Kondraa

Was that enough?"
Kondraa frowned. His green eyes still shone as bright as if he were a hatchling.

Eun chewed on a claw, scribbling down the final words. "Yes," he said softly. "It was plenty. Do you need anything?"

Kondraa rubbed his paws together. "No, nothing." He looked away from the young Imperial dragon. Time. It was strange, wasn't it? His mind was old. Very old. Yet his skin was smooth, unscarred.

Even today, he refused to leave his den at dawn. Eager as he was to rejoin his younger brother, he was afraid that the winds would drag him away from his home. That he would lose his grip on time.

So he slept

For days, for weeks, for months

He would wake up and there would be dragons he had never met, training their offspring. They're Nodalth's kids, they're Jachitzfar's kids. He woke up and met the Gaolers for the first time in his life. He woke up and the lair had a Philosopher, an Engineer, a Chemist. As he slept, the world slipped away from him. Everything progressed so quickly. It was disorienting. He was sinking into time. Drowning in the seconds that passed. The minutes crushed him but didn't so much as dull his scales.

Eun nuzzled him. "It's okay," he said. The young Imperial took so much after his father. Kondraa had held the egg as it hatched. That little face, those bright eyes. This hatchling... it was special. Now he had grown. Oh, how he had grown. Kondraa looked into those bright green eyes. So familiar. Perhaps this dragon also held time in his claws as easily and as lightly as the quill he carried everywhere.

"You can go," Kondraa said. The weariness had returned. Eun understood.

"Sleep well," he chirped.

"Thank you..."

His eyelids closed over those bright green eyes.