Deborah sighed contentedly as the doors slid closed behind her: they were home. It felt good to be home, on the station, in her own apartment, with no one to see her but Purpura, who didn't even bat an eye when she started stripping off her suit-jacket and skirt, and the tightly-buttoned blouse under the suit-jacket.

"You sure got out of that fast."

He did, however, comment on her swift descent to near-nakedness, complete with a smirk and a poke in the small of her back. Given he had as much sexual interest in her as her father did-- though unlike her father, part of that was he simply didn't find bipeds attractive, for all the time he spent in his human form-- she didn't care what he saw, and he was free to tease her. After six years bonded, he was like a brother to her, only closer than she could imagine a brother to be, given they rarely actually fought. Feeling each other's emotions made that unlikely.

"I've been in it too long today," she countered.

It was true: she felt like she had been in the constricting suit for far too long. She and he had been back from the world that housed Clan Akelera, host to a small sponsoring event of sorts over the past couple days, for several hours already, and they had been on the move the whole time. There had been a couple meetings to attend, a minor emergency to deal with, a couple phone calls to make en route, and a pair of dragons-- one Hathian hybrid named Anjahe and one Persian named Tenalera, whatever a Persian was-- to settle into their new apartments, not far from her own.

Only now, at the very end of the day-shift, could they finally return to their apartment and rest after the long and busy day. Purpura could have left her to her duty-- and, on most days, pleasure-- as he was not specifically needed, but he rarely forced her to, "face all those blood-sucking politicians and badgering bureaucrats alone," as he said whenever she suggested he go take a rest. Purpura had no interest in politics, but he had an interest in his bond, so he put up with it to make sure she didn't overwork herself, get into trouble, or forget about him-- not that she was ever liable to, of course, but she liked his company. It was like having a bodyguard, almost, though a bodyguard who would slip highly amusing comments into her head every now and then, making it difficult to keep a straight face when she needed to.

"Well, if we're lucky, no one will bother us until late tomorrow," Purpura said. He didn't say so, but he was just as tired and glad to be home as she was. However, his priorities upon returning home were a little different: before stripping, or finding somewhere to flop, or even hunting out dinner, he started around the apartment, visiting each of his plants-- and there were many-- and making sure they were healthy, happy, and well-watered, and remedying the situation if they weren't. Deborah, pulling pins out of her hair, watched with a small smirk of her own: he was an Earth dragon, right to the bone, and it showed even when he was in human form-- and not just because he had green hair.

Deborah set about collecting the clothing she'd dropped in her haste to remove it, checking the voice mail as she did so, while Purpura worked a tiny magic on one plant that had been drooping sadly. It straightened up visibly, she saw out of the corner of her eye, and she shook her head with a smile. He moved out of her field of vision, starting into the bedroom, while she listened to a message from her mother. It had been too long since she'd visited her mother... she would have to schedule that in, soon....

A surge of startled surprise and disgust distracted Deborah from contemplating when best to visit her mother. It wasn't her own, so it had to have been from Purpura. "Something the matter?" she called, turning away from the telephone console.

"Good goddess, yes, there's something wrong! Get in here and see!"

Frowning, Deborah carried her discarded clothing across the living room and down the hall, into the bedroom, where Purpura was standing just inside the doorway, staring at the bed. Deborah followed his gaze, and stopped to stare, as well.

"No one's been in here," she said. "The security would have been alerted."

"You can't even teleport into here without alarms going off," Purpura added, not looking up at her arrival.

"Then how did...."

"I have no more idea than you do."

The object of their confusion lay on the blankets, innocently unaware of their shock-- in fact, probably unaware of anything at all, because it was wrapped in a thick, hard, stained shell. It was, Deborah guessed, an egg-- though she had no idea how it had gotten there, or who it had come from.

Her next thought was probably irreverent, but it was the first thing that came out of her mouth while the rest of her mind was busy trying to figure out the more important facts: " ... how am I going to get the blood out of the blankets?"

When Purpura gave her a startled, almost offended look, she decided there was no "probably" about it.

The egg had obviously been there for at least a little while, because the quilt-- and likely the blankets beneath-- were stained with blood that had obviously slid, rolled, and dripped down from the smooth, spherical surface. It had certainly been there long enough for the blood to dry, leaving the surface of the shell probably sticky and not so much red as a kind of dirty red-brown of varying saturation. There was enough, however, to completely obscure the color the egg was underneath.

"Where could it have come from?" Purpura asked, though she had no answer for him. Just as she didn't know how an egg had wound up on her bed while she was gone, neither did she know why or where it had come from. 

"We'll ask around," Deborah stated, squaring her shoulders and approaching it. "But for now, the bed is not the place to keep it."

"Where else should we put it?" Purpura demanded incredulously. "We don't exactly have an incubator around here!"

"The bathtub," Deborah replied after a moment, considering the egg thoughtfully. "With plenty of warm water. I just hope sitting here on the cold bed for however long hasn't done it any harm. I wonder if I shouldn't take a few days off, to make sure we're here when it hatches...."

"You just want an excuse to be lazy."

That time, it was Deborah who supplied the dirty look, and Purpura backed down again quickly, apologizing by offering to carry the egg, himself. She took him up on the offer, and started for the bathroom to turn on the tap. Her bathroom, not Purpura's; she wouldn't be that cruel to him. He followed with the egg-- it was fairly large, fitting snugly in the circle of his arms-- and settled it carefully in the jacuzzi-tub, letting the warming water splash over its shell and start washing off the blood.

After Purpura had lost his bloodied shirt and washed his hands, they both sat on their heels beside the tub and stared at the reddening water-- and slowly revealed shell, prettily mottled with silver and violet-- for a long moment in silence.

Purpura broke it first. "I sure hope that this little guy's mother is all right. All that blood...." He shuddered a little. Unofficial bodyguard or not, he didn't much like the sight of blood. It was saying a lot that he'd offered to carry the egg, when it was so bloody.

"We'll find out if she is or not," Deborah answered, "when I start looking into it. Surely someone will know where it came from, poor thing...."

"Sure hope so," Purpura replied.

Deborah didn't say anything more, she just drained the bloody water and started the process again.