The Egg Assignment, part 3
#45 of The Life and Times of Jarzyl Mintaka (Slice of Life Stories)
Jarzyl goes looking for more help to take care of her egg
4032 words
Not really related image, but cute
Jarzyl could have gone home, but she still needed some help. There was also a gusty afternoon wind blowing in a different direction, so instead she altered course to fly towards a different city sector.
The buildings here were less pristinely clean than in sector one, mostly being either commercial or business facilities. However, nestled among the office skyscrapers and the large boxy warehouses was a small building merely three stories tall. The walls were old concrete covered in peeling paint of dirty grey colour that had once been white. Years ago this building had likely been an industrial manufactory or some sort of research lab, but now it served a different purpose.
Jarzyl was from Mintaka, and Caden was from Hasilt and Taslin--these were powerful apex clans, but here was an instance of the exact opposite. This was a sheltered home for clanless young dragons, and Atlas lived here.
The building was shaped like a square with a hollow in the middle for a courtyard, in which a dozen or so young dragons were scampering about as they chased after a ball. Other hatchlings and fledglings were sitting on the roof or at other levels, watching the game down below, chatting with each other, grooming scales, or simply enjoying a bask in the afternoon sun. It could have passed for the communal home of a small and not too well-off clan, but there were no clan insignias to be seen anywhere. A humble pair of flagpoles stood at opposite ends of the rooftop, marking the local wind direction but shaded with only a plain grey colour.
Jarzyl had only been here a couple of times before, mostly out of curiosity ever since she'd learned Atlas was clanless. She circled the building once, then came in for a landing with a headwind and made a smooth touchdown. As Jarzyl folded in her wings and started strolling towards the stairwell that led into the sheltered home, one of the dragons already on the rooftop stood up and moved to intercept her.
He was a skinny drake with scales of a dark blue colouration, but with his underbelly and limbs shading to light blue, and his paws looked like they were dipped in white. He was clearly too old to be a fledgling like Jarzyl, yet there still was a youthful swiftness to his stride. Notably, he wore wingtip pennants that didn't have a clan crest, but instead had the crest of the City of Wings. "What have we here--a lost little fledge? You don't live here," he said in a casual, sing-song voice.
Jarzyl nodded. "I have a friend who--" But the grey drake cut her off with a shocked gasp.
"Whuuh! Is that an_egg_ you've got there?! Are you making a drop off?" The drake dipped his head to peer at the egg that Jarzyl was carrying in the sling around her neck, and he also noted the neckerchief she was wearing. "And is that a_Mintaka_ insignia? You want to turn a Mintaka egg clanless?"
Jarzyl blinked. "No, I'm not dropping off this egg to make it clanless. I just need to see a friend who lives here, to get help with this thing."
The drake squinted at her suspiciously. "Oh?Who?"
"Atlas."
"Atlas? Unexpected. How unexpectedly irresponsible of him." The drake sat back and scratched at his chin. "Hmmm... I always thought Atlas had a keen sense of perspective. But even the most disciplined of fledglings can be foolish, when passions run hot."
Jarzyl's frill twitched as she tried to understand this statement, then it drooped flat against her neck when comprehension dawned. "No, no. It's... it's not like that. I wouldn't... Atlas and I are just friends, I would never... No, this isn't a real egg." She slapped at the egg through the bottom of the sling, bouncing it up and down to demonstrate.
"Beep! Light impact."
"It's just a fake that everyone in class got for an assignment," Jarzyl explained.
The drake breathed a dramatic sigh of relief. "Ahh, merely a training egg, I see. Yes, now that you mention it, I do recall Atlas bringing home a training egg from school. Very well then. You know where your friend's room is?"
"Uhh..."
The drake stepped aside and gestured down the stairwell. "Down to the third floor, then turn left immediately, and Atlas's room is second to last at the end of the corridor."
"Thanks!" With a quick bow to the drake, Jarzyl headed in.
