"I told you. It's even prettier when there are more of them." I glanced back to see Minna smiling at us from where she sat on the lawn.

Trenil was also smiling, and the two handlers both had recorders trained on us... but the rest of the Kymari had stunned expressions, as if they couldn't believe what they had just watched. Even Lyzel seemed to be wide awake now.

"How... did they practice that? I can't imagine the coordination required to do that; it reminded me of some of the shuttle stunts you used to watch." Terron looked over at Minna, then back up into the air, as if he could still see us dancing through it.

"No. We still have no idea how they do it. It seems to just be instinctive. As far as we know, this is the first chance Nate ever had to do that dance with a partner; he did all that without any sort of practice with Ivy or any other fire lizards beforehand." Trenil reached for his recorder and tapped a button on it, then slipped it into one of his pockets. "And no two songs are ever the same. They'll never do a dance quite like that one again, as far as we can tell. Each day will be unique."

"And they all do that? Even in the main flock, with all of them? They all just... know?"

Trenil nodded. "Yes. We think they respond to something in the sunrise when they dance; we've noticed similarities in the dances of the main flock and tame fire lizards on any particular day, regardless of if they are dancing together or not. The working theory has been that because the sunrise looks the same for all of them, they have the same response to it."

He lifted a hand to point back at me. "Minna's fire lizard caused us a bit of confusion at first, because his dances did seem to lack the same themes of the main flock. But his dance matched Ivy's just now, which means it's probably a case of this city being far enough away to cause the sunrises to look different. The triggers and cues he's responding to aren't in the sunrises the other fire lizards are responding to, and the ones they're responding to aren't in the sunrises he sees."

I glanced at Ivy out of the corner of my eye. "Just how long have the Kymari been watching me dance, anyways?"

"Ever since they learned about you. They like watching it. And you didn't exactly make it hard for them to find where you would be at. The main flock tends to wander through the park and find different spots each day."

I turned my eyes back up to the sky. "Yeah. I did that at first too. It felt safer, and..." I tried to put words to the feeling. "It felt like the rest of the forest deserved a chance to see it, too."

"I know what you mean."

"Will they do it again? It was pretty." Lyzel looked from us to Trenil with a pleading expression, as if maybe he knew some trick or phrase that could get us to repeat the performance.

"I'm sorry, but they won't do another dance like that one until tomorrow morning. They only do that for the sunrise."

"Aw..." Lyzel looked down and pouted a little.

Trenil looked from the child to Minna. "However... one of the bond handlers has recently observed that at least one of the fire lizards enjoys singing and dancing along with certain kinds of music. If it's okay with your mother, we might be able to try some of that later today."

"Can we?" Lyzel's face lit up and she looked at her mother. "Pleaseeeee?"

Loreena shot Trenil a glance that suggested she wasn't entirely happy with his idea, but she nodded. "If you're good and you finish up all your homework. But not until later today. Your Aunt Minna has things she has to take care of, too."

"That's right. Nate still has a lot of training to do, and I need to work with Trenil while he's here. We'll make sure to leave some time to play before he has to go back home though, don't worry. But first, I think it's time for breakfast" Minna got to her feet and held up her hand. "Nate, come back."

I flew back to Minna and settled in on her shoulder. Ivy followed after, and we all went back inside. The Kymari started preparing food and talking about random events that had happened in Terron and Loreena's life.

I tuned them out and resigned myself to just loafing on Minna's shoulder, but Ivy sat up on Trenil's shoulder and warbled at me. "Okay, let's get this over with. Where's the bathroom at?"

I perked my ear tufts and sat up on Minna's shoulder. Don't smile, don't smile, don't smile. I kept my face as expressionless as I could and hummed back in feigned confusion. "Hmmm?"

Ivy's wings twitched at her side. "Nate..." Her dry chirp made it clear she was not amused.

"Okay, okay." I looked around the room once, then hopped off Minna's shoulder and flew towards the hallway.

Ivy followed a few wingbeats behind me. I heard Minna asking "What do you think that was about?", then we were out of earshot.

The bathroom door was half open, but I landed on the ground outside. "Do you actually need to use the bathroom? I can wait outside."

