Caeden watched as a crack ran through the egg. "Oh, shit!"

"Did you just break a dragon egg? Because I don't think they'll be very happy with us if you did." Cat stared at the possible war crime sitting in Caeden's hand. He couldn't help but agree. If he accidentally killed a dragon hatchling… It would not end well for them.

Then another crack formed in the shell, and Caeden heard an almost unintelligible shine come from inside. "Oh my shroud, I think it's hatching!" He had no idea what to do. Had he interfered with the egg's natural hatching process by picking it up? Was it going to awaken prematurely?

His concerns proved unfounded moments later when a small, green, four-toed foot slammed through the top of the shell; its tiny feet tipped with minuscule black talons. The hatchling was obviously lively if it was kicking through its shell. But why had it only awakened when Caeden pulled it out? Was it waiting to be unburied?

Those were questions he didn't have time to answer because the baby was coming, and nothing was going to stop it. With no other ideas, Caeden continued to hold the egg as larger and larger portions were shattered off it before the hatchling in question seemed to give the hole-riddled remains a sharp rap that caused what was left to crumble apart around it. In his hand, Caeden now held several egg fragments and a baby dragon.

It was similar to the one that had met them on the cruiser, with several key differences. Both were long and slender relative to their body size, with four legs ending in four-toed feet. But where the patrolling dragon had been white and silver, this one was green and brown. The baby dragon also lacked the four wings of the patroller. In fact, it lacked wings of any kind. Instead, a series of ridges ran along its spine that looked like the beginnings of spikes.

Similar to the baby spikes along its back, the baby dragon's claws were also small stumps with barely any sharpness or length. No doubt both would grow as the dragon matured. Its long tail ended in a flair that reminded Caeden of the fletching on an arrow, and it looked at him with chocolate brown eyes very similar to his own. Though he would say that the hatchling's orbs were a few shades lighter. More of a wood brown than his near-black.

They stared at each other for the longest moment, neither moving an inch. Caeden had no idea what to do or expect, and it seemed the newborn was in a similar position. He wasn't sure how intelligent a freshly hatched dragon was supposed to be, but Caeden decided he could at least try to reassure the poor thing.

Using communication sense, he spoke to the hatchling in draconic. "Easy. I won't hurt you." Hopefully, the baby's truth speech magic was able to glean something from that. Caeden assumed that dragons could tell whether or not a statement was truthful regardless of language, but if they couldn't understand the words, they had no idea what that truth was. But he was flying blind when it came to dealing with babies of any variety, so this was his shot in the dark.

With surprising speed, the hatchling twisted up Caeden's arm. It wrapped around the limb and slid along his shoulders until its two-foot length was running across the back of his neck, and its head was now to his left, right next to his own. Turning, Caeden found his gaze less than an inch from the hatchlings, staring into his eyes intently.

Caeden nearly jumped when he felt something ephemeral and tiny press against the place where his shrouds rested in his soul. It wasn't even slightly physical, something that existed on a completely different level of reality. In a way, it felt similar to an unmanifested shroud. But there was no fight for dominance; no one was attempting to invade him. The sensation felt more like a question or a request.

Before he could examine the strange feeling, his shrouds reached out in response, almost of their own accord. It happened on an instinctual level that he couldn't understand or express. Suddenly, new understanding and connection bloomed in Caeden's very soul.

The dragon blinked, and so did Caeden. Then it settled down around his shoulders. Its tail, nearly the same length as its body, flicked around to wrap over its body and completely surround Caeden neck like a living scarf. Its eyes closed, and the baby dropped off to sleep.

"Uh." He stared at the little creature that had just done something Caeden thought impossible.

"Well, he seems to like you," Cat smirked. "Look at him. He just went and fell asleep." She looked at Caeden's stunned expression and frowned. "What's wrong?"

"I think it just bound itself to me." Caeden's words contained every ounce of the stunned disbelief he felt.

"What? You mean like Snowball and Sky? How?" Cat asked.

