Nend Ardhon Chronicles - Complete

Chapter 27 – Practice

Previously, while Paullu and Drezara were waving at Byia and going to Drezara’s house, Nayima Fiet crossed the gate and glanced at Guyi, before swimming with her friends in the opposite direction. Byia elbowed him with a weird smile:

- “Way to go, lover boy! She is crazy about you! It seems she likes to be mistreated, and you mocking her and calling her so many bad names, made her start to get interested in you!”

- “What are you talking about? Like if you could ever know something like that! You never noticed how every young male in our School stares at you as you swam by! Even the older ones! Moron!”

Byia frowned and punched Guyi’s left shoulder:

- “Who are you calling moron, dumbass? Stop teasing me, there is not one single male in School that does that!”

Lodon mumbled while staring into the horizon:

- “I can totally understand why they stare at you…”

- “What did you say, Lodon? I heard you mumbling something weird! Speak out, you want to mock me as well?”

Lodon jolted by her shout, and quickly explained:

- “No, I… wasn’t mocking you! I just said I understand why they stare! Your skin has a nice colour and the way your eyes changes with your mood, it’s… well… pretty, I guess.”

Byia frowned and crossed her arms over her chest:

- “I think I must always stay like this when you are near me, or I might get tempted to slap you. Better if you look for someone else to mock because I am in no mood to hear anything from you.”

Guyi gently tapped the head of the surprised Lodon’s:

- “Yeah, she is this dense. You will get used to this, don’t worry. She never notices the effect she has on males, and she sometimes throws a sexy bomb without noticing. Like when she smiles while tilting her head or laughs while holding your paw, stuff like that.”

Byia slapped Guyi’s head with her tail and warned him:

- “Go call dense to your mother, moron! I am not dense!”

- “Yeah, right… better if we go home, I want to see how good Lodon is, with those throwing daggers I gave him yesterday. You can practice for a bit in my back garden, but you will need to find a place at your home to use as a target. Maybe that tall plant on the back, or you can make a target from an old board if you find one in the Recycling Plant.”

Lodon nodded while smiling and Byia founded it weird:

- “You gave him a set of throwing daggers? How come? Wasn’t he supposed to be the bait in case we were in trouble? Why a bait would need weapons?”

Guyi poked her nose, only to almost get a bite:

- “Hey! Stop doing that, you are not a child anymore! I gave Lodon the daggers because as bait, there could be a time when he has to fight for a while, for us to escape. Without weapons, he will only gain us a couple of seconds. With throwing daggers, we will have minutes, to getaway. Who knows, he might even survive to fight another day! And if he gets really good, I will give him a pretty crossbow and arrows. He will need to learn how to make more arrows and to practice a lot, and like that, he might be useful instead of just an easy target for our enemies.”

Byia rubbed Rodhy’s head and began to swim home:

- “Yeah, that’s actually a good idea. Maybe he becomes so good with those throwing daggers and the crossbow, that he won’t make me feel ashamed, for being near him! I won’t join you in that throwing practice because I want to practice something else.”

Guyi and Lodon stayed behind, and while Lodon was too dumbfounded to speak after such a direct hit to his pride, Guyi gently tapped his back:

- “Yeah, you will have a lot of work ahead to make her see you as a possible partner. She will eventually see you as her friend, and from there, you might have a shot at her heart. Let’s get going, or we won’t have time for anything.”

While swimming after Byia and the tail waving Rodhocetus, Guyi asked:

- “By the way, how did your parents reacted when you told them you had a part-time job? Or you didn’t speak to them yet?”

- “I did, this morning at breakfast. They kept on asking what kind of part-time job it was because I gave them so much money. I was in a pinch, but then I said I was working as a servant at the Explorer’s Guild, and that was also the money from my tips. Probably I shouldn’t have given them half of the money at once, maybe it would be better to give in parcels, like two pearls every now and then.”

Guyi shrugged and spoke while trying to keep up with Rodhy and Byia’s speed:

- “Yeah, you could do that, because so much money like that, is really suspicious. I guess we can talk with the Guild Master for her to confirm it if your parents go there to ask something. Who knows, she might even offer you a real part-time job in there, for when we are not doing Quests.”

- “That would be cool… it would be a huge help for my parents, that’s for sure, but I don’t know if she will agree with that.”

- “Probably not, but it doesn’t hurt trying, right? Just don’t get your hopes too high, she could say there is no need for more servants, or that you don’t have any experience.”

Lodon nodded and continued on swimming after those two high-speed swimmers that seemed to be doing a race. At Byia’s front gate, Lodon and Guyi waved at her and continued to his house.

