Back to Perfection

Growling Pains

Hope you liked the last chapter, because this one gets intense! Sobek is NOT friendly towards an older (but not an adult) Cinder at all. Beware of the mentions of child abuse and endangerment. It starts in this chapter.

My pun is bad, I know.

.............

It's been about two months since Cinder hatched. And it was safe to say that there was now a SECOND ball of sunshine in the house. Still, he'll never replace Michelangelo...

Cinder has made a bond with all four turtles, Kijani, Zurio, and Drake. But it was no surprise that Cinder had the strongest bond with his father, Marcus. The two of them play together, wrestle, or just plain have fun.

Elkhound Dragons have the elements Void and Water, in that order. Marcus had to explain to Cinder how he had a weakness for the Plant element. In his own words, "be careful when picking a fight with a dragon that has the Plant element. You'll regret it."

It's amazing how much Cinder learned in the past two months. One could only imagine his fascination hen he had his first encounter with rain. Marcus remembers that day... It was last week.

"Dad?" Cinder said. "Yes?"

"Why is the sky leaking?"

Marcus chuckled at his son's question. "The sky isn't exactly leaking, Cinder. What you're looking at right now, is rain."

"Cool... what's rain?"

"Rain is moisture condensed from the atmosphere that falls visibly in separate drops." Marcus answered. Cinder, however, didn't quite understand. "You're starting to sound like uncle Don."

"Oh? I'll take that as a compliment." Marcus said, ruffling Cinder's head. "There's this phenomena in science called the water cycle. See this puddle here? The heat from the sun turns the water into steam. Then it travels to the sky."

"So that's where clouds come from."

"Exactly. The steam is condensed into clouds. And as clouds move around the skies, they collide, grow and start falling out of the sky as precipitation – in other words, rain, snow, hail or sleet."

"But what happens to the water that falls?"

"Oh, it comes back down to Earth as water again. And the water cycle goes on for infinity."

"Wow..." Cinder said, looking up at the cloudy sky. "Rain is so cool!"

"Isn't it? For me, it's relaxing. Listening to the rain pour from inside, it calms my troubled soul."

Never has Marcus seen someone so excited over rain since his brother Apollo. Marcus says it's in his nature, as a dragon with the Water element. Drake likes rain as much as Cinder does; enjoys getting wet, dislikes being hot.

And Cinder has a thick fur coat, so winter is his favorite season. Since Marcus (and Donatello) explained what snow was, Cinder turned out to like it as much as rain. Until he got cold enough to go back inside.

Summer was beginning to come around, meaning Cinder will be staying inside for most of the season to avoid heat exhaustion. Or worse, heat stroke.

Marcus was munching on a chicken leg as his son began asking questions.

"What kind of dragon is uncle Zurio again?"

"Uncle Zurio is a Lynx Dragon."

"What's a lynx?"

"Lynxes are medium sized wild cats that are... Usually in Asia. Zurio is just about as big as a real lynx."

"Whoa... They're big."