Tessa’s POV:

  “Can I jump from here?” I asked Dad eagerly.

  He nodded. “Yes, but land on the mat.”

  “Yes!” I jumped off the couch and beat my wings down hard. I was getting better at this, and even one wingbeat sent me flying upwards.

  “Tessa…” The warning note in Dad’s voice told me that I really shouldn’t push any more boundaries after my mistake this morning.

  I spread my wings as I turned my flight into a glide, making sure I kept above the big soft mat that Taureen had brought in. It covered most of the floor, so it was easy to stay above it. I tilted one wing down a bit and leaned to the side as I carefully made a mid-air turn—something that Dad called ‘banking’.

  My wings were getting sore, and I was quickly getting closer to the ground. Keeping in mind what Mom and Dad had shown us earlier, I angled up a bit while flapping my wings somewhat in front of me—backwinging—which slowed me to a stop and let me stretch my back legs down for a landing.

  I sank up to my belly in the mat as it cushioned my fall. That landing was my best one so far! Most of my earlier ones had turned into somersaults.

  The faint sounds of dragonet singing caught my attention, and I turned my head as I tried to locate the source. Taureen and Aeria sat side by side on the couch as they looked at a device in Taureen’s hands. My ear tufts perked up—that was my voice!

  I scampered over and jumped up, using two wingbeats to get onto the couch. Taureen let me climb onto his lap as I looked at the device. My eyes widened at the sight of myself and Dirk on the windowsill flapping our wings for the rising sun.

  Taureen commented to Aeria, “Well, they were certainly enthusiastic.”

  The video ended, and Taureen tapped the screen a few times as he said, “It’s a pity you didn’t catch her first flight on video. I was hoping to see it.”

  “To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it. The moment I saw her in the air, I was already running to catch her.”

  He nodded in understanding as he pressed a few buttons. The screen went black. Shaking out my wings, I started walking toward Taureen’s knee, intending to take off from there for another test flight. Taureen picked me up and moved me to his other knee. I looked up at him in confusion.

  He saw my look and explained, “There is a scratch under the bandage, and I didn’t want you to walk on it.”

  Oh. I wasn’t aware that he had an injury. I was sad that he was hurt, and I trilled my sadness at him. He smiled softly and gently petted my back. I hummed and rubbed my head against his hand. Mom was on Taureen’s shoulder and nuzzled his cheek with her head, thrumming apologetically.

  He reached up and picked her up as he cradled her in his arms. He gazed down at her tenderly. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was only a scratch.”

  Mom lifted her head slightly, but if she spoke to him, she didn’t include me in her mindspeech. Something told me that this discussion was really between them. I quietly stepped off Taureen’s leg and onto the couch before walking to the end of it. I looked around before opening my wings and jumping into the air once more.

  ***

  Tasha’s POV:

  Taureen held me in his arms as we watched the fledglings making small flights across the room. I subtly glanced at the bandage on his leg once more. He may have called it a scratch, but I knew he wouldn’t have used a heavy-duty bandage for a minor cut.

  His head may have been facing the off-course scarlet youngster, but he still noticed me looking at his leg. He didn’t say anything and began rubbing the scales on my neck and shoulders. Even without the oil, the massage was relaxing—and Taureen was well aware of it. He had used this tactic frequently in the past if I got upset or agitated.

  Tessa squeaked and narrowly avoided a mid-air collision with Dirk. Her aerial evasion caused her to crash land into the mat, barrel-rolling several times before coming to a slow stop. As she sat up, her head swayed side to side a bit.

  I was glad that Taureen had found those soft floor mats so quickly. Technically, the fledglings didn’t need them, but Taureen was also going a bit overboard in his own fashion. It would take months before they could fly fast—and their slow flight was keeping them fairly safe.

  Tessa’s disorientation swiftly passed, and she promptly bounded over to the chair to get height for another takeoff. I continued watching as they slowly learned to fly. Their attempts were a far cry from my own memories of learning to use my wings.

  Admittedly, my mind had been that of a young adult, and my body almost fully-grown when I had hatched in the lab. I had also watched birds fly, so I knew the theory. Mentally, these two were like five-year-olds. Physically, they were building up muscle as swiftly as they were devouring anything put into their food bowls.

  They were still bumbling youngsters though, and the airspace wasn’t going to be safe for several weeks…

  ***

  I glided beside Dirk as I gave him some advice, letting both Keegan and Tessa listen in. “Use smaller wingbeats more frequently, particularly if you are just flying straight. You use less energy and your flight is steadier. Yes, like that.”

  The wall was rapidly approaching, and I said, “Lean to the side and use your tail to turn. Your speed will do most of the work for you.”

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  Dirk’s bank was rather wobbly, and he began to panic, causing himself to overbalance. Instinctively, he turned it into a rollover—which he had no idea how to come out of as he plummeted downward.

  Dropping into a dive alongside him, I called out, “Spread your wings wide!”

  He spread his wings just before Taureen caught him, further cushioning his fall. I pulled out of my dive, letting my momentum turn it into a climb as I circled behind Taureen to land on his shoulder. Taureen stood upright and waited while the blue youngster in his palm got over his shock.

  Keegan observed from under the heat lamp, and Tessa had stopped eating to watch Dirk’s latest flying folly. And there had been a lot of those since Tessa’s first flight this morning. She had more practice than Dirk, so she hadn’t had quite as many aerial blunders, although that wasn’t saying much.

  Dirk chirped a thanks at Taureen before once more spreading his wings and jumping. This time, he glided carefully toward the end table, where he managed a halfway decent landing.

