Lemonade

Choro had been getting bored with his standard pranks and mischief, especially because it was so hard to get away with things anymore. His mother always knew what he was up to, and he couldn't hide away or get some adult to protect him with big round eyes anymore , because he wasn't a cute hatchling. But he still had endless amounts of energy to get rid of, so he talked Kratos and Arala into going to the coliseum with him. Kratos had been unsure, of course, but Arala had instantly taken to the air and was turning flips and doing loop de loops until Kratos finally agreed. So it was off to the training fields.

The three had taken instantly to fighting. Kratos was the biggest and the strongest of the three, but Arala's deft magic definitely helped. Choro didn't mind lagging behind a little, because he was usually the one to drag the others out of battle if their wounds got a little too intense for them to carry on. Still, they were all pretty good at it, and soon they had left the training fields to explore the woodland path. That proved to be more of a challenge, and Kratos hated fighting basilisk, but Choro charged ahead regardless of what their enemies were.

It was after one such fight with these basilisk that Choro noticed the shining egg that one of the fleeing creatures had left behind. "Look! I got us some dinner!" he said, pointing to it excitedly. "I've never had basilisk egg before."

Kratos was cleaning out his claws. "You got us dinner?" he grumbled under his breath. "I'm usually the one doing most of the fighting here, but yes, you can take the credit."

Arala flitted over to examine the egg with her tiny hands. "This isn't a basilisk egg, you idiot," she scolded. "It's a dragon egg! A big one too."

All three of them peered down at the egg, a mixture of curiosity and disbelief on their faces. "What do we do with it?" Kratos asked, shifting awkwardly.

"What do you think we do with it?" Choro replied, picking it up gently. "We take it to my mom, of course."

**

Amala studied the egg. "You know you shouldn't have gone to the coliseum without supervision," she chided softly, which made all three youngsters shuffle their feet.

"We were fine," Choro said. "We stuck to the training fields mostly."

"Mostly?" Her voice was still soft, but it could have started frosting the room over.

Choro gulped. "Well. We got really good at the training fields. So we found the egg on the woodland path. That's as far as we went. Honest."

Amala narrowed her eyes at him, but then went back to the egg. "You did a good thing bringing this to me. It looks like it's going to hatch any day now."

They all looked at the egg again. As if on cue, it wobbled. Choro scrambled back, Kratos froze, and Arala took to the air. Amala waved a hand at all of them and crouched a little bit closer. There was a distinct ticking noise from inside the egg, which got louder as a crack appeared in the shell. Amala kept her eyes focused on the egg, but made no move towards or away from it.

"You've had a nest before," Choro whispered to Kratos. "Is this normal?"

Kratos shrugged. "My eggs didn't glow," he said. "Besides, I wouldn't call myself an expert."

There was more tapping, and more cracks, and then a head popped out. Arala landed on top of Kratos' head herself. "Look! There it is! Looks like a guardian!"

"It is a guardian," Amala replied, leaning closer to touch the little head lightly with the tip of her snout. The tiny hatchling made a small noise of recognition, and continued to break open the shell so that it could crawl out. He was the lightest, most delicate pink, with light green wings, and bright yellow eyes.

Amala helped pick spare pieces of shell off of the little wet body. "I wonder how a light egg ended up on this side of the strait," she mused. "Go and tell Lysiae. We have a new addition to the clan."

The three young dragons stood still for a moment, and then Arala took off, zipping out of the cave and into the tunnel. Kratos took a hesitant step forward, but he didn't say anything. He rarely did around one of the three clan leaders.

"Can I help take care of him?" Choro asked.

Amala looked up at him. "Are you sure you're ready for that responsibility? There's more to raising hatchlings than fun and games you know."

"I know. But we found him. We're sort of like his parents. The three of us." Choro glanced around and saw that Arala wasn't there. "Well. I don't know how she feels about it. But you feel responsible, right Kratos?"

Kratos froze. Amala just smiled and shook her head. "Alright. You can help take care of him. But you can't take him to the coliseum with you."

Choro gave her the best imitation of her own scornful look that he could manage. "Take a hatchling to the coliseum? Who do you think I am?"

She laughed. "Well, the first part of taking care of hatchlings is feeding them. Go on you two, go get some food for this poor hungry baby." And when the two of them had left, she tickled the hatchling gently. "Welcome to your new home, young one."

(goals: giraffe, shimmer, lace)