"Oh. I guess that makes sense."

"Can thudias have dragon children? Or thudia children?"

"With whom?"

"With non-dragons."

"No and rarely."

"...it occurs to me that it would be very technically interesting and also probably not very polite to watch dragons, erm, conceive."

"...um."

"Yes, 'um,' that's what I meant. I just wonder how the magic—transfers—if thudias can have thudia children but not dragons then the magic's probably getting copied somehow, and thudias themselves must come about because only a bit and not all of the dragon magic's being passed on and I wanna know why."

"I would never have a thudia grandkid without a dragon in-law if that matters."

"It... does, yeah, that makes sense if what I'm thinking is how it works."

"And throwback thudias are really rare."

"Makes sense that they would be. What's most peculiar is that it seems to always be divided the same way."

"Divided?"

"Like, when a dragon has a child with a nondragon they can have a thudia or a parunia and thudias are always the same, they always get exactly those bits of the magic and not others. Or, put another way, it's divided consistently and discretely enough that you can actually tell that a child will either be a thudia or a parunia."

"Oh. I mean, you can also tell because parunias hatch from dragon eggs."

"Oh, thudias don't?—is it the parent's choice, like gender and stuff?"

"No, they don't get to pick that."

"So they just, what, conceive and then it's a surprise whether it's an egg or gestation?"

"The eggs gestate for awhile too. They actually take longer."

"Huh. Interesting."

"Magically interesting or just in general?"

"Just in general. It might be magically interesting too but just from this I wouldn't guess."

"So we knew my little sister would be a parunia when Mom took longer to show with her than with me."

He nods. "How does shapeshifting interact with pregnancy?"

"The magic covers it okay - just sort of brings the baby or the egg or whatever along till they go into labor, then they have to be in a big enough form."