These Alien Dragons

Chapter 3 (T.T.)

Sitting at the back of reef while Mother chooses an egg for me to take seemed like an eternity.

The royal hatchery was the only safe hatchery down here, unlike the common hatcheries other dragons used. For one, its openings were covered, allowing no one to see the eggs. Secondly, it was heavily guarded.

Common hatcheries had none of those things. You could steal an egg from there and no one would even notice or bat an eye. Whereas if you stole from the royal hatchery, a hunt was on for you and the stolen egg.

But everything was determined by Mother, the Depths, and how many Scales you had. At the end of each Turn, Mother was busy, determining who would work where in the sea. She also worked on this the rest of Turn, if nothing major was bothering her.

But since keeping her heirs was of upmost importance to her now, she was swamped in work at the end of the Turn; leaving either Eagre, Whitecap, Surge, or Riptide to lead the capital temporarily.

Once Mother determines who should be who, she gave this information to messengers, who reported to the various dragon cities in Eukarya's oceans. These cities were made out of coral reefs, and they could be anywhere in the world – anywhere.

In the capital, your occupation was determined by who your family was. If your parent was a jeweler, you became a jeweler. If your parent was a commander, you became a commander, and so on and so on. But your behavior and number of Scales was a key factor in if you inherited the family's occupation. If you had low Scales and bad behavior, you were demoted from the family occupation and given menial tasks like cleaning the caves.

Dragons had once thought that my family's killer was one of these dragons, but it was quickly thrown into the currents as they weren't even allowed to approach the royal hatchery.

Dragons swam above and around me, performing their duties. Some were cleaning the coral, preventing anything like straggled algae that had found its way down here from growing on it.

Heat burbled through vents in the floor, warming everything. Tubeworms were clustered around them, and crabs and snails made their homes there, feeding off of it.

At long last, Mother emerges from the tunnel leading to the royal hatchery, carrying a green egg in her talons. She notices me at the back of the giant, blobby reef, and swims towards me.

Mother pins me down with her eyes. Come, she says, I need to get you fitted for a harness if we are to "test" this theory of yours.

I follow her into the back of the reef, which is hollowed out like most of it.

She sharply banks right in the middle, which leads into a small cavern. Here, dragons are making materials for the capital such as weapons, seaweed for nests, and other supplies we leaders might need.

Mother swims to a nearby dragon working on a weapon, maybe a long metallic spear, at a stone table. Based on their feature, I could tell that dragon was male.

The dragon looks up at her as she looms over him, and fear permeates his eyes. Mother's presence spoke louder than words sometimes.

Yes, Your Majesty? the dragon says, fear quivering throughout his green scales.

Please bring me a harness.

The dragon tilts his head at her.

Now, Mother demands, and he darts off to another section of the cave.

Everyone else in here occasionally looks at Mother as the green dragon finds me a harness, hoping they aren't her next victim.

Harnesses came in three parts – the harness that the parent had around their chest; the rope that tied the parent and child's harnesses together; and the harness that connected the child to the rope and (ultimately) their parent.