"I don't know! I thought that was a thing only creature and evolved shrouds could do!" Caeden whisper-shouted. He didn't want to wake his passenger after all. "Of which I am neither. This shouldn't be possible. Plus, it did it, not me! Shrouded bind creatures and monsters, not the other way around. I didn't even want to; it just happened!"

"Well, shit. You think the dragons are going to be mad about you binding one of their babies?' Cat asked.

"Shit!" Caeden exclaimed. "Shit shit shit! I don't know what to do! I know the absolute minimum about binding. I'm not a fucking creature shrouded! Maybe I could undo the binding, but I'd have no idea how to do that. We need to get back to Erik and Lily immediately. She might know how to unbind it."

"Why do you keep calling him and it?" Cat suddenly asked. "Seems a bit demeaning."

"Because, Cat," Caeden snapped, his mind frayed from the hundred stupid and impossible things that had happened in the last few hours, not the least of which being blown up for the fourth time in his life. "I don't know what gender it is. Calling it he when I have no idea would be just as insulting if it's a girl."

"Well, why don't you check?" Car asked nonchalantly.

Caeden sighed in frustration. He didn't feel like they had time for this, but it should only take a second. He reached out with investigative sense, only for his aura to bounce off the hatchling's scales. In his mounting worry and anger, Caeden had forgotten that dragon scales could repel shrouds. Even a newly hatched infant could resist a casual inspection. Before he could kick himself for his memory lapse, he felt a trickle of sensation from the brand new bond clinging to his shrouds rooted in his soul.

"He's a boy. And I think he's been in that dirt for a long time." Caeden informed his teammate. "Now, can we get back to our friends?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll just get us a Brute to ride back to the wreck. It might take a while, but we should be fine. We'll just follow the impact trail and head straight back." Cat gestured toward the line Caedan's falling body had carved through the dense forest around them.

Just as Caeden was about to agree, he heard the distinct sound of wing flaps overhead. Both of them froze as a shadow passed overhead. It was only a moment later that a massive form slammed into the ground right along the cleared path Cat was gesturing toward.

Of course, it was a dragon. A massive creature dozens of feet long. It had green scales, closer to a lime green than the hatchling's emerald coloration. It was also built completely different, with a broad body and a much shorter neck and tail. It had six legs, each of them brawny and thickly built, like tree trunks sprouting from its body. Similarly, its head was more squat and brutish compared to the slender forms of the other two dragons Caeden had seen. Two gargantuan wings sprouted from its shoulders. Its wingspan was easily twice the length of its entire body, neck and tail included.

It glared at them before speaking. Caeden hurriedly used communication sense to catch what it was trying to say. "Shrouded? What are you doing here?"

{}

Lily wanted to tear her hair out in frustration. Erik had spent the last few minutes translating what the three dragons picking through the wreckage of their ship were saying to each other, whispering so he didn't strain her concealment sense. She could only mask so much noise.

The problem that was causing her so much frustration was that Erik's translating skills were abysmal. Lily almost thought she would be better off just listening to the incomprehensible sounds coming from the dragons themselves than whatever he was saying. He kept paraphrasing everything they said and using strange analogies that hurt Lily's brain to think about and parse what he was actually getting at. Sometimes, she just gave up.

It went a little like this.

"Greeny Boy-he gave each of them nicknames- to Fat Dude. 'Bruh, they wrecked the fuck out our field. We should get the boys and light her up. Flush those pricks right out. I want a barbeque tonight! '

Fat Dude to Greeny Boy. 'Are you having a go, Balseth? You know your mom would eat your tail if we ripped a lighter in the middle of the garden. We should wrangle a bunch ah blokes and have a look about. They couldn't wandered too far.'

Gold Prick to Fat Dude and Greeny Boy' Six of one, half a dozen of the other. We sort them right out, and the council'll be raining snack and larder from on high.'

Greeny Boy. 'Snacks and larder? More like shit and piss. I don't want anything to do with a bunch of boogeyman assholes. You all can get ripped a new one when you find them and they eat your face. Sign me out.'"

Lily got a constant stream of this as the dragons seemingly argued about whether or not they even wanted to find the shrouded they seemed sure had served the wreckage around them. In fact, the green one seemed to be afraid of running into them. In fact, that segment of conversation was one of the more understandable ones. Erik often devolved into literal gibberish.

