Wings of Fire: Legend of the OmeletWings

Entering

The Sun was beginning to rise over the mountains. The OmeletWing was still fairly far ahead, but Summit and Ravine had managed to keep him in sight for the duration of the night. Summit was starting to feel tired from the weight of his game bag, but fortunately, nothing had been ruined in his struggle with the OmeletWing the night before, thanks to its basic padding. He still wasn't sure he knew how to handle what he was carrying with him, and he could help but feel a twinge in his stomach at the thought of it.

Finally, they broke out of the mountains into a wide valley, and for the first time Summit got to take in the world Em had grown up in. It looked like a fairly normal quiet village apart from the castle that stood at the edge of it, marking it as the capital, but most the buildings were painted in yellows and whites, and other eggy colors of the sorts, and even from this distance, Summit thought he could make out a few monuments dotting the village here and there, mostly just giant carvings of eggs, and of dragons sitting beside eggs that in proportion, were probably too big for any sane dragon to ever imagine another dragon laying. He figured it was simply just embellishment. Or at least he hoped it was, he didn't even want to imagine the screams of the dragons laying those if his own experiences (he winced thinking of Embryo) had anything to say about it. That could not feel good in any stretch of the mind. Or stretch of the... Summit cringed, he didn't want to dare think of going there.

...

The problem was, ever since witnessing Em laying her egg, he couldn't help himself from thinking of how it was done, all that had to... Well the mind as the least of one's worries when one had to think of how... flexible one had to be to lay an egg. He could feel his face going red. Why did this make him feel like this? So... awkward?

Crushy, he admitted to himself with shame. She had suffered so much, so painfully, and here he was blushing at how attractive she was. Em was right, he did just have a crush on her. How could he be the friend she needed when he only saw her for how pretty she was. He was so unworthy of her. Why did he have to feel about her this way?

Shaking his head, Summit could also see the very prominent table in the central square, he remembered all Embryo's stories of the breakfasts they ate there. It was all really here, just like Em said. Summit had always trusted her and her mentions of the village, but somehow this just made it all seem validated, that Em truly wasn't crazy (of course, she wasn't but that didn't mean her stories hadn't sounded crazy), that she had actually lived the life she'd claimed, that now it wasn't just a story from some far away past, but it was becoming a part of the world he now knew too.

Ravine's presence, who he knew all his life, was also comforting, it made him feel like he himself wasn't just going crazy, because it all certainly felt crazy.

As they neared the foot of the mountain, Summit realized it was awfully quiet for a morning after a successful cross-continental raid. Perhaps they were early? Summit looked back at the mountaintops, and sure enough he could see another dragon coming in, and another off to the right. He looked at Ravine, his and her scales were sharp red, highly contrasting the eggy colors of the environment and dragons around them.

"We should get out of the open," Ravine said, obviously feeling the same concerns he did, "We can better eye of what's going on, and figure the best approach to getting where we need to go."

So they came in for a landing on a ledge near the foot of the mountain, pausing to take in the scene. More dragons were coming in from the mountains, flying in toward the castle. Pretty soon there was a large crowd outside the gates, each carrying their own collection of eggs, waiting to get admitted in. The castle guards inspected everybody's load, before letting them all in without incident. As Summit watched the castle, he saw the dragon he'd wrestled with the night before present his egg, exchange a few words, then enter. I wonder where he's going now that he's in, Summit thought as he disappeared through the gates.