The last words a highschooler wants to hear: “High school is over.”

As much as any teenager hates going to school, they probably hate the reality of not going to school even more.

Even after everything that’s happened, with the witches, and with Colin, this is truly the worst. High school is over, and I have no push to go to college. When I was human, my parents stressed college to me every chance they got. But now, no one said it was necessary. In fact, I’m pretty sure every dragon I know would prefer that I don’t go to college.

“You’re the Zodiac,” they say, “Why in Zodiac’s stars would you want to go to college?” And I stare blank faced and empty eyed.

High school is over, and I’ve got nowhere to belong. But that’s not an answer a leader of an entire species can really say out loud.

“Mr. Wei, I asked you here today for more than just a courtesy, I’m afraid. The board had a few questions they wanted answered before we could move forward with the admissions.” Mr. Smith folded his hands neatly on his desk and looked at me expectantly. My name wasn’t Wei. At least, not yet anyway. We were dating, not getting married. Zodiac’s save me.

“It’s Reid, sir. And I’m all for any questions you have to ask.” I say with an overly exaggerated smile. Be polite. Say what he wants to hear. Get this over with and then enjoy the rest of your day outside the colony with Colin and Annie. I keep thinking those three things over and over like a mantra in my head.

“That’s actually my first question. If we are to admit you, we would have to do so through accordance with the Wei family registry.” Mr. Wonder shuffles paperwork around on his desk searching for the dreaded family registry. “Is that acceptable?”

I hate that posh British accent almost as much as that stupid registry.

That registry will be the death of me. It basically solidifies the mating between Colin and I, and adds me to the Wei family. It doesn’t bother me that I am mated to Colin, but it does upset me that my last name is erased into the forgotten cracks of time. I deserve to have my name remembered. It is a petty thing to care about in the grand scheme of things… and yet it was my name. My identity.

“So my student I.D. would say… Sam Wei?” I ask hesitantly. I already knew the answer. It was painfully obvious where this was going.

“Yes. Is that okay with you?” The British accent faker asks.

Human males almost never gave up their last names. So at least I knew why it bothered me to give mine up for Colin. I knew I would give anything up to be with him, but I’m just not prepared for this blow quite yet. For the foreseeable future, I’ll probably introduce myself as Sam Reid, no matter what the Student ID says.

I told him it was okay, and he wrote some things down afterward. Mr. Smith looked at his computer monitor again, and typed some things in. He rolls his chair back to the printer behind him and waits for it to finish printing.

“My only other problem before admitting you is… Well, I don’t really understand your motives. You are a dragon. You are also a Zodiac. There is no reason for you to want to come here.” Mr. Smith’s voice quivered when he said Zodiac like it was something to be afraid of. “We are completely willing to let you attend Mount Willmore University, but for the life of us, we can’t figure out why someone like you would want to.”

Someone like me. He didn’t even realize that I was raised human once too. That since the moment I set foot in school, I’ve been pushed into going to college. Someone like me? I might be a dragon, but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve education.

“Mr. Smith. I was raised just like you were. I’m human- I mean, I grew up human. I grew up knowing that one day, when I graduated highschool, I would go on to college. And then someday, hopefully, I would get a good job and settle down with a family. I might be a dragon now, with a whole new mindset, but that doesn’t change my goals in life.”

“I understand, Mr. Wei. It’s just- what will the other dragons think? Won’t they think you are trying to assimilate into human culture too much? We have to think about the message we are sending to other humans as well.” He said. Was he telling me to give it up? That he had no legal reason to turn my admission down, but just didn’t want to let me attend based on pressures of society?

“I am the Zodiac. I want to show dragons that humans aren’t medieval dragon slayers. We can get along and I’m trying my best to bridge the gap.” I tell him. I sound pretty diplomatic for someone who doesn't really know shit about dragon political policy. I’m not, in fact, trying to carry dragons into the twenty-first century. I just want a place to belong.

The human side of me didn’t fit in well at the colony. And the dragon side of me wouldn’t fit in well here. But I at least deserve to try. I want a place where I could be completely me. A place where I didn’t accidentally offend people, or accidentally impose power where I most certainly shouldn’t be. I don’t want to be a Zodiac here. I just want to be ‘Sam Reid, the quiet smart guy in archaeology class’.

“I understand. I’ll admit you under the name Samuel Wei. Your classes begin Monday, and council meetings are the only Zodiac duty that can be excused. We ask that all of our supernatural students attend the weekly group meetings in the Student Life Center and that no magic is used on the campus at all times. Am I understood?” Mr. Smith asks. The more he talked, the less I liked him. Samuel Wei. Group meetings. No magic.

“Does magic include transformations?” I look away from the desk. I know the answer but I also know it’ll bug him if I ask. I’m like that sometimes.

“Most definitely.” Mr. Smith says through gritted teeth.

“Then I understand the rules.” I answer back. I look around the office. The walls are covered in old oak colored bookshelves. The books weren’t nearly as beautiful as the old magic grimoires that Ms. Agnes kept in her store. I could stare at those books for hours without even reading them. These ones look stifling. Like the only thing I could learn from them is how to be a stuck-up asshole like Mr. Smith is.

“One last thing- your mate. Is he also joining-”

Colin burst through the door with Annie leaning over his shoulder. She was clutching her rounded stomach and groaning in pain. Is she- is she in labor?

