Chapter 21: Recipe for deserted Egg

Sylph sat behind a dune and cleaned the blood of her legs in privacy. Sand and blood made for an awful mixture on her scales, but her ability helped to soften up the dried blood clots and grainy residue. A piece of cloth alone would not have done much. If not for her water, the only option was, the six forbid, her tongue. The wound had stopped bleeding, but the bandage had soaked through with crimson blood. She would have to bother Brandon for a change.

She hiked back over the dune and spotted him trying to pet the camel. Even though the creature did not move an inch, he moved slowly and with utmost care until his hand reached the scruffy fur. It sluggishly turned its enormous head, eyeing him with disinterest. Sylph wondered if there was any thought going on upstairs. Brandon nodded towards the linen bags. “What do we do with the eggs? And the dromedary? We can’t just leave them here.”

She stretched her neck as high as it would go, still dwarfed by the sheer bulk of the unbothered animal. “Drome- what? I thought that was a camel? Got the hump and all.” It turned towards her and looked downward with what could only be described as a disappointed gaze, as if it understood her. It chewed on a piece of some plant and turned back to staring straight ahead, a task requiring its utmost focus.

Brandon picked up the egg from the floor and held it high with both arms. Crusted blood stained the dark-blue, oblong shell. “They are different, camels and dromedary I mean. Two humps is a camel and one is a dromedary.” He softly brushed the sand off the egg with his sleeve before setting it down between them.

She had never seen one up close before; it was considerably larger than she had expected. Sitting on her hind legs, she carefully lifted the egg upwards with both of her arms. It weighed about as much as an entire pot filled with water. A wave of exhaustion overcame her and she lost balance. Her midsection slumped forward like a sack of flour and she fell snout first into the dust. The egg hit her square in the rib cage and drove the breath out of her lungs.

Brandon yelped out in surprise.

“Don’t worry, it’s just the afterglow,” Sylph mumbled into the sand and picked herself back up.

“The egg?!” Brandon stumbled forward with a look of terror, aimed at the egg still hidden beneath her chest.

She raised her pfod to reveal the deep-blue shell. “What about it? It’s not fragile. You could cave someone’s skull in with it.” She formed a small burrow in the sand, big enough to cover the egg halfway and keep it upright. It felt right to do so. The shell was rock hard and produced no sound at all when she tapped it with one digit. Aer hatched in the late autumn, after a year. Judging by the state of the egg, it was due next year, laid just a few weeks ago at most. She fixated on a narrow reflection at the top that shimmered incandescently as soon as she turned her head. Out of curiosity, Sylph placed her front leg next to the egg. The top reached the underside of her elbow. “No wonder my mothers told me to be careful. I may be old enough, but certainly not tall enough.”

She scratched off the dried blood. She had no connection to this unborn hatchling; it was a part of a family, part of someone. But even now, she could not imagine them willingly parting with their egg. A strange part deep inside of her even told her it was her responsibility to make sure the egg was fine. “You know what’s weird?” She turned back to Brandon. “We all eat wyvern eggs when we literally hatched from an egg ourselves.” She cleaned away the last specks of blood and dust. “But the difference, of course, is that wyvern lay eggs all the time and a dragon egg always has a hatchling inside. It is just weird to think about. Arrow-tail eggs taste so good though, you can just eat them whole and they almost taste sweet.”

Brandon froze in an expression between confusion and disgust. “What?”

“What, what?”

“Arrow-tail eggs. Whole? With the shell? Raw?”

Humans did not eat eggs and were not born from one, so her thoughts may be hard to follow. And eating eggs raw like that was a guilty snack, not an everyday meal. “You barely notice the shell and they taste great. I am not the best judge when it comes to taste, of course. Oasis hates them and finds them very intense.”

“I guess.” Brandon did not say more.

“Humans drink milk. That is also weird. Humans give milk, do they not? I heard that, somewhere,” Sylph smirked. That was something no dragon understood. Raw milk only lead to painful cramps, although in small doses it was considered a cure for some stomach ailments.

Brandon unhinged the second linen bag from the dromedary. He peered inside and lifted out a dark orange egg. “You aren’t wrong. Some weirdo milked a cow and now here we are.” He sat the egg down next to the first. It was much rounder and less oval and Sylph guessed it was a Sol egg.

“Apparently, Aer cuisine uses milk, Oasis said so. I didn't know we had any cuisine at all. It all tastes like almost nothing to us. The old tribes lived on mountains, cliffs and massive ravines, so where by the six did they get the milk and ingredients for cooking.”

Brandon untangled the third bag. “I think there are goats that inhabit rough mountains. They give milk.”

“But we still can’t drink milk without getting sick.” She shrugged. “Historians probably know, or it is all a fluke. I have met nobody that visited or even knew where they live or lived. I admire those brave enough to figure out what is edible.” Sylph turned to pat the eggs. “I’m very glad nobody here wants to eat you.”

She dug another small burrow and stopped with her pfod submerged in the soft sand. “I just had an idea. We’ll bury them and mark the spot. They aren’t close to hatching, so we got months to think about how to deal with them while they remain safe.”

“I would’ve suggested that we use them as part of the disguise.” Brandon placed the last egg down in front of her. It was another Sol egg with a shell as dull as the surrounding sand. “If you think they are fine being buried, we can do that too.”

