As the performance progressed, she gradually found her words, and began to talk. She talked as if she wasn't even expecting him to reply, talking some of what she went through, of what the day was like when she found her one egg missing, the union having been lucky to produce even that. She spoke of what might have been, of the sights and lessons she'd longed to teach him. She spoke of the efforts she went to. She spoke of herself, and her past, and her family - and his older half-siblings, who had been adults gone from the nest, before he'd been laid. She spoke, and he could see in her the intelligence and deep compassion, as her confidence recovered; he could see the proud, gold dragon she truly was, beneath the broken shell she seemed to have become, the pieces slowly mending, as she spoke - though it would be a long, long time before she was ever truly whole again.