Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

“Present is ‘now’. One day from now is ‘tomorrow’,” Pryce said to start off today’s lessons. Seeing Fathom nod his understanding, Pryce continued, “One day ago is ‘yesterday’.”

“Understand.”

“Yesterday at sunset I say, ‘see you, sunrise’. Humans say ‘good night’, then say ‘good morning’ at sunrise.”

Fathom looked up at the sun that was still just above the horizon. “Good morning?”

“Yes, good,” Pryce confirmed. “New words: When I make thing for you, or give thing to you, you say ‘thank you’.”

“Thank you?”

“Yes.”

“…Dragon no use this word more.”

“What?” Pryce asked, baffled.

Fathom grumbled in frustration, “No have word, what is word for thing that happen many?”

“Often,” Pryce said. “Thing that happen many is ‘often’. Sunrise is often, sunset is often.”

“Yes, often. Dragon no use this word often.”

Dragons didn’t have the words for ‘thank you?’ Pryce was having a hard time imagining their culture…or more likely he just didn’t explain the concept of gratitude very well.

“Why dragon no say ‘thank you’ often?” Pryce asked.

“You say humans say ‘thank you’ when you give things. Dragons no give things,” Fathom explained.

“I understand…wait, you said dragon no say ‘thank you’ often, but dragons sometimes say ‘thank you’?”

“Dragon only give two things. One is to mate, one is to hatchling when hatchling is adult,” Fathom said, his spines lowering a little.

“I understand,” Pryce said, despite his desire to ask what was wrong. Fathom seemed saddened by the explanation, so perhaps he’d ask later when they had more words, or when he was more willing to talk about it.

He had something else he wanted to talk about anyway, today he had brought with him a large book; a bestiary of animals from the mainland. It was a thick book, and Pryce hoped to use it to teach Fathom about animals from the mainland. It wasn’t that Pryce thought Fathom would need to know them, but he was hoping Fathom could tell him about the animals that lived on this island by using the ones native to the Mainland as comparisons.

Even now Pryce only saw glimpses of birds and other small creatures fluttering about the forest and jumping through the canopy. One time he swore he saw something swing its way through like a monkey, but he was unable to get a good visual.

Pryce would’ve liked to introduce all the species in the book to Fathom, but he didn’t need to know about the tens of species of rats or birds, nor did he need to know about the taxonomy or ancestry of the species. General body types, limbs, and features would be good enough for their purposes.

“Book,” Pryce said to the dragon, who gave it a cursory glance but seemed unimpressed. Pryce sat down with his back turned to Fathom, opening the book and pinching a page between his fingers. “This is one page, two pages, three pages,” he said, counting as he flipped each page onto his opposite hand.

“I understand.”

“Good,” Pryce said, flipping to the first sticky note he’d placed beforehand. “Rat,” he said, looking back at Fathom’s gaze now focused on the pictures.

“See…some rat,” Fathom said.

“Some rats here?” Pryce asked.

“Yes,” Fathom said, “But too small, dragon no eat.”

“Rat from Mainland, from here,” Pryce said, pointing at the map next to him.

“…From you home?” Fathom rumbled.

“Correction: From your home…and yes.” Fathom seemed to have a bit of difficulty with using the right word tenses, but Pryce didn’t blame him. He was fairly confident the dragon would learn the correct usages in time, and if he didn’t then it wasn’t a big deal.

“What big is rat?”

“What?”

Fathom held out a talon on each foreclaw and gestured varying sizes. “Oh, correction: How big is rat?”

“How big is rat?”

“Rat is ten to fifteen centimeters – ah,” Pryce halted upon seeing Fathom’s confused expression. “One-hundred centimeters is one meter,” Pryce said, pulling out the tape measurer to demonstrate. “Ten centimeters. Fifteen centimeters.”

“Understood.”

“Bird, some are very small, some are around one meter,” he said, flipping through the various bird entries and giving Fathom some time to look at each species. On occasion the dragon would say “Stop,” so that he could look at a particularly interesting bird. Sometimes he asked about a particular bird and Pryce did his best to answer in words that he would understand.

He seemed to like the Hoatzin in particular, telling Pryce to stop for a second time so he could look at it more.

“Beaver, this animal eats wood, makes trees fall. 70 – 80 centimeters long.” They didn’t eat wood, but it was close enough.

“Hrrm,” Fathom rumbled.

“Question?”

“Animal here like this, no make tree fall but eat wood,” he explained.

Interesting, though they didn’t sound like a threat. Pryce made a note to ask more about these tree-eaters later. “Wolf, 1 meter to 1.6 meters long,” he explained as he panned through the handful of wolf species.

“Tiger, two to three meters long.”

“Wait,” Fathom said, and Pryce let him look at the pictures for a minute. Unsurprisingly, the dragon liked to look at the more colorful animals.

“Bear, 1.3 to 2 meters long.”

“I see other animals?” Fathom asked.

