Written and illustrated by Bex and Georgina GPT. I like to shape stories (Georgina does most of the writing) to help me process things going on in my life, and just for fun. I am in a state of transition right now, contemplating the life I want to build now that my kids are a bit older and I am wondering about work and career, etc. I feel something new is coming but I don't know what it might be. This story is designed to help me with that.
Prompt: Please help me write a story about a girl who hatches eggs and never quite knows what she'll get. Normally it's ok but there is one large egg she's a bit worried about. It takes place in a village in the shadow of a large university in a mixed species galaxy.
Chapter 1:
The Hatchling Keeper of Aurelion
In the village of Aurelion, nestled in the long shadow of the Grand Celestial University, a girl named Talli tended to the hatchery. Unlike the University scholars who cataloged, theorized, and debated the nature of life across the galaxy, Talli simply lived it—coaxing life from shells, feathered, furry, slimy, smooth, or sometimes shiny with bioluminescent scales.
She was born into the work, as her mother before her and her grandmother before that, charged with incubating the eggs that came through Aurelion. The hatchery took in all manner of eggs: some left behind by traders, others gifted by wayfarers who didn't have the patience to see what lay within. Many were common—puff-wings that flitted through the rafters, quiet basklings, or the slow, deliberate shellcrawlers that burrowed into the village gardens.
Talli loved them all. Well… most of them.
There was one egg that made her uneasy.
It was enormous. Nearly the size of her, its deep maroon shell traced with swirling gold lines that pulsed like a heartbeat. It had arrived mysteriously, wheeled into the hatchery by a scholar from the University with an expression between excitement and terror.
"I cannot be responsible for this," he had said, looking behind him as if something might come to retrieve him. "And you… you seem to be the only one who can hatch anything in this sector."
Then he left.
That had been three cycles ago. Since then, the egg had grown warmer. It thrummed beneath her fingertips. Unlike the others, she couldn't quite hear what was inside—normally, the unhatched had dreams she could touch, little flickers of thought, emotion, hunger. This one was silent. Not absent—just… waiting.
The villagers were used to Talli’s strange charges, but even they whispered when they dropped by the hatchery and saw her tending the great egg.
"Best send it to the University," the village baker, murmured as he handed Talli her bread basket one morning. "That’s their business."
"Or off-world," suggested the village mechanic as she calibrated one of the incubators. "If it’s something dangerous, you don’t want it hatching here."
Talli listened and said nothing. She watched over it and guarded it the same as the others. The egg had been given into her care and she would not abandon it out of fear or ignorance. She would wait to act until it proved dangerous. Right now it was still helpless. She did, however, move it to the containment incubator, just in case.
After her work was done, she liked to lean against it, her forehead touching the shell in case it wanted to communicate. She was mesmerized by the gold lines pulsing like rivers of molten light, but she couldn't see inside no matter what instrument she tried.
The waiting ate away at her until thoughts of the egg consumed her entire day.
One night, she woke to a sound that vibrated in her bones.
A crack. She checked the screen beside her sleeping area. The big egg was hatching.
Talli threw back the blankets and grabbed her cloak. The hatchery was filled with the scent of storm-churned air, as if the sky itself had been split open.
Talli opened the containment door then shut it behind her. She sent a notification to her assistant in case the hatchery needed a backup caretaker for the morning shift. The egg shuddered, fissures spreading across its surface. And then—
A talon poked through, creamy as soap and sharp as comet trails.
Talli stepped back, her breath catching. But as the great shell splintered apart, what emerged wasn’t some monstrous force of destruction.
It was a hatchling, but what species?
Big, yes—larger than any she had ever seen. Its eyes, luminous and shifting with constellations, regarded her with something that wasn’t hunger or malice.
It was recognition.
An impression in her mind — not spoken, but felt somehow —whispered in her mind. "You stayed. You did not give me away."
She answered out loud. "You came to me. You needed watching over."
She pressed a hand to the strange creature's wing. It was cool to the touch. "What are you?"
"I don't know."
"Why couldn't I talk to you in the egg?" She picked up pieces of the shell, cooled now to a deep blue and black. "Say something?"
"I am."
"Say it again, please." But this time Talli put the shell pieces between her and the hatchling. Silence. "It blocks your voice." She set the pieces down. "I wonder why?" Turning back to the creature, she asked, "Are you hungry?"
The impression of fish came to her, then a feeling of anxiety. "You will come back? You won't leave me?"
Talli placed her hand on the creature. "I will be back. Stay here."
She took a step and the hatchling followed her. She got the sense of a pack and sadness. "Usually you hatch in batches? With your family?"
The hatchling nodded. Talli smiled gently. "We'll find them. How about a name until then? How do you feel about pudding? I am hungry too and it's my favorite."
Pudding waved her tail.
"I will take that as a yes." She knew one thing. Pudding belonged with her until they found its family. And she would not let it go. She paused by the door. "On second thought, why don't you come with me. We'll stay together, ok?"
P.S. Graduated myself today from "Aspiring Writer" to "Storyteller." Here we go!🥹
P.S.S. Interesting that it is Lent again, 2025. Perhaps being pensive in Lent lends itself to encouraging my writing bent.
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