Thieving Tiger

Story by 5_paws on SoFurry

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2000 gold is 2000 gold....

This was fun. Did this one a while ago, thought I'd post it between commissions. Wrote almost entirely in just two days. This was just one of those ideas I had massive inspiration to put on paper as soon as I came up with it. Hope you like it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading!


Mud splattered around on the busy town road as a large horse neighed nervously, suddenly rearing its forelegs while its rider cursed out loud, trying to control the equine beast with the leathery reins. A small cloaked character next to the horse deftly jumped to the side of the road just barely avoiding the heavy hooves violently scraping the air before a nearby toll guard slid himself between the petite traveler and the raging equine.

"Watch it, you bastard!" The tall jackal guard reprimanded the horse's owner, pulling the horse down to the ground by its reins. "Can't you see this maiden is with a child?!"

"If she's pregnant, then maybe she shouldn't walk so close to a fucking horse then!" The wolf rider snapped back at the guard, spitting over his left shoulder as a sign of disrespect.

Silently snarling at the gray canine on horseback, the guard quickly called out: "Ronk! Kary! Search this wolf!"

"Yes sir!"

A tall horse and a robust bull stepped out from behind the cloaked character, swiftly seizing the wolf from his saddle and rather roughly pulling him down on the muddy road with his belongings. Outraged, the wolf roared and snapped his jaws at the bigger, armored anthros as that was pretty much all he could do due to all three guards being at least a foot taller than him.

"You fucking bastards! I'll have all of your heads! Do you know who I am?!" He screamed.

The jackal guard made a subtle "get up" gesture with his fingers, and the horse and bull hoisted the wolf up from the mud so that his paws were hanging just above the soggy surface of the road. Wasting no time, the pointy-eared dark-furred official punched the wolf in the stomach, the other canine's complaints drowning under a wailing whimper as some mud splattered off his fur from the impact of the strike.

"I know exactly who you are! An arsehole who's causing a scene at my gate!" The jackal snarled, nearly pressing his forehead onto the wolf's.

"Get his horse and take him to the interrogation room... I have a reason to believe this cunt is in possession of contraband goods." The Jackal held a pause, cleaning some dirt off his metal glove. "Oh, and Ronk..."

"Yes sir?" The muscular horse guard twitched his ears.

"I believe this situation calls for a... rectal examination as well... don't you think?"

The wolf, who had just about gotten his breath back from the gut punch, opened his mouth in disbelief. The humongous bulge on the tall horse's leather trousers twitched and a sadistic smile was spread on the equine guard's muzzle.

"W-wait! Y-you can't do this! I'm a taxpaying loyal citizen of the kingdom! I-..." The rest of the wolf's protest were cut short as the bull guard promptly wrapped a strip of leather around the grey canine's muzzle, licking his lips and tauntingly grabbing the big bulge on his crotch as the two then dragged off the kicking and muffledly screaming wolf.

Clicking his tongue and huffing with satisfaction, the Jackal guard finally turned around towards the round-bellied maiden behind him.

"Apologies about that ma'am! Are you alright?" He asked with a surprisingly gentle expression on his muzzle.

"Unh..." The cloak-clad person carefully nodded their head, performing a small bow to the guard as a sign of their gratitude.

"Good... It would have been a shame if something had happened to you or your little one...Damn wolves acting like they own the city just because one of them happens to be the king..."

The Jackal guard eyed up the maiden he'd saved a bit closer, spotting a small dark nose and a striped black and yellow muzzle from under the linen hood, a matching tail slithering out of the hem of the cloak. So she was a tiger. Quite a small one at that too. The striped felines were usually known for their big size and intimidating appearance, but this one was sized more like a regular cat or a cheetah at best. Then who knew, she could've been from the south where most species were naturally a bit shorter than up north. Or she could've just as easily been a mix, having inherited the size from either of her parents.

Getting caught in pondering a possible explanation for her small size, the guard nearly missed the female tiger starting to back away towards the gate, carefully sliding her paws on the mud as if to sneak away unnoticed.

"Please hold it, Ma'am! I still need to perform a search on you, if you don't mind!"

The petite she-tiger stopped in her tracks and carefully shook her head, nervously pulling out a small satchel from under her cloak. The guard captain closed the distance between them in one single step and gently grabbed the leather bag from the tiger's paws. "This is just a routine proceeding ma'am, nothing to worry about..." The canine male reassured the timid female, opening up the satchel and starting to rummage its contents.

