Page 12 of Mama

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke, but I was lying here watching you sleep, and I realized I had never gotten you a bonding gift, and I had the perfect idea. Here.” He brings one hand out from behind his back, and in it is the most beautiful bunch of flowers.

“Oh, they are gorgeous.” I reach out and take them from him. They are cold, wet, and hard. “These aren’t flowers, are they?” I ask, marveling at the large, shimmery pink and purple blooms shaped very much like a cross between hollyhocks and tulips.

“No. They are a special coral that grows deep within the ocean. They get their color from a species of fish that brush against them to keep clean. The shimmer is from their scales. They will never die. If you put them in a vase at home and top the vase up with ocean water every few days, they will live continuously so you can take them back to Skarr and on the ship with us when the circus resumes. They are another thing my parents deal in. Their everlasting toosook flowers are renowned galaxy wide.”

“I love them, thank you.” I place them on another small box that is on the floor for storage to give him a kiss, but before I can, he brings his other hand out from behind his back. He opens his fist, and rolling around on his palm are three of the most beautiful blue pearls.

“These are lemug. They are very much like a pearl from Earth in that they grow inside the shell of a sea creature. Krakens use them as tokens of affection for their loved ones. My mother has a blue lemug for every child she and dad have had. She’s had them strung into a bracelet, and I thought we could start the same tradition.”

My heart melts, and I instantly forgive him for not being here when I woke up. “I think that sounds like a wonderful idea.”

“Come on, you must be starving. How about we head back to the house and go out for dinner?”

“Dinner?”

“Yes, we’ve been down here for over twenty-four hours, so you must be starving.”

“Oh, I don’t know, you kept me fairly well fed,” I tease, winking. His eyes heat, and he steps toward me, reaching for me again, but I hold up a hand. “Hold up, mister. You’re not wrong about me feeling starved,” I say, and suddenly my whole stomach rolls like it’s agreeing with me. This is no light flutter of butterfly wings either, this is like a stampede of hungry wildebeests. “Oh!” I grab my bump and look down in amazement. “They moved.”

He hurries over, his tentacles flailing wildly in his excitement, and passes the lemug into my hand so he can put his own over my stomach.

“Hello, my little babies,” he croons to them, and I can practically feel their joy at hearing his voice. My stomach rolls again, and he jumps before beaming, tears of joy glistening in his eyes.

“They heard me. They recognize their daddy.”

“Of course they do, because they have their mommy’s smarts. Am I allowed to shift now that this is all a go?” I wave in the direction of the bump, but he still has his head pressed against it as he whispers words to the babies, so he doesn’t even pay attention to me. I sigh. I’d give him another minute, but then I’d likely shift into my kraken and eat him.

“Cas, honey. I really need to eat, I’m getting hangry. Well, actually, I think she is, and she’s not opposed to eating you.”

Cas pulls back from my stomach and looks at me in horror. “Your kraken is hungry? What about blood? Do you need any of that?”

“Hmm, very,” I confirm while I think about the blood question. “No, I drank plenty of blood earlier, so I’m good for a while.”

“Okay, let’s go.” He doesn’t hesitate to grab my hand and drag me back to the exit. I clasp my pearls in one hand and look back at my coral flowers. “Leave them. I’ll come back and get them once we feed you.” He sounds panicked, and I giggle a little. “You can shift into half form, that will be fine. You need to do that when it’s time to lay the eggs in the ocean anyway.”

“That won’t happen now, will it?” I hesitate, but he shakes his head.

“Nope. They have to stay inside for at least three weeks, and after that, you will get the urge to swim again.”

“Okay. Lead the way, my love,” I tell him, shifting slowly, but my body is fine, and when I look down, I smile when I see my swollen belly sitting above my tentacles. “I’m starving.”

Lila

On our trip back through the ocean, I make Caspian show me the shipwreck I hadn’t gotten to see earlier. It’s an old wooden boat much like early ships from Earth. We all seem to have formed a similar timeline, though this boat is much older. Fluxx and Skarr have been far more advanced than Earth for hundreds of years. He told me the reason it is still there and not rotted away is because the water on Fluxx has preservative properties, so everything is as it was the day it sank.

It was fascinating swimming through the below deck rooms. The captain’s cabin even had clothes still in the wardrobe that were so perfectly preserved, I could have pulled one out and put it on.

“How did it sink?” I ask him when we finally make it back to the cliff face, bobbing in the water as Cas shows me how to climb up to the alcove. I watch his movements, seeing where he puts his hands and how he uses his tentacles to get himself up there, and copy exactly what he does. I grimace when my larger than normal stomach scrapes across one of the rocks. As soon as he makes it to the ledge, he turns around and reaches down to help me. Grateful, I take his hand and allow him to pull me up.

“Nobody is sure. The crew that survived didn’t even know.”

“It looks like one of your kraken ancestors had a hissy fit and smashed a hole in its side,” I tease him, and he shrugs.

“Maybe, but the crew claimed it was a different kind of beast, one without tentacles and more reptile-like, but we don’t have any other big predators like that in the ocean, or at least not ones big enough to destroy a boat like that.”

“What about the water dragon?” That was certainly big enough to destroy a ship.

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Did you hit your head on the rocks on the way up?” he asks, feeling around my head for a lump. I slap his hand away.

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