Maycor and Demaeter
#32 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Faced with trouble, Jarzyl gets help from a trusted friend
(6,996 words)
Atlas stood atop a concrete rooftop, with his wings spread wide open. For a moment, the young dragon held the pose as if he was about to leap into flight, but then he used his tail to wipe the floor so he could sit back on his haunches. The building he was currently standing on was a flat, rectangular block of grey concrete, three stories tall--in the past, this place had been a small factory for some type of textile product, but now it was a sheltered home for clanless young drakken. A trio of chimney towers rose up high from the roof, but it had been decades since steam had risen from them. Now the assembly floor had been mostly cleared of machinery and partitioned into dormitory rooms and common areas, providing residence for those who had no clan to give them a proper home, but were also still too young to get themselves adopted into a clan.
The sheltered home had an area--a courtyard--that was in the centre of the building yet open to the sky. Atlas was close enough to the edge of the roof that he could see down into the courtyard, where a group of young dragons was playing a ball game. There were hatchlings and fledglings, small and not so small, male and female, and they was only one characteristic that united them all--they were all clanless. Not that this state would have been visually obvious. None of them were wearing clan flags tied around their wingtips, but that alone would not have been enough to make them stand out. In many places around the City of Wings, it was entirely normal to see drakken not wearing any clan identification.
There were many reasons why young dragons ended up clanless--unwanted eggs that no one dared to smash, or a tragedy befalling parents, or even interclan relationships that had soured, or sometimes it was just a mystery--but in Atlas's case, he had a strong suspicion about exactly why he was without a clan. The black-scaled fledgling tapped his forepaw against the rooftop, feeling how cool the concrete surface felt despite the faint afternoon sunlight. This was an asymmetric motion which he couldn't mirror. Atlas was a cripple--a three-legged dragon who was missing his left foreleg, and surely that was the reason why he'd ended up clanless. Was the past even of any significance? All that mattered was the present, and his future.
Atlas watched as the other young dragons played about, sprinting around the courtyard and batting a ball about with their wings or paws. Though he sometimes also joined in with those games, being short a leg left him at a natural disadvantage. In a very real way, these other dragons were the closest thing he had to family. He wasn't related to any of them by blood or by legal contract, but they supported each other as a community to provide the assistance a clan should have.
Atlas watched the game as it continued, with the two teams chasing the ball about. The other young dragons ran, dodged, or even bounded entirely over each other as they tried to knock a ball across the yard towards goal posts. After half a minute he refocused--he hadn't come up to the roof just to spectate his fellow clanless young dragons as they played their game, nor had he come up here to take off into flight. Instead, Atlas had a wing harp trapped to his wings. The musical instrument resembled two racks of open ended tubes, with each rack strapped to one wing.
A gentle afternoon breeze washed over the rooftop, and Atlas tilted his wings to catch it. Air swept across his aerofoils, but instead of providing lift to push him upwards, the shape of his wings directed air into the wing harp's tubes. Inside each tube were valves and taut wires that made the air vibrate, creating a resonant, harmonious hum. By twisting his wings and adjusting the position of his flight scales, Atlas could control the airflow and hence the exact musical notes he was creating.
Taking a deep breath, Atlas placed a musical textbook on the ground in front of him, and his eyes darted across the pages as he quickly looked over the sheet music. Then without further hesitation he became flapping his wings at a steady pace. The gentle wind had created a soft hum, and now each beat of the young drake's wings fed more air into the wing harp until the whole instrument was thrumming. It took careful, practiced movements of his flight scales for Atlas to coax out the correct notes and play the proper tune.
The wing harp was old, and its resonator tubes were spotted with rust and even the occasional small dent. Yet despite the instrument's considerable age--and the youthfulness of its player, who might even have been younger than it--the musical device was still capable of producing a deep, harmonious sound that was on pitch. It was school equipment, borrowed from the music department just for the weekend. Atlas had assured his teacher that he would practice with it, and that was a promise he intended to keep. Dozens of other young dragons must at some point in the past have had this same instrument strapped to their wings, and now he was just the latest who would use it to turn effort and skill into music.
