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A New Family Part 9

Dramatis Personae

• Ataksak (Mother) 41

• Negafook (Father) 42

• Pinga (daughter) 22

Other Cast

-Nathan (Alpha den Historian, Colonist) 235

• Alessandra (Alpha den Healer, Colonist) 215

• Asa (Orphan of Echo den, Colonist) 4

The next morning, my love's snoring awoke me as it was blown right into my frill. Checking her over to make sure the eggs were secure against her body and undisturbed. I untangled myself to rise and stretch feeling several pops along my spine. I must have gotten longer yet again overnight. I looked over Ataksak and saw that her tail had grown to overlap her longer neck where it had laid through our sleep.

I yawned again before making my way into the early morning sun shining down the tunnel. On the surface again, I discovered that all of my children were gone. Instead I saw that the tunnel that Pinga, I, and Ataksak had been working on before was now immeasurably deeper.

Mazu, Nanook, Silla, Apollo, and Diana were gone. But I could feel Pinga and Asa somewhere close by, and beneath me.

I stepped to the edge of the entry and looking down so no sign of them so I proceeded downwards. At the bottom the chamber was only partially formed with an area just wide and deep enough for Ping to settle into coils. Which is where she currently was, sleeping in while on her side with one wing extended upwards and the other lowered to cover her flank. Little Asa's head could be seen peeping out from under this cover and resting on Pinga's foreleg.

It was amazing to see this juxtaposition in size. At the beginning of this week Asa, despite being a fledgling of only some four turns, would have been larger than any of us. Seven meters long and two tall, he had scarlet colored scales, with a dark green belly and wing. He had no dorsal spikes, but did have seven thorns growing from the sides of the end of his tail. He also had a small horn growing from his snout and the buds of five more from the crown of his head. He was a fire guardian.

The sense of being watched interrupted my reverie. A quick look showed that my daughter was still dead to the world. But looking down I saw the slightest glimmer reflecting off the cracked eyelid of Asa. His eye had a white sclera and a rusty orange iris. This slitted orb was fixed on me narrowly for a moment before his tongue slipped outward a few times to take in my scent. I tasted the air as well, I smelled anxiety.

Why are you scared, little Asa?

_ _ Without answering me, he crept backward under Pinga's wing until only the tip of his red snout and his flickering tongue could be seen. I reached out to comfort him, and was startled by the fearful cries into my head pleading with me to leave him be.

Sitting back, I reluctantly granted his request. There will be no rushing this one through the healing process. It is all on Pinga now, the only one he will even remotely open himself to. Looking at my eldest daughter once more to confirm her sleep was uninterrupted I turned about, lifting my tail to clear my slumbering child and began my way back to the surface.

Alessandra and Nathan were waiting for me in the common bowl this time.

"Good morning Negafook, how do you feel?"

"Longer. Happy for my mate. Worried about Pinga. Pity for Asa."

They looked at each other.

"Here" Nathan reached back along his unseen side. After dipping his head, it reappeared with a herd squid in his mouth that he placed in front of me. "We brought three for all of you. Bon Appetit!"

While I tucked into the carcass, snapping some of the rib filaments to get into the chest cavity where my tongue wrapped around an unidentifiable organ and pulled it loose. Alessandra addressed me.

"First, stop calling me Alessandra, it is onerous for me to hear you say my entire name every time you think about me."

Frustrated I shifted my head and bit my own paw to stifle my roars of irritation.

"Two, stop hurting yourself. I told you, we would help you with your problems with the link. But, on to why we are here."

"Silla is with Apollo and Diana near our nest. Last night and this morning they have worked together to build one of their own..." Alessandra uneasily trailed off.

"Gods damn it... Call me Ally." She grunted.

Ally uneasily trailed off.

Nathan continued "...We were awoken this morning by Apollo roaring. We now know that Silla is too young to become gravid. But that apparently has not stopped her from exploring her new body. We think that she has spent the morning mating with Apollo if not with Diana as well."

I froze as my jaw sagged open and my next mouthful fell back into the ravaged corpse before me. "What?"

"Age has no bearing here. There are only two stages of development when it comes to mating on this world. Those that are old enough to physically consummate the act. And those that are not physically capable. Proportionally, Silla is actually older than Diana and Apollo. Your daughter's body is mature enough to function as it was intended. All the social taboos and parental aversions in the world won't change that fact. She is a dragoness now."

"Why did we not find this out through our connection?"

"Oh, you could thank the lightning bug sitting next to me for that."

"Uh huh" the yellow dragon nodded enthusiastically "When my mate is not awake to direct my innate energy into the capacitor beneath our nest I generate an electrical field that blocks the neural links. The only ones that know they've mated are those that heard Apollo, Diana, and Silla roaring as the trees shoo..."

