Kena

Chapter 3

  A few years had passed and Kena was now six years old. Kena had just finished riding her Aleo around the block when she pulled into the driveway of her house. Her father stood outside waiting for her. She smiled as he picked her up, and together they sat on the grass with her in his lap. He pulled out some form of cookie that they shared.

"Today is a lovely day. What would you like to do?"

"Tell me me a story."

"A story, eh?"

"Yes!"

"What about?"

"Ummm... How about the dragons." She said as she saw a dragon fly by her house.

"Okay, sure. Maybe I can tell you the story of why we don't see many dragons anymore."

"Okay!"

"Well..."

  On the planet Celang the sky used to be filled with tiny dragons. The dragons of Celang only grew to the size of an Earth domestic cat. Some only get to the size of a normal cat, but others will grow to the size of the larger breeds. Some of the Celangi people did have dragons as pets, but most dragons thought of themselves above the people of the planet. The dragon leaders would sit back and find ways to prove they were more intelligent, but the Celangi people never paid attention to them. To them the dragons were just dumb animals and had no intelligence above that of a typical beast of any other species. After a while the dragon leaders wanted to prove once and for all that they were the most intelligent species on the planet, they just needed a plan. The problem was the communication barrier. How were the dragons going to speak to the Celangi people if neither could actually talk to the other. Finally an idea came to them one day. One of the older dragons told a story of how, long ago, the Celangi and dragons used to be friends, and some had even studied together before someone got it into their minds that dragons weren't intelligent and just animals. This older dragon mentioned an ancient writing form, and how he had continued to train a few dragons in these studies. So, the dragon leaders went to a few of these students and gave them a message to give to the Celangi. Soon these younger dragons flew off toward a local town. They found a perfect spot on the ground in a patch of dirt where they began to write.

Soon, as they wrote, they began to gather the attention of people. When they had finished writing it looked like a bunch of meaningless scribbles to most people until one guy recognized it as the ancient language, but he couldn't read it. Soon they were able to get the scholars to translate it. This is what it said:

To the Celangi people,

  We the dragons are an intelligent species, and we would prefer to be treated as such. The scholars of our species have remembered this language from a time when we used to study with your species. We would love to go back to doing that again. Please give us your response.

          - The Dragons

  This message was brought back to the Celangi council of that time, which Padriel was not a part of yet. The council read it and after putting it to a vote they decided that the whole thing must have been some kind of hoax, because to them the dragons were mindless creatures. They thought some Celangi scholar had trained the dragons into writing it out. They were still not convinced, and word got back to the dragons. So, it became the decision of the dragons to write one last note.

To the Celangi people,

   We are sorry that you do not believe us. We no longer want to be treated as inferiors, so we will be disappearing. You will still see a few of us as we hunt, but other than that we are leaving to live our lives where we are no longer treated as though we are beneath you. Farewell.

            - The Dragons

 From that moment on the dragons were gone. A few stayed behind, those few who still cared for the Celangi that they lived with, and others who didn't mind staying behind, but the lack of dragons in the air made the council wonder if they had been wrong after all. The dragons have now been in hiding for over a hundred years, or maybe even more.

Kena looked up at her father.

"Do you think the dragons are smart, daddy?"

"Oh absolutely. The second message proved it to me, especially after the dragons left. I've spent most of my council days trying to communicate with them, but so far none of them are willing to talk back."

"Maybe one day I can help you?"

"Maybe one day you can. I might even teach you the ancient writing form. It isn't too difficult. Our current letters were created from this form."

"It sounds good to me, daddy."

"Good. Now how about we go inside for another snack."

"Even after the cookies?"

"Oh... the cookie... Yeah sure, why not? Just don't tell your mother."

Kena shook her head and giggled. She took her father's hand as they went inside.