The thing seemed to shake then, and I slowly walked toward it. Maybe
there was a reason this egg hadn’t been eaten? perhaps it wasn’t a bird egg at
all. Could it be some sort of creature from another world? Was I about to
hatch a serpent in my kitchen? Had I almost eaten some sort of poisonous or
dangerous creature? Or was something in there being boiled alive?
This was definitely strange behavior for an egg, especially one I hadn’t
even considered could possibly have an actual animal inside of it.
I quickly downed the rest of my pint, then I slowly set the glass on the
floor and reached over to my bed to pick up my battle axe.
With my axe raised, I took slow and careful steps toward the stove.
The silver pot shook violently, then, and my heart rate followed its lead. I had
no idea what I was about to see, but whatever it was, I didn’t think it was
edible.
My axe was at the ready as I reached the edge of the stove, and I
slowly peered over the top of the pot. The egg was still there, but it flew
across the pot and hit the sides in a strange show of life. Upon closer
inspection, I noticed the egg now had several long cracks in it that started
from the top and ran down the sides.
Suddenly, the blue, speckled thing stopped in the middle of the pot and became still. The pot itself stopped shaking, and the only movement was the
small bubbles that still came up from the bottom.
I squeezed my axe tighter in my hands as I leaned down and stared at
the egg.
It twitched once, then again, and I was nearly ready to axe the whole
damn pot when a large chunk of the egg popped off the top.
Then I looked into the hole to see if I could find any signs of life, and
to my amazement, a small, bright blue eye stared back at me.
“By Odin’s shite,” I whispered.
And then the eye blinked at me.
Chapter 2
“What in the fuck are you?” I asked the egg, and before I could blink,
the thing cracked even more, and a small blue flash slithered out of the water
and onto my stove.
Then my breath caught in my chest.
The creature I stared at was one I’d never seen before, but I knew it
instantly. It was as long as my forearm, but thin by nature, almost like a
lizard, and the bright blue of its body and wings was only matched by the
vibrant blue of its slitted eyes.
It was a baby dragon.
My breath grew shallow as I continued to stare, but after a moment,
my eyes grew dry, so I was forced to blink. When I opened my eyes again,
though, I was sure the little reptile had moved a foot closer to me.
We locked eyes, and a peculiar sensation bloomed in my chest as I
stared into the azure orbs. I didn’t know how to explain it, but I felt like… the
little creature somehow understood what was happening. Its eyes were full of
curiosity and intrigue, and they weren’t the animalistic eyes of the lizards I
often played with in my garden. These eyes knew something, but I didn’t
know what.
I shook my head, unable to believe what I was seeing. These creatures
were banished from Asgard ages ago, and there were no dragon eggs in this
realm.
And yet… here one stood on my stove, and it tilted its head back and
forth as it inspected me with a small and somehow adorable face.
The little blue creature made a noise, then, almost like the bark of a
dog, and I took another step backward as I realized I still had my axe raised
for battle.
I didn’t understand what was happening. The dragons I’d heard tales of
were bloodthirsty killing monsters, but this one that stared at me was… kind
of cute. Its little face was rounded, with two tiny horns that protruded from
the top of its head, and little wings sat on its back. It was small, too, but I
knew I couldn’t trust it. Dragons grew to be massive, and I had no reason to
believe this one would be any different.
Still, could I kill the creature? Perhaps I could take it somewhere
instead, or send it to another world somehow.
It was just a baby, after all.
It was an orphan, just like me.
As I considered my options, the little blue reptile raised its nose up and
began to sniff at the air, and then it turned around and walked directly to the
skillet where my cabbage and potatoes were cooking.
I frowned and watched as it hesitantly tried a piece of potato.
Did dragons eat potatoes? I was under the impression they only ate
meat, but the little blue creature turned to me as it chewed, and we made eye
contact before it went back for another bite, as if it was telling me it liked
what it had found.
“Okay,” I said aloud, and I set my axe on the floor next to my foot. “I
won’t kill you, but I have to figure out what to do with you.”
The little dragon took another bite of potato before it walked over to
the edge of the stove and sat down. Then it looked at me with bright blue
eyes and tilted its head to the side as if it were actually listening.
Outside, I could see the sun was sinking below the horizon, so I was
possibly stuck with this thing all night if I couldn’t figure something out.
“Just… stay right there,” I said, and I walked over and picked up my
pint glass and refilled it. Then I shook my head as I took a long drink. What
was I doing? Telling a dragon to stay put? Did I really think it would listen?
Was this even real? Had Hagar managed to play some elaborate prank
on me?