Ivy landed on the floor next to me and nudged the door open a little more. "No, I borrowed the tray Minna left out before we went outside. Go on, laugh it up."

I grinned widely back at the other dragonet. "I didn't say anything."

"Hmph." She slipped into the bathroom and flew up to the sink. "Show me how to use this. I've used Trenil's sink a few times but he has handles on everything; I've never actually done anything with the sensors."

"It took me a bit to figure out. There's a little spot under the faucet; if you bend your head down you can see it." I leaned forward and bumped the spot so Ivy could see it.

"Oh. That turns it on?" Ivy hopped to stand opposite the sink then spread her wings out. She waved them around a bit but nothing happened.

"I usually have to do loops through the air to get it to work. I don't know how they calibrate the sensors, but waving my wings or arms alone can't manage this one. At Minna's old place I could just jump up and down a little, but this one takes more motion before it triggers. Here, watch."

I leapt into the air and did the familiar loop in front of the sink. I missed with my first attempt, but with the second one I heard the sound of water start flowing into the sink.

Ivy hopped in excitement while I hovered in the air above the sink. She let out a chirp, then jumped into the concave depression under the faucet. Water splashed over her teal scales... for all of a second. She jumped out almost immediately after, and glared up at me from the side. "That was cold!"

I grinned back at her scolding chirps. She huffed, then shook off. Water went flying into the air, and I squawked and flapped higher. "Hey!"

"How do you do the temperature?" Ivy joined me in the air and started doing her own loops in front of the sensor. On the third try the water went off, and she let out a proud chirp.

I eyed her a little suspiciously. She was making a lot of sound effects, but kept switching back to mindspeech when she actually wanted to ask something. Were we being watched?

I looped back down and turned the water back on... and as I did, I caught sight of a Kymari hand holding one of the recording devices at the far end of the hallway. Sigh.

"It's sensors on the side, like with the shower. Here." I moved to the left side of the sink and flew in a horizontal circle. I wasn't exactly sure where the sensor was, but I heard the faintest of clicks when I finished my loop. "There. It should be warmer now."

Since we were being watched, I dove into the sink first. I made a show of getting wet and washing my feet and wings, exaggerating the motion as if I was imitating some trick I had been taught, then held my hands up under the water. I let them get wet for a few seconds, then hopped back up on the side of the sink. I scratched at a bar of soap resting there until my claws and hands were covered in soap, then dropped back into the sink. I made another exaggerated show of rubbing my hands together and getting suds over my scales, then washed my hands clean again. Once I was done I hopped back out and made room for Ivy. She perched on the side of the sink and sniffed at the water, as if she didn't quite trust me... then she jumped in and splashed around in the sink.

I watched her for a minute before I flattened my ear tufts in apparent annoyance. I jumped back into the sink and nudged her out of the way, then made another show of going back through the entire process of cleaning my hands once more.

"I feel like a monkey." I finished rinsing my hands and chittered a short 'Now you do it' before hopping back up onto the sink.

"You're doing great. This should go a long way towards fooling the Kymari into thinking this is some trick you were taught. They know we pass behaviors through the flock; now they'll actually have evidence of us doing it." Ivy stared at the water for a few seconds as if confused... then slowly held her hands up under the water.

I trilled in excitement and fanned my wings as Ivy duplicated the 'trick', then leaned over and nudged the tray of soap with my head. "It still feels silly. Who's recording us, by the way? I only saw a hand."

"Trenil. He'll delete the recording if we give too much away; he didn't want to risk Minna getting suspicious. And the main flock appreciates it. Just consider it part of being a dragonet; the rest of us pretend to be animals too." Ivy jumped out of the water and scratched at the bar of soap, then sniffed her hands. I caught the faintest hint of a grin on her face before it vanished just as suddenly.

She looked at me with a suddenly hurt expression and let out a familiar wail. "Haaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllpppppppppp."

I stared at her, completely unamused... then hopped closer and pushed her back into the water. "Jerk. That's my trick."

Ivy just giggled back at me. She washed her hands and splashed around a little more, then hopped out of the sink. I jumped in the air and made a show of turning off the water with an exaggerated vertical loop, then moved over to the toilet.

