“That’s what Ari told me, but now I wonder. He couldn’t see the wild ones’ nests all that well when he spied on them, and the only dragon he really ever had any experience with was Kashet.” Kiron rubbed the side of his face with the back of his hand. “When it comes right down to it, at this point, we all have eight times the experience with dragonets that he did.”

“Well, in that case, I think she’ll fledge right in order,” Huras said firmly. “I think it’s more to do with when they’re ready, not how big they are.”

He might have said more, but a steady bleating had just started from their right and was approaching. They exchanged a look.

“That doesn’t sound like Bethlan,” said Huras.

“No, it doesn’t,” Kiron replied, already on his way to the doorway.

He was just in time to intercept, not Bethlan, but Gan’s Khaleph. “Oh, no, baby!” he said, laughing, barring the way with his arms outstretched. “Not two wanderers! Back you go—”

But Khaleph wasn’t going to be turned back quite so easily. Instead, he ducked past Kiron and—unexpectedly—into Tathulan’s pen.

Both dragonets stopped what they were doing with snorts, and stared at one another.

“Do you think we should chase him out?” Huras asked, in a worried whisper, as Khaleph edged forward a little, neck stretched out so far toward Tathulan that he seemed twice his usual length.

“No—no, let’s see how they react to each other, first,” Kiron said cautiously. “They’ve never seen another dragon—and Bethlan gets along fine with that swamp dragon she keeps visiting.”

Now Tathulan had her neck stretched out nearly as far. The two touched noses, snorting in surprise, and jumped back.

Kiron stifled his laughter. Huras still looked worried—though why he should be worried, when Tathulan was far more likely to injure Khaleph than the other way around, made no sense to Kiron.

The little emerald-green male stretched out his head again, and this time, when he touched noses with the bigger female, he didn’t snort and jump back. Instead, he carefully eased himself down into the sand pit with Tathulan.

Now the two of them began a careful circling of each other, rather like two strange dogs—though unlike dogs, neither made any attempt to nip. Then they stopped, and both of them looked at Huras and Kiron.

“What do they want?” Huras asked urgently.

“It’s all right,” Kiron told the two dragonets—he was, after all, the one they both knew. “It’s fine, little ones.”

They looked at each other. And then Khaleph stretched out his neck and head again, one eye on Tathulan, only this time it was toward Tathulan’s stuffed sack.

She immediately figured out what he was after, and snatched it away from under his nose.