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A New Family Part 7

Dramatis Personae

Family of 5 (Colonists)

• Ataksak (Mother) 41

• Negafook (Father) 42

• Nanook (elder son) 22

• Pinga (daughter) 22

• Silla (younger daughter) 8

Other Cast

• Diana (Daughter of Nathan and Alessandra) 102

• Apollo (Son of Nathan and Alessandra) 102

• Mazu (Daughter of Carol and Riku) 102

• Alessandra (Alpha den Healer, Colonist) 215

Later, I awoke. For once it wasn't with a jerk but slowly...peacefully...contentedly. I opened my eyes only to see nothing but scale. Green, black, brown. My family had returned with their friends...our kin. I smiled, and then drifted away again.

When I came to the next time it was to the sound of a few different voices not quite able to stifle their chuffing giggles. Then I felt someone's tail tip sketch another pattern on the side of my neck. I rolled my eyes beneath their lids and then tried to see through the sight of Pinga as I heard her voice amongst the others.

"Hey, he's awake. I just felt him try to connect to me."

"Nice try father" I heard Silla say. "But it's too late to stop us."

"From doing what?" I grunted as I raised my head.

_ _ "From making you a Coral Snake!"

"...What?" I curled my head around and squawked in surprise. The visible portions of my neck were now alternating bands of red, yellow, and black. "Why would you do this?"

_ _ Instead of answering I just heard five different voices chuffing in amusement. "Who else is here?"

"Me, Pinga, Silla, Diana, and Apollo" Ata said as she approached from behind me. I noticed that she had just emerged from the earlier excavation which seemed to be much deeper. "Hold still" she said. "You've been asleep for so long that Alessandra came by and stuck you with an IV of nutricube solution." She pulled a gods damned harpoon from my left rear paw. It looked big enough to run about a liter per minute. "You should take a minute to adjust, you are six meters longer than you were this morning."

"Oh, well, why didn't you stop them from painting on me?"

"Don't get your neck twisted into a knot, they used water soluble paint". She moved towards the tunnel and flicked her head in an invitation to follow and then turned away while slapping my head with her longer feather covered tail.

"Wait! I need a moment to assess all the other changes of the children!"

She responded while pacing into the tunnel. "I'll tell you down here, Alessandra already assessed all the changes."

I rose and began to stretch my stiff muscles while giving an enormous yawn. I did feel larger, and the ground was definitely further away again. I flapped my wings a couple of times and then turned to preen some of my ruffled feathers before following my mate. I had also noticed while grooming myself that my feathers had begun to spread to cover my wings and I could just barely see horns growing along the length of my neck. The last thing I noticed when I took a step was how much larger my paws and talons had grown. In confusion I swiped at the ground and realized why when I saw how easily I was able to dig into Prithvi. I chuffed in amusement, mole indeed.

I sauntered after my light down a hole that had to be at least 20 meters deep into a large opening with columns of dirt at regular intervals. These had apparently already been sprayed with binding resin by the nearby worker units for strength.

"Now what do you think?"

I hummed thoughtfully as I circled once around the chamber. "I like it. But what about light and ventilation?"

"I've got it covered, you'll see."

"Are you sure? I remember one time..." I stopped when I saw her colors start to change straight to the purple and black followed by her hiss.

"...I'm sure you have it covered."

"I'll have you trained yet, my Coral Snake." She said with a smug tilt of her head pointing her snout into the air.

Irritated, I laid down to start scrubbing the paint off against the dirt. "So, how are our little wyrms doing?"

"I'll start with who is here: Pinga is just a little bit smaller than you as of now and I suppose will remain so from now on. Her feathers have grown down her spine completely from crown to tip and have begun to spread across her wing arms like yours. Her wings are mature enough to fly for short distances. She has also begun to feel a blossoming warmth spreading through her abdomen though. Tonight or tomorrow she will go to Caleb and... and... ease his passing."

"We both know that this will be hard on her. She may feel it is possible to change his mind."

"Yes." She agreed, "We will absolutely be there for her."

"What about Silla?"

"Oh, about the same size as Pinga surprisingly. I think she will be fairly large even for a female. Just as the rest of us she is proportionally complete, and just like Pinga and I she is completely functional."

I just turned away with a long suffering sigh. "As long as she is happy, I'm sure the twins would not do anything to harm her. They certainly seem to be mature well beyond their turns." I paused to flop to my other side and continue scouring my scales clean. "And Nanook?"

