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Dragon.

The mere mention of the word is enough to conjure fantastic images into any person’s head. In a world full of wonderful and magical things, they stand at the peak as the most wonderful and the most magical. Matestic and terrifying, there is nothing else like a dragon. Even the faintest mote of draconic essence is enough to imbue something with power like nothing else.

A few shavings of horn, a bit of shed scale, a drop of blood… with these, you can make potent potions, components for epic spells, the most intense alchemical reagents, and so much more. There is not a single school of magic that could not be given a little extra oomph by the addition of a hint of dragon.

Of course, if anybody were to be foolish enough to try and actively hunt a dragon for ingredients, then whoever found what was left of them would note their cause of death as suicide. Dragons kept to themselves, and anybody who intentionally provoked their ire deserved whatever was coming to them. So while dragon parts were highly sought after, that which could be safely gathered was limited to castoffs, and as such, very expensive. Hence, only the grandest and most prestigious wizards used draconic magic.

Or at least, that was how things were now. Some people were looking to change that. Karina Petalhide was one of these people.

Karina was a mage of no small skill. Her specialty was transmutation, and it was through this art that she made her living. Transmuters were always in high demand. Whether you wanted skin that would turn aside an arrow or simply didn’t like the shape of your nose, a skilled transmuter would have you covered.

Karina was also a kobold, which tended to surprise people who only knew her by name. Standing at a good three feet tall, with a scaly hide, stubby little horns, and thick saurian legs, she was a fairly typical example of her species if one ignored the fact that her scales were, instead of the typical red or green, a soft pastel pink.

Nobody would ever go to a tattoo artist who didn’t have their own tattoos, and transmuters had a similar truism. It never hurt to advertise.

Alterations paid the bills well enough, of course, but that wasn’t Karina’s passion. From her early days of magical education, she’d always been interested in the more experimental side of magic. She wanted to push her abilities to their limit and see what she could really do.

And her current project, if it was successful, would be the one that put her on the map. There would not be a magic practitioner within a hundred-mile radius who didn’t know her name, from the lowliest hedge-mages to the grandest court wizards.

That was, of course, a very big if. But she persisted. You didn’t get anywhere in the world of magic if you didn’t have a stubborn streak a mile wide. Karina’s grit and determination had gotten her this far, and she was certain that it would take her all the way.

Her experiment was on the nature of magical reagents and components. It was well known that you could not, no matter how powerful you were, transmute one substance into another and expect the same results. One could, in theory, transmute a chicken feather into a cockatrice feather, but when you tried to use it to brew a potion, you would notice the difference in results very quickly. And if you wanted, for example, a steady supply of dragon scales, there was no force in the universe that could create them for you. It was the hard way or nothing.

And then one night, while she was out drinking with some of her school friends, she’d had a thought.

“But what if,” Karina had said, after what might have been one mead too many, “instead of transmuting the reagents, you transmuted the source of the reagents?”

That had gotten her some blank looks. But even after waking up with a killer hangover the next morning, it never left her mind.

What if indeed?

And so Karina started to theorize.

Fact one, she had written in her journal, for every experimental mage worth their eye of newt always kept extensive notes. Of all the possible spell components one could possibly harvest from a dragon, not one of them – not horn, not scale, not tooth – was anywhere near as potent as eggs. Teeming with both draconic essence and the power of life in potentia, an intact dragon egg was worth ten times its weight in precious metals.

Fact two: Transmutation is made easier by similarity. It is leagues easier to turn an apple into an orange than it is to turn an apple into a stylish codpiece. The more alike two things are, the more feasible it becomes to transmute one into the other.

Fact three: I am a kobold, and a kobold is similar to a dragon. The degree of this similarity is… debatable.

Several half-written words had been crossed out here before Karina had settled on “debatable”.

But regardless of who you ask, the fact remains that a point of similarity does exist. Whether kobolds exist as a species cross-bred from dragons untold generations back or were purposefully crafted in their image, the similarity is there. I have many things in common with a dragon. Dragons and kobolds both have horns. We both have scales. We both have tails.

And most importantly of all, we both lay eggs.

This was the crux of her theory. Like any kobold with the capability to bear young, Karina laid eggs, and had to pass an infertile clutch once a month or so.

And so the gears started to turn.

Transmuting one’s reproductive anatomy was old magic. People had been doing it for ages. Born with the wrong bits? Feeling inadequate in some way? Making a change was as easy and painless as getting a haircut. If you were feeling really adventurous, a skilled enough transmuter could give you both, or none, two of one.

