11
Neglis
© cognitivedistortion.com
Admittedly, though I didn't actually sleep, I felt somewhat rested when the drake came over and nudged me. I blinked a couple times and asked rhetorically, "So what's for breakfast?" I thought, right after that, "Not me I hope", but I'd gotten the feeling by now the drake hadn't brought me all this way just to devour me. It gave me a weird stare and moved back towards the far wall. From there, it motioned for me to come over.
As I strode over to its side of the cavern, I noticed it was etching something onto the wall with a smaller piece of rock. I came right up beside the drake to look at it closely once it had finished. There were six characters, all in dwarven runes. Great. The drake was now pointing at it, looking to me, and then pointing to itself. It repeated this several times.
"I can't read dwarven runes, sorry," I told it. It kind of frowned (it looked like a frown, anyways), and then started the process of pointing to the runes and then itself again.
"Okay, okay," I said with a sigh. "Lemme take a look at this." I moved closer to the runes and looked over them carefully. "Um... This is an 'O', right?" I asked, looking to the drake expectantly.
It shook its head and gave a huff in frustration. Hurriedly, I tried again.
"Um... a 'V'?"
It shook its head again and gave an even louder, more agitated huff.
I kind of winced and asked, "Uh, you couldn't just write this in English, could you?"
It then brought its head right down to level with mine and gave a very sudden huff, like a tutor getting indignant when the student isn't paying attention.
"Okay..." I exhaled quickly.
We went on like that for several hours until I had gotten the correct letters by trial and error. I was certainly glad this drake was patient. Then I remembered it had been pointing to itself and made a quick conclusion.
"Neglis?" I asked. "Your name is Neglis?"
The drake nodded vigorously. If it had ever been pleased up until now, this was the only time it showed its satisfaction.
"Pleased to meet you, Neglis," I said with a smile.
Neglis lost his (I've always assumed Neglis is a 'he') pleased look and gained quite the opposite expression. I learned from that point on Neglis disliked needless pleasantries. He preferred getting straight to the point and sticking to business. I actually found I liked this trait. In any case, I'd felt the "Pleased to meet you" bit was a little stupid anyways and told him so afterwards. Realizing that I also preferred to bluntly but honestly say what I meant, I told him why I had come here.
"Uh, Neglis, I came here for a specific reason," I stated, and the drake seemed to listen carefully while I got into my long explanation of how I had arrived in Middle Earth and what my mission was upon arriving.
I told him about the disappearance of my friends in my world and how I had so foolishly decided to use the power of the Fire Relic to get to the realm of which they'd gone to so I could rescue them and almost gotten myself vaporized in the process.
I told him of then meeting the elves and discovering that my friends were all safe with them. I told him how they had so graciously helped me out once I was there and how I wanted to repay their kindness by coming back with a way to help them defend against their enemies. I told him of how I had left in secret to locate a drake to help me fight.
Lastly, I told him of the sword and how it had reacted to me. I felt it was especially important that I mention the hilt's transformation where the engraving of the drake showed up.
I then asked for his help in all of this.
Neglis just stood there for a few seconds. I got the feeling he understood English very well, for he seemed to be thinking over what I'd said. Finally, he nodded with a pleased look on his face (It's hard to explain how a drake can look pleased. It's just something you'd have to see for yourself.) and silently agreed to help me in my endeavour.
I had to warn Neglis right then and there, of course, that I had the habit of doing risky things on my own and had nearly met death on several occasions. I said that last bit with a slight grin. Neglis also seemed to find that tidbit of information slightly amusing. I suspect he was thinking of the incident with the wurm yesterday, my adventure with the Fire Relic, and how I had come all this way without informing any of the others (with the exception of Arwen, of course).
He told me he would allow me to ride on his back and fight with me, for I seemed to be the "rare type of human" which truly understood that a drake was not just a mere animal, but was to be respected and treated as an equal. He told me all this through those dwarven runes again (don't ask how long that took). Besides, he told me he'd taken a liking to me for my bravery. I pointed out that might actually just be stupidity, and he just seemed to smirk (in his drake way) and said nothing further to that.