"Anything to declare?"

The tiger shook her cloaked head.

Kuran searched the small bag, finding nothing but a few ointments, a surprisingly large flask of silver slime, and three pouches, two of them containing various legal herbs, one containing a handful of fire crystals. Nothing forbidden. The fire crystals did rouse some suspicion in the jackal, however, since they were commonly used in keeping dragon eggs warm during incubation, and winter was still far off, there should be not that much use for them around this time of the year.

Twitching his ears Kuran raised his eyes and gazed at the apprehensive feline, who had protectively wrapped her arms around her gravid belly. The Jackal captain inhaled the mixed scents of the street as he fixed his eyes on the round formation on the front of the linen cloak. Could it be...?

"Ma'am..." Kuran cleared his throat, stepping closer to the silent tiger. "Could I... Have a look under your cloak...?"

Thump thump

The pregnant female was frozen still for a few seconds but eventually nodded her head to the guard's question. Kuran crouched down, bringing his muzzle on the level with the rounded tiger gut, staring holes into the thin linen cloth covering it. The tiger slowly dragged her paws up to her chest, allowing the crouching canine to crack open the skirt of her cloak.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump

Kuran sighed, lazily shaking his head as he saw nothing but a taut tiger tummy underneath the cloak. The faded peach-colored belly was oddly beautiful in its gravid state, its roundness and apparent mass quite pleasing to the Jackal guard's eye, telling of its owner's apparent fertility.

Flipping the skirt back into its place, the serious Jackal stood up and bowed at the smaller feline. "My apologies madam! We've got orders to be on the lookout for any smugglers. As you know, it's dragon breeding season and dragon eggs can fetch astronomical prices in the black market... Thus we have to be extra careful."

"Uhn..." The tiger nodded, gently rubbing her bloated form over the coarse cloth.

"You're free to go. Please be safe on your travels."

....

Miran moved his paws in a steady rhythm, clutching onto his cloak as he made his way out of the muddy streets of the city, walking over the sturdy wooden drawbridge, pawing his way along the dusty village road further and further away from the town. The small tiger had a triumphant smile on his muzzle, hidden beneath the shadow of his hood.

Idiots!

The striped feline smiled to himself. He still couldn't believe the guardsman had mistaken him for a pregnant female. Although admittedly the connection was not too far-fetched, as for a male -tiger especially- Miran had outstandingly slender limbs and wasn't as tall as many other male representatives of his species. Secondly, his usually flat stomach bulged far from its natural state, but for completely other reasons than pregnancy; the tiger was indeed smuggling some dragon eggs.

His paws already starting to tremble from the long way he had walked from the temple all the way to outside the village, Miran took a thorough look at his surroundings, affirming that there was no one around. This should have been far enough. Taking a few more cautionary glances over his shoulders, Miran then took a few careful steps off the road and immediately felt some accidental, more-or-less pleasant churning in his gut.

Uh-oh!

The cloaked tiger swiftly waddled his way off the road and into the forest surrounding it, hiding behind the first proper bush he found which could conceal him from any prying eyes from the road.

"Fuck! My back's killing me!" The thieving feline huffed, swiping the hood off his head and leaning against a nearby tree, his panting interrupted as something again lurched about inside him.

Praise the goddess I can't actually get pregnant... Although I'm sure there exists a spell for that...

Feeling some sudden, undesired movement down by his concealed feline sphincter, Miran quickly crouched down onto the ground, moaning from the hefty pressure inside his colon. "Fuck! You guys really want to come out, don't you?" The panting tiger groaned, reaching his left paw down his pants and palpating the area around his tailhole, already feeling the smooth, hot calcite surface of a dragon egg just inside his sphincter.

That was right. Miran had smuggled out the dragon eggs inside his ass. It would have been really bad if the Jackal guard had ordered the horse and bull guards to conduct a rectal examination on him. Lucky for him, his effeminate stature had been enough to fool the guards, even though for a moment he had thought the Jackal had caught him.