All of this led Karina to the question: Could she transmute her body to be able to produce dragon eggs, or an equivalent close enough to make no difference, thus giving the world a cheap and renewable source of powerful magic?

It was this question that found Karina squatting down over a mount of cushions, in the corner of her lab, grunting softly to herself.

With a great sigh of relief, she felt her vent open up to release the last of a very large clutch of eggs.

“There we go,” she said, carefully pulling herself back up and dabbing herself with a cool cloth as she examined the fruit of her loins. She’d laid a grand total of eight eggs this time.

“Begin note,” she said out loud, and as she did so, her favorite phoenix feather quill stood up and dipped itself into a nearby inkwell.

“This is clutch number… eighty-six? Yeah, that sounds about right.”

As the quill scratched out the words onto the parchment below, she picked an egg up and placed it onto her desk and pulled out her magnifier, looking at it closely.

“Rather than the white with brown speckles that would be expected of a kobold egg,” she continued, “this one appears to be pale blue. It’s also about twenty percent larger than is typical. Shell density is…”

She gave it a few taps with a metal rod.

“Slightly higher than average. It’s a result, but not the result. Going to have to mark this one down as another batch of duds.”

She grumbled to herself as she scooped the eggs up and deposited them into her disposal bin, where they would shortly be incinerated.

“All of my numbers have been adding up,” she said. “But I’m still missing something. Even with a bit of pure dragon scale used as a component – procured at no small expense, I might add – I fear I’m still eons away from my desired result.”

She flopped down into a chair and sighed heavily.

“My peers think I’m a little bit crazy, you know,” she said, looking over to her flying quill. “And maybe I am. Why else would I be continuing to take the potion that accelerates my egg cycle? Popping out a clutch every few days does a number on your bits. But gods damn it all, I’ve sunk too much into this process to give up now.”

She looked back over to her work station, and her eyes fell onto the flask of powdered dragon horn she’d been using. It was half empty, and the ten grams or so that she had left would be enough to fuel many more tests, if she rationed it carefully.

But then again, nobody had ever accused her of being careful.

“I think my next step is going to have to be to try something bold,” she said, smiling to herself.

Karina made her way back over to her workstation. She picked up an empty bottle that had contained her egg booster tonic. It was formulated to help oviparous species that were having fertility issues, but she’d managed to get the formula adjusted. It was a skillful bit of potioncraft, and the maker hadn’t asked too many awkward questions.

And it gave Karina an idea.

“Yes, something bold is definitely called for. But I think I’ve gotten as far with this as I can by myself. It’s time to call in some outside help. We’ll see how it pans out, but hey, I haven’t blown myself up yet, so I’m optimistic. End note.”

The quill stopped moving and Karina began to pack some supplies into a canvas bag, including the precious dragon scale. It was time to get out of the lab for a bit.

~*~

The first thing that you were told to do when you wanted to start pursuing magecraft as a career was specialize. There was no such thing as a jack of all trades in this business. Getting good at a particular kind of magic required careful study, and if you wanted to get good, you needed to commit.

Because of this, the second thing that you were taught to do was ask for help. If an area wasn’t your specialty, you called upon someone whose specialty it was.

Fortunately in Karina’s case, this meant that she didn’t have to go far. Her home/shop was right off of what was colloquially called the Magic Circle, where mages for hire of all stripes set up shop. And she knew exactly where she was going. She made her way past the diviner’s parlor, cut through the narrow alley next to the artificers’ forge, and went up a set of stairs to a little place that was right above the enchanting shop.

The sign above the door read: Everyday Alchemy – Potions, Philters, and Elixirs For All Your Needs. The placard in the window proclaimed it to be CLOSED, but Karina wasn’t going to let that slow her down, especially when she knew that he was in there. So she banged on the door.

A few minutes later, it opened up to reveal a lizardman with wide eyes and a mottled green hide, nearly twice Karina’s height. He looked left and right, and then, when this turned up nothing, he looked down.

“Karina? What are you doing here?”

“Good to see you too, Jackie. Gonna invite me in or what?”

The lizard man hesitated, as if he was considering his answer.

The name his broodmother had given him was Jakazoshk, but that tended to be a mouthful for mammalian races. He was even-tempered, studious, very methodical, and the best alchemist that Karina had ever met. His potioncraft was second to none and everyone in town used his products. He could have had a huge lab in the capital, but he hated crowds and didn’t care for the attention, so here he was.

