“Silent winds, my friend,” said Hinte as she turned, waving her tail. While she appreciated Kinri’s help in the lake, she breathed relief at parting ways with her.  The exile had no appreciation of the thoughtful silence, always annoying her with unhatched questions.  But worse, she acted utterly apterous when she opted not to ask questions. As if her tongue were rubber and her frills were stone.


    better than this.  These were hatchling mistakes, and she did not have the exile’s excuse of being a hatchly sifter.  Her Dozent would be disappointed.


    Apterous rockwraiths.


    treasonous connotations because of grandmother.  And so, she did not garner friends, or even friendliness.  Even above the…  unsavory reputation of forest-dwellers themselves.


    surgeon.  You did not become surgeon without being well-acquainted with dragon anatomy and physiology, with corpses and cadavers.


    system, and if a student needed extra cadavers for further research, there were forms to fill out, intervals to wait.  Ushra’s mind worked faster than that.


    It all begins.


    moving and you could see it if you built a telescope the size of a house.  Kinri had said the stars watched you no matter how far you went.


    Apterous.


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    <h3 style="margin-top: -3em; padding-top: 3em; text-indent: 0">ii. *</a>


    Hinte did reach her home.  As she stepped from the gravelly lapilli to the soft, loamy soil, she felt at home on two levels.  If you clouded your eyes and held your tongue, you could pretend you never left, never had to leave the forests.  Hinte could almost forget what happened, why she now lived with her grandparents.


    Apterous.


    glass, another departure, something that was, in the forests, a luxury.  But they lived in Gwymr/Frina now, where glass sold like brick.  The walls, however, were built of wood, something that had traded places with glass as a luxury.  It had slacked her tongue, seeing so many houses built of scoria or even stranger stones.  The town had houses built of dustone or fire clay, too.  But those were just sad.


    Eeh! Nestling hath returned!” squawked the bird.


    fledgling to you, Versta.”


    Ueh. Yer still in the nest, nestling.” Then a dark-jade alula poked the parrot.  Versta gave a trill before turning his back to the dragons and hopping over to bowl at the center of the dinnerslab.


    What happened?”  She looked much older than her likeness in the painting, but it was an echo of her true age.  Being the matriarch of a famous alchemical clan would do that, too. Or would have done that. The gyras in the cliffs were already showing on her face. Hinte would not feel sorry for her.


    anything of what happened?  You look like you just fought in a war.”


    lacuna, a hole where a dragon should be.


    as you know woven in.


    squawked. “Nesty fledgling fell,” he said.


    gyfar?”  She emphasized the honorific, and the implication was clear: This was no time for frilliness.


    Enkelin.  Are you hurt?”


    important you inform us of what occurred in the lake. Those weapons could have been poisoned.  And the rockwraith bite is venomous???—??ineffective against squamata, but their foul mouths promote infection.”


    I shall clean them again.”  As if commanded, Staune leapt from Ushra, then flew into Ushra’s workshop.


    pressing,” Ushra said. “Hinte, you had cleaned it — how?”


    were poisoned???—??a simple, inorganic toxin causing burning irritation and spasms. Its effect is waning now.”


    smelling the wound. Ushra had been one of the greatest alchemists in the forest.  His skill and scholarship alone would do that, but his sensitive tongue had been what turned him into a legend.


    for you, die Wunder causes complications only with foreign biological materials???—”


    was life-threatening???—??Kinri was stabbed in her neck.  She would have???—”


    your life, Hinte.  Would you use Wunder if the next knife had come for your neck, and you had nothing left to save you?”


    Enkelin,” — she saw her granddaughter’s frills wrinkle at the saccharine title???—??“you could have at least taken one of the parrots with you.  It would be safer.”


    I’m sorry.


    fly!  She’s fat.”  Hinte flinched at the name.


    knot, on so many levels.


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    On the porch, Ceiwad illuminated the night in palest green.  Hinte had taken a lamp with her, and it cast a small muted circle on the porch. Versta took the opportunity to flex his wings, flying circles around Hinte’s lamp, miming a moth.  Hinte watched, nursing a glare in her frills.  The venom dewing her fangs grew poisonous.  She wavered first.


    know.” He leaned forward with a wing to his breast in some formal gesture.  “Our arrange-a-ment.”


    rock a its head!  Never saw it coming???—??like a black parrot, I was.”


    fern. I can show you.”


    Nyih. I can tell Toastyfeathers though. I bet minnows can’t kill wildcats.”


    Nai.”


    Uah,” she trilled. “You broke this long, no?  A few more minutes won’t change much, yes?”


    hungry, after sifting the Berwem, so she finished her plate before anyone else, even Gronte, who had started before her.  She looked to her grandfather, her Opa.  He sat, ignoring his food, holding an inked red feather, scratching symbols onto a small scrap of the fernpaper he kept on him in sheaves.


    I am trying to, she wanted to say. Why couldn’t she just spit the words? Hinte looked down to her plate, but it was still empty.  She glanced to Gronte.  Would she say something else? Ask another probing question?


    * * *