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Jarzyl led Atlas to her bedroom. "Hey, hey, check this out. I want to show you something." Scampering over to her desk, the dragon fledgling snatched up a small cardboard box and showed it to her friend.

Atlas peered into the box. Inside was something made from wood with a wide, flat, circular base, and a short cylindrical stem that rose from the middle, ending in a round knob. "What is it?"

Jarzyl grabbed the wooden object and lifted it out. Flipping it upside down revealed that the underside of that flat circular base was covered in rubber, with moulded lines rising from the rubber. "It's a stamp! I was at Mintaka headquarters the other day, and now their office supply store makes ink stamps! I bought a few!"

"Oh. Why were you at your clan's headquarters?" Atlas asked.

"Just visiting for some meetings. Nothing important. But look at this!" Jarzyl reached across her desk and flipped open an inkpad. She tapped her rubber stamp against the spongey surface of the pad to ink it up, then with a firm motion she thumped the stamp down onto a loose piece of paper. Lifting away the stamp revealed an ink mark of spiralling loops resembling a swirling cyclone, and right in the centre of the swirls was a dragon's eye.

Every dragon in the city knew that symbol. It was the insignia for Mintaka--one of the city's most powerful, populous clans. Atlas nodded. "We use stamps in the library to mark books with their due date for return. But why do you need to stamp your clan insignia on random pieces of paper?"

Jarzyl casually shrugged. "I don't. This is for business documents and doing official contract signings, or whatever. But I just think it's interesting! Isn't this interesting? Hehehe." She giggled delightedly, and her neck frill was perked up. She stamped the paper a second time. The clan insignia was still clearly visible, though slightly more faded than before. The ink was an orange colour, not too far in shade from Jarzyl's scale colouration. "Hehe, haha."

Atlas gave her a mildly amused look. He did not think a stamp of the Mintaka insignia was anything interesting, but what he did find interesting was an amber-coloured fledgling from Clan Mintaka, who radiated joy and curiosity.

Jarzyl grinned at him again. "Wait, wait, there's more!" She reached under her desk and grabbed another few cardboard boxes. Then she took out a different stamp that was smaller, and rectangular instead of circular. "This one is actually useful. I had it custom made at the store!" Jarzyl inked up the stamp and stamped her paper. Instead of a large symbol it created a line of text, which at first was upside down, until Jarzyl flipped the paper around.

"Jarzyl Mintaka," she read off the ink--it was a stamp with her name. "Now instead of having to write my name on the top of assignment papers, I can stamp it!" Jarzyl beamed at Atlas.

"Jarzyl Mintaka," Atlas echoed, with an amused tone. "You don't have a long name. This will save you five seconds of writing? Three seconds, if you were scribbling your name quickly. You still have to write out the rest of any assignment or test," he pointed out.

Jarzyl hushed him with a wave of her paw. "Shhh. I think it's interesting. Let me show you another one." She pulled out another cardboard box and took out a third stamp.

"How many stamps did you buy? Do you just have too much money?" Atlas drily asked.

Jarzyl flicked her neck frill at him. "They were cheap to buy. And they are fun! Look at this one."

She inked up the stamp and stamped the paper. This third stamp created a rectangle border, with text at the top that read, "Property of". Jarzyl used the second stamp and the third stamp together, and created an ink mark which said, "Property of Jarzyl Mintaka".

"Now I can mark things that belong to me. See, this is a practical purchase." Jarzyl gestured at the flight harness that she was wearing. "I'm going to mark up my harness straps and the pouches. Then in the future, there won't be any chance that I get my things mixed up with anyone else at school."

"That is practical," Atlas agreed, "except that you could already have just written your name? You don't need to stamp your name."

Jarzyl was undeterred. "It's more fun this way." She pulled the quick release straps of her harness and let it slide off her body, and then she started carefully stamping her name onto each of the components, in a place that wasn't too visible but was not completely obscured.

"As long as you're having fun, that's good." Atlas opened the chest pouch of his flight harness and took out his document binder. "I'm going to get started on the science assignment then." He sat down on the floor cushion at Jarzyl's desk and started to write.

Behind him, Jarzyl kept working with her stamps and her inkpad. "Alright!"

A few minutes later, Jarzyl waved her wings to get Atlas's attention again. She showed off her flight harness, which now had her name marked out on the inside of the pouches, easily visible if they were opened. "Behold!"

