Snippet #2627000

It wasn't a lizard. Being from Montana, Terry had held his fair share of lizards, and they felt nothing like this. This was a dragon - or he assumed his was as well, since everyone else's looked pretty much like typical dragons while his looked a little weird - and it was amazing. Although it was smaller than his hand, it was incredibly dense, lying heavy across his palm. It gave a squeak when he ran his thumb along its spine. Oh, its skin was like sandpaper. Cool.

"Well, I hate to break it to you guys," Terry said, rocking himself off the sofa, "but I've officially nabbed the best one of the batch. Look, it looks like the alien from Alien." He grinned and held out his hatchling to the rest of the group to display its bizarre featureless head. It tottered as if confused on his palm, lashing its flat-tipped tail.

Uriel was taking charge of the situation as always, but Terry hadn't really been listening. The mention of lamb chops definitely got his attention. "Well since we didn't get our omelettes, lamb chops are good as anything - I'm starving. Here, Marilla, watch mine for me," Terry said, plopping his new noisy burden into his roommate's lap. He was oblivious to the hatchling's writhing outrage.

He headed into the kitchen and lamented the empty egg carton, the frying pan abandoned on the stove. What a sad, lonely sight. While Uriel looked around for a phone, Terry leaned over and stretched himself across the countertop. Pressing his cheek to the smooth stone, he gazed somberly upon the ingredients remaining. "We've got six actual eggs left but that's not enough for all of us," he sighed. Man, and he'd been looking forward to this omelette party for a week now. The one time he had time outside his training schedule, and no actual omelettes. Kicking open the trash compactor, with the sweep of an arm, he cleared the remains of broken dreams (egg shells, they were the dragon egg shells) off the counter and slammed the machine shut.

Well, now that that unfortunate reminder of nonexistent meals was taken care of, Terry gave a thumbs up to Uriel and headed to the windows to draw the curtains.