By Miah Russell

Aria stared at her arms. Her scales were showing again. This time, they were dark blue. She squinted daggers at them.

Go away!

“Aria! Are you ready for school?” her mom yelled. School. Ugh. She was one in one million, someone who held dragon blood in her veins, and she still had to go to school.

“Coming, Mom,” Aria yelled. She snagged a gray hoodie and pulled it over her shirt to hide her scales. She clomped down the stairs and sat at the breakfast table.

Her mom handed her a plate of eggs. “Good morning, honey.” Glossy lavender scales covered her arms, and a few framed her eyes.

She wore her dragon blood magnificently well.

“Toast?” her mother asked. Her eyes sparkled. This was her favorite thing.

“Sure,” Aria said.

Her mom grabbed a piece of bread and tossed it into the air. She held out her index finger and a small spurt of flames burst upwards, perfectly toasting the bread. She caught the hot piece of toast in her hand and held it out to Aria.

Aria murmured a thank you and started munching on it.

Her mom’s gaze fell to Aria’s hoodie. “Oh sweetie, are your scales out?”

Aria nodded and tears sprung from her eyes. Her mom enveloped her into a hug, and for a moment, everything was right with the world.

“Can I see?” her mom said. Aria pulled back her sleeve. “They’re beautiful! Dark blue this time?”

Dragon scale color fluctuated until the age of twenty-one. Aria’s scales had been multiple different shades, her least favorite one being puke green. Some days, they were gone and didn’t show up at all. Other days…

She was dreading when she would turn twenty-one. Her scales would be permanent. She had researched countless ways to cover them with makeup or figure out how to remove them, but nothing was permanent. Even though there were laws in place, people with scales were still treated as second class citizens. Since Aria was the only person with scales at her school, she was always made fun of.

“They’re horrible,” Aria said pointedly.

“Oh sweetheart, I felt the same way too when I was your age, but when my scales manifested, I learned to love them. You hold fire in your blood. Don’t forget that.”

How could she? The scorch marks on her pencils were constantly reminding her.

“People are going to tease me.”

“That’s their loss. If they can’t see past the scales to who you really are, the Aria I know and love, then they must live sad lives.”

Aria mumbled, then shoved the rest of her breakfast down and grabbed her backpack. She gave a quick hug to her mom and then rushed out of the door.

She hopped onto the waiting school bus and walked towards the back. She plopped down and took out her sketch book to pass the time.

Pulling her hood up, she tried to block out the stares of some of the kids on the bus. A few jeers reached her ears.

“Hey lizard kid!”

“Scales!”

“Try not to burn the seats!”

Aria flipped through her sketchbook and resumed her most recent doodle—a picture of herself without scales. She was wearing a bright silver ball gown and had her head held high. She sighed. If only it were true.

The bus arrived at the school parking lot, and everyone stood to get off. Aria was the last one. She trudged through the bus aisle, dreading another day at high school.

Ugh. High school. Man’s cruelest form of torture.

She tragically reached the end of the long walk, and when she stepped down, her hoodie snagged on the bus’s door.

Her sketch book flew forward, and she followed suit. Aria tumbled onto the grass, the hoodie making a thunderous rip. The right sleeve of her hoodie was completely torn all the way up to her shoulder. Her traitorous scales gleamed in the sunlight; her sketchbook fallen open.

She lay there a few moments in the grass, dejected, considering moving to Siberia, when a hand pulled her up.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” a voice said. Aria stood up and met eyes with an anomaly that rarely ever acknowledged her existence: a teenage boy.

He had dark brown hair and blue eyes, but most importantly, he had scales. Deep red scales that covered his arms. Aria stared at them for a moment.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked again, looking at her quizzically.

“You have scales,” Aria blurted out.

“I do,” the boy said slowly. He looked down at Aria’s exposed arm. “You too, huh? Blue’s one of my favorite colors.”

“Are you new here?” Aria asked.

The boy nodded. “Yep, just transferred. Hey, is this your sketchbook?” Before Aria could protest or quickly die of shame, the boy picked it up.

“These are cool.” He handed it back. “You’re pretty good.”

“I try,” Aria said sheepishly. “I’m always singeing my paper or my pencils.”

“That used to happen to me all the time. I figured out how to use it to my advantage.” He pulled out a sketchbook from his bag and flipped it open. A drawing of a phoenix was burnt onto a page. It was beautiful.

“Wow! I mean cool. Very cool.”

“Would you maybe like to sit together at lunch? I don’t really know anyone else here, certainly no one else with scales.”

“Sure,” Aria squeaked out.

“Great!” The boy smiled. “My name is Ethan by the way. I’ll see you at lunch.” He walked toward the school.

“Bye!” Aria waved rather enthusiastically before realizing there were other people around her, but she felt like she was walking on air. For the first time in a long time, she looked down at her scales with gratitude.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Miah Russell is a sophomore in high school. When she’s not losing sleep over plot holes in her novel or attempting to fit more books on her bookshelf, she can be found spending time with her family and Jesus, learning more about time travel, and performing in musicals. All glory to God!

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