Onyx, she knew that was her name now, looked up from the dirt floor that her two caretakers called home. She was small, and she knew that she depended on them. A life's worth of memories bubbled in her mind when she had first become conscious inside of the confines of her egg. She remembered it along with the first sound she had heard, a crack of thunder accompanied by an angry voice yelling at her to LIVE. She hadn't heard that voice since though.

Once she had broken through the shell, screaming from the memory of her death, she realized many things at once. First, no one could hear her screams, she didn't appear to have a voice save the one in her head. Second, she was tiny, reptilian, but apparently not cold blooded. Finally, when she focused on people she felt she knew things about them, even if she didn't know the language they were speaking. She didn't understand anything her caretakers said save their names and hers. She knew their names the second she figured out this ability though, staring intensely at Sark she saw the small text box appear again, writing in the language from her past life, just like the old video games she used to hook up to the generator when there was extra power.

[Sark] Race: Half-Elf, Age: 14

Element Affinity: Earth

Repeating the same for Cyrrho gave her:

[Cyrrho Sami] Race: Human, Age: 13

Element Affinity: None

It wasn't much, but it was something. Why did she only see this information though? If she found a mirror, could she do it for herself? She was missing the amount of information she used to be able to look up in school. School. Was there anything like that in this world? She had spent so much time in it in her previous life until the sickness. Shifting away from the thought she decided that she would do better here, focus more on the world she was in, and eat all of the food she couldn't have had in her previous life. The past was the past. A world away, and it didn't matter now. She would focus on finding something reflective to test her theory.

The text that she saw around her caretakers wasn't the only strange thing about her new life though. Onyx seemed to have a lot of ingrained physical knowledge like how to walk on four legs, eat with her tiny teeth, and climb. Since her previous life was marked by clumsy attempts to learn physical skills, she took this as a blessing. A blessing she would need since she was only a little bigger than an orange, able to fit herself into a palm with ease.

After speaking with each other more, Sark packed up some of the gems and other valuables that seemed very out of place inside the large ramshackle hut. She could guess that the items Sark left with were likely stolen, unless gems could somehow be panned out of the stream here. It was hard to morally object to that though when such stealing was what fed her. On the floor, Onyx scuttered after him, determined to see the city unlike in her last journey with him. However, it would seem that her loving caretakers had other plans as for Sark said something short and clipped and then walked out of their home without her. Even at max speed, she could only walk the distance he stepped in the time it took him to take at least three more. He quickly turned out of sight between more huts that bordered the canals as she had to stop and catch her breath not far from their huts' canvas door.

Blast. The distance couldn't have been more than 10 ft and she was out of breath from walking it. Cyrrho chuckled and spoke something affectionately as he set up a small burner atop a candle and what looked like an ungraduated beaker. We had glass here? It seemed as out of place as the gems as he scooped out some of the foul smelling water and began to boil it. She couldn't believe it. Was he a chemist? Maybe, some sort of healer? Her intent stare was rewarded with something even more surprising, a small text box appeared in her vision:

[Beaker] Glass vessel used for alchemy.

It worked on objects too. She stared at the murky river next, and she could almost feel the moment when she had spent enough attention on it to reward her with:

[Waste Canal] Contaminated water from the city of Estlegard

This was going to be very useful. The only problem was converting the words she read in her old language to this new one that her caretakers spoke. In general, she considered them caretakers for the facts that they seemed to want to care for her, but as a different species, they may consider her something closer to an animal or pet than she would like. She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to convey how intelligent she was either as it may test the edge of their care. Somehow, this was making her tired. Maybe using whatever ability gained her information used energy and it certainly wasn't a muscle she had exercised much before. Cyrrho was stirring the boiling water with a class rod, carefully adding some pinches of powders to the solution. He probably knew what he was doing. She also had no clue how long whatever he was doing would take. Quietly, Onyx sneaked by his boot and curled up into a little slightly fuzzy ball. Resting her head onto her tail, she closed her eyes and slept as the sun rose higher in the sky.

