| Chapter 4 |
| The next morning, the eagle's eggs hatched. As they were doing so, she screeched in joy of being a mother. One by one, the eaglets hatched and every time one did, the mother was happy. But the last one just wouldn't hatch. She nudged it and nudged it, but no luck. The mother went into mourning. All of a sudden though, a tiny crack was heard, and the top came off of the egg! The eagle was so happy to see that her egg hatched...but what came out of it, was not so thrilling. The eagle mother looked up and down the hatchling, and she knew it was different...the others knew it was different too, but they all accepted it anyway. At long last, little Celeste had hatched, only to the wrong family. She knew that something was not right, and this could not be her mother, so she went off one day to find her. The mother eagle waved goodbye sadly. Celeste "slithered" through the forest, in search of one that looked like her. She found an owl's nest, but alas...it did not look like her. She found rabbits, badgers, foxes, wolves, and bears...but they looked not like her either. She was beginning to give up hope when she saw a snake...it was a little different, but still, it still had the same body type as her! She slithered over and said "hi" to it, in her mental language. They talked mentally for a bit, and then the snake invited her into their home. And so it was there, that Celeste knew she was welcome. The snakes were not dangerous, and they all welcommed her with open arms. She was treated equally, even with her odd coloring, and she felt right at home. She had not figured that this was still not her real home...and she probably wouldn't figure that out for a while. Meanwhile, Brechin was searching the cliffs, forests, rivers, and everywhere very carefully. He just HAD to find that egg. His result: he did find it, but not how he would have liked. He was along the cliffs, when he heard a screech and he looked down to see an eagle with her hatchlings. He also saw the egg...but it was cracked and empty. Celeste was nowhere in sight. Now, he had figured that the eagle fed it to her young and that was the end of little Celeste. But instead of feeling happy, he was sad and guilty. He jumped over there, and picked up the egg to bring home, scaring the eagles while doing that. Brechin hopped home, sadly, but had he been more alert, he would have realized that he had just passed up Celeste, alive and well. She was busily playing with another little snake, and they were doing tricks and showing wach other things. All of a sudden, a great looking kangaroo thing hopped swiftly past her without a second glance. 'How rude he is, to just jump right over us.' she thought to her friend. Brechin brought the egg home, and dropped it into Megara's lap. He explained to Trika that an eagle ate it, and he found the egg. What he did NOT mention was that it was his fault. He went to his part of the cave to sulk. He would never do anything like that again, and he would go forth to find Megara another egg...although they were not plentiful in these parts. |
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