Your protagonist is woken by a sound they didn’t expect yet; their dragon egg has begun to crack.

A full and complete history of the Neva Islands by Zig Tremaine. Chapter one, ‘Tellefort and his Crusaders’. ‘In 32 CB, Tellefort the Grim secured permission from his monarch, the divine Erebus II to explore the eastern sea’. Crack!

Lil Tom raised his eyes from the pages of the green tome he was reading, and scanned the room. It was a homely little cottage, nestled away in the Greenturn Forest. The space belonged to Zira’s cousin, Hodge. The rest of the party were off dealing with a troll, but Lil Tom had been encouraged to take a rest. That business with the Azabanian Warlock at the weekend had drained him. Now he wanted nothing more than to put his feet up, enjoy the warmth of a fire and dive into his favourite type of literature, history.

Lil Tom went back to reading. ‘Grim was known to be a bit of a troublemaker, having lured Gastoria Genevieve away from her husband, the Duke of Pomme, and into his bed. As Grim was a nephew to Erebus, the Duke knew that revenge would be no simple matter. Using Grim’s naval reputation as a pretext, he told Erebus II that it had always been Grim’s ambition to explore the eastern sea. When the Duke further emphasised….’ Crack!

There it was again. Lil Tom’s eyes homed in on the fire. Too loud to be crackling wood. Closing the book, he rose and peered out the cottage window. It was getting dark. Crack! Lil Tom whirled on the spot. Definitely not coming from outside. Crack! Crack! The noise was getting louder and more frequent! Lil Tom’s mind whirled with possibilities. A demon summon! Necromancy! An old chair’s legs finally giving way!

Running to the other side of the cottage his eyes were drawn to a purple blanket heaped on the floor in the corner. It was gently moving back and forth. Turning his right palm skyward, Lil Tom conjured a small orange ball of flame, and slowly moved towards it. Whatever it was, it was in for one hell of a surprise. Crouched over the blanket, his left hand outstretched, Lil Tom ripped it away.

Staring at Lil Tom sheepishly, with a piece of grey egg shell resting atop its head no less, was a baby dragon. The ball of fire in Lil Tom’s hand immediately went out. ‘We’ll I’ll be the son of a shaman’, he said. ‘You’d think Zira would have said something’, Lil Tom’s brain further added. Crack! Crack! Red wings erupted from the baby dragon’s grey pitted shell. It was a Talaskar, so named after the red star, the symbol for bloodthirst. ‘Ziraaaaaaaa!, shouted Lil Tom, rapidly retreating. The dragon tilted its head one moment and the next it was running full pelt at him, shell and all. ‘Ahhhhhhhh! He screamed as he ran for the cottage door.