"Oh, well..." She began kneading the ground in embarrassment. "Nanook and Mazu left about five hours ago, and shortly after I had to close myself off from him as I'm not ready to experience firsthand in my own head his... joy"

I couldn't help chuffing in amusement at her discomfiture which earned me a sharp, slit pupiled glare. "They grow up so fast don't they? Four days ago, human. Now, mating with a living breathing leviathan."

She sighed heavily and laid against my side and wrapped her much longer neck about my own. "Yes they do."

"Well I can tell I'm never going to catch up to you again in size at least. How does it feel to be large and in charge?"

She licked my snout and hummed powerfully against me. "We have always been equals and this changes nothing. Except, you know, now if I don't agree with you I'll just pin you to the ground and wait for you to adjust your thinking." My laughter filled our new nest and was soon joined by her own.

Later we after we had finished um... ensuring our scent filled our new lair. We laid next to each other once again with half lidded eyes and noses touching while breathing deeply of each other's musk. Hesitantly I voiced an observation I had made. "You know, I couldn't help but notice that you are thickening already. I bring this up only because I think you are developing extraordinarily fast. How long did the others say a typical gestation lasted?" I then cringed awaiting her response.

"Mmm... Yes. I can feel the eggs." She purred with glowing pride. "Also, stop cowering, I actually take the remarks about my size as a compliment now. You could lay your head against my belly there seven shells in there, you're bound to feel something although they are pretty soft yet. But, to answer your last question. No, they made no predictions, as we are a tad different than the rest. None of them can bear so many." She said in a lordly manor.

I did lay may head against her abdomen and indeed I could not feel the eggs however... I sniffed a couple times and licked her belly making her feathers rustle. "Hmm... I can smell... I don't know, but I think you smell... Different? Yes, different, but your smell also makes me want to cover you with my wings. It makes me think you're vulnerable and with egg. Hey! That's what it is, I can smell the eggs!" Following this my wings did unfurl of their own accord to shield the increasing body of my mate.

Snuggling beneath my membranous cover she threw a foreleg over my shoulders possessively to draw me close. She nuzzled me for a bit then nipped at my neck and rose, stretching. "Come, let's see what our younglings have gotten into."

We reentered the world above to find once again Pinga, Silla, Apollo and Diana. This time however it seemed that Silla had managed to talk Apollo and Diana in to a game of sorts. They were all in the air darting back and forth across the clearing in a series of convoluted aerobatics. Silla instead was off on the side of the bowl and beginning to dig a new tunnel. In a curious movement every so often she would cease digging and drop to the ground and curl tightly about herself before resuming digging. Leaving the three airborne to their nimble skylarking we made our way to our eldest daughter.

"What's wrong Pinga?" asked Ata.

She turned to cast an eye upon us as we reached her and lay down behind her. Halting in her digging she twisted around and settled to the ground as well. Hesitantly she began "I've begun my heat. Tonight I will go to Caleb and... help him... after he helps me." She turned her head away for a moment and then looked back. She licked her chops and continued. "I will help him end his life after he "helps" me by letting me fuck him. Milking him like a goddamned horse put to stud." I... I..." She then stopped and dropped her head to her paws with a sigh. "It was supposed to be an act of love... Conceiving my children... This, this is..." Running out of things to say her jaws worked a few more times silently before she closed her eyes and shifted away from us. We could see her shoulders and wings twitching in time with her silent miseries.

Ata's and my eyes swiveled to look at each other's and we nodded. It was as we feared. Moving to curl next to her, she unwound and placed her head on my shoulder while Ata groomed her feathers with her tongue. Her crying tapered off after some time as we continued to comfort her.

I know better, she began. I know that these things can happen to those who do not deserve them. But still, what am I supposed to do with one who has lost their family? One who has lost hope? The only thing that remains of Caleb is his sense of duty and his longing to be released into the abyss. What do... What can I say to him? She opened her mismatched eyes and gazed at us earnestly for guidance.

_ _ Wisely, I let Ata take the leading snout on this one.

Dear, there is one thing that you can do. Make his passing meaningful. Tell him, that his memory, and that of his mate and children, will not die with him. But live on in you, and your children. Then, help him, with the release he seeks. Be with him, until his light goes out, and takes its place in the night sky, with his family.

