[At that, Kitten jerks away from Pao-Lin, croaking in anger and disapproval.
The dragon does answer the question, a vehement shake of her head. No. She is not anyone's pet. Kitten doesn't have an owner. Not here, not at home, not ever.
If she stops to think, of course she is aware that Pao-Lin means no harm by the question or to her. That doesn't prevent Kitten's instinctive aversion to the idea of an owner. She was captured once: drugged, caged, and put in a menagerie, kept asleep so that the emperor could call her his. Her period of captivity was mercifully brief, but dragons don't take well to locks or cages, and they aren't property.
The humans who took her in following her mother's death are her family. They have always been her adoptive mother and father, not her owners.]
no subject
The dragon does answer the question, a vehement shake of her head. No. She is not anyone's pet. Kitten doesn't have an owner. Not here, not at home, not ever.
If she stops to think, of course she is aware that Pao-Lin means no harm by the question or to her. That doesn't prevent Kitten's instinctive aversion to the idea of an owner. She was captured once: drugged, caged, and put in a menagerie, kept asleep so that the emperor could call her his. Her period of captivity was mercifully brief, but dragons don't take well to locks or cages, and they aren't property.
The humans who took her in following her mother's death are her family. They have always been her adoptive mother and father, not her owners.]