Chapter 64 The Miracle of the Omelet

Chapter 64 The Miracle of the Omelet
Chapter 64: The Miracle of the Omelet

That basement  was dark and smelled strongly of aged turnip. 

Neria sat on an overturned wooden crate, staring at the obsidian egg resting on a pile of discarded laundry.

"Okay, Pip," Neria said, poking the shell with a rusty iron poker. "The second captain let me pass, Sebastian thinks I am his new favorite pet, and Alistair is hopefully still standing exactly where I left him like a good little statue. It is your turn to do something impressive."

The egg did absolutely nothing. It sat there, black and shiny, looking like a very expensive piece of charcoal.

"Do you want me to sing to you?" Neria asked, leaning closer. "Because I only know three songs, and two of them are about drunken pirates. I do not think that is the proper upbringing for a primordial deity."

Then, the door at the top of the cellar stairs suddenly opened. 

Strong footsteps began to clatter down.

"Lady Neria?" a voice whispered loudly, coming through the dark room. "Lady Neria, are you down here? Are you safe?"

Neria jumped up, quickly throwing a stained tablecloth over the egg. "Alistair? What in the name of the stars are you doing here? Did you abandon your post? I explicitly told you to stay behind the marble!"

Alistair stepped into the low light of her single candle, his golden helmet tucked under his arm. He looked out of breath, his face seemed to be flushed with panic. 

"I couldn’t just stand there, Lady Neria. You told me the Crown Prince threatened to turn you into a silent statue. You told me he knows about my mother. I came to protect you."

"I don’t need protection, you golden idiot, I need you to follow basic instructions!" Neria hissed, throwing her hands in the air. "If Sebastian finds out you left the gate to run to my basement, our entire alliance goes up in smoke! He is a literal psychopath!"

"I do not care about the alliance," Alistair said, stepping closer and looking around the messy cellar. "I care about the fact that you are speaking of things that doesn’t make sense. I thought you were insane, but then I checked the royal records. The names you mentioned, the dates, they all match. How do you know these things?"

"Because I am the person who has to clean up after your tragic destiny!" Neria yelled, pacing back and forth. "Now turn around and march back to that palace before someone notices you are missing!"

Alistair shook his head, his jaw setting into that stubborn hero line. "No. I am staying right here until you tell me the truth. What are we hiding from? What is under that tablecloth?"

"It is nothing!" Neria replied, rushing to block his view. "It is just some old laundry! A massive pile of very aristocratic rags!"

"You are jingling again, Neria," Alistair pointed out, looking down at her bodice where the emeralds were shifting. "And that tablecloth is currently glowing purple."

Neria spun around slowly.

The stained tablecloth was indeed glowing. A neon violet light was pulsing through the fabric, growing brighter and hotter by the second. 

The basement began to shake, tiny pebbles falling from the ceiling.

"Oh, great," Neria muttered. "It is happening now. Of course it is happening now, while the hero is in my basement breaking all my rules."

"What is that?" Alistair asked, drawing his sword with a loud ring. "Is it a magical trap? Did Sebastian send a curse to your house?"

"Put that butter knife away, Alistair!" Neria screamed, lunging forward to stop him.

Alistair stepped back in surprise, his boot caught on a stray turnip. He lost his balance completely, his arms windmilling in the air. 

Hid golden shield flew off his arm, sailed through the dark basement, and landed with a massive crash directly on top of the glowing egg.

CRACK.

The sound was like a whip snapping in a small room.

"Alistair!" Neria shrieked, dropping to her knees. "You just murdered the dragon! You squished the primordial savior with your clumsy hero feet!"

"I slipped!" Alistair yelled from the floor, his legs tangled in a pile of old sacks. "Why is there a vegetable on the floor? Why is the room turning purple?"

The golden shield suddenly began to lift. It did not rise smoothly; it was being pushed upward by a tiny, scaled purple snout. 

A bright flash of violet lightning erupted from beneath the metal, blinding them both for a split second. A loud, high-pitched burp echoed through the cellar.

Neria blinked away the spots in her eyes. The shield was flipped over on its side. Sitting in the middle of the broken black shell fragments was a creature the size of a small kitten. 

It was covered in shiny amethyst scales, had two stubby little wings, and possessed a pair of enormous golden eyes that looked remarkably stupid.

The baby dragon looked at Alistair, then looked at Neria, and let out a soft sneeze that produced a tiny puff of purple smoke.

"It is a lizard," Alistair whispered, staring from the floor with his mouth wide open. "You have a glowing purple lizard in your basement."

"It is not a lizard, it is Pip!" Neria gasped, her anger instantly vanished as she leaned closer. "He is beautiful. He is majestic. He looks like he has absolutely no thoughts behind those eyes."

The baby dragon waddled forward, tripped over its own tail, and face-planted into Neria’s dirty laundry. It let out a small, pathetic squeak.

"Are you sure that is a primordial deity?" Alistair asked, slowly scrambling to his feet and sheathing his sword. "It looks remarkably incompetent."

"He takes after his godfather, clearly," Neria shot back, carefully picking up the tiny creature. 

Pip immediately curled into her palm, his warm scales spread comforting heat. 

"Look at him, Alistair. We did it. We broke the loop's script. He was supposed to hatch during a massive fire while the palace was burning down, but instead, he hatched because you tripped on a turnip."

"I still don’t understand," Alistair muttered, rubbing his neck as he looked at the broken shell. "If this is a dragon, and Sebastian is protecting it, we are in more danger than before. What do we do now?"

Neria looked down at the tiny dragon, then looked up at the confused knight, her wide smile returned with full force.

"Now?" Neria laughed.  "Now we go back to the palace, Alistair. We have an alliance to maintain, a prince to trick, and a very hungry baby to feed. Do you happen to know if dragons like warm milk?"