by Adams, A. D.
No, you don’t have to do anything,” Terra said with a chuckle and an amused expression.
“I’ll talk to my father, and I’ll meet you here tomorrow at the same time.”
“We’ll be here.”
With that the three of them settled down for a good sunning.
Setilan approached her father that sunset and explained what Terra had asked. He thought it was an excellent idea. He called the teacher Seana to his chamber after Setilan had left.
“Seana, I want you to go with Setilan tomorrow and start to teach a human.”
“A human!”
“Yes, it is the human that healed Setilan.”
“I had heard of the incident from Setilan, but why teach it.”
“This human is special, and one sun-rising he might again help us.
Plus I owe him my daughter’s life, and teaching seems a small price for a debt so large. I think my daughter might do better with her learning if she had someone to learn with and help.”
“As you say your majesty.”
The next sun-rising Setilan took Seana to meet Terra at the cove. As they approached the shore of the cove, Setilan transformed her back fins into legs and Seana followed suit. They stood up and started to walk out of the water. Seana saw only the great dragon. As she started to leave the water, she immediately turned and fled pulling Setilan with her. Setilan struggled to be released from her grip as she pulled her behind a large underwater boulder just off shore.
“What is wrong with you?” Setilan said in an angry voice.
“That dragon probably killed your friend and would have killed us both!” Seana said with a look of horror on her face.
“Don’t be silly. That dragon and Terra are inseparable. She protects him and won’t leave him out of her sight.”
“A human protected by a dragon?”
“Yes, she won’t hurt you unless you try to hurt Terra.”
“Come on. I’ll introduce you to her.”
“Wait! How does this human know our language? No human has ever understood it.”
“He does.”
“How?”
“I don’t know he just does. Come on,” Setilan said as she was pulling on her arm.
“How does he talk to the dragon? Their language is impossible to understand.”
“Are you coming, or do I have to tell my father?” she said in an angry voice.
“All right. I’ll come, but we approach them slowly, and I lead.”
This time Seana left the water in front of the princess. The dragon appeared to be sleeping, and there was a rather large human boy sitting in the sand leaning up against the dragon’s side. Seana could hardly believe what she was seeing. As they approached, the boy stood up and walked to them.
“Ah Setilan, I didn’t think you were coming. Who’s this?”
“This is my teacher Seana. My father said she would teach you as well as me.”
“Can we sit on the rocks by the sea, over there for our lessons?”
Seana said eyeing the great sleeping beast.
“If that’s where you prefer. Don’t worry about her; she won’t hurt you,” Terra seeing Seana’s fearful looks at the dragon.
The three of them walked to the rocks and sat down.
“Now, I would like a little information about you before we start.”
“All right. What?”
“Where did you learn to speak our language?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, you’re speaking to me. So you know how.”
“I simply touched Setilan, and I understood what she was saying.”
“With a simple touch, you understood our language?”
“Yes,” Terra said looking as if what she said was a strange thing to ask.
“Isn’t that how you do it.”
“No, we can’t simply touch someone and learn a language. Is that how you learned the dragon’s language?”
“I suppose. It was such a long time ago. I don’t really remember.”
“I see. What is the amulet around your neck?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always had it. It is the only thing that’s always been with me.”
“Can I touch it?”
As Seana reach to touch the amulet, it started to glow red, so she withdrew, and its glow disappeared.
“It’s never done that before,” Terra said seemingly unconcerned.
“Perhaps we should start the first lesson. I’m going to teach you to read,” Seana said with a questioning look on her face.
Over the next week, Seana concentrated on teaching Terra to read.
He learned so rapidly that Seana was amazed by his mind’s quickness.
After only six lessons, he was able to read and write their script fluently. So Seana felt it was time to start history lessons, but first she wanted to discuss some things with the king. She arranged a time to talk to him when they could be private. This was not unusual since she would often discuss the princess’ progress with him in private.
“What do you wish to talk to me about? It is not time for my daughter’s evaluation.”
“I’s about Terra, sir.”
“Oh what about him?”
“He is a strange being. I found out he learns languages by simply touching.”
“What do you mean?”
“It appears that he can absorb the language with a simple touch. He then fully understands and can speak the language from that time on.”
“That’s amazing!”
“Yes, it is, but what is even stranger is that he learned to read and write our language in six lessons. It normally takes over one hundred.”
How powerful is his mind?” The king asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t feed him enough information fast enough to slow him down let alone reach his learning capacity.”
“Well, keep on teaching him; I want him to see us as friends.”
“I will sir, but you should know something. I have been studying our ancient scripts. They talk of a Draman and a Wogan. These beings are unique and powerful. They learn fast and will one sun-rising be great.”
“What does this have to do with Terra?”
“Terra and the dragon Fienna, the two are so intertwined that they are in fact inseparable. No dragon has ever bonded with a human, and no human has ever even survived an encounter with a dragon let alone become that dragon’s companion.”
