Rafaela struggled for a moment between waking and sleeping. She felt torn between the need to wake, and the need to catch the memory of scales.
When she was finally completely awake, she realized that the memory she had tried to catch hold of could just as easily have been a dream. Perhaps it had been inspired by the Dragon Emperor's display, or perhaps that draconic form, and others like it, had been inspired by similar inherited memories. There was no way to guess.
The notification that a Dragon had arrived three months earlier than the Emperor had estimated, or at least claimed as his estimate, wasn't troubling in itself. Rafaela had been half expecting him to arrive at any time during the last few months.