Emilia Aldermere Chapter One: The beginning

 Once upon a time, there was a land called Vora, a girl named Emilia Aldermere, and a town called a Lenora.  Lenora was a small town in north Vora, famous for it's... ummm it's... lovely farmland? The truth was, Lenora was a boring town. Sure sometimes things happened like when Mrs. Pickett's hen laid an oddly shaped egg winning her a blue ribbon at the town livestock exhibit, or when Mr. Blue accidentally died his hair blue, or when a baby dragon sneezed on Auntie Moria's roses(you can guess how that ended), but things like that don't exactly liven up your life. except for Philo, Emilia's pet dragon. When Emilia ws eight years old an oddly colored greenish baby dragon wandered into Lenora, and not only melted those roses but Emilia's heart. She begged her aunt and uncle to let her keep him, and they finally relented. Emilia loved that dragon with all her heart. She shined his scales, made him a nest of blankets at the foot of her bed, fed him three meals a day and named him Philo, his strange coloring reminded her of her aunt's philo plant. Emilia was thirteen now, and Philo could not exactly be called a baby anymore. The day Emilia   was invited to the Julinian Dragon Riding Academy started like any other: with Philo licking her in the the face with his huge, slimy, reptilian tongue. Emilia laughed. "Good morning to you to Philo!" she managed to say in between giggling and wiping her face with her sleeve. She slid out of bed with a yawn, then stretched her arms wide and said, "Good morning, Lenora!" Then she pulled on yellow rubber boots, her favorite stripey socks, her overalls with the extra big pocket in the front, and a stripey shirt.(She had decided that today was a day for stripes.) Then she put up her long chestnut brown hair with a stripey ribbon and slid down the banister, with Philo flapping/galloping down the stairs behind her. "' Morning Uncle Jak! 'Morning Aunt Moria!" she said, Grabbing a bucket for the chicken eggs, and giving them both a quick hug as she passed. "Good morning sweetheart," said uncle Jak,then added, "By the way, after the farm chores, we have a surprise for you!"   Emilia said, "OK uncle Jak!" and rushed out the door. She inhaled deeply breathing in the crisp morning air that smelled like hay, newly bloomed wild flowers, and a pie set out on the windowsill to cool next door. Emilia's family lived on a farm, and Em was assigned some farm chores. She waved at Tuk, the farm hand, as she made her way over to the chicken coop. "Hello my sweet fluffy babies!",she cried as she opened the barn door. A wave of chickens exploded out of the door, with the rooster, Paul, in the back with the straggling baby chicks and pullets watching for hawks. After the surge of chickens ended, Em went through the door and said hello to all the hens that stayed inside to sit in the nesting boxes. Then she dug around underneath their fluffy bellies and pulled out the eggs that they were sitting on and put them in the bucket that she had brought from inside. then she went back out into the farmyard and gave the chickens food and water and did some other various farm chores including pigs, sheep, turkeys and llamas.("Llamas are better than horses!" Quote Uncle Jak) Then she went back inside to have a pancake breakfast with her family and see what her surprise was. When Em came in, she sat down at the table and spooned a couple chocolate chip pancakes onto her plate. Her aunt and uncle looked at her and uncle Jak pulled out an envelope and showed the seal to Emilia. "Em your going to dragon school!" Em dropped her fork.