The Designs Of Change

~Chapter 14~

Me and the rest of the dragonets sat in a circle around the near-hatching egg. It had been a couple of months, and there were around ten of us now. Getting a new member of the flock was a fairly inconsistent thing. Among the ten of us, there was a dragonet named Ocean, who seemed to have DNA from a blue-tailed skink. She was moody, and lived on the far side of the greenhouse, away from the main congregation of us. She sang the Sunset song, as I could hear her warbles from far away when I was just on the edge of falling asleep.
There were three distinct times of day apparently with three different songs, depending on the dragonet. Where I sang the morning song, dragonets like Luke, who had the DNA of a gecko and no wings, or Chris, sang the afternoon song. If anything, the disarray of whistles helped mark the sun's position in the sky, meaning the time. The scientists apparently were fairly interested in the fact that we sang at different times of the day, but Vincent always grumbled that it was annoying. and in the main lab, the fact that all of the normal dragonets were kept in soundproof cages, made them preferable to work with.

Aside from normal lab shenanigans, biting Vincent when he was my observer, and playing with Jerold or Jessica when they were, life had fallen into a new kind of normal. I still hated being trapped here, but it was bearable. And with more dragonets hatching every few weeks, the escape plan that we were all formulating was coming along smoothly.

Chris had decided he was just going to ignore me altogether, which was what he was doing for the past few months. I still had no idea what his deal was, but it was also hard to care now that there were other people to talk to besides my headmate that hadn't said a word lately. Which I was perfectly okay with.

The tapping I had heard many times from eggs at this point became louder, and eventually, all ten of our pairs of eyes were met with a dragonet that looked like a mishmash of two different lizard species. He had back spines like me, but from what I could see, no definite chameleon DNA. he was blue, with silver underbelly scales, and some silver patterns lacing across his neck... Somehow, his confused eyes seemed familiar and like a stranger all at the same time. It was strange.

And then I was tearing my eyes away in a familiar visceral reaction. A familiar reaction to only one person, who had glasses and stylized hair that always stood out to me. A science nerd, who won the fair three years in a row, and always stood stoic to my scrutiny.

Somehow I knew. But what's Caseus doing here?

I tried to hide my face with my wings in case he somehow figured out it was me. But alas, Chris and the others were looking at me expectantly. I was apparently the designated explanation person. Which I had no say in, but whatever.

Caseus was no longer looking confused and was now kind of just looking around with interest at his surroundings. Probably the most emotion I had ever seen out of him. Kind of surprising that he wasn't freaking out because that was how all the others reacted. But also not surprising, because this was Caseus. Odd medieval name and all.

"Excuse me, but why am I inside a glass dome greenhouse in the amazon?" Caseus's voice said, in my head.

I blinked.

He talked.

In my head.

I can faint about this later.

Evidently, I wasn't the only one, because the others, especially Ocean, looked startled and spitless. If anything, I was the least confused by this, because I had somebody talking in my head all the time.

"H-how are you doing that Caseus?" I stuttered, admittedly a little on edge. Before I just realized, haha, that I said his name.

The blue dragonet wheeled around so quickly that it worried me for a minute. His brown eyes trained on mine, and recognition sparked through their amber depths.