The Egg Assignment, part 2
#44 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Not quite sure how to take care of her egg, Jarzyl goes looking for some friendly advice
(2,995 words)
Not really related image, but cute
In the dense urban environment of the City of Wings, gleaming skyscrapers that stretched into the sky were the norm, especially in sector one. Caden's family lived in a large apartment near the top of a residential tower entirely owned by their clan--or rather, clans, because Caden's father was from Hasilt, while her mother was from Taslin, and Caden herself had membership from both.
Hasilt and Taslin were two of the city's largest and most powerful dragon clans, and for decades they had been stuck in an uneasy partnership that never progressed into the full, grandiose alliance it was supposed to have been. There were perpetual rumours that either of the two clans was on the verge of launching some backstabbing political power play that would conclude with a hostile takeover of the other clan, but nothing had happened yet.
Huge banners dangled down the side of the apartment tower, with the Taslin clan insignia covering the north and south sides of the building, and Hasilt insignias covering the east and west sides. The banners were so long that Jarzyl wondered if they could be used to climb up the side of the building. Back when she'd been a young hatchling first visiting Caden's home, those banners hadn't been so long. Over the years Taslin and Hasilt clan had been taking turns to make their own banners bigger than the other clan's, until now the huge cloth banners practically covered all sides of the building with holes cut out for each window and balcony on every level. It was ridiculously petty and undoubtedly expensive, but it did look impressive.
Caden herself was sitting out on the balcony of her bedroom, working on a painting that sat on an easel. She gestured lazily with her paw as Jarzyl fluttered to a landing on the balcony beside her. "What have we here? An unexpected but not unwelcome visitor--Jarzyl Mintaka..."
Jarzyl was expecting her egg to beep loudly and complain about her landing, but it didn't. Either she was getting more practiced with handling the training egg, or the carrier sling's padded cushioning was softening the impact. "Caden! Greetings! Am I interrupting you?"
"Of course. But disruption often spurs creativity. Sometimes." Caden was sitting on a floor cushion, and she had her tail curled around herself to use it as a paint brush. She dabbed her tail tip in her paint palette then made another small stroke of colour. The leafy-green coloured fledgling shifted to let Jarzyl see the canvas. "What do you think? I've been working on this for a couple of weeks."
Jarzyl frowned at the painting, which depicted the grand panoramic cityscape which was visible from the vantage point of Caden's bedroom, albeit with much of the scenery engulfed in flames. Skyscrapers were visibly damaged or entirely in ruin, while dragons flew through the sky spitting flames, frost, and acid at each other. "It's very... detailed. And the... the colours are nice."
Caden grunted indifferently. "No, there needs to be more. Colours and detail are just the surface. Art is about making you _feel_something."
Again Jarzyl looked over the painting of the burning city. Her father sometimes liked to make similarly vague, nebulous statements about artistic expression when describing his rock carvings. She nodded slowly. "Ok, yes this is certainly art then. This painting reminds me of a dream I had."
"Oh? A good dream?"
"No, a nightmare."
Caden looked pleased. "Thank you. I was thinking of calling this one, The Collapse of Empire, or maybe, City in Flames."
Jarzyl laughed awkwardly, and her neck frill twitched. "Hehe... I worry about you sometimes, Caden!"
Caden laughed too. "Hah, Jarz, that's very sweet of you. But no, I'm not planning to start a war. And between the two of us, I think you're more likely to burn the city down. This artwork is just a contemplation about how selfish, greedy clan competition and resource overexploitation might end society one day. Maybe." Caden finally looked away from her painting and paid full attention to Jarzyl. "So what brings you here? And... what happened to your wing? You've got a cracked flight scale."
Jarzyl waved aside this concern. "I had a rough landing. I'm fine."
Caden raised an eye ridge. "Alright, then next question--why are you still hauling that thing about?"
Jarzyl patted the fake egg, which she was carrying in the cloth sling that ran around her neck. "Uhhh, because I'm not really sure how to take care of this thing, so I thought I would come see how you did it?"
Caden's curious look upgraded to befuddled. "What? Why?! Just ask your parents."
"My parents are out of the city this week," Jarzyl explained. "I mentioned that when you came over to my house yesterday, remember?"
Caden was still unconvinced. "Ok, so? Then ask your aunt or your grandfather or someone else in your family. Or ask your clan community representative? You're from Mintaka--an apex clan. You have the resources, and you have the procedures."
Jarzyl shook her head stubbornly. "I just... I want to ask my parents about it, but they won't be back for a few days."
Caden snorted. "Pfft. Jarz, you know I'd help you--but I'm your friend not your clanmate. I can tell you how my clans take care of eggs, but how Mintaka does it is for you to find out. That's specifically the point of this whole assignment?"
Jarzyl peeked her head into Caden's bedroom, but she saw no sign of her friend's fake egg. "Hmm, so what did you do with your egg?"