Atlas beheld, and felt that same sense of mild amusement. "Very nice there."

"Indeed." Jarzyl picked up her stamps in one paw and walked three-legged back towards the table. But as she approached, her neck frill perked up and she stared at the stamps she was holding. "Hmmm..."

Atlas was sitting on the floor cushion, and Jarzyl extended one stamp towards him, slowly moving it closer and closer until she bumped it against the scales of his hindquarters. Atlas had every opportunity to stop her, yet he did not. "Huh."

Jarzyl lifted away the stamp. Her name was now faintly visible, right-side up, marked out on her friend's rear. The orange text contrasted well against Atlas's sooty black scales.

Atlas read it out. "Jarzyl Mintaka," he said in a judgemental tone.

"I probably shouldn't have done that." Jarzyl blinked and looked guilty. "You ever get those thoughts in your head, that you could do something, and you know you shouldn't, but you're just thinking about it and then you end up doing it?"

Atlas shook his head. "I'm not an impulsive person. If I get thoughts about doing something risky, I prefer to play it safe. Well, almost always. There was this one time I had this horrendously impulsive thought, and then for some baffling reason I can't explain, I acted on it and ended up kissing a good friend." He shrugged. "See how that turned out. Now she literally treats me like her property."

Jarzyl laughed. "Haha, sorry! I can fix this." Putting down her stamps on the table, she used her paw and tried to wipe the ink away, but it wouldn't come off his scales easily.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Atlas continued observing in an amused, yet judgemental manner. "Is it rubbing off?"

"Aha. Not the sort of rubbing off I've thought about doing to you, hehehe...." Jarzyl muttered, with a cackling giggle and a smirk.

With that remark, Atlas instantly reached maximum levels for both amusement and judgmentalism. "Wow. Wow. Jarz."

But then in the next moment, Jarzyl just had her innocent, casual expression again. "Yeah this isn't working." She went over to washroom attached to her bedroom, and Atlas heard the sound of the tap being opened and closed quickly. Then Jarzyl returned, carrying a soaked cloth that was dripping water all over the floor. "Hold still."

The wet towel was marginally more effective--it managed to partially smear away a portion of the text, but not all of it, as the stamp had applied the ink more thickly on one side. The "Jarzyl" was half faded now, but "Mintaka" was still clearly visible.

"Just says Mintaka now. Instead of being your property, I'm your clan's property," Atlas noted.

Jarzyl looked dissatisfied. "No, you can't be communal property. I wouldn't share."

She used the cloth to scrub harder on Atlas's butt, but he waved her off. "It's fine. Just leave it. I'll use soap and wash it off myself later when I go home. It's not too noticeable, right?"

Jarzyl stood behind Atlas and stared at his hindquarters. She stared for longer than was necessary. Then she patted him on his rear and nodded. "Not too noticeable, sure," she said unconvincingly.

Atlas wasn't bothered. At school, he might have faced some mockery about this--or perhaps it would be Jarzyl as the target of teasing--but now it was just them. Later their friends would also be here, and that opened the chance for more teasing, but friends could be trusted to keep it humorous rather than hurtful. In the grand scheme of things, a silly little gesture like this didn't matter. "You could at least have used the Mintaka stamp. Then I'd know how it feels like to wear a clan insignia."

Jarzyl tossed her wet cloth back through the washroom's open door, where it landed in the sink with a splat. Going back to her table, she looked at the various stamps, particularly the large circular stamp that had the Mintaka Clan insignia. "If I had done that, I would definitely be required to wash it off you."

Atlas nodded. Falsely pretending to have clan membership could be a serious offence. Being in a clan granted specific rights such as access to a clan's residential areas and community facilities or services. Beyond that, wearing an insignia gave a sense of shared identity, seeing other fellow clanmates and feeling camaraderie. Smaller clans with less power usually wouldn't care if you falsely wore their insignia (since that wouldn't get you much benefit anyway), but apex clans like Mintaka could and did use the city's Enforcement Division to punish those who wore their insignia without the right.

Jarzyl looked thoughtful. "Come here." She strolled across the room and snatched up one of her wingtip pennants from a chest beside her bed, and she offered it to him. "Do you really want to know how it feels to wear a clan insignia?"

