*~Ivy~*

I finished the Morning Song with a flourishing somersault and glided back down to my favorite tree. Trenil had a few trees in his yard, but this one had bright purple flowers that smelled nice, and I liked resting in it. A handful of Kymari had watched my dance from the other side of the fence, and one of them waved at me as I settled down. "Hi there!"

"Hihi!" I chirped back at the Kymari. It wasn't uncommon for people walking by Trenil's house to stop and watch me in the morning, and it was usually fun to sing at them a little bit. Occasionally they would even have treats to offer me... though today they all seemed empty handed.

Still, it was nice to have attention.

"Hi!" The Kymari smiled at my chirp and repeated his greeting.

Though conversations with any Kymari aside from Trenil tended not to be very... intellectual. I hopped to a lower branch and chirped at the observers again. "Hello!"

We wasted about half an hour talking back and forth at each other before the group realized they had somewhere they probably had to get to. They were all smiling when they left, which made me feel better.

I had really needed that little pick-me-up.

"Nate?" I tried to reach the silver dragonet yet again... and yet again I felt the hollow echo. He was still blocking me.

That or he was asleep. That would mean he had missed the Morning Song, though. Would he have done something like that? He had seemed so very upset last night. And I knew that sadness could make it very hard to wake up, even for something as rewarding as greeting the sunrise. There had been a few days that I had felt too miserable to dance for the sunrise and had needed to be nudged into doing it, especially back when... though I always felt better after the Morning Song, and appreciated that my friends had gone through the effort to look out for me.

I really hoped that he was just blocking me. That was a little upsetting, since I wanted to know how he was doing and was sure he could really, really use a friend right now... but at least it would mean he had gotten the uplifting boost the Morning Song always brought us. And I had a feeling he really needed that even more.

I stared up through the leaves above me in the general direction of the city he lived in. Please be okay...

"Thinking about your friend again?"

I glanced down and saw Trenil standing at the door to the house. "How did you know?"

"You always sag your wings a little and curl up the end of your tail when you are feeling sad. I know he is on your mind lately." He walked out into the yard and stopped next to the tree, lifting a hand to rest against the bark. "Is he still not answering you?"

I nodded sadly. "Yeah... nothing at all since last night."

"I checked the tracker again. It says he is still doing okay. His heart rate was up a little bit ago, but that's what I would expect during the sunrise."

"Oh. Oh, good. I was worried that maybe he had just slept through the Morning Song, and that's why I couldn't reach him. I'm glad to hear it; I'm sure he could use it right now."

Trenil didn't seem as pleased at my reasoning as I was, and I saw him frown. "But... from what I understand, that still means he is blocking you specifically from reaching him? Is he mad at you?"

I sighed and shook my head. I was beginning to think I was just bad at explaining things to people. Trenil never quite seemed to grasp how our mindspeech worked, no matter how many times I tried explaining it. And Nate hadn't seemed to really get how to use the mindspeech, and he actually was a dragonet. I had a dreadful feeling that if I ever had kids they would be the only dragonets in the entire flock that never learned how to communicate beyond the instinctive chirps and whistles of the dragonet language...

"I don't think he's mad. He's just very upset right now, and I think he wants to be alone. We can do that - just shut anybody at all out from reaching us; it's actually easier to do than to just shut out one particular person. I asked Serena to try reaching him last night just in case, but she couldn't get through either."

"Oh." Trenil nodded slowly and took his hand down from the side of the tree. "That makes sense. If he spent all that time on his own, he probably has trouble dealing with too much conversation. He might want to just be alone to think. You think he is upset, then?"

I thought back to all the pain I had heard in Nate's voice last night. For it to have been so bad that it bled past his self-control and into everything he said... though again, with how little he seemed to know about using the mindspeech, it was just as likely that he didn't know he was doing it in the first place as it was that he was so bothered by everything that he couldn't hold it back. Either way, it had still been obvious that he was upset. I was pretty sure he had been crying at parts of the conversation.

I really wished I could send him another hug.

