Nick

There's so many dreams to follow, like drops of water in a river, they dash by bright and beautiful, distracting the new veilspun hatchling from following any one for long, at least at first. That hatchling seemed quite scatterbrained!

He wandered around, always looking at things and asking questions and forgetting where he was supposed to be--sometimes even forgetting breakfast, which is quite an accomplishment when you are a growing dragon. Finally, when he grew wobbly and cranky due to hunger twice in a single day, one of the adults took pity on him and paired him with a friendly Tick Tock, who followed him around dutifully, reminding him when it was time to do things.

He named the creature Tickity. Tickity was always happy to hear about all of the wonderful things he found in the real world and in the dream world, and because Tickity was so very supportive, he grew to love having the clock around. And the clock never forgot a thing, but especially not breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack.


Tickity named him Knick Knack, which made the clan's Genealogist roll her eyes, because she thought it was ridiculous, but the little dragon insisted, so the Genealogist finally relented and wrote his name in as Nick in the clan's rolls. Nick wasn't really satisfied with that, but there were lots of things that were more interesting than fighting with the elderly guardian about how to spell his name. He decided to fix it later (though that might not happen, since Tickity doesn't care about spelling).

Nick wandered everywhere, looking at everything and asking questions of every single dragon, even the oldest imperials and tiniest fae hatchlings. He wanted to understand how everything works and how to use every single tool, though he thought swords were more fun than books. He got himself banned from the alchemist's lair when he tried to climb into Baldwin's cauldron, trying to figure out how it worked.

Then he went to the kitchen, though it was too early for lunch, but there were other cauldrons there, and he wondered what he could learn from crawling inside them. The cook wasn't about to allow that, but offered, instead, to teach him how to make soup and set him to chopping vegetables. He learned to cook, and with Tickity watching the stove, nothing ever burned or got pulled away uncooked, so he became pretty successful at that.

His favorite thing, in the kitchen anyway, became making cookies, especially shaped cookies, where he could make things that were both tasty and beautiful. Happily, Tickity was delighted to remember recipes, because time matters when cooking things, so Nick and Tickity became a force to be reckoned with in any kitchen.

And Nick never went hungry again.