The ashes before Strife

Episode 9 : Hatching Trouble ; 5

I ran for 20 minutes at full strength and speed from the dwarves city until I got to a grassy cliff face overlooking the sparkling ocean made of dazzling sapphires in front of me but ignoring it placing the black egg with silver and red patterns covering it onto a clump of superheated rocks.

"Now how do I hatch this Easter egg?" I observed it for a few minutes unable to tell what was stopping it from hatching doing various examinations. I pulled out my notebook and looked through the pages until I found the one about dragon hatching.

"In order for a dragon baby to hatch, it must be in extreme heat and tricked into thinking it's in the presence of another dragon..." that makes things complicated. Lupra sniffed away at the egg no longer scared of it 'am I getting a sibling papa?'

Still looking through my notes I responded with a tinge of excitement "If all goes well yes." She frolicked about happily moving away from the egg now starting to shake slightly until Lupra came back.

"Lupra could you sit over there for a moment? I'm going to need space to do this." Sulking Lupra slowly walked away from the egg making it shake even more. Is it afraid of Lupra?

What is it that makes it think there's a dragon here? I then remembered how my chimera soul ate the ice dragon wyrms spirit and ignited it making the ashreaver tattoos glow making it shake even more but no cracks appeared.

I then remembered the dead egg I got from it pulling it out of the void ring in its frozen state. The egg reacted violently to its presence immediately jumping high into the air crushing the frozen egg but instead of it going splat it sort of ate it whole confusing me as it then crunched on the inside. "...huh?"

I looked back at Lupra who was staring at a butterfly not seeing what I saw. The egg continuously shook but there was no sign of hatching, what am I missing?

I then looked at my palm and remembered something Dendra once said "to dragon's blood is one of the things that define itself. Much like how you care for your family child."

I then pulled a knife from my belt and sliced open my palm letting blood drip out.

I stood up clenching my fist as I poured my own blood onto it stopping its shaking. "Please work" a red and gold bolt of mana and attrium then traveled through my blood getting absorbed by the egg heating itself up vibrating violently.

I wrapped my wounded hand in a shadow stopping the blood from leaking out as I watched the mana in the area converge in front of me.

Sensing imminent danger I jumped back protecting Lupra with my body as a thunderous explosion happened behind me. Fortunately, my mana shield was focused behind me so I didn't get any damage on my white coat.

I looked down to see Lupra looking up at me lovingly not caring for herself "you okay Lupra?"

"Yes, papa! My sibling sure is rude though!"

I laughed slightly "That's to be expected I guess. They've been trapped in that egg for god knows how long."

I then turned around to see a small winged scaly kitten-sized black lizard lying on the floor in the center of a small crater with its eyes closed.

Lupra jumped to my shoulder and I walked across checking if the little thing was alright, I gently caressed it searching for a pulse until I finally did "whew! Got worried for a sec." I picked up the scaly kitten in both hands cradling it into my chest observing it.

Upon closer inspection, I could see the tiny black dragon had two short silver horns sprouting from its forehead with faint crimson red lines along its back blending in ending at its silver-tipped tail.