Fia and Viliant raced down the stairs of the courthouse to join Diwa. The dragoness had invited them over to her parents' home, giving them a hospitable place to stay in the big city without spending their limited funds on an inn. The prospect of seeing her parents again evidently excited Diwa whose stress left her tail after the court hearing.

I can only imagine…. Fia thought wistfully, dreaming about how thrilled she would be to run inside her parents' hut. As badly as she missed her parents, the pang in her chest felt more bearable now that she anticipated seeing them soon.

Most dragons in the capital flew from place to place, but Diwa walked with the dragonets. They ascended a sizable stairwell that wrapped around a tall building. In its middle, Diwa stopped at the front of a humble cottage. "One thing," Diwa said, pausing with her claws ready to rap against the door. "My parents can be… a little overbearing at times, so please bear with me." The dragoness finished her knock.

The door opened, and a dragon with dark green scales and curved horns stuck his head out. His unsuspecting eyes lit up as soon as he recognized who had come to his doorstep. "Diwa!" he cried out joyfully. "Come in! Come in. How have you been?"

"Today's been a long day," Diwa sighed, relaying her speech through telepathy with the dragonets. "This whole week has been a rough one, but other than that, I've been doing well." She forced her slumped wings and tail to lift into a smile with her eyes closed. "I couldn't be happier!" Some of the tension in her muscles relaxed as she crossed the threshold into her childhood home.

"It's good to hear that… and see that," her father said. The older dragon's attention flicked down to Fia and Viliant before returning his focus to Diwa. "Your mother and I were overcome with worry when you didn't make your usual trip home this year." Louder, the dragon called, "Liwaya?"

When he got no response, he stood on his hind legs to bump the blunt edge of his horns against the ceiling. Instead of shouting, he demanded more insistently that she acknowledge the telepathic invitation. Liwaya!

What is it, Gio?

"Diwa's home!" Diwa's father, Gio, could hardly resist proclaiming this out loud.

Above them, the patter of claws responded against the creaky, wooden ceiling. A second adult dragon raced to reach a hatch. The smaller horns of yet another green dragoness appeared as she poked her head out. "Diwa!" A dragon's house had no need for stairs indoors. The motherly dragoness, Liwaya, jumped down to the main floor and seamlessly joined the shared telepathic space. "I missed you so much!" Liwaya curled her neck against her daughter's in a dragon's compassionate greeting. When she pulled away, she gushed, "Normally you come home during every full bloom festival. Why didn't you come this year? Did that Rokirith—" she huffed, but Gio cut her off.

"Ahem. We have company."

Liwaya's eyes flitted to the open space around the adult dragons' wings. Her nose tilted downward to finally acknowledge the dragonets. "Oh! Oh…. You've brought dragonets with you. They're so old. I only wish you would've brought them here sooner." Diwa's mother took a half step closer to them, one clawed foot partially raised. "What are their names?"

At this point, Fia had been the only one to follow Diwa inside. Viliant still hovered by the open doorway, so she replied on behalf of them both. "I'm Fia! And this is Viliant. Sorry. He's a bit shy." She passed an expecting glance back to him.

No, I'm not, he retorted, even as he kept their telepathy exclusive between him and her.

"It's okay, Viliant," Diwa said gently. "You can come inside."

Once the black dragonet had received a personal invitation, he cautiously stepped into the new dragons' house. Diwa pulled the door shut behind him with her tail.

"Aw," Liwaya said as she got a closer look at Viliant. "He has your eyes!"

"And Rokirith's scales…." Diwa's father muttered. Gio focused on Fia, next. "But the pink dragonette looks nothing like either of you."

As though she had just noticed this, Diwa's mother gasped. "Who's the father, Diwa?"

A coy smile entered Diwa's tail with a flick. "I don't know."

"Diwa…" her father said with a stern growl, trailing off with an edge of disappointment.

"Oh my!" Liwaya drew in a harsher gasp this time. "I'm sorry we ever gave you such a hard time about your friend, Rokirith." A dark glower passed through Liwaya's eyes as a new possibility seemed to cross her mind. "Unless has he left?"

"Mom! Dad! It was a joke," Diwa cried, doubling her long neck over in laughter. "These dragonets aren't mine! I don't know either of their parents."

Fia shared a quick, perplexed look with Viliant. Though it was not enough to make the orphaned dragonet no longer miss his lack of parents, he felt even more envious if this was one of the greater sources of strife in Diwa's life as a child. Lowering his head, Viliant's hooded eyelids gazed at Fia. Her parents most likely coddled her in a similar way. He could finally see for himself how she could afford to be so naive when they had first met.

The three adult dragons calmed down, but Gio and Liwaya still shot some dissatisfied looks in the direction of their daughter.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Well, Diwa, we weren't expecting you to come today, so we don't have that much extra food." Gio headed toward the door and announced, "I'll make a quick stop at the butcher's shop."

"Your bedroom is always here for whenever you're ready to come back home," Liwaya said with a drastic curve to her smiling tail. "I'll prepare some extra beds for the dragonets."

"Thanks, Mom. I won't be staying very long though—"

"Nonsense! You and your friends are welcome to stay here as long as you need."

"We won't—"

Liwaya refused to listen to this, blocking Diwa from her telepathic receptors. The older dragoness bounced up to the second story where she expected the others to follow.