Byia quickly took care of Rody’s food and went inside the house. A quick search and she found out that her mother was not home yet. As usual, she was probably taking care of something that could very well wait for the next day. Byia took a few leaves from a corner of one of the many kitchen cabinets, regretting the moment she did it because there was now a big hole waving at her mother as soon as she arrived home, and swam straight to Paullu’s room. She even knocked at the door, and she then slapped her own forehead:

- “Stupid of me…”

As soon as the door slided into the frame, Byia went to the game console on top of a pedestal and pressed a few buttons. The big white wall in front changed into a black screen, with a few lines of runes indicating the available games. She pressed on the downward rune on the console and searched for a particular game:

- “Where is… so many games, how that guy manages to find time for all this? Oh, found it! Now, contacts list… too many… where is that funny guy… oh, here he is! And he is logged, cool. So, a quick press here, and two here…”

Byia waited and after a couple of seconds, the dark screen changed to a rock brownish wall, with a young and serious Surface-Dragon in the middle. A round head with yellow eyes and pointy ears turned to face her, with pointy small horns on his head instead of flocks of fur like the Water-Dragons, a rough dark yellow scaled body and a mouth full of sharp white teeth that opened up in a big smile, the moment he recognized who was calling.

He signalled with both paws to where Byia was, making circles and pointing to his ears. She immediately nodded, because she completely forgot that for them to talk, she couldn’t be with water all around, because she wouldn’t be able to hear the Surface-Dragon, and he would have a lot of problems understanding her because the water would modify her words.

Byia concentrated and made a large circle with both paws while saying the spell ‘uisge air leth’ and ended the movement by placing both paws at five centimetres from her head as if she was gathering the water while saying ‘lann uisge’. At Byia’s first spell, all the water inside Paullu’s room was pushed out, and the next one, created a helmet of water all around her head so that she would be able to breathe. She then smiled and spoke in her best Surface-Dragon accent:

- “Sorry for interrupting your peaceful day, Orhaj Lorem. I need to ask one thing and I thought you could help me. I also need to practice your language, if you have time.”

- “For you, I always have time, Byia Calla. Your use of Magic got really fast. You also look funny with that bubble on your head, looks like a scary helmet! Paullu normally makes a bubble around his entire body. How much air you have in there?”

Byia shrugged while smiling.

- “Not much, but I can hold my breath if needed. Or make a new bubble. So, I tried to find some information’s around here, but couldn’t find any. Do you know if in this World there was ever an Ancient Language? Because I read about it in an old book that has been in my family for generations, but I couldn’t find any other book that remotely spoke about a different language from our ones.”

Orhaj Lorem rubbed his chin with one claw, thinking.

- “I see… I once heard a story in my childhood from my grandmother. Something about the beginning of Nend Ardhon, when the first Dragons arrived that spoke a different language, that evolved into two different languages when our races split. One group chose to live underwater and the other group on land, and that made the sounds of the Ancient Language to change, according to the new environments. I always liked that story, because she basically used it to explain that we all came from an ancient group of Dragons that arrived from the stars. Well, it also became a strong belief among my people, that helped when the war tore us apart. I don’t know if this helps.”

- “Yeah… not much, actually. I just can’t understand why it said that on my family book. Oh, even better, some of my ancestors spoke that Ancient Language, or at least, were able to understand it.”

Orhaj continued on rubbing his chin and mumbled:

- “Strange… probably as a Skill… but how to unlock that Skill? And why? Very strange… It is just a story passed from parents to their children, for ages… Oh, I have an idea, why you don’t ask Sare Andri? He is not your average Nayga, he has also a strange interest in our History. He is my age, but his knowledge about Nend Ardhon and its inhabitants through time is way above any Scholar we have around here. I believe there is not one Water-Dragon or Surface-Dragon Scholar that can rival him in his knowledge of the History of our World!”

Byia gulped and swallowed more water than she should. She held her breath and made another water bubble around her head while trying to disguise her nervousness:

- “Well… I also need to practice my Nayga speech… but calling him just like that, I don’t know…”

Orhaj Lorem grinned:

- “You like him, you think he is pretty, you want to kiss him…”

Byia turned bright red and vigorously shook her paws:

- “No! You are mistaken! I am not into…”

- “Yeah, right, you keep on saying that with your yellow eyes, see if I believe it. You keep on forgetting that your eyes betray you, Byia. They always change to yellow if you get too excited. Next, you start to glow and if you get distracted, Paullu will have to clean his room again. Remember what you did on the first time you saw Sare Andri? Paullu was angry for days, and he couldn’t play our game because you totally destroyed his console and the entire wall!”

Byia awkwardly smiled, while feeling her heart trying to come out from her chest. She took a few deep breaths and made her best to remain calm:

- “That was a long time ago, I am older and more in control of my feelings and my Magic, I think I can…”

- “It was only three Big Moons ago, Byia… I doubt you got better in such a short amount of time. If you want to talk with him, it would be better if you remained calm, or Paullu will kill you if you destroy his room again. By the way, where is he? I don’t see him online for a while.”