_ _ She stopped licking the back of Pinga's neck to snake her head around to look her daughter in one of her eyes.

That is what you can do to help Caleb, daughter of mine. Be strong, for him, for his children, for his mate, for your children, and most importantly for yourself.

_ _ Pinga sighed once more and clamped her eyes shut. As a solitary tear followed the tracks of those that fell earlier she nodded her head and placed it once more on my back. After several more moments she lifted herself up wearily, and shuffled back in the direction of the med bay without a word aloud or mentally.

I raised my eyes to look into Ata's and saw my concern mirrored in her drooping feathers and slack facial muscles as she looked hollowly at Pinga's vanishing tail. Her eyes turned to look at me and she sighed heavily, her body visibly diminishing as she did.

C'mon I nudged her. This is a path she has to walk herself down. Let's see what we can do to help her in the meantime. I turned to the shallow excavation that Pinga had begun and began clawing at one side of it. After a moment Ataksak joined me as we distracted ourselves from a situation that there was no easy nor happy outcome to be found. For hours we continued at our burrowing while listening to our children adapt to their bodies and converse behind us with their friends.

After the sun had crossed the high point of the sky I felt the presence of Alessandra and the obnoxiously smug feeling of my son's mind returning. Along with them the overwhelming sense of Mazu's physical enormity and her own glowing sense of satisfaction.

Making sure to close my mind off I thought to myself; Huh? I guess Nan had it in him after all.

As they landed I could see that Nan was rapidly nearing completion. While all the feathers on his head stood on end. They were now joined by a double line of them all down his spine and along his wing arms. All glowing with the smugness of a dark iridescent green.

No sooner than they'd landed that Mazu's tail curled around Nanook hiding his body from view as he laid his head on the sloping form. With eyes nearly closed he began to sing quietly to Mazu in a series of trilling warbles she in turn complemented these tones filling in with her own counter tone.

They continued on like this for 20 more minutes as Ata and I kept nudging each other with devious grins cracking wider with every passing second. Eventually they drew to an end their saccharine display, and turned to look at us with dopey grins on their muzzles.

No longer able to contain myself I burst into peals of laughter and then collapsed on my side huffing and slapping the ground in my amusement.

Ata walked towards the two, exaggerating her movements for effect as she shifted her shoulders and hips back and forth she cooed at them; "Did you have a good time? No... I know you did. You both are so cute! Look how you blush! Oh... Dear! You two have just fallen all over each other haven't you?"

The watching head of our son did not look terribly impressed with our teasing. His feathers were held down and nearly black in scorn at our actions. Then he must have thought of something as they all flicked erect and turned a rapid sequence of colors indicating a range of emotions. (In order: depression, thought, consideration, interest, wonder, conviction, resolution)

He twisted his head away until we could not see his mouth and then apparently began talking to Mazu as she cocked her head to look down and began to move it in reaction to his comments.

Eventually they twisted their heads around and then gave us Cheshire grins. Nanook ran up her tail and then onto her back where he stood proudly as she got to her own feet to stand as tall as she could (which was a lot). Then Mazu began to dance back and forth and rocking side to side while Nan bounced around on her back and they both sang together in the most awful tone deaf love ballad I'd ever heard in my life. If my historical lessons in language were any indication I believe it was Hey Jude. They butchered it. And not just because they were trying to recreate it by largely humming the melody.

It also left me wondering when they had uncovered that gem from the historical archives.

Our acoustic punishment continued as I just sat and watched their antics. It is kind of funny that my child is acting just like Mazu even though she is 83 turns his elder thanks to time dilation. But for whatever reason for their fondness, it made me feel warm to know that they shared their genuine attraction.

Alessandra fluttered to land behind me. After the ground had ceased shaking I twisted to look back and sent her an interrogative over the link. She sent back an image of a nutricube.

"What is this racket? You two are terrible at whatever it is you are doing, let the Beatles rest in their graves. I disapprove of this." Her ears were flattened tight against her head to show her disapprobation as the singing reached its crescendo.

The song finished and the apparently mated pair collapsed into a fit of seismic laughter as Nan crept out on to Mazu's neck to rub her cheek with his own.

"Ah." The medic concluded. "Love. A feeling more intense and pervasive in these bodies than the shallow fleeting humors that we had as humans. The bonds we form are as timeless as our new forms. Actually..." She licked her jaws thoughtfully. "Maybe I should return to writing poetry. No one's ever done it having felt like we do here." She looked thoughtful for a few moments then clucked her tongue, shrugged, and returned her focus to my family.

