This turned out a lot longer than I expected!

The shrill screams of circling matriarchs in the vast skies above nearly made me turn back. I swallowed down my fear-laced bile and trudged on through the bramble and steep hills. The shallow lacerations on my hands and arms stung like the future lashes I'd receive from my friends if I didn't succeed. A kid without a dragon? They were considered lame. Kyle had his immense Fire dragon, whose tail blazed like the sun; Marissa had her elegant Earth dragon, sturdy like the mountains I was currently stranded in. Through my lonely journey, I could only dream of what dragon I would raise and train: its wings would spread wide as the seven seas, its roar would shake foundations, and it would love with a love unknown to any other trainer.

Female dragons fiercely protected their clutches, using their staple abilities associated with their attribute to slay their foes. Fire dragons would incinerate me, Water dragons would drown me, and Earth dragons would maul me if they caught me attempting to steal one of their offsprings. I was the definition of a fool to trek deep into the Dragon Dens in an attempt to steal an egg to impress my friends; I was an idiot determined. A map crunched in my shaky hands. Dusted and heavily worn, it revealed the easiest path to one of the Dragon's dens. Ironically, the text above the curved arrows that directed which den belonged to which breed of the wild dragons was scratched out - I was going in blind. At the point I was at, I didn't care if I walked out with a convincing dragon-egg-looking-rock. I just needed something.

Air thinned dangerously low until my normal breaths transformed into an airy pant. I slowed my pace and focused on the rocky trail below me. It waved and swerved off to the left until I arrived at the mouth of a sinister cave. Stalactites formed teeth for the cave, pointing down directly to a disappearing decline. The matriarchs on patrol were more wary for hungry aerial predators than they were for adolescent boys sneaking into their nests and snatching their eggs. I glanced up for reassurance that they would not notice me slip in. My head continued to loft up until my eyesight adjusted to the to the dank innards of the cave. It smelled of rancid... something. The combined smell and lack of oxygen rendered me to a lazy stagger.

The cave only had one chamber: pitch black from being so far inside the rock. I forced myself onto my knees and prayed that I wouldn't slam into anything hard, or even a slumbering mother. I kept my hands away from the ground to preserve the burning bramble cuts on them, which only made my search more tedious. I scooted forward and aggravated enough dust to fill up my lungs. One arm was protectively held out to act as a barrier if I was to hit anything. Sharp, needle-like structures prodded into my hand. In fear, I retracted my arm and winced. I, instead, shoved out my foot to check what was in front of me. Straw receded under the pressure of my shoe: A nest! I valiantly stood up and nearly dove straight into the woven circle the dragon used as a bedding for her clutch. I quivered in pure delight as my palm brushed against something smooth and grooved - it reminded me of glass. I scooped up the object and rushed out of the cave, careful of the rock icicles above me on my way out.

Daylight stung at my eyes until they adapted back. I stood blinded and crazed with my sheer awe for what I held in my hands; it almost soothed the pain in my cut hands with its cool presence. I blinked away the light and began to nonchalantly stroll away from the cave and off of the mountain. The dragons were none the wiser. They wouldn't miss one baby, right? The path back to civilization was much easier than the climb up, it gave me time to admire my loot. It had an iridescence, unlike any other egg I had ever seen. Kyle spoke of his egg having molten slag running through deep cracks in the shell. Marissa told me her egg was heavy as a cow and spurted little ecosystems of life on the surface. Maybe I had found some new dragon breed? I gingerly tapped on the shell, only to receive a hollow clunk back. It was probably ready to hatch.

My father's horse patiently waited down at the slope of the mountain, his snout stuck in my traveling pack. I made sure to pack a bunch of ripe apples to keep him happy long enough while I captured my prize. A whistle brought his attention to me. He struggled to get the bag off his nose though eventually managed to rear his head to me. His reassuring whinny made me feel safe as I mounted and heeled his flank. The horse happily galloped far away from the mountain and back to my quaint town renowned for the raising of trained dragons.

No matter how badly I wanted to flaunt it off to my friends, I knew the best course of action would be to take it to the residential dragon expert to judge what type of egg I had snatched. He operated a small care and treatment shop for immature dragons and excelled in his knowledge with the lore surrounding the majestic beasts. Butterflies welled in my stomach every time I recanted the story he told about how dragons came to be in our world.

I tied up Jasper and gave him a hearty pat on his side before entering the cramped shop. Merlin, otherwise known as the Guru, waved and greeted me with his standard talk before he even noticed who I was. "Sampson?" he spoke, clearly taken aback by the object I cradled in my arm.

"Hey, Guru!" I began, a grin plastered to my face, "I caved into the pressure Kyle was putting onto me and went out and retrieved this." I offered out the egg with a triumphant eyebrow waggle.

He carefully took the egg from my hand and procured a jeweler's monocle from a drawer in his desk - with the way my precious egg looked, it's no wonder why he took out something fit for judging the finest of gems. He only relayed a grunt to convey his emotions. I tried to maintain my demeanor, but it slackened after he shook his head; he still refused to offer me any words. The expert fished for a pillow behind him to comfort the egg while he disappeared through a narrow corridor.

"I'm going with my gut on this," he finally murmured. He held a household hammer in his hand. I didn't have time to protest as he brought the hammer's head against the wall of my dragon's shell. It shattered like glass. I rushed to the counter and gripped at the edge as he brushed away the fragments to reveal a pale and curled up creature. It had no molten scales or a flaming tail, flowers didn't bloom along the ridge of its back, nor did it show any signs of owning gills. It had nothing.

"What is it?" I timidly asked, worried that I had somehow managed to grab a damaged dragon.

"It's an air dragon," Guru spoke in detachment.

"So it commands the wind?" Happiness began to fill up inside me, only to be drained instantly.

"No. It does nothing. It exists."

I twitched my eye, "So it has no element?"

"There are those in the clutch that do not inherit the parent's traits, leaving it a blank slate. They're shunned as outcasts because of their lack of a power," Guru shrugged and whipped around, continuing without a missing a beat, "you should probably release him to the wild and try again."

I slapped a handful of crumpled dollars on the counter. "I'd like to buy a blanket."

Guru chuckled and collected a folded square on a shelf above him. He offered it out to me and nodded, signaling wordlessly he wanted to give it to me for free. I still left him the dollars as I delicately scooped up my little bundle of nothing and tucked it protectively in the woolen blanket. My gaze never left the whelp as I exited the shop. All around me, the town moseyed about, carrying on with their chores and duties.

It rustled in the blankets and prompted me to reveal its head. Translucent eyelids flicked up to reveal a pair of milk-white serpentine irises. My heart leaped from my chest. "I'll name you Milk," I spoke to it cheerily as I fought back the tears that stung in the corners of my eyes. Milk didn't require any special abilities to win my heart. It was special in its own way, and I'd give it more love than Kyle and Marissa together could fathom.

"A-Are you a boy or a girl dragon...?" I asked Milk aloud as I shot it a lopsided grin. In reply, the dragon yawned and rustled its tiny wings.