This time the greedy tiger had gone for the record and gotten whole five of them in one go: a decision the striped feline slightly regretted as of now, his movements all the way up to this point hindered not just by his cargo, but also the way he had had to walk in order to keep the eggs secure between his cheeks. Ass clenched shut, legs slightly apart as not to allow his precious goods to slip out by accident. It truly had been a tiresome walk from the temple to here, and Miran was feeling it not only in his paws but also on the rest of his striped body. A wave of strange warmth washed over Miran as he hastily removed his cloak, subsequently pulling down his tight leather shorts and underwear, leaving his lower body now fully exposed. Miran's -by tiger standards- modest cock was half erect, gradually twitching its way to full mast as the first egg actively tested the resistance of Miran's feline sphincter.

This year had been business as usual. The crafty tiger had had to suck off a few dozen dicks and drop his pants for a couple of guards to get inside the temple but for this kind of payday, it was easily worth it every year. One egg could go for as high as two thousand gold in the right circles, equal to nearly six years of imperial guard captain salary. Having smuggled some eggs out before, Miran was already plenty wealthy and nowadays the feline was mostly in it for both the sexual and non-sexual thrill. And Miran was also smart enough to know one could never truly have too much money.

"Ahhh... Fuck!" Miran moaned, going down to his knees, still taking support from the tree next to him.

The kingdom always tightened its tolls around dragon breeding season, and pretty much the only, truly reliable way to get eggs smuggled out consistently was to do things anally. At least that was how it was for Miran. Blessed with a roomy colon and a deliciously wide set of hips for a male, the constantly horny tiger was the perfect candidate for the job and so far, he had never been caught. In addition, the dragon eggs also required a warm space to properly incubate, and what was a warmer place than a slutty kitty's rear pipe?

Getting inside the temple was always very simple and easy with sexual favors, Miran not having to resort to violence even once during the three years he had been doing this. The first tricky part of the smuggle was actually when one was inside the temple. Well, it was tricky depending on which way you looked at it. Just pick the desired egg and sit on it. Easier said than done. But Miran was an expert in taking stuff up the butt and having done this for multiple years, he knew all the tricks on how to do it efficiently. With the aid of some silver slime, he had managed to stuff up to five eggs inside his tailhole this year, each from the most expensive breed of dragons there were.

The absolute trickiest part of smuggling the eggs was actually walking from the temple to the town gates with all of the eggs inside one's colon. Firstly, depending on how much junk you stuffed up your trunk, you would have varying degrees of difficulty actually holding all of them in depending on how skilled you were as a colon-acrobat as you walked through the town. Secondly, if one was a horny tiger with incredible affinity to butt-stuff, it was incredibly difficult not to get absolutely diamond-hard with whole dragon eggs constantly pressuring your precious predator prostate. Miran usually had to jerk off like twenty times before making the walk to the town gates as not to get hard during the guards' examination from the surreal sensation of hot dragon eggs squirming about inside his ass.

Regardless, Miran had made it out every year, and as always, it was now time for the fun part: The laying of the dragon eggs.

"Fuckfuckfuck! Just hold it for a few seconds you lizardspawn..." Miran muttered, opening his flask of silver slime and smearing a generous dab of the slippery substance onto his hole. The on-his-knees tiger then began taking deep breaths, relaxing his sphincter as much as possible to allow the in comparison huge egg to pass through it. Gradually, the pink feline tailhole dilated and the walls of Miran's anus as well as the weight of the other eggs began pushing down the first calcite orb, which slowly squeezed its oval shape out from the moaning tiger.

Having "laid" over ten eggs before, Miran wasn't at all unfamiliar with this process but still found it just as draining and just as arousing each time. There was something exhilaratingly perverse in doing something the other gender and moreover, another species entirely was supposed to do and the panting feline was rock hard, his brave erection twitching with each slight increase to the diameter of his tailhole. All of the eggs were hot way beyond Miran's own body temperature and to pass through his sphincter they had to lurch just by his prostate, producing insane amounts of pleasure as they exited his ass. Miran always wondered if the female dragons felt as good as he did when laying their eggs, the agonizing pleasure spiking inside the small tiger as the first of the eggs was about to reach its widest point.

*Plop!*

"Mnyaahh~!"