The pennant flag was a triangular cloth dyed to match Jarzyl's amber orange colour, and it had the Mintaka insignia emblazoned on--a swirling cyclonic storm with a dragon's eye in the centre, in stark black lines--a design that dated back centuries.

Atlas stared at the pennant. If it had been anyone else, he would have assumed they were mocking his clanless status, but Jarzyl was genuine. "I don't think..." he murmured.

"Try it," Jarzyl insisted. She took Atlas's wing and then tied the pennant onto his wingtip.

Atlas kept staring at the pennant, now attached to his wing. The accessory was well made with lightweight but durable cloth, and the logo was impeccably sewn into the fabric. A slow wave of his wing made the pennant catch the air, showing off that apex clan insignia as it trailed from his wingtip.

Jarzyl watched him curiously. There was a faint pride in her gaze--she was proud to be in Mintaka, and she wore her clan's insignia with honour. And why wouldn't she? Mintaka was one of the city's most powerful clans, with vast resources, not least of which was that a full tenth of all dragons were Mintaka dragons. Jarzyl was a Mintaka dragon, from a Mintaka family, living in a Mintaka house in a Mintaka neighbourhood. Entire city sectors were owned by Clan Mintaka. "How is it?"

But Atlas shook his head. "It's not the same. Wearing the symbol without being part of the clan is meaningless. A clan isn't just a symbol."

"True. It's so much more."

"These are your pennants, not mine. One day I'll have pennants of my own, with a clan insignia that really means something. Then... then I'll really know what it feels like." Atlas nodded solemnly. He stretched out his wing, offering the pennant back to Jarzyl. "I appreciate the gesture, though. No one's ever done anything like that for me before."

Jarzyl grabbed Atlas's wing, but she didn't take back her pennant flag. A brief, playful flick of her tail tip was the only sign of her intentions, then she grabbed his wing joint and used it as leverage to yank him off balance then push him down. "Lie down a moment." Atlas had been sitting up, but now he ended up chest down against the large floor cushion, lying down on all fours (or threes, technically).

With an easy, graceful motion, Jarzyl leapt up and sat down on top of him, resting against his back with her hindlegs around his torso, and her forelimbs holding the forward edge of his wings. "I want to talk with you."

At this point, Atlas was hardly even surprised. Hatchlings were the ones who mock duelled and tackled each other, while fledglings were supposed to have outgrown that--but not Jarzyl. He glanced back and rolled his eyes at her. "Jarz."

The bright orange colour of the pennant was a sharp contrast against his sooty black colour, the exact same contrast between Jarzyl's orange scale plates as she hugged against his body, except the cloth didn't have the warmth that she did.

It was a longstanding tradition for drakken mated pairs to exchange wing pennants and wear each other's colours on their wingtips--this fact idly crossed Atlas's mind, as he reflected on how he was wearing one of Jarzyl's pennants. But obviously that hadn't been why she'd put the pennant on his wingtip. Jarzyl wasn't even giving him a pennant, she was just letting him briefly try it on because he'd mentioned never having worn a clan insignia. They still hadn't even admitted to anyone else that they were dating, so the idea of courtship and a mating bond was utterly absurd--were they even dating, or was this just a very flirtatious, intensely friendly friendship?

Jarzyl poked Atlas on the neck for attention. "Are you listening? I need your opinion on something. I've been thinking."

Atlas redirected mental power to get his mouth working. "How come whenever it's just you and me, I seem to be at extremely high risk for getting sat on?"

Jarzyl grinned. She drummed her forepaws against his back, then grabbed his wings and waved them in up and down flaps as if he were flying. "Because you make a comfortable cushion to lie on. And because you let me."

"How would you like it if one day I tackled you, pinned you down, and lay down on top of you?" Atlas retorted.

Jarzyl opened her mouth to reply, then paused, seemed to think about it, and then looked a little flustered. The question went unanswered--verbally, at least. "What was I going to ask you? Right. So since we're talking about ink and symbols, I've been considering the idea of getting a tattoo. I like my scale colour, citrus orange and sunsets, but recently I've started to contemplate adding a little patterning."

This was an unexpected development that intrigued Atlas. "Oh, that's new! Would your parents let you get a tattoo?"

Jarzyl put her neck frill up. "I don't care what my parents say! I'm a fledgling, I do what I want!" she insisted rebelliously.

Atlas gave her a sceptical look. He knew her better than that.