"If you're curious, I can show you." Caden slid to her feet, and carefully lifted her painting and carried it into her bedroom. Then she took the easel and floor cushion indoors as well. She beckoned for Jarzyl to follow, pausing briefly to snatch two things from bedside table--a wingtip pennant with her clan insignias, and a loop of string with a silvery key attached. "Follow me."
Despite how on the outside it looked like the residential tower was divided between Hasilt and Taslin--two clans in a rivalling, squabbling partnership--the interior had no such separation. Some apartments had the Taslin insignia, some had the Hasilt, and some like Caden's home had both, and it was all jumbled up with families living side by side.
Caden and Jarzyl didn't even have to fly anywhere. The two fledglings left Caden's family's house and took the elevator carriage down the tall skyscraper, to around halfway down the building. Instead of more apartments, this floor held community facilities.
Many of the dragons here were wearing wingtip pennants or neckerchiefs which were emblazoned with insignia of Hasilt, Taslin, or any of the numerous smaller clans which were allied with either of the two apex clans. Jarzyl subtly adjusted the kerchief tied around her neck, which was a warm orange that matched the colour of her scales, and had the Mintaka insignia displayed over her chest, partially obscured by the egg in its sling. A receptionist was sitting behind a desk in the elevator lobby, and he waved them both in after seeing the Hasilt-Taslin flag pennant that Caden had tied around one wingtip.
A small café was selling snacks and beverages, and all around there were many comfortable seats and tables for use--a trio of elderly drakken were sitting at one table and play a board game with small stones placed on a grid, while at another table there were a quartet of fledglings with their heads down as they worked on a group project together. At another part of the level Jarzyl could see an exercise gym which even had a wind tunnel for dragons to practice their flying, and in another room there was a large light-field projector displaying the latest aerial races.
Out through the windows, Jarzyl could see that the level directly below had a swimming pool on a balcony that protruded out even further than this level did. Drakken were swimming laps from end to end, while a small hatchling splashed about in the shallows under the watchful eye of a parent.
None of this was new or surprising at all. Jarzyl knew that her clan also had its own community facilities integrated into its neighbourhoods. However there was one thing that she wasn't familiar with--tucked away at the corner, there was a room partitioned off with glass walls and filled with nesting boxes of the same rectangular design that Jarzyl had seen in her parents' bedroom.
Caden had a metal key dangling around her neck on a string, and now she stuck that key into a slot beside the wall and twisted it. There came the grinding click of some clockwork mechanism, then the door smoothly opened by itself.
"This is the nesting room, or the nursery. The door is normally coded to recognize magical trace, but my clan advisor gave me a key since I don't have my magic yet. Parents whose eggs are in here can come check them whenever they want," Caden explained.
Jarzyl followed behind Caden as they weaved between the rows and columns of nesting boxes, and she took particular care to avoid bumping into anything with her wings or tail. By her count there were at least two dozen of those incubator nesting boxes, and more than half had eggs inside them--real eggs, not the training fakes that the fledglings were taking care of for the week, though in appearance they looked the same.
"These incubators are advanced enough that they can care for an egg from the moment it's laid all the way until it hatches," Caden casually explained, as Jarzyl stopped to peer into a nesting box that held one exceptionally large egg. A Hasilt-Taslin drakka must have had a very uncomfortable day laying that one.
Warm, reddish light bathed the egg from the top of the nesting box, and the rollers in the base were very slowly rotating the egg as it sat there. A label on the side of the box was printed with the name of the parents, along with the egg's size, weight, and age. Small orange and green lights flashed occasionally from a control panel indicating temperature and status.
The door swung silently shut behind them, making a soft click as it latched shut. With the door closed Jarzyl also realized that the faint chatter of conversation was not echoing down the corridor from the nearby meeting rooms or café, but instead there were speakers in the roof softly playing something like speech.
"What's that sound?" Jarzyl asked. There were a few voices conversing back and forth, with the occasional bout of casual laughter, but it wasn't coherent speech. Instead it sounded like made-up words and sentences spoken with the exact intonation and pacing of real language. It was the experience of letting her eyes go unfocused, except for her ears--it really sounded like something that ought to make sense, except it was just gibberish.
Caden shrugged her wings. "Pre-language sound. For older eggs where the hatchling is almost ready to hatch, apparently it's been proven that they can hear things said around them. And playing this weird mix of words and babbling is supposed to help their young brains develop language skills better?"
"Huh." Jarzyl rested her paw on her egg as it sat in the sling around her neck, and she wondered what it would have heard of the outside world if it wasn't an artificial, unliving fake that had no ears and no brain and would never develop such. "Interesting."
Caden nodded. "There's a lot of thought put into this environment. You smell the air? It's all purified and clean, but they add pheromones so that it's as if the eggs are really in a nest."
