I opened my mouth to speak for a second then realized they probably wouldn't understand. I did my best to try and think of a way to tell them I can't speak their language without hurting myself. My ears drooped, showing I was a bit sad. I looked her in the eyes grabbed my throat then did a slicing motion over it with the same hand then pointed to my heavily barbed, forked tongue after sticking it out. I covered my mouth after, with a small bow saying sorry for sticking out my tongue. I hoped one of them would understand what I was trying to say.

"si shilta ti renthisj dout xanalre ios ouithir sio," I said

(i cannot speak your language without hurting myself)

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I huffed at their slowness, but just shrugged it off and continued to eat my fish. I began talking to myself

"coi ui shuurlai nomenoi xiekivi tir ti ocuir ve lae vi utih ralthokvi, nomagqe si tiliw ir'malh gasak for vi smunsoua." I said then paused

"sva gekip halkvri astahii winev ekik svabol si mi" I said with a sigh

I finished my fish and threw the undigestable bones back in the water so a predator wouldn't be able to smell them. I stepped out of the water and stretched, cracking my back, neck, and hands.

I put up a single finger and nodded for the first question. For the second one, I put up two fingers and shook my head. I looked around for a flat rock because I hated laying in the sand. Once I found one I laid on it to soak up the sun, I was considerably low on energy.

"nomeno kiwiegic tafil d'nag," I said with a yawn and rested my eyelids

I was enjoying this, I could talk to myself and no one could judge me because no one understands me. They would just call me weird as the girl called me.

I sighed and turned to go. "It was nice to meet you.

"Come on, Grynneth," I said. I took a step towards home, then stopped. "If you do happen to see an elf, like me, come find me. I'm looking for someone. Also, I think you seem interesting. I wish I could understand you."

I shook my head and walked away, Grynneth following.

I huffed in frustration and smoke came out my nose, I couldn't tell if they noticed but I immediately started walking away. I was going to wander a bit, and despite having heavy feet I was considerably quiet. For once not everything was scared of me, it was almost as if they had never seen a dragon. I thought it was strange and brushed it off until a fox walked straight up to me and sniffed me while I was looking around. I didn't exactly like it, I preferred to stay away from others. The only exception was other dragons, but that was because if we even disagreed it could lead to a fight then it would end in a few things being destroyed.

I returned to the lake the next morning. Amrene had shown up last night, so my only reason of going back to the lake was to study. This was the quietest spot I knew, and I sat down on the shore with my book. The title read, One Hundred Languages: A Guide. I didn't enjoy meeting new people, but when I did I tried to get to know them.

It was only about five minutes before I fell asleep .

The cave I stayed in overnight wasn't that bad, but now I was afraid to appear in my dragon form. I instead took the long walk back to the lake, leaves crunched under my feet and steam rolled off my warm body. It was a cold autumn morning, there was still frost covering the leaves that would soon turn into morning dew. The same fox from yesterday trailed behind me, I don't know why it is so keen on following me. It even slept in the cave with me last night, which I found strange. For all I knew it was the spirit of a kitsune stuck in a fox's body so I didn't do it any harm.

The sound of leaves crunching distracted me. The air was still, so the sounds from the forest carried across the lake. Whoever that was was still a ways off, though, so I paid it no mind and bent over my book.