In the Labyrinth of Drakes by Marie Brennan Page A

not named them, except with numerical designations; I suspect he felt they were not worth the effort, given how many of them emerged from the shell in poor form and died soon after. From another angle, one might say it was unwise to name them, for names create attachment, and attachment creates grief when a life ends. But it being winter, we were receiving no eggs, and I did not like calling them by numbers, so I gave them names instead.
    I had a certain fondness for the eldest, whom I dubbed Ascelin, after the legendary Scirling outlaw: although Lord Tavenor had hoped that being in captivity from birth would habituate the drake to human contact, he was a feisty creature, not much inclined to cooperate with anybody. It was likely to doom him in the end—if he would not settle down in adulthood, he might well be slaughtered for his bones—but until then, he was the closest thing we had to a healthy wild drake. His wings had not yet been crippled, for fear it would send him to an early grave, but he was not permitted to fly.
    The youngest of the lot, however, was the one with whom I formed a special bond. My sentimental choice of words may raise your eyebrows—as well they should—but my interactions with this creature were more like those between an owner and a pet than a scientist and her subject.
    Our relationship began when I visited the juvenile pens and said to Tom, “That must be the one you were referring to earlier—the lumpy one.”
    He was thereafter known as Lumpy. His egg had been brought to the House of Dragons when it was quite new, and what hatched therefrom was obviously abnormal. Lord Tavenor had weighed the hatchling and confirmed his suspicions: the creature was much too heavy for his size, indicating that his bones had formed as solid masses, rather than acquiring the airy structure typical of the species.
    My heart went out to him from the start. I knew from reading Lord Tavenor’s records that our predecessor had considered having Lumpy put down: the little creature was nothing more than a drain on resources, being of no use to our scientific inquiry. The order was never given before Lord Tavenor’s departure, though, and so Lumpy remained, crawling about his enclosure, occasionally flapping the undersized wings that could never hope to carry his adult weight.
    I could not bear to have him put down, and told Tom as much. “I can make a scientific argument for it, if you like,” I said while we ate lunch in our shared office. “I’m sure I could come up with quite a splendid one, if you give me a moment to prepare. Something about understanding development by observing both successful and unsuccessful examples. If the abnormality is congenital, we might even have an advance in the captive breeding problem: after all, a dragon too heavy to fly need not have its tendons cut.”

    L UMPY
    â€œBut none of those,” Tom said, “are your real reasons.”
    â€œOf course not. The truth is that I do not feel the poor creature should die just because someone bungled his care.”
    I meant to say more, but hesitated, wiping seasoned yoghurt from my plate with a scrap of flatbread. Tom read my hesitation correctly. “You wonder what kind of life it will be, though.”
    A heavy sigh escaped me. “He will never fly. I look at how the grown ones pine … though of course they have known flight, and lost it. Perhaps he would not miss it in the same way. But his health is not good; it is entirely possible that as he grows, it will become worse. Should we condemn him to an earthbound existence, laden with suffering, because of misplaced pity? Is that kinder than giving him a merciful end?”
    Tom shrugged helplessly. “How can we judge? We have no way of knowing what he thinks.”
    â€œWith a horse or a cat,” I said, “one can tell. Or at least guess. But that is because we know their ways, and can recognize the signs