Kingdoms Falling

Chapter 14

"Daddy?" A tiny year-old Meadow squeaked, shivering and blinking up tearfully at the closest thing he'd ever had to a father figure.

"What is it, squirt?" Gale had asked with a sigh, looking up tiredly from his half-comatosed state to find the weird little hatchling planted before him, looking on the verge of bursting into tears.

"Daddy...I...I can't be a s-scientist...c-can I?" Meadow whimpered despairingly, picking at the little scraps of paper and grease plastered across his talons.

Gale frowned. "Why would you think that?"

"Lionfish said scientists a-are b-bad d-dragons who k-kidnap w-weird looking hatchlings l-like me to p-perform e-experiments on and d-decapidate them."

Gale blinked, sitting up straighter now. "Decapitate?" he corrected. "Where did you learn that word?"

"L-lionfish," Meadow answered. "I...I don't k-know what i-it means. S-something to do w-with n-needles? Needles and d-dying s-seem very r-related. A-am I...g-gonna d-die? I don't w-want to be a b-bad dragon. You k-kill bad d-dragons." And he shuddered, flapping his miniature wings fearfully. "I is a g-good hatchling. F-follow the rules. D-don't touch L-lionfish's t-toys."

Gale chuckled, wrapping a wing around the hatchling and pulling him in close. "Yes," he rumbled. "You are a good dragon Meadow. And there's no reason you can't be a scientist, if that's what you really want."

Meadow stared up at him with his weird blue eyes. "B-but s-scientists hurt d-dragons. I don't w-want to h-hurt d-dragons."

"Science can be used for good too," Gale pointed out. "Think about it. Technology can help dragonkind as well as harm it. You've seen the lightbulb, and the...what's it called? That thing that you cook stuff on."

"A s-stove," Meadow said helpfully, brightening.

"Ah, is that what it was? Yes, a stove. Useful invention, that."

"I eat m-my fish r-raw," Meadow pointed out.

"Ew," Gale wrinkled his snout teasingly.

"T-that's the r-raynbow part o-of you t-talking."

"I'm pretty sure that's all parts of me talking," Gale argued.

"Nuh-uh!" The yearling shook his head wildly.

"Uh-huh!" Gale retorted in the same tone, sending both dragons into a fit of giggles. Gale held the small hatchling near him, and slowly, Meadow's shaking died away to be replaced with a small tail wag and a glint of love in his eyes. "You'll be a great scientist one day," he assured him, bonking his nose with a talon. "Just promise me one thing."

"W-what?"

Gale gently placed a talon on Meadow's chest near his heart. "That you'll never ever change who you are in here. Because, you are smart, and you are kind, but the way you love, that is what makes you special. It's what makes you, you."

"ARRRGGGGGHHH!"

Meadow awoke to the sharp jab of talons and the frantic whooshing of wingbeats over his head. Immediately, he leapt up, growling, braced for a fight.

Instead of an army of dragons ready to drag him to his watery grave, he found a startled, squawking, hilariously and hopelessly confused sand dragon sprinting up and down the shoreline, acting as though the ghost of his past school teacher were chasing him with a bad report card.