Chapter Twenty-Three

MeiAnne was lost in thought, looking over the egg. It was why she had no idea how long Raba had been standing there.

"Do you plan on eating today? I can grab you something to eat so you don't have to leave." He seemed to be picking up on how little MeiAnne wanted to move from the egg.

"Just grab a little." MeiAnne smiled at him.

As he walked away from the stables MeiAnne laid her palm on the egg. This one was much more active in the egg than Molis was. Tossing and turning as if it wasn't sleeping well in a bed.

"Are you already getting restless?" It didn't feel weird to talk outloud to an eeg, but MeiAnne wondered if she was the only one who would.

"You have no idea what you are getting into." She leaned forward, just enough to rest her forehead gently on the egg's shell.

This egg was definitely more mature than Molis was when she came back to the stable. She even felt the little dragon inside push up against where she was resting her head.

MeiAnne's eyes felt warm, as if tears were trying to come, but just couldn't. She already had so much love for the little life beneath her.

"Did you change your mind?" MeiAnne's head shot up at Raba's voice.

Raba was back already? Had she been sitting like this with the egg for longer than a moment?

"I didn't mean to startle you." Raba sat beside her and handed her a small roll of bread. "Thank you for eating today. I was getting worried when you didn't all of yesterday."

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't be." Raba cut her off.

The bread she bit into was tough and no longer fresh. The crust didn't seem to want to break so she had to pull at the bread with her teeth just to grab a bite.

"Vicious." Raba mumbled teasingly.

MeiAnne was too busy chewing the bread so she only grumbled in response.

She had to be honest with herself. It was strange being more than friends with Raba. She had been putting a lot of thought into the path they were on the last two days.

She stared up at Raba as he looked over Soman's egg. He slowly turned his gaze towards her, with those piercing silver eyes of his.

"Yes?"

"Sorry, I was just thinking."

He brought his eyebrows together in thought, before turning back to face the egg.

"About us?"

MeiAnne grew nervous again. She had only eaten one bite and felt like if she ate anymore she would be sick, even though she was ravenous just moments before.

"Do you-" She had to pause to think of her next words. "Are we going too fast?"

"What do you mean?" Raba still wasn't looking at MeiAnne, but she could tell he was just as nervous as she was. He was clasping his hands in front of him tight, almost to the point where his knuckles turned white.

"We have so much to do, Raba. Should we be more than friends? I only just got past the nightmares of what that man did. What if he comes back?"

Raba was silent, but he unclasped one of his hands and placed it on MeiAnne's leg.

"I think I need a friend more right now." MeiAnne put her own hand on top of his. "I don't want you out of my life.''

"Just not like… This?" He looked back at her, his expression soft and vulnerable.

"Not yet."

She really liked getting to spend time with Raba, and was hoping the yet would prove to be true.

It was just every time she looked over the egg in front of her she was reminded that someone was able to kill so many dragons in such a mysterious way. They haven't seen much of him again, but MeiAnne knew he wasn't going to stop. Not after seeing how successfully he was able to drive so many soldiers away.

"I will leave you for now then." Raba stood. MeiAnne didn't have much of a chance to see if Raba looked hurt or not as he strode away.

MeiAnne let the bread hit the ground of the stable as she sighed. Her head hung in her hands. Maybe it was a mistake to push him away so fast, when she had only just let him in. Yet, she knew she could only take so much.

She thought back to the life she had back in the woods with her mother. She never had a father at home, she never even saw her mother interact with other men. MeiAnne had no idea how to go about her feelings for Raba, and the speed at which it all happened was too much for her.

Even back at the inn, her mother kept her too busy to think about what she would want with someone else. She had only enough time to question visitors about the outside world, little more.

"Why don't I have a dad?" MeiAnne asked her mother once, when a father and son had stopped by during their hunting expedition.

"Why do you need one?" Her mother responded. In fact MeiAnne never got much of a response any time she would bring it up. Her mother was always very quick to dismiss the idea.

At one point when MeiAnne was little she was even convinced that her mom had magic and had a baby without anyone else involved. That idea didn't last into adulthood though, as MeiAnne learned more of what it meant to live in this reality of hers.

She felt her cheeks warm. How did her thought go from Raba to children so fast? And when she had only just slowed them down from reaching that point any time soon.

A small sound brought MeiAnne's head up from her hands. As she looked at the egg she noticed a small crack.

"What? How?" It was much too soon, at least it was much sooner than Molis hatched.

She came to her feet as fast as she could, and still the cracks widened. Soman was going to get out of that egg today.

MeiAnne was not as prepared this time as last. She grabbed the sheet she had been using to sleep on the night before and positioned herself by the egg.

Chunks of the shell were sloughing off the egg at an incredible speed. It was only moments before she saw an egg tooth pierce the lining of the egg and fluid escape into the straw surrounding it.

MeiAnne went to scoop the hatchling up in her sheet when she realized why Soman was hatching so much earlier than Molis.

He was twice the size of a usual hatchling.

As MeiAnne dried off the little hatchling she got to see the beautiful obsidian hide beast that she would get to raise. Her hands wrapped in the ruined sheet cleaned off Soman's head last.

When his eyes opened to meet hers she was met with a striking green gaze, and making it all the more bright was the orange and gold around the pupil.

The hatchling very clumsily made its way into MeiAnne's lap, curling up. Already exhausted from breaking out of the shell, MeiAnne felt its breaths slow as it drifted off into a nap.