He awoke to an odd cracking sound.
He sat up straight, face lit up with joy even though the room was totally dark. He sat completely still and listened carefully. Yes, there it was again - cracking, followed by a small, sharp squeal.
Anwyn leaped out of bed, landing lightly on his feet, and raced over to his desk, enunciating a quick spell that created an orb of soft light - a werelight - over his hand. He went to his knees and bent over the desk, face radiant with hope. The orange and white dragon egg was wobbling slightly, and a few cracks had appeared on the surface.
Anwyn grinned, quivering with excitement. A few more tapping sounds came from the egg, and it began to wobble more vigorously than before. It rolled uneasily to the edge of the wooden desktop, and Anwyn gently moved it back to the middle. He gasped in delight as what appeared to be a small, white foot burst from the shell, creating a small explosion of shell bits that rained down onto the desk. There came a small victorious chirp, followed by another more muffled one and a few scratching noises. It was the renewing of life in age-old world; a beautiful dawning of hope. It was the beginning of everything Anwyn had always dreamed of.
The foot returned to the recesses of the egg; and in another spot of the shell, another scaly orangish appendage emerged, creating a larger crack that connected with the first and caused a large piece of the shell to fall off. It left a gaping, dark hole in the shell; but in the center of the abyss, a small form stirred.
Anwyn sat frozen as, with one final wobble, the egg exploded apart. The baby creature tumbled out of the destroyed shell and flopped onto the desk with a wet squelch. It lay there for a moment, apparently insensate as Anwyn stared at in wonder.
It was pale orange in color, like the intense light of the early morning sun mixed with a pure snowdrift. It was mostly covered in a viscous clear material that clung to its skin, dulling the brightness of the scales. It had a long, elegant neck and a strong, proportioned body, with a tiny pair of folded membranous wings on its back. Its limbs were spread out on the desk, and its tail was no more than a four inch nub. The beginnings of spikes were evident on the neck and back, while they appeared as mere bumps under the skin on its head, spaced evenly apart.
Then it raised its tiny head and blinked once at Anwyn, still sprawled out on the desk in its puddle of egg fluid. Its eyes were colored as intense as the hues of a burning flame, made up of endless shades of red, yellow, and orange. As one eye focused on Anwyn, the colors seemed to waver, dancing in the iris like fiery wraiths. They weren't a single, steady hue, like those of the dragon Saphira, which were a constant deep blue. These were infinitely more intense - beautiful in a foreign, mysterious way and multitudes more captivating.
The baby dragon gave a brief, abrupt shake of its head, flinging away some of the clingy liquid. It took one step toward Anwyn, staring at him intently. It stretched its nose toward him, sniffing him. Anwyn bent over it, feeling a fierce protection for it at once. He somehow knew now that there was nothing that would ever be able to separate him from the creature. They had already forged an unbreakable bond, deeper and clearer than anything either had ever known.
Anwyn reached his right hand toward the dragon. It brought its nose forward and gently butted his palm. As soon as they touched, blazing light burst forth from Anwyn's palm. He gasped and reeled backwards as his entire arm was consumed by searing, white-hot pain, causing him to collapse on the floor, screaming. It was cold and hot at the same time, like some sort of poker that had been laid in a paradoxical fire before being stabbed into his skin.
He gasped and sat up, sweat coating his forehead. The pain had ended just as abruptly as it had begun, leaving behind an annoyingly itchy sensation. The werelight hovered dimly above his head. Anwyn glanced at the baby dragon on the desk, which seemed to be attempting to join him on the floor, walking back and fourth across the edge of the desk and looking anxiously at Anwyn.
Anwyn forced himself to relax, allowing his breathing to slow down and even out. Then, with a feeling of finality like the sealing of his fate, he turned his palm over to see the gedwëy ignasia etched there - the shining silver diffused spiral oval that marked him as a dragon rider. It still itched obnoxiously, and Anwyn scraped his palm across the floor in irritation.
There was a small thud as the baby dragon leaped off the desk and landed on the floor a few feet away, squeaking in frustration as it scrabbled around on its back. Smiling, Anwyn picked it up reverently and let it rest in front of him, where it began licking clean its scales. It stretched out its wings to lick them near the base, and the werelight shone through the translucent membrane of the wings as well as the strings of the slimy clear fluid that clung to them. Anwyn stared at it, in awe of the tiny adorable thing. He could hardly imagine that something so small and weak would someday grow to rival the might of the ancient dragons of Old Vroengard.
After fully cleaning itself, the dragon crawled toward Anwyn and sniffed his fingers. Anwyn smiled and smoothed them over the dragon's leathery head. It closed its eyes and gave a small keen of pleasure, then scrabbled into Anwyn's lap and nestled itself across his legs. Anwyn enclosed his arm around it, creating a cozy alcove. He stroked its belly, where the tough scales grew smaller and softer to create a small, squishy, vulnerable spot near the underside of the dragon's tail. There were no distinguishing marks or organs to reveal the gender of the dragon, but somehow Anwyn knew that it was male. With their minds forever interlinked like they were now, he had somehow detected a small sense of masculinity within the tiny creature.
Soon the dragon was fast asleep in Anwyn's arms, belly exposed to the air while its three-toed paws were curled up cozily. Anwyn stared happily at the creature for a little while before extinguishing the werelight and crawling back into bed, pulling the covers over both him and the dragon. He nestled the little creature right near his chest, nudged it against the pillow, and pulled the blankets up to the base of its neck.
He didn't fall asleep for a long time. He lay there staring at the dragon via the soft, hazy light of an impotent blue werelight, with his hand enclosed guardingly over its back, looking forward to what the future held for them.
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