"No need to shout, dear one. I've barely taken two steps," replied Gwaelaraumorainë.

"Oh thank freakin' goodness. I'm balking at the thought of being cooped up in an egg for a whole year mom. Can you visit from time to time? Have any telepathic minions you could send me as companionship in your place? Anything? Otherwise, I think I'll go crazy," I pled.

"Come now. We are born ready for long periods in solitude. You'll be fine. Sleep it off if you find it too dull."

"Right, but I'm not really born yet. Solitude, maybe. Solitude while being unable to go anywhere or see anything? That's a definite no."

With a long and harmonic "hmmm" she considered my statement. "You have a point. Full consciousness this early into the egg state is unprecedented. And while your father is around to protect the territory, you two can't communicate. Not that he's much of a conversationalist anyways. Still, this would be a good way for you to grow into your nature, and I simply have too many things requiring my attention."

"What about teaching me Angnora's greatest secrets, how to be a better dragon, or how magic works? Help the whole 'Judge of the World' thing along. Make me your super dragon protégé? I can't imagine there's a better teacher out there." I lamely and desperately flattered.

Her soothing laughter filled my mind, "Do not mistake my disapproval of you trying to run off back to your foster world as over-attachment, my son. I'm to mother you, not smother you. There will be plenty of time for everything you requested after you hatch. Teaching you along with your siblings will be more effective and efficient. If you wish so badly that I change my plans for your sake, I have to ask, what's in it for me?"

Brutal, but I got the inkling that this is one of her lessons. So I once again thought through our discussion and what I've learned about her.

"She self-described as a nurturer of life. She may accept me no matter what, but she clearly prefers when I act more like a dragon than a human. And while she downplayed her interest in my experiences from Earth, calling them a "decade's" worth of consideration means they've caught some of her attention. I can work with this." I thought to myself.

I asked, "Mom, do you do any gardening? Or maybe on a bigger scale, do you happen to own some forests and grasslands?"

"Very astute, youngling. I protect and preserve 'life' in all of its forms, including flora. I may not be the foremost of our kind when it comes to plants specifically, but I have my collections. Why? Have you thought of something to offer me?" Her expectation was palpable.

"I have. If you come by to tutor me regularly with whatever curriculum you think best, I will try to recreate coffee on Angnora. This is under the assumption that this world has the equivalent of druids and alchemists that could help me accomplish the task. Upon success, I'd let you monopolize the production so long as I get free access to a constant supply, purely for my consumption." I said with confidence.

"Coffee? That was your favorite beverage in your time as a human, was it not?... Yes, that was it. I recall it being an invigorating yet bitter drink that had captivated your entire world. So much so that you had hundreds of vendors in each major city. You're proposing a new form of life for this world based on one of the most popular from your past? Under my ownership? Mmm, that does sound like a libation worthy of my status. You even thought to benefit twice from this endeavor, as you'll be getting both my early tutelage and your favorite drink in unlimited supply. You've slain two wyverns with one spear. Aren't you the clever little flame of mine?" She doted.

"Thank god, dragons, or whoever that that worked!" I thought to myself.

"So, we have a deal? Er... pact?"

"Indeed, our second pact is made. Based on your offer I will generously return once a week to instruct you until the time of your hatching. Should you choose to think of ways to sweeten the deal we can negotiate a greater frequency. As for the deadline..." She paused to consider for a brief moment, "I'd normally give an adventurer and their line of descendants two hundred years to complete such a task, but as my progeny, you're immeasurably more competent. That being said, I have no desire to rush my own child so just have it to me within roughly fifty years from the date of your departure from our continent. Otherwise, I'll have to think of a way to punish you." Her following laugh sent a chill down my spine.

And so began my year-long training montage of studying under mom's guidance, and indeed, living out millennia as a wise and caring figure made her into an incredible teacher. I learned about key historical events, magic theory, the languages of other races, and plenty more. And as a benefit of my new and improved brain, I was now a much quicker study than I was on Earth.

About a quarter of a year later, I caved to my need for mental stimulation and offered to reopen our emotional link for the remainder of my time as an egg if she'd visit more often. She gladly agreed and I got the feeling that I had been played like a fiddle, but also that she was truly being generous with her time. As a result of the renewed bond, I could tell she did not feel pressed to meet any of her exterior responsibilities. It was just a matter of dignity and her wanting me to learn that you either have the leverage to make demands, or you lack it and thus have to resort to negotiation. I suspected that she was even more doting than she let on.