It was rare for Jarzyl to come to visit Atlas in his home, mostly because she had no reasons to do so. For school projects, study sessions, sleepovers, or general socializing in their friend group, Jarzyl's home had much more room and was far closer to their school in sector one. Caden's home was a good alternative too, but the clanless shelter which Atlas lived in was definitely not a good meeting place.
It had a lively, crowded atmosphere, but there just wasn't much free space. The lower levels were broken up into dormitory rooms shared between eight, twelve, or even twenty young dragons, each of them with just a bed mat to sleep on and a chest that functioned as both storage and a writing desk. Whereas apex clans had individual homes for each family or even individual, smaller clans sometimes used this sort of communal household, though the clanless shelter took it to an extreme.
There was so little space, and even the rooms and corridors felt smaller than usual. Across the open space of the courtyard, Jarzyl spotted a quartet of young hatchlings lying on top of a larger fledgling, all snoozing together in a cosy pile right beside an open window through which the afternoon breeze was blowing.
The laughs and yells and general chatter of young dragon voices echoed across the walls. Pausing her walk, Jarzyl stepped aside as three hatchlings came down the corridor in file--they looked only a few years younger than her, and likely close to the fledgling growth spurt, but they were still much smaller. The first hatchling was holding a broom head with both her forepaws and resolutely pushing it across the smooth concrete floor with sweeping motions, followed immediately by a second hatchling who was dragging along a mop and leaving a wet trail behind him, and finally there came a third hatchling who was standing on a large cloth and doing a shuffling step to dry off the floor. Their cleaning implements were almost as wide as their bodies were long, but still only big enough to clean a half side of the corridor at once, and they moved with a determined impatience to get their chore done.
They were so focused on their task that they barely paid Jarzyl any attention at all as they marched past her, but the third hatchling caught sight of her clan insignia and did a doubletake. Jarzyl coughed awkwardly, and she hurriedly continued down the corridor. Coming up to the second to last door, she used her tail tip to knock.
"Yes? Come in? Oh, it's_you_! What are you doing here?" Atlas asked, as Jarzyl opened the door.
Unlike the lower two floors of the clanless shelter, the third level did have individual bedrooms, offering some privacy but certainly not any more space. Atlas's bedroom was_cramped_--there wasn't even enough space for a dragon to spread both wings open at once, and Jarzyl was fairly certain that the storage room attached to her parents' bedroom or even the washroom attached to her own bedroom were larger in size.
Almost all the floor space was taken up by a bed mat, and what little remaining space was used by a storage chest with a flat top so it could be used as a desk. There was a simple light strip mounted in the ceiling, and a glass window that was swung open, but no balcony--balconies were a mainstay for buildings in Avaeria, but here the rooms were packed so closely together that any sort of balcony wouldn't have the space for a landing or takeoff.
Atlas was resting on his bed mat, lying on his right side but with his left wing mantled out to cover his underbelly and hindlegs like a blanket. His forelegs were exposed however, or rather, foreleg, since he was a cripple missing his left forelimb. His bed mat was a dark grey colour, but his sooty black scales were darker still and just seemed to absorb the afternoon light as it spilled in through the open window.
Jarzyl blinked, and then she frowned at her friend. Still standing in the open doorway, she asked, "Since when did you have a bedroom to yourself? Last time I visited, you were sharing a dormitory room downstairs."
Atlas had been reading from a novel--a library book--but he put it down. "That was more than a year ago. Since I'm a fledgling now, I've got privileges. I requested to move up here to the third level, where there are individual bedrooms." Atlas glanced around his room, then back at Jarzyl. "I like the quiet, though it's much more cramped than a big open dormitory room."
Jarzyl squeezed into the room and closed the door behind her. With two fledglings who were increasingly approaching adult drakken size, the room's limited size was very apparent. "You know, back when you never let me visit you here, I had a vastly different impression of your home life."
Atlas was still lying on his side with his wing mantled out, but he gave her a curious look. "Which was...?" he prompted.
"Eeehhhh..." Jarzyl made a hesitant noise. "From knowing you, and from knowing that other clanless fledgling Glecion, the blind fledgling, I sort of got the impression that the clanless shelter was this street gang hideout for outlaws, orphans, and other abandoned young dragons?"
