracing out her scales, until his paw was very low. “You don’t think I’m hot?”

Atlas blinked and his expression became surprise. For a moment he appeared lost for words. Jarzyl felt his paw twitch—shifting a bit, feeling the soft scales of her underbelly, where she’d guided him. “Wow.” Then he broke out into a grin. “Wow,” he repeated.

Jarzyl burst out into laughter too and she pulled away, tugging out of their embrace. She tucked her head under her wing in embarrassment, avoiding his gaze. “I can’t believe I just did that.” She furled her wings onto her back, and looked at Atlas, to find her friend sniffing his paw. “Hey!” Scampering over, she grabbed his paw and grinned at him, holding back a laugh. “Does it actually… can you smell…?”

“Interesting,” Atlas noted. “Smells like your scales, but a little different. It’s a faint smell though. I think I could get a better sniff though, or a lick…”

“Ahaha!” Jarzyl hopped between her four paws, feeling light on her feet. “Oh ho. Temptation. Distraction! Atlas!”

Atlas nodded gracefully. “Are we getting distracted again? You’d rather focus on the magic? Very well.” He picked up another item from the spinner toy—a small gnarled twig, with dried leaves. “A twig that feels hard and cool to the touch. I’m guessing it comes from an ironwood hypertree then, and represents verdant magic. Plant affinity.”

“Correct! Taken from the High Forest of Grendium, where grow the most magical of trees! Tier four. Because plant magic is boring. I don’t want to work on a farm growing crops.” Jarzyl grabbed the twig and dropped it into place on her chart.

Then she threw a sly look at Atlas. “Now you’ve gone and made me all curious. About the sniffing thing, or even… even licking the… my… Hmmm!” She wasn’t sure if he’d really do it. She kind of wanted him to do it. What would it feel like? Would it feel good?

Jarzyl tried to push away that line of thoughts. She picked up another small chunk of crystal. “A mood crystal—supposed to work by neural magic. Glows colour based on your emotions.”

“That’s another toy. Those are not scientific.”

“Yeah. Neural magic is imprecise.” Jarzyl held the chunk of crystal against the top of her head and looked at Atlas. “What colour emotion am I?”

Atlas squinted at the crystal. “It’s red. What does red mean? Angry?”

“But I’m not angry. Unless it’s red for aroused, maybe…” Jarzyl murmured the second sentence under her breath, too quiet for Atlas to hear. From his expression, maybe he had still heard her. Hurriedly Jarzyl took the crystal and pressed it against the top of his head instead. “Ok, let’s see what emotion you have.”

Atlas waited patiently. He couldn’t see the crystal himself. “Yes? What colour is it?”

“It’s just dark.” Jarzyl waited for another ten seconds, but the mood crystal remained dark. “Still nothing. Maybe you’re not feeling emotions strongly enough to trigger the neural magic.”

“How curious.” And then Atlas grabbed her by the waist and pulled her body against his, and he kissed her again.

Jarzyl let out a surprised chirp, which melted into a soft, happy moan. “Eeh! Ooh. Mhmmm. Ohh. Atlas.”

Atlas pulled back from the kiss after a moment, and Jarzyl was missing the sensation immediately—his mouth against hers—warm, wet, soft. “Ought to be red now,” Atlas said.

Jarzyl tapped the mood crystal against his head, but it remained stubbornly dark. “Nope. Oh well.” She put the mood crystal on her chart. “Tier five. Because neural magic is the lamest. I don’t want to be a therapist who has to deal with people’s moods all the time. Nor do I want to be farmer, trying to herd animals into doing animal things. Not at all my thing.”

“But you’re a people person. Everyone likes you.”

“That’s just being friendly. Anyone can be friendly. But why would I need neural magic to detect someone’s emotions? I can just look at their face. It’s redundant.”

Next she picked up another vial—but rather than any liquid, this one was completely clear. “Air affinity.”

Atlas nodded. “The greatest of all affinities. Tier one. I would love to get air affinity.”

Jarzyl smiled. “Why?”

“You know why.” Flipping open his wing, Atlas spun about the appendage, sweeping it through the air. “It’s a wonderful sensation to feel air rushing against my wings. But imagine with air affinity, you could feel all the air around. You could sense every tiniest air current, every slightest bit of wind shear before it hit you.”