The wing harp was of a slightly smaller and lighter design, which made it easier to operate by younger fledglings (such as Atlas) who were themselves slightly smaller and lighter than fully grown adult drakken. Nevertheless, the instrument was fully capable of producing rich, complex music if its operator had the skill and the strength for it. The metal resonator tubes weren't lightweight, and it took tiring effort to keep beating his wings at a steady pace. Yet it also took dexterity and fine muscle memory to keep setting his flight scales in the right position, blocking certain portions of the wing harp's tubes to play the exact right note for the right duration and at the right tempo.
Atlas kept flapping his left wing and playing music, even as he briefly stopped flapping his right wing--with half the notes missing, the music sounded simplified and incomplete. Stretching out his head, he used his jaws to bite down on and pull one of the straps that was holding the wing harp's right section against his right wing, just to ensure it was held tight and in the correct place. Then with a barely noticeable skip, he resumed beating both wings and playing the music, breaking out of the short loop he'd been in.
Atlas sat alone on the rooftop, playing his wing harp. Down in the courtyard some of the other young dragons heard his music and raised their head, and a few spread their own wings to wave at him. Engrossed in his music, Atlas paid little attention to them and instead he focused on reading the notes and playing them. He wasn't always correct. A wing harp was an instrument meant for playing with a dragon's wings, which meant that only fledglings or adult drakken could play it, not hatchlings who lacked muscle strength in their wings. And Atlas was still a younger fledgling--not too long ago he had still been a hatchling himself, small and weak winged. He'd only been able to learn the wing harp after learning how to fly, and though he was an earnest learner, having one year of practice still left him far from mastery. Atlas's winced on the occasions where he made a mistake, causing the wrong note to sound out from the wing harp.
It was a pleasure even to practice. Strain slowly built in his wings, yet Atlas enjoyed the challenge, and he hummed softly under his breath, harmonizing with the tune that he was playing. When busy with other things, he sometimes found it hard to dedicate time for his music--yet whenever he actually began playing, time passed quickly as he got lost in the satisfaction and challenge.
After school classes had finished for the day, Atlas had flown back home to the clanless shelter, and now his plan was to spend the rest of his afternoon practicing with the wing harp, or at least until his wings were too tired to continue. Other fledglings came and went from the sheltered home, landing or taking off from the rooftop, and giving him nods or greetings as they passed him by. Atlas returned the gesture by dipping his head in a bow, though he never went too long without glancing back at his sheet music to read the next sequence.
Only about half an hour after he'd begun, however, Atlas was specifically interrupted by a dark grey scaled fledgling who was slightly longer than him. Hatchlings were mostly all the same size--small and easy to carry--but fledglings varied more drastically in physical stature. They were right on the cusp of adulthood, and though they were all affected by the major growth spurt which gave them the ability to fly, the speed of this maturity was not uniform.
"Atlas. Hey!" said the other fledgling, as she came trotting out from the stairwell and onto the rooftop. Her name was Reylin--another fledgling, similar in age to him but who went to a different school. They were all clanless though, and they all lived here.
Atlas played a few more notes, then he stilled his wings and let the resonant hum of the wing harp fade down into silence. "Reylin? Yes?"
Reylin nodded head in the direction of the stairwell. "Call for you. In one of the big sand pits, ground floor."
"From who?" Atlas asked.
"Another fledgling. I didn't get her name. It's that same orange classmate of yours who always calls." Her message thus delivered, Reylin turned around and trotted back across the rooftop and down the stairwell.
Atlas thought about it briefly, then he snatched up his music book and slipped it back into the front pouch of his harness. He raised his wings all the way up and into _just_the right angle, which folded together the two halves of the wing harp so that the instrument was more compactly held over his back. This also let him pull his wings out from most of the harp's straps, leaving only the straps which were right around his wing base. Furling up his wings, he stood up and headed inside.
Right as he was about to enter the stairwell, Atlas hesitated and glanced over towards the inner rim of the roof, which overlooked the courtyard. The other young dragons had finished their ball game and most had gone back inside, though a quartet of older hatchlings were still playing about by the side, grappling with each other as they held mock duels. Making a sudden, quick decision, Atlas stepped away from the stairwell and hopped sideways, flipping open his wings as he threw himself into open space.
