The chapter is told from a child’s perspective. The child complains that Mahmi and Pahpi insist the child is too young to have a dragon, despite the child already sleeping among the Moonplumes in the palace hutch. The child dismisses their warning that wild Moonplumes would attack on the spawning grounds and resents being forced to wait until age eighteen.

Pahpi has said the child may argue for a dragon only after hearing the elemental songs and learning to speak them properly. That condition feels unfair to the child, especially because Haedeon waited a long time and still never heard the songs. The child has tried singing to snow, air, ground, and flames every cycle, but nothing answers except Mahmi and Pahpi at bedtime.

The child then turns to the adults’ crowns and diadems. Pahpi’s crown looks heavy but beautiful and proud, while Mahmi’s black stone seems wrong and frightening, as if someone could fall through it. The child has seen Mahmi exhausted and has even caught Mahmi trying to tear off her diadem while screaming, crying, and curling into herself, which convinces the child that the stone is hurting her.

Remembering the previous slumber, the child recalls finding Mahmi outside in the snow, crying in the dark. Wanting to comfort Mahmi, the child sings, but the song only makes Mahmi cry harder. Mahmi finally tells the child that she has lost something important and that the child’s cuddles help. Pahpi then finds them, carries Mahmi inside, tucks the child into bed, and says everything will make sense when the child is older, though the child does not want that understanding.