Organizing both their jobs around caring for a baby dragon had been interesting. Ivana had lessons at the castle for the first half of the day, which she complained bitterly about until they combined her lessons with those of a couple other students and she had both company and competition, which meant the both of them could work then. Bri usually worked afternoons, so Riya could be free in the evenings to spy on people after sunset.

They didn't really get to see much of each other, as it turned out. Dinner, between when she got home and he left, and then late at night when Riya got home and she was usually already in bed. Asleep. It pretty much sucked, since even if Bri did seem happy now, he wasn't around her much to enjoy it.

He did get to spend all afternoon with Ivana, though, who turned out to be much less bratty than her brother Jadekith--

Those names were you and Vukon's doing, weren't they? Riya had asked his kaiser one day, thinking on the way the names all resembled his own or Bri's. Kethron hadn't answered, but he'd gotten the impression of feigned innocence, and decided Kethron had put his hand in to help the kids choose names.

--but she certainly wasn't an angel, either. She was selfish and did, now and then, throw small temper tantrums. But she sincerely wanted to please and be liked, even if she got sidetracked by her own concerns now and then, so it wasn't like she didn't care. Honestly, Riya was reminded fairly often of Bri in her, a kind of muted and less temperamental Bri, who hadn't had the kind of childhood Bri had, had. And that he kind of liked, too, even if he had to put up with her forgetting to close the ice box so that everything melted and unthawed, or leaving the water running on hot for an hour when she took a very long bath, or casually insulting other students at lessons by frankly telling them what she felt was more important: them or their grades. Then she didn't understand why they were offended. She was absent-minded and thoughtless, but at least she meant well.

They had their own lessons in the afternoons, mostly with weapons training, or what weapons she could use until she learned her human form, and magic training, which at this point was mostly meditation, focus, and increased endurance, since her dragon spirit was still so young and unformed. Hopefully she would learn more soon; if she didn't pick up human form in the next few months, and she kept growing at the rate she'd been growing the past few months, they'd have to move to someplace where they could accommodate her size. He threw in geography on a regular basis, though, as an excuse to go for a flight and explore something. More often than not she just wound up clinging to some of his spines or his tail and gliding along under his momentum, for all he tried to encourage her to fly on her own to build up muscle and endurance. But since he didn't really mind that she liked clinging to him, as if it meant she liked being close to him instead of just being lazy, he didn't scold her.

You somehow turned into a father along the way, Kethron teased him now and then. Riya's only response, usually, was "shut up".

Today was another "geography" day, mostly because he was antsy himself, though they were currently just gliding along as Ivana rambled about her day and Riya only caught about one word in three as she clung to one of his neck spikes and tried to talk above the wind of his flying. When she stopped, suddenly, he realized she'd asked him a question and scrambled to put together what it was she'd asked.

"That?" he finally called back, thinking she had said "what is that" or something like it. "That's a tree, kiddo."

"But it's huge!"

"It's still a tree. Want to investigate?"

"Yes!"

It was, in fact, Rowan's tree, a great thing with a truck he could only reach around with his wings, even in dragon form, and branches that sprawled out for wider than his wingspan. It towered well up past twice his height, standing on his hind legs. Riya knew Rowan took refuge here now and then when he wanted to be alone, though it looked like he wasn't here, now. He lofted lower, circled a moment, then landed on the empty hillside next to it.

Ivana fluttered free of him when they landed and flew over to land among the branches. "It's smooth," she commented, as if amazed to find bark that didn't have rough bark.

"It's very old," Riya guessed. "Maybe the wind and rain have smoothed it out."

"That's silly," Ivana told him, petting the bark. She was at least as tall as his midriff now, human-formed, probably taller on her hind legs, and dragon hatchlings were very dense and heavy, but the branches were so thick they supported her without even bending. "Everyone knows people get wrinkly when they're older, not smoother."

"Trees aren't people, though," Riya smiled, poking his head among the branches. "And old rocks are smoother than young rocks."

"How can a rock be young?" she asked. "It's just a rock."

"Your teachers just haven't gotten to that yet in lessons," Riya said. "Rocks have to start somewhere. Just like trees. And they age differently than people or dragons do."

"Huh. Okay." Ivana started crawling out among the leaves, poking at smaller branches and padding out along them. Riya watched her closely, in case she slipped or a branch gave out under her.

What she did wasn't fall. What she did was grab a small branch, one with a few leaves and a large, pink and gold flower, and snap it off. Riya winced, and the tree actually made a groaning sound, like a wind had moved through its branches even though there was no wind. Ivana flinched at the sound and dug her claws into the bark to steady herself in case it did move, looking around with a stubborn expression. "It's pretty," she told the tree, or her father, or even just herself. "And I want to take it home."

"Maybe you should have asked first," Riya suggested gently. "That's polite."

"It's just a tree!"

"Trees are alive, too," Riya told her, and sidled over so she could climb down onto his back. "And this one is very old. I don't even know what it feels and thinks." As she climbed down, he added, "Tell it thank you, at least."

Ivana gave him a look like he'd lost his mind, but his expression was firm, and, still clinging to her flowering branch, said, "Thank you for the flower, tree," as if she were merely humoring him.

The tree creaked again, making her jump, and Riya tried not to laugh. "Stupid tree," Ivana muttered, clutching her flower and his spines and giving it a mistrustful look. "Can we shadowwalk home?" she asked. "I don't want to smash it or shred it trying to fly...."

"Sure, we can do that." Ivana didn't much like shadowwalking, finding it creepy, so when she asked for it Riya did it. "And when we get home, you can plant that and see if it grows."

Ivana hunkered down on his back as he reached for the shadow of the tree. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe I will."

Then he stepped into it, and they were gone.