His wings caught the air and slowed his fall into a controlled glide. Atlas would have preferred to touchdown lightly, but being a three-legged dragon meant he had to balance his mass across fewer limbs, and the wing harp strapped to his back added even further to his landing weight. The force of his landing made him bend his legs into a crouch right in the middle of the courtyard. Atlas held the pose for a moment--crouched down, wings both spread open. Then he smoothly furled his wings shut and stood up, before trotting out of the courtyard and into the building.
Inside one of the common rooms, there were six circular depressions in the ground placed at regular intervals, each about as wide across as a dragon's wingspan, and all were filled with whitish sand. Though one of the common names for such a device was sand pit, the more technically accurately term was light field projector. Sand swirled about within the boundaries of each projector, changing colour and snapping to specific locations to form three-dimensional objects under the arcane influence of magic.
Light field projectors were common, extremely useful devices, powered by a combination of stone and flame magic to create displays. The complex enchantments that made them work weren't cheap, but these devices here were old, refurbished models which had been left over from when the factory was converted into a sheltered home for clanless young dragons. Once they had been used for logistics planning and industrial design, but now they were shared for schoolwork, leisure, or just simple communication.
Of the six devices, two were inactive with the sand inside them resting dark and motionless at the bottom of their two pits. The remaining four projectors were energized and colourful, with three of them already being used by other young dragons. A fledgling was using one sand pit to create some sort of diagram for a science assignment, drawing images through the air with her tail curled around herself, with sand grains leaping up and locking in position to form a solid trail behind her slender, dextrous tail tip. Another four young dragons were watching a replay of the latest aerial races from another pit, with the entire race circuit and tiny facsimiles of drakken racers rendered out from coloured grains of sand that shifted through the air. The third pit was being used by two hatchlings playing a game together where they jabbed buttons on the projector's control pedestal to match tiled icons that were rolling across the projector's surface in patterns that matched a musical beat.
The fourth and last active projector was in communication mode, linked with another device somewhere else in the city. The sand was formed up into a grainy, but life-sized replica of another fledgling who was about Atlas's size but had scales of a warm amber orange instead of his sooty black. She had a neck frill rising from the back of her head and partially covering her neck, unlike Atlas, who instead had a short pair of horns that had started to grow from the back of his skull ever since he'd become a fledgling. The other fledgling was pacing around the other linked projector, with her image forming up then dissolving repeatedly as she passed the boundaries of this projector. Her name was Jarzyl, one of Atlas's classmates and closest friends.
Atlas walked over to the light field projector and strolled into its limits. His paws briefly left prints in the sand, before the device's powerful enchantments quickly reformed the sand into a flat surface. The sand was fine grained, but the magic pulled on each grain and prevented the sand from sticking to his scales or his paws. Cones of light shone out from various angles, illuminating him thoroughly so that his own likeness could be transmitted. His sooty black scales absorbed almost all the incoming light, but the enchanted machinery still had enough to send his image to the linked projector.
It took a split second, but then Jarzyl noticed him and stopped pacing. With a grin, she scampered over and sat down in front of Atlas. "Hey, hello. Help me! Are you busy this afternoon? Get over here," she said. Her voice sounded faintly distorted as the surface of the sand pit rippled to create it, but she was still clearly audible.
Atlas remained still and said nothing, only making a slight tilt of his head to the side.
Jarzyl waited a moment for him to make a proper response, then she flicked her neck frill at him. "Not with homework. I'm fine with that. But I need you over here."
Atlas was quiet for another moment, and Jarzyl spoke up again. "You truly have mastered the art of silence. Is this thing working? Can you hear me?"
Atlas chuckled softly. "Heh. I can hear you."
"So you just like ignoring me, then." Playfully Jarzyl flipped open a wing and swung it at him. On the other side this action would have made his projection disperse briefly as the sand grains were disrupted. Atlas similarly felt Jarzyl's projected wing scatter into its constituent sand grains as it touched his side, before they slid around him and reformed on the other side. The projections created by light field projectors looked solid, but the sand was lightweight and slippery so that the enchantments could move it about quickly and accurately.
"And what do you need help with?" Atlas queried.
"I need reinforcements. Do you have something else planned for this afternoon? I can ask Caden if you're busy. Or maybe Pyxis, since I think Caden might be busy with her study session thing," Jarzyl replied.
"Reinforcements for what?" Getting to his three feet, Atlas turned sideways and shifted his wings to draw attention to the wing harp strapped to his back. "And I am busy. I was planning on practicing my music."