She turned to the two dead bodies. Buried was a terrible cue. They had ignored the problem, and it did not magically vanish. With the sight of the two lifeless husks, came back the dreaded emptiness inside of her. She turned back to Brandon, then back to the corpses. “We should bury them too.”

“Out here in the desert? They tried to kill you. Why should we honor them with a proper burial?” Brandon scoffed at the notion. His shock seemed to have all but vanished in favor of actual disdain she had not expected.

“Dalian showed me there is more to death. They could linger around as souls right now.” Her pfod fell back down into the small hole and continued to scrape deeper into the sand until her arms burned with fatigue. “What if Dalian finally reaches out to me this very night, finds them, and what I did? I can not change what happened, or why it happened, but I don’t want to dishonor the dead.” The sand slid down the sides and undid most of her work rather swiftly.

Brandon watched her dig. “Perhaps you are right. We should burn them, it’s the proper way for humans.”

Sylph stopped digging. “Really? I thought humans liked the ground, just like Tira. What connection do you have to fire?”

Brandon stretched his back before he opened up the last bag on the dromedary’s side. “We are not rooted to the ground. The earth is reserved for plants and animals. Humans look to the future and burn the brightest.” He sighed. “In reality, there just isn’t enough space to bury everyone, so even my old town burned the dead and poured their ashes into the wind.”

It took Sylph an hour to dig a hole large and deep enough to safely store the eggs. Meanwhile, Brandon had constructed a makeshift sign out of pieces of dried cactus and string from the bag to mark the spot. It would be an obvious mark for any passerby’s too, but that chance should be pretty slim. That left only the two bodies.

Nobody had prepared her for how heavy dead people were and how soft and malleable. It was as if they had lost all bones. Her muscles screamed and dragonheart pounded as she dragged Tim onto the makeshift pile of dried plants and cacti, Elliot, being essentially dried up, weighed far less.

Dried twigs should catch fire first, spread it to the thicker pieces of cactus, and then the entire thing would go up in a blaze. She imagined it would go that way. Brandon lit a flame with two chemicals from his bag that quickly caught on the dry twigs and cactus they had piled up all around. The flame burned quick and with a crackle, but never ignited more than their clothes. A thick and nasty smoke billowed upwards and robbed her breath.

“If they are watching, they are probably laughing at this attempt.” It was the thought that counted. It served as an end to pin the guilt and mistakes on, at least to her. Now she could move on, continue the search, and try to forget what happened here.

They moved their camp and the dromedary further south until they could no longer see any smoke. Far enough to deny all involvement.

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Sylph could not find much rest. Her mind replayed her actions, all of her mistakes and slips of attention that could have avoided all of it. Her reaction to the egg started it. She had to be more observant and calmer once they reached the city. Their disguise had to be better and her act impeccable. Think first, act after; that had to be her new mantra. She found a little sleep soon after, repeating her new thoughts to herself as she fell asleep.

Night had advanced into early morning as they continued their journey. Sylph pulled down the rope from the dromedary and patted the sand off. She then slung it back around her neck and handed the other end to Brandon.

“You don’t have to do that before we reach the city.” He shot her an unsure, if not embarrassed, gaze. “It feels so wrong.”

“I know.” Sylph let the rope run through her pfod. “But it needs to look normal or they will be suspicious again. This way I can get comfortable.”

He rolled the end of the rope around his hand and held it tight so she could feel the gentle pull forward. “Should I keep going with the mysterious employer from the north?”

Sylph’s gaze lingered on his face. Sand clung to it, partially washed away by streaks of sweat. His skin peeled away at the edges of his nose. “Humans come in colors from snow to charcoal. You have very little variety and it is pretty easy to guess where you might come from.”

“That’s why I didn’t lie about my heritage. But that should hardly be a problem. The most important thing to them is that I am a human.”

Sylph nodded. “I can be your bodyguard. It makes sense for how I look. I’m probably in better shape than any dragon we’ll encounter.” Her thoughts ran empty as the image of chained dragons passed through it. She had not considered what she would do when they met another slave. Judging from the last day, there was probably very little she could do without blowing their cover wide open.

“But no magic enslavement,” Brandon added, “That was really silly.”

“With the rope around my neck, nobody should ask anymore. This just leaves the question of why you are looking for my parents.” She pondered the thought. “Wait, I have a brilliant idea. You know how the Stormsong islands are without ruler since Void killed most of them? What if someone fled and I am supposedly their daughter, because I resemble them? Sylph van Stormsong.” She tasted the name. If the past had played out differently, that could’ve been her; Void’s daughter.

Brandon shook his head. “That would attract far too much attention, it’s too special.”

Attention is what they did not want. So maybe the least special would do. “You are right. Personally, I wouldn’t think it suspicious if you went up to someone, pointed at me and said: More of that, please.” Sylph pointed at herself.

Brandon squared up. “If I am employed, I am just the poor errand boy tasked with this. I wouldn’t know the why. Nobody told me a thing. They just handed you to me and stuffed me on a ship.”

Sylph let out a snorting laugh. “Always the same with management, isn’t it? You should find a new employer.”

Sylph stretched and got up. “Consider my body yours to command.” She stifled a laugh and slung the rope loosely around her neck a few more times so it wouldn’t drag on the floor. “I should not say it like that.”

“You really should not.”