Chapter Text
Kitten liked living in the Mortal Realms - more than she would have liked living in the Dragons Lands, she knew. Here, she had a Mama and Papa who loved her, and exciting things to see and learn every day. Mama and Papa took her traveling, and even let her help with locks and spells - more than her grandparents in the Dragon Lands would have done. Here, no one ever treated her like a baby. She even had friends - some of them were Papa-shaped, like the Blue-Fire Man and the Goddess’s Handmaid, and their mates and children. Some of them were Mama-hearted, like her Aunt Cloud, and Spots, and the other cats and ponies and wolves her Mama talked to. She was even friends with the Badger God, for all he was smelly and grumpy.
There was only one thing that Kitten didn’t like, really, about her life in the mortal realms, and that was Papa’s women.
Mama and Papa loved each other - of that, Kitten was absolutely sure. They loved each other almost as much as they loved her. At first, when she was just a baby, she had thought that maybe they loved each other as litter-mates instead of as nest-mates. But then Papa turned the bad wizard into a tree for threatening Mama, and she knew they loved each other the way that nest-mates do.
So Kitten didn’t understand why Mama and Papa sometimes didn’t share a nest. They did when they were traveling, and they shared a big nest together when they were at home by the sea, but not when they were at the big stone house with all the people, where the Blue-Fire Man mostly lived. Maybe it was because Mama liked to be surrounded by her beasts, and Papa liked to be surrounded by his spells, and the beasts and the spells didn’t get along very well. She tried not to let it bother her too much, although it would have been much nicer if the three of them lived in the same nest together all the time.
What did bother her was when Papa brought mean, nosy, bossy ladies back to his nest in the big stone house, instead of bringing her and Mama. She didn’t understand why he did it, when he didn’t even like them as much as he liked her and Mama! It was a mystery, and Kitten knew that mysteries were only there for her to solve. She began to watch Papa more closely when they were in the big stone house during the wintertime, and especially to watch his women.
The big stone house was full of hiding places for a clever dragon like Kitten. She would whistle to make herself invisible and then hide in the rafters of the Eating Room to see who Papa was bringing home with him this time. Often, the ladies would go home with Papa only once, and leave his nest before dawn the next morning with hair all mussy and triumphant eyes. One time, Kitten slipped in with them when Papa took a lady back to his nest. Papa’s warding spells should have sensed her, but she was a clever dragon, just like Mama said, and had spent the day disabling them.
She had watched with interest as Papa had taken the lady’s clothes off and pulled her to bed, and cocked her ears at the funny noises they were making. The lady kept calling Papa by his name, or saying, “Yes, darling.” Papa made funny noises, too, and asked her to move differently, or do the same thing again, but he never called the lady by her name, or any of the special names he called Mama, like Magelet, or Sweet, or Sweetling. That made Kitten feel triumphant. To him, the lady wasn’t special the way that Mama was. It made her feel a little better about not being invited with Mama into Papa’s nest - but she still took the lady’s sparkly clasp off of her cloak before going back to Mama’s nest late that night, after Papa and the lady had fallen asleep.
She showed it to Mama the next morning, pleased with herself - but Mama hadn’t been happy. Kitten tried to explain how the mean lady had looked at Papa - how Mama should take the sparkly clasp as tribute for letting some other lady into what should have been their nest. But Mama had crossed her arms and tapped her foot and said they were going to return it, and she didn’t change her mind even when Kitten turned her scales gray and sulked.
So Kitten took the sparkly clasp in her claw and led the way up from the stables, back through the big stone house and up to Papa’s nest. When she sat on her haunches and trilled to be let in, she noticed that Mama’s face was red.
It took Papa a long time to answer, but that wasn’t surprising - he hated mornings. Kitten could have let them in herself, of course, but the way Mama’s arms were still crossed across her chest told her that would likely be a bad idea.
When he finally did answer, it was with his hair all ruffled, like he’d still been asleep.
