The great red dragon Stormwing looked down at his three hatchlings. "Ever since the day we watched you break out of your eggs, your mother and I have taught you what it means to be one of our kind. We have taught you our code of honor, our respect for tradition, and above all, the trait that separates dragonkind from all other creatures -- our great appreciation of beauty, which we call...?"

"Dragonsight!" Blaze and Ember chorused. "I said it first," Blaze insisted, shoving his sister.

"Did not," Ember replied, shoving him back. Stormwing shook his head a little. It was all well and good for young dragons to have some fire in their bellies, but these two wound up entwined in wrestling fights so often that, were it not for Blaze's red scales and Ember's green, it would have been hard to tell where one hatchling stopped and the other began.

The smallest hatchling, blue Ash, took his claw out of his mouth. "Dragonsight," he whispered.

"Yes," Stormwing continued, "dragonsight." He glanced at his mate, Brightclaw, who stood nearby. "Now it is time for the three of you to show us what you've learned. Since you will soon be charged with adding to the hoards of our family and our clan, we would like each of you to go out into the world and bring back one item of great worth and beauty. This quest may be long and perilous--"

Brightclaw cleared her throat softly.

"--but your mother would like you home in time for dinner," Stormwing finished. "All right now, off with you."

The hatchlings took off, flapping their young wings a little awkwardly as they gained altitude. Stormwing and Brightclaw stood at the cave mouth and watched them go.

"They're still so young," Brightclaw said with a sigh. "Maybe we should have waited just a little while longer."

"Nonsense!" Stormwing replied. "I was bringing back treasures for my father when I still had eggshell on my scales." But his eyes shone as he turned away from the horizon, even as he complained about all the dust in the cave.

A few miles from home, the hatchlings landed to rest their wings. Blaze folded his wings a bit too soon and tumbled to the ground, while Ember soared to an elegant landing beside him.

"Show-off," Blaze muttered. Ember stuck her tongue out at him.

Ash fluttered his tiny wings until he was almost touching the ground, then dropped the rest of the way.

"Where should we go?" Ember asked.

"I'm going to the palace," Blaze replied. "All the best stuff is there. And if I don't find anything, there's the whole village around it, too."

"Then I'm going to the palace, too," Ember said.

They took off, and Ash followed, flapping his wings hard to keep up. Halfway through the flight, they passed through a misty drizzle of rain, and Ash smiled to himself at the feeling of the cool raindrops on his scales. Then he saw the rainbow arching across the sky. He wished he could bring that back to his father -- it was beautiful enough -- but he couldn't figure out how to do it.

Once they reached the human village, with the great castle standing just beyond it, they had to make themselves invisible, which took more strength than just flying alone. All three were glad when they finally landed on one of the castle turrets and headed inside.

Blaze pushed a tapestry aside and trotted into a room, then called back to the others. "Come on, there's no one here."

They followed him into the chamber, which looked to be a library of some kind, given the number of scrolls lying around. Blaze started rummaging through the drawers of a large desk. "It's too dark in here," he complained.

Ember went to the cold hearth, added a few sticks of wood, and blew fire to light them.

Blaze rolled his eyes.

"You're welcome," Ember said. "Just because you can't do more than smoke rings yet--"

"Hey, look at this!" Blaze had found a cloth bag in one of the drawers. Now, as he opened it, a wash of gold light glittered over his face, and he drew out a handful of shining coins.

"We already have those," Ember said. "Tons of them."

"So? Father didn't say it had to be something new." He admired one of the coins. "They're like little suns, and they make a nice noise when you shake them all together. I'm taking this back," he decided, dropping the coin back into the bag with the others.

"Fine," Ember said. "Let's look somewhere else."

Blaze looped the bag's ties over his neck to carry it, and they headed down the corridor, careful to make themselves invisible again in case anyone happened by.

Ember stopped in front of another tapestry embroidered with flowers. She sniffed the air a moment, then pushed the tapestry aside. "Let's go in here."

This room was a lady's bedchamber, and it smelled of so much rosewater and perfumed oils that Blaze started sneezing, puffing out alarming amounts of smoke. Ember ignored him and hopped onto the dressing-table, examining every item.

