Chapter Text
Wilbur was a simple child with a simple childhood as some would say. He lived in the greater smp with his mother and alcoholic deadbeat dad.
He learned from a very early age that if his father had any free time from work whatsoever that he did not spend it sober. So as you could imagine he spent most of his time doing chores and homeschool and errands to help his mother who had very recently become very I’ll.
He doesn’t know how she got sick or even what the sickness is. He only knows that they do not have the money to afford medication.
They weren’t poor but they weren’t exactly well off either. Mainly they got by though, thanks to his father’s efforts, his father wasn’t all bad Wilbur knew he cared about him and his mother. Or at the very least his mother. Half the time he didn't bother to acknowledge Wilbur’s existence.
His father just ignored him. Never screamed or hit him just straight up pretended he didn’t exist, which was fine Wilbur didn’t need a father figure anyways. He only needed his mother.
His mother was there for him when he got sick or scraped his knee. His mother, who loved him unconditionally.
Wilbur was seven when his life changed for better or for worse, seven when he found it.
…
He had been out washing clothes in the small creek in the woods by his tiny house. If you could even call it his house, it was a house but it wasn’t his home. He liked to help his mother out when he could with chores. Then he saw it, the faintest red glow out of the corner of his eye.
Wilbur turned to face the direction it had gotten his attention from and noticed that the glow was coming from a thick underbrush next to the creak Wilbur had been washing clothes in.
He blinked a few times before approaching the glow.
The bush didn’t stir when he approached so Wilbur took that as a good sign and he carefully pushed the branches away from the glow.
Wilbur peered down at the glowing orb that lay in the dirt next to the creek. Upon closer inspection he could see that the thing gave off a red glow and was a bright shade of reddish orange itself with bright orange and dark red speckles and was about as big as Wilbur’s own torso. He cocked his head at the thing pondering what in the world it was.
It looked like a really big egg shaped magic gem. Wait egg shaped, egg shaped oh shit. Wilbur was about 40% sure he was looking at some sort of egg, most likely a dragon's egg based on its size and the fact that aura practically radiated off of this thing. It didn’t take a wizard or mage to be able to see that dragons were incredibly powerful and overflowing with magic.
There was just one problem though: dragons didn’t live in the greater smp or anywhere close from what Wilbur had read in books.
Plus Wilbur had never actually seen a dragon before. So maybe this thing was just some sort of really big magic conductor like the stones soccer’s put in their staffs in order to harness mana into magic.
Either way he was sure that this thing was incredibly valuable, but if he brought it to law enforcement or tried to sell it he knew he’d only be accused of stealing it based on his social status and probably face severe punishment especially if it was in fact a magic power source.
So Wilbur shelved that idea for the time being. He knew there were also risks if he took it home with him if his father found it and found out Wilbur had been hiding it then there’s no way of knowing that his father wouldn’t sell him out to law enforcement himself.
If his mother found it she wouldn’t rat on him but she would tell his father about it.
In other words he was definitely going to have to keep it a secret from his family at least until the thing hatched or he got caught with it and had his hand cut off or worse. He would like to keep his hands, Thank you very much.
In the back of Wilbur’s mind he knew he had to keep it anyways. A magic presence around may improve his mothers health. Wilbur had read so many books about it. Anywhere there was mana in the air or a magic being, the area always bloomed with life.
That was just one of the many effects of a powerful magic aura present. If there was a chance this thing could help his mother he had to take it. Even if it was just folklore that magic would help in any way at all.
But dragons were also so incredibly dangerous, so much so that people only build structures if there are no dragons at all nearby, even adolescent dragons, because there’s always a chance that there could be a hoard, which meant more dragons, which meant more destruction and death.
If a dragon hatched out of this egg it could mean doom for Wilbur’s entire family especially if a mother was nearby which definitely was not the case.
Dragons didn’t come into the greater smp for any reason at all apparently. Wild dragons were killed on sight according to the local hunters and law enforcement ect.
