#chocobos!

Estinien jolted awake when something thumped solidly on hisdesk right next to his ear, followed by Aza’s very unwelcome voice chirping, “Hey,Esty. Stop slacking for a second and look at this!”

“Ergh,” was his intelligent reply. He was tempted to ignorehim – he was wiped after chasing a ‘Behemoth sighting’ all over Saint Coinach’sFind all morning only to find out it was some overly large dog with hornsstrapped to its head, so he really wasn’t in the mood to deal with Aza’s tomfoolery.However… Aza would just pester him until he indulged him, so plastering on hisbest resting bitch face, he lifted his head and squinted at the large objectAza rudely dumped on his desk.

“…that’s an egg,” he said rather dumbly. Indeed, right nextto his elbow was a large, off-white egg with faint blue speckles. It was aboutas big as his damn head, and he belatedly recognised it as, “A Chocobo egg. Where in the hell did youget that?”

“Well, I went for my usual early morning run, right,” Azabegan, and Estinien could’ve kicked himself for falling into that trap. Shit,now he was stuck sitting through one of his fucking stories, “And I normally go out near the river, where all thehorsebird farms are-”

“Chocobos,”Estinien corrected, not for the first time, “Will you stop calling them horsebirds?”

“Never,” Aza sniggered, his eyes twinkling with mischief, “Anyways,stop interrupting. So, I was running by this farm, and I noticed there was a bitof a crowd by one of them. They were selling off some horsebird eggs, and theywere kinda expensive, yeah, but I was thinking, you know, better support ourlocal farmers-”

“Aza,” Estinien said flatly.

“So, I bought one,” Aza finished, patting the top of the eggaffectionately, “The guy said that you can cook these into a monster omeletteor something, and they’re pretty tasty!”

Estinien knew this, because Ishgard were fucking obsessedwith Chocobo omelettes, as well as being obsessed with the animal in general.Chocobos were very much like chickens, where there were certain breeds thatlaid unfertilised eggs fit for consumption. They were very expensive to manage,and it was only Ishgard and Mor Dhona that regularly farmed and sold them. Somerich Ul’dahn would pay for them from time to time, but that was about it.

“And you brought your future omelette into work because…?”

“Well, it’s still pretty big and we have a kitchen here, soI was thinking maybe I could be niceand cook us an omelette. But if you’re going to be a grump about it-”

“I want omelette,” Estinien demanded, “As recompense for thetrauma you put me through.”

“You’re such a diva, Esty,” Aza sighed, “A little whiny baby.”

“Who’s calling who a diva?” Estinien grumbled, “Just lastweek you spent a good hour whimpering on the floor because you got a bramblestick stuck in your tail’s fur. You acted like you were on your death bed.”

“That’s because it was super painful, you asshole,” Azahuffed, “It took me hours to get all the thorns out.”

Estinien rolled his eyes but didn’t push the argumentfurther. He slouched back down on his desk, propping his cheek on an upturnedpalm as he studied the egg next to him. It was fairly large for an unfertilisedegg – they tended to be a bit smaller, but this was huge. Probably some enterprising farmer figured out how to makethem bigger.

He didn’t have long to study the egg, though, because Luciachose that moment to wander over with a new job – a pack of wild wolvesinvading one of the ‘horsebird farms’. It was a job any low-levelled grunt witha rifle could deal with, but they were that shortstaffed that the likes of Estinienand Aza were forced to go over and deal with it.

So, Aza was forced to stash his egg under his desk, bundlingit up in the spare clothes he kept at work in case he turned back to Miqo’teform after a full moon nightshift, and it was promptly forgotten about for therest of the day.

—

The next morning, Aza dumped the egg on his desk once more.

“Hey, Esty, you’re an expert on horsebird eggs, right?” theMiqo’te said before Estinien could complain about him taking over his personalspace, “Doesn’t this feel a bit too heavy for an unfertilised one?”

“It’s probably because it’s half your size that it feelsheavy,” Estinien grumbled, but he indulged him and picked up the egg – andpaused because, that was very heavy, “Huh.”

“Right?” Aza took the egg back, weighing it gingerly in hishands before setting it down a mite gentler than he had before, “What if it’s…y’know…?”

“Fertilised eggs are strictly regulated,” Estinien told him,“You have to jump through multiple hoops to own a Chocobo, let alone hatch one.They require specialised care and whatnot. I doubt a farmer would just sellone.”

“Maybe the farmer made a mistake?” Aza asked, “I mean, I don’twant to make an omelette and have a half-grown baby horsebird tumble out. That’dbe kind of sad.”

“Sad?”

“Well, yeah! It’s killing a baby, isn’t it?” Aza frowned atthe egg, curiously poking at it. It gently rocked on Estinien’s desk, “Backhome, there’s a tribe that actually does that. They steal Yol eggs and crack themopen to eat the babies in there.”

