"Point, but even still," Andy said.

Belle shrugged. "If it was me, I'd feel safe that far away," she said. "Long as I didn't try to approach, anyway."

"I guess it would depend on the kind of dragon, but I see the point," Andy replied.

Belle shrugged and turned her eggs again. They were getting steadily harder, and she guessed they had another three weeks or so.

Andy checked on her own dragon egg every so often, but even she could tell it wasn't even close to hatching yet. Clearly her dragons knew what to look for, though, and assured her that it would still be about a month or so, so she trusted what they said.

"You know, you two are going to make great parents," Belle commented, watching the two dragons. "I mean, really."

"You think so?" Temeraire asked. It hadn't occurred to him that others might take notice of such a thing.

"Oh, yeah. I mean, you're both very protective of the egg, and I noticed you two using at least two other languages in the past week. You said you learn languages while still in the egg, right?" Belle grinned. "Good parenting, that is."

"I had never thought about it that way," Temeraire replied.

Andy thought back for a moment. She'd noticed that the dragons had used a couple of different languages, and if she knew those two, then the languages were probably Chinese and French. Belle was right, though, they would be wonderful parents.

Belle just grinned. "Well, there's something new for you to think about."

"He thinks entirely too much as it is," Andy teased. "I never should have taught him how to calculate circles, I don't know enough digits of pi for his liking."

"Well, pi is infinite, is it not?" Temeraire pointed out practically.

"I gave you fourteen digits, that should be enough," Andy replied.

Belle just snickered. "Hey, long as you're not trying to pull me into doing the math, then whatever makes you happy."

Andy just rolled her eyes.

"You should have been there when he realized I could calculate something other than rectangles and triangles," she said. "Though it only took me about fifteen minutes to figure out how to explain how to calculate things with more than four sides." She shook her head. "It was craziness. More math than I ever want to do again."

"Well there's not even a point to it," Belle grumbled. "Not for us. We're never going to be calculating angles, or finding the area we've covered or anything like that."

"Yes, of course," Eclipse said with the tone of someone who has heard this before. Many times. "Have some berries."

Belle took the berries Eclipse handed her, still grumbling and muttering, and started to munch on them.

Andy grinned and shrugged.

"You never know," she said. "For all we know we might need that kind of math skill. Lucky for us, I have a pair of genius dragons to do it for me."

"If I ever need any calculations done, Eclipse is good at math," Belle said with a shrug. "Thomas can actually be pretty smart, besides just being a pretty boy."

"When the occasion calls for it," Thomas said with a grin. "It has been known to happen."

"Lucivar doesn't really have a head for academics," Andy said, "but he's smart. Kaelas too, in his own way."

"That's a different kind of smarts, though," Belle said with a shrug. "That's more the survival kind intelligence. Which is Lucifer, sometimes. Sometimes he's just an idiot all around."

"But you can't say that any of them are stupid," Andy pointed out.

"No, they're not actually stupid. They can just be extremely dense and idiotic." Belle rolled her eyes. "Because they're male."

A couple of hers grumbled at that but didn't really protest. They knew they'd lose and be out-logicked by her.

"Hey, we knew what we were getting ourselves into," Andy replied. "Though I can't deny that you're right."

Belle snickered. "Of course I'm right. And we knew, but we didn't understand. Big difference there. Besides, it has been fun, most of the time."

"Hey, we understand now," Andy pointed out. She grinned. "It only took us how long?"

Belle snorted. "A couple years," she said, grinning briefly.

"Just imagine how much more interesting this all would be with Robin."

"I don't even want to think about that," Andy said. "That would just turn very wrong very fast."