Jarzyl sat back on her haunches and waved a paw dismissively. "Ahh, just bring your harp over and practice at my house. I need you here. You're way better at this that I am."
Atlas thought about it for a moment, then he nodded. "Alright. But what exactly do you need my help--?"
"Thanks! Please hurry." Jarzyl glanced around him, looking at something else over at her side. "Uhh, they're here already! I've got to go. You're the best. I owe you!" Jarzyl's tail flicked, then she lunged to her feet and leapt straight at him. Her sandy projection dissolved apart as it contacted his front-- another dragon might have flinched, but Atlas was used to Jarzyl's playfulness. It was against proper etiquette to physically interact with someone else's projection, yet that never stopped her.
The light field projector went back to idle as the link was shut down, leaving Atlas standing in a pit of dark, motionless sand. The young drake strolled out of the sand pit, then out of the room, walking slowly with his three-legged, asymmetric gait. Stepping out into the courtyard, he pushed his wings back into the straps of the wing harp so both halves of the musical instrument were over his wings instead of his back again. Then after a brief check of the surroundings and the wind, Atlas leapt into the air and flapped hard for takeoff.
Climbing out of the courtyard, he set a course for city central, where Jarzyl lived. There were special types of wing harps made specifically to be played in flight, and the wing harp Atlas was carrying was designed to be played while he was on the ground by beating his wings. Having to keep his wings fully open with his flight scales set in the proper configuration for flight meant Atlas was limited to playing a simple, repetitive tune with what air the wing harp captured from his forward motion. The musical instrument's weight and drag also slowed down his flight noticeably, but he pressed on, humming softly to himself as he made his way to sector one. As he flew, the air around him filled with the faint sound of music.
Sitting back on his haunches, Atlas curled his tail forward and rapped his tail tip against the front door. He only had to wait for a brief period, then there was a click as the door was unlatched and it swung open. A drakka with scales of azure colour peered out at him, briefly frowning--Zilarin Mintaka, Jarzyl's mother, who worked as a healer in the medical centre. She didn't seem surprised to see Atlas at all. "You? I suppose Jarzyl asked you to come over."
Atlas politely dipped his head in a bow. "Good afternoon, drak. Jarzyl said she needed my help with something, though she didn't quite explain what for."
Zilarin let out a short, bark of laughter. "Hah. Is my daughter just trying to outsource her responsibilities to you? Come in, come in." Stepping back from the doorway, Zilarin beckoned for him to enter the house. Atlas wiped his paws clean on the doormat, then he strolled inside.
Three other adult dragons were standing around the living room, including Jarzyl's father. From the looks of the flight harnesses and the fancy pennant flags tied around their wingtips, Atlas guessed that they were preparing to leave the house and head for a clan meeting of some sort.
Galon Mintaka smiled when he saw Atlas, and the yellow drake dipped his head in a casual bow at the young fledgling. "Atlas! Good to see you again. You're here to keep Jarzyl company this afternoon?"
Atlas still wasn't clear as to what was going on, but he made a hesitant nod. "I... think so?"
"Good of you." Galon spoke to the other two adult dragons. "This is Atlas. He's one of Jarzyl's classmates and a close friend of hers."
"Aren't you just the cutest thing? Whatever happened to your leg? You poor thing." Atlas got a quick pat on the head from one of the other adult dragons. Now that he was a fledgling and increasingly close to adult size, Atlas was less used to getting patted on the head like a fledgling, but he didn't mind. "Is that a wing harp you're carrying? Oh, young people these days are so talented. You're Jarzyl's special friend?"
"Um, just a normal friend," Atlas said.
Galon glanced over at the wall, and then he used a wing to gesture to the other drakken. "We should go, or we'll be late for the meeting."
All four adult drakken turned to go. "Help yourself to the larder if you're hungry, Atlas, and don't let Jarzyl push all her duties onto you." Zilarin said. She nodded towards the corridor, away from the living room. "She's in her room."
"Right then. Uh... yes," Atlas muttered, and then he trotted to go find his friend.
As he strolled down the corridor towards Jarzyl's bedroom, Atlas could hear the faint sound of dragon claws scuttling against the floor. The noises made it sound like Jarzyl was running in circles around her room. "Jarzyl?" he called, as he came up to the door.
