"Hey there, Hammie, found a new book?"

"Careful, don't get too excited about it, you'll fog up your glasses!"

"Hammie the boring doesn't get excited about anything!"

"Hey, leave my sister alone!"

The small group of adolescent students scattered at the puffing-- and obviously annoyed-- approach of Pebai Cn'eni. Half of them were laughing and half of them seemed genuinely nervous about being caught teasing the school's biggest geek, and caught by one of the school's biggest dragons, who could quite possibly be cranky due to her pregnancy! And even if she wasn't cranky, she was still an atheletic and energetic dragoness, even if she was pregnant. Hambia just shook her head with disgust after them. Cowards, that's all they were.

"The teasing doesn't really bother me, Pebai," she said, for probably the hundredth time, turning to her sister-but-not. She and Pebai had grown up together, and for all they didn't have a lot in common, they got along well enough. Pebai kept trying to get her to do more girlish things, or more active things, or more outdoors kinds of things, while Hambia half-heartedly tried to interest Pebai in the wonder world of books. What usually happened was something like Pebai danced in the sun while Hambia read her poetry from the shade, or Pebai dove and splashed around in the river while Hambia floated near the surface, or something like that. At any rate, they might not have been related, but they both looked up to and loved the same "father", regardless of how differently each of them showed it, so they considered themselves sisters. With her love of obscure words, Hambia privately called her a pseudo-sister.

"Well, it bothers me!" Pebai huffed. "I wish they'd just leave you alone. It's not a crime to like to read."

"No, it's just incomprehensible to them," Hambia replied. "Sit down. You're finally starting to look pregnant."

"So everyone decides that they must pamper me," Pebai sighed, but she did, at least, sit. She even put her paws to her slightly-rounded belly; she had a good several weeks, probably more than a month, to her due date. Most Avengaeans wouldn't look so round with so much time left, but given the fertility magic running rampant for that frenzy, she was probably carrying at least twice as many as usual. "I actually feel pregnant, at last, too," she said. "I can hear them thinking and feeling and moving around inside of me."

Hambia had been the only one of Frux's adopted wards who hadn't chosen to partake in the second Fur and Feathers Frenzy, and she didn't regret it now. The thought of letting a male do that to her-- the thought of getting heavy and slow with pregnancy-- did not appeal to her at all. It wasn't an urge she understood, nor was it an urge she cared about. So she just let Pebai enjoy being pregnant herself, and listened with half an ear as she turned a page in her book.

"What are you reading?" the Fire-Earth asked after a moment of speaking randomly about what her brace of unborn had done over the past few days.

"A book on ice magic," Hambia answered readily enough. "I'm a Water dragon, after all, and it's not something I've studied yet."

"Ice magic?"

"Magic about freezing, protection from cold, and shaping ice, among other things."

"Like snow," Pebai smiled.

"Yes. Not like we'll see any snow anytime soon, of course. Not here." Living on a desert planet, where it rarely even rained, snow was simply an impossibility. They'd seen snow a time or two, when visiting Avengaea, but that was a rare occasion, as well, for the Nidus Frux kept apartments at was in a hot valley.

"I'm going to see snow soon," Pebai grinned proudly.

"How's that?" Hambia raised a brow at her pseudo-sister in mild skepticism. "Frux isn't letting you travel, is he?"

"I talked him into it," Pebai admitted. "He's going to Ryslen, for the Flurry hatching. It's winter there, you know."

"Ryslen, is it?" Hambia repeated thoughtfully. "He's going to have grandchildren there, isn't he?"

"He's hoping to adopt one or two," Pebai nodded. "And I'm hoping to bond."

"Bond, 'Bai?" Hambia was mildly surprised. Pebai had never mentioned wanting to bond before; she'd always been content to look after other people's children, spend time with her pseudo-siblings, and trail after Frux like a hopeful puppy. "What brought that on?"

The Earth-Fire rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "I don't know. I didn't even think of it, at first, but I just realized a few days ago: that's why I wanted to go so badly. Not just to be with Frux-- though I want that, too--" Hambia smirked a little and pushed her glasses up her muzzle; of course there was that, too, "--and not just because it's somewhere different-- though there's that, too--" and that actually sounded rather nice, "--but because... it might be nice to bond. All my children are going to leave me, unless I adopt one, and a bond won't... so."

"You don't have to defend yourself to me, Pebai," Hambia pointed out. "Though I'm glad you told me. Do you plan on telling Frux?"

"Yes... but I'm not really sure how."

"Well, you've got time," she shrugged, closing her book. "When you go, though, I'd like to come, as well."

"You, Hambia? What, do you want to bond, too?" Pebai's grin was a little irritating, and Hambia shot her a light glare. It didn't help; she only grinned more.

"I don't know. But I want somewhere new. I'm tired of this library."

"You don't have to defend yourself to me, Hambia," Pebai teased, tossing her own words back at her, and Hambia swatted her lightly. The conversation then moved on to other things, though the topic of Ryslen and the Flurry didn't leave Hambia's mind, and judging from the sly, sidelong looks Pebai kept throwing her, it hadn't left hers, either.