“So why is it that you’re always so uptight?”

  Arenya bit back a groan. Leave it to Ya’el to ask such a question.

  “Uptight how, precisely?” she asked, despite knowing the answer.

  “You follow all these rules. You can’t eat this, you can’t

  wear that. Drav and Zelzad told me about how you had to be convinced to

  even roll up your sleeves. I dunno how you can even live like that. This

  is one of those Drake things, right?”

  “Dragon. Drakes don’t have tails and their wings are arm

  webbings.” Arenya realized halfway through her correction that Ya’el

  couldn’t possibly have not figured this out from the past four or five

  corrections, and was at this point probably making the mistake on

  purpose because she thought it was funny. “And not all Followers are

  part dragon anyway, and some even part drake.” Arenya

  pretended to watch Drav and Zelzad, rehearsing their fight scene once

  again. They’d done this several times over the past week, and each time

  Arenya had gone, though as she’d come to realize she didn’t have much to

  contibute she’d started paying less and less attention. Now, though,

  maybe Ya’el would take the hint?

  “Whatever. Great Grandpa was a dragon, apparently, but I never met

  him and dunno what they look like. But yeah, why do you have all these

  rules, and why is it so important to you that we can’t go crazy on

  stage?”

  This was the conversation Arenya had been dreading. How was she ever

  supposed to explain to someone like Ya’el, whose family had so clearly

  given up the ways of the Followers, why she did what she did?

  “It’s… you know The One Above? When He freed us from The Overseer, and He granted His blessing to the first Dragon Lord.”

  Ya’el squinted and looked at Arenya. “Yeah, I remember you explaining

  that a while ago. Then he said not to torture people and to be nice to

  your parents or something.”

  Arenya closed her eyes for a moment. “He granted us His rules and

  strictures, the ways we live and respect Him to this day. How we live,

  how we work, how we treat ourselves and others. I wear a dress because

  proper dress is part of His code. I eat the food He commanded us to and

  live my life in His way.”

  “Yeah, well… why do you care about him? I’ve never met the guy. He

  doesn’t seem to care about me all that much. I don’t dress like you do, I

  wear super short skirts - " While Arenya wasn't looking, she could

  nonetheless tell Ya'el was trying not to laugh at how Arenya blushed. " -

  and he never gave a crap. There’s been no mana warriors or big giants

  or whatever coming down to tell me I’m not doing it right. So why does

  it matter?”

  “Wh… why… I…” Arenya took a deep breath. “He doesn’t go around

  smiting people for not doing what He wants. That’s not His way. The

  Dragon Lords even warned against trying to enforce His will on others

  like that, unless they did something really wrong like murder.

  We do it because He asks it of us, and we are happy to serve Him. We are

  to be rewarded one day, but even were there no reward, we would still

  follow in His word, because it is His will. That’s how I think about it,

  anyway.”

  Ya’el stared into the distance. “What do you do if he asks you to do

  something you don’t like, though? Like you said he wants you to wear

  long dresses. I hate long dresses. I want guys to stare at me. I like thinking about what’s going through their heads when I walk by and-”

  “Yeah, I get the idea.” Arenya squeezed her eyes shut. She considered

  mentioning that apparently other students were swooning over her

  constantly even in her long dresses that showed far less skin than Ya’el

  ever did, but somehow felt that saying that wasn’t going to help much.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Ya’el snorted. “See, that’s exactly what I mean! You’re so uptight

  that I can barely even bring it up without you squirming. You looked so

  embarrassed even suggesting the Hashess’ Daughter idea, even though

  being the corpse of the last daughter of the Hashess revived in a new

  body to seek revenge against the Hardal is frickin’ awesome. What’s

  wrong with that, anyway? Is The One Above really so strict that he won’t

  even let you have a little fun with the old stories and stuff? And if

  it’s all because he asked you, and not because it helps him or whatever,

  why’d he even bother to ask? What's even the point?”

