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(AD 952, Fionnúir, Éire)
With the creaking of a door, a shaft of light entered the main room of the darkened building. No one knew of this place, or at least what he was using it for if they did, and so quite often he would sneak in here at night. A tatty scroll in one hand, a wand in the other – around the wand was carved a curling serpent, the light source illuminating the darkened room coming from it's tip – he shut the door quietly as he could. The room was a little damp and cold, quiet save for an occasional croak coming from the pile of twigs, leaves and hay coming from the far corner. This was the corner that he headed toward.
He sat down next to this makeshift pile, the light finally illuminating its contents enough to make out exactly what they were – a warty green toad, and underneath it, a chicken egg. A chicken egg with a crack that had started to form not long ago. It wouldn't be long now, he hoped. At least, it wouldn't be long if the scroll he had found hidden inside a large box in the main room of his father's house he had correctly made sense of.
“Regulus~~~~raeci basiliskos~~~~Rex Serpen~~~~~~pullus ~~vum sub~~~~bufo~~” was as clear as the top line of the damaged text could get. “King of Serpents. Place chicken egg under toad” is what he thought the end said - though he did have to admit, his Latin wasn't exactly up to par. He just hoped he was right, after all, how would you get a snake from a chicken egg anyway?
The toad croaked a little more as the egg gained another crack. To this, he sat up, lifting his wand a little higher and leaning over his little makeshift nest to see what was going on. To say he was a little excited about the prospect of this “King of Serpents” was an understatement, though the twinge of doubt still remained in his stomach amid the butterflies. The toad had clearly had enough by this point, and hopped away from the egg at the sound of another crack. The side of the egg was breaking up. As much as his excitement made him want to help the egg along in its hatching, he decided against it, wanting to let it instead hatch on its own.
The side of the egg finally broke free of its last bonds, falling in pieces into the pile of hay beside it. It was finally the moment, after all this time of waiting, what would be coming out from the egg? Would it be a chicken, a snake, maybe some kind of strange toad, considering the toad that had been incubating it? From the shell came no clucking or in fact any noise at all, though a small head with a splodge of red on top slowly slid its way out of the egg, followed by a long green and winding body. It looked up, periscoping its tiny limbless body, observing with unblinking eyes and a small flicking tongue.
“Baisileasc!” He almost shouted. It was a tiny snake, a Basilisk, just as the scroll had said it would be.
He lifted the tiny snake into his hands, taking care to not look directly at its eyes. Even he had heard the stories of the King of Serpents from both his father and his mother, both their stories said the same despite them both being from different countries – the serpent who kills with its gaze as well as its bite. The tiny Basilisk lay cupped in his hands, its forked tongue exploring the cavities of his fingers. He quietly started hissing at it.
“Hello little one!” the rasping hisses emerging from his mouth would make sense to none but the little wiggly snake and anyone else with the gift of snake speech, “My name is Salazar, what is yours?”