Lost Change - Snippets

Getting Cold Wings

A short chuckle escaped the other dragonet as he shook his head. "No, not at all. It's just something that my dad told me once about them. They always learn with a net, you see - they don't start out doing backflips and leaps through the air with nothing but a thirty foot drop to the ground beneath them. There was a sturdy net over the practice area to catch them when they messed up, because while they were learning, they did mess up. A lot."

The blue moved one of his other pieces a diagonal step forward. "But after a while they've learned what to do, and they get really good at it. They're able to walk across the wire without a second thought, or do all sorts of crazy acrobatics without blinking. So then the trainers do the next natural step - they take the net away."

Jonathan looked up and stared at me with calm yellow eyes. "And when that happens, they're terrified. It doesn't matter that they hadn't fallen or missed a step for weeks by then. It doesn't matter that they could do it blindfolded and in their sleep. The net's gone, and that makes all the difference - they start to slip up again. They make simple mistakes, and they fall, and that's when they get most of their injuries. Not because they don't have the strength to do it, or the talent, or the practice. They have all those things. All they're missing is a safety net that they don't even need anymore."

He stood up and stepped around the board, then calmly leaned down and tugged at a strap on my harness. "You can do it, Ivy. You already are doing it. You're just a flying trapeze artist about to take a leap without a safety net you don't actually need anymore, and you're just nervous about it - but you don't need to be, because you've already mastered the leap. You don't need to worry about anything being there to catch you if you fall, because you're already good enough at this that you won't fall." The blue arched his neck back to nibble at one of the straps on his back with a frustrated sound. "Because trust me, from where I'm standing, you're already doing all sorts of crazy backflips I can't even comprehend. You've got nothing to worry about."

I felt my cheeks heat up a little in a slight blush at the compliment, and I pretended to lower my head to hide any reaction. "Thanks."

~

The sing-song trills and warbles of laughter drifted up from the stream as the fledglings splashed about in it. I lay on the branch and watched them, thinking over what Jonathan had said.

And how he played that game. I needed to make sure I beat him next time, whenever that would be. I was not proud of how handily he had beaten me.

I'm a trapeze artist about to take a leap.

But it's okay. I've already done it before. I've got this.

I watched the water in the stream flow along beneath me in silence... and I thought about the one worry I still had. The one I hadn't dared speak to Trenil. The one I hadn't brought up to Nate, or Jonathan, or Amanda, or Tasha, or any other dragonet I had talked to since coming to the decision to move north.

The decision to be with Nate.

The red fledgling broke out of the water with a triumphant shout and dunked an unsuspecting silver fledgling who had been paddling over towards a rock.

If Nate wants children... am I ready?

The silver fledging flailed for a bit before making it back up to the surface, then he and a purple fledgling shot after the red, who was already swimming as fast as she could upstream. The three of them sang out trills of laughter as they chased each other through the shallow water.