Eggs Unsung v2.0 pt 4
Look, if I had a better picture of an egg…
So. We meet the eggs. There may also be some quantity issues between these versions. Or at least so far in this version there seems to be.
But! since you’re like, a captive audience or something, I want to talk about this fairy tale I read today. I found it in The Scottish Fairy Book, and it’s called Gold-Tree (possibly and Silver-Tree). At first it’s a very Snow-White tale, king, daughter, new wife, magical trout in a deep dark well–the usual. Then the king marries his daughter to a foreign prince, so…no dwarfs? No. no dwarfs. She goes away, the step-mom talks with the trout again (trout??), finds out Gold-Tree is still alive, goes to poison her, Gold-Tree locks herself in the treasury, but gets her finger pricked by a poisoned needle anyway because. Then her husband returns, and is all depressed, but marries again.
The new bride (cleverly named Other Princess) is told not to enter the room where Gold-Tree’s preserved body lies, but does anyway, finds the needle, rescues Gold-Tree, ‘gives’ her back to their husband and declares that she’ll just go home because she’s not jealous or anything.
But the prince says no, she can stay. Other Princess and Gold-Tree can be friends–they can all be a family! So. You know. Polyamory. You read it here first, guys. The princesses are friends, and together manage to thwart the step-mom (who is Silver-Tree, btw) on her next attempt. And then they all live happily ever after. The End.
I can’t shake the feeling that the prince really got the best of that deal, no matter how you slice it. The very, very best.
But now, what you’re really here for: Cyrphon; the Greatest Egg-Singer the Aetherverse has Never Seen!
Eggs Unsung pt 4
“There are old shrines and tombs all throughout these hills,” Edgar said, gesturing as they passed a window overlooking the dark and distant landscape. “They were built by the first people to settle this region—the first people to settle this world, really. Most of them are just a simple statue and a few offerings of carvings or jewelry or something else precious. The tombs are a bit more elaborate, and were generally used for whole families, but even then the offerings are more along the lines of ‘pretty’ than incredibly valuable.”
Cyrphon followed silently, not sure where the story was going.
“Most of the tombs have been found as the area repopulated lately, but there’s still enough of them out there that sometimes an idiot will get lost in the woods and stumble onto one.”
“That’s where you found the egg,” Cyrphon said, hurrying a few steps because this story was suddenly very interesting.
Edgar nodded. “I actually found the grotto shrine a long time ago, back when I was a teen, but—” he shrugged “—it was just a shrine, so I didn’t think anything of it. I used to go there to meditate, or relax, or just get away.” He rubbed his neck guiltily. “I look back and wonder how I could have been so foolish, but it never crossed my mind that the rocks might be worth something.”
A faint tingle started playing along Cyrphon’s scar, and he hoped it meant they were very close to the egg, because he’d feel like an utter idiot if he had to beg off half-way there. Especially since his scar was a bit too personal to bring up at this point.
“The grotto was damaged in a landslide awhile back, though, and in having it moved, someone said something about aethereggs, and I had the epiphany I should have had years ago. Here we are.” Edgar pushed open a dark wooden door and held it for Cyrphon.
As Cyrphon entered the room, the tingle in his scar turned into a tickle, which settled into a sensation just below a sting when he surreptitiously rubbed it. It wasn’t terribly comfortable—and he’d have to salt if he was going to be working with this egg daily—but it wasn’t unbearable, either. Condition assessed, Cyrphon looked up to take in his surroundings.
The walls were of stone, and the room felt cool, cool and damp, much like the cave it was decorated to resemble. The colors were deep green and mottled grey, with the benches around the room designed to look like they formed naturally from the stone—though of course the cushions and pillows made it obvious they hadn’t. Opposite the door was a statue, made of a pale grey stone; the figure of a person, gender indeterminate, dressed in long robes and holding a pale egg—white with light gray veins—in its supplicating hands.
In the middle of the room was a short and slender pillar of much more modern make. It held a soft white pillow, and on that rested the Saige Egg. Much like its confectionary doppelganger, it was a mottled color, as if made of a pale green marble, shot through with veins of tawny brown and splotches of creamy white.
