Kase awoke slowly, the warmth of his surroundings lulling him back to sleep like a siren song. When he finally came to full consciousness and remembered what had happened, he sat up in a rush, only to come face to face with the Dragon. Or rather face to side as the Dragon wasn't looking at him but had its head curled in and tucked under a wing. Realizing that it couldn't see him he carefully stood and began to creep away from the monster. He only made it a scant 4 steps when the Dragon untucked its head from its wing and looked at him.
Kase expected to feel fear, the bone deep terror that he remembered from his last encounter with the beast. But it never came, instead a feeling of safety and expectation seemed to wrap around him. The Dragon shifted slightly and unrolled its tail revealing two eggs roughly the size of himself. He glanced between the eggs and the Dragon a few times before it seemed to gesture with its head towards the eggs. Slowly, ever so slowly, he approached the Dragons nest, watching it for even the slightest of movements.
Just because he didn't feel scared, didn't mean he was just going to be stupid.
He reached the eggs and saw that the shells were broken, covered in cracks and a few puncture marks. He looked back up at the Dragon, unsure of what it wanted him to do. It opened its mouth slightly and immediately taking a bite out of the air.
“D-do you… want me to eat them?”
The Dragon just stared down at him for a heart beat, before miming the action again and lowering its- her- head. Since he had nothing to lose, Kase reached out and pried at some of the broken egg. The shell was incredibly sturdy, but the multitude of cracks eventually gave way and revealed the smelly golden contents within. He was used to bad smells however, and some undercurrent of the scent did appeal to him.
Still glancing at the Dragon for confirmation, Kase reached out and cupped a hand in the egg. It was much warmer than he had expected it to be, and it felt strange on his skin, almost bubbly. He slowly brought his hand up to his mouth, sticking out his tongue to taste the goop. It wasn't bad, actually, as he dwelled on it, it was good, really good! He slurped the egg out of his hand, swallowing it down like a thick stew before reaching back out for more.
He ate at least 9 or 10 handfuls of egg before he felt full, then another 5 or so until he stopped. He stumbled away from the egg and fell onto his back, staring up at the rocky ceiling as he tried not to burp any yolk up. He belatedly realized that he had forgotten he was in front of a Dragon and had eaten her egg like a pig. A quick glance showed that the Dragon wasn't watching him, but had her head tucked under her wing again. Kase realized that he should try to escape while the Dragon wasn't looking, but decided to have a nap first.
The next few days proved just as eventful, with the Dragon prompting Kase to eat her eggs and Kase listening because they were frankly too good to pass up. His time was interspersed with eating and sleeping, occasionally with him waddling around the cave after his meal and looking at the markings on the walls. They were just claw markings and gouges torn from the stone, but he would almost swear there was a pattern to it. He finished the first egg on what he was pretty sure was the third day, not objecting when the Dragon motioned for him to do the same to the second.
He had expected to get fat and lazy from doing nothing but eating and sleeping so much, but it was quite the opposite. He felt better than he ever had, he was putting on muscle and he felt a strange bounciness in his chest. He had a lot of excess energy that he needed to burn off, so he started to pace around the cave. The Dragon watched him when he first started moving around, but soon went back to whatever was so interesting under her wing.
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The pacing didn't cut into his energy like he hoped it would, so he started to jump and roll around like when he used to play with the younger kids. That seemed to do something for him, but it did make him feel a little silly. Once the second egg was halfway gone he graduated to lifting and moving rocks. He gathered up all of the loose stones in the area that were bigger than a potato and piled them against the left wall. Then he moved them all over to the right wall, stacking them differently every time.
Once he finished the egg he wasn't sure what the Dragon would have him do next, but she only mimed eating at the eggs again. When he didn't seem to understand what she meant she picked up a small fragment of the shell and crunched it between her teeth. Kase was shocked at first, not realizing the shell was edible since they had always used them for compost in the House. He picked up a piece and tried to bite it, to no avail. It was like trying to bite into a rock and he looked to the Dragon for guidance, but she was back under her wing.
He didn't have anything else to do, so he took his chunk of shell to his pile of rocks and started beating it with a stone. It broke into smaller pieces and he gently powdered the remainder of the piece. He pinched up some of the powder and sprinkled it onto his tongue. He was surprised at the strange fizzing sensation, but even more so at the flavor. It wasn't anywhere near as good as the insides, but had a mineral flavor which was quite nice. He noted that it had a metallic aftertaste, reminding him of his injuries from a few days before.
He realized that his mother had given him some kind of healing pill, but that didn't explain the injuries he got after. The hole in his finger, the sprained ankle, falling into that thorny bush; all injuries he had taken after the pill but had vanished. He assumed it had something to do with the Dragon's egg, but it was beyond his control. He spent another day grinding the eggshell to dust before he got bored.
Kase picked up a shard of eggshell just deciding to chew on it until it broke rather than beat it with a rock. To his surprise it flaked and chipped apart much easier than it had before, he had either grabbed a weaker chunk this time, or he had an abnormally tough piece first. He slowly nibbled and chewed his way through around half of the first egg when the Dragon started to growl. He froze in place, rock poised to set atop his pile when the massive head left the cover of the wing.
Kase was convinced he was going to die, but the Dragon didn't look angry, in fact it looked… sad? He wasn't sure why the Dragon's face seemed sad, but she leaned in close to the remains of the eggs and gently licked up a small piece to crunch on it. She then stretched her neck towards him and, with far more force than necessary, licked him. He tripped backwards at the unintentional shove, taking the brunt of the impact on his ass. Before he could grumble angrily at the Dragon, she had tucked her head back underneath her wing.
“Not sure what's so interesting under there, but it must be good.”
He shrugged and went back to his rock stacking, this time trying to see how narrow of a pile he could make.
The second egg was nearly gone when the Dragon growled again. He paused with one cheek bulging with shell bits as she looked out from under her wing again. She looked at she shell and then at him, stretching out to reach him again. This time, he braced and the tongue didn't knock him down, much to the seeming amusement of the Dragon. She shifted and, for the first time since she brought him to her cave nest, stood. Her height brought her easily to the top of the cave and her neck remained hunched as she looked at him.
When she looked away he followed her gaze and finally saw what had been so interesting about the underside of her wing. A third egg was nestled in a small pile of stones, glistening with some kind of liquid. Small thin cracks covered portions of the new eggs surface, but unlike the previous two seemed intact. She gently licked him again then leaned in and licked the egg, making deliberate eye contact with him the entire time. Kase wasn't stupid and got the message pretty quickly.
“Got it, no eating this one.”