Chapter Text
The night Turtle hatched was a lot like most other summer nights. The sky was clear of most clouds, allowing the stars and two of Pyhrria’s moons to reflect brightly on the ocean surface miles above the Deep Palace. Queen Coral resided inside the royal hatchery, anxiously awaiting for her soon to be successor to hatch.
To call Coral a nervous wreck would be an understatement, although most would say her anxious state was well expected. After the terrible demises that had befallen the royal family’s past few daughters, whether they had been unhatched or grown, Coral was certainly expecting something, anything to go wrong.
Coral sat in nerve-wracking silence, completely alone in a low lit corner of the hatchery. She watched breathlessly as the blob like shape of the dragonet inside the egg she had tucked close to her belly began to writhe.
The movements were subtle at first, not much more than a tap of the claw or flick of the tail, but as the century long minutes passed the dragonet began to move more and more. Soon the infant dragon was fighting hard to put the first crack into the dark green shell surrounding it.
Coral felt panic rise in her chest. Her mind started racing. Had the past dragonets she’d hatched struggled this much? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to remember. It was as if the entirety of the ocean around her had turned a terrible inky black and the only thing that now or had ever existed was this nursery, and the struggling dragonet inside the egg before her.
Coral’s heart beat loudly behind her scales. Was this dragonet going to die as horribly as all the others had? Was all this time Coral had spent unmoving, relentlessly watching and praying for this egg to hatch safely all for nothing?
Then, as if a spell had been suddenly broken the egg burst open. The slimy insides of the egg filled the water around Coral and for a split second she was sure that she had just witnessed her dragonet explode in front of her. Just a moment later the water around her settled, and Coral let out the tiniest of gasps. There in front of her, clear as day, rest a plump deep emerald green dragonet curled around itself.
Coral careened her neck down to gently nuzzle her new greatest achievement. The dragonet let out the tiniest of squawks as she brushed against it. Coral kept herself steady, so not to wake from the dream she was living. She finally had an heir to her throne, one that she will protect with her life. One that she will never take her eyes off of again.