Unable to argue with that, Kan smiled and picked up a piece of fruit. George watched him eat, then rose from his seat and brought out some tea.
“So what brings you all the way here.”
“Well……”
He didn’t rush Kan, who was struggling to find the words, and simply watched. At that, Kan moistened his lips and opened his mouth.
“Do you happen to know anything about an egg that’s red and black?”
“Hmm?”
“An egg whose color looks slightly different depending on the light.”
“Hmm…… red and black.”
Lost in thought, George was quiet for a moment. Kan stared at him intently and took a small sip of his tea.
“I’ve never seen one myself, but…… if it’s as you describe, that sounds like a Dragon Clan egg.”
“A Dragon Clan egg?”
It was the last answer he’d expected, and his eyes went wide.
“That’s right. Was the egg buried underground, by any chance?”
“Hm? Oh…… I’m not entirely sure. I only heard about it secondhand.”
“Sounds like Ollie went and found something strange again. That kid…… I told him to stop burying himself so deep in those human books.”
“That’s…… probably because of his memories of his mother.”
“What does he need to remember that woman for, she who threw him away…… tsk.”
For all his warm appearance, George scrunched up his face and clicked his tongue. Kan could only smile awkwardly.
“Dragon Clan eggs are buried in the ground. They hide their eggs in the earth. The egg feeds on the vital energy of the earth, and once it’s grown large enough it hatches on its own.”
“I’ve never once seen an egg like that. And a Dragon Clan hatching doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would happen quietly……”
“Everyone thinks that, but there’s nothing especially remarkable about a Dragon Clan egg. It simply feeds on the earth’s vital energy and hatches when the time comes. I have heard that once it hatches, it doesn’t stray from that spot for a while……”
“Don’t the parents come looking for it?”
“Parents? Oh, Kan. The Dragon Clan has no parents. They make an egg and bury it in the ground. That’s it. A dragon hatches and grows on its own. The egg naturally seeps into the earth and hatches by itself. They are each entirely independent beings. There is a race that hatches in a similar way…… hmm…… well, that’s impossible, so let’s move past that.”
As if he’d just heard something absurd, George let out a hearty laugh. With every word he heard, Kan felt his expression growing stiffer, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had started to fear that the egg inside Ollie’s stomach might end up draining Ollie’s vital energy instead.
“If…… a Tree Folk or a human were to eat that egg, what would happen?”
“Eat a Dragon Clan egg? That’s ridiculous. That’s not a size anyone could eat. How would you even eat an egg the size of a human head? Oh, if it were a human, I suppose they might try cracking it open.”
Kan barely managed to hold his body still, fighting the urge to bolt straight to Ollie’s side.
“Then……”
“A Dragon Clan egg won’t crack unless it’s time for it to hatch. Even if a human took a hammer to it, it wouldn’t break.”
“What if it were to enter the body of a Tree Folk?”
“Ha. Now I think I understand what Ollie was saying. Knowing him, he must have said he was going to find and eat a Dragon Clan egg.”
He answered with an awkward smile rather than words. George nodded as if it all made sense now, and proceeded to curse Ollie for being an idiot.
“If he’s planning to tear up the ground looking for a Dragon Clan egg, tell him to stop wasting his time and just eat his chicken eggs. A Dragon Clan egg gives us nothing — no vital energy at all.”
“……”
“It’ll probably just pass through his body the same way it went in. If he keeps it inside, it’ll just be dead weight in his belly.”
“Ah…… so he won’t be able to absorb any vital energy from it.”
“How would we ever absorb vital energy from the Dragon Clan? They’re higher-order predators than us. If anything, they’d be the ones consuming us — how could we possibly consume their vital energy?”
At George’s following words, Kan finally let out a breath of relief. It seemed that eating a Dragon Clan egg hadn’t caused any actual harm to Ollie’s body. In that case, all there was to do was wait for the egg to pass through and come out.
“He’ll have a rough time when the egg does come out. The size alone is anything but ordinary. Tell Ollie this from me: if he ever sees a Dragon Clan egg again, he should turn around and run without looking back.”
“Yes. I’ll pass that along.”
