"If he is, I don't think he will be for long," Arashi says. He's not at all sure how fast dragons grow, but he does have concerns about how big this one of Mistral's pets might get. Still, Mistral manages the rest of them well enough - not that Arashi's going to say that. The shortest Waltz doesn't need any encouragement to collect more pets, in Arashi's opinion.

"Don't worry about that," Mistral says, half to the dragon in an indulgent tone. "By the time he's big enough, we'll have a nice little hoard for him to nap on." Granted, a lot of it at the start might be the regional equivalent of pennies, but even dragons have to start somewhere.