The egg shook back and forth rapidly and opened quickly due to its cracks from harshly descending the mountain.
Sebastian sat nervously wondering what would emerge from the shell.
His patience rewarded him with several cracks and the eventual emergence of a beast.
Out of the shell popped a small white head.
The creature was a cute animal with an ivory-white head that was covered in scales. It had striking red eyes that bored into Sebastian's soul.
"Hello there, little one."
Sebastian said, completely mesmerized by the cuteness of the creature.
The white-scaled animal turned its head both ways and made it obvious that she was dissatisfied.
It began moving its arms and kicking its tiny legs to break the rest of the shell, which wasn't working.
"AWWW."
Sebastian watched all of this from the sidelines.
It exhaled heavily after realizing this wouldn't work and began rocking from side to side until the entire egg tipped over and cracked enough for it to crawl out.
"Wow."
He was very impressed with its feat of breaking the rest of the egg right after emerging from it.
Immediately the creature emerged from the shell and began briskly walking away on all fours.
Now that it was out of the shell, Sebastian could see it in all of its glory.
"Beautiful!"
The creature had a body covered in small ivory scales in the shape of diamonds. It had a tail just as long as the rest of its body that was swaying back and forth as it walked. And now that he looked closer, it had a tiny bulge on its forehead that looked like the very beginnings of a horn.
Sebastian watched as it explored the world, a lot faster than one could expect.
"Oh wow, you're fast."
He was still in a brainwashed state from its cuteness, so before he even realized it was so far away, he would have to sprint to catch up.
"I really hope you're not a troublemaker."
After running after it and reaching it, the animal seemed to finally recognize his existence.
It quickly stopped, turned around, and wiggled its butt.
"Aww, do you wanna play?"
The beast bounced around Sebastian and finally decided to pounce.
It lowered its body closer to the ground, and its pointy ears that rested on the top of its skull lowered themselves also. Its butt and tail wiggled back and forth playfully before it accelerated suddenly and slammed into Sebastian's solar plexus with its extremely tiny horn.
"OOF!"
The air was knocked out of him as he fell onto his back, and the white beast stood on top of his body in a triumphant pose. As if this would only be the first foe of many she would best in battle.
Sebastian just watched while regaining control over his breathing.
They both stopped and looked into each other's eyes.
The beast with her bright red, striking eyes looked into Sebastian's stark and cold blue eyes, and a connection seemed to form at that moment.
They both felt a sudden change inside of themselves.
An energy in their stomachs seemed to shift.
Sebastian couldn't quite put it into words even for himself.
It just felt like an addition to himself.
He also gained information that he wouldn't have known before, like the fact that it was a she.
"Hi, girl."
Suddenly something else in his body shifted too; the same thing seemed to happen to her too.
Sebastian felt the bones in his hands begin to change.
But no pain was present as if this was something that was completely normal.
The bones at his knuckles begin to protrude to form some kind of white bone armor solely for his knuckles.
His skin maneuvered and separated out of the way seamlessly.
The beast felt a change occurring too. At the tip of its tail, bones began to protrude also, into something that resembled a spiked ball.
On her forehead the tiny bump was covered by bone material to form it into something that you would not want her to headbutt you with.
The changes stopped there, and they seemed to go away almost as soon as they appeared.
The bones around his knuckled retreated back into the safety of his body, and the same took place with the animal's.
"So that's what the refinement is like."
The alteration was a process that took place when the bond with your animal was formed. It was a monumental change in the makeup of your body.
The elders of the village said it was the point where your core energies bonded with the animals in some bizarre way that couldn't really be explained.
This bonding of energy came alongside the development of even more bizarre abilities.
This is why bones began to protrude from their bodies.
"Wow, abilities that have to do with bones. I've never heard of that before."
Both of them were still sitting in the same position, with Sebastian on his back and the animal sitting on his chest.
The beast barely seemed to register that the change had taken place and seemed to think that Sebastian's chest was really comfortable.
She walked around in a circle a few times before deciding that this would be a good place to sleep.
She laid her head on his stomach with her tail resting near his face.