I downed nearly half the pint, then I turned back to the stove and saw
the dragon was sitting in the exact same place as it had been before I turned
my back on it.
“Why didn’t you move?” I whispered, almost to myself.
The little creature’s head followed me as I paced back and forth in the
small hut. Had it actually listened to me? Did it understand what I was
saying?
It certainly looked like it was conscious of what was happening around
it. Something about the little dragon made me feel as though it wasn’t a
mindless animal, like its instinct wasn’t to harm me.
I slowly walked over to the edge of the stove, about a foot away from
where the dragon sat, and then I laid my hand out with my palm upward.
“Come here,” I said softly, and to my surprise the little dragon scurried
over to my hand and put his front two paws on it.
The moment the creature touched my skin, a zap of energy flew up my
arm, and I gasped at the sensation. My skin tingled, and the hair on my arms
rose as I stared down at the azure-colored reptile.
“What in the name of Odin was that?” I muttered.
The dragon looked up at me then with vibrant blue eyes, and its reptile-
like mouth seemed to form into a sort of smile before it closed its eyes and
rubbed its head gently against my thumb.
I had to stop myself from pulling my hand away at first, since the feel
of the thing was so foreign and exciting, but as it rubbed against me, I couldn’t help but think it liked me.
It had actually listened to me, too.
What in the world was going on?
“Would you like some more potatoes?” I ask
ed, and the small creature
tilted its head to the side, so I reached over and picked up a piece of still hot
potato from the skillet and held it out to the small creature.
The little dragon bit into the piece in my hand, and where I would have
been surprised a few minutes before that it hadn’t tried to bite me, I knew by
now it wouldn’t. I trusted the little thing, though I wasn’t quite sure why.
As I watched it eat, though, I realized how adorable it was, and
beautiful, too. Its scales were such a vibrant blue it was hard to look away. I
reached my hand out and stroked down the dragon’s back, and it was smooth
and hard like the scale I kept in the box under my bed. Then, when I moved
my hand back up toward its head, the thing tilted its nose up and bumped my
finger before reaching a small, split tongue out to give me a lick.
“I was right,” I chuckled softly. “You are magical.”
The creature barked again, the same sound it had made earlier, and I
realized it was a sort of happy sound.
I couldn’t believe what was happening, but I couldn’t send the small
creature away, not now. I wanted to know more about it, and it seemed to listen to me, so what was there to fear?
Still, I had a million questions. Where had the egg come from, and why
was it in one of the Loti’s huts? Had they stolen it from another world, and if
so, then how did it hatch here? Was it the heat of the water? Or was it
because I talked to it?
I’d worry about all of that later. For the moment, I just wanted to get to
know my new friend.
“Here,” I said, and I gently nudged the dragon’s front feet off me
before I gathered two bowls from the cupboard and split the cabbage and
potatoes between them. “Follow me.”
I walked to the small table in the corner of the room and set the bowls
down, and the little dragon scurried over to the table and climbed up my chair
so it was right by my shoulder.
“This one is yours,” I said, and I pointed to the bowl across from me.
A strange sensation tickled up my spine as the little dragon scurried
over my shoulder and down my arm to the top of the table. It went right to
the bowl I’d shown it and began to devour the cabbage and potatoes inside.
“Hungry, I guess,” I chuckled as I watched the thing eat.
Its little head was buried in the bowl, but when I spoke, it quickly
looked up, licked its lips, then dove back in.
I picked up my own bowl and ate my cabbage and potatoes as I
watched the little dragon hastily eat. Bits of potato and cabbage spilled from
the sides as it pushed its head against the insides of the bowl, and its tail
seemed to wag almost like a dog’s would when it was happy.
I had a thought then that I hadn’t considered before… Was this a male
or female dragon? How would I know? Could I ask it somehow?
I didn’t know much about dragons at all except they hadn’t been in
Asgard for centuries, and I especially didn’t know anything about their
physiology. They laid eggs, obviously, but did they even have the same male
and female parts Aesir did, or were they more like birds? I could never tell if
they were male or female either except by their feathers or markings, but I
wouldn’t even know where to begin with a dragon.
I set down my bowl of potatoes and cabbage and stood up, but the little
dragon looked up at me like it was curious as to what I was doing.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Keep eating, I’ll be right back.”
The thing went back to its dinner, and once again I was astounded it
seemed to completely comprehend what I was telling it, and not only that, but
that it complied as well.
I walked over to my bed and pulled out one of the books I kept beneath
it. It was a history book of Asgard I’d found long ago. I’d read through it a million times, but what I particularly liked about it were the drawings in it.
