Perfect

Perfect's father lived to create the Windsinger's get. He was a glittering, glamorous lady's man, uninterested in the process of rearing children, uninterested even in the existence of those children except as proof of his virility. When a likely dragoness came into season, he was there to romance her, and all his hatchlings were gifted to the gods: beautiful little things, all like him, all named to reflect their father's glory.

Perfect was the sole Tundra born to his last clutch, and like her Guardian brothers she assumed she was bound for Heaven. And in fact... she went, much to her mother's distress, for Aspasia had not wanted her to go.

It was not a common thing, to see Aspasia in distress; she is not a dragon to reveal it. But every day she found time to go to the same high promontory and lay down an offering. Windsinger, she would whisper. Bring back my daughter. She went by mistake.

There was little hope. There were dragons who volunteered as the gods' mortal emissaries, but the Lair by the Sea's children had always chosen the Heavenly service. They did not return from the Windsinger's side.

...but Perfect did.

She stumbled into the clan on shaky limbs, an adult grown, beautiful and bewildered, for she'd gone to the Windsinger a child. And all the clan was stunned by her arrival... except her mother. Aspasia went to her and slid a wing over her back, whispered calm encouragement, and led her to shelter.

'Have I been gone?' Perfect asked. 'I must have been gone.'

'You were,' Aspasia agreed. 'But you're home now.'

Perfect sighed and curled up against her mother, and it was. Perfect.

***

Bert's arrival in her life completed her happiness. She might lie with others for the sake of the clan, but at night both she and Berteronian returned to one another, and slept in the same hollow. He curled his longer body around hers; she warmed his cooler, feathered body. They were content, and all the clan marked that contentment.

***

'What is it?' he asked her one day, curious.

'A letter.' Perfect turned it in her small hands.

'Not from the kiteship?'

'No... Morfos brought it, not Celerity.' Perfect opened it, curious. 'Oh! It's from my daughter by Annas. That was before you, beloved. He's since sought the Windsinger...' She trails off, reading, growing more delighted with each line. 'She's found a home and a mate of her own, and has had her first children. Oh, and Thyatis's boy ended up there too.'

Berteronian looked over her shoulder. Normally his mate was not so talkative; this was more words from her than he usually heard at a time. 'Maybe you should send her a gift,' he says.

'I should,' she agrees, and settles down to pen a missive.