bard_linn

Title: A Tiny Miracle
Content Warnings: None
Pairings: None
Summary: The first of Joshua's dragons hatch.
Originally Posted in: The Armiger Discord

Joshua's fingers reached out to touch the blue egg, tracing the pink marbling throughout its surface. It was absolutely beautiful. If not for the warmth radiating from within, he honestly might have thought it a piece of art instead of a living thing.

A month ago, days after the final confrontation with Hades, Joshua found himself summoned to Il Mheg by Titania. Upon arrived at the castle where he had fought Feo Ul's predecessor, he abruptly found himself holding a large egg. An unexpected result of his fight with the previous Titania, Feo Ul explained, and now that he was no longer fighting Lightwardens, it was his job to take care of it.

It wasn’t the first time that life has resulted from one of his battles. Wondrous horses, lanners and kamuy had risen from previous battlefields, heading out into the world to do… whatever it was they did. Legends said many of these creatures existed, but he hadn’t seen them before his battles where they arose. In fact, Joshua was pretty sure he’d felt them form out of the residues of the primal energy dissipating. So far there hadn’t seemed to be any negative side effects of the creatures wandering about, so Joshua just…tried not to think about it too hard.

As the Phoenix, Joshua was an entity of life and death. Rosarian faith believed all things lived, died, and were reborn. It was not without possibility that his involvement had allowed echoes of old life to take form again.

Though he had never made eggs before.

Eggs, plural, because he had found two more. One where Vauthry had fallen and another one where he and Hades had fought. Predictably enough, the eggs were marble-white veined in gold and a dark purple swirled with black.

After safely getting the blue one back to the Crystarium and having it identified by an excited G’raha as a dragon egg, Joshua had set up a basket with sand in his room. He kept the sand warm with fire spells and waited, sure that the eggs would hatch. In fact, other than his quick trip to check the locations he had fought other Lightwardens and where he and Hades had clashed, he didn’t leave the Crystarium. There were enough projects around to keep him busy, and he didn’t want to be too far from the eggs when they hatched.

Today Joshua didn’t even want to leave his room. Something was happening soon; he could feel it. There was a distinct feeling that his feathers wouldn’t settle, an itch on his back he just couldn’t quite reach.

(And what an odd feeling that was, to sense Phoenix again—to have his country’s Eikon strong enough to feel under his skin. He wondered: had G’raha not summoned him here, had he never absorbed the Lightwardens, would Phoenix ever have been strong enough to fly again?)

He tried to keep himself busy with mending his gear and organizing his pack, but he couldn’t focus. He kept drifting over the the basket with the eggs, lightly tracing the pattern on each one. His eyes went wide when his fingers touched the blue one. It was vibrating.

Joshua sat down next to the basket, thoughts of anything else gone from his mind. He closed his eyes and listened, trying to hear something, anything.

There. A song.

His hands trembled a little. G’raha said that some of the books left in the tower said dragons “sang their children out of their eggs” when it was time for them to hatch. Dragons did not come into this world alone. Joshua had feared that without a dragon here they may not hatch, but he could hear it—

Without thinking, he began to sing—not the same song, but one that harmonized with it, a song that welcomed and supported the new one. Just like the Dawn Song, it came to him easily. Phoenix must know it; there were dragons in Sanbreque. Perhaps some previous Phoenix had sung forth some of their children, maybe even some of Bahamut’s brood…

The shelled dragon’s song grew louder. The blue egg began to rock. Joshua fluttered his hands helplessly, not sure what he should do. Should he try to stabilize the egg, or would that hurt the dragon trying to get out?

Crack!

Joshua gasped, hands hovering over the egg. The song from within took on a scared tone. The Dominant nearly swore, realizing that he had stopped singing. He picked back up the tune, welcoming the new dragonet into the world. Slowly, ever so slowly, the crack spread, until finally the egg split in two, revealing the tiny creature inside. Their tiny head lifted up, turning this way and that, eyes blinking. Joshua kept singing, and they head turned towards him.

They were the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Like their egg, they had beautiful blue scales with hints of pink. Their wings were a too large for their body, and their limbs seemed a little weak, shaking with the effort to hold themselves up. They moved towards the edge of the basket, towards Joshua’s voice.

And then promptly stepped on one of their wings, sending themselves sprawling into the warm sand holding the eggs. They let out the saddest cry Joshua had ever heard, looking towards him.

“Oh, you poor thing. Here.” Without thinking, Joshua gently picked them up, settling them on his chest. The dragonet let out a happy chirping sound, snuggling against his shirt. Joshua gently ran a finger up and down the dragonet’s back, feeling their new scales. “Welcome into the world, Mischief.”

He didn’t know where the name came from, but it felt right. Mischief let out a little sigh and promptly fell asleep. Later Joshua would have to figure out how to feed them, introduce them to the Scions—and Feo Ul, if he didn’t want to be verbally skinned alive—worry about the other eggs, and more—

But for now, he was going to just enjoy this moment with this little miracle. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else.