hwango

Kin wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, but there must have been something. His mother had seemed so serious when she’d called him in from playing outside, and now she was just staring at him.

“Kin,” she said at last, “I think it’s time we had a talk.”

That sounded ominous. Kin scrunched his shoulders and tried to make himself as small as he could. Kin knew his mother loved him, but when she was angry or upset she could be kind of terrifying.

“You’re getting older, and as you grow up you’re going to go through some changes. Some of them will seem strange, and some might even be a little scary.”

Actually, the whole thing sounded scary.

“Your feelings towards others your own age will become…complicated. And there will be some physical changes.”

“Like what?” Kin squeaked.

“Well, most importantly, pretty soon you’re probably going to start breathing fire.”

Kin was stunned. He’d only ever seen his mom breathe fire a few times, but it had always been spectacular. He remembered asking once when he was very little if he’d ever be able to do that, and she’d said that he would, but not until he was older. Kin had always assumed she meant a lot older. He’d only hatched two years ago.

“Your wings are going to get much bigger and your flying will improve. You’ll develop fierce territorial instincts, and that means…well, this isn’t easy to say, but the fact is that you’re going to have to find your own cave pretty soon.”

“What?”

“You’re also going to have to gather your own pile of gold to sleep on, and when foolish humans show up to try to take it from you, you’re going to have to drive them off yourself. It will be frightening the first few times, but don’t worry - they burn easily, and usually once you’ve killed about half of them the others will just run away. As you get older your scales will become harder as well, so you won’t have to worry about their weapons as much. But until then I want you to be careful.”

Kin wanted to cry. He was leaving home so soon? And marauding humans were going to come after him when he was all alone and try to take his gold! Wait, he didn’t even have his own gold!

“I have to find my own gold?” he whimpered.

“Don’t worry dear, no son of mine is going to have to sleep on a bare stone floor in his first new cave. I’ll let you have a little of mine. But as you get bigger you’re going to have to find more yourself.”

Kin felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his heart. He’d still have at least some gold. Impulsively he hopped forward and draped his wings around his mother’s neck in a fierce hug.

“Oh, thank you! I love you, mom.”

“I love you too, Kindle,” she said, her voice softening a bit. “I promise that I’ll always love you - even after you’re older and my territorial instincts overwhelm my maternal ones, and I begin to perceive you as competition for available food and treasure. But that’s all still a few months away, so let’s not worry about it any more today. Want to come with me raiding the local human village? How about we snatch up a few cows for dinner? I’ll even crisp them a bit, just the way you like them.”

“Yay!”