FSE

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With shuddering twitches Tomoko began to grow. Greater and greater it swelled, its wings creaking as they flared enormously wide. Its back broadening, dragging the size of its tail and neck along with it. Spines began to erupt from its neck and its tail until there were seven in mismatched rows down its tail. Seven more arrayed in a row down its craning neck with its spinal fin split from head to shoulder into two rows. New fins, unlike any I had seen on a child of the egg yet, erupted from its back and ran parallel to the spinal fin from shoulder to tail tip. Other fins erupted from the back of each of its legs and along both sides of its bottom jaw. Its scales began to lengthen, growing longer and longer even as the ends faded to translucence. I was surprised to see many scars running amongst the scales, some for meters in great slashes, and others circular and bare of scale. Looking at its spines I could see that some were noticeably shorter than others, chipped and cracked as if damaged.

A cape appeared, with a heavy collar of some greyish metal clasped about its neck. Running between the wings the fabric thickened with a satiny sheen and ran like water to cover its rump and hide the base of its tail.

And still Tomoko grew. Now towering above me, it was far and away the largest child of the egg I had ever seen, heard of, imagined. I had no idea we could grow so large. How could such a creature exist in this gravity? Its head enlarged as the neck beneath thickened to support its weight. Flaring outwards, its ears suddenly became pierced through with several loops of the same grayish metal as the collar. At the bottom of one there was a glimmer of light catching on something, but the ear snapped closed with a metallic jangle and it was lost from sight. Tomoko closed its eyes and beneath the lids there was a flash of light. At the same time, silver markings began to fade into existence all across its shoulders, down its back, and along the visible portions of its legs. Sitting back on its haunches I noticed Tomoko's hindquarters shiver violently and a crease formed in the scales beneath its hips as it acquired a sex. It was now a she. She raised her bowed head until it soared imperiously seven or eight meters above our raised and startled ones. As she did, I began to recognize some of the patterns on her shoulders. I heard Tom gasp, even as I crept backwards shaking my head in disbelief.

"No...No, no, no, no, no, no..."

She opened her eyes to train the emerald green orbs down upon me cowering before her and twisted her snout into a smirk. With a titanic voice that made all of us shiver to our cores, I heard myself speak.

"Hello, me."

"Tomoko, what have you done?"

"She cannot hear you. She is holding open this bridge so that I may speak to you." My self thundered tremendously in response. Good gods, even my voice was overwhelming.

"Are...are you really..."

"493 years from now you will look as awesome as I do." The creature in front me said with a grin that doubled in size.

"Oh, it's you." Tom declared bobbing his head up and down with finality. "There is no way that isn't you. Because if there is another...God be with us."

The piercing gaze of my future shifted towards Tom. The wry twist of her snout straightened into an impenetrable look that I couldn't have cracked if I had thrown a JDAM at her. Not a sign, not a smell as to what she was thinking or feeling. After several minutes of being stared at by this colossus without a word Tom shrank and began to back further away. For once I wouldn't have called him a coward for his actions, the enormous pressure she was exerting with her gaze alone was suffocating and unbearable.

"Um... If I've said something to piss you off..."

Her head turned back to me, so slowly that I could hear the large scales covering her neck rub and whisper against each other. There was no longer any sense of emotion in her face or her bearing.

"My apologies, you have provided no offense." She lowered her head, and I almost ran from the approaching nose.

"Do not be afraid." She sniffed deeply, making my fins tremble. "You are hungry." She sat back as her eyes clouded with thought "...Yes, that is right...I was hungry, so very hungry when I awoke that day... After you eat we will speak."

She eased herself down, while I noticed that she moved with a stiffness that could only come from age, until she was on her stomach to wait it out. As she lounged her wings began to open, allowing her cloak to spread revealing another band holding it across her hips, until they lay fully extended next to her. I was staggered by her wingspan which was simply and completely unbelievable, one hundred and ten meters or thereabouts if I had to guess. Combined with her height which had to be 13-15 meters I just had no idea how such a creature could sustain itself. How much did she eat? How was her own weight not crushing her? How could she possibly fly?

"I understand if you wish to discuss my appearance and the confusion it causes. You may do so without any concern for causing me to take offense with what you say. Asuka, anata ga kowai nodeareba shazai shimasu. Shinpaishinaide kudasai."

