Family Bonds: Chapter 13
This is the final chapter of the story. If you've read this far... I give you a cookie! Comments appreciated, so tell me what you thought of it =D
Chapter 13
Their new home was finished in about a week and a half, and shortly afterwards, Drek was relocated to the new cave where he could finish his recovery. He could tell that he was getting better every day, but he was warned by Zenith to continue resting until he said so. Once they had their new place, Darius was a daily visitor for hours on end. Agro didn't come by that often because he had other charmander friends that he played with, and he found it boring to go over there just to talk like the trio always did.
Darius always brought some food over with him that his family had eaten that day so that Seria didn't have to go out to find something on her own. Charizard Valley was great, but because of where it was located, no food actually grew inside of the valley. The valley's inhabitants relied on charizards to fly out of the valley every now and gather small supplies from the surrounding lands.
Their egg was situated in the middle of their cave surrounded constantly by a circle of fire. According to Cara, that was what every egg needed in order to hatch a healthy baby charmander. They were told that it would hatch sometime between two and three weeks after she had brought it into the world, so once they had located themselves in their home, they always kept an eye on it. Cara had told her as much as she needed to know about what to do for whenever the egg hatched, but she still wanted some help for when the event actually happened.
After a few days, Darius came over as he normally did, and after he had been there no more than five minutes, movement caught2 their ears and eyes. The time had come and they wanted Cara to be there to help them. Darius sprinted back home and got her, and she arrived just in time to watch the marvelous event occur. The egg shards exploded, and a bright yellow charmander plopped out.
The color of him concerned Cara because she had seen two of her own kids hatch, and they were nowhere near that yellow at first, and she didn't know of any charmanders in the valley that were that color. But, nonetheless, the baby seemed just as healthy as any other charmander she had seen, so she didn't worry too much about it. It would be a nice distinguishing characteristic to have in life.
Now that they had a baby charmander, they would need a name. The fire that they had surrounding the egg had made a big pile of black soot around the egg. They saw that he was a male charmander, but that didn't really help them in their decision making. They had been slowly learning how to take care of him once he hatched, and the idea of needing to think of a name never really came up in their conversations. But he needed one now.
As if he read their mind, the baby sneezed and fell over on his stomach. Seria reached out to pick him back up and she saw that he was covered in the blackened ash. She laughed at how he was covered in it, and after looking at him, she stared back at Drek, and they seemed to get the same message. They both looked back at the dirty yellow fire lizard and said, "Charcoal."
Ever since Charcoal was hatched, Cara and Agro were over a lot more frequently. Agro loved playing with the infant, and Cara was there to make sure that everything was in order. Seria and Drek didn't mind, because they still had no clue what they were doing, and any bit of help was welcomed with open arms. She still was a little bit concerned about the coloring of Charcoal, but from what she could see, he was just as healthy and happy as any other baby.
One of Charcoal's favorite activities consisted of crawling over his daddy who was still immobile inside of the cave. He didn't mind it in the least. His leg was healed enough that it didn't hurt him anymore, but he was still staying off of it because Zenith still hadn't given him the go ahead. He didn't have to travel again, and it's not like he was pressed for time and had to get better as quickly as he could. He actually thoroughly enjoyed the time that he got to relax. They had been on the move for so long that he had almost forgotten what it was like to be able to stay put.
He also loved every second that he could spend with his son. One day before he was hatched, Zenith had come over to check on how his leg was when Seria was out of the cave with Darius. While Zenith was there, he took the opportunity to ask him about how they had made an egg. At first Zenith didn't believe that he didn't know. He also was a little uncomfortable discussing it with him, because he knew how an egg was formed, and either Seria had mated with another male in their travels, or they had made the egg together. If what they had told him was true, that the two hadn't met any other pokemon (at least in that sense) in their travels, then he had to assume the latter was the case. He would have frowned upon this greatly, and so would any other charizard in the valley.
This, however, was an exception. It was very clear from what he had heard from the two that they were separated from their parents before they could learn the consequences of what they had done, and that their acts were something that only two mates did with each other. He also knew when he was a charmeleon, he first experienced those urges, and it was all he could do to control himself. So he gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were just two innocents that discovered something. He went ahead and explained how she had gotten the egg inside of her in the first place, and he went on to further explain that they shouldn't do those acts with each other again, because it wasn't something that needed to be spread around the valley.
Drek also went into a little more detail about his fight with the onix from a couple weeks ago. He relayed his strange feeling when he tried to summon that flamethrower and instead shot out that blue flame. Zenith almost didn't believe him when he told him. What Drek had done was he had produced something that most adult charizards couldn't do. In fact, no charmander or charmeleon that he knew of in his life had managed to do it. It was something that was revered in the valley due to the rarity of it. Zenith had said that he himself couldn't do it, so he wouldn't be able to tell him how to use it again, but whatever he did that day, he should try to remember and practice so as to make it was easily accessible as his flamethrower.
So, that's how Drek learned about his strange urges, about how he became a dad, and about the strange attack that he had produced. He told himself that he would work on trying to remember how to use it; something so rare had to come in handy, and he would love to be recognized in the valley and accepted. He relayed his new information to Seria when she came back and after Darius had left for the day to go back to his place. She understood about their actions, and she agreed with him that it would be better to quit (besides, they had learned in their experimenting that they could satisfy themselves on their own if they so desired it, so it wasn't as though they would be missing out on the pleasure had discovered).
Darius seemed to take a strong liking to Seria over the time that they spent in the valley, and they would often go off together and leave Drek alone with Charcoal. Not that he minded really. He was glad that his sister had someone that cared about her, and he enjoyed the time that he got to spend alone with his son.
About a week after Charcoal was born, Zenith came back over to inspect his leg. He finally figured that it was healed enough that he could walk on it without any trouble, and he took the weird object off finally. Seria was overjoyed that he could walk again, and she couldn't wait to show him a surprise that she had planned for whenever he became mobile.
She picked up Charcoal, and told Drek to close his eyes because she had a secret place to show him. He obeyed her, and he was led by his claw for about five minutes, keeping his eyes shut the entire time. He trusted her to have a good surprise, and he didn't want to spoil it for her. After she had led him to where she wanted to, she faced him in the proper direction and told him to open his eyes.
The scene before him took his breath away. She had led him to the exact spot where she had first seen Charizard Valley when she was following Darius just a few weeks before. She had said that the only thing that could have made that moment better was to have him share it with her, so she decided to be there with him when he had his first reaction to seeing it. He could almost cry at how beautiful the sight was. Everything that they had worked for was right in front of him, and it didn't disappoint him in the slightest. He reached down and picked up Charcoal and put him on his shoulders and put his arm around her. She returned the affectionate touch with her own, leaning her head against him, and the three continued staring into the valley. Their long journey had finally come to an end, they finally had their very own wonderful, permanent home, and they couldn't wait to raise their new son in it.