"Please, for the love of my sanity, don't describe to me how my youngest daughter brought herself and her twin mates to their first climax."

Nathan stopped his entirely too interested relaying of the facts with an awkward snort and shake of his head before thankfully finishing with little detail: "They like their new nest very much."

"Are you still blocking our links?"

"No, my mate is here to...Ground me!"

Neither Ally nor I couldn't help but chuff our amusement at his cheesy jest.

Ata, Ping, please wake up and join me in the bowl. Ally and Nathan are here. I mentally prodded my mate and our eldest daughter. I could feel the echoes of their awakening and briefly confused minds.

"I've awakened my family to hear your... good news. They'll be along shortly. Is there anything else that you are here for?"

"Ah, yes. A priority message came in for Noctis, and I accepted it in her stead. We are going around Alpha den to notify all that tonight at 45 degrees sol we are all expected to be present to greet an unexpected newcomer."

"Wait... Stop... What do you mean 45 degrees sol? What newcomer?"

Nathan responded next: "That is the method I have devised of telling local time, without referencing any of our technology. The distance of the leading star above the western horizon. At this time in our orbit it equates to roughly 1800. As for this most mysterious of events... I am at a loss. The only one who may know is Noctis, but she would have certainly shared this knowledge at the very least with my mate. But, not a word has passed from her snout."

"It is true, I have no reason to believe neither Noctis nor any other dragon on this world knows the meaning of this arrival."

"After all of Alpha den has been warned each nest will begin calling out the summons to the linked network, easing the burden on any one mind of making such large and far flung connections."

"How is Noctis?" Asked my wife as she exited our tunnel, hobbling along with the special egg clutched tightly in her paw against her chest scales.

"My dear, what are you doing? Ally told you not to move it more than necessary."

The medic echoed my concerns. "Yes I did, what are you doing? How are you keeping your other eggs warm?"

"Well I gathered the straw heated by my body all around them, and then I covered them in dirt. You had told me to keep this one still, but also to keep it warmer than the others. I can only do that when it is with me."

"Look Ata, you might not like this idea. But why don't you give the egg to me? I can have an incubator built at the medical bay in a sealed structure. Completely secure and monitored all hours of the day. And most importantly, thermally regulated and completely still."

She looked down at the precious cargo clutched to her chest and reluctantly agreed. "If that is your medical opinion..."

The doctor nodded her head firmly. "Yes, it is."

My mate grudgingly extended her paw toward the medic to hand over the egg.

"Wait a few moments, we have old unused egg carriers at the med bay. They are gyroscopically stabilized and filled with heated shock cushioning. I will get one and return so we can transport it safely. Just keep it warm while you wait for me and your other daughter to emerge." She ran up the slope of our bowl and launched into the air towards her workplace as Ata nestled the egg between her hind leg and her groin once more.

As Ally flew away a buzzing, irritating drone filled our heads as our links crashed under the weight of Nathan's energy. (What is with that dragon?)

I asked him what is with him and he fidgeted a bit in place before answering.

"I've always been unnaturally excitable. But when I began my new life on this planet and became something greater than human, something else changed. As my body transformed so too did my very chemistry. My skin, my scales, my flesh, became ionically charged. Any movement of mine generates massive electrical differences in the surrounding environment. You could say I am a living producer of electricity. You saw before, during the fiasco at the med bay that I can generate electricity at will by movement of my form and of my scales. It is truly unwieldly however, as naturally I cannot control where the arc jumps to complete the circuit. I had never, ever intended to shock poor Penelope from Bravo den. I was trying to make a painless distraction."

"I've never heard of anything like that!"

"Oh, it is possible. These scales are very dry, and supple. By agitating them in waves I am a trotting dynamo. And not just me either, if you can get the twins away from each other's calming influence you might be surprised by what Diana can do as well. She even raced me to a tie once! Naturally I beat her in the next heat, but still, she takes after me in ways beyond color. She is just the best! Oh, my little moon, I still remember the first time your eyes met mine!"

He sighed, glowing with paternal endearment. I didn't have the heart to interrupt his fond memories, and neither did Ata.

Just before we heard the flapping of Ally returning I heard the thudding of a heavy set of paws climbing up from Pinga's chamber. Our daughter emerged into the early morning sun and blinked slowly before settling to the ground listlessly. Asa poked his way around from behind her and sat down in front of her snout to glare at us all warningly.

"Honey, how are you feeling?" Ata asked hopefully.

"I feel like I'm pregnant with a dead dragon's children."

