Donnie and I finished our meal, and I started packing things away. He went to check on the egg, to make sure it hadn’t moved or fallen out of the dog bed we gave it. Benji, our border collie had passed 3 months ago, not too long before we found the egg on that hiking trail. It felt like an omen. Permission to move on.

“All tucked in” Donnie said softly, as if he’d wake the baby.

“I guess we’d better get to bed too. Any day now it’ll hatch; we need as much rest as possible before it does”, I said. And I meant it. I’d read that baby dragons are like human babies - needy and active. We didn’t have children, but we did have nieces and nephews so we understood the comparison.

We did the usual night time routine - shower, brush teeth, lay out clothes - then hopped into bed. I don’t even remember falling asleep. At some point, I heard a scraping noise. I thought I was still dreaming, but then it got a little louder. I sat up on my elbow and rubbed my eyes. Then I heard it loud and clear. The sound of claws against something firm but not entirely hard. I shook Donnie awake. By the time he rolled over, the had shell split, like asphalt in an earthquake.

“It’s here” Donnie whispered.