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This story is the first out of a series of slice-of-life vignettes concerning the everyday life and adventures of Jarzyl, a young dragon living in the City of Wings. Most of these stories are simple and short, showing off quick little character moments and worldbuilding.

This story is self-contained and can be read alone. (2,596 words) Rating: Very clean and wholesome

Terminology: A drake is a male dragon, a drakka is a female dragon, and drakken is the collective term for the species. The human equivalents would be man, woman, and humans. Drak is a gender neutral honorific, the combined equivalent to sir or ma'am.

The drake looked down upon his mate. She was exhausted but proud, resting on the bedding and curled up around an object. Then he saw what she was nesting, what they had made together--a single egg. One day it would hatch and their first offspring would break out of the shell to come into the world. Oh, what a happy day that would be! But for now it was just an egg, oval in shape, pale-white in colour, and moderate in size.

It was...okay.

It looked kind of like a rock, actually! The drake declared thus, to which his mate then issued him a glare.

"I just spent four long months carrying this thing inside me, and the past three hours painfully laying it out. And you just called it a rock. Would you like to sleep on the floor tonight?" said the glare.

The drake immediately saw the folly of his ways and rescinded his statement. He instead said that, yes, the egg was beautiful and very nice, and also that he loved his mate and would always care for her and their child. Thus appeased, they were both happy.

Happy until the egg hatched; then they became rather tired and sleep deprived. Such are the joys of parenthood.

Ten months later...

"Oh, this is so exciting!" said Zilarin.

"Terrifying, almost," agreed Galon.

The two dragons were sitting down on the floor, closely watching a pale, cream-coloured ovoid that was nestled in towels and blankets. The egg was carefully propped up so it wouldn't roll, with its larger end slightly above the pointed end. It was still for now, but it would rock slightly every few moments as the hatchling within prepared to break free. Zilarin had first noticed that their egg had the smallest of cracks just a half hour ago, and she'd immediately called her mate back from his clan meeting to observe the momentous occasion. They were going to be parents!

"Hatching is a much safer process than egg laying. Complications are very rare," murmured Zilarin. Galon had heard this fact before, but he knew that Zilarin was just saying it to reassure herself. His mate was a healer trained in the application of medicine and magic, yet still she worried. Over the many months when the egg had been slowly incubating, they'd gone through ever possible conversation and discussion with regards to their child, and made every imaginable preparation, yet it still felt like they weren't ready.

The egg had spent the last ten months sitting in an incubator in the medical centre, being kept at precisely the perfect temperature, humidity, and environmental condition. When a bright light shone through the shell had revealed a healthy young dragon ready to hatch within a week, the two dragons had carefully brought the egg home and prepared to welcome their first child into the world. The egg had been placed in the middle of this prepared room, left alone to hatch whenever it was ready.

"What colour do you think she'll be? Or he?" asked Zilarin.

Galon smiled and proudly patted his own golden-coloured chest. "Gold! Gold is a nice colour, but I'll also take sand-yellow or white. And blue is a nice colour too," he added, just so his azure scaled mate wouldn't feel left out. "What's the colour between blue and gold?" he wondered.

"Green?" replied Zilarin, without taking her eyes off the egg--their egg.

"I hope it's not green. Green's a boring colour for a dragon," decided Galon. He fanned his wings to cool himself off; the room was warm and extremely humid to accommodate the soon-to-be hatchling, but that made it stuffy and uncomfortable for a grown dragon.

They were both quiet for a few minutes, before Galon spoke up again. "So! Shall I get us something to eat?" he offered.

Zilarin turned to glare at her mate, then she returned to staring at the egg. "What? You can't leave. What if the egg hatches while you're away?"

"It probably won't. You said it yourself--most hatches take a few hours or even up to a day. So how about I go over to the kitchen and fetch us some snacks?"

Zilarin stood up, grabbed Galon's tail, and sat down on it so he couldn't leave. "You are not missing the hatching of our first child. If you're so hungry, you can eat some of these." She passed a bucket over to him that was filled with small scraps of meat--each was carefully sliced down into a tiny piece, then cooked and softened so that the meat wouldn't choke a ravenous young hatchling.

Galon picked up one of the scraps and made a faintly disgusted noise. "Ew. But this is baby food, I can't eat this."

"Yeah, you're right. We should save it for the hatchling," agreed Zilarin, taking back the bucket.

They waited for a few minutes, and then Galon spoke up again. "Last chance--are we absolutely sure on the name?"

