Misunderstood Love

Chapter 10 - Family bonding and coming out

"Hey, uh, mom," a voice piped up. Meltwater opened her eyes to find Cavern standing beside her on the deck. "Can you, uh, can you pierce MY ears for me, like you did for mama?"

"Do you have a pair of earrings already?" she asked, sitting up. The cool air brushed her face and wings as she did so. She liked the cold.

"Uh, no. I thought I could get one of the pairs from your shop?" he smiled at her nervously.

"You know what? I'll let you take one pair for free. Only because I like you, and because Spittlebug would be extremely opposed to the idea," Meltwater replied, getting up off the lounging chair. "Any more earrings, and you're paying for them, though."

"Thank you!" he hugged Meltwater, then jumped back with a yelp as one of his back legs pressed into one of the IceWing's spiky purple armbands.

"Well, lets go!" She launched into the sky, her glittery, pale blue wings catching the few rays of sun that poked through the clouds covering the sky, making them even more glittery. Cavern followed, his blue eyes smiling along with his face.

They flew to the shop, which was closed today. Meltwater, who had the key hidden half in one of the bands on her back legs, pulled it out and unlocked the store, keeping the closed sign on the door, and locking it again behind them, just in case someone thought she had just forgotten to take it off the door.

"So, earrings..." she dug around in the cabinets by the window. "What exactly are you looking for? Small studs? Hoops? Ones shaped like things, like mama's bee earrings?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I didn't think you were actually gonna do it," Cavern replied, glancing over her shoulder.

"Well, since this is the first time getting your ears pierced, I'd recommend gold hoops," Meltwater replied, pulling out a bin full of hoop earring of all shapes and sizes. "Hoops don't really have a back to them, so there's no risk of the back interfering with the healing process. Plus it reduces infections. And I think gold would go with your scales."

The two spent the next while looking at all the options. Cavern pointed out ones he liked, held them up to his ears in front of the mirror, and listened to all Meltwater's advice. Meltwater felt it quite nice to have a small dragon get so excited about earrings, for them to share something in common. Finally, he made his choice, a small pair of hoops, with a wave to them. Cavern seemed sure of his choice, and he sat happily and quietly in the chair at the piercing station as Meltwater cleaned the earrings. Finally, after the dragonet had picked the position of the earrings, as well, she stabbed the pin in the spot she had marked on his ears, and shoved the golden hoops through. The dragonet yelped as she did so, but he looked happy as anything once it was done.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!" he grinned, hugging her again, this time being mindful of her spiky accessories. He pulled away, his face a little less happy. "I, uh, I have something else I wanted to tell you."

"Go for it," Meltwater replied, putting away the other earrings.

"I... I don't feel fully like a boy. Sometimes I do, but most times I don't really. I think there's something wrong with my brain," he replied, a note of worry in his voice. "I felt like mama would worry if I told her, so I haven't told her yet."

Meltwater turned to the dragonet, who had his flat MudWing head lowered. "No," she blurted, he glanced up. "There's nothing wrong with your brain. That's completely normal. I mean, most dragons don't feel like that, but some do, and that's normal. What do you feel like?"

Cavern looked relieved. "I don't know," he admitted. "Sometimes I feel like a boy, sometimes I feel like a girl, and sometimes I feel like neither, or both at the same time. Does that even make sense?"

"I once met a person like that. They're gender wasn't fixed, so they felt like a different gender all the time. I think they called it genderfluid," Meltwater thought back on her late dragonethood days, back in the SandWing desert. That SandWing was a thief, but they did help her and Skink out of a sticky situation that would have very likely ended in one or both of their deaths. "Thank you for telling me," she replied.

"I'm just glad its normal," Cavern replied, still smiling.

Meltwater smiled too "Now, lets go show mama your new earrings, and watch her absolutely freak out!"