Sorensen - Dragons Song

Chapter 1: Sums

T he newest dragon egg was now in a cage beside Violets. Rose eyed the silent egg as her son and the other Deinonychus antirrhopus child played together, leaping on top of each other and biting each others tails.

A telepathic squabble broke out between the two.

Violets tail looked like prey! Virgil would pounce on it!

Violets tail was not prey! She was scared of Virgils pouncing! She would smack him in the face with it!

Whack!

Rose chuckled. It was amazing just how easily those two could be entertained by the simplest of games. She supposed she shouldnt be surprised; they were only five months old and three months old, after all.

Whack! Virgil would hit Violet in the face with his tail, too!

Wham! Violet liked playing tail face!

Thwack! Virgil liked playing tail face, too!

As the two merrily continued their game, Rose found her mind and her eyes wandering over to the mysterious silent egg.

You woke up a few weeks ago, she thought, but unlike the other three who have awakened, you did not bond with a parent immediately, nor even seem that interested in doing so.Who are you?What sort of person are you?

It was a question Rose had wondered many times while in the presence of the egg, but, as always, there was no response. The tiny female in the egg had woken up once while Rose had been here, but she had left behind only a feathery impression of hunger before her consciousness had drifted off again.

Which was another fascinating question Rose badly wanted the answer to: Did dragons in the egg feel hunger? Theoretically they shouldnt, since they should have all of the nutrients they needed until hatching, but Virgil had made vague references to hunger a few times while in the egg, which seemed to imply that eggbound fetuses might be familiar with the sensation.

Then again, those references from him might have only been an echo of his ancestors memories. Such secondhand experiences might have taught him to remember how the sensation felt, even if he had not yet experienced it personally.

That was one thing that was deeply confusing about raising a member of a telepathic species. Sometimes she wondered how much he had learned by himself, and how much he had learned from his ancestors memories.

She hoped there werent essential pieces of knowledge that Deinonychus antirrhopus society had led parents to hide from their very young children until they were older.

She hoped he wasnt missing core memories that would be necessary for him developmentally.

There were no adults left of his species. There were only a few hundred eggs scattered across the country, and it wasnt even guaranteed that all of them would hatch in the same generation. While Virgil could pluck Roses memories out of her head, whether or not she wanted him to, that did not mean shed have all the knowledge he would need as he grew into adulthood.

There was a feathery impression of stirring, and a wispy impression of hunger. Roses head turned immediately to the egg in the cage beside Violets, but nothing more happened.

She sighed.

A terrible scream shrieked from Violets cage.

Virgil had bitten Violets tail! Violet was very sad! Violets tail hurt! Violets tail had been bitten!

Rose spun around in intense frustration. Virgil! No biting!

But Violets tail had looked like prey. Virgil wanted to hunt prey. Virgil would pounce again!

Violet let out another blood-curdling shriek.

Virgil! Rose shouted. Stop it!

Virgil sulked and drew back. His mother was thinking that if he didnt stop, hed have to go home right now. His mother was mean. He wanted to play tail face again.

Yes, Rose said with annoyance. Tail face is fine.

Virgil would hit Violet in the face with his tail! Virgil was hitting Violet in the face with his tail! Virgil thought it was funny!

Violet thought Virgil was mean for biting her tail! Violet didnt want to play anymore! Violet thought the tail in the face was funny. Violet was going to hit Virgil in the face with her tail, too! Violet was hitting Virgil in the face with her tail!

Thwack!Thwack!Thwack!Thwack! The telepathic equivalent of mischievous giggles rose up as the infants went back to being amused with each other.

Rose sighed and checked her wristwatch. Shed promised Henry theyd stay out of the apartment for at least two hours after he got home from class, which would hopefully give him enough time to study for the huge test he had next week. This had meant taking Virgil with her to her own classes, which had proven to be a disaster.

My notes from todays lectures were abominable, Rose thought in deep frustration. I scarcely managed to take in half of what the professor said.And I have two of my own tests the day after Henrys.I understand that his grades represent our possible future income, while mine do not, but...

Rose had always prided herself on her extraordinary grades. And more than that, she knew that having the best possible grades would be necessary for her to continue into graduate school to acquire the credentials she would need to go into paleontology.

But Henrys academic success was, unfortunately, even more important than that. If he failed any of his classes, it would take him longer to graduate, and the worse his grades were, the less likely it would become that he would find his way into a job that paid well. He had already failed two of his classes last semester, in fact, and was now retaking both of them.

This was a detail that Rose had only just learned last night. Henry had not felt the need to tell her about his two failed classes when hed gotten the news. Shed had quite a struggle to control her temper when hed finally informed her of that rather crucial detail last night.

After all, for crying out loud! Rose thought, her indignation rising again. I was able to keep up my grades during our first few months of caring for Virgil!This despite the fact that I have a much longer walk to school, Henry insists that I do all the cooking, and we take equal turns with Virgil!

Virgil was going to play leg face! Leg face would be fun!

Rose barely spared a glance at the roughhousing in the cage beside her. Would it have killed him to at least inform me that he was struggling academically?I thought we had fixed this problem of him keeping secrets from me after he gave me control over the budget!

Henry was, she had learned recently, appalling in his mathematical skill. Shed learned a few weeks ago that all the time shed thought he was spending on the budget, he had actually been spending drawing.

Which was fine as far as it went. The incomprehensible mess of their finance book had been resolved when she had offered to take control of the budget, a duty he had been more than glad to relinquish.

But it turned out that her husbands ghastly skill at sums was extending to two of his college classes, as well. According to Henry, he needed both of those classes to graduate with his degree in biology, which made them nonnegotiable nightmares for him to navigate. He had, apparently, decided it would be wise to take both of those classes at once to get them over with.

And then Virgil had come into their lives early in the last semester, throwing their lives askew and disrupting everything.

It wasnt that Rose resented their sons awakening... but the timing had hardly been ideal. Couldnt the boy have waited until after Henry had finished his college education, at least?