Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

--William Blake, "The Tyger"

---
One misty morning, Ordon found himself deep in the Wandering Contagion with Nimbus. The entire clan had ventured into Plague Flight territory to do some scavenging, although all of the dragons were a bit nervous.

Nimbus was twisting rapidly through the air, jumping around between what seemed like three conversations at once. Ordon had gotten tired of trying to follow along and was starting to hope that Nimbus would just fall suddenly asleep as he tended to do. Meanwhile, he continued scraping through the remnants of a diseased, rotten log.

His claws scraped against something slimy and he jumped back, but curiosity prompted him to investigate further. It was some sort of slimy green pod. Nimbus recognized it as a Plague Egg. After that, even he was rendered speechless.

They showed the egg to the rest of the clan. Shay and Grayson were immediately suspicious. Stirling seemed uneasy. Dendrobates wanted nothing to do with it. The adult dragons discussed leaving the egg where they had found it and getting out of Plague lands immediately.

But Ordon was filled with anger at the mere suggestion. He scooped the the egg into his front claws and glared at the other members of the clan. "There's a hatchling in here. An innocent hatchling without a friend in the world."

"Hatchlings survive without parents all the time," Shay said. "I've heard nothing but bad things about Plague dragons all my life. Your intentions are noble, but I don't think it's a good idea to bring it back to the lair."

"I'm not leaving without it," Ordon said, sitting down on the ground, jaw set. "If that means you go home without me, then so be it. This egg is all alone. I'm all it has, and I'm going to keep it safe. Don't try and stop me."

The rest of his clan stayed silent, recognizing with dismay the protective instinct of a Guardian who had just located his ward. The silence was broken by a small cracking sound accompanied by a loud squelch; the egg was hatching.

"It's so..." Dendrobates wrinkled his snout. "...orange."

"Shut up, Den!" Ordon looked out at the tiny dragon between his claws. It shook a fragment of sticky shell off its head and looked up at him with big, red eyes. "He's... cute. Cutest hatchling I've ever seen."

"He is cute." Faron came closer to her brother to look at the hatchling. "Just think how cute he would look with a tiger gene."

"We need to go," Stirling said, looking over his shoulder. "I think I heard something. It could be a dragon."

"I'm not going if we can't bring the hatchling," Ordon said. The hatchling latched on to his foreleg, clinging tightly with his front claws and squeaking in distress.

Shay stood in front of her son. "Give him here, Ordon."

Ordon stared silently up at her, placing one foreleg protectively over the newborn dragon.

"You can't take care of a hatchling. You're barely more than a hatchling, yourself," Shay said. "I'll carry him back to the lair."

Hesitantly, Ordon held the hatchling out toward her.

"Come here, little one." Shay picked the hatchling up gently between her jaws. With one massive flap of her jaws, she took to the sky. Ordon followed closely all the way back to the lair.

Later, Faron and Ordon purchased the Tiger gene from the marketplace and covered the hatchling in beautiful stripes from head to tail. Inspired by the pattern, they decided to name the young dragon Symmetris.