“If the egg is simply black, it could be a Ground Clan egg instead. That one is equally impossible to swallow easily, given the size.”
Only then did Kan’s face relax into an easy smile. George looked at him steadily for a moment, then shook his head. He thought, with some resignation, that expecting much from someone who couldn’t even manage a single sharp word toward Ollie was asking too much.
Kan and George drank their tea together. Since George went outside less and less as he got older, Kan always made sure to bring him news from the outside world. George, knowing the thought behind it, would deliberately tease Kan by bringing up Ollie and needling him until Kan’s face went red.
He would be leaving for the Bikan Mountain Range in a few days. It was something that happened without fail once a year, as he regularly exchanged visits with Tree Folk from other places. He briefly considered stopping by Ollie’s and telling him it was a Dragon Clan egg and that all he had to do was wait for it to come out — but then shook his head. Knowing Ollie, he’d take that as permission and swallow it all over again without a second thought.
I’ll wait for the egg to be expelled, take it once it’s out, and bury it back in the ground. Kan nodded to himself and made up his mind.
A month later, Ollie’s stomach was still just as rounded as before. With the vital energy barely building up at all, he’d finally had no choice but to eat the woodpecker egg he’d been keeping as emergency rations. Laughably, the woodpecker egg had given Ollie every last bit of its vital energy within a week and passed naturally out of his body. He stretched out his crouched legs and looked down at the egg. Coated in sticky mucus and crumpled out of shape, it was a miserable-looking thing.
This is how it’s supposed to go……
So why was that other egg, which he’d swallowed a full month ago, showing no signs of coming out? If anything, it seemed to have grown a little larger. He placed his hand on his belly, which was even more rounded than at first, and stroked it slowly and carefully. The strange thing was that whenever Ollie touched his stomach like this, the egg would tremble as if resonating with him.
“You’re a strange egg……”
He tilted his head and muttered to himself at the egg whose nature still completely eluded him.
“What on earth are you? Are you really an eagle egg? I’d have to have seen one before I could know……”
He decided he’d had enough of sitting around and jumped to his feet. He’d drop the jam off at Masa’s, then head down from the forest and go to the library. The underground tree house was too full of damp and moisture to be any place for books. He mostly borrowed books and read them in the village square, then returned them to the library the same day. It was something he did nearly as often as making jam.
He took a jar of jam from the cupboard, tucked it into his bag, and headed out. Through the creaking, worn old door, a breath of fresh air entirely unlike the inside of his home greeted him. He drew in a deep lungful and set off at a brisk pace.
After a long walk, the outskirts of the village came into sight, and his shoulders dropped a little. The closer the sound of children’s voices grew, the harder Ollie pressed his lips together. Just go straight to Masa’s, hand over the jam, and leave immediately. That way he wouldn’t have to run into the village kids. He swallowed and quickened his steps.
“Oh! It’s Ollie the troublemaker!”
“Ollie!”
He was hurrying along when he had the misfortune of running into the worst bunch in the village. Who are you calling a troublemaker! Ollie seethed inwardly and ignored them. But the little ones came scurrying toward him on their short legs.
“Get away from me!”
“Ollie, Ollie!”
“What brings you to the village? You’re here to steal eggs again, aren’t you!”
“Don’t steal mine! You thief!”
“Who are you calling a thief! You look more like one than I do.”
Hopping around and taunting him, the kids couldn’t rattle Ollie, and he raised his voice right back at them — entirely on their level, this child who barely came up to their shoulders. What he didn’t know was that the more he did it, the more the little ones dissolved into giggles and enjoyed themselves.
“Ollie, Ollie! Come play with us.”
“I’m busy. I’m not idle like you lot.”
“Liar. Ollie’s always cooped up at home.”
“Out of my way. Stop getting in my way.”
Ollie absentmindedly gave one of the kids clinging to him a shove. With not an ounce of care behind the gesture, the child stumbled and fell straight back. Lying there dazed, not quite understanding what had just happened, the child’s face then crumpled and they burst into loud crying. Ollie looked at the scene with an expression of pure exasperation, then turned on his heel and fled.
