Earlier that day, Valor had followed a tip and walked to the farm where Waver sometimes used to work, to see the baize Beatrice and her new clutch of eggs.

Normally, feral drakes couldn’t simply walk the roads, and so Waver had reluctantly bought them a saddle and bridle they could don when they needed to seem “highly trained”. Valor was dextrous enough to put it on themself, so as long as they didn’t mind the deception, they were more or less free to walk where they would.

This farm, which had been an hour’s journey on human legs before, was even closer than before, and Valor did not have human legs. Visiting the baize could barely count as an errand.

As they approached, they kept an eye out for the farmer. They’d heard he would be in town that day, hawking his wares, but they were still nervous. There was no need for a riding drake to visit a farm without a rider - and even a drake with a rider would be a very strange guest.

they called out.

Baize were too heavy to be especially good at jumping, which is likely the only reason it was possible to pen one up. That, and the fact that they were smart enough to fear reprisal if they broke the latches as they easily could. However, Valor had no such restriction. They nimbly leapt through the gap between the fence and the ceiling, landing inside with a clack of claws against the various stones littered about.

Beatrice was lying down on her belly with a somewhat peaceful air, curled around a clutch of eggs and staring back at Valor. The eggs were a pale orange, and with their sharp eyes Valor thought they could see a hint of fibrous whorls along the surface, like a human’s fingerprint.

Valor told her, seriously.

Beatrice gave Valor a somewhat devious look, and shifted a claw over a pile of discarded tether just so. Another egg rolled out. Valor gaped.

The baize crooned.

Valor narrowed their eyes in confusion.

The baize said.

Valor nodded.

Beatrice scratched her chin against one of the horns extruding from her shoulder, and sighed. A few wispy white hair-scales drifted to the floor of the pen.

***

The oddly textured pale orange egg sat in the middle of the pair’s pillow nest, and Waver and Valor sat on either side of it, letting their eyes follow the patterns on its shell. Waver always forgot how small dragon eggs were compared to the eventual size of the dragons themselves. This one was barely three times as large as a chicken egg. He couldn’t help but marvel at how beautiful the swirling patterns were, and how the sunlight from the windows played across them.

As Valor proceeded to explain, there were some important things to know when raising a baize -- things neither of them would have considered.

For instance, the dragonet would hatch already knowing both Valor and Waver, because its mother did. Baize were beasts of burden, it was said, but not because they were strong and carried plows well, as most humans thought. They also were burdened with knowledge -- the accumulated knowledge that their parents carried until the moment of their conception, much as any other might carry their parents’ eyes or scales. It was said that this knowledge went back as far as the first baize, but only the baize could know. After all, for whatever reason, baize were restricted -- they could only ever share the knowledge they learned in their own lifetimes. According to Beatrice, their minds sorted information into ancestral and accessible knowledge, and “learning” something they already knew would move it from one pile into the other.

As a result, there were certain things a baize’s rearers were responsible for teaching them, but not too much -- unless the baize were expected to become a professional teacher itself. Unfortunately, dragons had no such occupation.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Waver asked wistfully.

Valor snorted.

Valor conceded, curling up tail-to-nose in the pillow pile.

Waver remembered that alcohol, like the stinging alcohol in Valor’s breath, could catch fire in storage.

Valor twisted their forearms in a shrug-like gesture.

<...well, I am a little bit curious, too,> Valor quickly reassured Waver, as the boy started to look lonely.

They sat in silence for a while.

Aside from the secret of the baize’s burden of knowledge, Beatrice had given Valor strict instructions about the hatchling’s diet, its ideal living conditions, and even what its name was to be. The human and drake were both impressed by her dedication and resolve, and they were excited to meet the child. However, neither of them were truly prepared for the terror that had stolen its way into their lives.

***

The next few weeks went by in a flash. The autumn days grew shorter and shorter, while Waver tended the daylight side of the new business. Most of his jobs seemed to involve caring for sick dragons; uncaring owners wouldn’t hire someone like him in the first place, so he was spared abetting the more egregious abuse. Still, working with dragons in an official capacity meant treating them as property, or pets at the very best, which stuck in the boy’s craw like a stray fishbone.

Even so, bringing a fevered spark-ling water, or splinting a drake’s leg, or even helping an immobile amphiptere when his shed skin had stuck in place -- that sort of work was a dream come true for him.

On the moonlit end, most of the dragons in town understood that the pair were waiting for an egg to hatch, so the problems of the local dragons were kept at a respectful distance, much to Valor’s consternation. To cheer them up, Waver asked them to redecorate and repair the ranch and headquarters at their leisure, a job that Valor took up with gusto. They were getting rather good with tools and cleaning implements, which filled Waver with secret pride at his best friend’s talent and dexterity.

Eventually the egg’s day came, as the weather was growing colder but before the first snow. Luckily, Waver and Valor were both home at the time, so they both heard the dull tapping of the dragonet’s spines against the inner wall of the shell.

To the two of them with bated breath, it sounded deafening.

As far as they could tell, the hatchling wasn’t clawing or snapping at the egg so much as it was writhing around, ramming its shoulders and bottom horns into its enclosure. So when they heard the slight crack of the egg wall beginning to fail, they watched in awe as the egg exploded from within, torn apart in all directions at once instead of being breached by a claw or beak as other animal eggs might.

Cloudy transparent goo oozed over the nest of blankets and pillows the two usually slept in. Pieces of shell were absolutely everywhere, including stuck in the fur-looking white scales of the soaking wet hatchling.

The little creature looked more or less similar to its mother, though its horn locations were entirely different, and asymmetrical, and its head was huge compared to the rest of its body. It was maybe ten centimeters high and fifteen long. Its scales were clumped together and dark with wetness as fur might be, but they were slightly bristly, giving away their true stony nature. It smelled like petrichor, or warm rocks on a sunny day. Its reptilian orange eyes blinked horizontally as it looked at its guardians.

“Ah!” Waver exclaimed, using his human tongue. “Valor, keep an eye on it. I’m getting a dry blanket.”

Valor was somewhat transfixed staring at the awkward, scrawny, enchanting thing. As they watched, the little creature seemed to process something, and began to babble as babies do.

“Ankt,” it said, in a plaintative, high voice. “Et. Bake it.”

Valor said, their exclamation packed with surprise, confusion, comprehension, and anticipation all at once.

The little lizard growled an approximation of the two names in dragon tongue, and then made some sounds it shouldn’t have heard before. “Varr. Aer. Am?”

“And when I talk like this, I’ll say it like ‘Pentwec’.” Waver arrived with the promised dry blanket, a dull green felt affair that may once have been some sort of upholstery. He quickly wrapped it around the soaking hatchling, trying to minimize rubbing and static.

“An,” the little dragon translated, solemnly.

Valor looked slightly stricken.

“Ow,” the baby dragon repeated.

On that day, the number of bilinguals in the world increased by one.