Cael woke to the sound of her brother, Ryne, screaming for her. Ryne was one year old. Cael often had to care for him because her father’s wife, Ranit, was sick lots of the time. Cael was the daughter of Thian, the black smith of the small village of Paxton. Paxton was a little, tiny, town north of Carvahall. She was fifteen years old, she was very pretty, but was over looked much of the time. See, as beautiful as Cael was with her amber eyes, fair skin, and dark red hair, no one ever saw her as a young woman or a young girl. They saw her as Ryne and Raleigh’s mother figure. Raleigh was a six year old girl, and Cael’s half sister. She took care of her for the same reason she took care of Ryne. Cael heard the baby scream again and she got up to dress. She pulled on a brown skirt and a white top. The top was tight around her body and lose on her arms. The collar was large and showed a bit of her shoulders, a brown ribbon weaved in and out of the fabric on the edge of the collar, Then it tied in a small bow in the front. She brushed her hair with the silver brush her mother gave her before she died. It was the most valuable thing that Cael owned. The baby was still screaming for her. Cael sighed and walked out of her tiny room. She went down stairs to the kitchen where Ranit had her hands over her face. She was crying. Cael’s heart went out to Ranit.
“Ranit… what’s wrong?” said Cael as she tried to comfort her step mother.
“I-it-t-s just that well… I don’t know what my own baby wants! He barely knows me because I never get the chance to care for him due to my illness.”
Cael knew all to well what was about to happen. Why she had cared was beyond her mental grasp. This happened quite a lot actually, Cael would hear Ryne crying, come down and find Ranit in tears. Then Ranit would get angry at Cael and blame her for not being close to her son, and her father, the blind fool, would instantly agree with his wife, not with his daughter, and she would be thrown out for several weeks before Ranit got sick again and her father begged her to come back. And every time like a perfect fool, she would return and it would start all over again.
“And do you know why, all of this is happening?” Ranit asked, a faint glow in her eyes.
Cael puzzled for a moment whether or not the glow was evil or not.
“yes.” came her response after a long moment.
“then explain.” said Ranit. Cael was sure that the glow was evil.
“I know, your going to blame me and all that, so should I go pack now? Or wait until later?” she asked, a hint of sass in her voice.
“you will not even pack! All your things belong to me!” she half yelled, then added in a quieter tone, “I wonder how much I could get for that brush of yours…”
Cael couldn’t believe her ears. What was she talking about, selling her brush. Then it came to her, Ranit was serious this time. There would be no coming back to Paxton after this quarrel. Cael’s eyes grew wide and without thinking she dashed up the stairs to her room. She grabbed her traveling bag, which was rather like a messenger bag, and began to throw clothes and blankets into it. She also picked up a small little pouch. From inside you could hear the sound of coins clinking. Then the brush, she wasn’t about to leave without it. The whole time she was doing this she could hear Ranit storming her way up the stairs.

Before you can understand what happened next you must understand something about the house. It makes a large circle. If you started in the kitchen and went up those stairs, you could run down the hall and then down the other set of stairs on that side of the house. Once down those steps you could weave your way through the rooms and back into the kitchen where you started. That is exactly what Cael did, once she was safely back in the kitchen, she dashed out of the door and into the small town of Paxton.

She didn’t stop running until she was deep in the forest that surrounds Paxton. She slowed to a walk remembering she had no food or water and had to make it to Carvahall that night. She walked on in silence through the wood, then she heard it. It was a faint sniffle, like that of a baby who had cried it self calm. Cael was startled by the sound and quickly started to look for the source of the sound. She looked for nearly twenty minutes before giving up, she was about to walk away when she heard it again, it sounded closer this time. She looked again and found the source this time.

There by the base of a tree was a large red leaf, and on that leaf was a tiny baby dragon. It had just hatched.
‘why he must have hatched just a soon as I came to this part of the wood!’ thought Cael, ‘he still has shell from his egg on him!’
The dragon’s body was curled up and his little wings were wrapped around his body to keep him warm. His tail was almost as long as his body and was stretched out, only the tip curled around on itself. Cael stood there for a few minutes before the dragon sniffled again, reminding her that he was cold and wanted someone to hold him. She picked him up in her right hand, the hand almost instantly felt weird and fuzzy, then it was like a burn and she had to try hard not to drop him. Then a feeling of curiousness took over and she had to fight the urge to do many stupid things at once. When the ordeal was over Cael examined the dragon closer, he had golden scales like the shells that had been around him, she held him so his body was even with her eyes. The dragon’s eyes were still fused shut so there was no telling what color his were. He was so small, only about the size of her thumb.

“now I really need to go and see Brom.” said Cael to the dragon. He merely sniffled again and suddenly Cael felt just how cold he was. She opened her bag and slipped the dragon into it, so he was in the middle of the blankets and clothes. The dragon let out a small sigh that Cael took as a sign he was content. She smiled and started to walk away from the spot before turning around a digging a small hole in the frozen earth, she swept the shells of the dragon’s egg into the hole and buried them, the last thing she wanted was the Empire finding the dragon, she hadn’t had him long. But she was firmly attached to him. The last thing she did was pick up the leaf she had found him on and take it with her, she had every intention of pressing it in the book about dragons she was going to buy from Brom.