Ten minutes later, the atmosphere in the main hall of Cecil Palace was rather strange.
Gawain stood there with a blank expression. Not far in front of him were the two familiar dragons who had arrived together—Melita Pernia, the blue dragon, and Noreta, the white dragon. Behind him stood Heti and Rebecca, appearing as "members of the royal family." Amber was invisible somewhere nearby, watching the show. And right in the middle of everyone, a massive dragon egg stood quietly on the floor. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the tall windows to one side, passing through the ornate iron latticework and casting alternating bands of light and shadow across the upper half of the eggshell.
"I may not have heard that clearly just now..." After a stretch of silence in the hall, Gawain finally broke it. "Could you introduce this again?"
"This is the dragon egg Noreta and I adopted," Melita said with a serious expression. "It doesn't have a name yet. The embassy still needs some time to prepare, and the environment at Autumn Palace isn't really suitable for incubating a dragon egg, so we brought it along to show you while we were here. We were wondering whether you could help us arrange something..."
"All right, I understand." Before she could finish, Gawain covered his forehead and waved a hand, finally confirming that he had not misheard her. This blue dragon lady had gone back home, then turned around and arrived for her ambassadorial post carrying a dragon egg she had adopted with Noreta... Just moments ago, he had been wondering whether she might bring some kind of bewildering "surprise." Now he had quietly decided that, unless necessary, he should stop entertaining random thoughts for the rest of his life...
"You seem troubled?" Noreta possessed sharp observational skills