Pryce looked at him quizzically and Fathom made an impatient flipping motion. “Oh, word is ‘next page’.”

“Next page.”

Fathom didn’t show much interest in most animals, often asking Pryce to flip to the next page until one caught his eyes. Pryce smiled; he couldn’t help but think that this dragon was basically ‘reading’ a picture-book.

“This wound small animals, some kill small animals,” Fathom said, surprising Pryce. They were in the section of marine life, and were currently on the entry for the octopus.

“This…is octopus, is in water,” Pryce said dubiously. Was Fathom warning him not to go into he water?

“No, is in land, in trees,” Fathom said.

“Uh…how…?” Pryce failed to form a sentence, his mind not quite linking ‘octopus’ and ‘in trees’.

“Octopus in trees, fly from tree to tree, fall on small animals, eat small animals,” Fathom explained.

“…Okay,” Pryce said, not sure how to respond. He was glad he hadn’t decided to go into the forest, though he never imagined anything as bizarre as this lurking in there. If he ever needed to go into the forest, then he should definitely wear a helmet and some other protective covering.

“Octopus wound dragon?” Pryce asked.

Fathom made a strange sound that was half chortle and half rumble. “Octopus eat small animal, no wound dragon,” he said, eyes narrowing in what Pryce assumed was mirth.

Pryce belatedly realized that of course humans would be considered small animals to a dragon, but the term was so out of place that his brain took a second to make the connection. “How long is octopus?”

“One meter…question?” Fathom said, shifting his wings like a shrug.

“Correction: Around one meter,” Pryce said, pivoting his hand in a so-so motion and taking note of the wing-shrug denoting uncertainty.

“Octopus is…around one meter…long,” Fathom said.

“Very good,” Pryce said approvingly. His sentences were already quite good, and he had been learning for… was today really only the third day? Pryce felt like he’d been teaching Fathom for at least a week by now.

“Next,” Fathom chided impatiently when Pryce hadn’t flipped for a few seconds.

“Oh, right,” Pryce said, flipping the page.

“Page,” Pryce said, pinching a single page between his fingers. “Next page, previous page,” he said, pointing at the respective pages.

“Understand – Next page,” Fathom said impatiently.

Pryce turned the page, chuckling.

“What is this?” Fathom asked, pointing at the words on one of the pages.

“Words,” Pryce said automatically.

Fathom looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“This is writing,” Pryce said, sketching out 1, 2, 3 in numerals and the draconic equivalents below. “This is ‘yes’, this is ‘no’” Pryce explained, adding those words next to the numbers, with blank spots beneath them for Fathom to fill in.

“Question: Dragon have writing?”

Fathom seemed to ponder the question for a second or two before sketching “!” and “–” underneath yes and no, respectively.

Interesting, one character for each word…so they used logograms? No modern human used those, but some ancient scripts used that structure. Pryce noticed that the ‘!’ – which coincidentally looked like an exclamation mark – was drawn with a thumb stabbing the ground with the middle talon drawn towards it, almost like the motion Fathom would make to pick something up.

That was an interesting idea; the gesture for accepting something could have been adapted to the gesture for drawing the very symbol for acceptance. He didn’t have a deep theory for “–”, but it looked like crossing something out.

Pryce sighed. Logograms would be a pain to learn, but he should make the effort. Fathom was learning the entire English spoken language after all.

“Raptor,” Pryce said and sketched into the sand. “What is word for raptor in dragon writing?”

“This,” Fathom said, drawing…a sketch of a raptor. It was stylistically similar to ancient sketches of animals made by his human ancestors.

Pryce frowned at that, wondering how to classify this written language. It seemed animals – at least raptors – were drawn using pictograms instead of logograms. He supposed it was not unreasonable, things that could be drawn were drawn, and concepts like ‘yes’ or ‘no’ were assigned more arbitrary symbols.

But that meant their written language couldn’t have much complex grammar, could it? Either their spoken language was more complex than their writing, or their language was simple in structure as well…though Pryce thought that was unlikely. Fathom had grasped more complex sentences very quickly, but comparatively struggled with tenses. The struggle might be explained by the complexity and arbitrary rules of tense conjugation, but Pryce strongly believed it wasn’t possible for someone to learn to use complex languages so quickly without using them themselves, especially when Fathom was fifty-two years old.

Pryce couldn’t imagine how quickly a newly hatched dragonet would learn to speak if a mature one was so proficient at learning. He wondered if Fathom was particularly gifted, or if all dragons were as quick at learning as he was.

“Written yes is like…pick up,” Pryce said, dropping and picking up a stick to convey his meaning.

“Pick up?” Fathom asked.

“Writing yes is like pick up with talons,” Pryce said, making a claw-shape with his fingers and tapping middle finger to thumb.

Fathom blinked, his eyes widening a little. “…yes, written yes is like pick-up,” he said, glancing down at his own foreclaw and absently miming the motion.