I have already seen to Pinga, now to see to all you. "Mazu, stop necking with Nanook. Let him grow more before you kill him with your exuberance."

Not looking the least bit abashed, Mazu unraveled herself from enveloping Nan's body and gave him one last, long, lick along his neck and head before settling herself apart from him. I don't know if I'll ever get used to the sheer size of her. Nanook must be well on his way to being fully grown. But even standing next to her as she rested on her belly his head was barely over the top of her back. As for length there is no point in ever comparing the two. Mazu and the rest of her family all look like the Midgard Serpent. Able to encircle the world itself.

Nanook came over to hear what Alessandra had for us. But unsurprisingly he never paid attention for more than a moment or two before his attention and his head drifted back towards Mazu. The medic twirled her head in exasperation and then grabbed his tail in her mouth and dragged him to the other side of the circle so he could pay attention and see his new... friend. (I can't call them mates yet really. Do they have ceremonies here? Something ritualistic? Why haven't I thought to ask them yet? Focus Negafook!")

"Now that I finally have your attentions." She stopped to hiss at Nanook as he stood on his hind legs to look over her at Mazu. "I can explain a few last things to you. These being the final changes you can expect. Your last round of boosters. And a list of topics that I want you all to study while you complete your integration into Prithvi."

"The last changes can seem a little odd to you, but they make perfect sense given the size of your bodies. On top of your singularly unique feathers. You will grow, just like all the others, a secondary neural cluster protected beneath your spine and in front of your hips."

Silla raised a wing to ask a question: "You mean, like another brain?"

"Exactly. Like the rest of us, your bodies have just simply grown too large. There needs to be additional computing power to make the organisms we've become work. We will never survive if it takes 11 seconds for nerve impulses from our hindquarters and tail to reach our brains."

Ata spoke up with her own question: "So we literally have two brains now? What happens if they disagree? Do our front legs go one way, and then our tail tries to stab us in the lungs? How does this affect who we are? Does the rear brain contribute to our sense of self? Does it resemble the brain we are used to?"

Alessandra slumped and raised her paw to try to halt this line of questioning. "Look, I appreciate the god like powers that you think my teacher and myself have. But we have designed bodies that work in the environment in which they must exist, nothing more. The questions you ask of me have been debated almost nightly for the past century by members of the colony. They are not questions I can provide the answers to at this time. If anything I'd hoped that you can provide new insight into an existential question that has no easy answer. And no it only looks like a thick carpet of neural connections. Protected by the spine and the hips it is well shielded. However during pregnancy, females may have their wombs press against this cluster and generate some abnormal tics."

She sighed again; "As for what all this means for your mental idiosyncrasies, there will be times when you feel as if you are not yourselves. When it feels as if there is phantom noise in your head. Limbs you've never had, body parts you don't know how to control, feelings from distances you didn't know possible. This is a normal adjustment period, however even now some of us experience these effects. This change we've undergone has had such a profound impact it has scarred us even at the molecular level. The only consolation we have is that none of our ills are passed on to our hatchlings, and that is all that matters."

She swiveled her head about to look at us all, while the twins Apollo and Diana along with Mazu watched us with impenetrable expressions.

They were judging us, I realized. These were bodies they'd known since hatching. We were the outsiders, this is another test. To see how we'd react to becoming...dragons. If this was their intent, why'd they wait till now? It doesn't add up, they can't be testing us. So why the enigmatic poker faces?

"Stop worrying Negafook." Alessandra said. "No one is testing you anymore. Their 'poker faces' she wagged her wings at me, are nothing more than their not knowing how you would react to the news of becoming even further from what you were."

"How did you know what I was thinking?"

Diana and Apollo spoke up "Now you begin to realize the true depth of responsibility of being among our family of Prithvi. We keep no secrets from each other. But in an effort to be more welcoming, we have shielded you from us, and us from you. Not to keep secrets from you..." They must have been feeling regret for their actions as their speech patterns disintegrated.

"But" Apollo started.

"so" Diana continued.

"that"

"we"

"would"

"not"

"scare"

"you."

They finished in alternating turns. (That is fucking weird, I thought to myself.)

