Dragon Diary

Entry 4: The Ancient Language

Hello Diary,
I woke early this morning and sparked up a candle with my dragonfire so I could start reading before sunrise. I was lying on my bed with the black book resting on my front legs.

I stared at it fearfully for a moment, second guessing my decision to read it. "It's just a book, how bad can it possibly be?" I whispered, convincing myself to go for it.

I opened the book up to the first page and was suddenly staring at a page of words I could not even read. Damn, and this was only a title page. I sighed in dismay.

I had never seen this language before but I had an idea and I knew where to begin if my hunch was correct. I had a feeling I was looking at the Ancient Language, which was the original language of the dragons when they first formed their civilization.

No one actually uses it to communicate anymore, and it was actually banned during the reign of my great grandfather because it was linked to magic and dragons were hurting each other with uncontrollable powers.

The rule now is that the king's adviser is allowed to learn and wield the knowledge of the Ancient Language, but all others are forbidden.

That meant that all books on the Ancient Language would be locked in the forbidden section of the library. Luckily I know the key holder, and I may be able to get him to let me in.

For the moment it would have to wait. Ormond was expecting me at sunrise for my lesson, and it would not be in the library, but out in the huge stone courtyard.

I blew out my candle and left the book with a few others I had on my bed. My room was in the servants quarters but at least I had an entire room to myself. Most servants had families of four or five dragons sharing one den room.

The room is spacious since I have very little personal belongings, but it is dark from lack of any outside daylight. It is one of my dreams to have a room upstairs in the royal hall and have a balcony to fly from. I think if I ever had one of those rooms I would never use the Palace front doors again.

Anyway, I rushed up to the main floor and out those huge palace front doors. The sky above me was just starting to lighten and the sun had not risen quite yet. I could see the moon above me faintly. It was in the shape of a curved talon.

Surprisingly Ormond was already standing out in the center of the courtyard and he gave me an approving smile as I walked up to him. In the darkness his eyes looked white.

"Early, very nice. You are determined at least. That trait you share with your father. Let's find out if your mind power is as strong as his was at your age. I want you to try and focus on me, get inside my head. Tell me, what is the name I am thinking of right now?"

He had a way of getting right to business, but I didn't mind. I cleared my throat and stood a comfortable distance away facing him. I tried to do as I was told and enter his mind, but when I focused on him I  hit something hard that appeared to be a sort of mental block wall.

"What the heck is that? Your mind wasn't like this yesterday?" I objected, slamming my spiked tail into the ground in frustration.

Ormond started giggling and I realized he saw it as a tantrum, when I was only frustrated from crashing into a wall.

"It is a mental block. You will need to learn to build one quickly to defend yourself from other red dragons, or wolves. You especially want to learn to block things from Gaelon."

The mention of my father's name made me shiver. It seemed he had very few dragons who actually liked him. It always makes me wonder what horrible things he must have done, even before I was born and the dark magic consumed him in his rage of having an heir.

"I have seen my father break through mental walls before, how do I know I will be safe from him?"

He smiled and replied "I trained him, did I not? I can train you to be better."
Well how can I argue with that?