Thanks to my persistence and the fact that she could again literally feel my displeasure from the times when I was alone and stuck, I was able to convince her to enact an even better solution. She arranged for one of her minions, a female telepathic kobold (ha, I knew she had one!) to tutor me so long as my father was present in the den. Since nobody was allowed in for any reason while eggs were present, the poor kobold had to sit outside the entrance and expend a much more exhausting effort to maintain a long-distance mental link. I selfishly chose to overlook her plight since it meant I got more company and because the kobold insisted on how happy and honored it made her feel to help me. As a bonus, she could also link me to the other casters and sages of various tribes, which in turn allowed me to be taught more material and class specializations.

I pressed them to transmit their names and appearances but received a lot of resistance along the lines of, "This insignificant one is not worthy!", "This one does not dare inflict this one's lowliness on his greatness's mind!" and other appalling displays of reverence and servitude. Mix that with the nauseating kiss-assing I received whenever I displayed the slightest amount of progress and I had half a mind to eat them after I hatched. Still, despite their many quirks, I grew fond of the little buggers.

Toward the end of the year, finally, I was able to squeeze the telepath into telling me her name, Rem. This was accomplished by suggesting that her being known by me was a reward for the service rendered and that to refuse would insult my honor by implying I was ungracious. I particularly favored Rem as I earnestly felt she was my tiny savior, sparing my overactive brain from miserable frustration by visiting almost daily. Trying to express this to her only resulted in her freaking out in embarrassment and shyness to the point that it broke our mind link.

"Well, whatever. I'll find a way to reward her after I hatch. Speaking of which, is it me or is it starting to feel a bit cramped in here?"

An unknown amount of time had passed. It was hard to keep track of days when you were in a friggen egg. The Kobolds had long since run out of meaningful material to teach me since I could not physically practice anything. For what must have been weeks it'd just been mom, with her endless repertoire of knowledge, and Rem, with her uncomfortably awkward but enthusiastic small talk. Between my interactions with the two of them, I'd noticed that I had habitually shifted to thinking and speaking in Draconic instead of English.

I was also constantly hungry to the point of being hangry, so I'd done what wyrmlings naturally do and resorted to eating the goop and inner lining of my egg. Of course, I initially hesitated to partake in what was a conceptually unsavory meal, but the stomach pangs won out and to my surprise, it was quite palatable. The flavor was too one-note to be called good eating but it tasted like a kind of savory and buttery mousse. Having the same meal over and over was testing my tongue, but luckily for me, something was changing. I could feel it.

THUMP THUMP. THUMP THUMP. THUMP THUMP.

My heart thumped harder and harder until all I could hear was the blood pumping through my veins. Exhilarating energy flooded out from my chest and into every muscle of my body; my eyes shot open at last. As expected, I could see clearly within the pitch-black darkness of my ovoid prison, a prison I could tolerate no longer. After a short glance around I looked straight upward and inhaled deeply.

THUMP THUMP. THUMP THUMP. THUMP THUMP.

My heart felt as though it was about to explode as lava-like energy filled my lungs. I manically vented all my frustration into one long warcry of, "FREEDOMMMMMM!" as extreme, white-hot light erupted from my jaws in roaring fury and blew the top half of my egg clean off. "I AM THE MIGHTY DESTROYER OF EGGS!" I shouted in satisfaction. Natural light poured in through the smoking hole I just created and I felt like crying in cathartic relief at the sight. I quickly pressed my body up against the inner wall of the egg, causing it to tip over and send me gracelessly somersaulting out, landing splayed on my stomach. That wasn't my proudest exit but I couldn't have been more pleased with myself.

"Welcome to Angnora, my beloved firstborn." Gwaelaraumorainë sings, and her musical voice fills the whole den. Even with the maternal emotional link fading, I felt that she was radiating insane amounts of joy and love.

I turned my head to face her and- "HOLY SHIT! She's humongous!"

I steadily sat up and realized that I barely reached her ankles in height. Her blue and purple eyes looked down upon me, glowing with delight in our dimly lit cave. The light from the entrance made her scales shimmer gently. I briefly wondered if I could read her face due to my new biology, or if her happiness was just that plain to see. Anyway, seeing her staring intently I sincerely shouted upward,

"Mom, you're the most amazing thing I've ever seen! You're big, beautiful, and awesome! I've always thought myself to be pretty articulate, but I can't even begin to describe how incredible it is to really see you!"

