In all affairs of the heart, the Bellwether likes to pride itself as an equal opportunist for those that wish to express themselves in the language of Love. 
​As such, this week's edition of the Bellwether is devoted to the Ladies.

Who will be brave enough to come forth in their adventure of looking for Love?

Valentines Day is coming and love is floating in the air - who else will cupids arrows strike?  One of the few immune to this Valentines Day holiday is Sprout.   He can't figure out what all the hallaboo is about with squirrely giggles and fluttering butterfly kisses.  So where is he?  Parsley still has not found that boy...

​​“The King must hear about this,” thought Meen excitedly.  “If Atian didn’t have the best jumping mushrooms around his cottage to jump over, I would have never heard him and Granny.”

​As Meen rushed back to the Shadows' Realm, jumping over mushrooms, logs, and frogs in her hurry to report to the King, she could still hear Granny telling Atian not to yell at her.  “Of course Dragons could talk – doesn’t everything talk?” Meen asked herself.  “If frogs and fish can talk, why not a Dragon?”

​​Shortly Meen was through the edges of the forest and starting into the deeper, darker, parts of the woods. This is where the sun could only come through the tree tops as small beams of light and wisps.  The Shadows lived here and the bright strain of sunlight was never very strong.  “Ah, home!” smiled Meen.  It was nice to play tag with the sun beams as they poked out, but she preferred to stay hidden in the shadows.

​​“Okay, slow down, catch your breath… breathe…” she told herself before entering the Shadows' King's Receiving Hall.  “Oh how I can't wait to tell him everything,” she mumbled to herself.

​“Tell me what Meen?” asked Hunter, the Shadows's King of the Shadows' Realm.  Startled, Meen prostrated herself before her liege.  “Arise Meen.  You know I do not like that!  Get up!”

​“My Liege, I have wondrous news.  Granny Flare and Atian have a baby!”
 
Hunter looked at Meen, raised one eyebrow and tipped his head down to look at her, and waited for Meen to say more.  When Meen just stood there smiling, Hunter asked again  “Let me get this right, you are telling me that Atian and Granny Flare have  a baby?”

​​Meen jumped up and down, clapping her hands together and smiling while nodding her head in the affirmative.  “They were talking really loud about it to each other outside of his cottage.  I was hopping mushrooms when I came up on Snoop who was there listening too.  They were yelling about the baby and who on the council would they tell first.”

​​“I will have to see this! They must be very excited. Thank you Meen.  As he turns to leave he thinks to himself..."  I did not even know they were seeing each other, or is the correct term dating each other, let alone now having a baby!"

"You are right about not letting the Village know, Granny, but you should have told the Council," Atian replies with a small shake of his head.  "The Council should be a part of this process of helping the baby Dragon."

Off in the bushes, trying not to be seen, Snoop was doing what he is best known for - Snooping.  "I wish I could get closer to hear more of what they are saying," he thought.  He could only hear parts of their conversation, but enough to know they were talking about Dragons.

“What did you say?” asked Atian, “And what did you mean by ‘outdated information’”?

“Your books were not much help Atian,” replied Granny.

​​Looking slightly puzzled, Atian put down the book he was reading and shot Granny a glare.  “What do you mean Granny?  These books are about Dragon history.  How could they be outdated?  It is not like Dragons have been seen here for hundreds of years.”  Atian walked over to the wheel barrow and picked up the top book in the pile and opened it to the middle.

​Blushing, Granny realized that she had just made a mistake.  “I… I…”
 
“So Granny, I think you need to tell me more about what you know regarding baby Dragons.” 

​"Try the second stack behind the door.  Towards the bottom," replies Atian.  Granny soon finds them at the very bottom of the indicated pile.  "If Atian was a Brownie he certainly would be much more organized than this, that's for sure," Granny thinks to herself.

​Granny sees Snoop coming up the walkway through a small window of the hut  and decides she had better get out of there.  "All I need now is Snoop snooping around and asking questions I don't want to answer," Granny decides.

"Atian, I am going to borrow a few of these books and will return them to you later in the week. Is that is okay with you?"  Again, not waiting for Atian to answer, Granny sneaks out the backdoor of the hut with the books in tow.

​"Snoop, ​Granny Flare was just here and she did mentioned that the Baroness had received a letter today from her grandfather, the Baron.  This might be part of the mystery of why she was so twitchy and anxious as she told Granny that she had to leave town suddenly because of it."

"Did she say anything more?" asked Snoop.

"Granny did say she was being left in charge, but as to what, she wasn't sharing those details.  Could this have something to do with the books she was asking about regarding baby Dragons?  We all know about the Dragons leaving the Village and how that brought down the decline of the Village, but you are wanting to know more... Am I correct?  There is a pattern here that the two of you are weaving regarding the need to know about Dragons."

“Yet to be named,” Granny heard in her mind.

​“What did I tell you?” Granny Flare glared at the baby.
​
“Hungry” replied the dragon out loud this time.  Acorn jumped back a little startled.  It was one thing to hear a voice in one’s head, but quite a different thing to see a dragon speak.

“Acorn, you go and find some coal oil or kerosene and the biggest bottle you can find.  Baroness, we will need something tough, like leather for the baby to suck on,” commanded Granny Flare.

Acorn started to argue but the look that Granny gave him helped him to change his mind and off he went.  “Remember, no one must know about the baby yet!” he heard her yell as he was leaving.

Looking at the Baroness, Granny Flare, being the house brownie that she is, continued “Now, what are we going to do about cleaning up this mess?”

“More importantly, what are we going to do so that the Village Council doesn’t find out about the baby?” replied Dragonia.