Free Dragonfriend by Marc Secchia

respect for his elders to do more than submit to the symbolic bite just behind his skull-spikes.
    The warren-mother will see you, young Flicker, said the oldest of the four, called Windstorm. Will you come willingly?
    I obey, he replied automatically. If he did not, he would be cast out, warren-less, without hope of finding a mate or a territory in which to settle.
    Windstorm nodded. Remove the net. Escort him to Mother Lyrica.
    The acrid odour of fear and disquiet already drifted up the tunnels. Flicker’s scales prickled with a Dragon sense. He knew the interview was not about to proceed in his favour. What lie could he tell? None. Lyrica would sniff it out in a wing-flip. He could only put on a show of meekness and hope that Lyrica’s punishment would not be too severe.
    They moved as a group through the warm, dry warren tunnels, the two older dragonets jostling him from behind so that Flicker was forced to keep a dragonet’s sharp eye out lest he tread on the tails of the two ahead. This was a lesson impressed on hatchlings as soon as they left the shell. Respect the elders. Give their wings and tails a courteous berth. As they passed the living tunnels and birthing chambers, Flicker became aware of many a watching eye, a whisper of comment and disbelief that accompanied his progress into the centre of the warren, to the place of the hive-mind.
    Even here, a slight breeze kept the air fresh. A careful, aeons-old design of multiple adjustable inlets and outlets ensured adequate ventilation of the warren. They came to a cavern larger than any other, lit by magical, refractive crystals which lent the cavern a creepy, shifting appearance, never still, ever bathed in dancing rainbows.
    As Flicker entered the throne-cavern he saw the warren-mother Lyrica crouched upon a pedestal formed from a single flower-like ruby. At five feet in length the elderly red dragonet hulked over him, for dragonets grew throughout their lives. She regarded him gravely above the bowed backs of her subservient Twelve, the communal mind-members–those dragonets who were old and no longer fit to fly, who served the warren with their minds, at the expense of their bodies. All they knew was to open their mouths for food and water, and that others took care of their needs.
    Lyrica’s eyes burned with the power of the Twelve within her, and when she spoke, he heard many echoes in the timbre of her mental voice, voices within voices. Flicker. This has gone too far.
    He bowed his muzzle to the stone. Mother Lyrica.
    Will you share your memories with us, that we might judge what has been?
    She phrased this as a question, but coming from Mother Lyrica, it was also an immutable command. Nevertheless, a spark of an idea leaped into Flicker’s mind.
    I obey, he said, and prepared a sequence of the right memories for her.

Chapter 6: Forging Friendship
     
    A Day Passed by without any sign of the dragonet. Anger pushed Lia harder than any other day of late. She worked through her dance routines as though her body were Ra’aba, needing to be whipped for past misdeeds, leaping and spinning with a vengeance, repeating difficult pirouettes and holding balance positions until her muscles trembled from fatigue–the flying Dragon, the back-arching trout, the forward and sideways splits, the split-balance called the spear in which she balanced on one leg and raised the other behind her until it pointed straight at the cavern’s ceiling, toes extended.
    Perfection. She demanded perfection.
    Lia progressed to her warrior exercises. Handstand press-ups still pulled horribly on her right arm where it had been broken, and she could do only five chin-ups on a rocky ledge within the cave, whereas previously she could have managed twenty-five.
    She was weak!
    Hualiama stalked out of the cave. Emptiness.
    She stormed back inside again. How could she have been so stupid? How could he? Moodily, she drew circles in the sand with her big toe. Right, abdominal crunches, aiming