#As a means of just being humble so Celeste makes a big party for the two of them

[glitterhoof]

anyways a doodle i drew of a scene me and my scene partner had written in two days

[dragonrajafanfiction]

The Smiths

The biggest reason for young hybrids to aspire to attend Cassell College was to find their soulmate, the person who was like them, both in pedigree and in riches.  Before classes start, the men have checked out the ladies and the ladies have checked out the men. Identifying the highest ranked students in class narrowed down the candidates, with the highest ranking male students coming out of the 3E being the prized stallions with the lowest rankings hoping to find something in the scraps left behind.

The Smith sisters were no different. Not only with spotless pedigrees, they had hefty bank accounts. In their early twenties, they were already accomplished business women, each one running their own real estate business, but not in housing, but in farmland. Each one of these women owned hundreds of acres where they grew maize which they traded to great success on the commodities market. To them, some rich city boy would likely not understand the importance of their business, thinking farming was a humble dirty practice. But the women, especially Celeste, understood that women like them were the ones who filled their rich bellies at night. 

Now they had come out as Rank A and were fortunately seated next to the Rank S of the class on day one. Of course, they were going to plant their flags immediately next to him. But if the poor leftover stallions of Cassell College thought that they were going to hopefully go after two other sisters as scraps, they were sadly mistaken. There were no ‘scraps’ among the Smith Sisters.

“There! That’s the last of it!” Porsche slapped her hands together as she finished moving the last of three boxes that held Tigre’s meager belongings into his new room. He’d been living in the hospital for so long, but now his one bedroom was larger than even that. It was a spacious open plan with large windows and its own bathroom with a jacuzzi tub. Their dorm was located on the top floor of the newest dormitory building on campus. 

At the first floor was the lobby and recreation area that included its own indoor pool and sauna, huge exercise room with state of the art equipment and a small theater to watch movies. There were arcades full of video game cabinets, ping pong and pool tables, and air hockey machines. There was even a salon and massage parlor. The building sat on a biking and walking trail and was quite near the library.

Porsche sat next to him on the king-size bed and handed him his tablet. “This is the college class registration portal where you choose your classes for the year. You have advanced classes because of your rank where you get the best teachers on any subject so pick whatever you like. First, you have to decide on your major.” She looked up at him with big bright brown eyes.

Tigre felt his heart suddenly skip a beat looking into those eyes, their delicately curling lashes, the rise and fall of her cheekbones. Her skin was perfect, smooth, and even. A rich shade of mahogany. “Major?”

“The direction of your study. You can’t just study everything. You have to pick a specific subject to pursue. You can change it later, but… it will just take you that much longer to graduate.”

Her fingers were topped with French manicures as she swept down to the Majors list. “Pick one.”

There were majors in Theology, Engineering, Chemistry, Alchemy… Tigre sighed. He didn’t know what many of these meant. “Is there one that has to do with fighting?”

He just remembered his vision had a lot of depictions of war. That was what dragons were known for and that’s what he wanted to be, a warrior, like a dragon.

“Fighting? So… you want to major in Martial Arts?” Porsche pulled her face into different surprised expressions. “Alright then. These will be your classes.” She tapped her finger on the screen. 

“Taijiquan, Physical Education, Kendo, Tae Kwon Do, Brazilian Jujistu, Muy Tai…” She listed them off.

He didn’t know what any of these meant! “Yeah.” He said. “Sign me up for those.”

She laughed once. “You can’t take them all at once. They limit Phys Ed to four per year, so you can have energy for your core classes and not hurt yourself. So pick four.”

He had questions about each one but he figured it wouldn’t matter. He just picked the first four off the list. 

“Okay then you have Battlefield training level 1 that all Cassell students have to attend here…” She ticked that off. “And then there’s your core classes. Right here.”

“Core Classes?” He asked, shocked. This was really adding up!

She looked at him reproachfully. “You can’t just join Cassell and be a meathead. You’ll be taking Norse Mythology 101, Dragon Lineages 101, and Alchemy 101.” She made a few more taps of her fingers and suddenly his schedule was lined up neatly in blocks of time on a calendar. “You’re kind of spacy so we’ll need to set some reminders.” 

She now took the tablet completely out of his hands.

“Spacy?”

“It means you don’t keep track of things well.” She didn’t look up from the tablet. “You have to be reminded or you won’t do what you need to do or you’ll get overwhelmed and forget.” 

“That’s true…” He admitted softly. After all, Toyama had to remind him to brush his teeth. How was he going to keep up with all of this?

She rewarded him with a smile. “Wisdom is with the modest!”

“Porsche…? What’s your major?” He asked her in a meek tone.

“I’m going into Dragon Physiology.” She said easily.