What the hell was a ‘Yol’? Whatever, Estinien wasn’t gettinginvolved in this. If it turned out to be an actual Chocobo egg, then Aza coulddeal with the legal consequences of it. At worse he might have to hand it to thelocal Chocobo Sanctuary, at best he might be able to claim ownership of it, ifhe was quick enough with his admin. Then again, Aza lived in a shitty apartmentnear the House of Splendours, which was the worst possible place to raise ababy Chocobo…

“Do whatever you want with it,” Estinien muttered, turningto his computer terminal, “Sit on it, brood, whatever. I’m not gettinginvolved.”

Aza rolled his eyes at him, but he reclaimed his egg andwent back to his own desk. He bundled the thing back up, and after a pauserested it on his lap instead of having it sit at his feet. Estinien rolled hiseyes at the sight.

Guess this meant he wasn’t getting his omelette. Damn it.

—

It took three days.

Three days and at the tail end of their shift. It was ten o’clockat night and Estinien was ready to go home,Halone damn it, but Aza put that stupid egg on his desk and yelled, “It’shatching!”

“Then why are you putting it on my desk?” Estinien snarled, immediately trying to remove it so he didn’tget freshly born egg gunk all over the wood – it’d take ages to clean that shitup! “Put it on yours!”

Aza’s response was to smack his hands and chase him off withvery intimidating growls and snarls. It was when their little scuffle was graduatingup to a proper wrestling match – Estinien boldly wrenching Aza into a headlock andalmost tripping over his chair in the process – when they were interrupted by avery quiet ‘crack’.

“The egg!” Aza gasped, flailing free from Estinien’s grip byelbowing him hard in the side and kicking the back of his knee. Estinien wentdown with an ungraceful yelp, wincing when Aza stepped on him in his haste tolean over his desk, “Esty, you can see its beak!”

“Fuck sake,” Estinien muttered, seriously contemplating justlying on the floor until it was all over. After a moment curiosity compelledhim to get up, what with Aza ‘ooh’ing and ‘aah’ing as the cracking noisecontinued. He slouched over to his desk, dismayed to see the egg was mostlybroken open, sticky eggshell clinging to the damp-feathered chick sittingamidst the mess. It blinked its giant, dark eyes, peering up at Aza curiously.

“It’s so cute…”Aza breathed, “Look, Esty. Look how cute it is.”

It was very cute, but Estinien would never admit it evenunder the pain of death. He grunted instead, looking the chick over critically.It was a deep gold and quite heavy-set – a destrier breed, which meant it wasgoing to grow up huge, and it wasalready cheeping and flapping its stubby wings at Aza, its beak open wide forfood. Oh fuck, that’s right-

“It’s hungry,” Estinien said, “You need to feed it. You did get food in advance, right?”

Instantly, Aza’s besotted look became one of blank panic, “Uh.”

Seriously, Aza could be an absolute dumbass sometimes, “Allthe shops are closed, so you can’t buy any until morning. It can keep untilthen… it’ll just be really hungry.”

“I’m not gonna let it starve!”Aza protested hotly, “It’s a bird, right? It probably eats the same thing Yolsdo.”

“The hell is a Yol-”

“Stay here, Esty!” Aza commanded, picking up his leatherjacket from the back of his chair and slinging it on frantically, “Look afterlil’ Rations until I get back. I’m gonna grab them some food.”

“Rations?” Estinienrepeated, “You are not calling aChocobo Rations-”

But Aza wasn’t listening. Like the force of relentlessnature that he was, Aza bolted across the floorplate and into the hallway likehe had a pack of angry Behemoths on his heels. The Chocobo chick – Rations,apparently – cheeped frantically, struggling onto its feet and waddling to theedge of the desk.

“Ah, no,” Estiniensaid, quickly snatching it up before it could leap off and hurt itself. Hegrimaced at the sticky, tacky feeling that clung to his fingers, and thensighed when Rations immediately decided it very much disliked this and startedsquawking and cheeping up a storm, flapping its stubby wings and pecking at hisfingers.

“I should toss you into the oven and bake you into a pie,”he grumbled, ignoring the sharp pain of a blunt beak nipping at his fingers, “Gods,will you shut up?”

Rations’ response was to shit in his hands.

“Fuck sake-”

—

The situation concluded thus:

Aza ended up coming back with a Tupperware box full of wormsand insects and the like, muddy all over, along with a warm, thick blanket tobundle the chick up in. Estinien felt that he should be given a medal for hispatience and tolerance, as Rations shat on him a total of five times pecked hisfingers to absolute ruin.

It was at this point Aymeric ventured out of his office tosee what the commotion was all about. Aymerictook in the scene of Estinien withhis dead-eyed, thousand-yard stare and Aza fussing over a baby Chocobo chick,trying to feed it a cricket, and decided to intervene before blood was shed.The end result was Aza declaring that Rations was the cutest, most preciousthing in the world, and even though he only had her (somehow he could tell itwas a girl) for less than twenty minutes, he will kill anyone who touched her.

Werewolves were, unfortunately, very quick to bond, and theybonded intensely. Aza was not exaggeratinghis threat there.

Estinien left that sticky situation in Aymeric’s hands,though. Let the big furry try to convince the overprotective werewolf to let goof his new feathery daughter. Estinien was going to go home, have a bath andthen try to smother all urges to strangle Aza in the morning. Gods, thatpint-sized werewolf was the bane ofhis bloody existence sometimes!