“You’re right, but what are these Draman and Wogan?”
“The scripts don’t say; they just refer to them and the fact that they are bound together.”
“This is all very nice, but what use is it?”
“I just wanted to bring it to your attention. Are you sure I should keep training this Terra?”
“What do you think, Seana?”
“I believe these two are more than just an accident. I feel you are following the right path. Terra is the gentlest being I have ever encountered. I don’t believe he could hurt us even if he wanted to,” she said.
“Good, then keep teaching him.”
Chapter 32 - History
(Knowing the Past Prepares for the Future.)
348 set of seasons since the coming of the Averons
Seana came to the cove to begin the lessons of the history of Tone.
Terra’s keen interest in learning seemed to spark Setilan. She was finally paying attention during the lessons. Seana had decided to break up the history lessons into two parts. The first would be ancient history that spanned all the cultures on Tone. The second would cover sea nymph’s history.
“Now children, I am going to start with Tone ancient history.”
“What is Tone?” Terra asked in a confused voice.
“Tone is the name of the entire world. It is the oceans and the land we live on and in.”
“I see you call everything Tone,” Terra spread his arms gesturing everything he could see.
“Yes, everything. Now let’s see,” Seana said as she started to open a lar
ge book made of seaweed paper.
“Ah yes, here we are. The world originally had six major races, the Sea Nymphs, Land Nymphs, Fairies, Dwarfs, Humans, and, of course, Dragons.” They all looked over when Fienna made a trumpeting noise at that statement. Seana thought Fienna must have much better hearing than she thought to hear what she had said so far away. It was also odd that the dragon knew the sea nymph language.
Seana continued, “As I was saying, these six races lived separately for the most part. Where the borders came into contact, there was generally a strained peace. With the exception of the sea and land nymphs who enjoyed a friendly relationship, the humans tended to stay to themselves and rarely bothered anyone much the same as the dragons. The dwarfs were different. They were always causing trouble, but they had no magic so the nymphs and the human Solans could control them. The dragons were always left alone. They tended to see the other races as food and magic did not affect them. Tone went on like this for season after season after season. One sun-rising a human wizard was born; he had naturally great magic and grew to manhood being trained by the Solans. The Solans were females that had magic powers and created a sisterhood to train themselves in its use, apparently few males had magic among the humans. As the wizard grew, his personality grew dark and foreboding. He withdrew into himself and finally rejected the consul of the Solans. He left with seven Solans, who swore allegiance to him. He tried to rule humankind with his power, which was great when combined with the seven. It took all the power of the remaining Solans to stop him. He fled to the dwarfs after they defeated him. This was the beginning of the Great War. The dwarfs now had a great wizard to help them, and they slowly defeated the humans through magic and shear force of numbers. They drove the humans to the mountains. In the struggle, many of the Solans were destroyed. Finally, the humans were forced through the great mountain pass of Stillac and into the rain soaked valleys beyond. The remaining Solans collapsed the mountain cliffs into the pass blocking it forever.
This stopped the dwarfs. After that nothing was ever heard about humans until you appeared Terra.”
“What happened to the fairies, land of nymphs and the dwarfs?”
Terra asked with keen interest.
“Well, the fairies seemed to simply disappear without a trace. The sea nymphs would meet the land nymphs at a certain lagoon on the other side of the landmass.”
“Landmass. What do you mean landmass?”
“We are sitting on a landmass. There is only one. Let me draw it for you.”
In the sand, Seana drew a circle. She then drew a large odd-shaped area in the middle of it.
“This is Tone; it is a ball, and we sit on its surface. This area is the mountains which separating the landmass into two,” Seana drew more lines and put a dot in the sand, “This is where we are now.” As she pointed to the dot, she then drew two more lines one at the top and one at the bottom of the circle. “These are great areas of frozen water. Now this is where the land nymphs and the sea nymphs met to discuss what was happening.” Seana put an X on the opposite side of the landmass.
“The land nymphs told us that once the dwarfs had been blocked from following the humans they attacked them. They were slowly being driven into a small area at the top of the world. At the next meeting time no land nymphs appeared. We sea nymphs went to the meeting place every season at the scheduled time, but none came. We now go only once every complete set of seasons, but they still do not come. It has been over four hundred sets of seasons since we last talked to the land nymphs. We know nothing of them, the fairies, the humans or the dwarfs since that time.”
“So you know nothing of my kind,” Terra asked a little disappointed.
“No, nothing but what I have told you.”
“Well let’s start with our history. After the last contact with the land nymphs’, two great sea nymph kings arose. One controlled the southern seas and one the northern seas. For many seasons, there was peace until the northern king, Netic, decided he wanted to control all sea nymphs. Sectis, the southern king opposed this, and a Great War was started. Finally after many battles and deaths, Sectic defeated Netic. The victor took control of all the sea nymphs and became the king of all sea nymphs. Sectic was Setilan’s great, great, great Grandfather.”