Zilarin looked unsure, but she shrugged her wings. "We aren't changing it now. If it's a she, her name is Jarzyl. If it's a he, his name--"

"Crack!" Suddenly the egg jerked violently to the left and a large fracture appeared down one side.

Galon nodded in approval. "Oh, well that's some progress. I was wondering why nothing was happening."

"Don't be impatient. It was only calm for a few minutes and you can't expect this to be quick process," replied Zilarin, "Breaking out of the shell isn't so easy when you're just a weak little hatchling. In fact, there probably won't be much happening for at least a few minutes. That was just the initial puncture. Our hatchling will have to take some time to recover their strength, then it'll gradually begin to crack the shell into two halves and slowly push--"

"CRACK!" With a loud noise, the egg exploded apart, violently scattering eggshell and amniotic fluid onto the towels placed down to contain it. In the middle, a tangled wet mess of limbs and scales was thrashing about.

"...or perhaps not," said Zilarin.

"That was quick!" agreed Galon. "Must have inherited your enthusiasm."

The hatchling had used the relatively powerful muscles of its wings to break open the shell, though this was normally a much slower process. Now it was lying flat on its back with its legs up in the air and its wings spread open. The young dragon took its first gasp of air and filled its tiny chest, and then it started to chirp loudly. "Huuuhh... Cheep! Eep! Cheep! Urp! Eep! Eep! Eep! Eeeep!"

"It appears that the lungs are working," Galon observed. He reached a paw towards the hatchling and brushed away a fragment of eggshell that was stuck to its side.

At the gentle contact, the hatchling twitched in surprise and inexpertly waved all its limbs about. "Yahh! Eep!"

"Careful! Don't hurt him. Or her," said Zilarin.

"I know," said Galon.

"Krawk! Eep! Chereep! Eeep! Meep!" went the hatchling. It seemed to enjoy making as much noise as possible. How could something so small be so noisy?

Zilarin leaned his head in closer, and the hatchling stopped flailing its limbs as it stared at its mother. "It's okay...we're here. Don't cry." She carefully picked up the hatchling and flipped it right side up. She started to wipe its scales with a soft towel, and then she started using her tongue to lick the hatchling clean.

"Mmrrr...hmm. Skrrleep," gargled the freshly-hatched dragon, halting its incessant cheeping. With the amniotic fluid wiped away they could see that its tiny scales were a fierce orange colour, bright like sunset or a fire. As was the case for many young dragons, the hatchling's colouration was broken up by a spattering of white spots on their side, seemingly in a random manner--it was a natural camouflage pattern which would eventually fade away.

"Here, you hold him (or her). Let me get the food," said Zilarin. She passed the hatchling over to Galon and reached for the bucket of prepared food.

"Wow, just look at you. You're a beautiful little thing! Like the amber glow of a sunset," Galon murmured, staring at his first child--so small, so vulnerable, so beautiful. The hatchling's claws felt like tiny pin pricks against his paw pads as it held on tight. The tiny dragon stared back up at him with wide eyes of startling blue, and then it resumed chirping. "Eerep! Urp! Eep! Eeep! Chrep!"

"Yes, we know you're hungry." Zilarin took a morsel of meat and extended it to the hatchling.

"Eep! Eep! Rrrrrrr..." Instantly the young dragon twisted its head, locked eyes on the food, and tried to lunge its neck forward.

It missed completely, making Galon chuckle. "Easy now, don't get too enthusiastic." He was less amused when the hatchling picked an alternate target and tried to close its jaws around the digits of his paw. The hatchling looked small and fragile in his paws, but it was capable of biting hard enough to hurt. "Ouch!"

"Rrrr!" growled the hatchling, or perhaps it was purring.

Zilarin nodded in approval. "Vision seems normal, and there's enough muscle strength to keep the neck held up. Looks nice and healthy."

"It just bit me!" Galon protested.

"It is our dearly beloved child," replied Zilarin.

Galon flicked his neck frill, acknowledging the remark. "My mistake. Correction: _Our dearly beloved child_just bit me!" He switching to holding the hatchling with his left paw and tried to pull his right paw out of its jaws. "Stop eating me!"

"Galon, be gentle!"

"I am being gentle." Galon tried lifting his right paw out of the hatchling's reach, but the young dragon stubbornly held on until its entire body weight was just dangling freely from the digits of Galon's paw. "Hey! Let go..."

Zilarin nudged her mate's side and tapped her forepaws against the ground in excitement. "Oh, look, look! That's fantastic! That is some fantastic bite strength right there. Just lovely. Usually hatchlings can't do that until at least the first month out of the shell."