Jarzyl sniffed at the air. The nursery had the fresh, pleasant odour of dragon eggs, and there was also a faint smell like scales. "Eggs can smell things?"
Caden glanced back over her shoulder at Jarzyl. "It sounds strange when you put it like that."
"I guess eggs can't smell things. Hatchlings smell things, and eggs contain hatchlings. Eventually." Trying not to make it too obvious, Jarzyl took a deep sniff of the air--she liked the scent, for some strange reason. It made her feel warm, comfortable, and safe, like being tucked up under her blanket on a rainy day.
At the far corner of the room, Caden stopped at one specific nesting box and gestured at the egg within. "That one. That's my egg. It'll be here for the next few days."
Jarzyl lowered her head to investigate the box. It was the same egg which she had seen Caden take at school, although there appeared to be splotches of colour added at certain places. "Did you... paint it?"
Caden looked slightly embarrassed. She glanced back at her tail tip, which was still discoloured from the painting she had been doing earlier. "I... wanted a way to make sure I didn't mix up my fake egg with any of these real eggs."
"Aww, you personalized it. How sweet."
"It was just a bit of paint. This place is so... corporate, that I thought a little colour would liven it up." Caden used her key to unlock the nesting box's small doorway, and she reached in and rested her paw on top of the egg. Her gaze softened, and for a rare moment she looked completely carefree. "You know, my egg was incubated in this exact room--not this fake egg, I mean my egg. I hatched right here, all those years ago."
Jarzyl's neck frill perked up. "Oh. That's nice. In this exact incubator?"
Caden laughed. "Heh. No, the incubators get replaced every few years. And the whole room has been renovated since I spent my time here. But I was... I came from right here in this room." Spreading her wings slightly, taking care not to hit the nesting boxes, the green scaled fledgling gestured around. "All this advanced technology and specialized systems, just to recreate the traditional environment of a dragon parent keeping their egg warm in a nest. Because people nowadays are too busy to take care of their own eggs."
"It's not just busyness. I think I would rather put my egg into a nesting box and let the machine make sure it's kept warm and safe, given all the trouble I've been having taking care of this fake," Jarzyl replied. She stared around the room and rested her paw on her own egg again. But she couldn't leave it here--this was a Taslin-Hasilt nursery, meant for the eggs that belonging to those two clans and their allies.
"I saw a nesting box like this at my house. My parents incubated my egg mostly in the medical centre, but the last few months or weeks they brought me home and took care of me themselves," Jarzyl continued.
Caden nodded approvingly. She closed the nesting box and withdrew her key. "I like that better. I might do that when or if I ever had to think about incubating a real egg of my own."
"Oh?" Jarzyl prompted.
"The first few months after an egg is laid, sure the hatchling is nothing but yolk, so that's fine being left in a nesting box. But I think I'd rather my future child hatch at home, rather than in a communal nursery. I'd prefer they hear my voice and my partner's rather than some recording done by scientists, and I'd prefer they actually smell my scales rather than some fake pheromones." Caden looked wistful for a moment, then her expression reassumed some of its usual cynical indifference. "Although... hypercompetitive clan rivalries, societal frictions, resource overexploitation, and all that. I don't know if I want to be responsible for bringing a life into this world."
Unlike Caden, Jarzyl thought the world was fantastic and full of great, amazing things like beautiful music and shiny airships and the delightful feel of air moving under her wings, and of course the best thing of all was friendship, family, and spending great time with great people. That aside, the idea of creating new life that hadn't existed before made her uncomfortable--more uncomfortable even that the thought of laying an egg, which was sure to be incredibly uncomfortable already. "Things aren't bad. Do you need a hug? I'd hug you, but carrying this egg is getting in the way."
Caden laughed again and a faint smile crossed her snout.
The two fledglings left the nursery, and they stepped into the nearby café. Feeling suddenly peckish, Jarzyl went to the counter and bought a packet containing assorted portions of dried berries coated in a layer of chocolate. She popped a chocolate-coated berry into her mouth, then she offered the packet towards Caden, who took one too.
"So what are you going to do with your egg?" Caden asked.
Jarzyl ate some more of the snack as she thought about it. "I want to get the nesting box I found at home into working condition, and seeing how these boxes operate, I think I know how to do that. Want to come help me?"
Caden shook her head reluctantly. "I would, but I have a study session later in the afternoon."
"Oh. That's fine. I can figure it out and I've borrowed enough of your time for the afternoon. Thanks for showing me this place, Caden."
Caden dipped her head in a casual, half bow. "Alright. See you in school tomorrow, Jarz!"
"See you." Jarzyl strolled over towards the nearest doorway and stepped out alone onto the balcony. The young dragon bent back on her hindlegs, then sprung into the air with a vigorous flap of her wings. She started turning towards her home neighbourhood, but then she kept turning even further until she was flying in a different direction altogether. "Hmm..."
TO BE CONTINUED