"Yer body has put a lot of calcium and energy ointo producing this egg." The male Drage continued as he took out a hunting knife from the first aid kit that he had to his left. "By eating yer unfertilized eggs, ye regain some of the calcium and replenish some of the energy that ye lost from their production."
I grimaced at the thought of basically eating my unborn children. I very much doubted that Humans or Mages ate their unborn children as well.
"Do I have to eat it scrambled, fried, poached, or deviled?" I half-joked while I watched Sakari carefully drill a hole into the larger rounded end of the egg with the sharp tip of his knife.
"Oideally, ye would eat oit raw, as some of the nutritional value could be lost with cooking."
I nearly gagged.
"Raw?"
"Yep. We're Drages, remember? Our stomachs are built to digest bone, fur, and scales. A wee bit of raw egg and an eggshell ois nothing for us."
Once the hole had been drilled in the egg's shell, Sakari traded out the hunting knife for what looked like a thin steel rod with small, thin, whisk-like filaments at one end. I watched in awe as he inserted the strange tool into the egg through the pinkie nail-sized hole whisk side first. Once that was done, he placed the egg gently between his bent knees and began to twirl the handle of the whisk-like tool between the flattened palms of his hands. A faint sloshing could be heard from inside the egg as the whisk filaments presumably broke up the egg's yolk and mixed it in with the egg white.
All it took was a few seconds of twirling the whisk-like tool around in the egg until Sakari was satisfied with the current state of the egg's contents.
"There." The other Drage said as he took the egg in his left hand and removed the whisk tool with his right hand. "That should do it."
I watched as he sat the now dirty whisk tool down on the nearby towel, then I moved my gaze to the dark blue egg that he held and grimaced in anticipation. I really wasn't looking forward to downing the egg's contents and its shell. I had seen bodybuilders and health nuts drink raw egg smoothies and raving about its supposed benefits; but even then, there had been other ingredients present and not just the raw egg by itself. They also didn't eat the egg's shell afterwards.
"Can I at least have it in a smoothie with some blueberries, honey, and kale?" I whined.
"Prep takes too much time." Sakari laughed as he handed me the egg, which I begrudgingly took. "Now eat the feckin' egg."
"Yes mother."
I stared at the egg in my hands for a few seconds as I worked up the courage to down the raw, scrambled contents. Open the mouth, past the gums. Look out stomach, here it comes! With that, I pinched my nose with the thumb and index finger on my left hand, closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and quickly downed the egg's contents like a shot of straight tequila; complete with the grimace of disgust and the the body shiver that followed after. The consistency was what I had expected for a raw egg and my stomach churned at the thought of having to eat the now empty shell too.
"Now the shell." Sakari grinned. "That's the hard part. Pun fully intended."
I rolled my eyes in response to my friend's lame pun and stuffed the entire eggshell in my mouth; which in retrospect, maybe wasn't one of my brightest ideas. While I struggled to crunch the shell between my teeth, I could feel my teeth take on their natural shape and sharpness and winced as bits of the shell found their way into the insides of my cheeks and poked at the sensitive roof of my mouth. The shell itself was unusually thick for the size of the egg; so thick, that Human teeth weren't able to break it. Drage teeth however, apparently had no problem doing such a thing and I was able to grind the shell into a fine powder with a surprising amount of ease.
Once the shell had been reduced to a powder and mixed in with my saliva to form a thick paste, I forced myself to swallow the mixture in several gulps. It felt like I was trying to swallow a mouthful of ketchup in terms of the exact texture of the paste and I did not like it. There were chunks in the paste where my saliva hadn't reached, so it was just pockets of what was basically powdered eggshell.
"God." I gagged as I swallowed the last bit of eggshell paste. "No part of that tasted good. At all."
However, I was admittedly starting to feel more energized and the cramps had stopped. For now, anyways. I thought dryly.
"How was yer egg smoothie?" Sakari laughed.
"Were you not listening, you stupid dragon?" I quipped.
"Oi was, Oi just needed confirmation."
"Get over here."
Sakari gave me a look.
"Why?"
"Just do it."
As soon as he was within range, my palm connected with his cheek. My friend recoiled sharply and began to gently rub his already red cheek while muttering Irish cusses under his breath.
"Ow! What the bloody hell was that for?"
"For the lame ass puns and for threatening to drop me." I replied simply.
I had what had to be the biggest shit-eating grin on my face.
"Oi'm gonna get ye back for that, Ashling." Sakari growled playfully.
At that point, I was already halfway out of his car.
"Gotta catch me first, ya pot of gold!"
He muttered something to himself about 'Dragon Zoomies' before he started to give chase. I shot out of the car and down the parking lot's slight incline; careful not to slip on the gravel underfoot as I went. I could hear Sakari behind me as he struggled with his keys to lock his car and grinned to myself. By locking his car, he had given me even more of a head start than he already had by being caught unawares.
"Get yer scaly ass back here so Oi can give ye a noogie!" Sakari linked me as I exited the Gravel Lot with him in pursuit somewhere behind me.
"Neverrrrrr!" I linked back as I increased my running speed. "For I am Ashling the Fleet-Footed!"
"Bet!"
Once we were back on the main part of campus, I decided to lead Sakari on a wild goose chase. We ran a complete lap around the seven-story Scott Hall and Walker Hall dorm buildings before moving to Blue Ridge Hall (the Honors dorm building), which we preceded to circle twice. Still keeping our original paces, Sakari and I doubled back and headed back towards the Softball Lot. Once there, we ran the parking lot's paremiter once and went through the heavily graffitii-marked tunnel that crossed under Highway 107 on the second lap. This was one of the two trailheads for the university's trail system; with the other trailhead being by the Human Sciences Building. I slowed my pace down slightly for about half a mile before I diverged from the trail and made my way deep into the woods, where I promptly shed my second skin and allowed my stomach to hit the ground.
It was strangely quiet for a few minutes bafore I heard rustling from somewhere behind me.
"Sakari." I linked my friend. "I can hear you."
"No ye can't." He replied.
I could almost see the cheeky grin on his face.
"NOT UNTIL OIT'S TOO LATE, ANYWAY!" He added with an out loud battle cry that sounded a lot like a Mountain Lion's scream.