“Fizzy… ology…?”

“I study Dragon bodies.” She hands him back the tablet. “Okay, we’ll be going once we all change.”

“Where are we going?” He looks down at the tablet but she’d set the lock screen back on.

“Shopping, you need clothes and,” She stood up and paused to look him up and down “...a lot more stuff for classes and going out et cetera. Plus, we’re having a party tonight to celebrate our win.”

“We are?” Tigre said, amazed. 

“Yep. We are.” Porsche sighed, wearily. “Ahhh… it’s so tiring, to be having to help you like this. So don’t make things difficult. We’re doing you a favor to help you out so you don’t get lost. Be sure to clean up after yourself and do what we ask alright?”

“Oh, of course! I really appreciate your help!” Tigre nodded earnestly.

She gave him an approving nod. “Good. I’ll be back in a bit.”

A grown man sharing a dorm with three rich single women would raise anyone’s eyebrows, but Tigre walked out of the building with them, not having much of a choice. The girls stepped into a sun that flashed off their ebony skin and crystalline handbags, in midriff baring blouses with low shoulders and jean shorts cut above their thighs. “You have a very hefty stipend but you’ve never touched money before so I’ll hold on to it for you.” Celeste says taking his Student ID card from him. “I’ll make sure you have everything you need.”

“Oh… okay. Thank you!” Tigre nodded.

Ruby glanced over and frowned. “It’s still his money…”

“He’s just going to waste it on something stupid because he doesn’t know what he needs.” Celeste shrugged. “You know how it is with people who get a lot of money after never having any. We, on the other hand, actually know what to do with it.”

A sleek dark blue Miata was parked in front of the building and they opened the door and got in.

“You do know about seatbelts right?” Porsche smiled as she got into the passenger side. 

Before Tigre could answer, he was startled when the whole roof of the car started folding back! Ruby giggled behind her hand. Tigre returned her smile.

“If there’s something you want just ask for it.” Ruby said.

The engine roared to life and the three of them took off, weaving through the shining spires of Chicago. The sweet tones of R&B music played on the radio and Tigre stared upwards up the skyscrapers. The three girls put on dark glasses against the sunlight, their hair blowing in the wind. 

They pulled up to a red light and idled. 

“Hey girls! Got any room for me?” A voice shouted from the corner of the street. A man in a basketball jersey whistled from a jeep.

The girls paid him no mind.

“Oh come on, don’t be that way!”

The three girls all looked at each other in unison and then the light turned green and the car sped off. 

“Does this happen a lot?” Tigre glanced behind him.

“All the time, honey. Get used to it.” Porsche lowered her glasses at him. “ You’re the luckiest guy in the world. Look at where you are. You’re in a car full of cute girls on a bright late summer day! What do you think is going to happen? Everyone wants to be you right now.”

“Don’t give him a big head.” Celeste rested her arm on the steering wheel. “I like him the way he is. Too many guys out there just think they’re entitled to our attention. We’re the ones who choose who we want. Has nothing to do with ‘luck’. We’re all the ‘luck’ he needs.” She looked into the rear view mirror. “You just sit back and relax and don’t mind the peanut gallery.”

They pulled into an upscale mall and walked in empty handed and walked out carrying three multicolored and multi sized bags on each arm. When they got back to the dorm, they started decorating with balloons and banners and bright lights. Bottles of alcohol were lined up on a minibar and glasses were arranged on the table.

These girls didn’t cook, they ordered food from the cafeteria to have it catered.

Ruby leaned over and turned up the heavy bass music and clapped her hands dancing in the middle of the living room. She grinned at Tigre  and invited him to dance with her. He had no idea what to do but she encouraged him to  ‘move to the beat’.

“By the way. Clubs. We’re joining Lionheart.” Celeste suddenly announced from the kitchen.

Tigre stopped mid-groove, hands awkwardly in the air. “We are?”

“Yeah, the people in Student Union are all uppity idiots that need to be taken down a peg. Senior Lu Mingfei is nice enough, but god, the people around him? Gag me. They’re entrenched in their stupid Euro-centric views and have no idea how the world works. But we have the other Rank S. And that’s gonna burn ‘em good.” Celeste crossed her arms. “That means we’ll be able to rise up the ranks pretty quick. It’s a sure win. There’s not enough people in Lionheart who can compete with us.”

She rolled her eyes at Tigre's stunned expression. “I’ll spell it out for you. You saw that fool, Robert. He walked right up to you as assumed you were going to want to lead Lionheart, all the while ignoring the triple threat sitting right in front of him. You’re not the one who is going to lead Lionheart. We are!”

Sure enough, a few hours later, the dorm was full of Lionheart members.