I shot up from my chair. Why now? She isn’t due for another week! A premature baby was one thing, but so far away from the colony? There’s no time to fly her back! I look around, searching for something, anything that would get us out of this mess. Annie is shaking and Colin can’t seem to find the right words to scream at me to get me to move.

“Fly us back to the colony, Sam. We have to go now!” Colin shrieked. You could tell that there was less than a thread holding his sensibility together. I am already on edge from this stupid meeting with Mr. Smith. Why did this have to happen?

It would take an hour to fly her back, and then we’d have to find a way down into Undercity for her doctor. There just wasn’t enough time.

“Not enough time- water just broke- need a hospital!” Annie chokes out. She was gritting her teeth as she spoke. Annie is on the same page as me.

“A hospital- we need a hospital!” I scream in panic. I’m just echoing what Annie has already said. What did I know about giving birth? Is it different with dragons? Zodiacs, I’m so unprepared for this.

“The nearest is about twenty minutes away. I’ll call an ambulance!” Mr. Smith says in panic. He already had the office phone up to his ear and was dialing in the numbers. That was honestly the nicest thing he’s said this entire meeting.

“Ethan! Where’s Ethan!” Annie screams violently. My heart freezes over in panic. Ethan? Ethan stayed back at the colony for training with Master Wei. He refused to skip training even once, and now he’s really going to regret it!

“Uh, I’ll call him now!” I am in full-on Panic mode, no doubt about it. I pull out my own phone and click Ethan’s contact. The screen for Ethan’s phone went straight to voicemail. I jam the redial button, but the same “unavailable” lights up the screen. How dare he ignore me at a time like this? This is an emergency, goddammit.

“The ambulance will be outside in five!” Mr. Smith screams a bit louder than necessary. He was being so uncharacteristically nice that I had to take a minute to figure out why. Then I realized. He is so terrified by the notion of a woman in labor, that he had no time to be prejudiced toward her for being a dragon. Birth is birth, and that shit’s scary no matter the circumstance.

“Ethan isn’t picking up!” I say with the phone next to my ear. It dialed to a voicemail again. Why isn’t he picking up?! He told me his phone would be on at all times in case of an emergency. This definitely counts as an emergency! Pick up your phone, Ethan!

“No time for that right now! Come on, we have to go!” Colin yells at me. I let Annie wrap her arm over my shoulder and we helped her walk out of the building. I turn back at the last second to smile at Mr. Smith.

“Thanks for the help, Mr. Smith.” It appeared that Mr. Smith was only now figuring out what just took place in his office. He had been a posh British prick before this incident, and he’ll be a posh British prick afterwards, but at least I know I can count on him in a crisis.

We walked as fast as we could get Annie to the sidewalk. College students didn’t even look up from their books or phones as we passed them in the halls. That was my favorite part about college. Crazy nonsense didn’t pull their eyes away from whatever it was they were doing. They simply didn’t care.

“It’s going to be fine, Annie. Ethan is going to call me back any minute now, and he’s going to meet us at the hospital.” I tell her. That sounded better than “Ethan might not pick up until his morning training is finished, in which case he might miss his child’s birth”, so I went with a half-lie instead.

Ethan has to pick up. He just has to. What was I supposed to do if he didn’t? Who was going to walk the human doctors through a dragon birth? I didn’t know enough about dragons to be able to help, and from the way Colin was acting, neither did he. We were definitely not prepared for this in the way that we should have been. If I had known, I would have never suggested that Annie and Colin come with me to go baby shopping after that stupid meeting with Mr. Smith.

The ambulance was waiting outside the front steps of the building. Lights flashed and sirens blared. If the screaming pregnant woman didn’t turn heads, the ambulance did.

I knew that it wasn’t normal to call an ambulance when in labor. They weren’t a taxi service. But it wasn’t like we could actually take a taxi either. Colin and Annie were too unfamiliar with the human world to risk taking a bus, and flying in such a populated area was out of the question. So luckily, Mr. Smith panicked enough to call us exactly what we needed to get by.

The emergency responders wheel out the stretcher as soon as we exit the building. It didn’t take a genius to know that we were the ones that needed the ambulance. The responders push down the wheels and help Annie up onto the stretcher.

Before the ambulance guys could lift the stretcher into the van, Annie grabs Colin firmly by the collar and pulls him down to her level with a strength I didn’t know she possessed.

“Do whatever you have to do to get Ethan here. I don’t care if it kills you, I want him here!” She screams at him. Colin only nods. Arguments are futile. Annie releases him and the responders lift her stretcher up and into the back of the truck. First responders must hear a lot of crazy nonsense on the job because they didn’t even seem surprised over Annie’s threat.

I’ve never been in an ambulance before. No emergency has ever deemed it necessary. The only major accident that has ever happened to me was breaking my arm. And I waited two days to tell my mom that it even happened because I worried about getting in trouble.

I pull myself back to the present as I load myself into the back of the ambulance. They really weren’t a taxi service, but we had no other way to meet her at the hospital. Times like these would really be a great time to have a car…

I notice that Colin isn’t getting into the ambulance. Is he uncomfortable? He has ridden in a car before… right?

“Colin, come on! We’re waiting for you!” I scold him. This was seriously not the time to sit idling around while Annie was in pain. He was really still for a second before coming to a resolute answer.

“You go ahead. I’ll meet you there. I’m going to go get Ethan.” And with that, Colin takes off in the opposite direction of the ambulance. I groan in frustration as the responders close the doors and drive off.

This was the worst first impression I could have possibly made at a new school. Maybe I really am cursed.