Miran's striped figure jumped upwards by nearly six inches, the space beneath his tiger butt now occupied by a round, elliptical object, its calcite surface glimmering with traces of the slippery slime lubricant. It almost looked as if the huge egg had just magically sprung up from the ground underneath the panting male tiger, its tip comfortably resting between the wide-hipped feline's stripy cheeks. The first egg was predominantly white, with a net of green veins coursing across its smooth exterior. Being an egg of a dragon, the sizable orb could easily support the entirety of Miran's weight on top of it, the trembling tiger taking his time in gathering his thoughts after the wild sensation of passing a dragon egg from his tailhole.

"A-all right! F-First one out!" Miran said with his voice shivering slightly as he rolled the egg out from between his legs, gently setting it down on top of his cloak, which he had rolled up for a makeshift nest for the five.

Taking deep breaths, and already feeling the next egg knocking on his winking back-door, Miran stared at the first egg with his golden eyes, marveling at its size and beautiful surface.

To think all of that had been inside his ass. And to think that there were still four more lodged up there.

Dizzy with pleasure, the tiger glanced down at his defiant erection, to his surprise noticing that he hadn't cum immediately on the first egg, although with the amount of pre he was spewing he might as well have. And not that it mattered anyway, as the second egg would surely do the trick, already pressing up against the inside of his tailhole, stretching the abused ring of his sphincter with the weight of its three comrades.

Suddenly feeling one of the eggs churning about inside his lower digestive tract, Miran meowed and quickly folded in two, having to slam his paws onto the grass as he now had to support the weight of his upper body on his arms. In all likelihood, one of the eggs had turned into a horizontal position inside him. He would have to fix that if he wanted a chance of getting it out peacefully.

"C-calm down in there, A-alright?" The tiger muttered to himself, accidentally releasing a super horny moan as the second egg thoroughly tested his tailhole, dilating it by almost two inches in one go. The other eggs reactively lurched forward as well, giving way for some spine-chilling, ball-churning sensations to carry over from Miran's tailhole. "P-please... O-one at a time..."

The abrupt change in position actually favored the second egg's exiting efforts, naturally relaxing the muscles around Miran's waist, allowing the egg to make rapid progress as it squeezed out from the tight tiger entrance much faster than the first one. Miran would have purred if he hadn't had as much trouble breathing, the third egg pressing down on his prostate at just the right angle to inch the dizzy tiger towards orgasm.

*Plop!*

Miran whisked his head up lightning-fast, arching his back as the second egg launched out from between his striped cheeks, landing onto the grass almost a foot away from the steaming barrel it got shot out of. Miran's striped tail was pointing directly towards the sky as a series of violent shudders ravished the moaning feline's body, the grass underneath his belly getting an expected frosting of cloudy tiger jizz as the striped feline succumbed to the pleasures of egg-laying, happily blasting his load behind the bushes. Streaks of his kittymilk squirted onto the green blades of grass as Miran experienced a long and thorough orgasm from the unnatural egg-laying stunt. And as always, it was pure, perverted bliss for the feline.

Each and every one of the muscles in his body suddenly dead-tired, Miran rolled over to his side and lazily pawed the second egg into his lap with his feet, taking almost a whole minute before setting it next to the first egg on top of his cloak. The second egg was black, and it had a violet scale-like pattern decorating it, most likely an egg of a Warganian dragon. Trying to squeeze his ass shut, at least for the time being, Miran also hastily dug out some fire crystals from his bag and scattered them next to the two eggs in order to keep them warm and incubating.

Laying still for almost five minutes, the feisty feline had eventually gathered enough strength to continue, now rolling onto his back and lazily hoisting his legs up in the air like a maiden at the fertility witch's reception.

"This is how the females do it... right?" Miran muttered to himself, carefully palpating the surface of his abdomen, trying to feel out which of the eggs was the one that previously flipped.

"Hnngg~!" Miran moaned as his paw passed over the fourth egg, revealing it as the culprit of the colon churning from before. "What a naughty lizard..." He muttered, lovingly rubbing his somewhat deflated but still noticeably bulging lower abdomen. "Let's have you flipped around before it's your turn..."

The striped egg-smuggler soon flinched, the third of the eggs now preparing to make its exit, meaning Miran had no time to lose. Unstrapping a dagger and its sheath from his belt, Miran placed the makeshift metal and leather gag between his teeth before starting to try and push the fourth egg around on his lower abdomen. Each time he moved the flipped egg, the third one would nudge slightly forward onto his anus, which was already tired from the first two lays and didn't have too much strength to hold back the third egg within. Were the tiger to do one too hasty of a nudge on the fourth egg, he could accidentally push out the third one before the fourth was in an optimal laying position, which in turn would mean a lot of silver slime for getting that one out painlessly.

