(2022-11-28) Hatching Out

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Author:	Saaron
Summary:	Sandy's mysterious unhatched egg finally hatches! And he needs to make a difficult decision about what to do with what comes out of it.
Rating:	T for Teen

“Sandy ?” Ekorenine asks, knocking on his room’s door. She waits for an answer that doesn’t come. “Your breakfast is right here when you wake up, all right?” Her voice gets quieter. “Yes, you can leave the plate here, that is very sweet of you, Florendine. Please you do not have to wait right here.”

The two women’s steps quietly move away from the door. Sandy doesn’t move, curled up in his bed, Bubble the rat sleeping next to him, Sine, his mechanical squirrel, frozen like a statue on his desk, and, finally, Dragon, his parrot, lies asleep on top of the twice-her-size spiked egg, which itself sits on top of Sandy’s bedside table. The egg he randomly received in the mail a few months ago. The egg he was losing hope would ever hatch.

Even if the Cathedral’s bells have recently rung eleven, the room is still completely dark due to the drawn curtains. At least Sandy wishes it would be. All night he tried to fall asleep, keeping his eyes closed shut, ignoring the faint green glow he could perceive through his eyelid and the odd, scratching noises coming from somewhere inside his room.

In the past few weeks, Sandy was experiencing the most wonderful of dreams, and with everything that had happened to him recently, he needed that. He’d been dreaming of verdant forests, of laughter, of time spent exploring new worlds with the Company, Gwen, and his family. He’d dream of cleansing artifacts, capable of removing corruption from any being.

Those dreams were a lot more fun than reality right now. At least, he could count on them to make everything a little better at the end of the day. At first, all he wanted to do was sleep, just to get back to this wonderful world. He quickly realized that wasn’t working, though, so Sandy progressively began going out of the house a little bit more. The more energy he spent, the better he would sleep! He’d walk all over Stormwind, sometimes even into the Elwynn Forest just to get a glimpse of the wondrous world of his dreams. Still, this wasn’t enough as the Forest just isn’t as wild as the one in his dream… and the real world is full of ghosts. He really thought that ritual in Nagrand would change his life for the better; being able to see the spirits of the dead sounded like so much fun! It sometimes gets a little difficult to get some alone time with them all around everywhere, though. Especially since he doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s not a Draenei death priest! He can’t help put them to rest or anything. As much as he'd like to…

Even with all the energy he’d spent the previous day, however, it was impossible to fall asleep all night. And he didn’t want to deal with whatever was happening in his room. Dealing with problems meant getting up, getting up meant not sleeping, not sleeping meant not dreaming. For all he knew, too, that green glow was the Fel’s, and dealing with the Fel could wait. He’d never stop hearing or feeling it anyway, now.

He hears Dragon jumping off the egg and grasping her talons on his bed’s headboard, which wakes up Bubble, startling. The bird loudly squawks next to Sandy’s ear, and Bubble begins climbing on his face.

That’s definitely not helping him fall asleep.

He slowly, difficulty opens his eyes to stare at the egg, realizing now that this is where the green glow came from. The egg shakes, as small pieces of shell begin falling to the ground. Sandy abruptly sits upright on his bed, Bubble fighting for his life to find balance on his shoulder as he does. Dragon keeps squawking and jumping from the bed onto Sandy’s shoulder onto the bedside table in a circle.
A slimy, small claw comes out at the top of the egg, then disappears right back inside. Sandy tilts his head and leans forward to get a better look at what’s hiding there, and that’s when a big orange eye, surrounded by green scales peeks back at him.

He blinks. The creature blinks. It proceeds to continue its adventure, claws poking in an out of the egg more and more regularly, the shape of the creature inside becoming clearer each time.

“You can’t be…” Sandy places Bubble on his pillow and grabs the blanket from his bed, ready to somewhat clean the creature. He’s certain of it, now. He saw what looked like wings.

There’s a dragon inside that egg.

The emerald whelp finally gets out of the shell, cooing happily as it finally fully sees Sandy. The other animals in the room carefully approach it, and Sandy picks it up from the egg, delicately places it on his bed, kneels down, and begins cleaning the slimy inside of the egg which still covered its scales.

“You’re a dragon! A green dragon! That’s nature dragon, right?” It shakes off the blanket, spreads, and flaps its wings, flying just a few inches above the bed before falling back in a small ‘poof’, its wings still a little too weak to take flight. Sandy chuckles. “A name! You need a name! What about… Becky—” The dragon tilts its head, immediately stopping all its cute, happy noises. “… erexera? Beckyerexera? That sounds dragon-y, right?” The Dragon’s behavior doesn’t change, apparently not enjoying the name suggestions.

“Oh, it’s awesome! I have to show you to everyone!” Sandy gets up and begins pacing up and down his room. The bird and rat carefully approach the baby dragon once more, before quickly moving on to showing their new friend signs of affection, which it reciprocates. “I’ll start with mom and my brothers and Florendine of course since we’re here, and then I’ll immediately go see Gwen, then I’ll stay at the Company headquarters to show you off to everyone who comes by, and then I—” he grows silent, his face falling. “I can’t keep you.” The dragon raises its head to look at him, tilting it once more. Sandy comes back to kneel down at the side of his bed, his eyes filling with tears. He shakes his head and speaks quickly. “I can’t keep you. My magic, it means corruption. I’m corrupted. I can’t risk corrupting a dragon like you! What would happen if you grew up influenced by the Fel? Something as powerful as you—"

Beckyerexera, name pending, gently extends a paw toward Sandy, who notices the gesture and stops talking. He doesn’t know if the dragon understands him or anything that’s happening, but if it does, he knows it’s showing its trust in Sandy. Whatever he decides to do. The dragon lowers its head. The human places his forehead against the dragon’s.