"Yeah, I feel tired now too."
Sebastian put his hands behind his head and rested on them.
"Before I go to sleep, I should give you a name."
The animal's tail began wagging back and forth as if excited to be named.
"How about Cloudy?"
Her tail froze midair and then smacked Sebastian across the face.
"OWWW!" he screamed. "Okay, not cloudy."
He thought for a second.
"How about rocky?"
He was smacked again, across the other side of his face.
"OKAY OKAY."
He thought for longer this time, not wanting to be smacked again. He recalled her bright red eyes.
"How about Cindy?"
Her tail froze once again, and Sebastian tensed, expecting to be struck.
But the tail untensed and began to rest on his chest again.
"Okay, Cindy, it is."
Sebastian realized that her calm resting energy near him actually helped him calm down and fall to sleep in an instant.
When he awoke, his eyes opened to find Cindy sitting on his chest, staring at his face.
"Have you been watching me sleep?"
Cindy stared into his eyes, giving no verbal or physical response.
"Let's get outta here."
They both rose, and Cindy hopped on top of Sebastian's head.
She rode that way all the way back to the village.
By the time they got back, the sun was setting on the small village.
While he was gone, the rest of the teenagers had chosen their eggs and hatched them.
All of the other kids who had recently gotten their companions were running around with their newly hatched beasts.
Chaos ensued in the entire village, as was to be expected when a horde of small newborn animals hatched at the same time.
"Who thought this was a good idea?"
A bunch of teenagers running around trying to control newborn creatures and discovering superpowers.
The rest of the inhabitants of the village had, wisely, decided to stay inside of their homes.
Sebastian and Cindy calmly walked through the pandemonium, making it to a large building at the center of the village.
After entering, he saw a group of adults standing around a round table having a serious discussion.
Sebastian didn't really care.
He strolled in with two red marks on both sides of his face, walked past the serious group of adults obviously talking about something important, and sat down on a chair that was slightly pretentious.
The gaudy chair was clearly meant for someone high up in the chain of command, not a 13-year-old boy.
Sebastian seemed like he was very used to sitting here getting very comfortable very quickly.
He put his leg up on one of the arms and reached behind it to pull out a random snack.
A woman's voice soon spoke out.
"Sebastian, what did we tell you about hiding snacks around the village?" A woman's cheery voice reprimanded.
"I'm not telling you where I hide my snacks; Mom, get your own." He said.
A serious voice chimed in.
"What is that creature on your head, boy?"
A man with white hair and blue eyes said harshly.
"This is Cindy Dad." Sebastian said while picking her up off his head and shoving her closer for all of the adults to see.
They all looked at the beautiful creature, and their eyes widened.
His dad spoke up first, "Is she bonded with you?"
"Yes, Dad, it's safe now."
After hearing that, all of them looked at each other and then back at the papers on the table.
Sebastian went back to eating his snack, and Cindy climbed back onto his head.
He sat there and eavesdropped on their conversation, which had gotten noticeably quieter.
"This is an unbelievable opportunity for our village, Simon."
"I know; we need to plan out our next move very carefully."
Sebastian's father was the leader of the entire village, and everyone looked to him for how to manage this situation.
"Okay, we'll have the competition."
Sebastian's ears perked up at that word.
He loved winning.
He hopped out of the chair and ended up right next to his father, peeking at the document unfurled on the table.
"What competition?"
His dad sighed, "The grownups are talking, son. Go outside and bond with your companion."
"She's asleep, and this sounds important. As the heir to this village, I deserve to know what's going on." Sebastian demanded.
The other adults didn't seem to mind informing him since it related to the children anyway.
Simon moved to the side slightly to give Sebastian a better view.
"Some of the greater clans are planning something serious. We don't know what yet, and honestly we don't care too much. But they've decided to hand the lower clans a chance to be included, for some reason."
"What chance specifically?"
His mom, named Samantha, chimed in.
"Something of a trial or an experiment."
Sebastian tilted his head.
"Experiment?"
His dad cut right to the chase.
"They want to use you as lab rats."