While Selbat was visiting with Doris his mind kept returning to the impending meeting with Jacob. Something was changing here, he knew it, he knew it was good and he knew it might possibly be the source of his doom. He had broken Dragon Rule for his own selfish reasons, and that would not go unpunished regardless of the outcome. It was of much concern to him. While he was quiet and unassuming, for a dragon, he had a certain pride in his place as head of the Egg Family. At the very least he would lose that position and bring shame onto his wife and children. At the most, he would face exile along with every member of his family. Dragons are no longer bred to live a solitary life, exile would bring about an early Fading until one by one all members of the Egg Family would cease to exist. As exiles there would be no one to mourn them and the family of Selbat, Egg Keeper Dragons would cease to exist in the minds and memories of all who would be left behind. A brief flash of anger intruded, "Who is this Jacob that he must come and destroy?" he thought. Then his sense of responsibility took hold and the anger died before he needed to vent it.

Doris felt his anguish, thankful that all other members of his family were far enough away not to fully understand what they were feeling. She wondered what he would do. She knew that whatever he decided it would be the right thing, Selbat only did the wrong thing for her. She knew that. She knew that she should not exist and she knew that her existance was the reason that Selbat continued to do the wrong thing. After all, he again hatched a smaller egg so that she could have a companion in her beloved Zack. If Jacob and his followers had only gone to Layton's Rage then none of this would be happening. She knew that was an untruth. Sooner or later they would have been discovered, the ability of their wastes to fertilize would exist even without Jacob to understand what was happening. Someone would have felt the changes and come to seek the reason. Jacob simply hurried the process.

Doris knew that Jacob wanted and needed more time to prove his theories. To reestablish Earth as a fertile planet would be a miracle, one he thought could be accomplished by the smaller dragons. There were not yet enough smaller dragons to test his theory and it would be quite sometime before she and Zack could produce a sufficient number. She also knew that Jacob was not going to ask Selbat to repeat his sin of stealing the smaller eggs so that they could be hatched in numbers sufficient to prove his theory. Partly because he had no idea how many it would take. It would not do to have too many dragons with no space for them to thrive, and no food for them to survive on. Jacob was careful, she would have liked to tell Selbat that, but he needed to see and understand that nothing would be asked of him except silence, if his conscience would continue to allow him the silence they needed. First he needed to speak with Jacob, and then they'd see.

Jacob felt Selbat returning before he saw him. A brief feeling of fear washed over him. "What if Selbat decided to harm him?" he thought. He shook himself, forcing that feeling back into the darkness where it came from. There were more important things to think about, being afraid of Selbat was not going to accomplish anything...if anything could be accomplished. " I will not harm you, Jacob" spoke Selbat, "I am here to listen, and give consideration to all that you ask of me no matter how difficult. I will not stand in the way of this rebirth that I can see and smell. It is to be desired, a benefit for all mankind. Whether it will be so to the Dragons remains to be seen. What is it that I can do for you?"

A rush of relief along with a glimmer of excitement and soon Jacob was animated with the telling of his theory. As he spoke, Selbat could see that he had much to think on and nothing to fear. It would be a matter of staying quiet about his role in the birth of Doris and Zack. On some level that bothered him, honesty had always been his policy except when it came to Doris and her brood. A brief twinge of conscience followed by relief as he heard Jacob tell how they would explain Doris and her family. It might work, there was no one that really knew what transpired at Layton's Rage. It very well could have been a breeding program initiated by Daniella that caused the birth of these dragons. Still, Selbat knew that he would confess at some point in the future. Jacob knew it too. In the future, after Jacob had ample time to test and prove his theory. After a new settlement could be formed in the valley. After some of the Earth's beauty could be restored. All that was needed was time, and Selbat had plenty of that.