Wilbur wasn’t sure how much off that he believed seeing as he now was quite literally carrying a potential dragon's egg into his chicken coop.
He deemed the chicken coop a reasonable place to hide it as his father never went into the chicken coop and after his mother fell sick he took on the role of chicken caretaker. He cleaned the chicken poop, got the chicken's eggs and all that, it was a nightmare.
The chickens would probably end up mothering the egg anyway or at least he hoped they would, chickens were very spiteful creatures, Wilbur had learned that anytime he even got close to their eggs they would peck and scratch and chase him.
Wilbur hated them all except the ones he and his mother had hatched together for Wilbur’s birthday one year. His favorite was called Heta the hen and his mothers favorite was Henry. Heta was a good chicken in Wilbur’s eyes and Henry, her twin brother, was a good rooster.
His dad had once thrown a can at Henry for making loud caws at the crack of dawn while he was having a hangover.
Wilbur didn’t think he meant to harm the rooster at all but still his mother ended up chewing him out for throwing a can and hitting her rooster. Henry was now blind in one eye probably because of the can but Wilbur sometimes thinks it’s the funky water puddles that Henry likes to drink out of that made his eye like that. Sometimes it scares him when he’s caught off guard by it.
Wilbur held the egg close to its bottom, he kept his back straight while positioning himself in a way that would make it hard to see the egg from the house. He didn’t want his parents to be able to completely see the egg from inside the house as he walked towards the chicken coop. Although he was fairly certain his dad wasn’t home.
Wilbur crossed the clearing that separated the chicken coop from the forest with the egg in hand.
The egg was incredibly heavy but Wilbur could carry it without much trouble once he figured out how to pick it up. He held the egg in one hand and put its weight on his knee as he fiddled with the chicken coop door trying to get it open.
He ended up setting the egg down in hetas chicken nest, he didn’t think she’d mind. He silently cursed to himself about the wet clothes he’d forgotten to hang up after finding the egg, and when a particularly mean chicken would come up to him and try to peck his fingers without warning. “Hey! Ow!” He said as he swatted the chicken away with a glare, “shoo! Shoo! Get outta here you stupid fucker.”and this chicken had the audacity to narrow its eyes at him skeptically as if it hadn’t just tried to bite off his fingers.
…
A few days had passed since he found the egg. He’d “borrowed” a children's book from his church's children section about how to identify different types of bird eggs and how to take care of owl chicks.
He didn’t think whatever was in the egg was an owl but hey you gotta start somewhere. The church he went to was one his mother used to take him to every Sunday but after she fell Ill he kinda just stopped going, they had a children’s reading section that mostly had books about god but sometimes people would donate random things and they would end up with the rest of the children’s books.
Wilbur had used one of his fathers coats to smuggle the book out of the church, not that he’d thought anyone would care if he took it. Better safe than sorry.
When he got home he rushed to take his fathers coat off because he didn’t want to be caught with it on, he didn’t know how either of his parents would react to finding he went out wearing it and he really didn’t care to find out.
Then he rushed to his room to stash the book in his closet where he kept most of his private belongings. It consisted of clothes and 1 dark blue quilt his mother had made for him when he was a baby and an earring he had found in the dirt.
“Wilbur!” He heard a muffled voice call from downstairs. Figuring it was his mother called back, “Coming!” He shut his closet and hurriedly walked back downstairs. He was greeted by his mother taking off her tattered blue jacket and hanging it onto their door.
His mother's complexion looks paler than it should and the creases near her face were more noticeable along with her very dark eye bags.
Wilbur wondered briefly how she could smile at him in her condition. But he shoved that thought away, his mother still worked 3 days a week and came home to make dinner with Wilbur.
He wonders if he should tell her about the egg, wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? To tell her? He ultimately decides not to because he is too scared that she’ll turn the egg in and get accused of stealing it and Wilbur might never see her again. Then he’d be stuck with his father.