The click of claws against tile briefly paused, then the door swung partially open and Jarzyl peered out through the gap. "Atlas? Finally! I can't stand being outnumbered."
Before Atlas could say anything, a young hatchling squeezed between Jarzyl's legs and peered up at him. The tiny young dragon had scales of a tawny brown colour, and was only a third the size of either of the fledglings. "Yaryil!" babbled the hatchling.
"Ah. I remember you. Hello, Maycor." Atlas stared back at the hatchling, then he glanced up at Jarzyl. "You're babysitting your cousin again, I assume?"
"Unfortunately. There was some meeting or gathering that involved my parents as well as my uncle and aunt, so they asked me to take care of their pest children for the afternoon," Jarzyl grumbled. She grabbed Maycor with her paws and turned around to gently toss him in the direction of her bed. The hatchling flailed out his wings as he tumbled through the air, managing to land on his paws and bouncing on Jarzyl's bed a few times before he scampered back towards the doorway and squeezed between Jarzyl's front legs to peer up at Atlas again.
But then before Atlas could react further, a second hatchling tried to squeeze past Jarzyl, only to also pause and stare at Atlas. This second hatchling also had tawny brown scales, and looked almost completely identical to Maycor. "Meeeep!" chirped the hatchling.
"Who's this now?" Atlas asked, crouching down his legs to peer at the new hatchling.
The door was still only partially open and being blocked by Jarzyl, but the second hatchling tried to squeeze past and run down the corridor, only for Jarzyl to grab the hatchling's tail and pull them back. "Pest number one and pest number two! For some incomprehensible reason, my uncle and aunt saw Maycor and decided, 'Hey, let's make another one of these things'." Using her wings, Jarzyl firmly blocked off her bedroom door even as the two young hatchlings tried to squeeze past her. "You've already met Maycor before, so now meet Demaeter--his sister. Demmy just hatched a few months back, but she's already as pesky as Maycor." Jarzyl gestured at the two hatchlings, then her neck frill twitched. "Wait, or was that one Demaeter, and the other one Maycor? I keep getting them mixed up."
"You can't tell your cousins apart?" Atlas asked disbelievingly.
Jarzyl stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't you judge me! Look at them! They both look alike! I don't even know how that's possible. Maycor's almost a year older than Demmy, yet they're both the same size."
One of the hatchlings tried to shove past the other, which started an impromptu play fight between the two young dragons as they both flailed their wings at each other. Atlas let out a soft, amused chuckle as he watched them. "Heh. She must have hatched from a big egg, while Maycor hatched from a small one? That would explain how these two are the same size already."
"Oh. Yeah, that was probably it. I don't know anything about hatchlings, or eggs, or parenting, or taking care of children, or whatever. All I know is that babysitting is now twice as hard," Jarzyl muttered.
"That's not quite true. With one hatchling to take care of, you have to keep him entertained. But with two, they'll keep each other entertained, at least in my experience," Atlas said.
"And you have lots of experience?" Jarzyl asked. The two fledglings watched as the hatchlings continued tousling about on the floor, trying to bite at each other's tails or pin each other down.
"As I've said before, the clanless shelter has young dragons of all ages--fledglings, hatchlings, even a few eggs. Just like how some clans run community homes with multiple families. So yes, I do have some experience taking care of hatchlings."
"Then it's a good thing you came over, then, because I'm terrible with taking care of children!" Jarzyl cheerfully replied.
Atlas shrugged in response, which made Jarzyl notice the wing harp that was strapped to his back. "Oh, you brought your wing harp. Come on in," Jarzyl said.
Jarzyl's bedroom was just the same as it always was--slightly messy, yet not excessively so--with the balcony windows open to let in the afternoon light and a cool breeze. Atlas entered the room, but he was cut off as the two hatchlings finally concluded their fight. Maycor jumped backwards and turned sideways, hunching his back and raising his wings to try and look big. Demaeter copied his posture, but then instead of attacking she turned around and jumped sideways towards Atlas instead before standing right in front of him.
Jarzyl bumped her shoulder against Atlas as she strolled past him. "Demmy's sneakier than Maycor. Don't fall for her tricks."
Atlas glanced at his friend. "What?"
