1.9

Jewel was curled up in her room, coils settled among the many cushions and rugs that gave her some bedding to sleep.

Wearing a blanket over her hips.

She was filling the majority of the room around her. The newly laid egg (now gently wiped clean and dry) in the midst of her coils.

Tsulogothulan and Jewel’s very disheveled father stood in what little floor space was not occupied by either rugs, cushions, egg or scaled dragon coils.

Once Jewel had explained in a panicked rush what had happened, her friend finally filled the dragging silence.

“Well I have some fortunate news, Lord Rochford.”

Father for his part turned to stare at Tsulogothulan. He had not slept well, with Mother’s labor going well into the evening, and what rest he had been getting when news the birth had gone well was abruptly interrupted by Jewel’s laying.

“Oh?”

The weird nodded.

Jewel’s attention was constantly sliding back to the egg, the way she felt it. There was an absolute certainty it was hers. A part of her sitting in the world. Her wyrmflame coursing and jumping from her coils to suffuse and flow within it before they danced back out and into her other flesh.

It seemed to swallow all of her attention, dragging on her thoughts, if she didn't focus on anything at all the presence of the egg filled her eyes with blank darkness.

Soothed her mind with warm sleepiness.

Maybe it was just the awfully late hour.

But something warm and oh so comforting filled her when she kept close to this little egg.

“It is not in fact a true wyrm egg that your daughter produced.”

Father and Jewel shared a look then turned back to the Weird.

The meaning of the words felt sharp, wrong, and impossible. Jewel had laid it, and beyond that she felt so utterly that she could not deny it was hers. No more than she could claim her wings were not her own.

The egg was Jewel’s sure as her tail or tongue was. So what could the weird mean?

Jewel for her part offered the words before her exhausted father did not.

“Then it’s not a fertile egg? Does that... does that mean I’m like a chicken!?”

It was somehow upsetting and felt obviously wrong, but Jewel trusted her friend. There was some sadness at the thought, no life forming in that egg? No child?

Jewel had been reeling in a tired rut over the possibility the egg represented. But she was yet too young for motherhood. Finding out that as a dragon she had a similar cycle as a chicken was embarrassing but growing up was not always honorable or clean.

But something was wrong.

Her words seemed to confuse the weird as much as the sleep deprived baron of Rochford. It took the bog weird a few slow blinks before finally shaking their head.

“What? A Chicken?”

Jewel nodded, perhaps the bog weird was also tired from the late hour? She happily explained herself.

“Yes, the hens in the village lay eggs as soon as they're of age, whether or not they have had time with a rooster or not.”

It still felt wrong but Jewel would trust her friend if that was the truth of it. The egg was still hers but if it was never going to hatch?

It felt painful to consider.

There were several more blinks from Tsulogothulan before they slowly shook their head.

“I did not know that was how chickens worked... and no, Jewel, I do not mean the egg is empty, it’s quite obviously well along and heavy with life. There’s already a heart beat. If this was a heron or duck I’d expect it to hatch in another day or so.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Father blinked almost as slowly as Tsulogothulan and raised a hand to cover his yawn before speaking.

“Then what do you mean it’s not a true wyrm egg. Especially if Jewel laid it.”

The weird sighed heavily and then lectured as if repeating the obvious.

“Because it is not impervious to all harm, of course. It rattled when struck, it was scratched when scraped, it is as fragile and mortal as any egg would be of its size. I’m sure as a family who held a true wyrm egg for generations you surely must have noticed that they are until hatching all but indestructible.”

Father just stared in blank confusion.

“Jewel’s egg was indestructible?”

The weird sighed heavily and nodded to both of them. Jewel for her part was rather gobsmacked at the news. But then, if the egg was full of new life, which in fact was Jewel’s child! But if it was not a wyrm?

“If I didn't lay a wyrm egg then what is it?”

The weird’s one, overlarge eye glittered with the light of a sun not yet risen breaking through scattered clouds on a foggy morning. It was rather distracting in fact the way it did that in the mostly dimly lit room with but a few candles for father’s eyes.

“That is the exciting part, we will have to check to be sure before it hatches, but I believe that Jewel has just produced her first Lair Spawn!”

Jewel and her Father stared, then all eyes slowly followed the Bog Wizard’s in settling on the egg.

All she could think of is the words written and spoken in fear.

Lair spawn.

Monsters.

The threat and danger that spread and if left alone would fill all the lands with terrible things.

Creatures more potent and far cannier, than other beasts.

The cruel and terrible ancestors of the Gryphons and the other, more distant warbeasts used across the realm.

The Terror Boar was always believed to be a Lair Spawn though in all the years since they had not found the hole from which it had come.

Jewel’s child.

Her first born?

Or first hatched?

It was going to be a monster?

Her child?

Suddenly a much worse truth struck and Jewel felt a terrible realization.

Jewel was not yet wed and she was already a mother!

Her neck was already craning back in a tight terrified curl and her wings had pressed themselves into the walls and ceiling of her bedroom before the terrible realization had finished settling.

Her father’s tired voice was full of concern.

Tsulogothulan was close to her, but careful not to accidentally touch the egg.

Jewel, however, could not understand them over the roaring panic that was filling her ears.

She could feel the egg in her coils settle back down from some internal motion that had tilted it to the side.

All of it felt distant and muffled to the wyrm’s racing-yet-frozen thoughts.

The same fact circling over and over again.

Jewel was going to have a child.

Jewel was going to be a Mother.

All of that was shocking, terrifying, far too much too soon.

But it was nowhere near as bad as the last thing she had realized.

Her first child was going to be a bastard.