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Aurin holds his mother's hand as she leads him from the street to his aunt and uncle's house. He's been here only a couple of times, and can't remember most of them distinctly; they're sort of awkwardly related, his dead father's half-brother and the wife thereof. But now they have a baby parunia, and that means there is a dragon related to Aurin who is not too far from his age, only thirty-one years younger. This is apparently the sort of relation that it will be particularly enriching for Aurin to meet. They can do this now instead of waiting a month, because parunias don't die when they're babies; this one is safe, unlike the miscellaneous cousins on his mother's side he's never met because they are all in too much danger to get attached to (and have all succumbed to that danger). So here they are. Even though it was a very long flight and he couldn't ride his mother for takeoff and landing when she had to be a heron, only for the middle part.
Alys knocks on the door.
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"I think it's different," says Mial, "if you build things that're so small nobody who's too big can even get in to bump their head on stuff."
"Hmm, okay."
"If I built a house I'd build it big enough for Mom and Dad and your mom and Colla to all not bump their heads," Mial declares. "Even though I'm little and I could fit. Then they could come in and not get bumped."
"Well - which of their heads?" wonders Aurin. "Mom would bump her head in our house if it was the wrong head."
"Mom only has one! And Dad and Colla and your mom can't be the wrong heads around me anyway because I'm a shren," Mial points out.
"Well, somebody could turn into an elephant." Pause. "I don't know why they would do that but they could."
"If they turn into an elephant in a house and bump their head that is their own fault," Mial asserts.
"Okay then." Nod, nod.
Mial grins. He won that conversation!
"Is it very very awful to be a shren? I know it is very awful but is it very very?"
"It hurts pretty awful," Mial admits. "And I don't like that I am only allowed three places. But I don't think that's very very. And when I'm twenty I can be a bird and it won't hurt anymore and I can go places and then it'll be okay."
Aurin nods solemnly. He reaches out for his cousin and scoops him up for hugs.
Mial snuggles up, flopping his wings over Aurin's arms. They are floppable. That is just about all they do is flop, except when he folds them up and they don't even do that.
Well, he's still pretty snuggly. "I wish it didn't happen anyway though."
"Yeah," sighs Mial.
"I'm not even supposed to talk about you to my other cousins," mumbles Aurin.
"Why not?" wonders Mial.
"It would make them uncomfortable."
Mial snorts derisively.
Aurin shrugs. "I'm allowed with my great-grand-niblings though. They don't mind."
"Because they're not dragons?" he guesses. The relationship is a clue.
"Yeah. They're other stuff."
"Dragons are weird about shrens sometimes and that is why Grandfather won't admit I exist," Mial says sagely. (His parents have tried to keep him shielded from things like this. They have not succeeded.)
"I'm not supposed to mention you around him either. I did it by accident and he pretended he didn't hear me. Or maybe he didn't hear me actually. I don't know."
"I don't care," Mial says loftily. "If he wants to pretend I don't exist he can just keep doing that."