She held up a silver hand-mirror. "What about this?"

"I think Fadder meant subting everybody thinks is beautiful, not just you," Blaze retorted, then sneezed again. "Hurry up."

"Hmph." Ember tossed him a lace handkerchief, then picked up a perfume bottle, sniffed it, and put it back. Finally she opened the carved box on one side of the table. "Oooh, look at this!"

She held up a ring with a massive ruby set in gold. "I don't think we have anything this nice," she said, turning the ring this way and that to catch the light.

"Id's perfect, led's go," Blaze said.

Ember slipped the ring safely onto one of her claws, and they went back out into the corridor.

"Just one left," Ember said. "Where do you want to look, Ash?"

Ash chewed one claw and thought. "The village," he said finally.

"The village?" Blaze said. "But look what we found up here! There's not going to be anything that good in the village."

Ash shrugged.

"Okay," Ember said with a sigh. "The village."

Ember cast a worried glance at the sky. "Ash, we'd better hurry up. Mother wants us home for dinner, remember?"

Ash nodded. They were sitting behind a cottage, and Ash was looking eye-to-eye with one of the goats in the back pen.

"He's not going to try to take that, is he?" Blaze groaned, but then Ash turned and went into the cottage.

The cottage's inhabitants were out for the day, perhaps working the fields or in the little village market selling their goats' milk or other wares. Ash liked this place. It didn't smell like too many flowers like the other room had, and it wasn't stuffy and boring like the place where Blaze had found the coins. It was neat inside, with plain furniture, and it smelled of packed earth and fresh air, with a little bit of lavender from the flowers growing by the door.

He stood looking at everything in the cottage until Ember and Blaze got bored and went outside to see who could blow better smoke rings. He found them out by the goat pen when he was done.

"Did you find something?" Blaze asked.

Ash nodded.

"Well," Ember said impatiently, "let's see it."

He opened his claws and showed them.

The other two stared at the little object. "It's a rock," Blaze said. "He's bringing back a rock."

Ash shook his head. It wasn't a rock; he knew that. Rocks didn't hum the way this did, and he could feel the humming all through him.

"Can't we find something else for him?" Blaze asked, but Ember looked at the sky and shook her head.

"We'd better get back," she said, and they took off for home just as the sun began to set.

"You can have one of mine, Ash," Blaze offered as they reached the cave, but Ash shook his head.

Blaze rolled his eyes. "Fine."

Stormwing met them as they came inside. "Well, just in time. What did you find?"

Blaze poured the little bag of coins onto the cave floor in a golden cascade. "I found these, Father."

Stormwing picked one up and studied it. "Very nice," he said, "very nice indeed. These look almost new. They'll make a nice addition to our treasures. Good work."

"And I found this," Ember said, holding up the ring.

"A lovely gem," Stormwing said, "and a large one, too. Well done, Ember."

Ember beamed. Stormwing turned to his smaller son. "And Ash? What did you bring?"

"Here we go," Blaze sighed.

Ash showed him.

Stormwing looked curiously at the object, then picked it up, holding it carefully between his claws. "Ah," he said softly, and smiled. "A treasure indeed, my son. Well done."

"But it's a rock," Blaze said.

Stormwing shook his head. "No, it's not a rock." He smiled down at Ash. "It's a seed."

"It's not pretty," Ember grumbled.

"Not yet," Stormwing said. He sniffed the seed carefully. "But if we plant it and tend it carefully, this seed will grow into a lovely flower -- a flower that no one has ever seen before. It is beauty neither dragon nor man can make."

Ember and Blaze looked doubtfully at the seed. "In there?" Ember said.

Stormwing nodded and handed the seed back to Ash. "We'll plant it tomorrow morning. Come on now, your mother has dinner waiting."

Ember and Blaze raced off, bickering about who would be first to eat. Stormwing looked back at Ash, then lowered his great head to nuzzle him.

"And that, my son," he said softly, "is true dragonsight."

Ash smiled. Then, carrying the seed carefully, he followed his father in to dinner.

This work and all characters (c) 2007 Renee Carter Hall ("Poetigress"). May not be reprinted or redistributed without written permission.