In the second round of Lottie's experiment, she directed Ibnoxe and Holoxe to sit side-by-side. A marshmallow was placed in front of each.
This is how we get our second marshmallow, Ibnoxe thought, not even hoping for a third one. The moment that Lottie left the room, he planned to gobble it up guilt-free unlike how he had tried to resist the first time.
"Same rules as before," Charlotte began, but she wagged a finger in front of them as if she already knew what they were thinking. "However this time, I'll give Holoxe a third marshmallow if you can resist eating yours, Ibnoxe. And vice versa for you, Holoxe. Ibnoxe gets a third marshmallow only if you don't eat yours."
"What?" Ibnoxe asked.
"That's not fair—" Holoxe tried to object.
The cruel designer of the experiment refused to hear their complaints. Lottie left the room with a devilish smile on her face. The door closed after her with a note of finality.
"Well, I guess we have five minutes till she checks back on us." Ibnoxe curled his tail up to let the thick base rest on the seat of the chair. Likewise, Holoxe lifted his tail up so he could fiddle with the spines in his claws. The weight of a decision was bearing down on both their tails.
The stifling atmosphere of the room suspended the brothers in silence. No longer did Ibnoxe want to eat his marshmallow immediately if it would come at losing Holoxe his future marshmallow. The dragon brothers stared at the door where Lottie had gone for a while. Next, their gazes were naturally drawn to the temptation before them. Both ended up flitting their eyes away around the same time. Ibnoxe and Holoxe could look at anything aside from each other.
"I don't actually want another marshmallow!" Ibnoxe blurted out. "You can go ahead and eat yours. It won't bother me none."
"Same here. Actually…." Some nervous claws trailed down the spines of Holoxe's neck. "I wasn't planning on getting a third marshmallow either. You can eat yours too."
Even after they had given each other permission to sacrifice their future marshmallows, neither twitched a claw towards the saucers in front of them.
"Go on," Holoxe prodded him.
"No, you first," Ibnoxe said back.
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Nobody wanted to take the first bite. Their standoff of abstaining from the marshmallow continued.
"Ha…." Ibnoxe rested his forehead against the softer scales of his palm. "Lottie knew we wouldn't eat it as soon as it involved each other."
"Yeah, she really got us on this one." Holoxe drummed his claws against the table in a series of loud thunks. "What if we eat our marshmallows on three?"
Together, they tried counting in shaky voices like they might before rushing into a battle zone. "Three…. Two…. One!" The reptilian eyes of the sub-dragons blinked at one another. Still, neither budged towards the marshmallow. Ibnoxe and Holoxe doubled over in laughter together.
"Let's just wait till Lottie gets back."
As soon as they had given up on their immediate gratification, Ibnoxe and Holoxe could chat happily and play with some magic tricks. They tossed a chunk of ice back and forth like a hot potato, neither of them wanting to hold the freezing lump for long.
"Well, well, well, would you look at that?" Charlotte's voice suddenly said from behind them.
Ibnoxe lurched, flinging the ice ball straight into the air and smashing it against the ceiling. The ice crystals rained down, but luckily no damage was done aside from a conspicuous wet spot on the drywall.
"Ha!" Holoxe said. "You lose!"
They had not been paying attention to the door, and Ibnoxe paid the price for that in his embarrassment. I even lost the game of cold potato…. Sulking, he did not have it in him to look at either Holoxe or Lottie.
"Congratulations!" Charlotte said instead. "You both win!" She tapped an additional marshmallow on both their plates.
Now that the restraints were lifted—no longer having their brother's future marshmallow blackmailed against them—Ibnoxe and Holoxe stuffed their mouths full. They hardly finished chewing the first one before they chomped down on the second.
"I had a hunch you guys would be able to do it if I made that little amendment and kept you together in the same room." Lottie beamed with pride, like a scientist declaring her findings correct. "What have you learned from this?"
"Marshmallows are good," Ibnoxe offered.
"You're a mad scientist," Holoxe said next.
They took turns saying new observations until Ibnoxe observed the most important lesson in all this. "We can do anything as long as we're together."
"Even things we normally wouldn't do for ourselves," Holoxe added.
"Exactly," Charlotte said with a satisfied nod and a sweet smile. "You're absolutely capable of long-term planning and resisting your impulses, but it helps if you prompt each other to do that. As brothers, you should always look out for each other."
Ibnoxe and Holoxe turned to each other and lifted their tails to smile. The gesture of goodwill naturally extended into their secret tail flick. The dragon brothers had already proven their metal together, but this dynamic could extend to the simplest things in life—whether it was escaping an evil conglomerate, adopting vuls, or eating marshmallows. All things were better if they looked to each other.