Kirsty Murray

Hey Kirsty,

Me and my friend Bridey are writing a book called The Lost Dragons. Please let me know what you think.


Prologue


It was the biggest and brightest fire that the Dragons had ever seen. And from it two girls emerged. The first girl that appeared had jet-black hair with green streaks, olive skin, brilliant green eyes and a face that was gentle and yet full of authority. The perfect Dragon Princess. And the second had dark brown hair, with dark blue streaks, tanned skin, eyes the colour of the ocean and a face that looked kind but fierce. Also the perfect Dragon Princess. But the girls were not to know this. Not yet anyway. So two dragons, one by the name of Z’eläniy who was a brilliant green just like the first girls eyes and the other by the name of Zuän who was as blue as the ocean just like the second girls eyes, took the two girls, one each, and put them to sleep with a soft spell that was almost a whisper. They flew the girls to opposite sides of the world where they would grow up away from each other and Dragons until they were ready to know their true identity. When they woke up they would just remember a nice, peaceful dream and the streaks in their hair faded as if they were never there. Also a Dragon Pendant with the words:
“Tale, wanotreyxkaiv di wer darastrixi.”
For the first girl and for the second:
“Blaize, wanotreyxkaiv di wer darastrixi.”
Hanging on a piece of string around their necks.



























Chapter One
Woari Island, 1:30am

Tale Arcaniss woke with a start. She had been dreaming. She was flying, on the back of a dragon. Then she was falling. Falling into the night. Then she was here. In a bed made of straw with a thin, patched blanket covering her, the cold of the night seeping through the thin fabric. She turned her head to look at the clock on the shelf. It read 1:30am. She slowly crept out of bed and pulled on some rough cotton shorts and a simple tunic. She walked down the stone path to the river, which was lit with the glow of the moon. She took off her Dragon Pendant and held it in the moonlight so she could read the words that were carved into it:
“Tale, wanotreyxkaiv di wer darastrixi.”
Tale had no idea what the words meant, except for the first word, which is her name, though she pondered them every night, and she felt sure that when the time was right she would know. She slowly walked back up the path towards the house and went back to her room to get some more sleep.

*

This time when Tale woke up it was to the shouts of her mother’s voice.
“Tale. Tale Arcaniss. Get down here immediately. It’s harvest day and these crops aren’t gonna harvest themselves.”
“Coming Mum”, Tale replied, half groaning, half sighing. She hated harvest day. When she got down stairs, she found her father waiting for her with a bucket, gloves, a coil of rope and some secateurs. Suddenly, as though they were never there at all, all her regrets she had had about harvest day were gone. She would be climbing. She couldn't wait to get outside, out into the open where the sky was the limit. Literally. Tale Arcaniss was the best climber in town. Ask anyone. She could climb among the uppermost braches of the trees with an air of confidence around her; you would almost think she was born to climb.
As soon as Tale had finished her breakfast, she rushed outside to feel the morning coolness on her face.
“Which tree will it be first Dad?” she asked eagerly, hoping it would be the big apple tree that stood on the far side of the fields. She was almost half way to the tree when her dad said, “Not that one just yet, darling. Start with the smaller ones first. It’s been a while since you’ve climbed.” This time she let out a full groan at her disappointment. “But Dad”, she protested. But all her Dad said was, “No buts. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Fine.”
Her dad led the way to one of the smaller apple trees, where she threw the rope up and over a sturdy branch, and then she looped the rope around her waist, and when she was sure her dad had the rope securely in his hands, she leapt up onto the closest branch and stretched out her hands for the bucket and secateurs. Tale reached out for the closest apple and cut it off and caught it neatly in the bucket. She continued this process with all the trees, until she was at the top of the big apple tree, with the sun in her eyes and the light breeze pulling at her hair. She loved this feeling. Being away from people and noise, and just relaxing with peace and quiet, only the bids for company. She could stay here all day long if it wasn’t for her dad calling for her to come inside now for lunch. She jumped from the top of the tree and landed gracefully, poised on the tips of her toes.
“Dad. Can we find someone in the village to teach me how to fight?”
“We’ll see. But why would you want to learn fighting?”
“Because it seems interesting. And anyway, I need to be able to defend myself right?”
“Yes”, he sighed.

*

For lunch they had some steamed rice from the fields and apple pie for desert. Afterwards, Tale went up to her room and sat on her bed, thinking. Thinking about who her parents really were. Lucy and Adam Arcaniss weren’t her real parents, she knew that much. Lucy and Adam had told her the story of how they had found her.

