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castleseer · 1 year

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This is such a cool idea! Great story so far! Can't wait to read more 😁

The Mysterious Message: A Fic

I imagine this one taking place when Jane and Gunther are Dragonblade-age.

Summary: When a large amount of unusual runes are discovered, Jane and Gunther must work together to try to understand the message.

When Gunther pulled her aside and asked her to speak to him in an empty closet without warning, it took all of Jane’s self control not to respond with a retort, and laugh in his face.The grave look on Gunther’s face gave her pause. This was very out of character and very serious.

“First, you have to promise that you will keep this secret. My father cannot find out about this under any circumstances, and he may hear of it if you share this information too freely.”

Jane nodded. “I promise.”

Gunther reached into his pocket and pulled out a neatly folded piece of musty paper.

“My father recently had a meeting with another merchant, who has a young child. Due to the adults being busy, the child was handed off to me to watch during the meeting. She was playing with a ball, and the ball rolled into a room my father accidentally left open and hit a bookshelf. This fell out.”

He looked at her expectantly. She took the paper from him and unfolded it.

She gasped.

“Well?” Gunther asked after a pause. “What do you think?”

She stared at him, and then the paper again, shock rendering her speechless.

The paper was covered in dragon runes.

Several minutes later, in Jane’s room, she poured over the runes, copying them as best she could on a separate sheet of paper so Gunther could return the original before his father suspected anything was amiss. She mentally sorted the runes into categories as she copied, ranging from I already have this rune memorized to I couldn’t translate this if you held a blade to my throat.

Tragically, the majority of the runes fell closer to the latter category. She’d have to discuss that with Dragon when she saw him soon.

She finished copying, exhaling sharply and standing up, brushing her hair out of her face and pumping her hands up and down to alleviate the cramping that had begun from all her fervent writing.

“So, what do you think?” Gunther asked slowly. He was twitching slightly, like all his pent-up questions and anxiety were writhing beneath his skin. She felt the same way.

“Well, the good news is I have already identified some of them.” She started pointing out the known symbols. “This one means love. This one means happiness (or some variation of happy). This one means mountain.”

“That’s it?”

“Do you want to try? Let me know how far you get.”

“Fine, fine. Are you going to speak to Dragon about this?”

“He will most likely be our greatest help.”

Gunther grimaced. “Can he keep a secret?”

“If I make him promise, then yes. I hope.”

Gunther’s grimace deepened, but he nodded and picked up the original paper, seeing as he had no other options.

“I have to put this back, my father will be home soon. Let me know what you find.”

“Shortlives and their tiny hands are unsuited for writing runes.” Dragon announced after squinting at the paper in torchlight for a long time. “Whoever wrote this botched centuries of language so badly it’s offensive to dragons!”

“Calm down, I copied them as best as I could, and I’m certain they didn’t mean to ruin centuries of-centuries.” Her eyes widened as she finally saw the reason the runes were so hard to decipher.

“What? Did the two headed snake that sometimes comes around slither by you?”

“Look at the runes on the walls around us, Dragon.” Jane lifted up her torch, illuminating the ancient symbols that surrounded them. “They were carved by your father before your hatching, three hundred years ago.”

“Languages do not stay the same for three hundred years. If there’s someone out there, still using runes, then the language has adapted in some ways for the modern world.”

Dragon was stunned into a very brief silence. “Are you saying all of this, everything we’ve decoded, over all these years…is obsolete?!”

“Of course not! Some of these runes remain unchanged, look! It says mountain, and love and happy-Dragon?”

Dragon had an unfamiliar, almost frightening look in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to set someone on fire and then sob over their remains.

She knew she wouldn’t be harmed by any potential outburst, but she couldn’t guarantee anyone else’s safety. The thought chilled her.

“Dragon? Dragon, what’s wrong?” Use your words instead of your flames.

“It’s hopeless.” He spoke slowly, gathering his thoughts, sounding miserable in a way she’d almost never heard. “For all this time, these runes were my connection to the world of dragons. I thought if I ever met another dragon, maybe they would help me communicate. But if they’re outdated…it’s hopeless. I’ll never befriend another dragon. I’ll never join them. I’ll never understand.”

He dragged his claws against the stone out of anger, then lowered his head until it was practically touching the cave floor.

She rushed to his side, hugging his head. “Oh, Dragon, no.”

“I’m so sorry,” she continued. “I know it’s hard, but there will always be someone out there who will want to be your friend. When we find more dragons, I’m certain there will be plenty of them who will want to hear your stories, and listen to your jokes. Maybe, if there are dragon scholars, they will love to hear your insights on older runes. They’ll care about you, I promise.”

She affectionately scratched the scales on his cheek a little. He sighed and closed his eyes.

