The Magical Herd

You walk for miles in a sleep like manner. Coming upon a small oasis, you find you can head over the dunes or continue on your present path.

Keeping to your original direction, you don't have to go far to find two drigus eggs in the sand!

Before your very eyes, both start to rock and then crack. Quickly you carried them one at a time back to the oasis you found so that they would have some shade and water when they hatched. It seemed to take but a moment, but then again, maybe it took forever. Just when you felt that you were going to have to pull the eggs apart yourself in you anticipation, both hatclings fall out from their broken shells.

With surprise, you see that the blue maned one had feathered wings, unlike all the others you had met before who had dragon wings. The other had a lovely rainbow mane and a bright red tuft on its tail. They were both female and you wondered if they were sisters. You discarded the thought as they didn't look at all alike. You called the blue one Kyra and the other one Liz.

Soon you had them both driking from the small pool of the oasis. Suddenly, one then the other started to grow. You could see them growing, bit by bit, inch by inch. It was very strange. Sort of like when you watch the moon move across the sky ever so slowly, or when the last rays of the sun moves imperceptably across the walls of your room. This continued until there was no doubt that they were teens.

Liz seemed to be a bit more of a show-off. She would sit and preen herself to look pretty. Kyra on the other hand was a bit of a tom-boy, she liked to play rough. Liz always growled when Kyra threw sands on her coat while playing. You watched them as they learnt how to hunt. At first not being able to catch anything, but soon were as good as, if not better than the drigetti you had met thus far. Though the drigus is a creature that is a bit territorial, these two didn't mind living close together by the oasis. They were never apart and hunted best as a team. Then nothing could match them.

After one particularly long and difficult hunting excursion, the two drigetti returned exhausted. They drank a great deal from the pool. More than usually for it was a very hot day and their prey was rather dry. That's when the growing started again. You weren't sure at first. You thought it was just your eyes. It was hard to tell since both were lying on the sands. But there was not doubt now that Liz was a little bigger than a few moments ago. A closer look at Kyra showed the same signs. No, there was no doubt. Within no time at all it seemed, your two "babies" were now adults.

Sad to see them grow so quickly, you finally learnt who their parents really were. Both came up to you and nuzzled you gently. ^We found another egg while we were out hunting yesterday. We thought you might like to go take care of that one, since we can now take care of ourselves," said Liz. Stiffling a sob, you say goodbye as you head over the dunes to find this lonely drigus egg.