text: As mating flights go, that was an utter disaster. We got distracted. We got attacked. We got killed. We resigned in droves. We got more distracted. We committed a variety of injustices. We got even more distracted by cleaning up our injustices. We didn't do very much right. And most of us didn't even get mated in any reasonable sense.
  
  I suppose it wasn't too bad as the founding of a new dragon-world though.
  
  ⁂
  
  Glossary:
  
  aeroception: Draconic sense of air: where there is air nearby, and what it is doing.
  
  Astral: A nonphysical but very real aspect of a dragon, comprising the vô, whefô, and hukuchô.
  
  dangersense: Draconic sense of danger.
  
  dozen: about 12
  
  dragon: (1) Adult dragon of either sex, or (2) any dragon (q. n. v.)
  
  dragoness: (1) Female dragon of any age; (2) female adult dragon.
  
  dragonet: Child dragon of either sex.
  
  drake: (1) Male dragon of any age; (2) male adult dragon.
  
  duodecade: Twelve years, or about twelve years.
  
  efforasze: A strong bleu cheese of Mhelvul.
  
  grand: (1) 1.728, which is 123; (2) about 1.728, like about a thousand or two.
  
  Great Separation: Astral surgery, performed by dragons on young dragonets. Most of the patients die. The few who survive get considerable magical powers. Many are injured, losing a few senses or the use of some limbs or what have you. (Historical note that does not matter in the book: All dragons in Mating Flight come from the branch of dragons who perform the Great Separation. This is a minority branch, whom the majority consider quite wicked for what they do to their children.)
  
  gross: about 144, between a hundred and two hundred or so.
  
  gross-year: (1) precisely 144 years; (2) approximately 144 years, like about a century and a half.
  
  hukuchô: An astral part of a dragon; most small people cannot endure contact with the hukuchô
  
  kineception: A dragon's sense of things moving in the vicinity.
  
  lluyception: A dragon's sense of "lluyew", q.v.
  
  lluyew: A sensory property known to dragons and few if any other people. It is largely an aesthetic property. Certain treasures and dragon scales exhibit a pleasurable lluyew. It is most relevant to the value of a hoard, or a drake's beauty.
  
  magioception: Draconic sense of magic.
  
  theoception: The draconic sense that detects gods and their activities.
  
  tsheriaf: dragon game, played using breath weapons on a cliff wall or something, requiring both precise control of the breath weapon and a sense of tactics.
  
  veriception: Draconic sense of truthfulness. Dragons can tell if people are lying (in the sense of saying things that they believe to be false — dragons do not have the ability to sense absolute truth.) Lies are personal and unpleasant sensations, comparable to smelling severely bad breath, so dragons dislike being lied to.
  
  veriception: blocks Spells which prevent one dragon from vericepting another. Most dragons wear veriception blocks most of the time. Veriception blocks prevent others from vericepting the wearer's lies, but the usual spells for this don't prevent a dragon from vericepting their own lies. So, dragons rarely lie, even when they can get away from it.
  
  vô: The four-lobed astral aspect of a dragon which can be used to break magic.
  
  whefô: An astral part of a dragon; the heart of breath weapons.