"You're a hell of a lot fatter than you used to be."
Junior, of course, didn't take it as an insult. How human it would have been if she had. Instead, she preened as if he had complimented her, and in truth, he really had, at least silently if not aloud. He cuffed her fondly in front of one of the horns protruding from her scaled head just below the small frill that extended over the top of it.
"What's this?" he asked. "Horns? You're grown now, are you?"
She made a smug screeching sound even though he knew full well she probably didn't understand a word he was saying. Her surrogate sire might know Common, but she'd never grown up with humans as a hatchling. The few days she had spent with him and Vica were probably nothing more than distant, infant memories in her past now, and dragons