"Yes. He was so... you would have had to hear him. The questions he was asking, the way he was talking. I think he's very lonely right now and wants somebody to talk to, and I think he very much wants to go back to Minna, but I also think he's very scared of what it could mean if he goes back to her." I thought back over the conversation. "At one point... you'd have to know him to understand, but near the end he put like a whole ten sentences together. I don't think I've ever heard him say so much at once."

"Ah. I take it he is a fire lizard of few words?"

I winced at the reminder of one of the first things I had ever said to the quiet silver. "Very, very much so."

My bond handler nodded slowly. "After all that time alone, talking might not be as easy for him as it is for you. You will need to be patient with him." Trenil looked out past the netting that surrounded the backyard and kept other animals from getting in and bothering me. "What was it that he said?"

I thought back to his words and sagged a little on the branch. "...he asked why a bunch of things couldn't have been different. Why we couldn't have been less nice, why the Kymari couldn't have been a bunch of meanies, why the food couldn't have been horrible. Why his dog couldn't still be alive." I hesitated, remembering his final lament. "Why we couldn't have just left him alone."

"Oh."

"I think he wants to be with Minna, I truly do, I just... think the idea of that still scares him."

Trenil nodded slowly again... then he reached up with his hand. I felt a tickling along my tail and I glanced down at it to find that Trenil had reached to poke at my tail. Specifically, the end of my tail that had curled up again.

"I'm sorry. I just... I'm really worried about him. If you had heard him..." I shook my head. "I don't know if we did the right thing for him or not anymore." I felt my wings start to sag and tried to hold them up. "I was so worried that he would come to like her, and then she would leave him; I never considered they would both grow so attached and still leave each other anyways. This is the worst that could have happened... All I've done is hurt them both."

"Don't think like that, Ivy." Trenil's voice was soft and gentle. "We still have to wait and see. But I think we did the right thing. I know they would be happy together; I don't think it was wrong to try and bring them that happiness. And they were happy; for all the ups and downs they had, those two have already had a lot of happy moments, too."

"Yeah." That much was true, at least. If Nate hadn't been happy with Minna, then he wouldn't have been so upset over everything he was feeling and thinking. "Hopefully we don't have to wait too long."

Trenil nodded solemnly. "Agreed. Were you able to tell him about Minna?"

I let my wings sag this time. "No. I didn't think it was right to bring that up right then and pressure him, and... I didn't know I might not be able to tell him later. Hopefully he'll think everything through, or at least let me talk to him soon. How much time do we have?"

"She'll be over later tonight with his things. Leftover food, his leash and harness, the heat lamp. Her parents were very adamant. Not more than a day or two."

"Do you think we should go see her? She was upset when she called; maybe it'll make her feel better to see us?"

Trenil hesitated and looked down. "I... don't think she would appreciate seeing a fire lizard right now. Aside from one in particular."

Trenil was right... I would probably just remind Minna of things she didn't want to think about. I flinched and looked up at the sky. The sun was still climbing upwards, steadily marking the passage of time. Time Minna and Nate might not have. I tried to reach him again, just in case. "Nate..."

Still nothing but the same echo sensation.

I started to sag in disappointment again... then blinked and looked back towards the sun. That was a lot higher than it should be! "Oh, no; are we late? Don't we have a patrol today? Do we need to go?"

Trenil smiled up at me. "Not anymore. Alec is going to take our shift today. I thought you could use some time to relax, and I wanted to make sure you were able to help Nate if you needed to."

I felt a bit of warmth rising in my chest. Trenil was worried about me, and had arranged things to make everything a little less stressful for me. Even though it would probably create more work for him sometime later. Why couldn't I get this through to Nate? There's nothing to be scared of... they truly do care about us.

"Now, if you'd like a break from staring off into the distance for a bit, I have breakfast ready for you. And you're not going to believe it, but somehow the bowl got filled entirely with those kiwi fruits you like so much, through some strange, inexplicable coincidence..."

I smiled and swooped down from the branch, landing lightly on Trenil's shoulder to give his chin an appreciative nudge from my head, and we went back inside to eat.