The memories came on strong as Lha stepped into the occupied hatching bay of the Abstract Destiny. It was not a carbon-copy of the one she had been born into, all those years ago within Star City, but it was an enclosure more than similar enough. A space of metal and technology, arguably “softened” by the mossy turf that covered its floor in gentle heaps that any present parents could scoop and heap about to their preference, but there was nothing to counteract the lack of a sky. Lha was not claustrophobic, but it had always struck her just the same. Like a metaphor for being trapped, perhaps.

She did not dwell on it for long. The silver hydra that dominated the room was obviously the mother that had demanded these interviews. With her bulk and fourteen ever-weaving heads around the central and crowned fifteenth, fixing her with a violet stare as Lha walked in, was utterly impossible to ignore. Lha was not unfamiliar with dragons of all shapes and sizes, hydras included, but she instinctively softened the angle at which she carried her head to give the semblance of being smaller. She was no small dragon, herself, but the clutch-mother utterly dwarfed her.

There were no size-reducing enchantments in these rooms to even the playing field.

The clutch-father's regard was much less suspicious, but he only had time for a gentle, ::Welcome,:: before his mate cut right to the point.

“Who are you and what makes you worth seeing my children?” Nairyg made the same demand she had made of every candidate before Lha and would make of every other following. There was clearly no sense in mincing words when it was the only important question.

“My name is Lha,” she answered, gaze dropping to the clutch of eggs she could only barely glimpse behind the protective curl of Nairyg's tail and the vault of one large wing. “At my hatching, my brothers and sisters and I were all given away, but for two. It was not our instinct or our choice.” Lha lifted her head to meet Nairyg's scrutiny once again. “I would like to be present only to be a choice, if any of them choose to make it.”

::Given away?:: asked Tnalexan.

Nairyg scowled across all fifteen of her heads. “Why would any parent do such a thing?”

Lha rolled her wings and shoulders in a scornful shrug. “They didn't want us. They had scrolls to give us that would forge a magical bond between us and the candidates. It was all explained to us while we were still in the shell. Many of my siblings went straight from their broken shells to the scrolls, but I went to one of the sponsors. I did not want to bond and I didn't want to stay with parents that had not wanted me in the first place.”

It was her opinion. Her opinion had been debated with her, people trying to explain that Lha had misunderstood, that she always could have stayed, by why would she have stayed with parents that had planned on all of their children leaving over being prepared to care for them all?

A chorus of low growling came from a good half of Nairyg's heads. Lha couldn't help but fidget her wings, the feathers wanting to ruffle at that angry sound, even though she could sense it was not at her that it was directed.

“You may stand,” Nairyg decided in short enough order, punctuating the declaration with a flick of the end of her tail. “None will go with you if they do not want to, but if they do, that will make you part of our family.”

The statement was so matter-of-fact that it almost didn't register, but when it did, Lha was startled.

It wasn't as if she was homeless or uncared for. Her sponsor, Phoenix, looked after her and many other sponsorlings even now. The Alveary was a safe home and she had friends, nieces and nephews, even blood-siblings that had found their way to the ranch independently of any parental abandonment.

She looked at Nairyg, at Lex, and at the tableau they made as a whole: shared supervision over a jealously guarded (at least on Nairyg's part) clutch. Parents. That, alone, was something Lha had never experienced. Parental love, care, and protection. Phoenix had been many things, many good things, but a parent was not one of them.

Lha did not know what bonding felt like. Could it feel like having a brother or a sister?

Did the experience of a nuclear family expand from there?

Maybe it would.

Maybe she would find out.