She pointed her nose in the air and closed her eyes to bask in my compliments before chuckling and bringing her massive face down to mine. She gave me a gentle lick, then nuzzled my whole body with her nose while she replied, "Aren't you the handsome little charmer!"

After reciprocating the quick snuggle I inspected my hand-... claws and commented, "I look like I'm made of dark steel! I'll have to take your word regarding my good looks, but I like the color!"

Her following hum of approval was interrupted by cracking sounds coming from behind me.

"You were in quite the rush compared to your siblings." She teased.

With plenty of anticipation, I observed the two faded grey eggs sitting beside my broken one. I'd been taught that our colors have nothing to do with those of our parents, so I was excited to see what my siblings would get stuck with. Soon enough, the egg on the right toppled over.

CRRRCRKCRRK CRRCK CRKCRKCRK CRRRRRRRRK

This sibling of mine seemed to have chosen indiscriminately swatting and scratching their egg from within as their method of escape.

"Oh, he takes after his father." commented a bright-eyed Gwaelaraumorainë.

Fractured bulges started to appear on the egg at the locations he struck when new crunching noises drew our attention to the other egg.

crkcrkcrrrrkcrkcrkcrrrrrkcrkcrkcrrrrrk

A small claw poked through the side and then repeated to do so downward, in a straight line. Then that little poking claw reappears at the top and starts doing the same horizontally.

"How wonderfully elegant. Your sister has thought out her approach." our mother praised.

"I think she's just trying to show off."

With an amused snort, mom nudged my flank with her nose and playfully knocked me over, rebuking, "We do not 'show off!' For some of us, our natural majesty must make itself known to the world."

At that very moment, a loud and wet cracking noise came from my brother's egg, and we saw a bright red wyrmling's face squeeze, with effort, through one of the damaged sections. Just as his head was about two-thirds of the way through, he opened his golden-yellow eyes, looked at us, and said, "Hello mother! Hello brother!"

Already on my behind, I started rolling around laughing, "Hahahahaha! 'Natural majesty!' Aaahahahaha!"

Mom tried to put on a disapproving look, but I heard a stifled laugh. "Ahem, I did say 'some of us.'"

"Hey, what's so funny?" My brother demanded as he finally extracted himself from the shelly grip of many torments. "I swear this stupid thing was fighting back!"

"You, goofball!" I teased while rising to my feet. "Though I must recognize you as my brother, given our mutual loathing of eggs."

He replied with a tired, "Yeah!" and a toothy grin.

He was definitely a bit of a meathead. Mom gave him his own lick and nuzzle as I took a better look at him. His appearance was very close to a typical red wyrmling, except that his underside was blood-red with golden markings instead of the usual orange-yellow belly. The same blood-red made appearances on his wings and the manelike spines that started at the top of his skull. He had two crimson horns that were already well developed and rang around his upper eye socket. Comparing myself to him, I saw that I was a bit taller, but he was bulkier.

A crisp crackling sound interrupted my observations and all three of us turned to the final egg. A dainty dragon claw pushed out the makeshift hatch door, and my sister carefully wobbled out of her egg. She glanced at me and our brother for a moment before looking up at our mother and bowing her head slightly. "I'm here now too, mother." Came her voice, that of a young and spoiled princess.

Most of her scales are eggplant purple, with an even darker purple on both her underside and running up her limbs. She has two small horns emerging from behind her skull, pointing slightly backward then up. Her irises were metallic red, with iridescent blues branching out around her slitted pupils. Her snout is slimmer than our brother's, and she has bright purple wings that have a slight opalescent gleam. She's a bit smaller and slimmer than me.

Mom gently pressed her massive forehead against my sister's, softly saying, "I greet you, daughter." They both made noises that can only be described as dragon-purring for a brief moment before mom straightened back up and said to the group, "Go, eat. Your father and I have gathered your first meal. It awaits further in the den. After you're full, entertain yourselves until he returns from patrolling the territory. Then we will conduct The Naming."

The thought of a proper meal caused my hunger to overtake my excitement from being out and about. It seemed my brother and sister were on the same page as, almost simultaneously, we flicked our forked tongues in and out. I was bombarded by my upgraded olfactory system in ways too alien to fully describe. With the help of my tongue, I could smell the moisture and temperature of the air. I also smelled food, so I trotted off on all fours toward the scent, with brother and sister in tow.

