Wings of Fire: Secret of the Bushes

Chapter 8

In the following weeks, Cloud spent every night trying to meet with the dragon. Everyday he tried bringing something to show to the dragon and they'd have a look of wonder as Silver examined the things he brought. He'd show Silver how some of the things work like his grappling hook. He'd shown the dragon how Cloud could climb and the dragon would have this look of amazement.

One time Cloud brought with him some food he could share with the dragon. Silver particularly liked the jam sandwiches he shared. When he offered Silver some meat slices or some dried-up fish, they just retracted in disgust while covering their snout. Cloud never thought the dragon would dislike meat but that made him even more comfortable knowing the dragon was never interested in eating him or anyone.

Cloud had observed Silver as they kept scribbling on the large piece of parchment. He watched how the dragon meticulously made symbols on the parchment like they were writing in their own language. He saw Silver sketch drawings of some of the things he gave them. These past few days have shown Cloud that the dragon is more than just an animal in the forest. They also learn and study, write and draw, feel and understand. Cloud wanted to learn more about dragons after he spent this much time with Silver.

~

It was a quiet day inside the bush clan village of Defiant. Everyone was out doing their jobs and the watchers have been getting more busy than usual as they started preparations for the negotiations with the wave clan again. Cloud was in one of the archives, looking for any books or scrolls about dragons. Oddly enough there was barely anything he could find that even remotely talked about dragons. Most of the books in the archives were dated from before The Scorching while very few were found to be written shortly after that period.

The archivists have done a good job of maintaining the ancient written texts. Most of the text that can be found were about the ancient kingdoms and ancient studies such as math, philosophy, science and strangely enough there was a book about a strange magical force called Magus. However despite the archives being full of texts about their ancient world, barely anything was written about dragons.

None of the texts covered dragons despite the world crawling with them. Cloud figured that no one knew enough about dragons before the Scorching. But there was a chance that none were saved during the disaster.

Cloud continued to skim through the book covers in the shelves until he came upon a peculiar cover.

~Journal of the First Chief~

The first chief. Cloud had never thought about who the chiefs were that far back in time. All his life he thought this was how the clan has always been. The clan always gets a new chief once the old one passes and that was all Cloud cared to know. Cloud thought about how he might lead the clan one day when his father passes the responsibility to him.

Still something about this book is calling to him. Maybe a small peek wouldn't hurt.

Cloud took it out of the shelf and first noticed how much older it was compared to the rest of the books. This book has not been rewritten in centuries. Luckily it's still holding together and the words are readable.

Cloud flipped through the pages nonchalantly and tried to find something of interest to read.

The first chief was named Hunter. He lived in a small village before the Scorching happened and he had to lead the refugees out eventually settling in the mines Cloud now lives in.

Cloud had been skimming through the pages, skipping through entries without reading too deeply into them. He turned the pages back and decided to read a few entries more deeply. He stopped at one entry and his eyes lit up.