Euhedral

Of the 5,732 eggs laid during the year of the shade stricken only 9 survived.

Some of the eggs never hardened. Coming out soft and gelatinous with dark shapes squirming inside. Others seemed normal at first. No obscenely bulging lumps on the side, bigger than the egg itself. No jutting thorns sticky with blood. No oozing black slime. They were softly fluorescent like proper shadow eggs should be, and had bumps in all the right places.

How lucky, the parents sighed to themselves. That they had been spared from the horrors their neighbors had been afflicted with.

Generously, they would have on hand jars of thick mesquite bean jelly, tea loaves, seed crackers, and chestnut cakes. Ever prepared with sympathetic ears to comfort an affected parent. It was easy to sooth their crying when they had a nest full of healthy eggs behind them.

They never did wonder why their eggs were always cold to the touch; no matter how long they brooded on them or how much insulating hay they added around the nest. Each pair blamed the other for being neglectful during their turn warming the eggs.

You'll have to forgive them for not realizing the disaster that would be obvious to you or I. These were simple folk. Few of them had schooling, and fewer still ventured past their neighbor's boundaries during the shade stricken year. If they had perhaps they would have heard of perfectly good eggs that would crack open weeks early, spilling out dripping, snapping, monstrosities. But they did not, of course. The majority of those afflicted were of common blood.

It glowed, even in the deepest parts of the foxfire brambles, from all of the pyres built.

~!~

It was a tragedy the likes of which the Tangled Wood has not felt since. But it was not all bad, remember? 9 eggs survived. And you are looking at one of them. Well, at what that egg looks like as an adult anyways.

Euhedral hatched, bright eyed and curious. Fortunately, he was healthy. Unfortunately, he could never seem to manage to convince anyone else of that fact. A stubbed toe? Off to the healers. Scales not shiny enough? Off to the healers. Sneezing in the pollen filled air? Healers, now.

He grew up smothered, cloistered, sheltered and every other synonym you can think of for overbearing parents.

No surprise, then, that not long after he managed to get his feet under him he started leaving the manor grounds. Away from their tea parties and carefully monitored play dates to the wide open world of adventure.

And what better place to find adventure than the courier grounds? Where dragons have just come in from delivering packages from all over the world. The things they have seen. The places they have been. All of it seemed quite fantastic to a young dragonet who had never even left the city let alone the Tangled Wood.

The couriers themselves didn't help matters much. Often spinning tales for the lad that pushed past the bounds of reality.

Storms became hurricanes, birds became rocs, and holes became canyons.

The only one willing to correct his misconceptions was the prim and exact, Duck. Apprentice courier. And a big believer in the truth. Even when it was disappointing.

To him it was love at first sight. To her it was why is this snot nosed little kid following me and how do I get him to stop?