Thanks to our innate darkvision, we had no problems reaching our destination. We reached a section of the den where multiple piles separating fruits, vegetables, gems, metals, and... freshly dead animals were placed near a cave pond. I didn't think I was quite ready to chow down on corpses so I opted to instead ravenously dig into the fruits and veg. The new intensity of my palette brought tears of joy to my eyes as I continued to stuff myself, losing all track of time.

I must have consumed half my body weight in food before being satiated and clearheaded enough to look around and pay any attention to my environment. I saw my brother with his face in some poor deer's guts, and every time he popped out to take a breath he revealed an expression as happy as a kid on Christmas. My sister, on the other hand, was taking her time eating a silver plate from a pile of household metalware in a refined manner.

I walked over and asked, "Is it any good?"

She gave me an apathetic glance, carefully finished chewing and swallowing before replying in a disinterested tone, "Why don't you find out for yourself?" Before waiting for an answer she returned to enjoying her choice of meal.

Paying her attitude no heed I said, "Don't mind if I do!" and crunched a silver spoon between my molars like it was hard candy.

The taste was... metallic. But somehow my body registered the flavor as delicious so I took a few bigger mouthfuls of kitchen utensils to chew on while I headed over to the cave pool. To my disappointment, the water was so clear that I couldn't see my reflection in it, so I settled for a drink and a swim. After freshening up I observed my brother chasing his tail and my sister sitting in place with her eyes closed, meditating, I'd guessed. Then an idea hit me and I ran back to rummage through the metalware pile. Sure enough, I found a slightly cracked mirror.

I saw myself and was taken aback. On some level I'd been compartmentalizing what I was going through, but my reflection was making it impossible to keep doing so. I reached out to touch my new image, only to stop short upon once again seeing a claw in place of the human hand I remembered. I'd been putting on as strong a front as I could, but this was all kinds of messed up.

My fierce, reptilian face stared back at me. I made a few expressions, checked out my fangs, my four horns, the various spines growing from my snout to the end of my tail, but it all remained surreal. I wouldn't have been able to believe that this was really me if not for my eyes, which looked strikingly similar in coloration to what I had on Earth: deep ocean-blue circled my outer irises, with light glacial-blue spreading from my pupils like thick webbing. I looked dangerous and admittedly, really really cool. Still, I looked forward to gaining the ability to polymorph back into human form. I let out a big sigh and heard my sister say,

"Something troubling you, brother?" She walked over, spotting the mirror, and took a moment to admire herself. "Oh! How beautiful I am! If you're moping over comparing your looks to mine you should have known better in the first place. There's no competing with perfection, so just take pride in how grim your exterior is. Or perhaps, pick some other quality that males gravitate toward." She said while always keeping her eyes on her own reflection.

I couldn't tell if she was mocking me or if that was her version of comforting. "No, it's not that. It's hard to ex-"

"What are you two looking at over there?!" Our brother interrupted while galloping over and crashing into me. Upon seeing his reflection he bore his teeth and snarled, "Woah, I look so strong!"

"See? This one is pleased with himself. Maybe you could learn something from him." Our sister said with disdain.

I'd had just about enough of her pompous rhetoric, so I pounced at her and we began to tumble. She tried to snap at my face but I pulled it back in time. She growled, "What in the world do you think you're doing?!"

"Playing!" I responded with a smug look as I twisted my body to force us both into another roll.

"I can take you both on!" Our brother screamed with glee as he jumped right on top of us.

"Oof!" I grimaced.

"You're both going to regret this!" Our sister roared.

"Prove it!" I laughed, and the first of many sibling sparring sessions entered full swing.

An hour later, we were all panting. My brother and I were giggling between breaths, and as a pleasant surprise, a few chuckles were coming from sis.

"Maybe she wasn't so stuck up after all," I thought. "That, or she's remembering a few of her back kicks to our faces. She packs a mean hind leg."

"That was fun!" said our brother.

"I suppose it was a bit... thrilling," admitted sis.

"I had to do something about you talking down to us," I smirked.

"Hmph. At least you're finally behaving more as the eldest sibling should." She answered. Is that what her snootiness was about? Was she judging my behavior based on my position? Did she pick up on my melancholy? I'd have to ask her another time, as our mother's voice filled the air.

"Little ones, come! Your father is about to return."