*

Late at night, on a summers evening, Adam was working late in the fields to get the seeds sown before winter. It was that night that she was found. She was lying in the middle of the fields, under a blanket that had a note attached to it. It read:
“Lucy vur Adam Arcaniss. Nomeno ui Tale. Vorq ghent jacioniv lae sjek jaciv jahus dout kurjh. Ir kear jaciv geou vucot.”
Of course these words made no sense, but he found that he understood them. He took Tale into his arms, and studied her face and her appearance. Tale had jet-black hair with green streaks, olive skin, brilliant green eyes and a face that was gentle and yet full of authority. She only looked to be about three years old at the most. Adam thought about what Lucy would say. They had always wanted a daughter. Adam carried Tale back through the night to the house. Lucy was overjoyed. They finally had a daughter to call their own. Tale. What an unusual name, Lucy thought, unaware to fact that that was what Adam was thinking as well. Now almost ten years later, she was still here with no sign of her biological parents. In two days time she would be thirteen.
















Chapter Two

Blaize stood up and wiped the mud off the knees of her trousers, she paused and looked at the sun, thinking about the strange dream she had had the night before. She was flying over the shimmering moon across the vast ocean, and the light reflecting of the thing she was flying on. She couldn’t remember what she was flying on but it was big and blue like the ocean they were flying over. It’s skin, or rather scales, we’re warm and hard, but comfortable. Her dream was hazy but she remembered that she was happy.
“Blaize!” someone yelled.
Blaize jumped and turned around just to see her father, Bryan, scrabbling through the olive vines, dodging the hooves that Harold sent his way and finally jumped over the muddy patch of earth and stood, grinning, in front of her.
“Did you see that! It’s like a minefield out here isn’t it?” he said, obviously overjoyed by the fact he hadn’t been caught up in the olive branches, kicked by Harold our horse or slipped in the mud that seemed to always find a way into Blaize’s hair no matter what she did when she was working out in the field.
“A very big minefield.” Blaize said, wondering why her dad had come through all that for. She got her answer quickly. “So I need you to go and get some water from the river.”
Blaize went pale.
“Now Blaize I know you don’t like the river but you just need to fill the bucket with water and then you can run the hell out of there alright? Listen, I know you hate it but sometimes in life you have to get over your fear and face it, right in the face!” he yelled, pointing with two fingers at his face so close that they we’re almost poking him in the eyes.
“ D-dad I c-can’t, you know I c-cant, ever since that day that thing dragged me in!”
“I know sweetie, but please just this once, your mother is sick and I have to harvest all the potato’s before night. I just don’t have time to go to the river and back, and we need water to help your mother.”

“Dad!” but before the words even left her lips her father had put the bucket in her hands and was weaving his way back through the ‘minefield’.

*

Blaize used to like the water. A lot. She’d swim whenever she could and she was a natural anyway. People always said she had swimming shoulders. One day she was just doing the usual, going down to have a swim while she got some water to put in the family’s tank. Leaning over the small ledge that had crumbled away over the years. She remembered the shock and horror of the cold water unexpectedly surrounding her, getting colder and colder and she was dragged deeper and deeper, the world around her turning dark. Taken by surprise she hadn’t been able to even take a breath before she was underwater so her lungs were already burning with the strain. Blaize started kicking and punching anything that touched her.
Suddenly the thing that was pulling her down stoped. She didn’t know why but she was moving upwards, very slowly, she was starting to see light and she started kicking and swam as fast as she could. Suddenly the surface of the water broke and she could hear and breathe and see more than just the blue of the water. Blaize took a giant gulp of air, like it was her first.

So yeah, you can see why almost dying because of something can make you mortally afraid of that something. As Blaize walked to the river, at least 30 minutes walk there, she subconsciously reached for her necklace, a dragon pendant she called it. It was blue like her eyes and was the shape of a dragon with its tail curling downwards. It was the only thing she had of her life before she was found by Bryan and Sue. No one knew where Blaize came from or how she got here but she was found sleeping in one of Bryan’s fields all alone and cold, luckily Bryan and Sue had always wanted a child and they are kind people, so they took her in and looked after her. The only things she had we’re her dragon pendant and some clothes and the worst of it was that she couldn’t remember anything from before.
She wondered who her real parents were, as much as she loved Bryan and Sue she wished she knew who her biological parents were.
Blaize paused. She could hear running water. She didn’t realise how much time had passed by, her heart started pounding in her chest, she could hear her fathers words echoing in her ears, “Sometimes in life you have to get over your fear and face it, right in the face!”
Blaize slowly started to walk towards the river, each step smaller than the last. The memories that she had tried so hard to push out her mind were all flashing back into her mind. The seemingly bottomless depth of the river underneath her, the cold wrapping around her, making her muscles tighten…
She shook her head to rattle the thoughts out if her head. Trying to concentrate on the task ahead without thinking about the cold depths or the animal that might still be alive in the river, waiting for its prey.
Blaize was 10m away from the river; she stopped again, blood pounding to her ears, deafening her.
At some point she must of started moving again because she suddenly found herself standing a few feet away, looking into the clear blue water.


Oh and by the way, Bridey and I go to Aquinas College and you talked to my English class.

Thanks Tiana (: