The Lions of Bryn Swarth

As Kricket lay with her back against the green egg she had claimed in the Churning Wastes, she felt it move. She glanced at the phylactery with its glowing symbols, feeling something akin to evil emanating from the beaituful carved stones of what looked like a lantern. She turned from it and instead, contorted her body into a shelter of sorts for her pale green egg. She was 13 years old. Instinctively she spread her arms to allow her own heartbeat to be felt by the thing growing inside the egg that she was sure in her limited wisdom, was a real dragon.   She spoke to the creature growing inside in the tongue she was born with, Draconic, something she had never understood at all. Her mother had told her she was touched by a demon and she had believed her. She didn't feel evil but accepted that her mother believed she had at least a touch of the devil about her.   Left to fend for herself at 10, Kricket had managed to survive by stealing out of others' rubbish to begin with. She learned to pilfer from the wealthy and made a decent living for a child. She slept in the warmth of a small shed with cats. But now she was grown. She was 13. The world had changed.   Her mentor had died before imparting all the secrets she had expected him to tell her. Now here she was living a life she had never even imagined, still unsure how she felt about it all. She had become part of a group of four adventurers who had together discovered the evil plot that would destroy the world. Though she was only 13, she often felt she was the practical one of the group. When they had found the wagon with the sapphire heart of a gem dragon, the other three, all "adults" had voted to leave it behind and continue the journey they had been contracted to make. Only her stubborness prevented the wagon and its goods from being round by any passerby.   War was coming, didn't they know this? War was coming and their side, the good side, would need the goods in that wagon. She had been right of course. The others hadn't been forthcoming in their thanks to her but she didn't mind. She had gotten what she wanted.   Now they were back in Bryn Swarth with giant owls from the high elves and three dragon eggs. The other three members of her newfound fellowship had gone on errands in the town while she guarded the owls and the eggs. When she had felt her egg move, she had turned her heart towards the movement, hoping to share her heart beat, and more, her love. Just because she had never had someone to love didn't mean she had no love. She had a lot of love. Nobody had ever wanted it. She would give it to Jade as she thought of him now. She knew that he was a he. And she talked to him in the tones of what she thought a loving mother would do. And that's when she heard Jade speak to her. In a small voice she heard him. "I want out." And the egg gave a great rock as if the creature wanted to escape the shell that held him for so long. Kricket continued talking to Jade, crooning little lullabys she had created out of snatches of songs she had heard on the streets as a child.   The first to return was Rae. She explained to Kricket all about meeting Jarvathel, some druid Kricket had little interest in but knew Rae's heart had begun to belong to the druid. She listened with as much patience as she could until Rae got to the part about the black dragon heart. She began paying attention finally and told Rae what had happened with Jade.   Rae's eyes grew big and she said, in her sometimes hard to understand accent, "You should try it again. Put your hand on the Sapphire and on your Jade." Kricket's eyes grew wide then. She was fearful but excited. She remembered when they first spoke to the true skull of a true Jade and asked what its purpose had been. The Jade had replied, "Balance. We were in the world to balance it."   Kricket shot up to standing and said, "Where is it? Do you have the Sapphire in your pack? Let's do it. Now!"   But then Rae became an adult again and said they should wait for the others. Kricket knew there was no way to talk the older woman out of waiting for the others so she sat next to Jade and continued to nurmur words in Draconic as Rae told her the rest of the story. When Bayfrin and Gretan returned, Kricket wanted to tell them what had happened but the pedantic Gretan had to recite with exact precision everything he had learned at the library. Kricket was ready to jump up and down in frenetic energy until she heard the part about how the great Lions had created desert out of verdant fields and it was spreading.   "Lions?" Kricket was suddenly fearful for her dragon, for her party, for herself, and wait, why was Immerstal the Red asking about her? Something was very wrong.. "You do realize, I hope, that every guard in this town wears a Lion badge? And why did Immerstal the Red, a clearly inferior wizard with a superiority complex insist that Lord Jarath test my magic abilities." But then Kricket's egg made a movement quite noticeable to all and the conversation led back to the eggs.   Kricket kept her eye on the 6 Lion guards on the wall above Lady Kalel's keep where they were sort of hiding out. When Rae told Gretan and Bayfrin of their idea to feed Jade with the power of Kricket and Gretan's seeming affinity to some degree with dragons, a plan was hatched (pun intended). First, Rae would bless Kricket, Gretan, and Bayfrin. Bayfrin would use his divine magic to try to keep them all safe. Gretan would hold onto his own small dragon shard he had worn since boyhood and hold onto Kricket and the Sapphire while Kricket held onto the Sapphire heart and put her hand where she had put her heart on Jade's shell. The rush of power was so great and so profound that it nearly blew ghe group apart but Gretan had just enough strength to rejoin Kricket whose hand never left the Jade or the Sapphire heart. She drew from the Sapphire heart as nobody else could and willed its balance into her being and her heart and fused it with Bayfrin, Rae's, and Gretan's powers into all the love she had had for all her life with no one to give it to and she freely gave it all to her Jade. Wind blew around the group as if trying to push them into the sky as Kricket never moved her eyes from the egg. She saw it change. It went from a strange misshapen pale green egg to something else. She heard the chips and cracks and at first thought it was hatching but no, behold, the jade, real jade shards and pieces began to cover the shell with its protective embrace, a magic old, powerful, and profound as she murmurered the words love, and balance.   Kricket's last thoughts were, "We've done it!" Before she collapsed to the ground. Unconscious, she knew no more for a time. If she had been awake, she would have noted that two of the Lions atop the wall had left their post.