Holding her head high she closed her eyes and began to hum softly to herself. From there, she didn't twitch a single scale. Finally... I finally have proof that at some point in my future I master my impulsive nature.

"Um...present Kim. Your food is ready." Alex said, after a minute to find his marbles. I felt for him, my own marbles felt like they had escaped my head and fled into the woods.

Pouncing on the tub, I began to inhale the soup in neck full swallows. Using my tongue to scoop out the whole potatoes, onions, and other vegetables along with the clumps of meat. Between bites I tried to spur the conversation on when no one said a thing. Instead they seemed content to stare at their paws/feet.

"So...what do you think?"

"You know she can hear us right?"

"...And?"

"Well, you don't normally plan in front of the enemy."

"Enemy? Why the fuck is my future self an enemy? Why, because I'm physically intimidating almost 500 years from now?"

"But... It could be Thumper or Tomoko fucking with us..." Alex said, hesitantly.

"It certainly could be, but it is not." The watching Prometheus said. "Kim wanted reassurances about her children and family, which is understandable. And given her importance, it was decided that this was the most expedient way of doing that. So, here you are to speak with you about the wellbeing of your children."

"Why would you do this? Could you not just brainwash me into believing the outcome that I hope for? Is this real, or is this a massive deception? Why is Tomoko doing this if this is real? Why didn't it just answer my questions itself?"

"The fact that you continue to refer to her as an it, is all the answer I need provide. By your actions you show the usefulness of this sequence."

"How are you able to pull someone from the future, when you can't even fully predict it? And why all the theatrics? Why didn't she just appear?"

"500 hundred years is well within our chronal horizon. You must remember however, that she is only from one future. There is an infinite number of futures. Tomoko has merely connected to one with an exceptionally high likelihood. Lastly, it is more likely that you would have believed yourself if you saw Tomoko become you. Tomoko wished to show what changes to your body are to come."

"With respect sir, are you informing us that Tomoko has brought Kim from the future?" Asuka asked

"Not quite, Tomoko has merely created a vessel identical to Kim's body 493 years from now. The bridge is merely to allow the electrical impulses from her mind at that time to interact with and control what amounts to a puppet. Solid matter is much more difficult to create a bridge for than massless particles."

"And future Kim is okay with this?" Tom asked.

"Tomoko has approached her to relay the difficulties that you are facing, this was her solution that we implemented for her. She is in a meditative state much like she is before you."

"My future wife can't speak for herself?"

"She can, but obviously she has chosen not to. She is well aware of the consequences of unnecessary interaction with her past. The Kim that has come to you is much changed from the one you know."

Busily inhaling my stew, I listened as they questioned the circumstances of this interaction. The questions in my own mind ranged a little bit differently. I had evidently made it through this crisis to old age. But why the scarring? Why did I seem so fixated on Tom yet gave nothing away? Just what does happen to my children, both human and of the egg? Why the overbearing and aloof attitude? What the fuck happened to me? I eyed my stoic form. You don't get scars like that from being an overzealous librarian. That's for sure. I'd obviously been in combat, but where, and when? From where I sat, enjoying my meal, I could even see the remains of the three knotted puckers from where I had just been shot. I could tell by the odd manner that the new scales had regrown around the old wounds.

I heard a surprised hissing noise from my shelter and my nearest eye rolled around to see Haruto staring up at our new guest with wide, frozen eyes. Crouching down, he warily slunk towards his wife, never once taking his eyes off future me, until he was alongside her and then they began to talk rapidly in Japanese. Apparently, he was being brought up to speed.

"Why is she here then?" Haruto asked after this quick brief.

Finished slurping the rest of the soup up as I tipped the tub into my mouth to lick the cauldron and my jaws clean, with a monstrous belch I then replied.

"For me. I started to ask questions Tomoko didn't feel comfortable answering. So here I am to answer my questions about the future of my family. Hopefully, which are happy ones."

Belying my calm reply, inside I was bound up like a snake tied into a knot. I wanted...I needed to hear this reassurance. Tomoko was right to do this...That is, if there was no subterfuge at foot. You never could fully trust these aliens. But ultimately, what was the difference between a lie and the truth when they had the power to remake reality?

