Story Saturday: The Oracle and the Egg

"The Oracle and the Egg"

Once upon a time, a young oracle named Eden lived in a thriving kingdom. Every day, people would line up at her door to tell their fortune with little regard for the toll it took on her health. Oracles lived notoriously short lives as each vision they conjured caused them to convulse with pain and slowly drain their life force. As such, Eden lost her parents at a young age and survived on her own by sharing her unique ability with the people. She was used to the pain that the visions brought and enjoyed it when she could help to prevent bad things from happening.

There was one client in particular who she liked seeing most of all, and that was her kingdom's very own Prince Adam. Ever since the first prediction she made for Adam, he grew concerned with the pain that came with her power and stayed by her side holding her hand until she felt better. He often visited her just to see how she was doing without asking for any predictions. One day, Adam came to Eden at the direct command of his father, who was about to marry a princess from a foreign land who would become the kingdom's new queen. Though Adam hated forcing Eden to use her powers, his father felt it was very important to the kingdom's future to make sure nothing went wrong with the ceremony.

Eden happily obliged her favorite customer but was unprepared for the shock of what came next. As Adam squeezed her hand comfortingly, a vision of a monstrous scaled face appeared before her and breathed fire over the wedding procession. She felt the heat of the flames as though they were real and trembled at the sound of people screaming in a panic and running for their lives. When she opened her eyes, Adam was pulling her close and looking at her with deep concern.

Eden explained to Adam the disaster that she foresaw in his future, but she didn't know where the dragon came from or why it attacked the wedding. If he wanted to know more, she would need to speak to the king. Adam wasted no time in making preparations to bring Eden to stay at the palace. Eden tried to tell him that it was too much and that she didn't need to stay overnight just to make a prediction for the king, but Adam wouldn't hear of it. He wanted to ensure that she was comfortable, well-fed, and well-cared for after seeing the way she suffered with her last vision.

Eden paid her respects to the king and took his hand to get a better vision of his wedding day. Through the king's eyes, she saw his future bride pull out a large egg that she had been hiding under her voluminous wedding gown. The egg was as hard as a rock and speckled with colorful spots. She recognized it as a dragon egg. Then the same fearsome dragon from her other vision flew in an angry rage at the newlywed couple and blew harsh flames at them and everyone in the audience, burning many of them alive. Eden felt these flames even more intensely than the first time. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear Adam calling to her, but she wasn't able to bring herself back to the present to respond. Then everything went black.

When Eden opened her eyes again, she was lying in the castle infirmary and being tended to by a doctor. She made a grunt, and Prince Adam was instantly by her side. She didn't know how long he had been there, but it seemed like he was waiting for her to wake up. He told her it had been a week since she had made the prediction, which meant the wedding was that evening! There wasn't much time. Eden told Adam everything she saw and apologized for not being able to warn him sooner, but he assured her that he was more worried about her health than finding out the source of the dragon.

Once Adam learned about the dragon egg, he had the guards search his future stepmother's chambers, and sure enough, they discovered the speckled rock-like egg. The wicked princess was brought to the dungeon for questioning, and they discovered that she was sent by the kingdom's enemies to pretend to fall in love with the king and form an alliance so she could summon a dragon and destroy the land. She was sentenced to execution for her crimes, and the egg was brought to a secluded cliffside where the dragon could recover it without harming anyone.

Now that the kingdom was safe again, Eden was ready to return home and continue her duties as oracle, but Adam would not hear of it. He deemed her a hero for saving the kingdom and preventing him from the fate of a wicked stepmother. With all of this in mind, it was easy for Adam to convince his father to accept Eden as the princess and future queen if she would have him. Adam confessed that he was in love Eden for a long time and hated to see her cut her life tragically short with her fortune-telling. He assured her that if she became a princess, she would never need to make another prediction again and would live out the rest of her days in peace. Eden could not believe her good fortune. This was better than any vision she could have predicted for herself. She never imagined that her life could take a different path from that of an oracle. With a full heart, she agreed to marry Prince Adam and lived out the rest of her days happily without ever feeling the pain of her visions again.