Scrambled Eggs: Chapter 1

Guardian. It was the last part of Brinjal’s Purity Trials, and he was intent on proving himself. Ormrhellir cave was rife with snakes, if the brothers were to be believed, and he had taken it upon himself to guard the others from these snakes. He had yet to see any, but he kept his ears pricked and alert as the others were occupied with their business. Veronika, Raoul, and Kaam turned over the rocks in the cavern, trying to sleuth out where all the snake eggs were. Raoul was in charge of the lantern, which meant the light was shifting too much for Kaam to do an ideal job. Apparently dragon eggs had been mixed in with the mass of snake eggs, and they needed to focus on finding them. Brinjal had never dealt with dragon eggs before, so he was quite happy to finish up his trials by guarding them. Then again, would Raoul put in a good word for him? How on earth would that wizard convince someone else to give him a certificate? Well, he could worry about that later.

With that said, Veronika and Raoul were doing a poor job at searching the cave. The walls were covered in glittering crystals that distracted the stryx and made the wizard hungry as he looked at them. Brinjal noticed the two being off-task from his post and huffed at them. “Are you going to stand around, or are you going to do what we came for?” They went back to their business for a few moments, lifting some rocks and finding nothing, then went back to admiring the glittering walls the moment they thought Brinjal looked away. The vayron didn’t want to spend his whole time both guarding and guiding, so he eventually stopped bothering with them and listened for snakes within the deep caverns. At least Kaam was on task; The brown Felvarg was dutifully searching the cavern, his silhouette barely visible outside of their lantern light.

Kaam turned out to be adept at finding eggs in the cavern. He carefully picked them up in his mouth, moved them over to the center of the room to be judged, then went back to sniffing around. He wasn’t familiar with the shape or color of dragon eggs--in fact, he had never even encountered a live dragon before--so he wanted to be extra careful dealing with the eggs. He didn’t count Veronika as a dragon. She was more of a bird-brain than anything else. The snake eggs had to be destroyed, but the dragon eggs were precious and needed to be preserved; He was hoping either Raoul or Veronika could sort out the two. He recognized a few differences here and there--a slightly softer shell, a solid connection to the other eggs versus a haphazard placement, and a bit of a discoloration. But which was which, and beyond those differences? He couldn’t tell. He just hoped that the serpents would stay away from their job or--barring that--Brinjal would scare them away from his guard post. 

The wolf bumped into Veronika in the darkness, the dracostryx making a startled squawk and flapping her wings. Kaam flattened his ears. “Don’t be too loud. The roof of the cavern could be close to collapsing.” A pile at the center of the cavern showed where thousands of years had worn out the roof of the cave. The roof itself had the holes and hollows indicative of bats, who would be weighing the ceiling down every night. “Loud noises could trigger it, then we’d be stuck here.”

Veronika nodded, her countenance becoming serious and hawk-like. Just as quickly as her face shifted, her expression went back to an empty-eyed bird brain. Kaam sighed. Hopefully she at least understood. He would do his best to avoid bumping into her again, just in case. He sauntered over to Brinjal to check in. “Do you sense anything?”

“Not yet,” replied the vayron. In truth, he heard a bit of sliding further down the tunnels, but it was hard to say if it was slithering or just typical cave noises. It was far enough away that he was unconcerned. “But I’ll be watching. How’s your search going?”

“Just as well,” Kaam replied. He motioned towards the pile with his nose. “I’ve nearly completed this room.”

As Kaam finished up the search, Veronika and Raoul found themselves entranced by the gemstones once again. “Do you think there’s something special about them?” Raoul asked the dracostryx. She nodded. Whether she sensed the low magic energy or just thought it looked pretty, he couldn’t tell. He handed it to her and she gently held it in her beak. “Let’s take home some of these.”

Kaam went to place the last of his eggs in the pile and noticed it had suddenly started glittering. The stryx had tucked the beautiful stones between the eggs, almost like it was building a hoard or a nest. He sighed and called out to them with a quiet bark. “Why did you mess up the pile?”

“We put it there to take it home,” Raoul replied. “I’m not sure how to carry it out, but I’m sure Brinjal will figure it out. He has puller training.”

Brinjal growled from his post. “I’m not pulling anything without a cart.”

“No one should pull anything at all,” Kaam added. “We came here to destroy eggs, not to gather collectables. You should put the stones back or find a way to pocket them yourself. Now then--” he sniffed at the eggs, trying to figure out which ones smelled like outside and which ones smelled like the cave-- “Help me figure out which ones to crack.”

Veronika blinked, looked from Kaam to the eggs to Kaam again, and then gave a loud shriek. The cave rumbled from her volume, but thankfully, it didn’t collapse. She fluffed up her feathers and lowered her neck, spreading her wings in a threat display. Kaam stepped back in surprise. “Nika?” The stryx hopped on top of the eggs, lowered her body, then covered everything up with her feathers. 

Raoul patted the dracostryx, trying to comfort her. “Nika...those aren’t your eggs.” She gave an indignant chirp, but Raoul already had a solution. He pulled some jerky out of his pocket and offered it to her. Just before she bit, he swiped it away, stepping back and luring her off the nest. Brinjal let out a grumpy sigh as he sensed his treat being stolen by the stupid bird. Kaam took the opportunity to quickly destroy what eggs he could, smashing them and doing his best not to get the yolk on his fur. Hopefully he was smashing the correct ones. 

Raoul let Veronika snatch the jerky the moment Kaam finished. She swallowed the jerky in one go, whirled around, and then made a tiny cry as she saw the destruction. She tentatively walked over to her adopted nest, surveying what remained, and then plucked up an intact egg in her beak. If Kaam had guessed right, that one would be a dragon egg. Raoul looked towards the wolf, who nodded back, then he pet Veronika again. “There you go. You can keep one. The others will be fine here.” He snatched up one of the gemstones for himself, then turned to Brinjal. “It’s time to go,” he called out.

Brinjal finally left his post, hoping the job was satisfactory enough. They carefully navigated the cavern until they saw a bit of light peeking out ahead. The others raced ahead, but Brinjal was much too distracted by something they passed to hurry on. He noticed a fresh snakeskin and passed by it without saying a word; Posting a guard as intimidating as him was a good call after all. Something had passed close by, then slithered away when it saw him standing there. The vayron grinned, proud of his work, but kept his eyes peeled until they finally left the cavern.