“Daine?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
“Show him, Kit,” Mama said through gritted teeth. For the first time, Kitten felt a little bit ashamed. She held out her claw to Papa.
“Hm? A brooch? A white eagle on a green back- oh.” Now he turned red, too. “Lady Issa. I thought someone had messed with my warding spells.”
Then he pulled them both into his nest and Mama and Papa ganged up to scold her. She hated when they did that - one was bad enough! She felt her scales turn purple with shame as Mama knelt next to her and explained about permission and privacy and not taking things that weren’t hers. Papa looked down his stern nose at her as Mama talked, and Kitten remembered uneasily how Papa was the greatest wizard in the world - perhaps greater even than a dragon.
Finally, the scolding ended, and Kitten trilled an apology. Papa took the sparkly clasp and grabbed a passing page, instructing him to return it to Lady Issa.
“What am I going to do with you, Kitten?” Mama said, wringing her hands. “It’s almost time for the breakfast bell, and I’m supposed to be helping the Riders! But who knows what kind of mischief you’ll get into if I leave you alone?”
Kitten hung her head.
“Why don’t you leave her with me?” Papa suggested. “You can pick her up when you come for your lessons after dinner.”
“Are you sure ?” Mama asked. “Will you really be able to watch her? When you get your head stuck in one of your experiments, Master Salmalin, not even an infant dragon can break you out of it.”
Kitten trilled. She wasn’t an infant.
“Nonsense,” Papa said. “I’ll be very happy to have her company. And this way, you’ll be able to finish your essay on Griffins over lunch. No excuses.”
“Odd’s bobs!” Mama said. “Why do I have to write it down! Why can’t I tell you and have you write it down?”
“Daine,” Papa said as he walked her to the door of the nest. Kitten closed her eyes. She knew this argument by heart already. It was boring . Mama and Papa needed to find some more interesting things to argue about. “You are an apprentice mage. After completing your apprenticeship, you will be in service to the crown. If Jonathan or Thayet request written reports, you must be prepared to provide them - quickly and well.”
“Alright,” Mama said, stepping into the corridor and holding up her hands. Papa grinned.
“While I would love to turn you into an academic like me, that is not my primary object. Don’t worry; you don’t need a thesaurus or a grammar manual to complete this assignment.”
The breakfast bell rang, and Mama turned away. Around them, other doors began opening.
“But Goddess protect me if I misarrange my e s and my i s,” Mama muttered.
“Proper spelling is a mark of a tidy mind!” Papa called after her back. A few of his neighbors, the ones that Kitten knew liked to rise early and eat breakfast in the Eating Room, chuckled as they passed by. “Well, Mistress Skysong,” Papa said, turning to her and making her an elaborate bow.
Tentatively, Kitten crept deeper into Papa’s nest, keeping near the wall. Spending the day with him sounded like fun, but what if he was still angry with her for changing his spells?
As soon as the door was closed, Papa picked her up and tickled her under the chin until she looked up at him.
“Don’t worry, little one,” he said. “I’m not truly upset with you. But I do think you embarrassed Daine.”
Kitten trilled.
“I would be more upset if I had to return that brooch to Lady Issa myself,” Papa muttered. “She is very good looking, but she’s not much of a conversationalist. Mithros bless all passing pages. I don’t know what I was thinking, taking her to my bed.”
Kitten chortled. Papa was silly. Sometimes he acted like he forgot she could understand every word he said.
“Now,” Papa said, turning his attention back to her. “Lady Kitten, you are going to show me exactly what you did to those warding spells.”
He sat down at his desk with Kitten on his knee and waved a hand so that the warding spell hung in the air above them, outlined in black-and-white fire. They spent the morning at the desk, Kitten whistling different tones, showing Papa all the different ways she had discovered of taking the spell apart. After lunch, she fell asleep on his lap - she was tired from the morning’s magic. She only woke up once before the next morning, when Mama picked her up to take her back to their nest in the stables.
As she shifted in Mama’s arms, a thought crossed her mind:
It’s not the ladies who only stay one night who she needed to worry about.