She will be the best earthroot gatherer!!! ... Just as soon as she knows where it grows and what it looks like. But after she learns that, she will be the best herb gathering whelp the world has ever seen! Do siblings want to help?

Siblings can help! Siblings can gather not only earthroot, but dirt, grass, bugs, peacebloom, and an armful of fallen leaves!

Okay, uh. No? No. Yes to the peacebloom, she saw that at the alchemist’s place, so that’s useful for something, probably, but uh. Everything else can just. Go back? Or the bugs can be reward snacks if anyone wants those. Good job, but everything else is not needed right now. Maybe later.

She sorts through it and brings back earthroot, and then also the peacebloom, if it is acceptable extra tribute?

Yep, that's always useful. Good job Ranaex, very helpful.

Yay! She's helpful!

She alternates between working on the whole 'talking' thing and leading her fellow whelps on Missions To Be Helpful! Being helpful is fun.

Her fellow whelps get the hang of the being helpful thing over time. And everyone's willing to take some time to talk with Ranaestrasza.

Yay!!!!!!!!

As soon as she's got a good grasp of language, she's a curious little chatterbox that wants to know all about everyone she talks to. Actually, she's a curious little chatterbox before she's got a good grasp of language. Also a little snugglebug that loves everyone pretty unconditionally and wants to help everyone!

She gleefully helps her siblings figure out how to be helpful because clearly this is the best thing ever!!! And then she snuggles them. And Mom. And other dragons and dragonkin that she recognizes and likes, which is all of them that she's met before. The ones she hasn't met before she happily introduces herself to, and then loves them unconditionally. Hi! She's Ranaestrasza, and she is excited to meet you, and she loves you!!! Is there anything she can help with??

One day, a dragon different from any others she has seen before shows up to speak with Alexstrasza.

!!!! Gosh!

Ranaestrasza flaps over to this fascinating new color of dragon, entranced.

"Hi!" she says, "I'm Ranaestrasza!! It's nice to meet you." Followed by lovelovelove, because she loves pretty much everyone unconditionally.

She's so cute when she's a baby!

"Hi Ranaex! It will have been nice to meet you too!"

The baby blinks, confused. "Don't you mean is nice to meet me too? 'Will have' means... not now."

"Well, yes. This is the first time you meet me but I've met you before. You don't remember because it hasn't happened yet. But it'll be a lot of fun, so look forward to it."

Slow blink.

And then she just happily accepts this. "Okay! I will!"

"Great! Can you show me where your mother is? I need to speak with her."

"Yeah okay!"

She keeps a general idea of where Mom is most of the time, because Mom is one of her favorite people, and also really big and therefore hard to miss, so she can happily lead this strangely colored dragon to her mother, she absolutely does not see anything wrong with this!

Mom is perhaps not as pleased to see the visitor as she could be. "Mezan."

"Allie! How nice to see you. Your clutch is looking well, you've got some clever ones here."

      "I dislike the versions of you that are old enough to feel comfortable calling me 'Allie'. What brings you here now?"

"Oh, nothing urgent. Just a small bit of business with the elves. My present self would have come, but there's some things happening in the south, you know how it goes."

She snuggles Mom lovingly.

"What things?" she wonders, curiously.

"You'll find out when you're older."

     "I think Kelt wanted help with the beavers down by the river, sweetheart. Why don't you go see how she's doing?"

"Oh. Okay! If I'll find out when I'm older anyway, since there's time stuff," she agrees, and then she nuzzles Mom and flies off to help Kelt.

"You can definitely see who she turns out to be from here."

     "Please don't involve my daughter in any of your harebrained schemes until she's old enough to have a clutch of her own," Alexstrasza says tartly.

"She involves herself, most of the time. But your meaning is taken, I promise."

Meanwhile: beavers! They are round and fluffy and have big tails and big teeth. They are also trying to dam an inconvenient point and need to be encouraged to move a bit further downstream.

Hmmm! This is a difficult conundrum. Maybe if they start setting up a bit of a dam for them where they'd like the dam, to give them a good spot to build? And then geeeeently break the dam they're making. Gently. Ever so gently. Maybe move the pieces to where they want the dam to actually be.

That sounds like a good strategy. But in the course of beginning the setup of the second dam, she comes across a complication. There's a nest of crocolisk eggs! The parents aren't home right now, but if they come back, they might be inclined to eat the beavers.

The plot thickens!!!

Hmmm moving the eggs somewhere not near the beavers sounds untenable. She doubts that the beavers would move further downstream, because they'd have to go past the crocolisks. She doesn't particularly have a problem with the crocolisks themselves; she could make a fight of it, and would probably win, but that seems mean. The crocolisks haven't done anything wrong except needing to eat things to live, and what does that say about her if she condemns them? She needs to eat things to live. So. Hm. Hmm hmm hmmmmm.

Is there another spot that the beavers could have a dam, away from the crocolisks, even further downstream??

There is, in fact. It's a bit of a hike, but it should be safe from the crocs.