...And Hello!

I shut the door to the little bookshop, knowing that the next time I came, it would be a school study. Oh, I could revisit it in the past—I am a time traveller’s daughter, after all—but it wouldn’t be quite the same. I suppose it was always meant to be a schoolhouse anyway. I turned my back and began walking down the street to find the family time machine.

As I walked, I started wondering what I would do when I got back. I knew I had one of those blog things waiting when I got back. But I wasn’t quite sure what I’d write. I’d been putting it off awhile—one of my weaknesses—and I still hadn’t come up with anything.

That was about when I saw the flames. I cocked my head, wondering if it was one of those street fire-eater shows or something. But no, it couldn’t be. Something had to be wrong. So I went over to the next street to see what it could be. What I found there made my jaw drop. It was a dragon.

Yes, I did say ‘dragon’. It was about the size of the buildings—a relatively smaller dragon, really. But still dangerous, as all dragons are. It roared and spouted another burst of flame in the air. People ran in every direction. The dragon stamped his feet on the ground, sending several people (including myself) sprawling to the street.

I began picking myself up off the cold cobblestone. However, the ground and the air suddenly became hotter, and the light grew drastically golden. I looked up. A great dragon’s claw was descending, right on top of me. Terrified, I couldn’t move, and desperately wished I could look away.

Suddenly, I felt myself yanked out of the way—not only away from that spot, but from the street itself—and was drawn upward through the hot air. I soon was atop one of the nearby buildings, panting. My rescuer towered over me, with some sort of gadget in his hand (it looked to be a gun that fired a grappling-hook). I looked up into the man’s hooded face… and gasped. “Adan!”

The corners of his mouth twitched up, and he helped me to my feet. “Thank you for saving my life,” I said.

“Tullen tye-rehtien,” he replied. Then he turned to look down into the street.

I wasn’t sure what he just said, so I skipped it. “So, you know about this sort of thing. Any ideas why a dragon decided to parade right down Main Street in 1875?”

“I’m not certain, Eruanna,” Adan replied. “There are but few dragons left in Logres, and they are all old, asleep in their mountains. This dragon,” and here he gestured to the creature causing calamity below us, “this dragon is young, barely a hundred years. I would know if any of the ancient dragons had offspring.”


“What are you saying?”

“I am saying that this dragon should not exist.” Suddenly, we were interrupted by a yell—a war cry rather than a scream of fear. We looked down into the street. There we saw a knight. Or at least, a man who looked like one. He was clad in full medieval armour, with sword and shield, charging, upon a horse, right at the dragon. I pointed to him.

“That fellow down there might have an answer for us,” I said. The two of us went down into the alley next to the building, unnoticed by the combatants. I peeked around the corner. The knight was up close to the dragon now, lance pointed at its chest. But the dragon put up its claw to defend itself, shattering the lance. Then it knocked the man off his mount, sending him clattering to the street as the horse galloped away. The dragon then seemed to lose interest in the knight. It resumed stomping and roaring.

The knight had fallen right before the alleyway. At the moment, he was trying to lift his visor. I went over to him to help. “Sir? Are you all ri—” The man interrupted, and said something I didn’t understand. “Uh…”

“Allow me,” said Adan. He then spoke to the man in another language, the same one the man had used before. They conversed for just a moment, with gestures made towards me and towards the dragon. Then Adan addressed me. “This man is a knight, and he has been following this dragon for some days.”

“A medieval knight?”

“Indeed. It has been destroying many towns, he says.”

“You know what this means? These two are from a different time—they time travelled here somehow!”

“It appears so.”

“I think I have an idea of what might be going on.” I peered around the corner again. “I’ve got to get back home. Daddy would know what to do about this.” The knight spoke again, and Adan told him… well, something. I think he was explaining something to the knight. (If you hadn’t noticed, I’m no linguist.)

Adan turned back to me. “The knight is about to engage the dragon again. When he does, you and I shall quickly make our way to the time machine.”

“Got it.” The knight nodded at us, then drew his sword and lowered his visor. He began heading towards the dragon. Adan then darted into the alleys behind us, and I followed. If anyone could get us back to Daddy’s time machine, well, in time, he could.