Alessandra reentered the conversation. "Even now that you know the last thing that we worried about bringing to your attention. You cannot be fully immersed into the depths of our new language. It took us decades to reconcile with each other, knowing all and sundry. This is why you and by extension your family have been brought here Negafook and then remade into colonists. These are the things that you would not have been able to assay from a comm terminal in a sphere. As you had previously claimed."

Nanook turned to look at Mazu with a sense of betrayal on his scaled hide. But she didn't have to say a thing to him. She let fall the last barriers between the two of them and Nanook realized what was truly in front of him, for the first time.

I did not know what being a mated pair meant before in this world of Prithvi, but I did now. Mazu brought her head down low as Nanook slowly walked towards her, as he approached he rubbed his side down her own all the way into her embrace. She curled inward under one of her titanic wings as she and my son hid themselves from our sight. But not our feelings, as the glow of incandescent warmth radiated from the two of them. A warmth that was bittersweet, it was the feeling of my son leaving one life behind, to begin another.

I wasn't the only one to realize what was happening as Ataksak's tail found my own and clasped me tightly as we basked in the love of a new couple. Of mates. This is what it means to be mates on Prithvi.

All too quickly however I was brought back to the ground with the grim reminder of the heartbreak we still had to deal with. Ata yanked on my tail to get my attention and asked me why the long face.

Pinga, this is a love Pinga won't know anytime soon. Not until she can find her own mate. To raise her children with.

_ _ She agreed: That is why we must ensure our love and that of her siblings and new friends is enough to fill her with warmth in the cold days ahead for her. Soon she will be gravid, and apprehensive about the future. Questions of self-doubt will arise, questions of fitness to be a mother. All this without a mate to accompany her and support her. Oh, my child. I can only hope that we can lead you to happiness.

_ _ Alessandra aggressively cleared her throat to get our attention. It sounded just like a coughing snarl.

"As cute as you all are, I still have responsibilities back at my lab. So, our talk is out of the way now it is time for your last round of injections." She opened the utility cabinet she was carrying and a medical unit walked out and set down four different plates of nutricubes, then stood by. "Six cubes for each of you. Yes Negafook I know how many kcal that is. I and Noctus have agreed upon advancing your scheduled changes. I have already administered to Pinga and she will be laying with Caleb tonight. I want you to be there. Not to witness her congress with another you deviants. But to witness what happens afterward. Tonight you will witness our death ritual."

"How have you developed such a new rite so quickly?"

"What? Do you think after being here a hundred turns, we haven't known other loss? These songs were learned early on when one of the first eggs was stillborn. Soon, we had all picked up the song. Now, eat up." She commanded and obediently we bent our necks to scoop up each cube into our waiting maws.

"While you are eating Negafook, I want you to hold the rest of your body still. I need to scan your ribs. Sekhmet knows what she is doing when it comes to bandaging and supporting wounds, but I need your rib intact for what you are about to undergo."

My apprehension multiplied by an order of magnitude.

Sending the medical unit around to my injured side I flopped over for access as I scooped up another cube. After a brief moment. Alessandra had the medical unit walk to my remaining cubes and insert a large pill into one of the cubes. Then the unit held it out to me on an upturned manipulator.

"What is in that pill?"

"A different type of a nanobot than the ones coursing through your system. These will speed to the site of your break and plug themselves into the cracks. Their calcified bodies will form a temporary scaffolding for regeneration once I give you your injection."

After we had all finished our cubes Alessandra continued to wait until I reported to her a warm and itchy sensation on the right side of my chest. She nodded and scanned the area again.

"All right, we are all set." Then she really terrified me with what she said next. "Apollo, I want you to pin Silla down. Diana you take Ataksak, Mazu you have Nanook, and I will hold down Negafook."

She sent the medical bot around to each of us while it the first syringe to its manipulator. Starting with Nanook it worked its way around injecting all of my family until I felt it peel up a scale on my upper left forearm to make the injection. Once done, it waited off to the side. Well outside the range of our tails I couldn't help but notice.

"This will not feel good." Was all the warning we got, before she activated the Lilliputian agents of change within our veins.

