Chapter 15 #2
Leading the way, I walked closer to the dragon lifecycle area and paused just outside the invisible line the pixies had drawn.
There was pixie dust on the floor right in front of my feet, but not on the spot where I stood, as if the little critters had been patrolling around their nest, not wanting anyone to get any closer than this.
That was fine. We were only five feet away, so I could see pretty well from here. Without proper gear, it wasn’t like I could go digging around the area, anyway.
Winter’s shoulder brushed against mine as he stood beside me, his booted toes just outside the pixie dust line with Lyric clinging to his other side.
“Well…” He let out a small huff. “They definitely have a nest right there.”
I nodded. “Sure do. But…”
When I didn’t continue, he asked, “But what?”
“Do you see that… white, speckled thing in the middle? It looks kind of round?”
“What the hell is that thing?” Lyric asked. “Kinda looks like a ball. Where would they’ve gotten a ball from?”
“No idea.”
Winter leaned forward, squinting his eyes. “I… don’t think it’s a ball. It almost looks like… a ginormous egg.”
I blinked. He was right. The white thing looked like the top of an egg poking out, only the egg was even bigger than an ostrich egg. Honestly, I could only see the top of it, but if I had to guess, it was about the size of a football, so maybe eleven inches long?
“That’s the biggest egg I’ve ever seen,” I said.
“I think it’s a dragon egg.”
I turned sharply to him as Lyric gasped out, “What?”
Win pointed at the exhibit. “Well, it’s the dragon lifecycle, right? So it makes sense they’d have a dragon egg there.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but… it’s obviously not a real dragon egg.
No one would steal a dragon’s egg—well, not steal it and live, anyway—just to use it in a museum.
And it’s illegal to boot, especially the large dragons.
They’re already so rare, I can’t imagine someone being reckless enough to steal an egg so it couldn’t hatch. ”
Lyric sighed. “True, but this is a museum, babes. I think that might be a fossil.”
My eyes widened and turned back to the egg, staring at it as I thought over their words. “You’re… right. It’s probably a fossil.”
Win pulled out his phone. “Let me text Ace. He probably knows if it’s a real fossil or a replica.”
“Good idea.”
I watched an angry pixie fly toward us, shaking its fist at us like he was an old man about to yell get off my lawn!
The thought made me snort, but for all I knew that was exactly what his little bell-like voice was yelling.
I was grateful when the little guy didn’t get in my face and start shaking his pixie dust at me.
Winter said, “Ace says it’s a fossil.” He finished typing something on his phone, pocketed it, and looked up at the pixie nest. “It’s kinda strange that they’d become so protective of a random old egg—one that doesn’t even have a living dragon inside.”
“Agreed. I’ve never seen them do this with any other kind of eggs.”
“Me either.”
I pursed my lips. “Maybe because it’s a dragon egg specifically? I mean, we don’t really have those around here, at least not anywhere in the city, so I highly doubt we’d really know if this is normal behavior.”
“Fair.”
Lyric asked, “Do pixies like dragons? Like… do they have any kind of relationship with them? Dragons are supposed to be very nature-y, so maybe the pixies just like them since they’re the same?”
I shrugged because I had no idea, and Winter pulled his phone out again, typing vigorously.
Lyric stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“Looking up whether this is a pixie thing or not. Might give us clues on how to deal with it if it’s common in other dragon-heavy areas.”
“And if it’s not, we’ll know we have weird pixies on our hands.”
He snorted, and since he wasn’t even looking at his surroundings, I grabbed his arm and tugged him and Lyric back a few steps. Better to be safe than sorry.
Win didn’t ask, just going along with it, but I still said, “That one pixie looks ready to kick our asses, so I figured we should give them some room while you’re doing that.”
“Good plan.” He shoulder-bumped me, his eyes still on his phone.
Lyric released Winter’s arm, making us both glance at them. They scanned the entire large room, then focused on the nest and egg. I could tell they were using their magical senses rather than their actual eyes, just from the look on their face.
After several long seconds, they moved back to Win’s side, grabbed his arm, and said, “I don’t sense any cursed objects on this floor at all. There might be something on one of the lower levels, but its magic isn’t far-reaching enough to be causing this.” They pointed at the pixie nest.
I frowned. “Then I wonder why they’re doing all of this.”
They shrugged. “I’m not sure, but they definitely love that egg. It’s covered in their magic and dust. There’s only the slightest sense of dragon magic there, but most of it is all pixie.”
“Huh.” I stared at the nest again.
I was really relieved to hear that we weren’t dealing with another cursed item, but at the same time, we now had a mystery on our hands.
But I was grateful for Lyric’s quick assessment of the area.
I’d have to keep them in mind for the future if we came across other weird scenarios—which I was sure we would.
“Thank you, Lyric.”
They beamed at me and gave me another wink.
Win said, “That’s good to know. Thanks, Lyr.” He shoulder-bumped them, making them smile at him. “I’m gonna see if I can find anything on dragon-pixie relationships.” He went back to his phone.
Since he was busy with that, I decided to move over to the area devoted to different types of dragons, a smile pulling up on my face at the models of the smaller breeds of dragons.
