He fell silent. Thinking of the mother he had never known?
What had it been like for him, a dragon-child with no mother? I had been blessed with a double share of maternal attention, between Mother and Tegwen—yet I also knew somewhat of the orphan’s life, trapped here so far from them. Rindargeth had been a tender parent to me, in his way, yet I could well imagine him more reserved toward a son, as many men were. Had there been anyone to coddle and pet young Braith, scold and fuss and tickle and hold? Or did dragons do such things at all?
“I see now what you meant,” Braith said, “about the difficulty of keeping one’s hair bound. Now that I cannot shift back and forth as I please—unless I wish to bleed to death—I find that shifting a braid, and creating one by hand, are entirely different