Seana thought that this would impress Terra, but it meant nothing to him since Setilan was his friend and such things were not important in his world.
“I think this is enough for this sun-rising; we will continue at our next lesson.
Seana and Setilan were leaving the water at the time of the next lesson when Fienna came gliding into the cove. The sight so surprised Seana that she lost her balance and fell against some sharp rocks. Her breast and arm were badly cut, and she was in great pain. Blood spread through the water slowly. Terra came running over to see what was wrong.
“Setilan take me to a healer.”
“Terra can heal you.” Before she could object, Terra’s hand was on her breast. She looked down and saw his hand starting to glow orange.
The pain instantly stopped. She could feel a pleasant warm sensation spread over her breast and arm. When she looked down again, the cuts were gone, not even scars were left.
“There’s something wrong in your middle. There’s something that doesn’t belong. I’ll fix it. “Suddenly, Terra moved his hand to her middle, and the sensation started again. She felt something changing, and then she felt his hand leaving her.
“You’re all right now. Let’s start our lessons,” Terra said with little concern about what just happened. As Seana looked up, she saw the great head of Fienna looking at her. She had a sense that Fienna was protecting Terra from her.
“Terra, I feel a little tired; we will do the lesson the next time.”
“Oh, if that’s what you want,” Terra said a little disappointed.
“I think it’s better.”
Seana immediately went to a sea nymph healer and told him of what happened. She had never been able to have a child because of a problem she was born with. The healer had told her this many seasons before.
“Whatever he did corrected your problem, you can now have children.”
Seana felt so grateful to Terra, and after his touch, she now understood why Setilan valued his friendship so much. It was as if she could not even conceive of hurting him. His kindness and gentle spirit seemed to invade her body when he healed her, and it seemed that he felt it was just a natural thing to do.
Fienna was upset about Terra healing the teacher. Terra could feel her disapproval.
“What’s wrong, Fienna?” he thought to her.
“You shouldn’t use your powers to heal everything and everyone. It tires you out too much,” she was remembering when he was small and how exhausted he became after healing her and her mother.
“I don’t get tired anymore when I heal.”
“If you did, you couldn’t protect yourself. You would be defenseless. I know its part of you to heal, but I want you to promise you won’t do it unless I am there to protect you. Promise!”
“I promise.”
This seemed to calm Fienna down, and Terra again lay against her side and rubbed her scales.
As they lay there, Fienna thought, “Why do you want to learn these things from that nymph?”
“I don’t know; it just seems interesting to me. You have learned so much from your mother, but I had no one to teach me.”
“If it makes you happy, we’ll keep coming. Can I ask you one other thing?” she said.
“Yes.”
“You had a strange feeling when you touched her breast. I don’t know, like excitement. What caused it?”
“I don’t know, but it’s gone now.”
It didn’t seem too important as they both drifted off to sleep in the warm sun and forgot the strange feeling he had.
Chapter 33 - The Last Lesson of Flight
(The Last Lesson is often Time the most Important.)
348 set of seasons since the coming of t
he Averons
Even though Fienna was still growing, she had become as large as her mother. She was going to be the largest female dragon ever born, perhaps the largest dragon period. Her mother was so proud of her daughter. She was nothing less than magnificent, although not of age yet, Fienna was of a size to learn her last flying lesson. That evening Dawra had something to talk to Fienna about.
“There is one final flying lesson I have to teach you,” Dawra said in a very serious voice.
“I fly well Mother.”
“Yes, I know you do. This is not about how well you fly. We dragons can fly only so fast at low heights. Seasons ago, the old ones discovered that if we fly very high the winds are much more powerful, and we can fly the whole length of the coast in only a sun-rising. It is very hard to fly in the winds of speed, but it is done when needed. You must learn to fly these winds so you can travel to the dragon gatherings. “
This excited Fienna; she always was ready to do something different.
“Mother, when can we start? Terra and I can be ready in the morning.”
“Terra can not come. It is too cold for his little body to withstand.”
“Too cold?” Fienna said with a tilt of her head and a confused look.
“Yes, it is very cold. The cold won’t bother us, but Terra doesn’t have our thick skin and strong bodies. He will have to wait on the ground.”
“Well, all right,” Fienna said in a deflated and depressed tone.
“Don’t worry Fienna; I’ll be fine. I have things to do,” Terra said in an excited voice.
“You can tell me all about it. You know I’ll be with you.”
This cheered Fienna up, and she started to again feel excited about the new adventure.
“Tomorrow we will go to the cave of the old ones, and I will show you the pictures of the winds. Terra can come with us for that,” Dawra said in a more pleasant motherly tone.
“Now, let’s get some sleep.”
Fienna curled up on her ledge with Terra laying against her between her legs and arms with the tip of her great tail rapped around his middle.
The position they always slept in.