Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Hatching Day

The day Onnu's eggs hatched became a holiday. She insisted that each Hold that had eggs do the same. Not that they knew when their Hatching Day was, without a calendar, but something told her that they would find a way.
   As for the festivities, they decided that it would be the day to bring out one's best project; be it baking recipes, clothes (though they had yet to find adequate storage for more than one set of clothing), crafts, tools, songs, or stories.
   Radar Hawk, a vaguely hawk-colored centaur with uncanny Charon perception, asked what he was supposed to bring. He was mostly a "gopher", carrying and fetching things for the crafts-kin. Grim and Todd chimed in, as did others who helped those who actually made things.
   Onnu diplomatically said that if everyone had a booth, there would be no one to actually go to the booths. "Besides, the knowledge that they couldn't make the things on display without your help should fill you with equal pride. You lot aren't bound to a single craft. You influence the outcome of many crafts!
   "I say go to every craft you want to see, and take stock of how much you contribute to the Hold as a whole. I bet you can find a component of just about every single craft that you have, in some way, helped become a reality."
   The little kin rolled their eyes at first, but the more she spoke, the more their chests firmed up in pride. They were valuable! They had very tangible proof of it. She just had to remind them where to look for it.
   The eggs, largest of any in the worlds thus far (not that they knew it), rocked in the early morning. As the day went on, the rocking got more and more pronounced. Mira worried, because they took longer than the other eggs had, but they didn't know what normal was. Perhaps larger hatchlings took longer to get out of their eggs.
   Onnu and Pannu warbled to their hatchlings, to encourage their entry into the world. Their patience was, appropriately, draconic. They would nudge one or the other, if it seemed necessary. They didn't quite know how to help, having missed both hatchings before theirs, so they worked mostly on instinct.
   The eggs weren't different colors, as she'd written them in her human life. They had no way of knowing what color dragons they would be. Not that they cared, of course, but every parent wonders what their children will look like. Who would they favor? Would they get his nose and her eyes, or her toes and his size?
   These dragons had waited an entire year, so their patience was hard-won, but finite.
   The first egg to hatch was a blue girl, all rounded and spiky. Her wide gold eyes blinked up at her parents, not quite focused yet. She stared around the circle of little kin, smaller than she was. It did not seem to register that they weren't all the same kin, because she tried to nuzzle a gryphon and didn't understand why he fell over.
   The second egg to hatch was a silvery boy, also vague-eyed at first. He seemed to smile at everyone, and immediately grasped making crystals glow with emotion. It was the yellow glow that lit his brother's emergence from his shell.
   The last to hatch was green, and lean. While still retaining the chubby nature of newborns, he still gave the impression of athleticism. It was perhaps ironic that he was the last to break free of his yolk and slurp it down, but he was the first to get the hang of walking.
   Their daughter lolled and flopped about, quite content to be in one place for the time being. The boys, however, immediately tried to walk toward their parents. She could see them from where she lounged, and besides, there were lots of interesting faces to look at in her immediate vicinity. Babies are enamored with faces, and she was no different. Where her brothers were drawn to their parents' faces, she was happy with any face. Or, perhaps, it was the variety of expressions, textures, and colors around her that contented her so.
   The gryphon she had inadvertently headbutted happened to be Leo. His pride wouldn't let him admit defeat, so he made more effort to meet her newborn strength. He patted her foot, which was the size of his torso, unsure what her parents would allow. As much as he wanted to prove that he could handle a babe fresh from the egg, he also didn't want to anger a pair of full-grown dragons.
   Luckily, said dragons happened to like him, so they rescued him from her clumsy attempts at affection when they noticed his damp fur and drooping ear tufts.
   "Come now, lass, that's enough of that. If you want to groom someone, your brothers are more, erm... sturdy. You'll learn that gryphons are otherwise quite hardy, but you must be gentle with them.
   "That goes for you two, as well. Yes, I know Hammer said he could handle it, but he's half your size, sweetie. Please be gentle.
   "No, I know you aren't fragile, Hammer, but I'd like to not have Mira yell at me just yet. Once they've got a handle on the whole moving thing, and calibrated their jaws for gentleness, you are more than welcome to play with them. Until then, I'd rather they practice on us, or each other."
   "What about Marla?" Dragonfriend asked. "She did say she wouldn't mind babysitting. Although..." He looked at the hatchlings, mentally gauging sizes. "I think the three of them combined might be bigger than her. Maybe she could play with one or two at a time?"
   Onnu nodded. "If nothing else, she can at least referee; separate them if they get too rambunctious, or forget their strength. She's got her own little kin, though, so we shouldn't rely on her too much."
   "There are two of us," Pannu reminded them. "I don't think we'll need help as often as Amber and Weaver will." He tried not to sound hurt.
   "This is true," Onnu rumbled, though she wasn't looking at him. She was helping her daughter to her feet after a tumble. None of the hatchlings had quite gotten the hang of keeping their wings out of the way, even though they were relatively smaller than they would be as adults. She'd turned too quickly, her back foot flopped out from under her, and as she fell, caught in her wing.
   Onnu had entered Mom Mode.