Karina had known him in school, and while they weren’t exactly blood-bonded, his late night cram sessions ensured that she passed her final exams. She knew that he was reliable.

“Come on in,” he said, turning around and gesturing for her to follow.

Jackie’s shop couldn’t have been more of a contrast from Karina’s. Karina was the embodiment of the phrase “organized chaos”, and despite the state she kept her workplace in, there wasn’t a single thing she couldn’t find within three seconds if she needed it. She insisted that she had a system, and nobody believed her.

Jackie, on the other hand, did not need to tell anybody that he had a system. From top to bottom, his storefront and his lab were organized meticulously. Reagents were in their own little cubbyholes and organized by effect, then by potency, and then alphabetically. It was to the point where it made Karina a little bit uncomfortable. It made her want to break in at night and move everything two inches to the left.

As they entered the back room, Jackie pulled out a chair and very courteously adjusted it so that Karina could comfortably hop into it.

“So what can I do for you?” he inquired. “Since this apparently couldn’t wait until normal business hours, I’m assuming you don’t just need a refill.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say no to a refill as long as I’m here,” said Karina, as he rolled his eyes. “But no. There’s something else. I need your help.”

That got Jackie’s attention. He motioned for her to go on.

“So you know how I’ve been working on something big?”

“You may have said something along those lines,” he replied. “But you say a lot of things. It’s possible that I tuned it out.”

“Fair enough! Well, I think I’ve hit a wall. If I’m going to make any more progress, I need some outside assistance. And if there’s anyone in this city who I wouldn’t be embarrassed to share the credit with, it’s you.”

“Thanks, I think. So what is this something?”

So Karina told him, and he listened intently. When she was done, a thoughtful look crossed his features. He got up and started to make tea. Karina didn’t interrupt him. This was what he did when he really needed to digest a thought.

Once the tea was steeping, he sat back down and looked back at her.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that this idea is positively ludicrous.”

“I do not,” said Karina. “But?”

“If you can make it work… I must confess, the prospect of having access to all the dragon eggs I could possibly dream of is tempting. I could provide the local clinics with top-shelf medical tonics at cost.”

“I had a feeling you’d see my vision,” said Karina, springing up. “I know that the theory is sound. I just need help executing it, and for that I need the best alchemist in town. What do you say? Partner up?”

She offered Jackie a hand, and he didn’t hesitate to shake it.

“So do you have a plan, or was that a silly question?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” She started to dig around in her bag. “You have a way to concentrate spell components, right? To make them extra juicy?”

“I certainly would never phrase it that way,” said Jackie. “But yes, I can. It’s not usually a cost-effective process. It would be overkill for most household potions. But for something like this…”

“Great! And I’ve got just the thing.” She reached into her bag and pulled out the flask of dragon horn for him, and his features went slack.

“Gods above and below,” he breathed, gingerly taking the flask from her hands. “How much did this cost you?”

“Less than you think, more than I wanted. I had to call in every favor I was owed.”

“Well, this is the time to use it,” said Jackie. “How much do you want me to mix up for you? A hundred milligrams? Two hundred?”

“All of it.”

Jackie’s expression shifted from awe to horror. “Please tell me that you’re yanking my tail.”

Karina pulled out her chair and hopped onto it so that she could be at Jackie’s eye level.

“I know that the process is viable,” she said. “I’ve laid hundreds of eggs since I started working on this and I’m seeing changes. I just don’t have enough power. So yes, I mean all of it.”

Jackie looked at the flask as if he was waiting for it to reveal its secrets to him.

“I feel obligated to inform you that, if you ingest whatever it is I make out of this, there’s a small but non-zero chance that you will burst into flame.”

“That’s true of most things that I do. I think I can work with those odds.”

“Right then. Let’s get to work.”

~*~

The work continued well into the evening. When the stakes were as high as they were right now, nothing less than absolute perfection would do. The margin for error was thin as an onion skin.

While Jackie worked on his formulation, Karina prepared everything that she needed for the transmutation ritual. She cleared out some space on the floor of Jackie’s lab and drew a circle on it, making sure to inscribe the runes slowly and precisely.

Meanwhile, Jackie spent the whole time hunched over a tiny still, keeping the heat at just the right level as he added all manner of alchemical reagents to the powdered horn, a little bit at a time in precisely the right order. Lizardfolk didn’t sweat, but if Jackie could have, he would have been soaked.

