Winter's Cold (KingdomCraft Story: Book 2)

Chapter Eleven- Dragon Hatching and Training

-------------- Desert Kingdom ~ Field -----------------

Shelby heads up the ladder of her tower in the field and then up the next ladder, into her storage room and bedroom where her red dragon egg was waiting to hatch. Pearl had told her that the egg has started smoking just the smallest bit, signifying that it was ready to begin the hatching process.

Shelby took it in her arms and headed outside with the help of her elytra, flying off the downstairs balcony and down to the ground. She hasn't used her elytra in so long. She knew she could have used it yesterday to get to Scott's birthday, but she decided to go by Fayren instead.

She had made a new horn, flute and staff, ready to use on her new dragon. Thanks to Scott, Shelby knew how to make the dragons grow up quicker. They will age, but the world around them is still going at the correct speed, so nobody else's age will change, thankfully.

Shelby digs a hole out and puts the egg in it. She then takes out her flint and steel and lights the ground on fire inside of the hole. She sits down and waits. Scott couldn't come by to help her unfortunately, since he had some royal business to take care of for the full day.

She watched as the egg rocked back and forth in the flames, warming up to let the dragon come out. She sees Bluebell flying down from the tower and the parrot lands on her shoulder. She smiles and pats Bluebell's head lightly with the tips of her slim fingers, then gets back to watching the egg for the next 5 minutes. She smiles a little. She knew that she was getting closer to finding Everest and bringing her back home once and for all.

She blinks, and suddenly, the egg is hatched. She gasps with a smile and uses the horn to pick the dragon up, bringing it out of the hole. Before she places the dragon back down, she checks the gender.

"Oh, it's a girl!" she says. For some reason, she thought it would have been a boy, since she already has a female dragon.

She brings the dragon out and puts her on her shoulder. She begins to think of a name.

"I'm gonna name you.... Panfry! Because I cooked her..." she laughs slightly, taking Panfry off of her shoulder and putting her down on the ground.

"Okay... so now I have you feed you this" she says, taking a box of dragon meal out of her bag. She places it down in front of Panfry and takes the lid off. The red dragon gives it a sniff before beginning to scarf it down.

Shelby gasps, then giggles, "You're a hungry girl!" she says, patting Panfry's scales. Immediately, Shelby sees Panfry beginning to grow, and she gasps again.

By the time that Panfry finished eating the dragon meal, she was about three quarters of the height of Shelby, which was already a hug difference. Shelby lets out a breath, "You're going to be as big as Norbert soon..." she says, taking out the second box of dragon meal. Scott did tell her that dragons may eat a LOT when they're first born.

She puts that box down infront of Panfry while picking up the other empty one, and takes a step back as Panfry begins to scarf that down too. Shelby shakes her head with a smile and a sigh, "You're going to be a big girl" she says, putting the empty box in her bag while not looking at Panfry.

When she did look back, she was astounded to have to look up to see Panfry's face about 10 feet above her own head. Shelby's mouth drops open, "Wow" she says, "That was fast" she says, taking the horn and putting Panfry inside of it.

She walks over to a large and more open part of the field that doesn't have anything in it. It wasn't surrounded by trees, so it was good. She puts Panfry down on the ground with a blow of the horn and carefully climbs onto her back while Panfry lays down to allow her. Shelby had brought the dragon armour with her, so she begins to put it on Panfry carefully.