Jarzyl climbed up onto her bed, and in a graceful motion she jumped onto the headboard and kicked off the wall to leap across the room, landing on the top of a bookshelf near the window. That had always been one of her favourite spots to sit at, though now as a fledgling it was getting increasingly difficult for her to fit atop the narrow space above her bookshelf. "Demmy's sneaky, Maycor's hyperactive. Actually, they're both sneaky and hyperactive. Two pests..."
"Hatchlings are often like that," Atlas replied.
Hopping up and down, Demaeter waved her wings for attention. When Atlas turned back towards her, the tiny hatchling did a clear, distinct bow, dipping her head towards him. "Oh, she knows how to bow?" Almost without thinking, Atlas returned the gesture and bowed his head back at her politely.
"Eeep. Eeeeeeep!" squeaked the hatchling excitedly. Demaeter sat down on her haunches and repeated the action, bowing her head deep towards Atlas.
It was simple courtesy to return a bow offered, and Demaeter looked adorable as she bowed her little head. Feeling most amused, Atlas sat back on his own hindlegs and bowed his head back at her. But the moment he did so, Demaeter leapt to her feet and sprinted around him, clambering up the slope of his back so that she could perch on his shoulder. "Eheehhe...!" With an elated giggle, the young hatchling wrapped her tail around the base of his neck for balance and she tapped her forepaws on his shoulder, looking smugly pleased with herself.
"Aaahey!" Maycor ran over and peered up at his sister, then he ran around Atlas and tried to climb up his back as well. It felt like tiny pin pricks as the hatchling's claws poked his scales.
"I told you not to fall for her tricks," Jarzyl said. "Demmy's tried that with me and both my parents, and it worked separately on all of us. She sits down in front of you and bows, and then when you bow back at her she uses that as an opportunity to climb up your back."
Atlas chuckled. He used his snout to playfully nudge at Demaeter as she sat on his shoulder, pretending he was trying to push her off. "Yaaah!" The hatchling let out a panicked squeak, and she waved her wing to bat at Atlas's snout. Her tail tightened around his neck as she held on and resisted his gentle, half-hearted push.
"Rrrr!" Maycor was sitting on Atlas's other shoulder and with an excited, childish growl he tried to clamber across Atlas's upper back to help push his sister off, only to be dissuaded when Demaeter batted her wing at him too and nearly made him fall off instead. Maycor managed to regain his balance by grabbing onto the tubes of Atlas's wing harp, and he scrambled back to his position on Atlas's other shoulder opposite his sister.
"Your cousins are adorable," Atlas decided. He grinned at Jarzyl. "How did they even learn the whole, 'make someone sit down for a bow then climb up their back' trick? I suppose their parents taught them how to bow first, and then they figured out that bowing at people makes them sit down and bow back?"
Jarzyl let out a dismissive snort. "Pfft. I asked my uncle about it. Maycor learned how to bow all on his own just from observing, and then Demmy learned it from him before she also learned how to abuse it and get a spot on people's shoulders."
Atlas strolled forward, and his three-legged gait made his upper body bump with each stride of his sole forelimb--with each step, Maycor and Demaeter made small chirps as they were bounced up and down, and their tails briefly tightened around his neck as they held on. The presence of two dragon hatchlings sitting on his shoulders added a noticeable weight, though their combined mass was probably no more than the wing harp he was already carrying.
Walking to the side of the room, Atlas sat down on all fours (on all threes, really) and unstrapped the wing harp, then he rolled half over and tilted his wings to carefully slide the musical instrument onto the ground. This motion also made Demaeter and Maycor tumble off him and onto the floor, much to their displeasure, which was vocally expressed in a series of offended squeaks and growls. "Aiih! Grnah!" Both hatchlings scrambled back up Atlas's back and returned to his shoulders as soon as he rolled back onto his front and sat up again, and Atlas made no effort to dissuade them.
"Why do they even keep doing that?" Jarzyl wondered. "I don't get why some hatchlings always try to climb up onto shoulders."
"It's just perching. Dragons like to perch." Atlas nodded towards Jarzyl, who was sitting atop her bookshelf and looking down at him. "You're doing it right now."
Jarzyl frowned. "What? No, that's totally different. I just like sitting here because I can see my whole room and get a good view out the window."
