Borealis Eighteen - Lefts of Passage

     Howl frowned at the dunes sprawling out in front of him. There seemed no end to them, but he knew that there probably was an end, an end that he would never get to see. He had tried his best to see the end of the desert once, but even the tip of the tallest skyscraper in Borealis had not been high enough to look beyond the horizon. It frustrated him. He knew that if his eyes were unable to make the journey, then surely the rest of his body would fair far worse, and his body was already capable of so much at such a young age. Howl could leap, duck, zig and zag with the best of the Unfortunate Ones of the city, rough up anyone he came across, and track even the faintest of trails so long as the sun shone and the wind was kind. Nothing really intimidated or challenged the boy's presence in the least, save his father, but here stood the desert, mocking the boy's very existence. It more than frustrated him. It made him angry.
     Howl spat at the ground. He had intended for his saliva to serve as his direct challenge to the desert's vastness, an assertion of his superiority over the sand and the heat. But, the childishness of his gesture did little more than to exacerbate Howl's feelings of futility and insignificance in the midst of such grainy eternity.
     "I hate you," Howl said to no one.
     The wind blew up from behind him as if to hug and comfort him as though a mother might do, but he shrugged it off as though he were a son embarrassed at his mother's ignorance of her child's approaching maturity. Another breeze soon came by, this time indifferent to the boy's woes. A single strand of it caught itself upon Howl's clothes, curving all along the air pockets of his posture as it made its way up his body. The strand carried with it a note of burnt air and the smell of cooking. The boy's nose pricked and tickled at the scent, reminding him that he had more to do than lament his preadolescent humanity.
     "Eggs," Howl muttered to himself as he walked over to the building from which the scent seemed to originate. "Only you, Garnet."

Borealis Seventeen - Egg City

     Ember poked the yolk of one of her eggs, cooked sunny side up, until one of the eggs popped. The warm, organgey yellow stuff inside oozed up and bled out as soon as she removed the prong of her fork from the puncture. Plump liquid slowly covered half of the plate. It was weird, so Ember popped the second egg to fill the rest of the plate.
     Aurora, who had asked for her eggs scrambled, leaned over and lightly scolded Ember, "Don't be wasteful. Your eggs will be cold soon. Eat." She shoveled the last of her scramble into her mouth, barely chewing and mostly inhaling.
     "Okay," Ember said. She hadn't ever seen eggs before, and although she should have had the same appetite as Aurora, given that it had been well over a day since either had eaten anything, the sight of such a peculiar food was particularly off putting to her. So, she just sat there, making faces at the eggs in between pokes.
     Food was much different inside the city. Everything solid came in cubes or spheres of rich blues, deep purples, and emerald greens, and the liquids often shown in glowy reds, yellows, and oranges. Everything was flavored. Everything was sterile and delicious. No one knew where it came from, but such simple food hardly begged much inquiry or thought.
     Ember turned to Garnet, who had just walked around from behind a nearby corner-- Some scouting had been in order after breakfast, he felt-- and said, "Garnet, are you sure this food's alright? It's all yellowy and gross. And, what the hell is this white stuff around the edges and all these black dots?"
     Smiling and trying hard to stifle a laugh, Garnet responded, "Yes, Ember. It's fine." He sat down next to her and pointed at the black dots on the eggs. "That's pepper and the white bits are mostly made of water and protein." Pointing next to the goop Ember had let all over the plate, he chuckled, "And that's the best part."
     "What is it?"
     "It's the yolk. It's the part of the egg that would have eventually fed the embryo of a baby chicken, had the egg been fertilized."
     Chickens... Ember had only ever read about chickens. "Where did you find a chicken?"
     Garnet smiled and stood up. "Don't you worry about that." As he walked away, presumably to continue scouting, he added, "You need to eat. Think of the eggs as the medium-small cyan spheres you're used to having."
     Although that didn't fully satisfy Ember's curiosity and half revulsion, it did give her the courage to at least try the eggs.
     They were even better than the spheres, and the texture was something phenomenal.
     She quickly wolfed them down, stopping occasionally to chew and really think about the flavors of the eggs. Meanwhile, Aurora stood a few feet away, staring out at the vast, duned desert before them. They were on the very edge of the city.