Within the confines of the stone wall lining Estlegard, Dr. Lucy Izzard Crew was furious. She stood facing the youngest cadet inside the customs office rage deepening the lines on her already wrinkled face.

"WHAT. DO YOU. MEAN. ITS. NOT. IN. THE. LEDGER." She grounded through her teeth as she ran a gold and silver ringed hand through her silver hair, once tightly braided. The officers behind the desk shivered as it chill seemed to creep into the room while other occupants of the civilian half of the chamber divided by a wooden counter, debated how much they really needed their confiscated goods today.

The cadet began to stumble out some reply, stuttering as he realized maybe why he had been chosen for this task. She cut him off immediately "Are you saying you LOST the dragon egg you took from me?" She slammed her palms onto the counter, creating spindles of frost out of her palms. Two things happened at once: first all of the officers behind the counter stood up in unison, half out of shock and half for the mustached man who strolled down the stairs with his hands clasped firmly behind his back. Second, that man spoke with a loud and direct voice, "Dr. Crew, a word."

With that Dr. Crew followed Captain Marshal into his office. Walls of bookshelves lined a cluttered wooden deck that was well lit by a large window behind it, a gorgeous view of the tile-roofed city beyond. She would have relished the chance to peak into the captain's quarters in other circumstances, but at the moment all she could feel was fury at the idiot guardsman who had confiscated HER egg, and the horrendously inept system that had allowed it to somehow disappear. Captain Marshal plopped into his chair, and began to ink his quill. The man religiously took notes in everyone of his meetings, a habit she normally enjoyed. He flopped open his notebook and signaled for her to sit as he wrote the date and her name at the top of the page.

"I apologize for interrupting you earlier, but I thought it prudent you meet with someone that could actually help you. Now, what about this egg that you would like to report missing? Surely it isn't actually a dragon egg." A small smile pulled at his lips as if she had told a bad joke of some kind.

"No, Captain, it is most certainly a dragon's egg. By it's warmth and shell thickness, it was also close to hatching and likely laid right before or right at the start of the war. Which is WHY it is imperative it returns to my possession before it hatches." The captain visually paled at that, nodding as he continued to scribble in his notebook.

"The gangs in the Carns often raid or bribe guardsmen to raid our holding locations. I am not sure if they were able to identify that what they stole was a dragon egg, but while we look for it, what are the risks associate with a hatch-ling dragon, doctor. Do we need to worry about dragonfires?"

Dr. Crew harrumphed. The air was beginning to warm back up to normal temperature. "I can't say for certain without seeing the dragon inside the egg itself, but based on the location I found the egg, its more likely to be an ice, wind, or shadow dragon. However, as you may know, the war entirely dissolved the dragon civilizations and divisions."

"but wind dragons are extinct..."

"Yes. All of the living wind dragons were killed in the war, but this egg may have gone under the radar. It could hatch to be the last wind dragon." Her eyes alight with academic delight. "...Annd no one has ever studied the childhood of dragons. We know nothing of their growth and development. For instance, it has been postulated that they can speak from hatching. I cannot wait to study if that is true. So the sooner we can find that egg, the better my research will go."

"We?"

"Yes, we. Do you think I will leave your officers to the searching after they let my treasure slip through my fingers?" Dr. Crew adjusted her rings with a huff. "Why eggs need be confiscated at the gate is beyond me. Its not like this egg was to be under the restrictions of the agriculture laws."

"Errr, Dr. Crew," the captain braced visibly braced himself, lacing his fingers in front of him with his pen caught in between, like a spider in its web. "The Carns is not a safe place for a citizen to be investigating in. You will stand out immediately merely for being clean and be cornered for it. It would be-"

"-an efficient way to get the attention of the gangs that stole my egg? Yes, I thought so too." Her sharp eyes locked with the captains, daring him to continue this line of thought. What could he say: that she couldn't handle herself? that it would be nothing like the war? She had at least 10 years of combat experience on him. The captain pulled at his collar. It was starting to feel tight.