  “Because we live to serve Him. He has shown us the path that we are

  to walk, and we find joy and meaning in fulfilling His will.”

  “But if you don’t find joy in fulfilling his will? Then

  what? Are you just supposed to suffer through it all, wishing you could

  do something else?”

  “No!”

  “Then what are you supposed to do?”

  Arenya opened her mouth, then closed it again. She sat there for a

  moment, thinking. Then Arenya opened her mouth again, then closed it

  again. This repeated two or three times before she finally stated, “You

  figure out how to find joy in it anyway.”

  “That’s so dumb! If The One Above really cared about us, he’d let us live our lives in the way that we

  enjoy the most. And if that means going wild on a stage to have a good

  time and help others also have a good time, that’s gotta be okay,

  right?”

  Countless responses flitted through Arenya’s head. That The One Above

  knew what was better for His people better than they did, that

  superficial pleasure was pointless compared to the majesty of knowing

  you were doing the right thing, that to forsake His ways was to lose

  meaning… but Arenya decided to go for something a bit bolder.

  “You know,” said Arenya, “There’s a Great Feast coming up.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah… I think I heard of those.”

  Arenya barely managed to hide her shock. Even with as little as Ya’el

  knew, surely at least the Great Feast would have come down to her?

  After trying to disguise her gasp as a cough, Arenya said, “It’s when we

  have a big ceremonial meal to commemmorate when we were freed from The

  Overseer. There’s singing, and lots of food, and you’ll get to met a

  bunch of other Followers. It happens during break. There’s a place

  somewhere, way out on the edge of the city, where there’s going to be a

  big group of Followers celebrating. It’s a long train ride, and I’ve

  never been there before, but Cartalis said she’d come with me. Maybe if

  you check it out, you’ll understand a bit better?”

  Ya’el didn’t bother to hide her own gasp. Her eyes widened. “You

  really want me to go to some big Follower thing? Didn’t you hear all the

  stuff I said? I can’t believe you’d even think to ask after that!”

  Arenya blushed and looked down, running a nervous hand through her

  hair. She knew this would happen, that it was a stupid idea… but she had

  to try, didn’t she? “S-sorry.”

  “Sorry? I didn’t say no. If I don’t try weird new things, I’ll end up just as uptight as you. What’s the dress code?”

  Now it was Arenya’s turn to have wide eyes once more. “Well, most women will be wearing dresses below the knees.”

  Ya’el burst out laughing. “Like some prude? We already talked about that. No way.”

  “Well, you could probably get away with pants. That’s what Cartalis is doing, but -”

  “Skirt above the knees.”

  “I, uhh…” Arenya’s ability to form words seemed to just… vanish for a

  few moments. “If you wear long leggings underneath that aren’t

  see-through, that’s probably fine.” She hoped, anyway.

  “Skirt and leggings it is! Thanks for the invite. Are Drav and Zelzad gonna be there?”

  “They already had plans over break,” said Arenya. She didn’t mention

  that she’d felt a bit of relief at that - inviting more than a couple

  non-Followers to something like this could be a bad look, but she knew

  that asking Cartalis meant she’d have to ask them too. Cartalis would

  definitely be respectful, and an out-of-touch Follower would be

  tolerated, but if Arenya brought an entourage of non-Followers there,

  she wasn’t sure if it would end well.

  “Try to get into things,” Arenya said. “You’ll see how we do stuff.

  Maybe you’ll get why it’s so important to me to do things the way I do.”

  “Don’t count on convincing me of much. But we’ll see. Shake on it?”

  They shook hands - a moment that neither of them likely expected to see, Arenya mused to herself.

  “Want to get back to writing, then?” asked Ya’el. “I wanna know what I’m gonna do in your Hashess song.”

  Arenya bit back a… Well, she wasn’t sure. A gasp? A laugh? A dry spit

  take? All three? Whatever feeling it was, she just about managed to

  hide it. “Sure,” she said, as she took out her notes sheet. “So after

  Hardal captures the Hashess…”