White Chili and Cornbread

Chapter 34: Dragon Disappointment 

A few more months passed. One day when Mirabel was busy in the bakery, she leaned against the counter to knead a particularly large batch of dough and felt an uncomfortable bulge in between her and the counter. Thinking she had left a measuring cup in her apron, she reached down to remove the offending bump, only to discover there was no such measuring cup. In fact, there was nothing at all in her apron. The sudden bulge was from inside her belly! Immediately, Mirabel abandoned the dough on the counter and ran to Svend’s forge, ecstatic to finally have something to share with him, even if she had no idea what news she was really sharing! 

“Svend! Svend!! Something is growing inside me! Something is different! Svend!” Mirabel was ready to shout the news from the rooftops, but shouting in the forge was a good substitute. 

“Mirabel! What’s wrong??” Svend, focused as he was at his own hot and loud task, had only barely heard Mirabel’s commotion, and had literally no idea what she had been yelling. 

Mirabel and Svend quickly went out back to the little clearing behind the smithy (can’t have trees too close to a forge after all.) Forsaking words, Mirabel simply put Svend’s hand on the protrusion in her abdomen. Svend paled as he traced the distinctly egg-shaped bulge in his wife’s belly. These were the stories he hadn’t told her. This was his greatest fear. Her body wouldn’t recognize her own dragon form and his dragon spawn would rip her apart. 

“Mirabel….” Svend began slowly, hesitant to dim the glow of hope she had turned on. “There are a few stories that I heard in my youth that I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to worry you and I thought it would never happen to us because you have a dragon form… There are stories of a few male dragons over the centuries that either fell in love with a human woman or took advantage of one and when these women got pregnant…. Her body produced an egg that was incompatible with her humanity and it killed her when she tried to pass it. A human body doesn’t know how to lay an egg. If you have an egg in you, instead of an embryo… I don’t think it will end well.” 

“But I can be a dragon! Watch!” Mirabel ran farther into the woods and shifted into her brilliant dragon form, ignoring the frantic pleas from Svend to wait and think before she did anything drastic. 

Svend caught up with her not two minutes later as she sat forlornly on the forest floor. Her sizable dragon form holding a miniscule egg, the size of a goose egg. 

“It just fell out when I shifted. I didn’t even do anything. It seems so tiny now.” Mirabel shifted back and cradled the tiny egg in her arms. “At least we don’t have to worry about the egg killing me.” Mirabel gave the tiniest smile to Svend. 

Svend didn’t know what to say. There was no way that egg was large enough to host a baby dragon. What had they created? Do a dragon and a human make an iguana? What were they supposed to do with this egg? Incubate it for the 2 year incubation period of a dragon egg only to find out it was a dud after two years? Get rid of it now, assuming that it’s a dud and always wonder if there was some change of life in that little egg? There were so many unknowns. Poor Mirabel, finally has some level of success only to have a goose egg pop out. She must be so frustrated. 

Mirabel had already begun the walk home, so Svend had no choice but to follow so they could figure out their next step. By the time he got there, Mirabel had already created a little nest next to the fire to put the egg in and was staring at it lovingly. 

“Uh Mirabel…..” Svend didn’t even know where to start. 

“I know. I know it won’t hatch. It’s not even warm now that it’s out of my body. I just want to imagine what it would be like to have a dragon egg to care for.” Mirabel trailed off in the end. 

“Hey. It would be wonderful. And you are going to be an amazing dragon and human mom.” Svend came to kneel in front of Mirabel and took her hands in his. “This little tiny goose egg shows us that your body can make an egg. We just have to keep working through different possibilities to find the one that fits. Maybe if you stayed in your dragon form for a few months you could lay a bigger egg?” 

“Maybe.” Mirabel whispered. “But first, let me have some time with my little goose.” 

Six months later, Mirabel had experienced two more goose egg drops, both too small to become anything, despite her copious amounts of time spent as a dragon. One evening she settled in next to Svend, disgruntled and disheartened. 

“There is a wise woman in the dragon community. I’ve never met with her, but she might have ideas to help with pregnancy.” Svend offered hesitantly. 

“Come to think of it, there is a wise woman in the human village where we met. She might have ideas on the human side too.” Mirabel perked up to have something, anything proactive they could do.  “I’ll visit them both and see what they have to say. It can’t hurt, at this point.” 

“But first, let’s eat! I’m making us dinner!” Svend wiggled his eyebrows excitedly at Mirabel’s surprise. 

“First a treat, and now dinner? Who are you, and what happened to my husband?” Mirabel was happy for the distraction that Svend’s antics brought them. Whatever happened with their family, she knew Svend would always be there to make her laugh. 

This is the meal that Svend made.