He hadn't said yes, but they went, anyway. Purpura went as bundled up as he could-- he was an Earth dragon, he said, not an Ice dragon-- but Insta seemed perfectly content to wear next to nothing-- she didn't have a human form yet, so all she had was her fur. Amito had declined to leave the space station and its wonderful seafood, and Copper was enjoying the change of scenery probably the most out of any of them.

Watching Cedric Falken during their two week stay at the Ryslen Nidus was a study of changes. At first he'd been uncomfortable and restless, and kept checking the electronic newspaper he'd brought with him: it changed automatically to current news every twelve hours or so, more often for the business section. After a few days of enforced idleness, though, he started to relax and enjoy it as much as the rest of them. Well, the rest of them minus Purpura: he complained about the cold almost constantly, unless they were in a particularly well-heated part of the dragonry.

Which, as it turned out, only really happened at night, unless it was really storming outside. During the day, Deborah did everything in her power coaxed the whole lot of them outside into the beautiful, snowy grounds around the Nidus. After a few days, even her father was starting to enjoy walking out in the snow. After a week, she'd managed to get into a snowball fight with him, something she'd hardly have been able to imagine of her tense, distracted father from the station.

"Gotcha!" she laughed, managing to splat a ball of slightly-mushy snow against the back of his coat.

"Oh, you'll pay for that one," he grinned, lobbing one at her, right back. She just ducked.

That was largely how the fight went, until Insta took up Falken's cause and started making little snow-flurries with her wings, tripping Deborah up, and in general being a nuisance, to make up for the minster's dismal ability at aiming. Copper even got in on the fun, then, on Deborah's side, kicking snow at Insta and Falken, and trying to catch snowballs in her mouth before they got to their intended destination. Purpura, refusing to touch the snow and thus freeze his fingers, just watched and laughed, until all three of the handed ones turned on him to pelt him with snowballs at the exact same time, and Copper helpfully tripped him so that he fell backwards into a snow drift.

They headed back inside for a while after that, to warm up with some hot chocolate and dry off in front of a big fireplace. Copper and Insta sprawled out on their backs or bellies-- it changed every few minutes as the two four-foots shifted around-- on the rug in front of the fire. Purpura, dragon-formed for once to make use of his fur, short though it was, curled against the foot of the couch. He was long enough now to span its entire length and then some, so that Deborah had to pull her feet up onto the cushion with her, and her father had to put his own feet out past the dragon's thick, plant-like tail.

Inhaling the smell of the cocoa and warming her fingers on the mug, Deborah settled back against the arm of the couch with a sigh. It was just a little less than a week before the expected hatching date, and she had yet to broach the subject with her father. Maybe now was a good time: he was relaxed, enjoying his vacation, not thinking about work at all despite his original certainty that everything would fall apart without him, and he was in a good mood.

"Daddy..." she began thoughtfully, catching his attention from his own hot mug. "We're going to the Flurry hatching, right?"

Even if he hadn't known about the major off-station happenings before coming to Ryslen, it would have been impossible to miss hearing about it, upon arriving. Falken made a little face, but he shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it."

"Please?" she said, opening her eyes wide at him hopefully.

"What is it with you and hatchings lately?" he asked, putting off answering her.

"They're something to do. And besides, I'm bonded now, so it's more interesting. And Daddy, this is a special sort of clutch. There aren't Flurries everywhere, after all."

"I can't imagine it's much different from any other hatching out there," Falken shrugged, taking a sip from his mug.

"The hatchlings are supposed to be different. All white and wintery. Come on, Daddy, we might as well, while we're here."

He gave a sigh. "If it happens before I'm due to be back... I don't see why not."

Deborah beamed, but refrained from her usual girlish tackle. She might spill their cocoa, after all. All was going according to plan! Now, all she had to do was hope they didn't leave before the hatching. And, of course, hope that Toshi had been right about that Search of hers.