"My mother never takes 'no' for an answer," Diwa said with a roll of her eyes. "But don't worry." The dragoness reassured Fia and Viliant with a bump of her wings. "First thing tomorrow morning, we'll sell our stock and head to the docks to send you off, Fia. Sorry again about my parents." Despite being in the presence of two children, Diwa ruffled her wings in abashment from her own juvenile treatment. "They're even worse when we don't have company around, so thanks for that."

***

The second round of Diwa versus her parents happened over dinner. Even though Fia had offered to cook for them, Diwa politely declined on behalf of her parents. "No thanks, Fia. I don't think it would be a good idea to start a fire indoors."

Gio angled his eyes toward Fia in great interest. "Are you a red fire dragon?"

"Yes," the pink dragonette whistled. "Everyone acts like that's a big deal. What's so special about red fire?"

"You must've come a long way to Malakow," Liwaya said with sweet consideration. "The only true fire dragons live south across the ocean. It's very rare that one comes this far north."

Diwa nodded. "We've already raised the money to send Fia home."

"By that," Gio asked, "I'm assuming you mean that Rokirith helped?" His voice was laden heavy with skepticism.

"No," Viliant spat. The dragonet had not picked up the vocal language as fast as Fia, so he ended up resorting to telepathy for even a simple sentence. Fia and I worked hard—

Diwa cut him off easily, in part thanks to the way that she could sing Rokirith praises in the otherwise quiet room. "Rokirith found them in the badlands. He flew them over the mountains a couple times while we gathered ingredients to sell."

"So, you are hanging around that old, war-torn dragon," Liwaya said stiffly. The older dragoness sniffed for good measure, exacerbating her judgmental attitude.

"If you want to settle down, a dragon like that is not the one to be with," Gio commented.

"Actually," Diwa said darkly, "Roki couldn't come today because he had to stay home with the egg."

In unison, both of her parents gasped, "Egg?" While Diwa's mother seemed beside herself, Diwa's father leveled critically, "And where did this egg come from?"

A sly look passed through the vulpine slant of the dragoness's eyes. "We found it," Diwa replied.

"You found it." Gio repeated his daughter's simple statement, returning to an unamused growl.

"Yep. That's right." With a more serious attitude, Diwa launched into a story recounting the encounter with the Dragon Slayer's army in the badlands. She especially emphasized Rokirith's role as the hero. "Rokirith charged into the heart of the army and saved the egg, all by himself!"

Fia could confirm that Rokirith's blackfire had blazed as bright as Diwa claimed. Even Viliant could not deny Rokirith's achievement.

Gio and Liwaya stared for a while. At last, some rapid blinks fell over their eyes. Where words failed them, their thoughts communicated their awe. We're so glad that you've come home safe! Rokirith is reckless, always putting you in danger. You should have nothing to do with a dragon like that—or some other dragons' egg.

Diwa shook her head back and forth. No matter what she said about Rokirith, her parents never seemed inclined to accept him.

Though Viliant had no bone to pick in this fight, he respected the authority of Diwa's parents when it came to Rokirith. Like Viliant, Fia was too young to follow the conversation in full. Unlike him, she developed no opinion.

Diwa declared the final word on the matter. "Right after I send Fia off, I'll be going back to my treehouse. You can expect me to visit again once the egg hatches." Though this would not stop her parents from talking to her out loud, she severed the telepathic link to signal the end of this conversation.

No longer able to express their doting, parental concern for their daughter over telepathy, Gio and Liwaya postponed the conversation for now.

With a renewed smile forced into her tail, Diwa turned her attention to the dragonets who had been ignored for most of dinner. "Are you done eating, Fia and Viliant?"

The meat was gone from the spot in front of them, leaving them with no other answer. "Yes. I'm full," Fia said. Her blue eyes flitted to Gio and Liwaya so that she could resound a cheerful, "Thank you!"

"I want more," Viliant said, eyeing the remainder of the carcass that Gio had brought in.

"You won't make yourself sick if you eat more, will you?" Diwa posed.

The grumbling Viliant refused to admit it, but he relented on his desire for more meat.

"I'll tuck you in first, Fia." Diwa got up and prompted the dragonette to follow. Diwa's parents did not have a spare room in their house aside from the bedroom dedicated to their daughter. Earlier, Liwaya had laid out a nest of pillows and blankets for Fia to share in Diwa's room.

Here, Fia curled up and received a hug from green wings. "We'll sell the herbs and arrange your passage tomorrow," Dia reassured her once again.

"And Viliant?" A droopy expression affected the tips of Fia's wings, fearing that the adult dragoness would try to steal her best friend again.

Diwa released Fia from their prolonged hug, and the tops of her wings went flat. "I'll try to negotiate the best price possible. However, I don't anticipate having enough money for both your fares. You will have to travel in a lower class with him. Also, I'm concerned after Viliant's outburst today. He might cause you more trouble than anything else on your journey."

Fia hung her head. When she thought back to the trial earlier today, it still made her tremble. The tact to navigate civilized society was an entirely different skill set than Viliant's, which had helped them survive in the wilderness. "I still want him to come with me."

Diwa gave a shallow nod with narrow eyes.

So long as the dragonets stuck to their own kind and avoided humans, Fia figured that they would manage well enough.