I didn't dare stop or look back. My legs were pumping as hard as they could. I crossed the grass and hit the hard-packed road, hoping I was far enough ahead - then the air rushed out of my lungs as an arm hooked me around the middle. A scream burst from my mouth. I struggled, but the man was just too strong. Lifting my feet from the ground, the yellow Dragon growled something and hauled me forcefully back towards the house. A glance showed I'd barely even made it out of the yard.
"No," I begged. "Please don't give me to him."
He said nothing, merely heaved me against his side and kept walking.
Tears were building in my eyes, but I wouldn't give up. Pounding a fist on his arm did nothing. Flailing with my feet hit nothing. The Dragon simply carried me back into the sitting room, using his red-and-turquoise tail to hook the door and slam it behind us. He didn't slow until he reached the place I'd been sitting the night before, and then he tossed me into it.
Kanik and the Wyvern moved to plant themselves on either side of me. With the yellow one in front, I was effectively blocked. Terrified and desperate, I looked between them frantically, trying to read their strangely-colored faces, wondering how bad the punishment for this was going to be and praying it wasn't marriage.
Then Kanik grabbed the book I'd been using and pressed it into my hands. I took it, lifting the hardcover like a pathetic shield between myself and them, but that seemed to be the wrong thing to do. Snarling like a monster, the brown dragon forced it open.
That wasn't what I'd expected! Not at all. I'd been prepared to fight them off, not look at a book. Standing at my right, Kanik flipped a few pages, then a few more before finding what he wanted. His finger stabbed at the image of a large cat.
"Ca-ow-gar," he said, tracing the description beneath. Then he pointed at something else. "Bier!"
It was the third one that made sense. "Walf!"
That made the Wyvern thrust his arm out and point towards the forest while rambling off more of his foreign words in an angry voice. Then the yellow one joined in, and all three of them were bellowing at me in words I couldn't understand and at a volume that made me want to shrink into myself.
But the last picture was of a very large canine and that one word was so close. I ignored them, replaying the strange sound in my mind over and over, trying to figure out if I was right.
So I looked at Kanik and pointed at the picture. "Wolf?"
My word was soft, but the silence that claimed the room right after was even softer. Orange eyes, turquoise, and dark purple all stared at me. The men didn't twitch, didn't shift their weight, and I was pretty sure they didn't even blink.
Until the Wyvern slowly pointed to the image again. "Waulf?" he tried.
The sound made tingles flow across my skin. It was so close. I desperately tried again. "It's a wolf."
And Kanik's mouth fell open. "English?"
"Anglas?" the Wyvern asked.
Which made the yellow one's mouth fall open. "Sa fakon spiks Anglas?"
But Kanik had just said one word I knew, and it shocked me enough to forget all about my need to flee. This man knew my language? Never mind how the others were saying something close enough it had to be some atrocious attempt at English. Plus, throwing me into a chair and giving me a book was the least aggressive thing I could think of.
These Dragons were trying to communicate, and I actually knew these words.
"You know what English is?" I asked, my eyes hanging on Kanik.
His breath fell out in a rush. "Spee-yak thees?" he asked, pointing at something else. Did he mean, Speak this?
"Coyote," I said.
"Coyote," he repeated slowly. "Not koh-yo-tay?"
"No, it's pronounced kie-oh-tee." But I felt a shock race across my skin as his words sank in. Words I knew. "Is that why you can't understand me? Your accent is different?"
"Orin," he said, squatting down beside me, "eet is bekaze no one speeyaks these words. English is a deeyad langooage. We read it, we do not speeyak it, but Vestrian - our langooage - cowems fram eet." His accent was thick, making me focus hard to make out what he was saying.
It took me a little longer before the meaning actually sank in. "English is a dead language, and no one speaks it anymore, but you can read it? Your own language came from it?"
He nodded, then tried again - this time clear enough I could understand him through his accent. "And I think I can make the words enough for you to listen now. Hello, Orin. It is nice to meet you."
"You know English?" I asked again, just needing to hear him confirm it.
Which was when the Wyvern dropped onto the couch beside me with a pleased groan. "Well, this makes things easier," he said. The words were twisted oddly, the vowels not quite right, but I could definitely make out what he meant. "That book is mine, so yes, I know English."
"Anglas?" the yellow one asked again, his head rocking between all of us. "Sa speyak Anglas?"
I was pretty sure that was supposed to be my language, but his accent was even worse than the Wyvern's. While their own language was clipped and quick, they spoke English as if they had a mouth full of stones.
But the Wyvern simply waved the yellow one to a chair. "Rymar doesn't use English as much."
"But you do?" I asked, looking between him and Kanik. "And what is a Rye-mar?"
That made the Wyvern laugh and point at the yellow one. "Rymar. That's his name."
"And no one uses English," Kanik said, his accent much better than the others.
"Why don't you use it?"
Kanik chuckled softly. "It's a dead language. Old books -" he tipped his head at the one I was still holding. "They are written in it. Knowledge that would have been lost is kept in them, but no one uses those words for conversation. Many of us learned as children, but only to read. Some of us learned to write in it, but very few. In school, we teach the children pieces so they can understand our own language better, but only in writing."
"Why doesn't anyone speak it?" I asked.
It was the Wyvern who answered. "Because the world changed."
