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“How can it be this difficult to find even one flitter nest?” S’ren mumbled in exasperation, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow. Since both he and E’lai had free time today, Eltimioth had decided that this would be the perfect day to start that search for some firelizard eggs. She seemed to have taken quite an interest in the small creatures recently and had expressed a wish for Hers to attain a few (no doubt so that they can act as personal servants to her, although that part was left unstated). The four of them had been combing the beachside since late afternoon, and it was now nearly evening. The party had decided it best to split up a while back, and the two rider and dragon rider pairs were quite far from one another at the moment. In spite of the lengthy search, Tereth didn’t seem to at all mind continuing with the hunt. Somehow he didn’t doubt that it was the brown who had volunteered their aide in the first place really…

I believe that I have found one, Mine, the brown remarked, nosing around in an outcropping of rocks not too far from his rider. However it appears to have been abandoned. All of the shells are broken.

“Naturally,” S’ren replied with a sigh as he trudged through the sand toward the hidden nest. Sure enough, the eggs appeared to all have hatched already and there was no longer a flit in sight. “Looks like we missed the Hatching. Wait a minute, what’s this?” The brown rider cleared away some of the broken shell bits to find one egg left that had not hatched. He picked up the egg carefully in his hands and looked it over. “Think it’s alive or just a dud?” he asked, trying to see if he could feel any life from within. He knew that Atypical dragons were unable to hatch from their own eggs, so he didn’t doubt the same to be true of firelizards.

Tereth gave the egg a light sniff, but otherwise didn’t offer any opinion. Only one real way to find out.

S’ren nodded in understanding and began carefully trying to crack the shell open. After chipping open enough of the shell, he reached in and carefully pulled out the small firelizard that had been curled up inside, immobile. It was a crimson, and she had a very interesting diamond pattern covering her body. She didn't move at all as he held her, however, and S’ren feared that he had been too late in releasing the small female. “Looks like she didn’t make it. What a shame.”

He had been about to set her back down in the nest when she finally began to stir. The flit let a terribly weak and piteous cry, her eyes whirling bright red with extreme hunger. Heartstrings sufficiently pulled by the poor thing’s pleas, S’ren forgot for the moment that they were supposed to be searching for flits for E’lai and immediately dug out the small bag of food he had brought along as a back-up. The crimson cried again before he could get the first piece to her mouth. “There there, don’t cry,” he said gently. “There’s plenty of food here. You’ll be fine.” The small flit ate ravenously, and it was clear that she had been quite starved. Her fellow clutchmates must have hatched without her quite a while ago. She was quite lucky not to have been attacked by a tunnel snake either.

By the time that the crimson’s hunger had been satiated the small bag of food that S’ren had brought along was nearly empty. The red was gone from her eyes, and they now whirled with a rich blue as she looked up at the brown rider in adoration. Tereth seemed amused for some reason. It looks like she has Impressed you, Mine,

S’ren froze at these words. Shards. He hadn’t intended for that to happen; he had simply been trying to save the flit. “… I guess we had better keep searching for flits,” he remarked with a sigh as he stood back up, the baby crimson cradled in his arms. “Eltimioth might have our hides if we return with this one and none for her and E’lai.”

The brown let out an amused rumble at his rider’s remark. Too late. She heard all the fuss this one was making and is already on the way over with Hers.

“…” Well. This was certainly going to be fun. At the very least he knew E’lai probably wouldn’t fault him. As far as he could tell, the green rider was only even looking for these eggs per his dragon’s request anyway.

Despite knowing full well that a dragon would never harm a human, it wasn't a very comforting thing to be face to face with one whose eyes were whirling angrily like that. "Ah, thanks," he said awkwardly. "Sorry about that, wasn't trying to Impress her. She was starved when I found her."

The crimson chirruped sleepily before snuggling herself into the crook her her human's arms. She was too full right now to really pay much attention to what all was going on around them at the moment. She would be safe here, so there was no reason to be concerned.

We will keep looking, Tereth remarked to the Green in a tone of assurance. If we were able to find this one nest here, then perhaps there will be another nearby.

Even the empty ones might not be entirely empty, the Brown pointed out, glancing down at the small flit that His was holding. We will find more, without a doubt. Just need to keep searching.

S'ren meanwhile was slightly occupied with the small crimson, who had rather quickly fallen asleep in his arms. What should he call her? Well, her patterns look like diamonds, but I don't think that would quite fit as a name, he mused. Maybe Ruby? That's still a gem after all, and it would certainly match with her color. Hm, that works. At least the little lizard had a name now, so that was certainly a start. "Well, let's continue along this side of the beach then. Might have some better luck."

The group had a good chuckle and the search continued on. It was a bit challenging trying to bend over and move aside things without waking or dropping the small firelizard, but somehow the brownrider managed. Unfortunately, however, he wasn't having much better luck than before.

The same couldn't be said of the large Brown, who must have had some sort of built-in firelizard sensor system. There is another nest here, he called out to the group, carefully brushing aside some covering with his nose. The eggs appear to be intact.

S'ren and Tereth both watched with a mix of curiosity and amusement as Eltimioth set about choosing an egg. The brownrider could only imagine what would have become of poor E'lai had they tried to take back an entire group of them.

It would have been chaos, the Brown agreed privately, eyes whirling slowly with interest as he watching the decision making. That would be a lot of mouths to feed.

Tell me about it. One will probably be enough of a handful as it is. Hopefully whatever firelizard the greenrider ended up with would have a nice temperament.

S'ren had to chuckle a little, not entirely surprised that the green was still miffed with him. That might last for several days-- or at least until E'lai's egg hatched. "That was certainly an unexpected surprise," he agreed, "although regardless we were happy to help. We should probably head back and get to dinner though. The sun will be setting soon."

At this point the small crimson finally began to wake up from her nap, stirring a bit in S'ren's hold. She let out a sleepy yawn before looking about at the rest of the party curiously. Big things were big!

Tereth meanwhile was attempting to cover the remaining eggs as they had been hidden before, both to keep them safe and to keep them warm. I'm ready whenever you guys are.