"Hahahahah..." Atlas laughed quietly, but genuinely, and Jarzyl found herself chuckling along. "You thought being clanless is like being in a_street gang_?"
"I don't know! I've known you for so long and I always thought of you as a very normal sort of dragon who was my good friend, but then one time you casually mentioned you were clanless, and that was a huge revelation for me. It was... it was discovering you had this secret mysterious half that I never knew about! I thought you were so normal! Other than the missing leg thing, but that's not that unusual."
Atlas looked amused. "Oh, it isn't unusual?"
"Ok, maybe it is unusual. I don't know any other dragon who is missing a leg. But being clanless is definitely weirder than that." Jarzyl flicked her wings in a loose shrug. There wasn't much space in the room to even gesture with her wings. "Because... because I've read books, and clanless dragons are... the bandits and pirates who attack airship convoys, or they are the thieves and vigilantes and gang members?"
Atlas was just grinning amusedly at her. "And now you know the truth. Yes, historically before the shelter was set up, clanless young dragons were treated as if they were adult clanless dragons and were transported out to the Outer Colonies. But that was a long time ago. My life, and indeed the life of all the other clanless young dragons here at the shelter, does not involve exciting outcast crime. It's all about trying to do well in and out of school so that we get adopted by a proper clan."
Jarzyl sighed. "Yeah, I figured as much."
Atlas was quiet for a moment, judging her with those deep, dark brown eyes of his. Then he glanced down, taking in the carrier sling around her neck. "So then. Jarz, why are you here? And why'd you bring_that_with you?"
Jarzyl took off the sling and unwrapped her egg, putting it down on Atlas's bed mat. "I've been having trouble taking care of it."
"Oh, really?" Atlas asked drily. "Too hard for you to resist the urge to drop it?"
Jarzyl stuck her tongue out at him. "Not that! Although yes, I may have dropped it a few times. But my parents are out of city on vacation, so I'm figuring out how to take care of this egg all by myself. There's a nesting box at home and I was trying to get it working, so I wanted to come see how my friends are doing. I was just at Caden's place, and she showed me the Hasilt-Taslin nursery."
"Must have been fancy."
"It was... interesting. They had rows and rows of nesting boxes, with all sorts of advanced environmental control. They even controlled the smell of the place and played weird talking sounds for brain development or something. Argle blah dee mrrr," Jarzyl babbled, imitating the sounds. "Do you... does the clanless shelter do the same thing?"
Atlas snorted. "Pah. A nursery? I wish. That takes space. And money. Do you have any idea how expensive a nesting box is? This isn't an apex clan--here we run things_frugal_."
"Then how are you taking care of your egg?" Jarzyl had been standing near the door, and now she hopped onto Atlas's bed mat to sit down next to him. Rather than shifting to make space for her, however, Atlas remained as he was, lying on his side with his wing mantled out and taking up a good portion of the bed. "And why are you holding your wing like that?" Jarzyl asked.
"Those two questions you asked have the same answer," Atlas said.
Jarzyl took a second to process this, then her neck frill perked right up. "Woah, wait. Are you... are you_sitting_ on your egg? Right now?"
Her friend chuckled. "Weren't you listening in class today? You don't sit on eggs. You're supposed to sit beside them, and keep them snug against your underbelly or your side, using your wing like a blanket." Using his forepaw, Atlas gestured over his wing. "Like so."
That was certainly_different_. Jarzyl reached out and hesitantly lifted the edge of Atlas's wing to peer underneath--and there was an egg. Atlas then flipped up his wing and furled it onto his back, revealing four more eggs of slightly varying size, shape, and shades of whitish or brownish colour, which he had keeping warm using his wing.
Jarzyl gestured at the eggs. One, two, three, four, five. "Oh. Oh. Are those... uh... That's more than one!"
