Hey all, it is me again, bringing you another chapter for this story. I know it has been a while, but as those of you who follow my Alpha and Omega stories will know, I've been busy posting up a new story, thus I haven't had the time to work on this one, anyway, that is no longer the case and I can finally bring out this chapter, enjoy.

Chapter 7: The Book Of The Shadow Dragon

The rays of the early morning sun shone down through the slanted window in the roof of the house and broke into shards of light which seemed to rain down on the sleeping dragon below. Spyro groggily opened his eyes and yawned, what time was it, obviously not too late or he suspected Jothanna would have come in and woke him up, once again he examined the pendant that hung round his scaly neck, he got up and looked around noticing his door was slightly ajar, cautiously he crept over to it and carefully nudged it with his tail and stepped back as a bucket full of water came crashing down into the doorway, just missing Spyro, he heard his sister giggle from somewhere down the hallway and the patter of her paws against the stone floor, really, after 4 days she really was getting predictable. Ember scooted to a stop in the doorway of her brother's room expecting to find him dripping wet and cursing her like the first time she had successfully done it, instead she found him sitting behind a large wet patch in the doorway staring at her with not even one drop of water on his scales, "ha, I'm not falling for that again" he taunted, this annoyed Ember who leaped at her adopted sibling, the sound of the two fighting dragons woke up Jothanna. "Could you two please at least wait till I've woken up to start squabbling" She asked as she entered the room. "So what are you two planning on doing today?" Jothanna asked over breakfast, "well, Ruthenia told me that she would teach me how to read and said that she would let me borrow the scrolls on shadow dragons.

After he had finished eating, Spyro ran out of the village and up towards Ruthenia's underground library, he couldn't wait to start learning how to read those scrolls and possibly learn more about himself other than his name and the fact he was a shadow dragon. After almost getting lost in the labyrinth of paths and trees, Spyro eventually made it to the entrance. He rapped on the door with his paw before hearing footsteps and the door opened, Ruthenia peering round it, "oh it's you" she exclaimed, laying her eyes on the young shadow dragon, "please do come in" Ruthenia called to the young dragon who followed her inside, just like the previous day, Ruthenia led Spyro down through the long passageways and into the large hall. When they entered the room, Ruthenia pointed to one of the side rooms which had a table in the center and a fire-pit to one side with a fur rug in front of it. "You wait there and I'll go and find the scrolls" Ruthenia suggested. Spyro walked into the room and sat at the table as he waited for Ruthina. Not long after Spyro sat down, there was a clicking of claws against stonework as Ruthenia entered the room carrying a woven bundle containing multiple books and scrolls in her maw, behind her was Shira carrying a tome with a black cover and an imprint of a dragon with strange lettering above it in shining silver that Spyro's mind immediately knew to say "The book of the Shadow Dragon". Spyro had no idea how he knew what the book said. Ruthenia placed the bundle of books and scrolls on the table and turned to face Spyro. "I assume that you do not know how to read and write, so I'll start off with the basics." Ruthenia said as she placed two scrolls on the table, one filled with shapes in neat rows, the other one blank.

"These are dragon runes, it is our written language passed down through generations, is is how we communicate and record our knowledge so that future generations can use it, this rune here for example represents fire" Ruthenia explained as she pointed to a rune shaped like a bolt of flame. "And this one here is the word Dragon, see if you can write it." she continued, pointing to a silhouette of a dragon with its wings outstretched. Spyro dipped one of his claws in a pot of ink that was on the table and began copying out the symbols for fire and dragon onto the blank scroll, taking his time to get them perfect without stabbing his claw through the parchment. The two of them continued like this with Ruthenia teaching Spyro the meanings of the different symbols and getting him to write out sentences.

Spyro then began to read one of the scrolls, first with help from Ruthenia and then she stopped helping him and let him read on his own. This first scroll was a story about a shadow dragon and a fire dragon who fell in love with each-other, however, the fire dragons hated the shadow dragons intensely and so the male fire dragon had to visit the shadow dragon in secret, lest his farther find out. The two dragons ran away together and according to the legend founded a place called Warfang and gave birth to the first purple dragon, Spyro himself had never heard of Warfang or of such a thing as a purple dragon, although both of these sounded important. When he had finished reading this story, he picked up the strange book that Shira had brought in. "No one knows where that book originated, the only thing we do know is that it has something to do with shadow dragons, the language it is written in is one that none of us can understand and if our ancestors could once understand it then they never passed on that gift." Ruthenia explained, watching as Spyro flicked through the pages, "but I can understand it" Spyro protested as he placed the book down on the fur rug in front of the fire-pit and opened the first page. Ruthenia looked at him in surprise, "you can?" she asked. Spyro simply nodded in response and continued reading. "Hmmm, maybe only Shadow-dragons can read those runes, I have heard stories before that the Shadow dragons created their own language so that their secrets would remain secret. Listen, you can keep that book, it's not much use here if only you can read it, however, could you maybe make a translated copy for me, it would be useful to have and it would help you to practice writing as well." Ruthenia offered, Spyro thought carefully about the idea before he nodded his head in agreement and continued reading.

This book was incredibly interesting, not only because of the strange writing that Spyro could read as easily as if he had been learning it all his life, but also because of how much detail it went in to about each ability. The first page talked about the mist that Spyro had used, it was called shadow-fog and was apparently one of the most versatile of dragon abilities and the next several pages listed hundreds of uses for the fog (to cool burns and as an escape tool were just two of them). Spyro practiced blowing some fog, it felt cool and calming when it touched his skin, certainly useful. The next ability Spyro read about was breathing fire, however, whereas fire dragons could just naturally breath fire, shadow dragons had to concentrate to achieve a flame. The next thing the book talked about was something called shadow-stepping, he wasn't sure what it was, but Spyro thought it sounded cool. He decided that he would have to try the shadow-stepping and this fire ability later.

Spyro became so engrossed in his book that he hardly noticed Ruthenia enter the room and set a flame in the fire-pit. The warmth of the heated air against his scales and the softness of the fur rug below him started to make Spyro feel drowsy. As he continued reading, Spyro let out a yawn and his eyes drooped heavily.

"Spyro..."

"Spyro..."

"Spyro, wake up" Jothanna called softly.

Yawning, Spyro opened his eyes and stretched, looking up at the caring and concerned eyes of his adoptive mother. "I was wondering where you were, I thought you would be back ages ago, but it seems you dozed off" Jothanna observed. "He did and I won't lie, he looked adorable as he did so." Ruthenia replied as she moved to tidy up the last of the scrolls. "That I can believe" Jothanna muttered. "I hope you don't mind me keeping this Ruthenia replied, pointing to the table,Spyro looked round and recoiled in horror at what he saw. There sitting on the table was a coloured sketch of him curled up in front of the fire with his tail wrapped round himself. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you keep that...Not unless I get a copy" Jothanna giggled. "MUM!" Spyro yelled, not believing that his adoptive mother would willingly embarrass him like that. "I'll see what I can do. I'll deliver the copy personally" Ruthenia replied.

Jothanna and Spyro said goodbye to Ruthenia and thanked her for letting Spyro keep the book, before they headed back towards the village.

Until next time. This is xXShadowTheWolfXx signing off.