"It still seems... pointless. I'm going to stay with Minna; do I really need to wait? It'd make training a lot easier if she knew she could just talk to me, or if I could talk to her. We wouldn't have to keep playing pretend like this." I landed on the seat of the toilet and paused. I thought back to all of the scratches on Minna's hands and felt my ear tufts droop. Though I guess it makes some things easier.

Ivy's ear tufts fell a little as she joined me on the toilet seat. "It's safer to wait, Nate. Trust me on this one. Minna seems committed and I'm sure it's just us being overprotective in your case, but... it's better to be safe. Three months will be gone before you know it. And it'll make things a little easier if something does happen." She looked down at the toilet seat and chirped curiously at me. "Now show me what ancient trick humans taught you about this mystical Kymari device, oh wise dragonet. Rescue us from the horror that is the tray of red dirt."

I barely managed to avoid rolling my eyes. "Are you sure you don't need another lesson in washing your hands first?"

"Meanie. Hurry up; the Kymari aren't going to spend forever eating breakfast."

I sent her a mental sigh, then climbed down the side of the toilet. It took a bit of doing but I managed to balance along the side and use one of my wings to push the seat up. I joined Ivy back on the side of the bowl.

We stared blankly into the pool of water for a long moment.

I finally broke the silence. "Pretending I'm on National Geographic is fun, but I am not letting Trenil record me going to the bathroom."

"Yeah, I... didn't think this through." Ivy stared at the water for another second or two, then cautiously reached a hand down to bat at the water. "At least the water is clean though. The Kymari are really good about sanitizing everything. The streams and stuff coming out of the city back home are all really clean."

I thought back to the river nearby. It wasn't exactly dirty, but... it had fish and other animals living in it. "I haven't noticed that here. There were a few times that Susie and I got sick, and I'm pretty sure it was something we drank. But then we lived near a river that flowed into the city, not out of it. They might not have treated it at the parts we were drinking out of." I glanced at Ivy and smirked. "Why? Are you thinking about swimming in it?"

"No!" There was a sour note in her mindspeech.

I snorted. "Liar." I glanced around the room, then looked back up at the sink. "Maybe this will be close enough."

I flew back over to the sink and grabbed the soap off the small tray it rested in. I held it against my chest and took back to the air... and when I passed over the toilet, I let go of the soap.

It fell into the water with an audible 'plop' sound. Some of the water splashed up and got Ivy. "Hey!"

"What? You just said it was clean."

"Yeah, but still! It's toilet water!" She shook herself off, then glared up at me.

"And now it's toilet water with soap in it. Now watch and learn this secret trick humans taught me long ago, of 'how to flush a toilet'." I dropped down and did another one of the vertical loops, and the sensor triggered. I dropped to the side of the bowl opposite Ivy and joined her in staring at the water.

We watched the water spiral around and rush out of the bowl as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. The soap bobbed for a bit as the water rushed around, then it vanished down the drain.

"And now you have the hidden ancient wisdom... of how to flush a bar of soap down the toilet. Congratulations." My dry voice dripped with sarcasm as I stared down into the empty bowl.

"If Trenil laughs at me for this, I'll kill him."

We stared blankly at the toilet for another moment while it filled slowly back up with water.

"Loreena's going to be mad about me flushing away her soap, isn't she."

"Yuuup."

We stared at the now-still water below.

"When I thought of all the stuff I would do after college, 'pretending to learn how to use a toilet' did not make the list."

"Hey, pretending to be an animal was your idea, not mine." I thought for a second, then perked my ear tufts in mischievous glee. "Let's trigger the sensor a bunch and see if we can break it."

"Okay!" Ivy brightened and hopped into the air to start a quick loop in front of the sensor.

We made it through about ten flushes before Trenil walked into the bathroom. The recording device was gone - probably stored back in one of his pockets. He looked at us with an amused expression and shook his head slightly. "Just what do you two think you are doing?"

We aborted our loops in front of the sensor and broke into happy chirps of laughter.

Trenil sighed and shook his head again... though he still had a small smile. Ivy flew to his shoulder and nudged playfully at his chin. "Just being silly."

I grinned and flew past Trenil, then continued on to find out what my own Kymari was up to.