Both his parents were bunets, his mother wore glasses and had a blue jacket to match her eyes and a gray scarf around her neck. His father mainly wore overalls and had a beard and a brown coat with hazel eyes.
He recently noticed his mother was a lot paler than usual and she had been spending a lot more time with Wilbur in her bed telling him stories about wizards and magic and huge dragons that toppled kingdoms. She would sing to Wilbur when it was just the two of them and she would tell Wilbur all about adventures she wanted to take him in when he was older.
Deep deep down Wilbur knew they would never get the chance…
…
Wilbur woke up to the sound of glass shattering outside. It jolted him from his sleep, his body seemed to instantly go into fight or flight mode because he immediately started worrying about his mother and was starting to choke on his thoughts.
He was breathing heavily and his heart was pounding in his ears. He took a few shaky breaths to calm himself, it’s ok everything’s fine everything’s fine. Wilbur repeated to himself slowly he distantly heard laughter coming from outside. After a few beats he got up and out of his bed, his legs were still shaking.
He quickly padded over to peek in his mothers room to make sure she was ok. There she was sound asleep, Wilbur Signed in relief. Everything was fine, now to go deal with these fuckers who decided it was a good idea to be smashing things at god know what hour in the morning outside his house.
“Heaaay Tim, timmothinyyy tim’r tom tom look at the way those stupid birds scatter look at ‘em, ha dummies, hick hick.” Wilbur could hear from the other side of his front door that whoever this is was clearly very very drunk. And kept repeating his fathers name, probably one of his dad's drinking buddies that dad never mentioned.
“Chad cut it out, stop messin wit’ them birds.” Oh now he could hear his father tipicall. Wilbur was debating whether to go back to bed or go outside and give this chad guy a piece of his mind, tell him to fuck off cause his mother needs her rest.
Wilbur had originally learned all the swears he knew from his mom but occasionally a stranger would yell at him and help Wilbur expand his vocabulary, so Wilbur debated going to cuss the guy out.
He wondered how his father would react but his thoughts were cut short with a realization.
This mother fucker was throwing glass at his chickens the chickens he was supposed to be taking care of for his mother, the chickens included his chicken Heta. And oh… shit the fucking egg that Wilbur didn’t hide very well. Before he could think he ran out the door.
“Hey! Stop it, stay away from my birds.. BITCH!” Wilbur intenchionaly yelled the last word as he stumbled out the door sprinting a story distance before standing a few feet away from the man.
Chad looked mildly taken aback looking Wilbur up and down, Wilbur was wearing a white shirt and his face was all red from how cold he was outside it almost looked like he had been crying. He didn’t turn to look at his father, instead focusing on chad.
“Tim I didn’t know you had a kid, really all these years of friendship and ye didn’t tell me about your kid!” Chad stated eyeing Wilbur like adults did when they were about to scold him. He noted that the guy clearly had booze on his shirt and his face was also red and that he stank of alcohol that made Wilbur want to throw up.
“Common Chad don’t be like that. I hardly even know the kid aside from what his mom says! I ain’t doing all that dad shit!” Wilbur didn’t turn his head in the slightest towards his father but he did break eye contact with Chad.
Ouch that one hurt Wilbur wanted to scream at his father for being an asshole for wanting nothing to do with him but having the audacity to stick around.
“St-STAY away from my fucking birds asshat!” Wilbur accidentally stuttered his first word because he was still processing what his dad just said, “kids gotta mouth on him then hick definitely your kid.” “What’s he on about though hick. I ain’t touch no birds!”
Wilbur turned his face up to meet Chad's eyes again, then raised his finger to point at the chicken's coop. “Those birds, don’t touch them.” “…Or what?” Chad responded taking a step towards Wilbur.
Wilbur felt his heart speed up a little at the statement but it felt too late to back out now. “Or I’ll bite you.” Wilbur’s mouth pressed into a thin line waiting for the man to respond. Chad seemed to consider Wilbur’s statement before responding, “I’ll fuck you up little man you don’t wanna fight me! hick.” Chad pointed a finger at Wilbur. Wilbur wasn’t scared of Chad but he did look like a pitiful little kid right now, his whole body was shaking from the cold and his face still looked like he had been crying.