Miran grit his teeth and whimpered, nudging the hard bulge on his fluffy tiger tummy, trying to push the egg inside him into the correct position whilst flexing all the muscles in his loins to the best of his ability in order to keep the third egg from slipping out.

"Khamaan!" The huffing tiger groaned against his dagger in frustration as the second to last egg wouldn't move as he wanted it to, unlike one of its siblings, which was moving more and more by the second. Miran's correctional efforts were also hindered by his eager feline member, which was once again at full mast, dribbling pre all over his lap, twitching in accordance to the stretch the third egg was applying to his tailhole.

S-shit! I-It's coming out!

From the familiar sensation by his rump, Miran knew the third egg was about to pass over its halfway point, meaning it would get spat out of him at any second. As a desperate, last-ditch effort to correct the orientation of the fourth egg, the huffing tiger gently punched his belly, wishing, praying that this would do the trick.

And it did. The punch worked even better than what Miran had imagined.

Miran promptly buried his teeth in the leathery dagger sheath as the third egg plopped itself outside of the steaming, nearly double-fist wide tiger tailhole of his, accompanied by a surprisingly loud and awfully lewd wet "splorch" sound. His tailhole enjoying the egg-smuggling perhaps a bit more than the tiger himself would have liked to admit, Miran's tiny tiger dick squirted cum in pleasure as another gargantuan egg suddenly passed directly over Miran's prostate on its way out of the packed feline colon.

Miran's punch had not only corrected the position of the fourth egg, but it had also given it enough momentum to push it past his tailhole right after the third, two gigantic dragon eggs squeezing past the stretchy tiger orifice in less than three seconds, bringing forth a thunderous orgasm for the muffled feline. The striped predator cat experienced two orgasms simultaneously, the flow of his ejaculatory fluids doubling for two restless twitches of his feline malehood, his sticky cat seed getting launched almost two feet up into the air as a result of this ecstatic new experience. Miran's stripy tail squirmed helplessly as the thieving feline's eyes rolled up into his skull while his hole gaped big enough to swallow a Larunian cannonball.

It was not every day one got to poop out two whole dragon eggs in one go.

Barely lucid, Miran lifted his head off the grass and swiped some drool off from the side of his mouth. "May the goddess have mercy on this hole..." Miran sighed, looking down between his legs at the third and fourth egg which now rested peacefully on the grass just outside his tailhole, their unnatural warmth pleasantly warming up Miran's fluffy cheeks.

Only one more...

Miran thought as the last of the eggs slipped closer to his tailhole, stopping a few inches away from the spent feline's winking entrance. And while he was correct, that this was indeed the last egg, that wasn't the whole story. This egg was the final boss. An egg from a Garanxian war dragon. Slightly bigger than the other four, small, ovulation-inducing spines covering the entirety of its dark exterior. A nasty big lump of anal-stretching, colon tickling, prostate teasing, lava-hot calcite, which currently resided inside Miran's thumping,

stripy orbs of feline fat.

This was the first time Miran had smuggled out a Garanxian egg, but the libidinous feline was more excited than nervous to pass this bad boy through his anus. His entire body still remembered what it had been like to sit on it back at the temple. It had felt so extraordinary going in, Miran was afraid he might go crazy with it coming out. A third orgasm was more of a fact than a question mark with this egg for sure, especially with all those spines ready to tickle the insides of his hole.

Finding strange energy in his perverted desires, Miran deftly hiked up his rump and downed a hefty amount of silver slime into his hole, shivering from the cold sensation in his previously hot colon. It was better to not risk things with this kind of egg, especially since this was definitely the most expensive one. The horny tiger carefully wiggled his backside, making sure to get the lubricating liquid into all places it needed to be for the final laying.

Discarding the nearly empty slime flask from his paws, Miran carefully licked his lips and tested the waters with his anal walls, seeing if the huge reptilian egg would move. An electrifying sensation raced through Miran's striped body as the large, spined dragon spawn lurched forward within his intestines, signaling to the big cat that it was ready to go. The inside of his colon already tingling from the feel of the firm but springy spines, Miran returned to the optimal birthing position from before. His back against resting against the grass, his legs lazily hanging in the air he took a deep breath and started to push.

