Wait. Wait.
Trent squinted, frowning. His eyes hadn’t left the egg ever since he’d noticed the crack, and now he was –almost– certain he’d just seen it… move.
It had been barely perceptible – just the slightest of wiggles where the egg sat in its snug foam housing.
But if it’s moving – and it’s cracked – then does that mean –
Before Trent had time to finish the thought, the egg gave another small shudder, and this time it wasdefinite.There was no mistaking the movement it made, rocking gently back and forth. And then, with a soft snapping sound, the crack in the egg grew bigger.
“Oh my God,” Zina murmured, clearly seeing the same thing as he was. When Trent looked up at her, he found her eyes were as large as saucers as she stared down at the wiggling egg.
“Zina, I don’t think that egg is damaged,” Trent breathed, as the crack widened yet again, and small shards of the egg’s beautiful blue shell began to fall away. “I think it’shatching.”
Zina didn’t answer him with words – she simply nodded her head, her expression bewildered.
“But I guess we don’t know what’ll come out of it,” she whispered after a long moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the egg cracking. “I have no idea what’s inside – not even Hargreaves knew that.”
“Well, I guess we’re about to find out.” Trent licked his lips. He hoped it was going to be something as cute as Ruby – Hector hadn’t known what he was going to get whenheregg had cracked open, and now he had a whole adopted daughter out of it.Unknowndidn’t have to meanbad– but he still wasn’t sure what he was going to do if it turned out to be a wyvern, with scales so poisonous they couldn’t be touched, or something along those lines.
It’s not like I brought any wyvern-proof gloves with me on this trip.
But the only thing they could do was wait, breathless, to see what would emerge.
“It’s… it’s coming out now,” Zina whispered, as they both unconsciously leaned forward to catch their first glimpse of what would hatch out of the blue egg.
The first thing Trent saw was a tiny blue snout, almost the same deep cobalt blue as the egg it was hatching from. It pecked like a beak at the shell, chipping away at it until it had created a large enough hole for it to begin forcing its way out, pushing up into the air outside. It pushed its way out, and then let out a series of smallcheeping sounds, just like a baby bird.
“Should we help it, do you think?” Zina asked, turning to look at him, her eyes still wide.
“Maybe… maybe it’s better to let it do it itself, whatever it is,” Trent murmured. “It might be something it’s supposed to do itself.”
Zina nodded, turning to look back down at the snout as it snapped at the edge of the cracked shell, revealing tiny, silvery teeth. Finally, the hole it had created was big enough for it to force its entire head out of – and Trent and Zina were confronted with the head of a tiny blue lizard with enormous golden eyes, which it blinked curiously as it came out into the light from the darkness of its egg.
“Wh-what is that?” Zina asked, her voice hushed.
Trent bit his lip as the tiny creature looked around it, blinking its huge golden eyes, almost cat-like.
“It’s a dragon. A baby dragon.”
Zina pulled in a shocked breath. “Adragon?But… there aren’t any more dragons!”
“Perhaps not until now, no,” Trent said, shaking his head. “But remember what I told you about my friend and his daughter? There weren’t any more alicorns until her, either. But she’s very much real.”
Zina shook her head, still looking down at the little dragon as it gazed about itself, its body still encased in the eggshell. At least until the moment it apparently decided it wanted to spread its wings, and then the rest of the egg burst, crumbling away, to reveal the rest of its body.
It reallydidlook just like a baby lizard, Trent thought, dazed. A tiny lizard with little spines running down the length of its back, and delicate wings which it was now spreading out, as if it were stretching them after a long period of confinement – which, Trent supposed, was exactly what had happened.
The wings were large in comparison to the dragon’s rather spindly body, and when it spread them out each one was the span of Trent’s hand. It seemed impossible that all of this creature had been crammed inside one fairly small egg – but then, Trent thought, maybe that’s why it had decided it needed to come out: not enough space inside the egg anymore.
And now that it’s here… what do we do?!
“Uh. Hi,” he said cautiously, leaning down to look at the baby dragon a little more closely. Beside him, he could sense Zina mirroring his actions. “Welcome to… well, the world, I guess.”
The little dragon blinked its wide golden eyes at him, dark pupils widening and narrowing as it apparently got used to using them for the first time. It cocked its head, as if trying to puzzle out what Trent and Zina mightbe.
God, I wish Hector was here right now,Trent thought, feeling more than a little frazzled. Dragons were different from alicorns, of course, but at least Hector hadsomekind of experience with supposedly extinct creatures popping out of eggs right in front of him.
“Do you think… do you think it’s hungry?” Zina whispered, as the dragon continued to regard them with its luminous eyes, its wings opening and closing gently. “What do you think it even eats?”