Throughout all this, I could see nothing of the battle, though I could hear the dragon, and much yelling. Soon enough, we came to the end of one of the side-streets. Adan and I looked out to see where things were. Sure enough, there were the knight and dragon, locked in battle, a ways down the street. The knight struck a blow, which fell true. The dragon shrieked loudly. Then, in fury, it returned him a blow, which knocked him hard to the ground. I gasped. The man was probably dazed by the blow, and did not get up. The dragon reared its head, preparing a blast of flame to finish him.

Suddenly, I heard a twang, and the dragon’s fire burst out of him prematurely, filling the air above the city. I turned to see Adan, with his bow in hand, the string still vibrating. I had no time to say anything, though, for he whispered to me quickly “Go back into the alley. Straight for a street, then a right. After that, cross the main street. Swiftly!”

“But I—”

“Go.” He said no more, but dashed out into the street, letting loose another metal arrow. I turned reluctantly, and ran back down the alley. As I followed his directions, I heard more sounds of battle—bow twanging, sword clashing, and the dragon’s roar.

I soon came again to the main street. Sure enough, there was the clock tower, under which I knew was hidden the time machine. I looked the other way, towards the battle. The knight was up again, fighting hard. Adan’s hood had fallen back, and his long silver hair gleamed in the fire’s light. After a moment, I made a dash for the other side. I didn’t look back to see if it saw me, but ran until I was beside the clocktower.

Finally, I sat down in the front seat. Out of curiosity, I flipped on the instruments. “I knew it!” I whispered. “There’s a disruption! Something is going crazy in the continuum, and it’s creating random rifts that yanked all these different things out of their own times.” I chuckled. “Now I have something for that blogpost.” Shaking my head, I continued talking to myself. “Now, let’s see if we can find the source…”

Suddenly, I heard a sound in the street behind the time machine. I turned to see what it was. “Have no fear, Eruanna,” came a familiar voice. “Tis only I.”

“Adan! What are you doing back here?”

“My arrows have run low, and the magnetic recall on my gauntlet isn’t working.”

“Needed to regroup, I guess. I’m glad you did, though: I think I figured out what’s… going on…” I trailed off. “Adan, are you all right?”

“Indeed.” But I could tell he was in pain.

“No, something’s wrong.”

“I am only singed. Don’t worry.”

“But—”

“You said you’ve figured out what is happening?”

I sighed. “Almost. The instruments are trying to locate the source of the disturbance. And it is time-travel related. That’s why you didn’t recognize the dragon.” The instruments beeped. “Ah! Got it! The source is in… wait, what?”

There was a loud roar. We both looked up to see the dragon standing before the street. It had seen us too—seen Adan, at least. I’m certain it did not like him. It turned towards us, casting reddish-golden light over the whole street. “Quickly!” Adan said. “Start your time machine!”

“I’m trying, I’m trying…” I frantically turned the key again and again. “Ugh, it’s not working! The engine won’t start!” We looked up at the irate dragon. It pulled back its head—it was about to let forth a fire blast that would incinerate us completely. “God, save us!” I whispered.

Suddenly, there was a thin flash of light to the right of us. Before we knew what was happening, the flames just about to reach us disappeared, and once again, I felt myself yanked away—from the street, from the city, from the time itself.

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Well, there is my first post! What did you think? It’s pretty different from my last first post, but I enjoyed it a great deal. My dad had the idea to write a story for the first post, so that’s what I did.

And he is a time traveller, you know. Of a different sort. He does it through his writing—he can bring us back to the first century, or Christmas, 1959, or a lot of times, just by telling a story. So I do the same through mine.

Stories are a type of time travel, too; you can leave the present and find yourself in just about any time, past or future. Even if it’s not technically a time travel tale, it can do it all the same. That’s just another reason I tell stories.

Still, our little yarns can’t quite hold a candle to the Great Storyteller, Who tells the tale of time itself and everything in it. Now there is a story!

Now then, if you’re here from my old blog, you’ll likely know much of what to expect. If you’re not, you might take a look at it. I’d appreciate it. This story will be continued at some point in the future, so don’t worry about that! There will be at least one other post this week, but that may be it. Hopefully, you folks reading this will stick around a little while.

Well, that about wraps it up for this—my very first post on Time Traveller’s Daughter!