When it was all done, he produced a vial filled with a small measure of viscous red fluid, just enough to fill a thimble.

Karina looked at it like it was a gift from the gods themselves.

“There’s so little of it,” she said. “You managed to condense it down that much?”

“You came to me because I’m good at what I do,” he said, offering her the vial. “It would be silly of me to remind you to be careful with this, but I’m going to do it anyway.”

“Understandable. Let’s make some magic.”

Karina started by stripping off her clothes. Jackie flushed a little, but this was no time for modesty.

“Do you need me to do anything else?” he asked.

“Just stand by with a bucket of water within reach,” Karina replied. Stepping into the middle of the circle, she took a moment to center herself, emptying her mind. Once she was ready, she uncapped the vial and dipped her fingers into the liquid and began to draw on herself, chanting under her breath as she did so. Starting on her lower abdomen, right over her womb, she began to draw runes that corresponded to the ones in the circle, and she kept going until she had exhausted her supply.

As soon as she drew the last line, she felt her senses light up as magic coursed through her body. It was the same feeling she got whenever she was about to transmute something, but amplified a hundred times. It was like she was full of lightning. Her body was full to the brim of mystic energy and she was ready to put it to good use.

Putting her hands over her belly, she spoke the word of activation, and immediately she felt like she’d just chugged a cup of molten steel.

“How’s it going in there?” said Jackie, and his voice sounded oddly distant.

“Fantastic!” she shouted. “How do I look? Anything on fire yet?”

“You do appear to be glowing. Is that supposed to happen?”

“I have no idea!”

She could feel it. The magic of change was coursing through her body, ready for her to shape as she pleased, and shape it she did. Everything she had researched about the anatomy of dragons flashed through her mind as she channeled the energy, and her runes – both on her circle and on her body – glowed white hot and began to emit steam.

And then, as quickly as it had started, it was over, and Karina collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

When she looked up, Jackie was kneeling next to her. “How do you feel? Did it work?”

Karina exhaled heavily. Her breath came out as a puff of smoke.

“One way to find out. Have you got the stuff?”

Jackie handed her a bottle of milky liquid. “This is as strong as I can make the egg accelerator. I don’t know if it’s going to have any side effects, but I suspect you’re past the point of worrying about that.”

“You’ve got that right.” With that, she snatched the bottle from his hand and drank it down, wincing from the chalky taste it left in her mouth.

An ordinary dose of the substance would kickstart her egg cycle within the next few days. But Jackie was very good at what he did, and as soon as she swallowed the last drop, she could feel the nauseous twinge that was the typical forerunner to her cycle.

“I think it’s happening,” said Karina, smiling wide. “Be a dear and grab me something to sit on, would you?”

Jackie obligingly pulled up a chair, and Karina proceeded to get onto it and wait.

She did not have to wait for very long. Within a minute, she could feel an ache in her belly, and watched with amazement as, right before her eyes, it began to bulge outward, as if she was being steadily inflated.

“Gods, that is uncanny,” said Jackie, staring down at her. “Seeing it happen all at once like that.”

“You think it’s weird for you?” quipped Karina. “You should try– ah!”

Karina nearly toppled out of her chair as her belly suddenly gave a great lurch, and when it settled once again, she looked like she had just swallowed an entire melon.

Cautiously, she reached out and gave it a poke. It was firm and tight.

When a kobold was heavy with an unfertilized clutch, they seldom got more than a little bit of pudge, hardly noticeable if you weren’t looking for it. A fertile clutch could be expected to grow a little bit more before it was ready to be laid, and that resulted in a cute little bump, nothing like your typical mammal’s pregnancy.

This was something else entirely. She’d never seen a kobold with a belly like this before.

“I think it’s working!” she exclaimed, grinning as she ran her hands over herself. “Look at this! I’ve never gotten a result like this!”

“That’s… promising,” said Jackie, trying his best to contain his excitement. He had always preferred to hold off on celebrations until he achieved a replicable result, but even he could barely hold himself together.

“Feels heavy,” said Karina, hopping to her feet and stumbling a bit due to the change in her balance. “Warm, too. Wonder how long before I need to–”

She suddenly winced and clutched her middle as she felt her insides do a flip, sinking down to her knees just as her bellow began to bulge outward, growing so huge and so heavy that she nearly toppled over.