"At least let me know if you should take out any particular dens of them. The different groups like to use tattoos or colored cloth scraps to mark their allegiance."

She humphed. "Yes Yes. I should however get something in return. I had other reasons for returning to the capital than mucking through the slums."

"and what could the guard offer a mage of your prestige?"

"A favor to be used at a later date." The captain did not like the sound of that. He also did not want to think about who she could complain to and make his job much harder. His mustache twitched, but he nodded his assent. With a curt smile, the doctor was out of his office, marching out into the side of the wall he couldn't see from his office. The war certainly had made some powerful people, and having been to young to fight in it himself, Marshal often wondered what the world would have been like if it had never happened. Dragons would still be plentiful trade partners, friends to travelers and sailors alike. The elves would have been an occasional presence in Estlegard instead of legends of the forest. He often wondered if his children actually believed they existed when he told the tales. Legends like Dr. Crew were fleeting presences in the cities. Most that had fought had died. Which also meant that when you came across one of the veterans or artifacts of the war, you best be wary. In this world, conflict made the survivors strong. How on earth were his men so dumb as to confiscate one of those artifacts from one of the legends herself. The idiots.

Sark limped back Cyrrho's fire some hours later, grinning like a madman. He didn't need to tell Cyrrho that he had been attacked again. Cyrrho could see it in the fresh slashes in the sleeves of his tattered clothing. He didn't want to admit it but the real reason he was glad that Sark was selling the goods was that he wasn't sure he could survive fights like he could. "It was all this magic knife!" Sark had said yesterday upon returning from Grelda's shop, thrusting it into Cyrrho's hands for him to inspect. Even though he had never said it directly to Sark, the half-ling was his expert in fighting. He could take blows and just keep going. On his first night alone in the slums, Cyrrho had seen Sark fend off a boy twice his size for food. It at that very moment he had decided it would be best to be friends with him. Even now years later, he probably owed his existence to Sark's ability to take hits.

This time Sark reported that he had gained 5 more silver, some food in trade, but had to go to multiple stores to sell the items as most were not able to pay for them. It made sense. Cyrrho knew that this plan had risks when they had thought it up. Fidgeting, his mind had wandered back to his days riding in the back of his family's merchant cart. The uncomfortable shade of those memories brought him to twitch when thinking about it. The rickety old wagon full of herbal smells and potion bottles. Nights by the campfire pouring over some old family kept book of potion recipes. Right, most of the deals his family had done with other merchants never involved changing of coin. What was it they had used again? "What if we offer credit?", He snapped

Sark balked. "Credit? Some other kind of coin?"

Cyrrho snorted but quickly pivoted into educating, "No, its more like a loan. We give them the items now and then we get either items or money later for their value. If the items are particularly valuable to them, like the gems seem to be to the forgers, we could make even more charging interest that would make the value they owe us go up over time."

Sark ran his fingers through his wavy hair, frowning at his fingertips once they had been wedged free. "Don't know about that. Gangs have often tried to get the shopkeepers to pay them later, but it doesn't work if they have no reason to pay you after getting the goods. Shopkeeps won't worry about pissing us off, and its not like we have more goods we can guarantee them a supply of. We are about halfway through what we got already."

"8 Silver may be enough to get us passage out of the city, but it would be better to leave with more. With one of us here guarding the goods, it would be hard to scout out getting more things to sell..." Cyrrho was beginning to realize why the gangs had so many members. Sure it was better that the coin was only split between the two of them, but a steady stream would prove impossible this way. The little drake stirred at his feet, staring its bright yellow eyes up at him. He scooped the small thing up, plopping it onto his lap for chin scritches. Then he stopped, eyeing Sarks bruises. "About how many are in each group that tries to rob you?"

"Erm, generally no more than three."

Cyrrho smirked. "Then I know where we should get our goods..."