The models were low to the ground so kids could touch them, and it said the fake skin on them was as close to the feel of a real dragon as they could get, only these weren’t as soft.
Apparently, dragon scales were tough as nails, especially the scales in the most vulnerable parts of a dragon, but if they were petted, they felt like silk.
I’d never touched a dragon before, so I didn’t know for sure, but the models sure felt soft.
The closest I’d come to touching a dragon was petting Clucky since she was half-dragon, half-chicken. But I hadn’t really petted her scales much since most of them were on her lower half, and who wanted to pet a cockatrice’s butt?
I moved to the pygmy dragon model, and my bottom lip popped out of its own accord due to the cuteness.
The little guy was about as long as my pointer finger from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail.
It was the most adorable thing in the world, and I really wished I could see one in real life.
Sola leaned down from my shoulder to get a better look, almost falling off and making me chuckle as I pushed her back into place. “You’re gonna fall, goofball.”
She let out a little chirp, leaning down again.
“Dude, you’re gonna get hurt.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s not a real dragon. It’s pretend.”
This time, her chirp sounded sad.
“I know. I wish it was real too. I want to hold one.”
She let out a quiet whistle.
My eyes narrowed as I gazed from her to the pygmy dragon model and back again. “Although… we probably wish it was real for different reasons, huh? Do you want to eat it?”
She chirped an affirmative.
“Oh my god, you can’t eat tiny dragons, you silly girl. Go eat some pixies or something.”
Her eyes seemed to light up—maybe they really did with her fire—and my own eyes widened when I realized what I’d said. Did I really just tell my familiar to go eat some pixies when there were pixies only feet from us?
Oh my god, I was such an idiot.
Quickly, I grabbed onto her and hissed out, “Don’t you dare go after those pixies.”
She tilted her head at me questioningly, making me sigh.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you should go hunting right now. The mean manager dude would kill me if you started flying around. There are way too many valuable things in here that could get knocked over or catch fire. You have to stay on my shoulder, okay?”
If a firebird could sigh, I swore Sola just sighed at me.
I gave her lots of pets as I kissed the top of her head and walked back over to Winter and Lyric.
Win didn’t look up but said, “As far as I can tell, this isn’t normal behavior for pixies of any kind, whether they’re garden, forest, desert, rainforest, or any other type. I can’t find any mention of pixies guarding a dragon egg or any other egg for that matter, not counting their own.”
Lyric hummed. “Hm. So we’ve got some weirdos on our hands. Seems fitting for you two.”
Win snorted and finally put his phone away, then reached up and petted Sola. “You better listen, girlie. You can’t go around eating pixies and flying around a museum.” Guess he’d overheard me.
Whoops.
Her sad trill was so pathetic that Winter, Lyric, and I all laughed.
Win caught my eye, his gaze filled with warmth and affection, and I really wanted to lean over and kiss him.
But we both had our masks on so that wouldn’t go very well.
Instead, I reached over and gave his hand a squeeze.
He caught my hand before I could take it away and laced our fingers together, surprising me that he didn’t take my glove off first.
As if reading my thoughts, he said, “I know there’s a lot of people here, so I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Plus, your gloves protect your hands from dust.”
All he was doing was making me want to kiss him again. “I should’ve grabbed some extra gloves from the car for you guys.”
Lyric waved me off. “I’m fine right now.”
Win shrugged me off, turning us back to the pixie nest. “Soooo… how the hell are we going to get them out of here? I doubt the manager will let us leave traps out overnight.”
I thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded to myself. “I think we need to take the egg out of the museum so the pixies will follow it.”
He turned sharply to me. “You can’t possibly think you can just grab it and run, do you? You’ll be covered in pixie dust before you even reach the stairs. I’ll have to take you to the hospital and—”
I cut him off with a squeeze to his hand. “I didn’t mean right this second. We can do it tonight, but only because we have gear in the car. We’ll have to get suited up first.”
He grimaced. “The manager’s not gonna like that, either.”
“Probably not, but it’s gotta be better than risking someone else getting hurt and having customers dodge pixies all day, every day.”
“True. But… how will we convince him?”
I shrugged. “I’m hoping you, Lyric, and Aeson can. People love all three of you.”
That made him give me an amused look again. “Yeah? What people?”
“All the people. Everyone.”
Lyric leaned in with a dramatic sigh. “It’s true. I have fans.”
Win and I both snorted, and he said, “Uh-huh. Sure you do. You also have a big head.”
Lyric waggled their eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Ewwwww!” Winter pushed a snickering Lyric off of him, then looked at me and gestured at them. “You sure you want them helping with that?”
I snorted. “Better you two and Ace than me.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Fine, I can do that. But just so you know, people like you too.”
I rolled my eyes and tried to bite back a smile.
Win’s smile turned into a frown. “If he won’t listen, I don’t know what the hell we’ll do, though.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I don’t think we’ll need to.”
Lyric clung to Winter again. “Oh, don’t you worry, babes. I’ve gotcha covered.”
With a grin, I tugged Winter around the large skeleton to the staircase, dragging Lyric along, so we could find Aeson and the manager and get this show started.