“Well, that’s… interesting,” she murmured, as she struggled to pick herself up.

“You call this interesting?” said Jackie, steadying her as she stood. “You look like you’re smuggling a boulder!”

“I had always assumed that by changing my reproductive system to be like a dragon’s, the eggs I produced would be sized proportionally to my body,” she continued, her voice strangely far away. “That… does not seem to be the case, wouldn’t you say?”

Jackie stared goggle-eyed at her. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re growing a full-size dragon egg?”

“That seems to be the case, yes!” she said, grinning hugely. “I’m not as distressed as you would think. In fact, I feel oddly euphoric. And warm. Very, very warm. Warm and… tingly…”

“...Karina? Do I need to get the bucket?”

Slowly, Karina looked back up at him, and as she did, she could feel her heart starting to pound. The heat within her grew stronger, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable heat. She was feeling a very particular sort of burning, and it wasn’t the kind she usually found in her lab.

“Hello? Are you still with me? Why are you looking at me like mmph!”

Karina was as quick as a diving falcon as she leapt from where she was kneeling and bowled Jackie over, her added mass taking him by surprise, and as soon as he was on the ground and within reach, she pinned him down and started to nuzzle the side of his neck.

Jackie groaned and tried to push her away. “Karina, you need to stop, the potion is clearly affecting your mind–”

“My mind has never been clearer,” said Karina, pulling back enough to look him in the eye. “I’m not addled, I swear. What I am is unimaginably horny.”

Jackie returned her gaze. “That does make a certain amount of sense, if you think about it. Your egg cycle is tied to your hormones, and the potions work by stimulating your ah!”

His tirade was cut off as Karina buried her snout in his neck once again, this time using her teeth for good measure.

“Listen to me carefully, Jakazoshk. Right now, I need release like I need air, and if you do not give it to me, I’m going to give it to myself. Right here, right now, in the middle of your lab. And I’ll probably make a mess doing it. What do you say?”

Jackie had a dazed look on his face. He Karina over, his eyes falling on her gravid belly.

“You know, I was really hoping to ask you out a few times before we got to this point.”

Karina let out a giggle. “Gods, Jackie, you’re adorable. We can go to a nice cafe when this is all over, but right now, I need you to rut me until I can’t tell up from down.”

If the throbbing bulge in Jackie’s trousers was any indication, he didn’t need much more convincing. Soon he was just as naked as she was, and moments later, Karina was settled on one of his chairs, with the back reclined and her legs hiked up over the armrests.

“I think I could get used to seeing you like this,” he said, placing his hands on her bump. As soon as he made contact, she let out a moan.

“Gods, it’s so sensitive!”

“You don’t say.” He smirked at her as his hands started to meander downward. “That would explain this, then. You’re positively gushing down there.” She felt two of his fingers brushing over her slit and they came back completely covered in slickness.

The only response that Karina could manage was a throaty moan as her senses began to sing.

“I’m guessing you’re not in much of a mood for foreplay, then?”

“Jackie, I swear that if you don’t put it in me soon, I’m going tooOOOO–”

What it was that Karina was planning to do was left as an exercise for the reader as Jackie put his hands around her legs and pushed himself in. She was so wet that he slid right in without any resistance, and immediately Karina began to cry out.

“Gods, Karina,” he gasped, as he began to move within her with slow, deep strokes. “You’re like a furnace in there. Feels… amazing…”

“Nngh, that sounds right,” moaned Karina. “Because I’m burnig for you. Don’t stop, please…”n

Jackie moved like stopping was the furthest thing from his mind, his body slapping against her bloated belly every time he pushed in. Karina felt like she was going to pass out from pleasure overload and she never wanted it to end.

“Harder,” she mewled, bucking her hips into him. “Fuck me harder! I’m not made of glass! Fuck meeee!”

Jackie hissed through his teeth as he increased his tempo. Despite the differences in their size, he fit into her like they were made for each-other, and his every thrust seemed to touch all of her erogenous zones at once. She could feel it thrumming in all of her muscles, like a great tension building within her, waiting for the right moment to release.

And she didn’t have to wait long for that release. She threw her head back and let out a scream that surely put Jackie’s soundproofing enchantments to the test as she climaxed, feeling it in every inch of her body, from tip to tail.

As Jackie slowly pulled out of her with a delectably squishy sound, she could feel her muscles continuing to twitch and spasm.

