Page 48 of Breed

First, I put her to bed. She will need to rest and recover, and I think bed is a very good place for her. Not only will it help her get comfortable, but it will keep her safely out of the way while I secure the egg.

“Settle in. There you go,” I encourage her as she slides under the blanket I made from a passing ungulate.

She gives me a salty little look, as if I am to blame for the ordeal she just endured. I suppose I am, in several ways. If I had not filled her with my seed, she would not have created an egg. My genetic material hijacked her reproductive system and instructed it to make an egg, and her body obeyed me.

“I am going to get you something for the pain,” I tell her. “It’s the same herb that they make saurjuice from. It grows wild. It will assuage the ache of dilation.”

She makes a face at me when I say the word ‘dilation’, but she nods.

I set a pot over the fire and I add the juice herbs. These are illegal in Grave City because they can have unpredictable psychedelic effects. But they are very effective painkillers, and I believe Lettie is still very much in pain. How could she not be, after her body stretched so much to pass the egg?

The scent of saurjuice fills the air, creating a calming, soothing atmosphere. I suspect that given the delicacy of her system, the particulate matter conveyed in the scent alone will begin to relieve her pain, which means I can go outside and finally retrieve the egg which is still sitting where we left it. They’re very easy to keep an eye on at this age.

Once Lettie is safely in bed, I go outside to retrieve the egg. I cannot believe how perfect it is. It is smaller than most saurian eggs I have seen, but that is to be expected given the size and species of the mother.

I am pleased to note that when I return, Lettie is still in bed, collecting her energies once more. I have become oddly accustomed to putting her somewhere and finding her somewhere entirely else. Perhaps she, too, will become easier to keep an eye on.

While my mate rests, I build the traditional nest that will keep the egg safe. I collect twigs and soft pieces of fibre and animal fur where I can and I bring it back to create a thick, protective ring and base for the egg to sit upon.

I can feel Lettie watching me as I work. She is curious, which is a good sign. She is also confused and no doubt still in pain.

“Does it still hurt?”

“No. Having your hoo-ha stretched open by a big, weird rock feels really good,” she says, dipping into rare sarcasm. She must be in more pain than she wishes to admit. I know the laying shocked her. She did not seem to sense the process before it began. It caught her off-guard, and I know that made it worse. That is why I do not respond to her impudence with judgement. Instead, I give her what she deserves — a compliment.

“You have done well, Lettie. You have brought new life into the world.”

“I’ve bought a big breakfast ingredient into the world,” she mutters back. “That’s not a baby.”

“It will be. It needs to incubate and grow. You have supplied all our infant needs to survive. You have done so well. You have been such a good mate.”

She gives me a little smile at my praise. It is rare, I know that. That is because most of her actions are dangerous, rebellious, or both. This is the first thing she has done that is not only entirely selfless, and self-sacrificing, but which involved a reluctant bravery I wish to reward.

I sit next to her on our bed and rub my fingers lightly over her scalp while we both look at the egg. I cannot take my eyes off it. I have dreamed of this moment my entire life, though I never thought I would have the honor of hatching my own whelpling. There is something very satisfying about this moment, sitting here with my mate, and with my freshly laid egg. There is peace and calm. There is a deep, practical, and abiding love too.

Lettie

I laid an egg.

And I didn’t like it.

Days pass, and then weeks pass, and I don’t feel any connection to the egg. I know I am supposed to love it, because it is mine and it came out of me, but to me it’s just another object. I find myself sitting, staring at it, wondering what kind of omelette it would make. The longer what Shan keeps calling the incubation phase goes on, the stranger I find the whole thing, and the less attached I am to the whole concept. I know intellectually that there’s something living inside there, but it just seems like a thing to me. An ornament at best.

I don’t dare tell Shan this. He’s obsessed with the egg. He tends to it almost as if it were actually a baby. He cleans it and he turns it and he makes sure it is not too warm and not too cold. He has all the instincts necessary to care for a saurian egg, while I have none.

I feel like a failure, somehow. As if my feelings are wrong and my body is wrong. In spite of my feelings, I do try very hard to bond with the thing, but it doesn’t seem like a baby in any respect. It just seems like an object to me, though I know that people are capable of bonding with objects if they have to. There is ancient Earth lore about a man marooned on an island who became best friends with a bloodied handprint on a sports ball. Thinking of that old legend makes me think. Maybe I’d be able to bond with the egg if it had a face? How is anybody supposed to have an emotional reaction to a smooth, caramel-shaded egg?

I decide to take matters into my own hands. I can’t sit here in this shack in the middle of nowhere for months on end while watching my mate dote on an egg I feel nothing for. I have to do something for the sake of our… family? It does feel strange calling this rag tag group of creatures — one saurian, one human, one egg — a family. I think I just need to make it look more people like. That will help.

I wait until Shan has gone out to hunt to try the experiment. He doesn’t really like me touching the egg. I think he is afraid I will break it. He knows very well that I don’t have the same feelings he does about the whole thing.

Deciding to be careful, I sneak up to the egg.

“Shhh,” I say. “Don’t tell anybody.”

He’s going to know as soon as he sees it, of course, but I have to do this for me. I get a little of the char from the fire, and I start dabbing circles and lines on the face of the egg. I give it two little eyes first, well, big eyes. Well, two differently sized eyes because drawing is actually hard. Then I draw a big smily mouth. It doesn’t look great, but I think maybe it does look better than before. Am I starting to feel something?

“What are you doing, Lettie!?”

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