The next morning, she was the last one up, but only because the her sponsorlings were actually attempting to be quiet, as they tried to make breakfast. With her small, dextrous paws Kaselanuga had managed to open a box of pancake mix, and mix it in a bowl. Bydeniss was holding a pan, as the sinuous dragon poured cupfuls into odd shapes on the pan. All of this, over the lowered neck of Yusena, who seemed to have "turned-up" her flames to a semi-reasonable cooking temperature. Jidka's two dragonets swarmed circles around Kinmuku, who was giggling at the antics of her new "siblings".

What actually woke the rainbow dragoness, was not the giggling, or the barely muted stage whispers. It was a worried Fonai. The little terigon scratched at Jidka's shoulder.

"Jidka? I think you should get up," Fonai whimpered slightly. Jidka blinked sleepily, then looked at the terigon. And had to do a double-take. The normally orange and charcoal kit was now a splotchy buff with patches of hair sticking out at odd angles.

"What happened to you?" She asked, startled. Then she looked towards the noise in the kitchen. "Oh, no!" Scooping up the terigon, she jumped to her feet and hurried over.

"What is..." she started to say, before she took in the sight, and nearly dropped Fonai. All the kits froze, and looked up at their caretaker. Bydeniss and Kinmuku looked a bit sheepish, and Yusena may have, but it was hard to tell on her mostly featureless skull. Kase', however, looked straight at Jidka.

"Good morning! We thought that since you've been taking such good care of us, and put up with us so well, we'd make you breakfast today! Poor Fonai got in the way, before Bydeniss got the pan in place, but we was gonna clean him up when the cakes're done. Guess he didn't believe me." She shrugged, then continued. "We're almost done, do you want your cakes now?" She pointed to the counter.

Jidka looked, and could barely contain the laughter that had been growing since she had stepped into the kitchen. On several plates, lined up in a row, were several, mostly cooked pancakes. There were a few that were cooked unevenly, doughy spots on one side, burnt on the other, a couple that were just shy of totally burnt, and one or two that looked fully edible.

As they seemed to be on the last panful, she decided to let them finish; they hadn't burned the rooms down yet. "Alright, finish up, then figure out who gets what plate and set them out. I'm going to clean all the batter off poor Fonai. Just be careful none of you get burned; I really don't want to try to explain that to the medics!"

After breakfast, which turned out not to be too bad, Jidka let all the kits play while she sat down to make some decisions. She knew she had her paws full now, and was content with her small friends. But they needed to find somewhere else to go. She didn't think Star City and the Destiny could take much more of this particular group. Especially after the breakfast incident, which could have been far, far worse.

After checking on her "children", she thought about the places she had been. Falas was fairly open-minded, but she didn't think these would fit in there. The more traditionally minded would never accept the differences. And she still didn't feel comfortable staying at Treval. She thought about the world Malnev. It had seemed to have plenty of open space, not too much trouble for four growing dragons to get into. Finally, she decided to see what the youngsters thought.

"Hey, everyone, could you come here a minute? I need to get your opinions on something." As the four dragons and the terigon stampeded into the room, she was very glad she had thought of this now; these rooms would never hold all of them full-grown! Kaselanuga and Yusena sat together, looking at the older dragoness intently, though they were giggling an awful lot. Bydeniss curled up with his Fonai, a smug grin on his eyeless face, as if he knew what she was about to say. Which given his tendency to "eavesdrop" on her thoughts, he probably did. Kinmuku, her own beautiful bond, sat by the xeno-cat, but looked expectantly at her. Their bond gave her a small idea of what was going on, but her telepathy seemed to be limited to images mostly, so she missed some of the details.

Now that she had their attention, she began to speak. "I know things are getting a little tight here; I doubt these rooms were meant to hold more than 2 or 3 dragons at a time! I've been thinking about taking all of you to one of the worlds I visited a while ago. It has a lot of open space, and while it doesn't currently have a large dragon population, there are numerous other races to get to know. I wanted to know if any of you are interested. I'd like us all to be in agreement before I arrange for a way to get there.

I know you all probably won't stay with me forever, but I would like to find somewhere we will all be happy staying, until you are old enough to go off on your own." She looked around, trying to judge their expressions. Which, as they were still pretty young, and hadn't really learned how to mask them, wasn't that hard. They were excited.

::I think this Malnev will be a fun place to grow up:: came a quick thought from Bydeniss, proving her suspicion that he had been listening. She hadn't mentioned the planet by name to them yet. The others quickly added their opinions.

"It sounds like fun! When can we go?" was Kaselanuga's input.

Yusena piped in, "Yeah, when can we leave?"

Despite the noise of hyper dragon kits, Fonai had fallen asleep by his dragon, and didn't say anything, but Kinmuku'Iwa just looked up at her bond and smiled. "It sounds like it will be a fun adventure, maybe even a few! How will we get there?"

Continued