A one shot. Needs work. Am posting for posterity. Standard disclaimers apply, reviews and concrit are aprpeciated. Set in the "Legend of Spyro" continuity.


The Other Egg.

"You are our real son... it's just that you came from somewhere else."

It was found on the banks of the Silver River, sitting in the hollow of an upturned mushroom.

"The Silver River", Maabeth had realised long ago, was probably a whimsical choice of name. Her people had lived by the river all her life, constantly subject to its whims and currents. During the autumn months, the cloudy waters would curl around the banks in a dim shade of green. During the summer, it was peaty and brown, warmed by the thick, alluvial mud. During the winter, the cold would freeze it solid in the hills, so that by the time it had flowed far enough downstream to reach their village, it was icy cold and virtually clear, and early in the morning, at the rising of the sun, its surface would glitter with gold, whatever the season.

Never once had the river appeared the slightest bit "silver" to her. Then again, she supposes she isn't one to talk: names had never been her forte.

"Sparx", for example, was a very common name, and yet that was the one she had chosen for him. She liked it. The name was common specifically because if fitted so fell. He looked like a Sparx. He behaved like one, even now, so soon after birth. Green in colour, but soon to be blue like his father, or perhaps gold, if he took after his elder greatmother and had picked up some of that mayfly blood that was mixed up in her genetic line. His skin was already glimmering, his wings were strong and firm, and he was showing signs of being an early flyer.

She supposed it was genetic. Her family had always taken to the air very easily. They had to, living so close to the rivers where those who didn't fly soon enough were likely to drown in floods or deluges.

She had been hovering close to the river bank, thinking about her new child and how they were going to cope with the winters, with another mouth to feed, when she first noticed the other egg. Though in truth, Thon noticed it a while before she did.

Thon had pulled her close as they approached it. It lay in the mud and mushrooms, looking for all the world like a strange coloured rock. Granted, it didn't look very much like an egg at all –too large and bright and solid looking– but Maabeth knew it, nonetheless.

It felt alive. It sounded alive.

'Don't touch it; dear, we don't know where it's been...'

'Then where on earth did it come from?'

'I'm... not certain. Somewhere else. Somewhere far away.'

Thon spoke quietly and uncertainly and with none of the usual confidence he displayed around that with which he was familiar. Nervousness was in his nature but truth be told, she was a little afraid herself. She had never seen anything quite so strange in their swamp before. Never seen anything so bright that it caught the golden glimmer of the morning light and reflected it into her eyes. It's surface is mottled like the skin of a frogweed, rather than smooth.

Something beat beneath its surface.

When the cocoon trembled and creaked with pressure from the inside, Maabeth found herself thinking again of that morning, and of her child's first breath. She found herself wanting to reach out and touch it.

Her husband was more nervous about it than she was, but that was understandable. He came from the Ancient Grove, after all, where poison beetles skulked and tree spirits would uproot themselves to hunt down any unwary dragonfly that strayed too far from his nest. It was in his nature to be cautious, especially about strange objects, drifting into their swamp as if on the direction of someone else.

Certainly, somebody had had to upturn that mushroom head...

'Thon? Is it alright?'

'Yes, I'm sure it is, try to calm down, dear.'

'It is still moving, isn't it? You can still hear its heart...'

'Sweetheart, we're not even sure what it is, yet. Why don't we worry about that first, hm? Why don't you check on Sparx. I won't leave it alone.'

'But—'

'Dear.'

'...Alright.'

They chose to move it inside, mainly because of the apes. The creatures seemed to be everywhere these days, and would tear apart anything they thought they might be able to eat the insides of. For some reason, Maabeth couldn't stand the thought of leaving it to be ripped to shreds by those hungry monsters. Not that she blamed them for being hungry. Life was hard and hunger was just another part of that, but she did care about their wanton cruelty.

'Be careful, don't knock it.'

She was as gentle with it as she could be, as gentle as she ever was with Sparx, who was now perched safely out of the way in the upper branches of the Water Weeper where they had made their home. The egg sat below him, but still there wasn't quite enough room.

As a child, Maabeth had been picking frogberries from bushes and playing in the swamp pools while Thon had been trying to keep away from poisonous grove mites and Swamp Dogs that would have hunted him down and chewed him up the moment they became aware of him. Anything unusual did not last long in a place like the Ancient Grove. That which did not fit in with its surroundings could not survive.

'...Actually, it would probably be pretty well camouflaged there, being purple, like it is... not out her. Out here, it's lucky we got to it first.'

'Do you think it's... will it hatch, do you think?'

'I would imagine so. It seems to be. It... ah...'

'What?'

'Well maybe bringing it inside wasn't such a good idea.'

They were of two different worlds, and Maabeth knew all about the strange and unworldly from the stories her husband had told he. And yet this creature, this egg, was like nothing that either of them had seen or heard of before.

And then the surface cracks.

Maabeth feels the hatching come in advance, almost as if on a new-mother's instinct.

'Oh, my...'

Its first breath was the same as Sparx'. Except for the fact that she was close enough for the strength of it to tug her wings. It's alarmed, scared, shocked by the coldness of the world outside its shell.

It was purple. Its eyes were the same, when it opened them for one, brief moment. Perhaps it even had wings, but at this moment, she couldn't be sure. Its skin is the same as the surface of its shell – dark and mottled and occasionally glistening.

Purple.

Never in her life had Maabeth ever encountered a purple dragonfly, but this fact changed nothing. It was born into their family, after all, wasn't it? "Born in the roots, it shall be raised in the tree"; Maabeth knew the old saying. He was born to them, so he was theirs. Despite the... strangeness of their circumstances.

There was nothing more to be said than that.

'I... thought perhaps you'd like to choose.'

'Me?'

'Why not? You found him first.'

'Now, dear, you know I'm no good with naming; I was fresh out when we came to Sparx. It seems alright. It's... looking at you.'

'Yes, I noticed.'

'It saw you first. You know what they say about things like that.'

In truth, the only name which rally comes to her mind is "Spyro".

It was the name of a cousin. It meant "to breathe life", amongst other things. Another moniker which she thinks is quite whimsical. How could anything breathe while encased in that hard, cold, purple shell?

Well. Something, apparently, could.

Definitely not a dragonfly. As if it's size hadn't been evidence enough. But it hatched from an egg within the roots of the tree they called home. Surely that was all the rule they needed.

'Doesn't look like an early flyer, does it?'

'I know... I don't even really care that it's probably lulling me into a false state of security.'

'Oh, Thon, it's a child. It's supposed to lull people into false states of security. How else could they survive?'

'They couldn't, of course... it couldn't. Not out there in the swamps. Particularly not with the way the apes have been behaving lately.'

'...Thon, we can't just abandon it, no matter what it is.'

And so they didn't.

They named him Spyro. This is where the story begins.