  Keegan quietly commented, “That wasn’t too bad. He would have pulled out of his drop even if Taureen hadn’t helped.”

  I spread my wings and glided over to the end table, where I landed and bumped my nose against Keegan’s. “Probably, although I’m sure there will be quite a few more crash landings.”

  He hummed in agreement, shifting his wings to make room for me to lie down and spread my wings under the heat lamp. “Thankfully, their instincts and Blood Memories are helping them; otherwise, there would be a lot more impacts.”

  “I never had flying lessons, so I keep forgetting simple things when I try to teach them,” I admitted. “It’s not easy to explain it at a level they can understand. Even though the Blood Memories are there, Tessa and Dirk are too young to understand them most of the time. It’s like the time I snuck into a doctoral-level quantum mechanics class in university—the teacher may have been using English, but all I could understand was ‘and’, ‘the’, and ‘but’.”

  He snickered and began to reply, but was cut off by the doorbell chiming. Both of us flattened our ear tufts with low growls, immediately gaining the attention of the blue and scarlet youngsters by the food dishes.

  Taureen walked to the door, although at this time of the evening, I already knew it was Tkael and Soranto. Aeria came out of the kitchen and took a seat beside our end table while our two guests entered the living room with Taureen.

  I grumbled unhappily, still not impressed with them being in the same room as my children. Keegan’s growls faded as he watched them with narrowed eyes. Dirk and Tessa tilted their heads as they examined the two Kymari, but they didn’t find their presence alarming or bothersome, so they turned back to their food bowls.

  In reality, I knew I was making a mountain out of a molehill, but my motherly instincts had never really listened to logic. It was like a massive mood swing that was nearly impossible to control, even though I was aware of it.

  None of Taureen’s friends would ever hurt them; to the contrary, they would probably go through a lot of effort to help them in any way they could. But my instincts apparently needed more time before they reached that consensus.

  I glanced back at the two youngsters, wondering how I could possibly explain Stranger Danger to the six-day-old chicks when I knew that it wasn’t exactly fair to Taureen’s friends. My mind and instincts were at odds with one another once again.

  I decided to remain silent on the subject until a true stranger showed up; my actions would already be influencing their minds, and they would be cautious around the two visiting Kymari. Or so I hoped.

  Dirk came over and curled up beside me, yawning sleepily. His full stomach and earlier flying attempts had tired him out, so he was probably going to be quiet for the rest of the evening.

  His sister was a different whirlwind of energy, and one glance told me there was no way she was going to consider taking a nap yet. Taureen wasn’t going to be able to confine her to the couch either.

  “Got any ideas?” I asked Keegan. “I’m not quite ready to let these two fly around with Tkael and Soranto here.”

  His eyes flickered over to me before examining the fledglings. Tilting his head in thought, he crooned lowly to gain their attention. “Who wants to hear some stories?”

  Both of them perked their ear tufts in interest.

  “Me!”

  “I do!”

  Tessa trotted over and curled up beside her brother as they both stared at their father, eagerly waiting to hear more of his stories.

  He partially folded his wings as he gazed at them tenderly. “Then close your eyes and rest your head on your hands—and I will tell you why such an action is so important at this moment.”

  I thrummed lightly as I played along for the benefit of our watchers across the room. Tessa and Dirk promptly lay their heads down and closed their eyes, not questioning their father’s request.

  “In the beginning, we were not as we are now,” Keegan began in a quiet, solemn voice. “Things have changed greatly, leaving all of the dragonets with three big secrets. The biggest one is that many of us were once human. None of the Kymari or any other race know about it.”

  “So why do we have to close our eyes?” Dirk interrupted.

  “Because most Kymari aren’t aware that we are intelligent and can speak. That is our second secret. Taureen and Aeria are two of the very few who know. The two across the room are not aware of this, so this allows them to mistake us for mere animals.”

  “Why would we want them to think we are animals?” Dirk sounded confused.

  “Because the other dragonets are scared,” Keegan said softly. “The scientists from the lab may be long gone, but if they had learned we weren’t animals, it would have been disastrous. So we only let our closest friends know.”

  I flicked an ear tuft in agreement. Our intelligence may become common knowledge among the Kymari on this planet eventually, but today wasn’t that day.

  “What’s the third secret?” Dirk asked.

  Tessa piped up, “It’s the hidden memories, isn’t it?” Her eager voice was at odds with her relaxed posture.

  Keegan sent a wave of approval across the mindlink. “That’s correct. The Blood Memories appeared when we were turned into dragonets, and since they’re so closely connected, we’ve never told any Kymari, even the trusted ones.”

  “Did you really have two legs? How could you turn fast without a tail?” Tessa eagerly inquired.

  She may have not heard our stories yet, but the Blood Memories showed her the basic history. It was up to us to teach her the three main rules the dragonets had decided on, as well as the reasons behind them.

  Keegan sent them an image of what he had looked like when he had been human. Even I had a hard time reconciling the slender young man with black hair and worn-out jeans with the silver dragonet in front of me.

  “Yes, I had two legs, and they moved and bent very differently. Because I was tall, I could spin in one place easily, so I didn’t need a tail, although it might have helped in a few situations.”

  “What did hair feel like?”

  The two fledglings, mostly Tessa, continued to bombard their father with questions about what it had been like to be human. They could see general things in the Blood Memories, but the personal experiences were something they had to hear in order to know. The mindlink was particularly useful when it came to relaying feelings and images.

  Slowly exhaling, I rested my head on my hands, relieved that the youngsters were occupied with Keegan’s stories and had mostly forgotten about the Kymari across the room.