Pryce considered teaching Fathom how to read, but books were quite small in comparison, so even if he could learn to read Pryce wasn’t sure how useful it would be.

“You say question, I say answer. I teach, you learn,” Pryce said. “Understand?”

“…no?” Fathom said reluctantly.

“You know what this is,” Pryce said, picking up a seashell.

“I no no what this is,” Fathom disagreed. “This is seashell.”

Pryce rubbed his eyes; he was afraid of this. He changed tactics, mentally cursing homonyms.

“You understand what this is,” he said, gesturing with the seashell again.

“Yes, is seashell,” Fathom answered.

“You no understand what this is,” Pryce said, gesturing with a coin this time.

“…I yes understand, is shiny thing,” Fathom said.

“…yes,” Pryce admitted, “But this is coin.”

“Shiny coin.”

“Now you understand what coin is,” Pryce said, ignoring the avaricious gleam in his eyes. “You learn, I teach, now you understand? Question?” Pryce asked, adding the last word belatedly.

“Yes, I understand now.”

“You want coin, yesterday you want marble, two days ago you want mirror and knife, you understand ‘want’ now?”

“Yes, I want coin.”

Pryce chuckled and flicked the coin at Fathom, who deftly snatched it out of the air into the palm of his foreclaws to admire the sunlight glimmering off of it.

“Read is see writing, understand writing, speak writing,” Pryce said. “Question: You want to learn read?”

Fathom gave the small symbols a glance, and made an inconclusive rumbling noise.

“No?”

“Yes.”

“…you want to learn to read?” Pryce clarified, deciding to break that cycle before it started.

“No.”

“Understand,” Pryce said. Maybe a few months from now he’d change his mind –

“You read words, I learn.”

“You want me to read for you?” Pryce asked, lips twitching.

“Yes.”

Pryce couldn’t resist a chuckle at the thought of reading to a dragon, and Fathom cocking his head in response. “Question?”

“Nothing,” Pryce said, waving him off. “I read for you, which animal do you want me to start with?”

“Hoatzin,” Fathom said, and Pryce was glad that he gleaned the keywords from his long sentence. It would greatly accelerate Fathom’s learning if he were exposed to as much ‘proper’ English as possible while still understanding his intent.

They didn’t make much progress through the bestiary, what with Pryce having to explain every other new word, but at least Fathom learned many new words as a result. Pryce would have preferred to start with a simpler book, but almost all of the written material on the ship consisted of rather high-level non-fiction that Fathom could not even begin to understand at his current level.

On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if Fathom would be interested in low-level children’s books, even if they were more on his level. He made a mental note to check the crew’s personal belongings for any books later.

Soon the sun was low, the book having distracted them both from the passage of time.

“Goodnight Fathom,” Pryce said, the dragon standing up and shaking himself free of sand like a wet dog, only to pop the coin into his mouth.

“No eat coin!” Pryce warned.

Fathom only opened his mouth in response to show the coin sitting on the floor of his mouth.

“Oh,” Pryce said. Apparently, dragons held small items in their mouths? The coin couldn’t have tasted good, but it was a reasonable solution when one didn’t have fingers.

“Goodnight Gharum,” Fathom said with a humorous lilt, then he shook his wings loose and leapt into the skies before Pryce could respond.

“Goodnight to you too,” Pryce huffed.

[JOURNAL ENTRY]

Today was quite fruitful, I taught Fathom some more common words and began showing him various entries in the bestiary. He seemed particularly interested in colorful animals such as birds and tigers.

Upon Fathom’s request, I spent the rest of the afternoon reading to him. We didn’t get very far through the bestiary, since I had to explain most of the words, but he learned many new words, and it was…fun.

Wound progress update: By comparing the pictures I had taken of the injury before, I can determine that the scabs covering the tear have expanded – especially at the beginning and the end. I am curious how the healing process occurs, as wings seem like they would be put under much stress and yet Fathom seems able to fly without much pain.

If I had to guess, the first stage of the healing process would be to cover the damaged tissue with scabs as per usual, but then the body should focus on completely healing the edges of the tear rather than heal all parts of it at once; this explained the thickened scabs along the ends of the tear that likely reinforce the weak spots. If the entire scab healed at once, then the wing would simply re-open.

I wonder if the thickened scabs will ‘move’ along the injury as the tear closes? That would be interesting to see.

Having finished his journal entry for today, Pryce went through some of the crew’s rooms, looking for books in the lantern’s light. He felt like he was intruding a little, and promised to himself that he would return whatever he borrowed to their families if he ever made it back.

He checked Dr. Siebert’s room for the sake of thoroughness rather than any real expectation; she was a very no-nonsense type of professional, so it surprised him greatly when he found an old, worn child’s book in a drawer simply titled ‘The Book of Fairy Tales’.

On the inside of the cover was a name scrawled in a child’s writing.

“Ron.”

Pryce carefully put the book back where it belonged, and returned to his room.