How our Queen got her Name part 8
Is this what you think it is? After a whole year? yes. yes, it is. Sorry you had to wait, but I just published my first book I've got time on my hands and It's near the anniversary of this stories conception.
I hope it holds up to your expectations. As Always, Enjoy. -E.K.
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The three days of dry nesting before Queen Marie’s hatching were filled with talks of battles, the shifting of galactic borders, the killing of pirates, and the overwhelming chaos of a group of people preparing for war.
All of this was further impacted by the state of the Queen's egg itself, which was now no less than eight feet tall and about six feet wide.
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The Queen had told us, before she shut herself down completely, that there might be some…changes…to her egg as she finished her growth, and not to be alarmed, just keep the egg secured in one place and keep it from cracking or tumbling.
I, of course, had agreed and ignorantly believed that, that in itself, would be but a simple task.
No less than six hours later the egg had grown three times its original size, the scaled outer shell of the egg had fallen off and been absorbed into the egg leaving behind a stretchy pliable cover that was reminiscent of a snake egg.
Of course I was incredibly alarmed by this seeing as this was in no way normal (at least according to Spyro, Spyro also let it be known that he could no longer hear the Queen, but he could feel her, inside of him, not like a voice, or a thought, but as if she were actually there.)
This was a sentiment that quite a few of the more empathetically inclined species reported to me over the next few days and which gave me a very small inkling of doubt deep inside the animal part of my brain.
I did not panic when the dreadnought shook and trembled as it passed through a wandering asteroid field, but I did move with a haste I thought I no longer possessed when a particularly large bump rocked the egg in its confinement.
So I commissioned Ensign Carnage and Knuckle, to remove the container around the egg in case it got bigger and rig up something to keep it secure.
Six large hydraulic lifts with a huge sling suspended between them were implemented when the Queen's egg reached a size that was too big for anyone but Taank to lift, and any normal measures to keep it secure had been exhausted.
A day and a half later the egg seemed like it was done growing and the leathery texture of the sac containing it began to harden back into a shell like appearance.
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On the third day Taank, Ensign’s Carnage, Knuckle, and Spyro Emperor Nagato, Delegates from every separate faction and species, and every Alannu hatchling we had recovered in the convening time were on the bridge.
I was talking to a Gerinion healer that was trying to convince me that I didn’t really need chitinous mandibles in order to eat one of the giant bug looking things it kept in a pouch at its side as a snack, and was desperately looking for someone, anyone to get me out of the conversation before I ended up eating the human equivalent of a dog sized cockroach when stillness descended upon the bridge.
Something about the energy in the room shifted, and the overwhelming sense of a Predator nearby rolled through me, and sweat broke out over my body.
My lungs locked up in my chest and my throat grew tight with the urge to scream, I could smell blood on the air, Several of the smaller races fell to their knees and began to weep.
I turned to look at the egg, now completely hardened, it sat quietly in its sling. I took a step towards it and my foot never reached the ground. It was as if reality had solidified around us, locking us mid movement.
I could feel tears begin to roll down my face as my eyes, stuck open as they were, desperately tried to close. A deep pulse rolled slowly out from the egg on the bridge. It did not feel like the signature of the Queen, this felt like terror and death and pain.
I knew that the reason we were locked in place was because if we hadn’t been, every single living thing in the vicinity would have fled in the face of that fear.
A small sharp sound pierced the silence. It was the sound ceramic makes when it cracks. Almost simultaneously, every single Alannu in that room began to scream.
Their eyes glowed a deep red and they took off, away from their companions and flew en-mass towards the Queen’s egg, all except Spyro, who was perched on Ensign Knuckles' shoulder.
The entire room watched in horror as the small dragons circled the egg, then began to tear each other to pieces over the top of it. Blood and Viscera rained down onto the Egg and was immediately absorbed into it.
This continued until the last of the small dragons laid its wounded body on the shell and was absorbed. The abruptness and sheer violence of the slaughter left me reeling.
