Page 269 of Gift from the Source
“Whoa, little one. Take it easy,” she coos as she sits on the ground, and he makes himself comfortable in her lap.
“In all my years, I’ve never seen his color on a dragon before,” Keeper says softly to Gaster, but we all hear him.
“In all my years, I’ve learned there are no such things as coincidences.”
Our eyes meet the old man’s.
It’s definitely not a coincidence his scales are midnight purple.
I just don’t understand why.
“Well, what are we going to name this little guy?” I ask as I sit on the ground across from Willow and him.
He pokes his head up and tilts his snout at me but chuffs and lays it back down when I try to coax him to come here. He snuggles in deeper, burying his face more into her side to hide from me the harder I try.
Not gonna lie, I pout a smidge.
So much for being his favorite.
Willow’s eyes light for a second with humor before clouding over. It’s over in a millisecond and she smiles softly as she runs her hand down his back. “His name is Prio.”
We all repeat his name, and he pops his head up to look at us. Our chuckles echo around, and he quickly loses interest in us.
“There’s not a thing wrong with him, but there is still something…different,”Tanith says.
“Different is perfectly fine.”
“I never said it wasn’t. I just figured we’d know immediately what it was that I sensed when he hatched. I haven’t the slightest clue.”
“Sometimes…it isn’t best to have all the answers right away. For now, all we need to know is he’s meant to be here with us. Whatever that purpose proves to be later, we will accept,”Willow says as she leans down and kisses Prio on the head.
Cas kneels beside Willow and Prio again huffs as he lifts his head back up like he’s so incredibly tired of being bothered. Granted, I bet he is after all that hard work he put in. It can’t be easy being born.
“Can he understand us like you can, Tanith? Will the naughty little Primary need to watch her mouth around him?”
“He can understand you all just fine, but his communication skills will take time to develop.”
“Then you all will be wishing otherwise,” my dad grumbles.
“Hilarious little vampire man,”she teases back.“Draken knows all of this, but for the rest of your information, young dragons do not develop like you all do. There isn’t much of a ‘baby’ phase, per se. He’ll be able to walk on his own within a few hours. Then for the next two or so days, he’ll be clingy to us all. Following everywhere one of us goes, more likely one of you all. He won’t want to be alone. From there, he’ll move on to wanting to be more independent as his first bouts of communal knowledge settle in. It’ll be eight or so years before he can fly, but he’ll get to a point before then where he won’t care for your constant attention. Overall, it will feel like having a small child who loves you to having a teenager who only wants to be around you sometimes, but they constantly need to be watched because their curiosity can cause trouble. That will last many, many years.”
Petrifying fear sears through my Nexus and we all glance at each other with wide eyes.
“Shit, guys. What did we get ourselves into?”
“The fuck do you mean we, dragon? You did this. We just supported you every step of the way. Now we’re damn…dragon parents.”
The hysteria in Cas’s tone causes a surprised laugh to bubble out of me. It starts out as a series of small snorts that I try to choke back. The more his eyes darken on me, the harder and louder the laughbecomes.
My little wanderer is the first to break.
Her laugh has the others falling apart shortly after.
That fear that was so stark in us a second ago slowly fades away as we each get on the same page. There’s a shared understanding that just like Gaster said, there are no coincidences.
Prio is supposed to be here and we’re going to take care of him.
The little guy must sense Cas’s lingering worry. He wiggles his head underneath Willow’s arm until she lifts it up out of his way and he crawls into Caspian’s lap.