Jarzyl laughed. "Fine, that's not true. I still deeply crave parental approval. I brought it up to my mother last weekend, and she obviously didn't understand the point, but she told me to ask my father. So I asked my father, and he told me that if I wanted to recolour my scales then I could, but nothing ridiculous, and to start with a temporary pattern, not a permanent one."

"Temporary?"

"Temporary means you just paint the scales with colour that won't wash off. But once a scale gets shed off, the new scale will regrow back as my normal colour. A temporary tattoo only looks perfect for a few days, then it'll be more and more degraded as all the painted scales get shed and replaced over a few months. But a permanent tattoo means injecting colour into the scale growth bed, so that the scales will grow out with a different colour--at least for a few years, then the colour can still fade and need to be renewed," Jarzyl explained.

"Interesting. I've never thought about any of this."

"I did my research." Jarzyl rubbed Atlas's back--not quite in a massage, but tracing the outlines of his scales. Her claws felt ticklish. "You couldn't do it, unfortunately. Your scales are already fully black, which would override any other colour."

Atlas shrugged his wings, shifting Jarzyl's position a little as she lay on top of him. "Fine by me. But what are you going to do? What pattern were you thinking of?"

Jarzyl unfurled her wing and smoothly flipped it open. She gestured at the underside of her wing. "I was thinking about an underwing tattoo, getting my scales dyed to form the Mintaka insignia."

Atlas nodded. A clan insignia was a decently common type of scale tattoo around the city. "That's a safe choice. I know... for you this obviously won't matter, but for my experience in the clanless shelter, we're partially restricted from getting our scales tattooed."

Jarzyl looked at him curiously. "Restricted? Why?"

"Because there used to be more association with criminal gangs in the shelter. Not so much these days, but it previously was a problem. And gangs showed their affiliation by having gang patterns tattooed into your scales." Atlas chuckled. "Yet clans do the same thing and it's fine. Funny, that."

Jarzyl slid forward and stuck out her head to affectionately lick the side of Atlas's snout. "Ah, yes. Your dark, mysterious, orphan, gangster background."

"Dark mysterious gangster, yes, that's exactly why I have to work part time at the library to afford lunch at school," Atlas muttered. He continued explaining. "The rule for us clanless fledglings is that if we get a tattoo, it must be cosmetic and cannot be a symbol--we're allowed to do a two-colour gradient, countershading, or a simple pattern like stripes."

"No symbols, not even a clan insignia?"

Atlas laughed. "If we could get a clan insignia, we wouldn't be clanless. You know Reylin, that fledgling who joined our class this year? That's exactly what she did. She used to be clanless, but then she got into Taslin and joined our school, and to celebrate she had her clan insignia tattooed onto her sides."

Jarzyl made a small gasp. "Yes, I saw that! At first I thought it was weirdly coincidental natural pattern, but then I realized it was a tattoo!"

"Reylin's natural pattern is vertical dark green stripes, criss-crossing down her sides. But just behind her shoulder three of those stripes meet together, and she had that spot coloured into the Taslin insignia--three red triangles and three silver triangles, forming a hexagon."

Jarzyl nodded excitedly. "I asked Reylin about it and told her it looked cool, and she told me that I could do it too. And that's what gave me the idea! But instead of doing my sides, I want a wing tattoo. Then my wings look normal while closed, but then if I have them flipped open or while I'm flying, the pattern would be visible."

She furled her wings tight against her back, then threw them open dramatically. "And honestly the Taslin insignia doesn't even look that good--it's just a hexagon divided into three red and silver segments. Boring! The Mintaka insignia is much better. Though don't tell Reylin or any of the Taslin dragons that I said that."

"Hah. But are you sure about this? Even a temporary tattoo would last for a few months, and if you're getting a clan insignia tattoo now... The other day, you were telling me that there was some drama with your clan, and there was a chance your family might be changing clans?"

Jarzyl's expression hardened, but she had a confident grin. "Indeed! And that is exactly why I want the Mintaka insignia." Sliding off Atlas's back, she paced around him with her wings half open. "Because I am _not_changing clans, and I will have that be known to my parents, to my grandparents, and to anyone else!" But then she hesitated. "I don't want to be impulsive, though. I want to make sure it's a reasonable, sensible decision."