Not wearing the dagger-gag on his mouth this time, there was nothing to block the trembling feline's erotic moans from echoing all over the thick forest. Miran's bright voice shook the bushes surrounding him as he began his task of 'giving birth' to two thousand gold coins.

The last egg took its sweet time moving forwards in the petite tiger's rectal canal even with the addition of plenty of lubricating slime. Miran's walls had their work cut out for them as they resolutely shoved the heavy object between them towards the exit, the egg's exotic spines pleasantly scraping the entire area of the tight tiger tunnel they were in. The sensation of it all was extremely addicting.

The spines on a Garanxian egg, formed out of soft calcite and springy dragon vaginal tissue, were designed to make the female ovulate upon laying an egg, thus making multiple litters possible during a single mating season. They were word by word designed to make their host horny upon their exit from her or his system. And Miran got to experience this firsthand and to its fullest extent.

The thieving tiger was breathing rapidly, probably faster than he ever had in his life, coming dangerously close to hyperventilating. But that wasn't because the experience of passing the egg would have been painful, it was because it felt too good. Miran's rectal muscles were creaking and sweating under the egg's enormous mass, its spines seeking out the poor tiger's prostate and harassing it as they desired, Miran's dick twitching completely helpless as the gonads connected to it were churning up another orgasm at a breakneck pace. His body was under a constant barrage of exotic and foreign pleasures he never even knew possible, all derived from the Garanxian egg and the divine spines on its surface.

So this is how it feels like to ovulate... Miran thought to himself as he was, without a doubt, ovulating.

The insane sensation of pleasure jumped rope with the petite tiger's libido as the egg finally began squeezing out of the shivering feline's stretching rectum. Thanks to the pseudo ovulatory response, Miran's reproductive desires were higher than they had ever been, every second of the egg exiting his tailhole feeling like a dozen orgasms. Had someone asked him now to try and mate with a Nyewirian rock buffalo, he would've done it without a second thought. Gotten all fours to get mounted by the creature, well known for its huge member and harsh mating habits. He was that horny.

The whimpering feline was no longer sure what kind of a face he was making as the majority of the egg was now visible outside his rump, the pesky spines still greedily grabbling onto the greatly loosened cat sphincter on Miran's behind, making the weakened tiger work all the way in order to push the egg out entirely.

Another, lewd wet sound soon graced the bushes as the dark and green fire-breathing lizard orb escaped the clutches of Miran's tingling tailhole. Miran aired out the breeding call of a rutting tomcat, his cock ejaculating in total defeat as the last of the precious eggs squeezed out from his dilated backdoor entrance. He ejaculated like an adolescent kitty on his first visit to the brothel; fast, loud, and shamefully, pumping out seed like he had never been with a female in his life. The foggy kitty cum squirted out of his half-flaccid member, soiling the fur on his chest and belly as the rest of his body fell limp, the strain of all the orgasms and egg-laying finally reaching Miran, who eventually passed out from the subsequent exhaustion.

...

Miran woke up what he reckoned was a few hours later on the soft grass amidst the bushes, every single muscle in his body dead tired, and aching. All of the eggs were still there, no one having found the passed-out feline and pilfered the valuable goods. The spent tiger's ass was on fire, but in a good way, reminding the tiger of all the fun he had had a few hours prior. He was still dilated at least one or two inches, his ass probably not being able to close for the rest of the day.

Wiping some of the excess slime off his hole, as well as some dried-up cum from his abdomen, Miran carefully settled all five eggs in the nest on his cloak, marveling at his haul with a toothy smile. It was hard to believe there was ten thousand gold resting before his eyes right now. Perhaps even harder to believe was that all of the five eggs had been up his ass less than three hours ago.

Carefully strewing the whole pouch of fire crystals inside his bag, Miran grabbed the eggs one by one and set them inside his satchel. When he eventually picked up the last egg, he smiled and felt a wistful tingle all throughout his colon as the spines now poked at his paw.

"Hmmm... We just might have to do this again, you naughty boy..." He smirked, poking at the intimidating black Garanxian egg with the green spines before placing it amongst its siblings and buckling the leather bag shut.