Cyrphon could feel it humming, begging to be awakened, its song promising to be complex and beautiful beyond compare. How could they ever have thought you silenced, Cyrphon thought, walking slowly across the room towards it, his discomfort forgotten. Even the clunkiest of vibration readers should have been able to register the noise the Saige Egg was making.
“Careful of the Invisiglass,” Edgar warned when Cyrphon started to reach out a hesitant hand.
Withdrawing his hand, Cyrphon circled the egg on its pedestal, and as he moved more and more to the side, he started to feel something unusual. It was almost as if—as if there were two eggs, pulling at him. Cyrphon shook his head because that was absurd, but the closer he got, the more distinct the two egg-songs became, until he was standing between the egg and the statue, his teeth nearly chattering with the subaudible egg-songs.
Cyrphon turned to look at the statue—or more precisely, its egg. It was lighter in color than the stone of the statue, but its texture was nearly the same, so Cyrphon understood how it could easily be mistaken for being made of local stone. But aethereggs came in every color imaginable, and some that weren’t.
“That statue was in the shrine with it,” Edgar offered when he noticed Cyrphon staring at it. “It’s the classic style for all the tombs, supposed to represent the diety…”
He kept talking, but Cyrphon stopped listening, reaching out carefully—no Invisiglass here—and placing his hand on top of the statue’s egg. It didn’t budge, but that didn’t mean they had been carved from the same piece of marble. “You didn’t just find one egg,” Cyrphon said.
“What?” Edgar was startled out of his speech. “No, I— but how did you—?” His words cut off as he realized what Cyrphon was saying. “No, that’s…impossible. You cannot—no one can tell an egg on first sight. And it cannot be—” He shook his head and backed towards the door, face pale and eyes wide.
“It is not impossible to immediately recognize an egg for what it is.” Cyrphon rubbed the egg slowly with his thumb. Its song was quieter than the Saige Egg’s, quieter and gentler, but it was no less eager to be heard. “You’re beautiful,” Cyrphon told it, leaning down to kiss the cool surface gently.
Then he remembered that he still had an audience, and jerked around, but Dr. Saige was supporting himself with one arm on the doorframe, while his other hand clutched at his heart. Cyrphon could almost hear him trying to calm his breathing, to stay the panic attack.
Cyrphon hummed a calming tune, and wandered over to his host. The egg on the pillar approved of the music, and echoed it back—still inaudible to ears, but changing the feel of the room, pressing against Cyrphon’s aetherscar. Cyrphon had never heard an egg do anything like that, but there would be time later to learn about the egg; eggs lived in centuries, humans, like Cyrphon’s host, lived in moments.
“Dr. Saige?” Cyrphon asked, as he came closer. “Edgar? Two eggs is significant, but not—”
“Two?” Edgar said, a hysterical edge to his tone. “Two eggs. Haha.” It didn’t sound like real laughter. “Every shrine—every shrine and every tomb in these hills has a statue, and every statue has an egg. Every. Single. One.”
“But surely—”
“Every shrine.” Edgar seemed stuck on that fact. “We call them the Egg-people.”
Cyrphon dug his fingertips into the edge of his scar. There had to be something he was missing, because that sounded like the sort of hidden treasure that meant dancing in glee, not a panic-attack.
Edgar must have read something in Cyrphon’s lack of response. “You don’t understand, do you?” He straightened, letting go the death-grip on the doorway. “This one egg alone is worth almost as much as this whole world makes in a year. If every egg in every statue from every shrine is worth that much, then…”
Cyrphon shook his head.
Edgar gave another bitter laugh. “Then the society and world that I love are displaying their doom on the mantel.”
Cyrphon still didn’t understand, but Dr. Saige seemed disinclined to explain further, and when he suggested they leave, Cyrphon was more than happy to agree. His scar was edging on into painful territory, and while he wasn’t about to suffer a panic attack, Cyrphon’s head was reeling from just the idea of two thousand-year-old eggs, and everything that could mean for him, for oology, for society. A salt-treatment and a long hot bath with Ampherdien on emittaloud sounded like the best idea Cyrphon had had in ages.