“Gods,” she murmured, waving her hand in front of her eyes. “I think I’m still feeling it. I can barely see straight.”

“If I stayed in much longer, you might have squeezed the life out of me,” panted Jackie, as he leaned against a desk for support. “And I may have let it happen.”

Karina started to laugh as she basked in the orgasmic afterglow. Even after a couple minutes, the sensations did not abate. If anything, they felt just as strong as–

Karina’s eyes shot wide open and she gasped as she had another muscle spasm, this one more intense and painful, and she felt the sensation of a great quantity of fluid being released from her body, releasing steam as it splashed onto the floor.

“Karina?”

“I think it’s happening!” she yelped, writhing in her seat. “Help me to my feet!”

Jackie did as she was told, and as soon as she was upright, she winced as her abdominal muscles contracted once again.

“Gods, I feel so full!” she groaned. “How many do you think I’ve got in there? Six? Eight? A full dozen?”

Jackie knelt down and put both of his hands onto her belly, followed by his head. He gave her a firm squeeze.

“I’m not a midwife, but if I had to guess? One.”

Karina stammered in disbelief as she put her own hands down and began to softly palpitate herself. It wasn’t difficult to feel the shape of individual eggs when you were close to laying, especially if they were fertile. But she could feel no such thing. All she could feel was one enormous mass.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! How am I supposed to do– nnn!”

She started to double over as her muscles contracted once again, and Jackie held onto her to keep her stable. She struggled to catch her breath.

“Ten hells, this thing is going to tear me apart!”

Karina could feel herself getting short of breath as panic started to set in… until she felt Jackie’s hand on hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“I don’t think it is,” he said, pulling her closer. “One of the first lessons they teach you as an apprentice alchemist is to trust the process. You are an excellent transmuter, Karina. I have faith in your abilities,”

Karina’s eyes met his, and she could feel herself starting to calm down. She gave him a tired smile.

“Right. Trust the process. I can do that. Help me get comfortable. Don’t suppose you’ve got something like a nest in here?”

“I think I’ve got some old cloth tarps?”

“Any port in a storm, I suppose.”

Soon, Karina was squatting over the roughest, most hastily-assembled nest she’d ever seen. Jackie was right behind her with his hands hooked under her arms, keeping her upright. She knew that it was just about time. Her body wanted the egg out.

“Are you ready?” he asked, giving her a squeeze.

“Absolutely not,” said Karina. “But it’s a little late to change my mind now, so here we go!”

And then she grit her teeth and snarled as she began to bear down.

Jackie had laid so many eggs in the months gone by that it had become routine. She’d get comfortable and push them out with only a token effort and barely any pain. Sometimes she barely felt them coming out.

This was different. She could definitely feel this one. She snarled and grunted as she bore down with her abdominal muscles, struggling as she felt the positively glacial process of the egg. But slow progress was still progress, and she kept at it, alternating between pushing and resting while Jackie wiped her brow and gave her sips of water.

And just when she’d thought she’d gotten through the worst of it, she let out a piercing shriek as she felt her vent start to stretch open.

“Could you warn a guy?” Jackie muttered.

“You want a warning, you lay the next one!” she yowled. She felt her nethers burn as, slowly but surely, she began to stretch around the egg.

“I think I can see it!” said Jackie, excitement building in his voice. “You’re getting there! Keep pushing!”

Karina barely registered his words. She was utterly consumed by the task at hand. Despite the difficulty, she no longer had any doubt that could do it. She could do it because she was made for it. She had seen to that personally. For a brief moment, she felt a connection with her draconic ancestors.

In that moment, she gathered up all of the might and fury of a dragon and channeled it all into one titanic push.

And then it was over, and she felt herself collapse into Jackie’s arms.

“Please find me a giant block of ice to sit on,” she murmured.

“Maybe later,” said Jackie, who couldn’t stop smiling. “Look!”

Karina looked. Sitting in the nest was an enormous egg. It was a deep red color with orange mottling, and it looked like it was easily a quarter of her body weight.

“That… that’s…”

“That’s a dragon egg, Karina,” said Jackie. “You just laid a dragon egg.”

“I just laid a dragon egg,” affirmed Karina. “Gods. How the hells did that thing come out of me?”

“Magic?”

This earned Jackie an elbow in the ribs, followed by an enormous hug.

“You did it,” he said, practically vibrating with excitement. “You really did it!”

Karina laughed and nuzzled his chest. “We did it. And we are going to make so much magic happen!”