My vision turned white as I screamed and flailed. Writhing blindly as dull agony erupted through my entire body. The groans of tendons lengthening and muscles thickening. The unbelievable strangeness of my very bones growing. The blazing fire as nerves grew and connected. My feathers rustling wildly as they twitched and lengthened. The feeling of spines erupting out of my backbone vertebrae and pushing their way through layers of fat, muscle, and hide along with the formation of heavy callused ridges around each spike. Blind as I was, and in the throes of oscillating pain my tail spasms caused it to strike several objects including two that were accompanied by pained growls. Unthinking, my claws lashed out at the noise as it drilled into my skull making colors dance in my overloaded vision.

I could feel my internal organs growing together to fill the cavernous chambers in my body as it swelled like an overfilled bladder. But they weren't alone in expanding, I felt the voids that were air sacs grow as well making me feel lighter as I inhaled vast quantities of atmosphere. After an ageless eternity of the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life. My sense returned to me as I heard my panting and the pitiful whimpers of my family, followed by the soothing hums of each of the attending helpers. I could feel the thrum of Alessandra's own resonance. But distantly, and opening my eyes found me in a situation that I did not expect. I was now only about a couple meters shorter than her at about 11ish meters.

I rose to stretch starting with my neck and my tail I extended both to their maximum extent to stretch. All the way down my 48 meters of spine arose a wave of snapping, popping, and groaning as new muscle, bone, and sinew settled into place. Stretching up, down, left, and right. Then raising my wings to their fullest extension I flapped down once and my body became unweighted from the ground. That is when the energy of this immense body hit me. I felt like a force of nature. How were creatures our size possible?

"Well to start with, this planet is only at 0.86g, and two, it's atmospheric composition of oxygen is actually much higher than the standard set by Old Earth."

I'm going to have to get used to that I thought.

"Yes you will, it took us decades."

"Can you stop that?" I asked in annoyance. "Can't I have a private internal monologue? How else will this reader ever know my thoughts? Can I close myself off?"

"Yes you can." The medic returned. "When you learn how to stop blaring it across all open links like it is a radio broadcast. Look to your family now. You are all 90% or better complete. All of you will grow a little more, but, welcome to your new forms. Welcome to your lives as the Dragons of Prithvi."

I looked around, and then looked up. At my mate. Who was grinning madly at me. She lowered her head to give me a few condescending pats and all my feathers laid flat in irritation. It felt odd having that many feathers move in unison. Twisting my head around I could look over my neck and back to see even then the last of the feathers towards the end of my tail lay down. I flicked them erect and once again I could literally see the progression of the nerve impulses. Radiating down my neck and outwards. But also arcing outwards from my second brain. (Second brain, that even sounds weird.)

Experimenting again, I flicked my feathers once more but then also snapped my tail. Curiously enough, my tail whipped immediately even as the shimmer of the feathers moving spread down the spine of my fifth appendage. Is my body prioritizing signals? How do some move so fast and others do not?

Alessandra broke into my thoughts as I explored the consequences of size.

You're a curious one aren't you? Rest assured, there is nothing else like us out there. The imagination and thoroughness that Noctis employed in engineering our species is nothing short of awe inspiring. She really does deserve the title of the greatest living geneticist. Perhaps the greatest ever. Do you know she is still instructing another generation of scientists through our interplanetary link even now? If you would like to know more about your body, come seek me out when things finally wind down for you and your family.

_ _ "For now let me scan your ribs once more, and then I'd like you and your family to accompany me back to the med bay again. While I'm scanning you..." The ambulatory medical unit placed five more nutricubes on each of the four plates present in front of us. "Eat. I can see your intercostal spaces and the crests of your ilia. You are all far too skinny. I don't even want you flying right now. We will walk to the med bay."

As she fiddled with the semi-autonomous medical robot I ate my cubes. Driving home the point of how much we'd grown I was astonished by how long it took me to bend my head to the ground. Swiping all five up with a flick of my tongue I settled back to catalog what the last of our changes had wrought.

With a quick glance I could see all are relative statures. Ataksak taller than me, along with my eight turns old daughter, who may have been even a smidge taller than her mother. But Silla was still much shorter than Diana and Apollo. Apollo was busily pushing himself under the much smaller sheltering wing of Silla while Diana and her stood on each side of Apollo and pushed their noses together, staring into each other's eyes. Silla's feathers were standing up with the shade of contentment on all of them as the humming of all three of them was easily heard. The whole thing left me a tad confused. Just what are the dynamics between the three of them? I supposed, perhaps erroneously, that the relationship would become immediately sexual. But my daughter is eight turns old, and I've been told that the twins are wise far beyond their century of life. Will it? What about this supposedly uncontrollable urge she was supposed to have?