Jarzyl nodded in agreement. “The aerial racing leagues and the aerobatics competitions—they have special categories just for air affinity dragons. I’d definitely take part if I got air affinity.”

“Can you imagine it?” Atlas turned to her, his wings open and his gaze intense. “I love flying so much, and air affinity unlocks the next level. Imagine streaking through clouds so fast that your wingtips leave trails of ice crystals. Or twirling through the air in impossible ways, doing loops and spinning manoeuvres that ought to make you stall, except you don’t.” He sighed softly. “Agility and ultimate freedom in the skies—that’s air affinity.”

“Tier one.” Jarzyl placed the vial of air in its spot.

Turning back to the spinner toy, she gestured at the final set of compartments. “First we had breath affinities—the classic, original varieties of drakken magic, applied via exhale. Then we had elemental affinities—magic of the world and its elements. And now, finally, we get to the interesting stuff! Arcane affinities—real, true magic.”

Atlas rolled his eyes. “All magic is real magic.”

“Fine. But arcane affinities are fun magic.” Jarzyl held up another crystal—this one was wrapped up in metal foil, keeping its lattices from being touched. “Healing affinity! The magic of flesh and blood. It’s… I think tier two.”

“Two!? Curious.” Atlas tilted his head. “Why not tier one? It’s literally saving lives.”

Jarzyl hesitated. “I know. Healing affinity is the most respectable, admired, and noble of affinities. But if I’m purely looking at magic by appeal, I don’t know if I really want it! My mother works so hard in the medical centre. She uses her magic till she’s worn out and always works till she’s exhausted, but then she just keeps going every day after day, month after month, decade after decade. That’s incredible. She’s helped so many people! Imagine using your magical power to save people’s lives. Hundreds, or thousands of patients who might have died without healing magic, but instead they live, because of you, if you have healing affinity.”

Atlas let her continue.

“But it’s so stressful. If you mess up, someone might end up dead, or crippled, or scarred, or left in chronic pain.” Jarzyl swallowed. “And you know the worse thing? If you get healing affinity, everyone expects you to be a healer. What if you wanted to be a teacher, or a courier, or a cook, or an architect, or something else? No, you have to be a healer.”

“I don’t think they’d force you to work as a healer.”

Jarzyl’s neck frill drooped, and she shrugged. “It’s a moral obligation. They wouldn’t force me into medical school. If I refuse or can’t pass the classes, I’ll just be a charger.” She raised the healing crystal—it was wrapped in metal foil, because once it was touched to a person, it would begin to release healing energy into them. “I would get a job doing something else, and then every day I pump my spare magic into these crystals. Which would still be helping people who need healing, and it pays well for the minimal amount of effort needed, but of course it’s only good for small wounds. Crystals fix scratches and bruises, not broken bones or a stroke. And I’d always have to live with that knowledge—that while others with healing affinity are saving lives, I have that special ability but I just lack the skill or the mettle for it. If you can, you have to be a healer. Have to save lives.

“I spoke with my mother about this at great length because there’s a good chance I get healing magic. And I’d like to help people. But it’s the only type of magic where your career and future are all but fixed. A life of stress and long hours.” Jarzyl put the crystal down on her paper sheet and stared at it, suddenly feeling sullen.

“I know what you mean.” Atlas thought for a moment, then he simply put his wing on her back. “See how it goes. You might get healing, or you might not.”

“Bah.” Jarzyl shook her head, and vigorously flicked her neck frill pack to its normal position. She turned towards Atlas. “Getting magic is supposed to be fun and amazing. I’d much rather get air or electric affinity—those are good ones. What other affinities are left? Did we cover them all?”

Atlas thought for a moment. “We most certainly did not. You’ve missed out quite a few. Displacement, puppetry, even nullfire…”

“Oh, really?” Jarzyl slipped her wings around Atlas’s body, with her forepaws resting around his waist, and then she kissed him. She kissed him good. It was such a simple but addictive pleasure to feel his mouth against hers, magical indeed.

Even as Atlas kissed her back, Jarzyl lazily slumped to the side and the two fledglings slid to the ground. Atlas lay on his back, with wings sprawled out on the ground around him, with Jarzyl resting on top of him. She put her paw on his chest possessively. “Mine.”