They were beautiful and colorful, and I often looked at them before bed and
imagined what life was like all those years ago, and how my own could have
been different if I’d been born back then.
I flipped to one of the familiar pages. It showed Odin on the left page
of the book, and his wife Freya was on the right page. Odin wore a golden
breastplate with a long red cape attached to the back, and on his head was a
golden helmet with large wings that protruded from both sides. Above his
massive white beard, he stared out at you through the page with his one good
eye, but the other was white with blindness. It was said he traded the eye for
a drink from the Well of Urd in order to gain the knowledge kept there.
Whether the story was true or not, I couldn’t say, but I’d seen Odin in the
flesh, and I knew the blind eye was true at least. With the way our people
created tales, there was no telling whether or not the story had been
exaggerated over the years, but I liked to believe it was true. Odin had been
on a quest for knowledge for many years, and I’d always respected that about
him. It was one of the reasons I held him in such high regard as my king.
Freya, on the other page, was more beautiful than any woman had a
right to be. She wore a beautiful white and golden gown in the drawing, and
it clung to her sensuous curves before it fell to the ground beside her. Her
long blonde hair hung down to her waist, her blue eyes were slightly hooded as they stared back at me, and her pouty, red lips were held in such a way that
it seemed as if she might open her mouth to speak at any second.
table, set the book down, and turned it so the images faced the dragon.
The little creature looked up at me, with its lips still smacking the
potatoes in its mouth.
“This is a man,” I said as I pointed to Odin, and then I moved my
finger to the other page. “And this is a woman. Which are you?”
As I spoke, the dragon’s eyes followed my fingers, and it inspected the
images on the page before it walked over to the book and put its front two
paws on the depiction of Odin.
“A boy?” I asked. “You’re male.”
The dragon stomped its little feet on the picture, then turned around
and went back to its dinner.
“Okay,” I said with a smile. “A boy, then. We’ll need to give you a
name eventually… I can’t just call you dragon forever.”
I finished my cabbage and potatoes as I thought about different names
for the dragon, but somewhere along the way I began to question myself
again. Could I really keep this creature as some sort of pet like I would a dog
or a cat? It would more than likely grow to be larger than my home, possibly nearly as large as Odin’s castle.
As I watched the little dragon eat, though, I couldn’t help but feel as if
it was the right thing to do. It felt as though we understood each other. There
was a strange sensation in my stomach that told me I needed to protect the
little blue reptile, and that he would protect me, too.
I decided right then, even if I would have to send him somewhere
eventually due to his size or if he showed a violent nature, I would still keep
him for the time being.
Something told me I had to, and I was much too
curious as to what would happen between us to just let him go. Besides, he
was so small, I couldn’t leave him somewhere on his own. And I couldn’t
exactly request access to the Bifrost to drop off a dragon in another world.
What world would I send him to anyway? I had no idea where he’d come
from.
After I finished my dinner, I waited for the little dragon to finish his,
then I walked over to the metal sink in the kitchen and placed the bowls
inside. I poured myself another pint of mead and filled a smaller cup with
some water for the little beast, but when I walked back over to the table, the
small blue reptile was on his back with a huge lump in his belly like a snake
that had just consumed its meal for the next month.
I couldn’t help but laugh as I took in the sight of the almost bursting
little lizard.
“Here,” I said as I set the water down on the table.
I took a pull from my pint glass, and the dragon flipped over onto all
fours and walked over to look at my cup.
“No, no,” I said, and I moved the water closer to it. “The water is for
you. You were nearly just born, I can’t give you mead.”
As I said it, though, I wondered if dragons drank mead? Could they
consume alcohol in the wild? Where would they get it?
“No,” I said with a shake of my head, more for myself than the dragon.
“You can’t have any. You have to drink water. Maybe when you’re bigger.”
The little thing narrowed his eyes at me, but he waddled back to the
water glass and began to lap up the clear liquid. Apparently, just because he
listened to me didn’t mean he wouldn’t have an attitude while he did it.
Still, it was rather adorable, and I smiled to myself as I took another
drink of mead. Then I looked around then and remembered the pumpkin still
on my counter, so I stood up and walked over to it. The fire was still lit under
the stove, so I wiped out the skillet I’d used for dinner, cut open the pumpkin,
and emptied its contents into the pan.
Roasted pumpkin seeds were one of my favorite things, and they’d be
ready after just a few minutes. In the meantime, I cut up the rest of the
pumpkin into small, bite sized chunks and threw them into a bowl.
As I walked back to the table, the little dragon lifted up on his back
legs and sniffed at the bowl in my hand.