An amused smirk crossed her friend's face. "Obviously. It's just as easy to keep a few eggs warm at once, as it is to keep a single egg warm. Why have five fledglings keep eggs warm when one can do the work? Because this a_chore_, you realize? We have chores for cleaning the rooms, clearing the trash, washing the bedlinen, making meals, and there is also nesting the eggs. Not like how your clan does it."
It certainly was not. When it came to an apex clan like Mintaka, everything was done with efficiency and scale--even for something basic like household chores and maintenance. Jarzyl did have to keep her room somewhat tidy, but once or twice a week a cleaning team would go through the neighbourhood and systematically clean every house. No need to push around a mop or brush off furniture with a duster--instead it was copious amounts of water and air magic, applied by professionals who could scrub an entire room clean in mere minutes, with but a subtle wave of the paw.
Atlas continued, "I've always been bad at pushing around a broom because of the... whole missing forelimb_thing_, so I usually get assigned to take care of the very young hatchlings or keeping the eggs warm. I'm quite used to those chores."
Jarzyl's neck frill reached maximum perkiness, standing straight up from sheer curiosity. "Oh wow. Whose eggs are those?"
"I don't know. They're all clanless, just like me." Atlas gestured at the eggs, and Jarzyl saw that each one had a number painted on, so they didn't get mixed up. "Could be their parents died or somehow aren't able to take care of them, or could be their former clan has too many eggs and couldn't afford to feed so many hatchlings. And if they don't want to smash the eggs, then they end up clanless."
Jarzyl stared at the eggs, then she stared at her friend. "So those are... are real eggs. With real living hatchlings growing inside them."
"Yes. Don't drop or shake these ones, Jarz."
Jarzyl took her own fake egg, and she found that small indentation in the shell which was a button. "Bleep. Event reporting: Two... temperature too low. Remember to keep me warm! One... shaking detected. Don't shake me! One... hard impact detected. Don't drop me! Three... medium impact detected. Don't drop me! Twelve... light impact detected. Don't drop--"
Jarzyl neck frill drooped back to normal. She jabbed at the button again, cutting off the egg as it gave its report. "Enough of that."
Atlas chuckled, but he also shook his head. "Are you even_trying_to care of it?"
"Hey! I'm trying--not very hard--but I am trying. And I didn't ask to be a parent to this egg!" Jarzyl gestured over the five eggs Atlas was taking care of. "Which one is yours?"
Atlas examined the eggs, they he gently tapped a claw against a specific one. "That would be this one. It's the fake."
He shifted the egg away from the others, and then just like Jarzyl had done, he found the button and pressed it. "Bleep. Event reporting: Nothing detected. Good job!"
"Hhmmm..." Jarzyl hummed curiously. "You're good at that."
"I've had practice. This is a chore we have here at the shelter. Some people find it boring to lie still and keep eggs warm for hours and hours, but I just read a book or do my schoolwork."
"Hhmmm... You're good at that," Jarzyl repeated. She glanced down on her own egg, which she was resting her paw on, then she glanced up at Atlas. With a casual movement, she slowly pushed it towards the five eggs Atlas had beside him.
Atlas watched with mild amusement. "Are you trying to cuckoo me?"
"No!" Jarzyl replied defensively. "But you said that keeping a few eggs warm isn't harder than keeping one egg warm. So... you could... help me keep this egg warm too? What if I asked nicely and said pleeease?"
"These are_clanless_ eggs, being taken care of by a clanless fledgling. You're from_Mintaka_. Use your own clan nursery. Or didn't you say you had a nesting box at home?"
"I still haven't worked out how to get it working. Maybe you can come over to my place and help me figure it out? Later after you're done with your chore, of course. And in the meantime you could... also..." Jarzyl tapped her egg. "Help me keep this warm? Please, please?"
Atlas gave her a sceptical look, but he didn't say no.
"Please, please? I'll stay here and keep you company."
"My shift still has another hour and a half. If you want to wait, then fine. Just make sure that later you don't get mixed up and accidentally take one of the real eggs home..." Atlas gestured for her to push the egg towards him.
"Thanks! Thank you!" Stepping closer, Jarzyl slid the egg over towards her friend. "I owe you."
"You do owe me."