Atlas nodded. "You seem to have thought this through! And a clan insignia tattoo is pretty common. So if you're sure about the idea, then I say go for it. Temporary is temporary, anyway. Where would you get the tattoo?"

"That salon that we went to the other day, the one where you get your horn polished." Standing beside him, Jarzyl gently touched the back of Atlas's head. Normally he had two white conical horns pointing back from the top of his skull, but recently one of those horns had broken off--not from any injury, but this was just something which occasionally happened to fledglings and young drakken during their inconsistent development spurts. Jarzyl had taken Atlas to a salon to get his remaining horn polished down, so his head wouldn't be so unbalanced. Eventually both horns would grow back fully. "I saw they do scale treatments--not just cleaning or polishing scales, but also temporary painting or permanent tattooing."

"Alright." Atlas sat back up and moved his paw to touch Jarzyl's wing, feeling the numerous scale plates that covered her aerofoil in neat rows, with each row just barely overlapping the last. Right at the leading and trailing edges of her wing the scales grew exceptionally large--those were the flight control scales, which could be moved or extended to alter a wing's aerodynamic characteristics. But across most of her wing, the scales were just smooth, small little plates.

Atlas tapped on specific scales, imagining that instead of being the same orange shade, some were altered in colour to create the Mintaka insignia in a mosaic pattern. "What colour would you want the insignia in?"

"I'm not sure. That's why I need your opinion. At first I thought of using the complimentary colour--the opposite of my orange would be a blue, or cyan? But is that too much?"

Atlas stared at Jarzyl's wings, thinking what she would look like. "I think blue is too much of a contrast. Blue against orange would be too starkly contrasting."

Jarzyl nodded agreeably. "Then I was thinking plain black or white would do? I want it to look good, but the Mintaka symbol does need to be legible since that's the whole point. What do you think would look good?"

"I think you always look good," Atlas muttered. Jarzyl instantly smiled, and he continued quickly. "And the most important part is that you are happy with the idea, not what I think."

"Noted, thank you. Now give me your opinion."

"Your natural orange is already bold and pretty, so you can just use a simple plain colour for the insignia? I think black, white, or grey? Maybe ask Caden about it. She's the artistic one, with how she always likes to make her paintings."

"I'll definitely ask Caden for her thoughts too. I trust her opinion, just like I trust yours. Thanks! Good talk. I'll keep thinking about this." Jarzyl grinned at Atlas. She reached over and pulled the pennant of his wingtip and put it on her table, then she pounced again at his back and shoved him back down onto his front. Lying down on top of him again, she shifted her body, rubbing her front against him. "Now then, we can finally get to our long-delayed business."

With a tilt of her head, she lined her snout up with his and the two fledglings kissed. "Mhhm. Jarzyl," Atlas sighed happily. He rolled halfway onto his side, making it even easier for him to press his snout against hers.

It was not to last. Before they could even really get into it, there came the sound of flapping wings and then a yell as someone landed at the living room balcony. "Hello! Jarzyl? We're here."

Jarzyl let out a long sigh. "Damn! That sounds like Nerlin, maybe Pyxis too." She rolled off Atlas and slumped back onto the floor with a thump, glaring up at the ceiling with an annoyed look. "Poor task prioritization on my part. I should have kissed you until you got all embarrassed from your inappropriateness, then chatted about the tattoo while you cooled off. Because we can't kiss while the others are here, but we can still talk."

Atlas laughed. "What are we even doing?"

"We're not doing anything." She leaned over towards Atlas and murmured. "We're not done with this conversation... but maybe later."

Atlas stood up and stretched, then he shook himself all over before sitting down on the floor cushion. "Good conversation," he agreed.

Jarzyl left her bedroom and headed down the corridor towards the living room. Half a minute later, she returned with two more of their friends in tow. Atlas bowed in head in greeting to the both of them. "Hey, Pyxis. Nerlin. Welcome to the hangout."

Nerlin nodded back. "Hi, Atlas." He looked to Jarzyl. "Uh, can I use your bathroom?"

"Of course," Jarzyl replied.

Meanwhile Pyxis came over and took another floor cushion from the stack beside the table, and she sat down on it. "Hello," she said to Atlas cheerfully. Then she did a doubletake. "Oh! I think there's something on your butt. Is that...? What does that say?"

"Oh? It's just nothing," Atlas calmly replied, while Jarzyl visibly held back a laugh.

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