imperious little indigo-purple dragon, living up to her royal colors, was not inclined to wait patiently for anything she felt she was entitled to. And when Menet-ka had not appeared the moment she bleated for her afternoon meat, she had elected to go and find it—and him—for herself. She had wandered the whole of the compound before she was through, sticking her nose into pens and demanding her “mother” and her food of whoever or whatever was in there. The wild-caught dragons all knew what a baby was, and even the swamp dragons began bellowing on her behalf for her mother, for although no dragon would tend the offspring of another unless its own young had died, all dragons protected and defended any dragonet. This in turn brought the dragon boys and anyone else within hearing, but since not one of them was “mother,” Bethlan ignored them. And they all wanted to see what she would do next. So Bethlan toddled up and down the pens, leaving noise and confusion in her wake, until, at long last, she found her “mother” Menet-ka in the butchery, helping his dragon boy chop up her meal. By this time she was so tired that Menet-ka and the boy had to load her up into a barrow and trundle her back to her pen. She was very tired, and a little cold, but no worse for wear, fortunately.
“If she’d gotten too cold, I think she would have joined an adult dragon in its pen,” Menet-ka told Kiron, still scarlet with chagrin.
“I think you’re probably right. She had the wit to come looking for you, I think she would have had the wit to go lie down somewhere warm,” Kiron agreed, covering his mirth. “I’m not sure I want to go putting barriers across the doors, though, just yet. Let’s wait and see if she does it again, before we think about doing that.”
“She won’t,” Menet-ka said firmly, ears still red. “I won’t let her get hungry again.”
In stark contrast to imperious little Bethulan, Pe-atep’s scarlet-and-sand Deoth was the shyest dragon Kiron had ever seen. When all the fuss had died down, and he checked on all the little ones to make sure they were in their pens, he found Pe-atep in the farthest corner of his, crooning over Deoth, who was shivering with fear and hiding his head in Pe-atep’s tunic.
“What’s wrong with him?” Kiron asked, but very, very quietly; he didn’t want to upset the little one more than he already was.
“Nothing really,” Pe-atep said, with far more calm than Kiron would have felt, it this had been Avatre. “He’s high-strung and sensitive, and I am glad it’s me that has him and not Menet-ka.”
“Why?” Kiron asked. Pe-atep raised his eyebrows.
“Well, the shyest rider with the shyest dragon? Think about it! We’d never get them off the ground!” Pe-atep ran his hands down the baby’s sides. “Poor little fellow. This happens in cats, sometimes; lions mostly, but sometimes cheetahs. One is born that just jumps at everything. You just have to coax them, and make sure that they never fail badly enough at anything to frighten them off it.” He chuckled, as the dragonet relaxed and stopped shivering. “There now, you see? It’s all right. Nothing bad happened, little one. I’ll want you lot to start coming into the pen at odd times, and bring a nice little tidbit with you every time you do. He has to start learning that new things can be nice things. It’s the only way to get him through this stage. But once we do, he’ll be as brave as a lioness, won’t you, my handsome fellow?”
“I’ll pass the word,” Kiron promised, and walked out softly but confidently.
As he told the others what Pe-atep had requested, he reflected that here, if he wanted it, was another omen. So far, it seemed that the dragonet was matched perfectly to the boy who had gotten it. Menet-ka had the boldest—who was pulling him into the center of attention, which was good for the boy. And Pe-atep, experienced handler of big hunting cats, had the shyest—he who was best equipped to handle such a problem baby out of his own vast experience.
So Toreth has the quietest but the smartest, I’ve seen that, too, already. And for someone who doesn’t particularly want to draw attention to himself right now, that is the ideal combination. I wonder if that means that Oset-re’s Apetma is going to shred his best tunics and kilts