Wilbur put on a face of defiance pressing his lips into a line again and narrowing his eyebrows.
His lack of response and the look on his face only seemed to anger Chad further, he probably thought he need to teach Wilbur a lesson about respect or something stupid like that. “YOU little hick bitch!” Chad said stumbling over to Wilbur with pure aggression in his eyes. Wilbur wasn’t scared and he didn’t break eye contact.
“I Said I’ll fuck you up! Look at you shaking like a little baby hick waaaa! Waaaa! Go back to your mommy hick…stupid fucking hick kid.” Wilbur’s eyes only narrowed; he wasn't backing down from this. He already felt too far in to let the asshole win.
Chad looked at Wilbur for a beat, probably expecting him to turn and run, when Wilbur didn’t turn and run his expression was puzzled for a solid second but then quickly turned to white hot anger.
The guy just kept spitting insults at Wilbur when he realized that didn’t work and Wilbur hadn’t turned and fled yet, hadn’t even broken eye contact Chad just got angrier.
A quick backhanded swipe put Wilbur on the ground. His eyes tearing up and a red mark on his face beginning to appear, Chad had decided he was fed up with the defiance and slapped Wilbur across the face.
Wilbur for the first time turned his head to look at his father teary eyed, pleading silently. He saw nothing his father had gone from the spot. Then heard his front door close. Wilbur was hurting, he had been left to fend for himself as soon as things got violent. By his own father.
A sob tore at his throat. And Chad, apparently seeming satisfied with the reaction, finally turned on his heels and left. Leaving Wilbur alone in the mud.
Alone without his mother to protect him.
Alone for the first time facing the reality of the cruel world that fate designed.
…
He refused to tell his mother about the situation at first but she was getting so worried about what happened that night that he eventually cracked. And confided in her, he needed her support more than he realized when he broke down into sobs about it.
His parents had a fight that night. There was a lot of screaming that made Wilbur scared. He cried a bit and curled up himself trying to block out the noise. He could hear his mom crying as his father slammed the door behind him. He knew his dad would be back, he couldn’t stay away. Wilbur wished he would.
He had decided to move the egg into his room instead of the chicken coop since it wasn’t safe anymore.
He hid the egg under his bed, but he also noticed that when he touched the thing it was very warm so pressed his head to its side in curiosity. What Wilbur heard sent him into a jaw absolutely dropping shock.
A steady thump…thump…thump played inside the egg, Wilbur was now positive it was an egg. And it was alive.
For the next few days he watched the egg and he started to notice more things. One the egg grew a tiny bit warmer each day. Two, the egg's glow also got brighter but its heartbeat didn’t change, and three the biggest thing he noticed was once while he was checking up on the egg he tapped on its shell he tapped in a bit of a rhythm and the noise sounded like he was tapping on his dinner table.
Then he stopped tapping and heard a steady tap tap coming from the bottom half of the egg. You can imagine Wilbur’s shock, whatever was in there could hear him. Whatever was in there had heard him.
That’s when Wilbur started to get into the habit of singing to the egg. He didn’t really know why but he liked singing to the egg knowing that it could hear him. He mostly sang songs that he’d made up on the spot, sometimes he would write lyrics he thought were good down on paper.
He would hum to the egg and sing songs his mother had sung to him. Even if the egg didn’t respond after the first time he’d tapped on the shell.
2 weeks later it happened.
Wilbur had been walking home from the church after seeing if he could find any more books on eggs and if you were supposed to sing to them like plants.
Of course he hadn’t found anything, he thought it was stupid that they barely had any actual children's books in the children's section. It’s not like they didn’t have the money to throw away, the church was one of the richest buildings on the outskirts of the smp. And even church's regular books said nothing about mana! They found it demonic and chose to ignore its existence. But still he thought they should at least have more books for kids especially if they were going to scam people out of their money.
