#agatio

Personally, Agatio felt that maybe the dragons should have dropped this little one off further south, where she'd be in less danger from the cold. What did a Proxian know about the needs of this little scaleless child? Only rarely did they feel the cold. So while his mother and father dithered about the fire, and how close the child needed to be to it, the young boy grabbed his sword and his bow and strode out into the wild.

He returned three hours later with a brace of rabbits and a snow fox. All were taken to the local furrier, who accepted the meat and bones of the creatures in exchange for crafting a small blanket and gown for the child of the sky. By the time the sun set, the child, named Sheba by his mother, was clad and wrapped in a fur blanket and held against Agatio's chest as he stared sullenly into the fire. He didn't even like the girl, but he was by far warmer than his parents, and it was better than seeing her pitiful shivering.

She was small and tan and scaleless, but she stared at them all with a solemn expression and shed not one tear, voiced not one wail. She didn't bear the blood of dragons as the Proxians did, but Agatio had been to the Lighthouse north of the village, near the Edge, and had seen the glyphs there. Perhaps one day she would grow feathers or gills.

And, inexplicably, she seemed to like him. She didn't wail, when he consigned her back to his mother's care, but he could feel her eerie violet eyes on him as he left to attend Psynergy lessons, and when he returned, she stared until he picked her up again. "Don't get attached," he told the solemn little thing sternly as she nestled against his chest. "I don't like you."

She looked up at him, seemed to think for a moment, then decisively proclaimed, "Ba."

Despite himself, he smiled. "Yes," he told her. "Bah."

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Sheba grew rapidly, in the manner of small children. She was too small yet for the clothing he'd worn at her age -- Agatio had always been big -- but she wasn't the only child in Prox. He didn't particularly enjoy dealing with Menardi and the biting cackle that was her laughter, but Karst's baby scales had finally hardened, turning a darker pink than her sister's. There was clothing to be passed on, now.

He also had a sinking feeling that he would be seeing much of Menardi as Sheba grew older, and even more of Karst.

Menardi opened the door when he knocked, stared, and cackled.

Agatio sighed.

But she invited him in, plopped Karst into his arms so he could admire the hardened scaling, and whipped through the house as she searched for Karst's outgrown clothing. "Bring her over next week," Menardi said, throwing a jacket at him with the precise amount of force needed for it to cover his head.

Giggling, Karst pulled it down and proclaimed, "Pikabu!"

"Absolutely not," he told her sternly, earning another giggle, then turned his gaze to Menardi. "Bring who over?"

Menardi stopped, glared, and then hurled a cape at his face. This time, he ducked. "Your sister, snow-for-brains," she drawled.

"She isn't my sister," Agatio said, and ducked a shirt this time.

"I'm not going to dignify that stupidity with a response," Menardi told him. "Karst, tell cousin Agatio what we think of bullshit in these parts."

Karst met his eye and then blew a very deliberate raspberry.