Byia made a big smile and made a proud pose by placing her fists on her waist and looking at him sideways:

- “If you want to know, my amazing older brother got himself a very pretty girlfriend and he went to meet her parents.”

- “No way! A female manage to catch him? I want to meet that girlfriend! She must be truly amazing!”

- “Well, she is a bit crazy, but she seems to like him very much.”

Orhaj Lorem grinned again:

- “More than you like Sare Andri? I hope that girlfriend doesn’t blow up like you, or Paullu will have a hard life!”

- “I don’t like… You know, I won’t argue with you about that, how do I call Sare Andri?”

Orhaj Lorem approached the console near the wall from where he was seeing Byia and answered while pressing a few buttons:

- “I can make him join here, I want to see this… Heheheh!”

- “You are mean, Orhaj…”

The screen image divided into two. On one side was the smiling face of Orhaj Lorem, and the other was now showing a light-yellow background, full to the ceiling with shelves and books upon books. From the left of the screen, the smiling face of Sare Andri appeared, and his face changed from a big smile to a surprise when he saw on his screen Orahj smiling at him and a very nervous little Water-Dragon. Byia was staring at him in absolute silence. Like every member of the Nayga Race, Sare Andri had a round head, lizard-like smooth light grey skin, two small eyes at an odd distance from each other, because of the flattened large nose with tiny nostrils. Two round dark grey eyes and a bifurcated tongue that kept on popping out, making him look funny or threatening, depending on who was looking at him. While many Water-Dragons always found the looks of a Nayga as funny, there were still a few that always feared them, and their tongue. For the average Water-Dragon, the Nayga Race were all strange beings, but Byia always liked the looks of the Nayga, and she always thought Sare Andri was beautiful. She took a few small breaths and greeted him in his hissing language, that she liked so much to hear:

- “Helloss, Sare Andri. Rememberss me? I wantss to ask you a questionss if you have timess, and I alsoss need to practicess my Nayga Languagess.”

- “Hello, Orahjss! Byia Callass, long timess no see! How aress you? I am gladss to help with anythingss!”

Orhaj Lorem almost burst in laughter and did his best to speak calmly:

- “Yeah, evenss if she ask somethingss weird? You loverss boy, youss!”

Byia did her best to remain calm, even with the cute puzzled look on Sare Andri’s face, caused by the mocking of the laughing Surface-Dragon on the other side of the screen. Byia made a forced smile while feeling her cheeks becoming hotter and hotter and asked:

- “You knowss if in thisss World there wasss ever an Ancientss Language? I readss about it inss an old bookss my mother gavess me.”

- “Wellss… I know there isss a religion regardingss that in Orhaj Loremss side of the Worldss, saying that a differentss race of Dragonsss arrived to Nend Ardhonss and they spokess a strange languagess. Some of themss went to live underwaterss and othersss remained on landss. Eonsss passed and twoss different languagesss appeared. No provesss were left behindss, but I alwaysss liked that storyss. If there weress indeed an ancient racess of Dragonss, they are longss gone, and timess erased everythingss they could havess left, except Orhaj race and yoursss, Byia.”

Byia nodded and went silent, thinking. Sare Andri waited for a while, and he then asked:

- “Orhaj, where isss Paullu? Why he isss not playing anymoress? It’sss because of Schoolss?”

- “He now hasss a girlfriend. Yeah, canss you believess it? Byia told mess only momentss ago.”

Byia was thinking, but she couldn’t reach a conclusion. If it was indeed just a myth that the Surface-Dragons used to turn it into a religion, why her ancestors had that Ancient Language Skill? What’s the point for having a Skill if there are no Ancient Languages? Byia finally looked at the screen again and thanked the two laughing males that were still talking about Paullu and his girlfriend:

- “Thank you for thisss. I still find it oddss for my ancestorsss being able to speakss an Ancient Languagess, but maybe I canss find somethingss about that in the futuress. For now, I canss only practicess your languagess and my Meditation. I gainedss a very neatss Skill, Camouflagess, and I need to trainss it to find outss how to use itss. Can I callss you guysss more often? I really needss to practicess your languagess!”

They both agreed, and after a final wave, they disconnected. Byia quickly deactivated the spell that kept the water outside, and it came rushing in, making a few books and games to fell from the shelves, that Byia quickly put in place. She then swam to her room and while seated on her bed, entered into a deep state of meditation, to train her Camouflage. She thought before starting, that meditation wouldn’t probably be the best way to level up the Camouflage skill, but until she figured out what would actually do it, it wouldn’t do any harm, to meditate to calm her heart and stop the heat all over her body. All that time looking at and talking with Sare Andri was still making her too nervous to go to sleep.

…