I kind of accidentally took the wrong wagon with this idea train, and instead of the 2k words version it led me on the path of a 5-10k words version, hence there might be a full story sometime in the future. If this is a dish of hard-boiled eggs, the next will be devilled eggs: The base is the same, the ingredients vary only marginally, but it is another dish, so keep that in mind. (And why, yes, this metaphor is indeed eggshellent.)

When I finished this version, it was still 500 words off the limit. I cut off 150 words, and then my lovely beta helped me with the rest. I am content with this version, but still lament that a lot of my ~elaborate~ descriptions and phrases had to be simplified to meet the word count limit ;;   Alas, if I do write that second version, believe you me it will be overflowing with all that I could not fit in this.

This was written for the second round of Shine On on Twitter!