Eggy and I pressed the soft, squishy pads, and I couldn’t help but kiss them.
“How adorable!” I said.
“Mom, what are these?” Eggy squeezed the plump pads with a hand, then rubbed his cheek against them.
“They are called ‘toe beans,’ my love, and they’re the best thing ever!”
Prince Baiyu mewled, and I patted his cheeks.
“Mom, I love toe beans!” Eggy fearlessly pushed Prince Baiyu down so that he lay on his side, and inspected all of his paws to check if they all had toe beans, and was delighted to find more paw pads to squeeze. Then a thought seemed to strike him. He took my hands and pressed on my palms. “No toe beans?”
“I don’t have toe beans,” I said.
Prince Baiyu made buffing sounds, which I knew was his way of laughing in his cat form.
I took Eggy’s hands and pressed on his palms. “What about you?”
Eggy inspected his own hands. “I don’t have.”
“Turn into dragon form, we’ll see if you do.”
My son changed shape and checked his own paws, but he didn’t find any pads there either. “Only Dad has toe beans!”
This was his first time calling Prince Baiyu “dad.” My husband sighed in relief. It was a bit strange that he could do it in tiger form, but strange things were known to happen on Emberstone Farm.
“Do you know what day it is?” I asked Eggy.
“What?”
“It’s toe bean day! Let’s play with toe beans!”
Eggy turned human and embraced Prince Baiyu’s neck before playing with his paws again. “I love toe bean day!”
I stretched myself out on the carpet with the tiger’s body as my pillow and enjoyed the sight of Eggy playing with his father. He was really fascinated by the tiger’s paws. I was dozing a little when our cuddling time was interrupted by the sound of the door ringing thrice and then being opened. It must be the nanny since she was the only one authorized to come in by herself.
Suddenly, Eggy straightened up from his prone position between the tiger’s legs. His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped as he silently stared at the clan member who just arrived.
I had forgotten to tell her that Eggy had grown into a toddler in one day, so she was just as taken aback.
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“This is Eggy,” I said to her. “He had a growth spurt, you know, as is normal with dream babies.”
She obviously had no idea what to say, but her answer wouldn’t have been audible anyway since Eggy unexpectedly let out a scream. Prince Baiyu, whose ears were much more sensitive than mine, flinched involuntarily.
“A dragon!” He turned to me and knelt to embrace me. “Look, Mom, it’s a real dragon!”
“She is your nanny who will help take care of you,” I said. “Why don’t you play with her for a bit?’
He buried his face in my neck. “Mom, you ask.”
Prince Baiyu growled.
Nani bent down to us and said, “Little master, do you want me to turn into a dragon?”
Eggy whispered a yes, and Nani flew up out of the courtyard. Unlike the White Tiger clan, which prized a regular conformation, the Azure Dragon clan liked giant dragon forms, the bigger, the better. Nani’s other body was too large to fit into our house. Once she was ten feet above the roof, she transformed into a huge blue dragon three times the size of the courtyard, with iridescent scales, shining blue eyes, and a lush mane of blue fur streaming from her head.
“Mom, I’ll go!” Without waiting for my permission, he turned into his dragon form and flew up to Nani.
“Will she even see our tiny child?” I asked Prince Baiyu.
He heaved me up and transformed back into his human form. “She sees him. She’s looking right at him.”
He put his arm around me, and we craned our necks up to watch the two dragons flying above. It should have been a sweet sight, but I was alarmed when Eggy started growing bigger and bigger.
“What is my balloon boy doing? Nooooo, I like the cute little dragon form!”
My husband just laughed. “We can’t stop our kid from growing.”
In just a few minutes, Eggy was as big as Nani, which would have been fine, but he kept on growing.
“Hey, is he really getting even bigger?”
Prince Baiyu frowned. “How large was he in your dream?”
“It was a dream. Everything was always different every time.”
Eggy just kept on getting bigger and bigger. His shadow covered the house, and Nani turned into her human form and flew back down to us.
“My lord, my lady, he told me he was bigger than me. Bigger than everyone.” She gestured at the dragon above us helplessly. “I didn’t tell him to grow bigger.”
“I know, I know,” I said soothingly. “We don’t blame you. Eggy just loves to inflate himself, er, I mean, he grows fast.”
Though I said that, I got worried when Eggy showed no signs of stopping. In a few more minutes, he became so large that we could no longer see his entire body, and he kept on getting bigger and bigger until he covered the entire sky, and he continued until just one of his scales covered the entire horizon.
“Sweetie, isn’t this too much?”
Prince Baiyu bit his lip and said, “Nanny, please stay here and take care of my wife. I’ll fly up to him and bring him back.”
He flew straight up, then disappeared, leaving behind a deafening sonic boom.
I put a hand on my chest and sighed. “How big is he now, do you think?”
“He could be as big as the world by now…” said Nani.
“Gosh.”
We sat down on the sofa to wait it out. After a few more minutes, there was a strange sound coming from above.
Nani cleared her throat and said hesitantly, “Lady Violet, he seems to be calling for his mother.”
“What?!” I stood up, but, of course, there was nothing I could do. I frantically checked the Cash Shop for something that might help and used the [Megaphone], an item that could broadcast a message to the entire server in Adventure Incarnate, to try to send the word ‘Baby, your dad is coming to fetch you.’
I couldn’t tell if he got the message because the next thing I knew, there were more loud sounds. Eggy was rapidly dwindling in size.
“Nani… could that be?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Uh, can you translate?”
The sounds were loud but mostly unidentifiable since they were echoing and distorted.
Nani patted my hand and urged me to sit back down to rest. “He’s still calling for his mother, but he is somewhat distressed.”
“He’s crying?”
“I think so. He’s saying ‘mom, where’s mom?’ and ‘I lost my mommy!’ He can’t see us because when he grew that large, his head must be on the other side of the world.”
I collapsed onto the sofa. “Unbelievable! I’ve only had him for two days, and he already got lost.”
*****
Author's Note:
- Poor Eggy lost his mommy! He's only two days old and doesn't know his way home. ??
- Advanced chapters on my Patreon!
- Thank you very much for reading.
- Please let me know if there are any errors.