“There’s still so much more to learn.” He said quietly.

“And we can do it together.”

“Did you learn anything else about the runes?” Gunther panted between blows as they sparred.

“Not now,” Jane grunted. It was difficult to focus on sparring on someone while trying to have an intellectual conversation with them. “After this.”

He smirked a little. “Not letting anything get in the way of victory, I see.”

“Focus!” Sir Theodore shouted from nearby.

They both fell silent, and back into the familiar rhythm.

Jane explained her theory about modern runes to Gunther as they took a break between spars. (For the record, he had won that round. She tried not to be overly bitter and decided that giving him more information would serve as a good show of peace and cooperation.)

“That makes a lot of sense,” He said with a nod. “But have you deciphered any more of it?”

“Dragon and I have come to a standstill when it comes to translations, but he’s scouting out more runes in his caves now. Hopefully that will give us more possible reference points.”

He nodded again. “I have a theory of my own to propose.”

“Please share.”

“The way the paper is written…the format reminds me of a letter. There’s very few runes at the very top, then paragraphs-do runes come in paragraphs, normally?-beneath that, then a sentence at the end. Like a send off.”

“I had noticed that too, but I got distracted with the translations themselves.” She lowered her voice. “Do you think it was a letter addressed to your father?”

“Believe me, if he could read dragon runes, I would know it. He would secretly brag to me about it, and would have me- nevermind.

“If not to your father, then who? Who wrote it? Who received it?” Jane’s eyes widened. “What if we tried to find evidence of who sent it, an address? Then we could send our own message to them!”

Gunther snorted. “I’m certain that would go well. ‘Greetings, Jane and I are two Kippernian knights you’ve never met who found your encrypted message hidden away. Would you be so kind and tell us what that’s all about? Best regards, Gunther, Jane, and Jane’s Dragon.’”

“Yes, I see your point.” Jane said, feeling like she was pulling out a thorn stuck in her skin. She sighed. “We should focus on the translation for now.”

Gunther nodded, but he looked a little disappointed that he himself couldn’t do more.

Come on Gunther, think! He told himself as he walked through the courtyard. Clearly your father has to have some kind of connection-or interest, at the very least- in the contents of the message. And it had to get in his house somehow. Was it interesting enough to steal? Or was it sent to him?

It was stolen, most likely. Why would he receive something he couldn’t read?

I wish I could write messages my father couldn’t read. I could have dozens of pen pals, and he could never know what we say. He smiled a little despite himself, thinking of how red his father’s face would get at the sight of his son conversing in code, creating something he couldn’t touch or own.

That’s when it hit him.

There’s only one other person I know of who my father tried to own, tried to hide away everything about her.

My mother.

There was a sudden, powerful gust of frigid wind. It blew his hair in his face, forcing him to brush it out of the way, to turn his head upward slightly as he cleaned himself up.

Up in the sky, clearly visible, was a cloud in the shape of a dragon, soaring north.

A strange feeling rose inside him. He smelled something in the air now.

Mother? He asked silently.

As I watch my own children play around me, I think about her. She would most likely be a mother now, bearing that Kippernian man’s offspring. I try to picture her with her babies, but it’s surprisingly difficult. The child’s face is shrouded by fog. In my head, she has not aged a day, even though it has been quite some time since I last saw her.

She stopped responding to my messages. That was the first sign something was amiss. Even though we wrote them in the runes everyone in the family knew, I sense her husband had somehow decoded them, or at least made a substantial effort to stop them.

It makes me feel strange, not knowing what became of her. I was not as close to her as some of her other family members, but I love her and wrote to her regardless.

She’s…perseverant, from what I remember of her. No matter what life threw at her, she would find a way through it. I genuinely believe she is out there somewhere, maybe even trying to find her way back to us.

One of my children calls me over. I go to him. A strong, frigid wind gusts through, blowing my hair in my face and forcing me to move my head around a little. Then I see it.

A cloud, in the shape of a sword.

A strange feeling rises in me. Some say our dragon-riding ancestors learned to divine bits of prophecies in the shapes of clouds as they flew in the skies. Even fewer still believe that we descendants still have this ability.

Being cynical, I hardly believed.

But now?

I understand, as clearly as if she herself had written the words in the sky.

She had a child. A sword-wielding one, or one who possesses traits associated with the symbol of swords. I shall have to ask someone for advice at once. I should go to her father. He would move heaven and earth to find even the smallest trace of her again. Especially if that trace exists in a grandchild.

We spoke fervently for hours. Even the most superstitious of my relatives were hesitant about my idea, but eventually I won them over. “It’s the only way,” I told them.

They relented.

We’re going to Kippernia.

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