Jahrra grabbed one of the empty books and a quill and inkwell and slowly began to copy down the strange letters that glowed before her eyes. For the next few hours, Hroombra reached into the fire and pulled its magic into his sharp claws. He carefully wrote each letter, telling Jahrra what it stood for. He insisted that she write it down several times on one line and go back later to make a single list. By the time they reached the lowercase characters, Jahrra’s fingers were stained black and her hand was cramping up.
Finally, after what seemed like ages, she had the entire alphabet, upper and lower case, copied down. Hroombra, who’d been watching her aptly, faced the fire and blew red flames upon the violet ones. The two colors melded in a beautiful dance, and soon the violet fire completely dissipated as a natural orange fire took over, taking the glowing characters with it. Jahrra was sad to see the strange fire go, but equally glad that her writing was over.
“Now,” Hroombra said suddenly, allowing the wood to burn its natural way, “it’s time for you to learn the story behind this language.”
He invited Jahrra to make herself comfortable and then he began, “The language that you are about to learn is called Kruelt, or Draggish.”
The old dragon had Jahrra repeat the words a few times both for pronunciation purposes as well as for memory purposes.
“The Kruelt language is the ancient language of the dragons. As you well know from what I’ve taught you, there are separate races of dragons, just as there are separate races of elves and other creatures of Ethoes. Dragons call their races “kruels”.
“Now each kruel of dragons that has the ability to speak has its own dialect, but they’re not so different that one cannot understand another dragon from a different kruel than their own. A long, long time ago, only dragons spoke Kruelt. There were other races in existence, but they spoke their own languages. The elves spoke Elvish, the dwarves, Dwarvish, the Aandhoulis spoke Aandhoulin, the Nephaari, Nephaarye, and so on and so forth.
“But when Ethoes created her final race, the humans, she gave them no language and gave the dragons the responsibility to look after them, so naturally we taught them our way of speech. Each tribe of humans picked up the dialect of the group of dragons that taught them. You’ll be learning the Tanaan dialect of Kruelt, because my kruel of dragons, the Korli, were responsible for the Tanaan race.”
Hroombra paused to make sure Jahrra was following, continuing only when he saw that her eyes were wide with curiosity.
“The interesting thing about Kruelt, or Draggish as I have mentioned, is that true Kruelt can only be pronounced by a dragon. The humans however, created their own dialect using the same words and emphasizing the same syllables. The only difference was that their tongues couldn’t handle certain accents, so they sounded slightly different from the dragons who taught them. If you keep to your lessons of this language, then eventually you’ll be able to read the writing on the walls of the Castle Ruin.”
Hroombra looked down at Jahrra and was glad to see she was still paying attention.
“Do you have any questions?” he asked delicately.
“I do have one question,” she began hesitantly.
“Go on,” Hroombra encouraged.
“I was just wondering, not that I don’t want to learn Kruelt or anything, but why is it important that I learn it? I’m Nesnan, and everyone else speaks the common language here, so why learn a language that’s forbidden?”
The old dragon smiled broadly. Jahrra wasn’t trying to be insulting or insolent; she simply didn’t see the importance of this. And of course she doesn’t, Hroombra thought quietly. But someday she will.
He took a deep breath, exhaled and said, “That’s a very good question Jahrra, and I have a very good answer. First of all, I’m a dragon, and I speak Kruelt, and I’d like to be able to communicate with you in my native language. It’s been far too long since I’ve had that pleasure.
“Secondly, I’d like you to be able to read the many ancient documents and paintings in this old place. I know that as time goes by you’ll have many questions about the history of Ethoes, and I’ll be too busy to answer your questions. Fortunately, everything you need to know is written down in my scrolls and documents, only it’s all in Draggish. So as you can see Jahrra, you’re learning Kruelt because it will someday be convenient for me.”
He smiled again, and Jahrra realized that he was teasing her.
“Oh, I don’t mind learning Draggish, I was only wondering,” she said nonchalantly, smiling back.
“I know you were young one, I know. But remember, you mustn’t tell anyone about this. I cannot stress enough how important it is that this remain a secret.”
Jahrra nodded soberly, promising once again to keep the secret between the two of them. If she was being completely honest with herself, the idea of learning a secret language no one else knew was both intriguing and quite appealing. Perhaps all those questions she had about the story of the Tanaan would be answered after all . . .
Hroombra yawned widely and stretched both his useless wings. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. We’re done for the evening, but tomorrow night we’ll start practicing writing common words in the Krueltish alphabet. You’ll start by writing lines of letters.”
Jahrra groaned as she flexed her ink-stained hand, surprised to feel that it no longer felt tired.
“I’m off to bed. Will you be staying up much longer?”
“Oh,” Jahrra answered, forgetting about her hand, “only for a bit longer, I want to re-write the characters more neatly and next to the common alphabet in one column. I’ll see you in the morning.”
As Jahrra plopped down on her stomach by the fire with her feet dangling in the air, her full concentration on writing the characters down properly, Hroombra couldn’t help but feel a sense of joy in his heart. She was so eager to learn, so happy to listen to him. How long will it last? he thought ruefully. How long until she grows tired of my stories and no longer wants an old dragon around?
Hroombra sighed and tried to shake off his morose thoughts. Jahrra isn’t like that. She would never shut me out, he thought, sorrow clenching his heart. But she’s so much like, like him, like he was at that age. She’s full of spirit and curiosity, just like he was. She’s intelligent and strong, just like he was. He looked at Jahrra one more time, humming softly and writing down her characters. No, he convinced himself, she’ll persevere; she’ll not succumb to the horrors of this world.
All Hroombra could count on was to do his best in guiding her towards her destiny and keeping her happy today. Beyond that he couldn’t know, he could only hope.
He yawned once more and peered down at Jahrra’s fresh writing, the still wet ink glistening in the light of the dimming fire. It did him good to see the old language written by a human again, even if it was only one. As long as I’m here with her, she’ll be alright. She’ll be safe. Hroombra rested his head beside the glowing fire, content in knowing that Jahrra was protected for now, and drifted off to sleep.
The remainder of the summer consisted of the typical activities that any summer would be made up of. Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede occupied their time riding horses, helping on the ranch, going on camping trips to the lakes and on occasion, making a few trips into town.