The silence of the Forest of Ancient Dreams was special – thick, velvety, saturated with the scent of damp moss, decaying leaves, and something ancient, barely perceptible. Sunlight, piercing through the age-old canopies, painted golden patterns on the ground. It was here, in the heart of this corner nearly forgotten by humans, that he walked. His sharp ears, keen to the slightest sound, caught every rustle – the whisper of a forest sylph's wings, the babble of a distant stream. The half-open sack on his back gradually filled with healing herbs: silvery leaves of lunaria, violet cups of dream-poppy, bunches of fragrant bear root. He knew these paths like the back of his hand, knew that besides rare forest spirits and fellow half-breeds like himself, few ever wandered here. The forest was their shared, quiet sanctuary.

The path led him to a colossus – the Patriarch Oak. Its trunk, covered in bark wrinkles deep as the scars of centuries, soared skyward, vanishing into the green gloom. The air here vibrated with quiet power. He sat down by the mighty roots, carpeted in emerald velvet moss, to catch his breath. His hand automatically reached for a clump of bluish St. John's Wort near the very base of the trunk. And then his gaze caught on something... unnatural.

There, in a small hollow, half-covered by a fern as if carefully yet hastily hidden, lay an Egg. It was the size of a large melon, but perfectly, elongatedly oval. Its shell shimmered with unearthly hues. The primary color was a deep, shimmering pearly-blue, like the first ice on a forest lake under the morning sun. Across this cool luminescence flowed, intertwining, living patterns: delicate veins of pure gold, glowing from within with a soft warmth, and spirals of dense, velvety-black, absorbing light like the night. These black lines formed mysterious symbols near the pointed end, resembling frozen ancient runes. To the touch, the shell felt warm and smooth, like polished stone, but within it pulsed a quiet, barely discernible vibration of life.

He froze. His heart hammered somewhere in his throat. He sharply scanned the surroundings, his gaze piercing the gloom between the trees, straining his hearing to the limit. No rustle, no shadow, no sound disturbing the forest's rhythm. Only the rustle of leaves and the distant song of an unseen bird. No one. No one had come, was searching, or was guarding. The forest guarded its secret in silence.