Asa craned his head back to look at her with sympathy and then walked back to flare his one wing to lay on her head soothingly. An act long on sentiment but short on practicality. Pinga's head was much larger than the fledgling's wing.

"Pinga..." Ata tried again.

Our daughter didn't want to hear it though. She sighed heavily, her body sagging against the ground. "Mother, stop. It is just too soon to let go of yesterday and only consider tomorrow. Just, please, give me time and space. I... It still hurts. I still see Caleb's smile and still hear his words... As I killed him."

A gust of air washed over us, kicking up little pebbles and dust while Ally settled to the ground and deposited the basket she was carrying in her jaws. Without preamble she addressed our downtrodden child sternly.

"Stop that. You did not kill Caleb, you released him to be with his family. The Rocs that took his family away from him are the ones that killed him. Stop torturing yourself for an act that he would have taken on his own. Yours was the greater mercy, even though you hardly knew him. You gave him a familiar presence to be with as he drew his last breath and saw his last sight.

Would you have preferred he died alone, with no one looking on as he drove the syringe into his own chest and pushed the plunger down? Do not follow Noctis down the path of self-destructive behavior for actions beyond your control."

The medic stalked forward, ignoring Asa's warning growl to thump Pinga firmly in her shoulder. "You are being selfish. You have eight lives growing within you. Do you really need me to explain to you what your crippling ennui will do to yourself and your helpless children?"

She stopped to turn and nudge the bristling Asa forward. "Look at this little one. He has decided to live. What path are you going to follow? A path of life? Or piteous caterwauling?"

She didn't give her a chance to think it over. There was nothing to consider.

"Do not let your children, who have not even opened their eyes to the world, down. Do not let Asa, who has lost everything but still yearns to live as he looks to you, down. Do not let Caleb, who stayed in a world that caused him unfathomable pain to help you, down. Do not let your family down, by forcing them to watch you drown yourself in anguish. Pick up your head, and wipe that dead eyed look off your snout. Now, convince me that you will be worthy of the title of mother."

By this time the overwhelmed Pinga had rivers of water flowing from her eyes to the ground. She took in a deep swelling breath, raised her head to the heavens with golden feathers spread wide, and thundered her determination for the world to hear. The determination to move forward, and see the eyes of her children.

Nathan began ecstatically nodding his head in approval, while the doctor nudged Pinga once more in the shoulder to show her own. Ataksak and I saw each other's feathers glow with pride as our daughter showed everyone the strength we always knew she had.

"Here, I want you all of you to eat some more cubes once again, and then sleep. You have nothing else to do until the meeting tonight."

"Not yet." My mate said with some passion. "First let's put this egg in the carrier. Then I'm coming with you to the med bay to see to its care. Then I will have words with my daughter and her mates. Neg!" She turned and caressed me. "See to the children, please."

"As if you had to say so." I nudged her under the chin as she got up to carefully place the egg into its transport before picking it up in her teeth. Her tail waved farewell as she left with the medic and Nathan.

I turned to Pinga to find that Asa was once more nestled up close to her, drawn in by her leg.

"Let's finish your burrow. I'll meet you down there after I look in on the eggs."

She bobbed her head and nudged Asa along back down into the darkness of her half formed chamber.

Going back down into my own I reactivated the recently installed light panels to cast a gentle glow. Where the nest of straw had been was now a mound of unbroken dirt. Happy for the moment that it was undisturbed I left it be. Returning to Irma's nest I saw her tail twitching as she dug deeper, making a pile of dirt at the bottom of the slope. I poked my head in over these obstacles to see her clawing at the side wall widening the opening with Asa contributing as best he could next to her. I told her how I would help by ejecting the dirt out of the nest. She responded in the affirmative without stopping.

For hours we went on like that. While taking a break I hit on the idea of using a worker drone to map out a connection between her chamber and mine and Ata's. With the overlay being transmitted into my field of view I soon had a tunnel connecting our two rooms. We summoned three more units along with the binding resin generator to reinforce all our excavations. While that went on we distributed the exhumed dirt evenly across the bowl and also to build up the berm surrounding our developing warren.

Ataksak returned carrying a storage container just as we finished. After satisfying herself that the eggs remained undisturbed she travelled the new connecting tunnel to look over the finished chamber. Wide open just like ours it sorely needed some types of decorations to break up the monotony as ours did as well. Telling each other that we would sort through the possessions we had brought with us later to find somethings suitable for our homes. But for today, it was more important to rest before the meeting. Before we took our nap, Ataksak opened the container she brought revealing fifteen more nutricubes. Telling us to each grab five more. We had our meal and then heaped ourselves together next to the buried eggs. Making sure that Asa felt secure within our many coils we slept away the early afternoon.