Serali climbed to the dais, still a bit apprehensive. She began to tell the amber dragon about her life. By the time she reached her encounter with the blue-green dragon and his friends, she was feeling quite at ease. The small dragon that Drevass had spoken to walked into the room just as she was finishing her telling. She tugged at Drevass' tail, a gesture Serali though rather odd, seeing how everyone else had respected the elder dragon so much.

Drevass noticed Serali's gaze. "That is Sleeah, my several times great granddaughter. I let her get away with almost anything, the dear child. Besides, she isn't even twenty yet. She's not old enough to know better."

"But I'm only just turned twenty myself," Serali protested, "and I don't feel like a child."

"Truly?" Dravass seemed surprised. Then a thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Ah. I think it must be because you were orphaned from birth. Dragon children grow slowly, and do not begin to mature until they are near adult size, which often takes more than a hundred years. But I have heard of a few cases where dragons who were orphaned began to grow rapidly, and were mature adults within a few decades. Since you have been orphaned all your life, you must have started developing into adulthood almost immediately. Though you are not quite there yet, I suspect." He smiled at her. "I have seen a few adult royal golds in my long life. They were larger than I am now, even when only just barely grown enough to clutch. So you quite likely have some growing left to do.

"But Sleeah has delivered my message, and there is a young dragon who speaks the human tongue and is willing to be your interpreter and guide while you are here with us. He is on his way here, or should be."

"Thank you. Though I guess that by young you mean only a century old or so?"

He smiled. "Yes."

"This is going to take some getting used to."

Just then another dragon entered the room. He was perhaps half Serali's size, and his scales were a vivid sky blue. He spoke to Drevass in dragon for a moment, and Drevass answered him the same way. Then he turned to Serali with a smile. "Hello, I'm Cherval. Drevass says you only speak human?"

Serali nodded. "Yes. I was raised by humans, so I don't know a thing about dragons at all."

"That's really strange. I've never heard of anything like it!"

"Neither have I, to tell you the truth."

"Well, Drevass tells me he wants me to start you learning proper speech as soon as possible, so I guess we ought to start now. I'll show you around the dragon stone and tell you the names of who or whatever we see in dragon, how's that?"

"Sounds good to me." Serali smiled back at the smaller dragon.

His smile widened and he turned to go, Serali trailing behind. "Now this room we are in is just one of many here, and the word for room, by the way, is 'vart,' though actually, you can use that word for a natural cavern as well. And this hallway here is called…"