chapter six : hatchling
"We're getting closer," Arianna sighed, laying her head on Cirrus's neck as the stallion plodded wearily along. The two of them had gone virtually sleepless for several nights since the meeting with the aged dragon. Arianna would sit awake, thinking to herself, and Cirrus would stand by, looking concerned and watching over his friend during her reveries. All the while, the little green egg rested in its saddlebag, warm against Cirrus's flanks.
However, Arianna had begun to suspect that something was going on that night. Her reasoning was this: the saddlebag containing the egg was bumping repeatedly against her calf. Even she couldn't rationalize that.
"Whoa, Cirrus," she muttered, sliding off of his back and landing with a small cloud of dust on the gravel road. Frowning, she circled to where the saddlebag rested, jerking back and forth randomly as though it had a life of its own. It stilled, however, when Arianna's hand reached in, grasping its only contents. She pulled out the glittering green egg, and sat down, her back leaning against one of the sturdy oaks that made up the forest.
"Oh, God," Arianna hissed through her teeth -- a long crack ran down the middle of the egg, and it was slowly branching off into a smaller network of tiny black lines. The egg would shatter any minute.
Cirrus whinnied, and trotted over, leaning down to sniff the orb. His ears flicked uncertainly, and he backed up a few paces, tossing his long, silky black tail.
"Don't worry, love, when it hatches it won't be breathing fire and trying to slaughter us," Arianna murmured, reaching up and stroking Cirrus's forelock. "No, if it has any sense, it will be frightened of
us."
Cirrus didn't look too sure, but he trusted his companion, so he stood protectively beside her and watched as the cracks lengthened up and down the shell. After a few tense minutes, the shell gave a violent shudder, falling from Arianna's hands and shattering when it hit the ground.
Shaking bits of eggshell out of her eyes, Arianna shot up to her feet, looking wildly around the gravel path for some sign of whatever would emerge from the egg. She was looking for the sort of dragons she saw every other day -- scaled, writhing, taloned demons. What she saw was something completely different.
"But," Arianna said blankly, "it's ... it's so
small!"
The tiny red creature certainly didn't look deadly or dangerous in any way. On the contrary, he could fit in Arianna's palm. He looked so vulnerable and pitiful, lying there on the ground, that Arianna couldn't help but bend down and pick him up, letting him curl up in her hand. He let out a tiny cough and looked up at Arianna with bright, round black eyes.
"It's almost
cute, Cirrus," Arianna said thoughtfully as the little hatchling rested his head on her thumb. "Certainly not the kind of thing we usually see, if you ignore those spines. It won't be a problem to carry him the rest of the way."
Cirrus whinned, and tentatively sniffed the tiny creature, before turning and allowing Arianna to climb up onto his back. She hoisted herself up and let the little dragon sit in between her and Cirrus's neck, where she could keep an eye on him, in case he turned out to have some sort of hidden powers. The trio rode slowly off into the night.
"What do you think we should call him, Cirrus?"
Arianna had finally been forced to realize that, before they could go any further, she needed to get a decent amount of sleep. She had eventually managed to get a fire started, and she and Cirrus were warming themselves while the little dragon lay nearby, looking thoughtfully at the flames.
"Tell you what," Arianna said. "We'll call him Ixcipiens. He's the beginning of so much, after all."
Cirrus tossed his mane out of his eyes, and looked over at the hatchling. It seemed so defenseless and frightened, despite what were now looking like lethal spines protuding from its back. Arianna insisted that this was because it was newly hatched, and that it would grow into its role as a death-dealer with age, but, still, the babe looked rather smaller than it ought to be.
Arianna flinched as the little dragon coughed again and trembled very slightly. His eyes looked dull and listless, far different from the aged female's, and he was limp and tired.
"Are you alright?" she asked. "We can't have you dying before we get to Antari, can we?"
The little hatchling said nothing, nor had Arianna expected him to.
Cirrus snorted and stomped his hoof in some strange display of emotion. He seemed to be wrestling with himself over something. Finally, he tossed his head and walked over to where the hatchling was resting. He bent his head down and nudged the little dragon with his muzzle. The babe glanced up at him in surprise and wriggled a bit, but Cirrus was not alarmed; instead, the horse began to lick at the little hatchling with his pink tongue. The dragon showed his teeth briefly and his spines seemed to stiffen, but he gradually relaxed and closed his eyes, falling asleep.
"Good boy," Arianna said, reaching over and scratching Cirrus between the ears. The horse whinnied vaguely, but quietly enough to not disturb the little hatchling. Arianna got the hint, and was, in moments, asleep as well.
Arianna woke the next morning feeling alert and refreshed. She soon realized that this was because it was not morning but afternoon, and she had wasted half a day's worth of sunlight to ride by.
Immediately on her feet, she whirled around, looking for Cirrus and Ixcipiens. After a worrying moment, she saw them standing by the trees, with Cirrus pulling down berries by the twig for he and Ixcipiens to eat.
"Save some for me," she said, her voice thick with sleep. Ixcipiens glanced up, halfway through a clump of small violet berries, and turned to look curiously at Cirrus. The horse snorted and reached up, plucking down another twig with his teeth and tossing it down to the hatchling.
"Well, aren't you the regular paternal fellow," Arianna chuckled, patting Cirrus' withers and pulling down some berries for herself. Sniffing them briefly and making sure that they were ripe, she pulled two off with her teeth.
*Good berries?* a little voice inquired.
"Wah?" Arianna asked in shock and bewilderment, spinning around frantically to see where the voice was coming from. Seeing no one, she happened to glance down, and found that Ixcipiens was gazing up at her, his big black eyes blinking in the sun.
*Good?* the voice repeated in Arianna's head.
"Um, yes, they're tasty," Arianna replied, swallowing.
*Good.* Ixcipiens nodded. *You smell.*
"Hey, that's not polite," Arianna snapped on impulse. "Watch it."
*Make you mad?* the dragon inquired fearfully.
"No, no," Arianna said, still thoroughly confused. "Just don't say things like that, because I probably already know that I smell bad, and I don't need you to point it out to me."
*Oh,* said Ixcipiens, and he looked away again.
Arianna blinked, and bit off another berry to give her time to think about this. Was she going crazy from lack of sleep, or had the little hatchling just talked to her inside her head?
*Cirrus says we ought to get moving,* Ixcipiens said, and Arianna saw that her old warhorse was whinnying softly in the dragon's direction.
"
Cirrus says that?" Arianna said.
*Yes,* the hatchling said, as though the fact that he was conversing with Arianna's horse was completely normal.
"Er," Arianna said, "are you sure? I'm not used to having Cirrus really talk to anyone."
*Why?* Ixcipiens asked. *You talk to each other all the time.*
"Well, really, I just talk to him and don't know what he says back."
*That's silly.*
"A bit, yeah, but it's nice to have someone to talk to."
*Now have me
and Cirrus to talk to,* Ixcipiens pointed out brightly, smiling a little dragon smile and eating another berry. Arianna noticed that his face was smeared with purple, messy eater, like a baby, like --
"I suppose I do," Arianna said quickly, eating another berry and deciding that this would take a lot of getting used to. Tiny dragons, talking horses. She might as well go mad and save herself a lot of confusion.