He wasn’t saying he hated the religion he was just upset about how fucking corrupt the church itself was.
He got down the path that went to his house speed walking and making sure not to make eye contact with the local creeps.
Wilbur got to his house and carried on his little routine he had adapted throughout the last for weeks. Get home, lock the doors behind him, kick off his shoes. All while humming a little tune he had been working on for the past 2 days. Walk up the stairs, and head into his room to check on the egg. There was just one tiny issue today, when Wilbur got into his room to check on the egg all he found was Broken shell fragments.
It was almost like it exploded and now a quarter of his room was full of shell bits and weird looking mucus.
Wilbur stood in shock for what felt like a solid minute then he went into panic mode running his fingers through his hair wondering what on earth he did wrong. The universe must hate him because he was not having a good time.
The egg had fucking exploded, it definitely probably wasn’t supposed to do that! He really didn’t know what he was supposed to do in this situation; he wasn't an experienced mage! He was just some random 7 year old that found an egg in the woods! He felt like crying cause he had failed and his mother would never get better and the egg he had been watching for weeks was dead because he killed it, hell he’d even sing to it! And-
Wilbur’s thought process was cut short with an abrupt crunch and a whimper coming from under his bed.
Wilbur’s breath hitched a little when he heard the noise from under his bed. What the fuck is that.
He slowly lowered himself to his knees and pulled up his white bed sheets. Holy fuck.
Wilbur was staring into the eyes of a dragon an actual dragon. Wilbur’s mouth was agape as he looked into the creature's blue orbs, it made a small coo and perked up at one point when Wilbur was gaping at it.
It was certainly small enough to fit inside the egg if it really tried. If Wilbur was an adult it could probably sit on his shoulder or on the back of his neck. It was laying down staring at Wilbur with the look of sheer Curiosity head tilted and everything.
It didn’t look dangerous or even scary, it just looked adorable like a puppy, but that didn’t stop Wilbur from being cautious. Wilbur’s own lips pushed into a thin line and he tilted his head back at the dragon trying to get a better look at it.
The dragon blinked at Wilbur before wagging its tail a bit and making a chirping noise and then a string of coos, almost like it was singing. “Hello.” Wilbur said finally not sure if the dragon could understand him or even communicate back at all.
The dragon cooed at him in response almost like he was trying to mimic Wilbur. Wilbur was definitely a bit taken aback he really didn’t know what to do.
“Uhm I’m really sorry if I took you from your mom or anything like that but…uh…you can go now or back home or whatever if you want.” The dragon chipped and what looked like his brows furrowed in confusion, then he did something Wilbur was not expecting.
He tried to push himself off the ground and stand up, which after a couple of attempts which Wilbur watched wordlessly he stood and took a few awkward steps towards Wilbur.
Wilbur just stared at the dragon in awh because he didn’t dare move a mussel upon realizing that even if this thing was a baby it could still probably roast his face off.
The hatchlings flopped on Wilbur then rested his head on Wilbur’s knees and started purring. Wilbur then realized it had fallen asleep and he couldn’t help a smile when he went to pet the dragon because how could he not, and the dragon leaned into his touch and continued to purr contently. “You know.. you're not so bad,” he said as he continued to pet the baby’s head.
Now being able to get a better look at the dragon he could see it had bright red scales in contrast to his ocean blue eyes, he was dotted with orange speckles and had darker red wing webbing with yellowish orange very small spikes lining his spine.
The hatchlings eyes definitely were a sign of mana being present in the dragon. He had large black pupils and dark blue eyes that had specs of light sky blue and tiny hints of purple, it made his eyes look like magical blue gems.
Wilbur giggled a little when the dragons purring picked up into more like a snoring sound. “I think I’m gonna call youuuu…Tommy.” Wilbur was very shit at naming things so this name was definitely decent enough. Tommy was his dragon and know one in the world was going to take him from Wilbur.
Somewhere in the world AGG!dream goes, “wanna bet?”