"And that's exactly whypeople like high spaces. Everyone likes to perch and look down on things. It's just that only hatchlings are small enough to climb on shoulders," Atlas said, but the moment he said it, he could see the glint in Jarzyl's eyes as his words sparked an idea.
"Only hatchlings, you say?" Jarzyl's tail was dangling off the side of her bookshelf and it flicked from side to side. Her claws extended as she got a good grip, then in a split second she leapt off the top of the bookshelf and threw open her wings, spinning herself around so that she landed right on Atlas's back.
Atlas was able to carry the weight of two hatchlings, but one fledgling weighed far more than that. He could have tried to dodge Jarzyl's attack, but the presence of Maycor and Demaeter hindered his movement because he didn't want to shake them off. Instead Atlas simply folded his limbs and let them all gently drop to the ground as Jarzyl landed on his back and pinned him down. The amber-scaled fledgling even darted her head forward to get her jaws around his neck--her teeth pressed against his scales, though not enough to even choke, before she relented and started lazily licking his scales and cleaning them. She still didn't make any move to stop lying on top of him. "It's good to have you here. I really don't like being outnumbered by these two."
"Glad to know my presence is appreciated," Atlas muttered.
Through it all, Maycor and Demaeter had managed to stay in place on Atlas's shoulders. Seeing an opportunity to upgrade, Maycor scrambled up from Atlas's shoulder and onto Jarzyl's shoulder instead. Demaeter briefly copied what Jarzyl was doing by sniffing at, then trying to lick Atlas--on realizing that the sooty black-scaled fledgling didn't taste like delicious food, she instead followed after her brother and leapt up onto Jarzyl's other shoulder.
"Bah. Now they're on me now," Jarzyl grumbled.
Atlas chuckled again. "Hah. Why did you even agree to take care of your cousins if you don't like taking care of hatchlings?"
"I don't know? It just... Aunt Therinor asked me if I would mind doing it, and I didn't want to seem unhelpful." Jarzyl let out a sigh. "Huuh... Plus they paid me too. I split you half the payment for the trouble."
Atlas nodded. "That's fair."
"Great. We can let these two pests play around for a while more, then they are supposed to have a nap later in the afternoon. Maybe I'll see if I can find some snack for them. That might keep them distracted for a while." Using her snout, Jarzyl firmly nudged her two cousins off her shoulders one at a time. Both hatchlings made complaining squeaks, but their objections were ignored by Jarzyl as she stood up off Atlas and went to go open her room door.
"Yaryil. Snack. Oodz?" Maycor chased after his cousin and tried to bite Jarzyl's tail tip, which swished slowly behind her as she walked. Though the hatchling successfully managed to get his jaws around Jarzyl's tail, he completely lacked the mass or traction needed to stop or even slow the much larger fledgling, and he ended up dragged along the floor behind her. Maycor stubbornly refused to let go, but Jarzyl was just as stubborn and her only reaction was to continue forward, so Maycor ended up tugged behind her as she turned into the corridor and headed towards the kitchen.
Demaeter scampered after the two of them, then she changed her mind and ran back towards Atlas, who was still sitting on the floor on his belly. With a jump and some frantic waving of her wings, Demaeter climbed onto Atlas's back again, then she scaled up his neck and perched herself right on his head and neck, with her forepaws clutching onto his horns for balance. "Mmmh!" The young dragon let out a pleased hum as she surveyed from her newfound vantage point, then she turned her head upside down and stared eye to eye with Atlas, which made him chuckle.
"Hehe. You silly little thing," Atlas muttered. Standing up, he followed after Jarzyl.
"There's an art to this," Jarzyl explained, beckoning with her paw. The four young dragons were now in the dining room, at the table. Jarzyl and Atlas got to sit on the floor cushions--in contrast, Maycor and Demaeter were small enough that they wouldn't be able to see above the table if they were on the floor, so they got to sit on top of the table. Atlas was watching Jarzyl with curious amusement. Demaeter and Maycor were also watching her, though the hatchlings' interest likely mainly arose from the fact they were looking forward to food.
"Listen up, you little pests. This is a learning opportunity." Jarzyl waved her paw through the air, and with a flourish she snapped her claws to their extended position. Her other forepaw was holding onto a large red, roughly spherical fruit that was about as big as her head, which had a smooth, bright red surface, and a long, straight stem extending from the top by which Jarzyl was holding it. She tapped against the fruit, but her claws left no markings on the tough exterior. "This is a titan cherry. It is a fruit. Fruits grow on trees. Got it?"
