Lost Change

Chapter 76

"I told you. It's even prettier when there are more of them." I glanced back to see Minna smiling at us from where she sat on the lawn.

Trenil was also smiling, and the two handlers both had recorders trained on us... but the rest of the Kymari had stunned expressions, as if they couldn't believe what they had just watched. Even Lyzel seemed to be wide awake now.

"How... did they practice that? I can't imagine the coordination required to do that; it reminded me of some of the shuttle stunts you used to watch." Terron looked over at Minna, then back up into the air, as if he could still see us dancing through it.

"No. We still have no idea how they do it. It seems to just be instinctive. As far as we know, this is the first chance Nate ever had to do that dance with a partner; he did all that without any sort of practice with Ivy or any other fire lizards beforehand." Trenil reached for his recorder and tapped a button on it, then slipped it into one of his pockets. "And no two songs are ever the same. They'll never do a dance quite like that one again, as far as we can tell. Each day will be unique."

"And they all do that? Even in the main flock, with all of them? They all just... know?"

Trenil nodded. "Yes. We think they respond to something in the sunrise when they dance; we've noticed similarities in the dances of the main flock and tame fire lizards on any particular day, regardless of if they are dancing together or not. The working theory has been that because the sunrise looks the same for all of them, they have the same response to it."

He lifted a hand to point back at me. "Minna's fire lizard caused us a bit of confusion at first, because his dances did seem to lack the same themes of the main flock. But his dance matched Ivy's just now, which means it's probably a case of this city being far enough away to cause the sunrises to look different. The triggers and cues he's responding to aren't in the sunrises the other fire lizards are responding to, and the ones they're responding to aren't in the sunrises he sees."

I glanced at Ivy out of the corner of my eye. "Just how long have the Kymari been watching me dance, anyways?"

"Ever since they learned about you. They like watching it. And you didn't exactly make it hard for them to find where you would be at. The main flock tends to wander through the park and find different spots each day."

I turned my eyes back up to the sky. "Yeah. I did that at first too. It felt safer, and..." I tried to put words to the feeling. "It felt like the rest of the forest deserved a chance to see it, too."

"I know what you mean."

"Will they do it again? It was pretty." Lyzel looked from us to Trenil with a pleading expression, as if maybe he knew some trick or phrase that could get us to repeat the performance.

"I'm sorry, but they won't do another dance like that one until tomorrow morning. They only do that for the sunrise."

"Aw..." Lyzel looked down and pouted a little.

Trenil looked from the child to Minna. "However... one of the bond handlers has recently observed that at least one of the fire lizards enjoys singing and dancing along with certain kinds of music. If it's okay with your mother, we might be able to try some of that later today."

"Can we?" Lyzel's face lit up and she looked at her mother. "Pleaseeeee?"

Loreena shot Trenil a glance that suggested she wasn't entirely happy with his idea, but she nodded. "If you're good and you finish up all your homework. But not until later today. Your Aunt Minna has things she has to take care of, too."