Hera shook her head. "No, never. I guess now that Khloros is with us, that's the way he'd prefer it, too." Though new children hatched often enough, and Hera wondered if a few more Gembound making children was really making a difference. It was less that she was ethically opposed to it than that she'd never particularly wanted to. Hera simply didn't care as much as Khloros did. "But I don't think it's--cruel, or anything. I mean, it's not a bad place to live."

She certainly didn't feel trapped just because she lived here. And if it was a little weird thinking about how her gem might have been part of someone else once, or be part of someone in the future if she died--she'd just better not think about it too much, then. And she'd better not die, either.

@Dragon want to fade to an exit here, or next round?

Dragon studied Hera, for a moment, trying to imagine what eagle hybrids might wind up looking like. Magical genetics were a very unpredictable thing, he knew--a child could end up with the goofiest mixture, or the most impressive. Take his child Hunger, for example; he had hoped to make a sort of athletic, black, draconic beast that could sweep through Cetus in defense of family, something with Nox's athleticism and his own jaws and hide. Instead he had ended up with an oily alligator with spidery forelimbs. Dragon tried to picture Hera raising a stone--maybe a cave spider's, for example. Would she end up with an eight-winged eagle as a child? Or a winged spider? (That would be a nightmare for some.) A low-slung bird, incapable of flight, with eight eyes, that walked on eight wings-?

All right, that's enough of those thoughts, he decided, and turned his attention back to his conversational partner.

"I don't think so, either," he agreed, "but for Cetus, at least, I wish that we sometimes had warmth! I know it is not the best cave for many, but I fel that it is home," he went on.

The conversation came easy, and he found himself quite relaxed; there was no pressure here, and no rush, just company and talk.

exit Dragon! We can fade out here, sure! They can just chit-chat a bit more offscreen or something!

@Hera