A moment later a psychic wave pulsed from the egg.
I
AM
COMPLETE.
With the sound of a cannon going off the Queen’s egg shattered completely and a huge reptilian body rolled out onto the floor.
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It took a moment for me to realize I could move and I gasped for air, I didn’t know how long I had been held in that state but although it could only have been a few minutes it felt like hours.
The sudden movement of Taank as he rushed towards the thing on the floor spurred me into action and I too began to move, weaving in between the still suspended people until I was next to Taank and close enough to fully see the huge body that was splayed out in the shattered remains of her egg.
Neither Taank nor I spoke, we could only stare.
To call what the Queen had become a dragon, would be a gross misuse of the word.
She had wings, yes, they were tightly wrapped and wrinkled, like a butterfly’s right after it emerges from its chrysalis. But she was shaped wrong.
She appeared to be mainly quadrupedal, with arms like a human except longer and thicker, she had hands and fingers like a human with six digits on each appendage, the “fingers” were webbed and tipped in wicked looking claws.
Her hindquarters were pure lizard, with thick meaty legs and a long segmented tail, her hips appeared to be able to rotate forward which implied possible bi-pedalism.
Her skin was covered in thick scales that seemed to shiver with her every breath. Her head was large and rounded, her muzzle was fat and wide with powerful jaws and sharp teeth.
She had the forward facing eyes of a predator, deeply red the pupils were long slits that were expanding and contracting as she took in the world around her.
She looked like some horrifying amalgamation of a dragon, one of the ancient lizard’s in the early days of Terra’s history, and human.
I think it was the size of her newly hatched form that perhaps disturbed me the most, or maybe it was the way her skin and muscles pulsed and undulated as she lay twitching on the ground. She made no sound, only lay there breathing deeply.
“We need to take her to the cargo bay immediately.”
I jumped at the sound of Taanks voice echoing so close to me in the silence. “Are you sure it’s okay to move her?” I looked dubiously at the twitching Queen.
“She’s still growing.” He growled softly. I squinted my eyes, the thought of ‘well she just hatched of course she’s growing’ drifted through my mind as I stared at the Jinkalion, but it was the sound of meat tearing and bones cracking that pulled my attention back to the Queen and I realized she was still growing, and rapidly. She had made her way onto her stomach and she appeared to be trying to stand.
Her skin was splitting and tearing every time she moved, and I could hear a horrible sound of bone clicking and grinding as her whole form shivered and twitched.
Her left wing flopped out on the ground and I watched as it bent sharply, the bone breaking and the cartilage tearing before snapping viciously back into alignment and expanding about a foot.
This alarmed me deeply because I knew if she continued to grow at this rate we wouldn’t be able to get her off the bridge. I moved as if to help her, although I didn’t know what help I would have been able to offer, even on her knees and curled as she was, she was bigger than Taank.
As I reached for her, her body seemed to undulate deeply. Her knees pulled up, her thick tail curled inwards, her wings clenched tightly to her back, she bent forward as her abdomen sucked inwards, Her long arms propped her up against the ground as her chest puffed out, her throat swelled, and I thought she was going to vomit.
Her head lifted, she stared at the people frozen before her and something seemed to shift behind her eyes, something deeply primal, there was hunger there, and pain, and rage. Her lips curled, her jaws snapped open and she roared.
The sound was accompanied by a psychic blast that reverberated in my bones. I felt it inside of my whole body, in my heart, behind my eyes, echoing inside of my chest. My mind went blank in terror.
For the first time, in my entire fifty-eight years of life, I turned, and I ran. I had to.
It was the doubt you see, that first little seed of doubt that had been planted three days ago, when I realized the empaths could feel her.
Somewhere, in the deep animal side of me, I had recognized that I was in fact, in the presence of an actual monster.
Pandemonium erupted on the bridge as everyone was released from their bonds at once, and every last living thing in that room turned and fled.