It turned out that hatching was a long and drawn-out process. Masa and my dad were already staring at the egg when I went downstairs while my mum already started preparing breakfast. I joined the guys in staring at the egg for a while. There was a tiny hole in the side and soft cheeping sounds coming from the chick inside as it struggled to break out. Masa was adamant that we couldn't help by removing some of the shell since that would make the baby weaker, but it looked so pathetic as it alternated between struggling and resting. Certainly nothing like what I had seen in cartoons. Oh well. This was real life after all.

My patience soon ran out and I went to help my mum in the kitchen. She was preparing both breakfast and lunch, as it turned out. We were going to leave after breakfast and my dad wasn't sure how long the journey would take from here, so she was going to pack our lunches to eat as we travelled.

"Is Dad going to teleport us there one by one?" I asked her as I chopped the carrots into large chunks.

"Well, it depends," she said thoughtfully. "He needs to be able to visualise the places to teleport, but we haven't visited in such a long time, so there might be changes to the landscape."

"So it would be safer to go there on foot or by carriage, then?"

"Preferably, yes," she agreed. "I could probably ferry all of you for a short distance too though..."

I pricked up my ears at this statement. "Oh right, you have the Transformation affinity! What creatures can you turn into?"

"I haven't raised it as much as Conjuration, so I can only transform for short periods of time, maybe a maximum of ten to fifteen minutes?" stated my mum with a smile. "I can turn into any animal I have seen in person before."

"That's so cool!" My eyes were probably sparkling at this point.

"I've tried turning into animals I've seen in pictures, but somehow the visualisation wasn't enough. Videos make it slightly easier, but I haven't dared risking it yet," she said with a shake of her head. "I wouldn't want to be stuck in that form if anything goes wrong, after all."

"So when you said you can ferry us for a short distance..."

"I've seen large animals like whales and elephants back on Earth, you know. Unfortunately, there aren't dragons in Shyi'eld, but there are large birds that can probably carry a human or three."

"There are no dragons in Shyi'eld!?"

Her casual statement almost blew my mind. The ultimate fantasy creature didn't exist in this fantasy world!? How could that be?! It was bad enough to hear that elves or dwarves no longer existed...wait, could the same thing have happened to dragons? Had they been hunted to extinction?

My mum frowned at my question. "As far as I know, they only exist in fairy tales or legends, much like on Earth," she said, resting her chin on her thumb and index finger. "If there were any eyewitnesses, they probably died thousands of years ago."

"So, kinda like the dinosaurs, huh," I joked.

"They didn't even leave bones or teeth behind though. Any claims of dragon fang or dragon scale materials are certainly fake and not worth the prices they're sold for. I'm not speaking from experience, naturally," she added the last statement with a slightly shifty look.

We continued chatting about other things until the food preparation was done. The chick was still in the process of hatching, with almost half of its body out of the egg now, but it looked like it would take a lot more time, so we decided to have breakfast first. Masa reluctantly came to the table after tearing his eyes away from the hatchling. He placed the emerging chick on a soft cloth not too far from the fireplace so it wouldn't catch cold after it hatched.

"Have you thought of a name for it?" I asked him as we started eating our fried vermicelli.

Masa shook his head, although my dad perked up and I simply gave him the side-eye. There was no way I was going to let my dad name anything else. Besides, it was Masa's pet, so the Japanese boy had the right to name it.

"I think I'll wait until I can identify what kind of bird it is first, but the parent looked a little like a hoatzin, so I'm considering 'Tsume' or 'Opis' from the scientific name," he said finally.

"A what?" asked my dad, tilting his head.

"A hoatzin's a kind of bird, Dad," I answered before Masa could reply. "It's unique among birds in that the young have claws on their wings, kinda like dromeosaur dinosaurs."

My dad gave me an exasperated look. "Are you guys trying to show off your knowledge? Because explaining something by tossing in more difficult words isn't helping."

"Raptor dinosaurs, ok?" I told him, curving my fingers and making grabby actions in his direction. "The ones that had feathers in the latest movie?"

"Ah, those. Why didn't you say so in the first place?" snorted my dad. "I remember you complaining about the inaccuracies throughout the film and making me regret watching it with you."

Masa was staring at me with surprise. "I didn't know you liked dinosaurs."

My face went red and I picked at my food. "Well, Mum's opinion is that it's just a fad most people grow out of, so I didn't mention it."

The boy turned to look at my mother, but she simply shrugged like she had given up on me. Great. Way to make me look good in front of the boy I liked. Wait, I liked him, but was it the serious kind of like? Like like like? Ok, my thoughts had resorted to repeating words now. I gave up on that train of thought.

"I think that's cool though. Not many girls I know like dinosaurs," stated Masa with a small smile.

Whoa! My affection meter just went way up! I might really have a shot with this guy!

"Naturally, I like them because they're related to birds."

...And of course he would say that.