I watched as Silla curved her head around to rub noses with Apollo who doubled the volume of his humming in response.

Perhaps she is too young to be affected by this contrived plot device of uncontrollable mating urges. I hope so. Despite her words to the contrary, she is not ready to be a mother. She will live thousands of turns. I hope that she can wait 90 turns or so to blossom fully as the female she is now destined to be. She will be one to admire I realized. Look at her unnatural size. Not even fully grown yet? Are these consequences of her unintended change?

Whatever the case may be, I am glad that the twins had already laid claim to her affections. I don't know what is considered physically desirable amongst our new ilk. But I'd imagine a towering display of physical strength along with prismatic rows of feathers would make her quite the catch. If I could be pardoned a little for my paternal adoration of one of my beautiful daughters. (Should I stop calling them daughters and start calling them dragonesses? That goes in my field log as well.) Just like her mother she had a single row of horns down the back of her neck until they grew smaller and halted just forward of her leading wing edge at her shoulder.

_ _ Nanook was being nosed over by his mate. He'd really filled in. Now, the top of his feathers came to the bottom of Mazu's neck. Although, as I had thought earlier he was nowhere near matching her length as he took on a rather stocky look just as the rest of us had. Our bodies tended to be fairly dense, having thick necks, with sturdy legs, and firm tails.

But our real defining characteristic were the feathers we used to communicate our feelings towards each other non-verbally. One difference I noticed at a glance was that we males had spines down the length of our spinal columns. From brow to the end of my tail there grew sharp horns barely 15cm in height. Negafook also displayed this same pattern. Silla (sigh), and Ataksak both had much sturdier horns that were perhaps 55cm or so from the crown of their skulls and down the backs of their necks tapering off right before the collar bone.

The dragonesses had gained one more trick up their sleeves however. Nestled within the cluster of feathers we all shared at the ends of our tails were several 75cm slender sharpened horns. Shaped more like pike heads than anything else, they promised to be a lethal surprise for any creature that would intrude on a dragon's nest. A mother's wrath like that of a brooding dragoness would put to shame any of the legendary tales of long extinct bears protecting their young.

Overall, I felt like us males had gotten the unfavorable conditions in this world. Not only were we smaller and lighter than them. But they also get enhanced weaponry. And all we get is... I looked around to scan my back... These foolish little decorative spikes. Yeah I suppose they could work as a defense in theory. All they have to do is get close enough to lay me open with their claws, and I might gain a chance to scratch my opponent.

Hey! I thought. Maybe we're more maneuverable than our other halves, we are smaller after all. I know one way to settle this though. One of Riku's aerial tournaments.

My mate cuffed the back of my head with her own. "Stop looking at everything like it is a challenge to be won. Although, let us be perfectly clear. We females are just simply superior to you puny males in every way."

I jumped to my paws as my visual displays flared wildly in intense and combative reds. "Challenge accepted, my dear madam! I will see you on the field of honor!"

Laughing, she pushed her head underneath my left foreleg and toppled me over and then trapped me with her body. As we lay there recovering, she lowered her head and brought her nose to my neck and then began inhaling deeply. As she sniffed along my neck her exhalations caused my scales to ruffle. Using her snout she smoothed these scales down as she continued sniffing my neck thoroughly until some blissful minutes later she reached my lower jaw.

"You are mine."

She cooed into my ear before laying her head across my snout to begin singing as my eyes sealed themselves shut in rhapsodic bliss.

First I saw, now I know. Our fucking around before were the casual touches of passing strangers compared to this. This is what it is to be mated. I have a mate, no longer just in name. Now, I, see the source of Caleb's intractable despair. Just like him, I simply could not picture any world in which there was no Ataksak. As she lives or dies so do I.

To show my feelings, I opened my self to Ata. As all of my feelings and thoughts were laid bare to her, she began to reciprocate. Throwing open her heart and mind to mine. And I felt the glow of her undying love match my own vow. We would be together. Both here, and amongst the stars. Forever.

We lay there for a time that is beyond my ability to recall. My universe rested in her eyes. There was nothing else.

Author's Notes: The ending of this chapter may seem abrupt. But I had to split this one somewhere. The whole chapter was initially going to be 12000 words. I felt that that was too long.