New flash series! I’m going to write one flash for every Icon I have, over 4 LJ accounts, 1 DW, and a whole bunch of not-currently-in-use, until I get bored or run out of icons.

Dragons Next Door has a Landing Page (LJ)

We were having one of those really nice crisp late-October days, with the sun shining and no real wind to speak of, so Zizny Smith and I were talking over the stone wall between our properties while, nearby, Juniper and Baby played, or, at least, Juniper played and Baby gurgled back at her.

“How do you handle it, when your children leave home?” Zizny asked, inadvertently – or perhaps intentionally; the Smiths were very perceptive neighbors (and I was still inwardly cringing over how non-perceptive I’d managed to be) – hitting a nerve I’d been trying to ignore.

“Jimmy?” I asked, rather than answer right away. The dragon nodded, a gesture I was fairly certain they’d adopted for talking to humans. Since her – its! – head was as big as I was, it made for an impressive agreement.

“Not yet, of course,” it continued, “but when they start getting to that size, you start thinking about the day they’ll fly away, don’t you?”

“Is Jimmy your oldest, then?”

A dragon smile is a terrifying thing. “No, oh, no, but it’s been quite a while since Cauzna left the cave. Is Jin your first? I know humans tend to have their children rather close together.”

“We have a shorter breeding period.” No getting around it, then. “Jin is my oldest. It will probably be a few years until he leaves the nest, but it’s been on my mind.”

“Probably?” Zizny saw too much. I bit the bullet and answered.

“The Black Tower has contacted him.”

Edited for naming error: Sage is the narrator’s spouse, Jin her oldest child.

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