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[Faerie]

Keeping her egg warm was proving difficult. Daeva worried constantly about the baby she was expecting - was it warm enough? Did he get cold? Is she scared because her egg is in a different place?

Her fire lizards were being unexpectedly helpful with their new sibling. Daeva had thought that their youth would prevent them from being able to produce fire, and in a way, it had. Hatchlings like hers could not chew the phosphine-bearing rock humans called 'firestone' to produce flaming breath. Even young dragons, though they were so much bigger than her babies, had to wait at least a Turn before trying.

But Wounded Healer had not gained his marks of wisdom by chance. He had ventured into the human settlement, and stolen an ember from one of the fires. With work, the young loper had fanned the single ember into a roaring fire. The ashes made a good bed for her baby's egg, but they did get cold eventually. She didn't know if her body heat would do the job properly.

Everything would be so much easier if she could just get her baby to that deserted cove where she'd kept her first babies, but the mated wyverns were vicious. She did not trust them with her precious baby, and although the hot sands were warm enough to hatch eggs, they were also full of perils.

So she waited anxiously, wings cupped to hold warmth around her babies - hatched and waiting. Had she killed her egg?

[Faerie]

She didn't know how long she was supposed to wait before relenting. How close to hatching had the clutch been when the mother distributed them? Oen day from hatching? A month?

Kurupi in particular seemed convinced that the new baby had to arrive soon. The green fluttered about the egg, landing lightly for a few, brief seconds before inciting another flurry of activity. Daeva was almost heartsick with worry.

The golden mother would be so disappointed. She had entrusted her offspring to the care of a young loper, one who had promptly killed the baby. Maybe there was a reason lopers were so rare - they weren't supposed to exist?

But those existential thoughts were interrupted by a sudden, loud humming from her fair. Did babies know how to properly herald the arrival of a new member? Her oldest fire lizards were only two months, after all, and that was the green's clutch. They could be mistaken.

The life-energy that had excited them, the one that had Kurupi dancing for the past three hours, reached out to Daeva. Her baby was hatching!

More anxious than a herdbeast in the presence of dragons, she was nearly frantic in her orders. Three of her fair were sent to scout for prey, something big enough to feed a much larger baby than they were used to feeding. The rest fed on Daeva's anxiety, looping the frantic and life energies until no one quite knew who had originated what feeling.

It was time.