Her cousins both stared blankly at her, then they stared at each other, before turning to stare at Atlas. "Foodz! Yum?" Maycor babbled.
Jarzyl snorted dismissively, but Atlas was more willing to engage the younger dragons. "Yes, food," he replied. "That's food. It's called a titan cherry. Can you try saying titan cherry?"
"Taitai cherry!" Maycor declared.
"Ti_tan_ cherry," Atlas repeated.
"Taitai cherrrry!" Maycor again exclaimed, with more enthusiasm.
"Titan! Cherrr!" Demaeter added.
Atlas shrugged, and he turned to Jarzyl. "Between the two of them they are getting the words correct, just separately."
Jarzyl's neck frill drooped slightly. "It is just tragic to think that once we were as stupid and illiterate as this..."
"Don't be mean," Atlas said.
"It's not mean if it's true." Jarzyl gestured to the fruit again. "Titan cherries are one of my favourite fruits. They taste nice and have such a bright and pleasant colour, but they are also so very convenient. They come with a carrying hold..." She shifted the fruit around by its long stem. "...but really, the best part is how they divide nicely into portions."
Atlas nodded. "Mm hmm."
"As I was saying, there's an art to this. You just need to have sharp claws, and know just where to strike." Using a single claw, Jarzyl jabbed at a particular spot near the top. Her claw sank into the peel of the fruit, and then she dragged her claw downwards while holding onto the stem for leverage. She continued all the way to the bottom of the fruit, before repeating the motion on the opposite site.
"The peel is... is tough all around, but there's a seamline if you look closely. If you cut on the right place, claws are good enough--no need for a knife or anything. Like... so." Then with a quick pulling motion Jarzyl wrenched apart the titan cherry, leaving it separated into two halves--the inside of the fruit was divided into eight symmetric segments containing bright red flesh, along with a small central hollow containing a large seed.
Atlas thumped his tail against the ground in an applauding manner, which made Demaeter curiously peer over the side of the table to see what was making the sound. "Well done, Jarz."
"Thank you, thank you," Jarzyl replied. She started breaking the titan cherry apart even further, halving it again, then again to divide it into its eight natural segments.
"Well done, yarz!" Maycor added, mimicking Atlas.
"Well done, yarz?" Demaeter said, trying to imitate her brother.
Atlas was mildly amused. "Jarz, not yarz. Jarz as in Jarzyl. That's your cousin's name--Jarzyl Mintaka."
Maycor sat back on his hindlegs and pointed a paw at Jarzyl. "Yaryil!" Eager to join in, Demaeter also sat back on her haunches and pointed at Jarzyl.
"Jar_zz_," Atlas repeated, adding an emphasis to the second half of the word.
Demaeter nodded her head enthusiastically as if she understood. "Jarzzz!" went the hatchling.
"Jarzzzzz?!" Maycor replied.
"Jarzzzzzzzzzzz...!" Demaeter happily exclaimed, and she just kept going, dragging out the word into a droning buzz.
"Jarzzzzzzzzzzzz...!" Maycor buzzed along with her.
Atlas chuckled, and then he added his own voice. "Jarzzzz..." The three dragons dragged out Jarzyl's name together, forming a harmonic chord as they buzzed along at different pitches.
Jarzyl glared at Atlas. "You think you're funny, don't you?" Atlas grinned in response, but he didn't stop--neither did Demaeter or Maycor, who were competing to see who could do it louder. Jarzyl's neck frill drooped, and she rolled her eyes. Snapping out a segment of fruit, she held it out in her paw. "First one to shut up gets to eat this."
"...zzzz--oh!" In unison, Maycor and Demaeter both stopping buzzing and scampered forward to bite at the fruit piece. They both tried to pull at it, only to stop when Jarzyl provided another one so they each had their own.
As the two hatchlings munched on their fruity snack, Jarzyl divided up the remaining portion of the titan cherry and gave half to Atlas. "Thank you very much," he said.
"You're welcome." Taking her own remainder, Jarzyl started eating the fruit. "And thanks for coming over. I'm really glad you're here. I think it would drive me crazy if I had to take care of those two pests on my own."
END