"I'm glad you're happy, because my paw hurts. Get this thing off me."

Zilarin raised the small morsel of meat again, which finally persuaded the hatchling to release its grip and drop back into Galon's paw. The two dragons started feeding the hatchling, which finally made it go quiet as it gulped down the food with voracious speed. They had to slowly feed it each piece of meat, or else it would probably have choked itself to death from how quickly it tried to swallow down each morsel.

"So is it a he or a she?" wondered Galon. He raised the hatchling up and tried to peer at its underbelly. The young dragon was so engrossed with stuffing its face that it didn't seem to notice.

"Well?" asked Zilarin, but Galon shook his head.

"I don't know. I can see the slit right here, but I can't tell what is or isn't inside it. You're the healer--why don't you try?"

They swapped roles--Zilarin took over holding the hatchling, while Galon took the bucket and began slowly feeding the tiny dragon. After having eaten a disproportionate amount in such a short time, it was finally (and reluctantly) starting to slow down its efforts.

"I think she's a she," decided the drakka, after examining the hatchling's underbelly for a good while and gently prodding at it.

"Are you sure?"

"I think so. Seventy percent sure."

Galon nodded. "Good enough. Hello, Jarzyl, welcome to the world!"

"Eep!" replied Jarzyl cheerfully. She yawned widely, revealing a mouth full of tiny white teeth, and then she tried to bite at one last scrap of meat. She didn't even manage to swallow it before she yawned again, making the meat fall out of her jaws. "Mrrrgrrn, lergrr, eep," babbled Jarzyl, looking content.

Then she wrapped herself into a ball, closed her eyes, and went to sleep right in her mother's paws. Both adult dragons stared at the snug, sleeping hatchling, and then they glanced up at each other. "I guess that's that. How does it feel to be a mother?" asked Galon, whispering softly so they wouldn't disturb Jarzyl.

"It's... significant? I don't know. How does it feel to be a father?" asked Zilarin, turning the question right back around.

"Hard to say. Proud, I guess, and a little bit overwhelmed. I'm not sure I'm ready to be a grown-up," Galon admitted. "Back when we were first courting, I didn't think I'd be fathering a hatchling till I was twice as old as I am now. In fact, I'm still unsure how I tricked you into becoming my mate." He was only thirty-seven years old, which was very young for a dragon to be a parent. Usually it took years and years for mated pairs to conceive, but they'd gotten lucky after only two years, on Zilarin's third heat cycle after they'd been bonded.

Zilarin tapped his side with her tail. "Give yourself some credit. I've got high standards, and you most certainly exceeded them."

They spend another few minutes just quietly staring at Jarzyl, watching her tiny chest rise and fall rapidly as she slept. She was slowly starting to drool onto her mother's paws. Zilarin gently nuzzled the hatchling, and then she and Galon exchanged licks on each other's snouts.

Galon stood up and went about tidying the room, cleaning up the towels and wiping down the area. When he had gathered up all the eggshell fragments, he placed them on the nearby table. "We're keeping these, right?"

"Of course. I still have the shell fragments from my own hatching, and my parents have the fragments from their own hatchings, and on and on, into the past," said Zilarin. She gently placed Jarzyl down on the mat, and then she sat down as well and let the hatchling snuggle against her chest. It was a humbling thought to think that every single dragon--young or old, weak or powerful, rich or poor--they'd all been a tiny hatchling once, entirely reliant on their parents for nourishment and support.

Galon was slightly less sentimental. "I don't have the eggshell bits from my hatching," he confessed, "My father ground them into a powder and poured them a glass of water when I was five. Then he made me drink it. He said it was good for moral development."

Zilarin chuckled. "Hehe. That's an interesting tradition."

"I don't really know if it was tradition or him just messing around. Anyway, I guess I should get back to that clan meet?" said Galon.

Zilarin gave him a look. "No. You are going to spend the next few hours lying right here next to me, keeping our hatchling warm and comfortable."

"Or I could do that. That works too," Galon agreed. He went to sit beside his mate and found that he couldn't take his eyes of his newly hatched daughter. Jarzyl was just so small! She seemed so tiny, yet she also seemed too big to have been all squeezed up into an egg. It was incredible to even think about the fact that together, the two of them had made this tiny little hatchling! The two adult dragons were quiet, enjoying a moment of shared intimacy and supreme pride. They were a family.

"So now can I go get a snack?" Galon asked, about a minute later.

Zilarin let out a long sigh, then she nodded. "Fine, but bring enough to share with me."

END