"I know." With a grin, Jarzyl leaned closer and bumped her snout against Atlas's neck affectionately. She patted him on the chest, then on his midriff near where her egg was resting against him. Atlas had a lean fledgling build, but his scales still felt warm to the touch. "Keep it nice and warm. And just let me know how you want me to repay the favour."
A faint grin crossed Atlas's snout too. "I'll think about it."
Jarzyl's neck frill suddenly perked up as something occurred to her. "I do have something you might want..." Atlas's gaze followed her paw as she slid it down her side, then she flipped open a flight harness pouch and took out the snack packet she'd bought earlier. "Want some chocolate berries?"
Atlas looked pleased, as she'd known he would be. Everyone liked food. "Yes please."
Unsealing the packet again, Jarzyl offered it to her friend, who took one berry and ate it. Then Jarzyl ate one too. "Mhhm. Nice."
Curiosity got the better of her, and Jarzyl couldn't help but stare at the eggs. She bent down to sniff at the white ovoids--they felt warm, and smelled fresh and pleasant. As Jarzyl gingerly nosed at one particular egg which was the smallest of the lot, suddenly a faint "cheep!" sound emanated from within. It wasn't a machine beep sound like the fake eggs made, but instead a soft chirp.
Jarzyl flinched backwards in shock, bumping against the wall as she recoiled sharply. "Ooh! It made a sound!"
Atlas nodded calmly. "Yes, that one is almost ready. Probably no more than a few weeks before the hatchling will crack the shell." Atlas flipped out his wing, then he carefully mantled it down on top of the eggs again, covering them all like a blanket.
Jarzyl's neck frill was back up to maximum perkiness. "Wow. Real eggs. Real hatchlings. That's... interesting."
"That's life." Picking up the library book again, Atlas flipped to his bookmark and resumed reading.
Sitting back on her haunches, Jarzyl draw a deep breath then let it out in a slow exhale. Prowling forward, she went to go see what book Atlas was reading--it was a novel about a detective solving crime mysteries, which she had read several months ago and then recommended to him. Jarzyl nodded approvingly, but then something else occurred to her as she stared at the book's stark, black-and-white cover.
"Colourless," she muttered. Glancing around the room, she repeated her assertion. "Everything is... is colourless. Have you ever realized that? You don't have colour in your room. The walls are painted white, the floor is grey concrete, your bed mat and blanket are both a light grey colour too, and your storage chest is metal grey. It's all greyscale." Jarzyl frowned at her friend. "Even your scales are a flat black!"
Atlas replied without looking up from his book. "Yup. The only thing coloured in this room is_you_, Jarz. But what a bright colour you are."
Jarzyl glanced down at herself, though obviously she knew her own colouration--her scales were a warm amber orange, like a fiery sunset or a carrot, only slightly lightening for her belly. "Oh, that's true. Hehehe. I add colour to your room. To your life."
"Indeed."
That was a pleasant thought. Carefully stepping over Atlas's tail, Jarzyl lay down right beside him, on the opposite side of the eggs he was keeping warm. The vibrant orange shades of her scales were a sharp contrast against his flat, jet-black colouration. A warm beam of sunshine was shining in through the window, and a gust of wind sent fresh air rolling through the room.
Taking her snack packet again, Jarzyl picked out a berry and ate it. Taking another one, she leaned over and popped it into Atlas's mouth. "Mm. Thanks," he murmured.
Reaching out her paw, Jarzyl grabbed one of Atlas's horns and jiggled his head--not enough to distract him from his reading, but enough to make her grin. After a moment she shifted closer and snuggled up against her friend, hugging him from behind. It left her feeling warm on both sides--from the sunshine coming in through the window, and from Atlas's body heat as his scales touched against hers. Half extending the claws of one paw, she idly ran them down Atlas's back just between his wings, making him shiver faintly. "Hey," he muttered.
"Hey, you..." Jarzyl murmured back. It was quiet and cosy, comfortable and calm--the ideal environment for lazy afternoon nap. In mere minutes she had dozed off
TO BE CONCLUDED