Omelettes [Poptart & Eve]

Amphios climbed over a felled tree with a little difficulty. He didn't usually like wearing clothes in the forest since it made it a lot harder for him to navigate around the area and over the rocks and tree limbs, but...

But sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Ardos was still following him as he slid down a grassy hill. The faun had said some innocuous things, a passing comment here, a small mention there, about there being something in the forest. Of course he knew a lot more about the dangers in the forbidden forest than him, and would be much more equipped to deal with the danger, but Ardos had insisted he come along.

Probably for protection. It was nice of him.

So as Amphios lead the two of them to his little cottage (would he be able to get back even?) and decided to take them the slightly easier route, rather than as the crow flies. This route had something at least approximating a path, and Ardos wouldn't get lost in the forest.

"My house is just--" He heard the thump of heavy weight and the stench of something dead, with an even more rotten scent on top of it and he knew instantly what it was. Before he could even think of trying another way, a dinosaur crossed their path. Lumbering and death with a limp and broken body in its maw, a very clearly dead T-Rex stood on the path, took one look at Amphy, and let out a small chirp before going on its way.

Odd.

Where'd he get that corpse from?

"I'm gonna check that out." Before Ardos could stop him, he was climbing over the bushes and pushing aside branches to see what looked like a campsite. It was awash with blood from the T-Rex's feeding, but he could see a glimmer of something white laying innocently in the soft, blood-rich soil. "Is that an egg?"

@"Poptart" @"Evelyn Pierce"

The faun really wasn't certain what he was going to do with the egg. Logic dictated that maybe it would be best to leave the egg alone, considering that he couldn't interfere whenever nature or poor luck seemed to work against the animals in the forest. But at the same time, he could tell that this egg was likely not from anything in the forest. This looked like a smuggler camp, the egg had likely been some of their cargo.

He couldn't let a little thing so far from home wander the forest alone without a mama to at least show it the way.

Amphios kneeled down to get a better look at the egg... when it started to chirp and clack and the shell cracked indecisively, he knew that he couldn't leave it alone. The fuzzy body and slim claws... it looked more suited to someplace rocky and cold, not flat and mostly temperate like Manta Carlos.

The faun looked up at Ardos.

"I think I'm gonna take care of it."

With a small exhale he started to coo softly at the egg, making cute approximations if its chirping to encourage it to come out of its shell. He'd seen baby birds do this, and while sometimes it was cute and harmless, an unwillingness to leave their shell sometimes killed newborns without even giving them a chance.

"Ardos, d'you think you could give me a hand? Make like... grunty noises or something. Maybe it'll come out to investigate."

@"Poptart" @"Evelyn Pierce"

Amphy was more than a little pleased with himself when the noises he and Ardos made seemed to fill the baby with courage and inquisitiveness. He watched with wonder as the shell cracked open, revealing a fluffy creature with wings. It was a moment before the faun realized that this was a dragon. A little fuzzy dragon had just popped out of an egg like a little gopher!

He had to resist the urge to squeal the little guy was so cute.

The faun watched with bated breath as it waddled close to him with a bit of its shell blocking the fluff-ball's vision and fell over pooped.

That was when he saw his eyes and the little one tried to wiggle closer to him.

Oh, he believed this was called imprinting. When a tiny newborn lays eyes on someone, they assume that that someone is their mommy. And since the little fluffy thing looked at him... he supposed he was mommy.

Well, now he definitely couldn't leave the little guy alone, especially since he was now tasked with being its mother.

"I think it thinks I'm its mommy." The faun leaned forward and scooped the little dragon the size of a house cat into his arms. For once, Amphios was kind of lost. He didn't have a ton of experience with dragons, and especially not that much experience with dragons like this one. He looked at Ardos. "Do you know what baby dragons eat?"

@"Poptart" @"Evelyn Pierce"

"You'd make a cute mother."

He... had to admit that he blushed a little bit at that. A cute mom? His little tuft of a tail wiggled at that. The faun was happy that Ardos thought of him as cute.

Still, at the moment he was preoccupied with cuddling the dragon. It was soft and felt the tiniest bit like the little thing was cold. The faun was more than happy to share his body warmth with the newborn dragon hatchling. He considered tucking the dragon into his shirt for the moment, where it would be nice and warm, but he wasn't sure how well the dragon would take that.

Hearing Ardos' suggestion that the little dragon was probably a carnivore that needed milk, it seemed to make sense enough for him. The only problem was that he didn't have any milk, and he probably wouldn't be able to convince any of the mothers of the forest to give a share of their mother's milk to a strange creature.

"I guess we have to go back into town."

He glanced over his shoulder to see the little dragon biting on Ardos's finger. Well, it didn't seem to have teeth, so he supposed the baby was more like.... gumming on his finger. How cute.

"I guess you're right," he said with a smile. "she does have a taste for meat, huh?" Amphy said with a snicker. "But it looks like she likes you. Maybe you should be her handsome father, huh?"

Oh god why would you say that, that was so awkward oh geez--

To keep himself from driving himself made, he inspected the little dragon's head, and the tiny horns poking out there. Amphy ran a thumb over the dragon's horns as he slowly stood to his feet, giving her a kiss on the head. "Are you hungry? Let's get you something to fill your belly."