"Thank you for shopping at The Sweet Tooth! Please come again!"
Darner let out a sigh once the door closed behind the last customer of the day. Locust ran out from behind the counter to lock the door behind the customer and change the store sign to "CLOSED". Slumping over the counter, Darner brought her talons to her face to rub her eyes. Warm wings settled themselves on her back a moment later. Darner scooted herself closer to Locust without removing her talons from her face.
"Headache?" Locust muttered quietly. He received a single nod as a response. Unwrapping his wings from around Darner, he left to the back room, only to return a moment later with a glass of water. Darner drank as though she had found a watering hole after wandering for hours on the open savanna.
Locust carefully watched Darner to make sure she drank all the water before resting his wings across her back again. "You need to take more care of yourself. You can't run yourself ragged before she hatches."
"She?" Darner shot her husband a teasing look.
Locust suddenly seemed very interested at the box of honey drops on the counter. "Well, I think it will be a she."
At the ready with a witty response, Darner was cut off when Locust place a claw over her mouth in a shushing motion. His talons then moved to gently caress Darner's face as a small smile formed on his face. Darner felt the same smile cross her face as he gently pressed his forehead to hers. The two sat in silence for a few moments before Darner pulled herself away from the embrace. Locust's concerned look worried Darner.
"Did something happen? You're look worried, my love."
Locust set his talons on Darner's shoulders. "I know we're not in the best place right now, and I don't know when we'll be in a better place, but you can't run yourself ragged. I want our dragonet to have both parents there to raise her. She won't have a mother if that mother dies of exhaustion because she needed an extra bag of Scales for a new toy. Also, I need you, too."
"But we need the Scales!" Darner protested. "Scales make the world move, and I want our dragonet to have the best life she can have. I want her-"
"Scales won't help her grow into a kind dragon or a successful dragon. If we put in the effort, she will be a great dragon regardless of where she comes from."
Darner wanted to counter what he had said but found she couldn't. Locust grabbed her talons and pulled her toward the back room. Reluctantly, Darner followed him.
The back room was also the store's kitchen. There were used candy molds in a bucket of water that had yet to be cleaned, a coiled strand of flamesilk below an urn filled with melted sugar, and a long counter with a thin sheet on it. The sheet was mostly empty, but one side had either hardened candies or molds with melted honey that were waiting to harden. At the back of the kitchen was a door that led to a small room. The small room resembled an office but on a much smaller scale. There was a small desk with several boxes of papers with labels such as "income" and "payments" stacked behind the desk. Below the desk, there was a basket filled with soft blankets and pillows. On the blankets sat a pale egg.
The egg was close to hatching because Darner could see the vague shape of a dragonet. The egg bore 2 stinger marks and Darner's name engraved on the shell. The hatchery workers had given Darner and Locust the egg a few days ago. They were told the egg would hatch in about a week. Now it was only days.
Locust pressed himself close to Darner. "Does it look like our dragonet will need Scales to live a great life? No. She only needs us. As long as she's with us, she'll have the stars."
Darner smiled as the dragonet in the egg shifted. "Yes, she will."