"Are you sure you're getting this right? Our lives depend on it." Lily wanted to slap him after Erik shrugged nonchalantly.

"Meh. I'm not very good at it. For some reason, they keep sounding like the traveling nomads that would roll through town twice a year back home. I think my translation is a bit wonky."

"Yeah." Lily ground out through clenched teeth. "I think it might be."

By some miracle, Erik seemed to catch on to her frustration, which was slowly turning into murderous rage. He had the gall to look embarrassed. "Sorry, it's not my best skill."

Lily shook her head, not mustering up the mental strength to respond to such an obvious statement. She hated this. She wished Caeden were here, or even Cat. She hated feeling like the only responsible person around. Erik was a sincere, funny guy that she enjoyed having around when it was time to relax, and he was a proven fighter that she trusted to guard her back. But he was also incredibly dismissive of all danger in a way she found hard to deal with.

She had no idea how Caeden did it. He was always the one to keep Erik's eccentricity in check, and she found a new appreciation for how annoying that must be. Now that she had to deal with it, she wasn't holding up as well. Then she felt guilty. Erik wasn't being malicious. He just had a unique perspective that could be difficult to understand at times.

Trying to calm down and move on with her thoughts, Lily focused back on her escape plan. She had been formulating one from the moment they hid. She wasn't about to get caught simply because she had been too idle. To that end, she had been manipulating the clouds overhead. Her shroud's range wasn't as far as Caeden's now that he had his Incarnation, but hers had originally been bigger.

She had just barely under a mile of range for her aura. That was more than enough to set up some low-lying cloud cover. So ever since they crashed, she had been adding more and more coverage to the area slow enough that the dragons hadn't noticed the sudden increase.

The final part of her plan would be the riskiest and the hardest. She was waiting until she thought they had as much intel from the dragons here as possible. But if they were arguing about whether or not to continue, it sounded like that time had come. So Lily set the last step in motion.

Lily and Erik had landed with Snowball and Sky in tow. She had been lying on Snowball when the explosion happened, after all. However, she had sent the two of them afield once they had crashed. She would have a hard time hiding Snowball, and two monsters wandering around, even ones as out of place in a grassland as an Icecrag Bear and a Midnight Roc, would arouse less suspicion than two shrouded.

Sky had protested. She was still overprotective after the whole Black Reach incident. It had taken Lily promising Sky could be a part of the escape plan to get her to leave Lily without her being forced to use the bond. A shrouded bond holder could force her bonded to do whatever she wanted, but it wasn't a good basis for a cooperative relationship. Plus, Lily loved her bonded. She didn't want to force them to do anything.

Which led to now, with Lily reaching inside herself for one of the connections tied to her shroud inside her soul. She signaled Sky that it was time and felt a devious satisfaction resonate back to her. Her Roc was overjoyed to be able to help.

From out of the overcast sky, a screech sounded out as a blur of midnight blue streaked down to slam into the head of the dragon Erik called Fat Dude. He was rather bulky, and his burnished orange scales seemed flabby and saggy in places, so the name fit. He let out a surprised cry of dismay before nearly falling over.

In another flash, Sky was off, flying into the distance. She had found a deciduous forest some distance away where the grassland fell away to more mountainous terrain. The dragon had no hope of catching her. Midnight Rocs were speed demons of the monster world. They held less raw power than the traditional Roc, which could fling lightning and form massive storms. But a Midnight Roc could outrun its bulkier kin even without its wings. When she was fully grown, Sky would even develop some control over light and shadows, using the dark to accelerate even further.

Despite Sky's form rapidly vanishing into the distance, Fat Dude still leapt into the air to give chase. Just as Lily had hoped, the others followed suit. Now she could take the fog bank they were hiding in and slowly sneak it into the sky, looking like a normal bit of fog simply returning to the sky where it belonged. Then, once they were among the clouds, Lily could relax. She could pick up Snowball where he was waiting a few miles away and wait for Sky to sneak back around. In a cloud bank a mile wide, she was untouchable. No dragon could find them.

She hoped.