The dining room didn’t impose, press in, or really stand out???—??nothing like the meeting room from last night.  But it felt drab and serious as it did none of those things.  The tiles on the floor alternated black and brown, the dining slab looked deep and black and shiny, and scratched with white.  Obsidian? How much had that cost?


    Gronte, Hinte’s grandmother.


    my voice!  I bared my fangs at the bird.


    permission.


    is kinda weird. Are they, um, like dragons? Can they think?”


    warbled.  It sounded discordant and it drove stakes into my frills.  The parrot lunged from Gronte’ wing, and flew at me!  But Gronte stopped it with her other wing.


    What is that supposed to mean?” My frills were already writhing, so I bared my fangs instead.


    walked out of the room, scratching its way to the hall.


    lopsided???—??you may say ‘hatchly’???—??but its a matter of parrots being very different from dragons, and so they don’t take the same things seriously that we do, and don’t understand every aspect of our culture.”


    polite, at least.”


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    “Kinri-ychy,” came Ushra’s voice from beyond the other door; he emerged, and continued, “show me your forelegs.  My Enkelin asked me to take a look at them.”


    keep her scales,” Gronte said.


    that bad!


    black. What had they been in the painting? I don’t think it was black.


    * * *