"Okay."

"Are you okay? You seem kind of passively not okay."

Shrug. "I'm fine."

"Okay."

"Thank you for helping the babies."

"They're children. They were in pain. I couldn't not help."

"Thank you anyway."

"You're welcome. I'm honestly horrified by how much Draconic affects some people, if they decide that abandoning their children because they're going to be hurting is a good idea..."

"They could visit."

"They don't."

"And that makes me angry with Draconic."

"Some dragons keep their shrens. Or take them back when they can shapeshift, even if they don't want to face a whole houseful of us."

"Probably less than would if they didn't have that horrid thing shrieking in their heads...am I being insensitive, this is technically your language too even if it hates you."

Shrug.

"What happens to the kids who don't get picked up?"

"We stay in the house until we grow up, and then some move out, some stay put."

"No one else ever adopts them?"

"Almost - almost never."

"Why not?"

"We take just as long as dragons do to grow up."

"I don't think I heard about dragons taking a long time to grow up."

"Two hundred years hatching to full adulthood."

"Oh. So no one has both the criteria of 'willing to deal with that length of childhood' and 'doesn't have Draconic installed in their brain'."

"Yeah."