Atlas chuckled easily. “Sure.”

Jarzyl shifted her body about, sliding against Atlas as she lay on top of him, feeling the delicious sensation of his scales rubbing against hers. “I know what I said earlier, but I’m really very tempted to… Oh, hang on.” She paused, and her snout scrunched up. “Wait.”

Atlas blinked. “What?”

Jarzyl kept perfectly still for a moment, then she sneezed loudly. “Achoo!”

This made her friend burst out into laughter, still lying underneath her. “Hahah!”

Jarzyl wiped her nose with the back of her paw. “That was sort of a hiccup sneeze. Excuse me. What were we talking about?”

“Magic.”

“Magic.” Turning sideways, Jarzyl stretched out so that she could reach her sheet of paper with the various crystals, vials, and other trinkets representing the different types of affinity. She remained lying atop of Atlas, just with her body perpendicular to his. “Let’s do an affinity test.” With quick movements, she slipped the items back into the compartments of the spinner toy and loaded it up.

Atlas’s paw rested against her back, then he moved to touch her flank. “Hmm…”

Jarzyl used her tail tip to gently tap the top of Atlas’s head. “Don’t be distracted.”

“You’re sitting on me, with your tail at my face, and I’m not supposed to be distracted?”

“We can do that later. Magic first.” Jarzyl pushed the compartments shut, then she flicked the spinner toy’s wheel, testing its balance. She turned to Atlas, waited till he was looking at her, then she spun the toy and hovered her paw over one side. “What will it be?”

Atlas grinned but shook his head. “That’s only a toy.”

“Shh.” Jarzyl watched the wheel spin around and around, with the various different components each containing different magical items. The spinner clicked softly with each turn. As it started to slow down, her eyes tracked the motion of the wheel, waiting to see which compartment would stop underneath her paw.

The spinner stopped on neural magic. Jarzyl’s neck frill drooped flat as she felt a flash of mild disappointment. “Let me try again.” She spun the wheel once more, and used her other paw this time. “Electric affinity, please. Or air affinity. Maybe even healing would be decent.”

Lying underneath her, Atlas idly played with the tip of her tail. “There’s no way a simple children’s toy lets you discover your magic ahead of time. But perhaps… it still lets you discover something.” His gaze shifted to her face—even as Jarzyl kept staring at the spinner, she could feel her friend watching her intently. “You keep looking at the box with the mood crystal. You’re just looking for a sign that you won’t get neural magic.”

Jarzyl chuckled, and she perked up her neck frill and rolled her eyes at Atlas. “I don’t want to work on a farm! At least acid or stone affinity would be alright. I just…” She paused midsentence and scrunched up her snout, before clearing her throat loudly. “Ahem-hem. My throat feels itchy. Ack.”

Atlas casually shifted her snout so that her cough was aimed away from him. “First you were having a headache, then sneezing, and now you are coughing. Maybe you’re falling sick instead of getting your magic.”

“Still a better outcome than getting neural magic. Oh. I’m going to sneeze again. Hang on.” Jarzyl paused as the ticklish pressure built in her throat. “Achoo!”

Then in a sudden dramatic exhalation, it burst out of her in a sneeze that was loud and so convulsive that for a brief instant she saw stars.

“That was a big one. Pardon me—hrk?!” Jarzyl started to speak, only for her words to get cut off when Atlas grabbed her by the throat, and held her head still. “Eh?”

“Jarz!” he hissed. “I saw it that time.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneeze on you. Although with how much kissing we’ve been doing, you’re probably already infected if I’m sick—”

Atlas cut her off. “No. Not that! You didn’t sneeze! It was… it… I saw it!”

“Huh?” Jarzyl was confused, but then her gaze shifted from looking at her friend, instead to the sheet of paper she’s been writing on before. A faint tendril of smoke was curling up from the corner of the paper sheet, and there was a cone-shaped smear of soot pointing right back at her direction. As if her sneeze had somehow burned the paper—because it had.

Atlas continued. “Flame breath. I saw it. When you sneezed, it was a blast of fire and smoke.” He carefully let go of her neck. “Congratulations, you appear to have fire affinity.”

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TO BE CONTINUED

Next chapter link (chapter 5): https://sofurry.com/s/mW3K5kQm