"Nothing here," she sighed. "I thought I saw a flash of light, but..."
She was slowly, carefully walking through some old ruins on the very border of the Dragon Lands. She had to be careful, here - she wasn't familiar with the terrain. It was full of... grass, and moss, and other things she'd never seen before in her life, and there may be non-dragon civilizations nearby. These ruins were definitely not of anything dragons built. The doors were way too small.
Also, it was starting to get dark. She turned and began to walk back to familiar territory. Once she was back in the core Dragon Lands, it'd be safe to fly, if she could see well enough by then.
Ember had been egg-hunting for years by now. She'd picked up and carted around more stupid eggs than she'd like to remember. She was livid. Not heartbroken.
No, it didn't deeply hurt her at all that her father had grown more and more excited about recovering abandoned eggs every time he found one of an odd color or pattern. Sure, dragon mythology swore up and down that the less common a dragon's egg color was, the stronger the dragon would be, but so what? Even the most selfish dragon parents would want to keep, say, a coal-black egg with golden stars all over it, right? That's the bossest egg ever.
She wasn't upset by how incredibly, irrationally mad he got every time he had to confront the fact that every dragon in the Dragon Lands other than him had gradually stopped caring about his hero-dragon fetish, and many had just started chucking every other egg to Equestria because it took less thinking and less stonework.
She was absolutely not at all affected by the fact that her father would rather search the Dragon Lands for years, decades, centuries, on the off-chance of finding some stranger's discarded super-egg t-to hatch into the next Dragon Lord, i-instead of her. N-no, that didn't hurt at all, s-she didn't care.
Sh-she was just ou-out at the b-border of the Dragon Lands a-at sundown i-in some dumb r-ruins surrounded by gr-grass and clear s-sun and other stuff she didn't like and, and her father didn't give a --
"Yeep!" she squeaked as she tripped on something, and fell right on her face on the hard stone.
Between her thoughts and her bloody nose, Ember started to cry. It was okay. No one was there to see it. No one was ever there to see it. The only time her father had seen her cry, he'd yelled at her to stop being so weak, and she'd never let him see it again.
She looked back with narrow eyes and hissed at the thing she'd tripped on, but the angry sound caught in her throat as her eyes went wide.
As we might recall, dragons were superstitious creatures. Among their many other nuances, they believed that the color and pattern of an egg determined the strength of the dragon within it. Pale eggs produced weaker dragons, while vibrant eggs with elegant designs produced stronger dragons. Any egg colored a deep red or blue was considered the best the parents could hope for - and although she was still upset with her father for bringing up mom, Ember was proud to hear that her egg had been blue.
She liked that her mother had thought her egg was beautiful.
Dragons were inventive and imaginative - that tended to happen when they had nothing but rocks and dirt to play with or eat. They'd come up with all kinds of ridiculous, fanciful "legendary eggs" said to appear extremely rarely, which contained dragons with the powers of gods. A dark golden egg covered in lightning bolts, for instance, was said to birth a thunder-dragon who could command the storm and the sky.
There was one egg all dragons revered and told stories of beyond all others, and Ember blinked with wonder, her face white and her heart still, comparing the egg at her feet to the check list:
She thought she must be going mad. This egg had never been seen for all the time the dragons knew. It was the Egg of the Champion, whose inhabitant would not only become the Dragon Lord, but would set the bar for all Dragon Lords to follow. The dragon within this long-storied egg would change what it meant to be a dragon, in his time and forever after.
... but surely it must have been seen before, right? Or else any description of it would have been fabricated and no egg like it should ever actually exist... right?
And why didn't she see it before she tripped on it and busted her nose? Aaargh.
Ember squeezed her eyes shut a few times. When the egg remained present, she slowly adjusted herself to a reverent, nearly praying posture before it, setting it upright - it must've been the heaviest darn egg - and checking for damage. It was completely unblemished... a sturdy little thing, alright. She even gently knocked on it with her fist. Toong, toong. That was one hearty egg. If she could lift it, she could probably KO Garble with it, the uppity jerk.
She looked all around. Who in the world would have left an egg like this behind? Any dragon who pushed this out would be honored as a saint for the rest of her life, and her mate too. Dragons would kiss the ground they tread and hope to inherit their fertility. Ember blushed as she considered how touching the egg itself might have affected her. She would choose to interpret "fertility" as "success in all that you do". Yeah, that'd be nice. Success in convincing her dad that she wasn't some useless nymphet. Maybe this egg would help her become the Dragon Lord. Heh, that'd be a funny thing.
For possibly an hour Ember sat and contemplated the egg. She still wasn't sure if it was really there or if she was imagining it, but she was thinking about what would happen if she brought it back.
She might be honored for finding the Champion, sure, but she wouldn't be the Champion. Heck, even if she got Dragon Lord for it, she'd get to enjoy it for... what... ten to twenty years? Then the kid in the egg would be the Dragon Lord, probably.
And her dad wouldn't... he wouldn't congratulate her for it. Well, maybe he might. But he'd give her a pat on the back and then obsess over the egg for the next several decades.
Ember's heart began to boil with anger and jealousy. She reminded herself that the little guy in the egg wasn't to blame. She wasn't angry at the egg. She was angry with her father, who'd tossed her aside for far lesser eggs and would surely --
Her eyes went wide in sudden horror.
There was no way Dragon Lord Torch would permit anyone to raise the Champion but himself.
He'd adopt the egg.
He'd replace Ember with the egg.
She started to shake and hyperventilate in a flurry of inexplicably entwined emotions. With great effort, she gathered up the egg gently against her chest.
"Listen here, little guy," she cooed. "I know just what to do with you. Trust me, this is the best thing for us both, and you'll thank me for this later. My dad's a jerk. You'd hate him. Honestly, I hope you never meet him."
And with the egg, she snuck off into the rising night.