The next few weeks were full of words: words that were all so hauntingly familiar, but at the same time strange. He knew that his language sounded different from the dragons' language, but seeing it written was a whole new kind of different. It was like he knew it, knew those sharp lines, angled accents, and jagged squiggles, even though he couldn't remember ever having learned them. It was tantalizing, fascinating, and it kept him indoors for much longer than he'd been used to lately.

It wasn't easy, though. The reading was still slow, more familiar language or not, and often the content was difficult to take in. He learned a lot about demons, wading through those books, all right. He was glad to learn, despite being disappointed, sometimes dismayed, even a little disgusted in addition to being curious and fascinated, but it was tiring.

And it was hard not to be cross with the librarians and book-guardians when they demanded to know what he was doing in their sanctuary. Which they did. Nearly every time someone found him inside. They hovered every time he came in without an escort-- or even with one. Cacopheny expected he didn't succeed very well at not being cross with them-- probably reaffirming their dark thoughts about demons-- though he only paid attention to his attitude with them enough to make sure he didn't get kicked out or bothered too much. Araski had even slipped out to use a few choice insults now and then when someone got too nosy or too pushy. Finally, sick of it all, he took to sneaking in rather than coming in the front doors, letting someone's shadow to carry him silently inside, and then hiding in a darkened corner while he read. It didn't always work, but sometimes it did.

It was also hard not to be annoyed at his bond's amusement at his expense. Blood and claws, his whole household's amusement as his expense. Though he really couldn't blame them. It was Sentio who was supposed to waste his time buried in books, not Cacopheny-- Cacopheny didn't even like reading. And yet here he was, spending most of his time shut in at the library with his nose buried in words. He supposed it might have been funny, if it wasn't him; since it was him, their amusement, their tolerant smiles, their shared glances-- even their confusion, sometimes-- only made him irritated and embarrassed. But it didn't stop him from going back the next morning and picking up where he left off.

He certainly wound up being cross with the nagging translator, Oralia, who seemed to find him nearly every day, no matter how hard he tried to avoid her. Since he was reading "her" books, as she kept calling them, she didn't see why he wouldn't tell her what was in them. Her nagging, her hovering, and her odd sense of entitlement made him even less inclined to do what she wanted, if just out of spite.

But he still kept reading, even if it brought annoyances. For the first time he could remember, he wanted to learn about something. Most of the things he'd let himself be taught was out of a sense of obligation or need-- language, so dragons would be able to understand him; reading, to please Sentio; magic, so he could control it instead of it controlling him-- but there was no real need for him to learn about demons.

Or Caetrae, as they called themselves most often than not. Their official name, beyond the so-called "slang" that the word demon had come from. Cacopheny thought "demon" fit better, even after reading. Perhaps especially after reading.

Cacopheny was relieved to discover that not all of the demon-books the library had acquired were as dry and stilted to read as the first one he'd seen. The dragons had managed to amass a small collection, stolen from the southern continent, salvaged from destroyed demon homes, or traded for from traveling daemons and humans. They had just as much a variety was one would expect for such a piecemeal collecting, especially collected by someone who couldn't read the language to begin with. There were histories, political treatises, instructional tomes, a wide variety of works that he thought were fiction, a couple books on the natural world, one on a peculiar and obscure branch of magic known as necromancy, a few about the practices of local humans and daemons, a number of difficult religious texts, several pieces chronicling the war with dragons, and even, he discovered one afternoon to his great surprise, a book of demonic children's tales.

That one was the only one he wound up translating, and even then-- to Oralia's consternation-- he was going to bring it home rather than give it to the dragons for study.

Well, to be specific, Glory did most of the work, though admittedly with a lot of help from Genner, Flash, and Cacopheny himself, because she actually knew most of the stories and rather excitedly wanted to share them with Akija and Sentio. Since it wasn't often Glory got excited about something-- and since Cacopheny himself found the tales familiar, too-- they humored her and helped her write things out in dragon-speech. A few of the shadows had, over the years, made an effort to learn dragon-speech-- not that they ever really tried speaking it outside his head, since their accents were much worse than his-- but only Genner and, now, Glory had ever tried writing it.

It took them two weeks to finish that translation, and by the end Cacopheny was glad they'd not found the slim volume until they'd already picked through most of the other books, because he didn't feel like he wanted to look at another column of demon-script again for a few years. Not to mention his hand hurt from holding the quill pen too long.

As he looked over the pages, he finally noticed with some amusement how different their handwritings were: his own spiky, untidy scratchings jumped to a broad and even more untidy scrawl, and then to a tight, slightly embellished, and fanatically neat script as each of them in turn took over the writing.

Hmph. I should have written the whole thing. I doubt anyone else will be able to read that.

Maybe you can copy them over, later, Tek suggested as Cacopheny found a spot when they'd gotten confused and wrote everything going the wrong direction, and winced.

Maybe you can copy them over now, Tiger agreed dryly.

Awww, no!

Akija can wait, kid, Flash promised.

And Sentio will just cringe, seeing this mangling of his beloved written word.

So don't show Sentio yet. He's still working, isn't he?

Can't we just let her see, maybe? Read the parts she can read?

Well....

I can't imagine it would hurt anything.

If you really want to, I suppose....

Do we have to? Cacopheny thought embarrassedly, wishing it was more legible now. The thought of showing off this messy product of their two weeks of labor was almost painful.

Pleeeease? C'mon, Cacoph'ny, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaase?

Just where Glory had picked up that whining tone of voice, Cacopheny didn't know, but it was very annoying.

Here, Tek suggested kindly, why not just pick out the one story that's the best-looking and you can start with that one?

That had merit. Surely they couldn't all be impossible to read.

There were eighteen short stories in all, some more believable than others. They weren't fun or light-hearted, exactly, despite their simplicity and interest aimed at keeping a young one engaged, but serious, straight-forward, and with obvious moral messages. Each story advocated things like obeying one's mother, honoring adult females, looking after one's self, being clever with one's resources, keeping familial and clan loyalty, the superiority of demons to other species on the planet, and the virtues of stabbing other demons in the back to get ahead for one's self and one's clan. Compared to the stories he'd read for dragon children-- full of love stories, upholding of justice and mercy, denouncing the wicked even if they were someone the hero loved, and help from the deities-- it was a completely different worldview.

Hmm. Maybe Sentio might not appreciate them as much as we'd thought.

The most legible was one of the "be clever with your resources" ones, with a dash of "backstab the enemy" thrown in.

What do you think? he asked the shadows quietly. Palatable enough?

They're all palatable! Almadir huffed, insulted.

Well, the one where they all died in the end could have been easier to stomach, Araski said.

This one works fine.

I like this one! The water demon's really smart in it.

Well, we've got the kid's vote. That's the one that counts, right?

That seemed to be that. Cacopheny stuck the rest of his papers into their shadow-hole, the bit of nothingness he made out of the shadow of the table he'd been using, and tucked the four that made up this particular story into his coat pocket, carefully folded. "Here we go," he muttered to himself, and escaped for home.