"So, what do we do now?" Alex asked.

Tom and I looked at each other and then Asuka and Haruto, we all shrugged.

"Well, obviously you try to get her attention." Allie suggested.

"Okay, go ahead." I invited her.

"Fuck you Kim! How about one of you four do it? At least it'll take her more than one bite to eat you when you startle her!"

"Or you could just ask her." The much talked about subject rumbled as her eyes slid open. "But really, it was humorous to listen to you debate about who was to rouse me from my meditations. Do I really scare you all so?" She looked at me. "Do I scare even you? My very self? I do not remember being such a coward at this time."

Oh, no... Bitch, it is game time now. My mouth parted as my lips raised into a snarling, spitting expression of wrath.

She didn't look particularly impressed. In fact, she almost looked amused. But as before it was hard to tell, and impossible to smell.

"Hmmm."

As swift as lightning her paw flashed outwards and touched my back. I preemptively shrieked in horror for the pain I was expecting, but there was none. Her paw had stopped the moment it had touched my spinal fin. Then, it began to caress me along my spine, leaving me more confused than ever as my growl died in my throat.

"Yes... Let me see what I was then... That is who I remember being. Not the old restrained female I am now."

That's a good joke. There was nothing old about the movement she had just made. She could have crushed me without a thought, but instead stopped a paw and a leg that could have weighed thousands of kilograms with pinpoint precision.

"It seems that you have filled yourself and are full of piss and vinegar once more, now it is our time to be together. Kim, please, I ask that you fly with me. I wish to speak with you, alone." She rose to stretch herself out before raising the many folds of her wings to her back and turning away. Sparing one look at Prometheus, an unspoken message passed between them, and he bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"But..."

"Alone." She rumbled, facing away from us with her tail giving a sharp downward slash to the right, the sound travelling through the ground and up my legs like the slow vibrations of an earthquake. Tom immediately silenced his objections.

Her wings began to extend, cloaking the yard in darkness as they unfurled on and on until at last their full spread was revealed. I hadn't noticed before, but the nails on the tip of each of her wing fingers had been polished. It wasn't a bad look at all. Maybe I should have someone do that. Did I give myself that idea? Is that a paradox?

She reared backwards and braided steel cords of muscle in her massive legs and tail flexed to push against the ground with tremendous force. Leaving behind the impressions from which she had launched as she circled my...our home and waited patiently for me. I saw Allie step forward to look at the marks in the yard, using the oar for a measure I saw that her paw prints were a third of the oar handle deep.

I looked at Tom and gave him a weak and strained smile along with a forced laugh. I wasn't scared of very much. But frankly, I was fucking terrifying.

Jumping aloft, the wind filled my wings and I circled up to her altitude as she pivoted on one wing tip without a sound and headed in a direction that I knew well. The lake where Tom and I had made love just the other night.

I reveled in the feeling of him from that night as we winged our way through the autumn sky. My beats three to every one of her massive ones. Not a word was spoken between us. Just the rustling of our wings and of her cape in the cool afternoon air. We were halfway there, with me reliving a particularly vibrant moment with Tom, when suddenly she made a deafening whoop of what almost sounded like joy and dived to accelerate herself into a corkscrewing upwards spiral. Tumbling head over tail she snapped her wings out and slowed her plummet upside down before folding one to roll her belly to the ground again and resume normal flight. No explanation was given, and I asked for none.

I smelled the water before we reached it and looking below saw that there were a few people walking around the water's edge. Future me saw them off by closing her wings and slamming into the center of the lake. Her massive weight clearing all water out of her way as I saw her talons lock into the muddy bottom before the water returned to submerge her halfway up her sides. Holy shit was she tall.

The hapless nature lovers walking the edge of the lake were swamped by the wave that was kicked up by my temporally displaced self and washed into the frigid water. She fished the five of them out one by one with her wing hand and then lowered her head to look at them closely.

"I apologize for interrupting your day. I hope that you have not been unduly disturbed. You will all find something worthwhile in your personal accounts as compensation. Go... And tell anyone you pass that I wish not to be disturbed."

Shivering and huddled against each, while also cowering in her immense shadow, they nodded and ran for their lives.

I landed and followed the fleeing humans with my head. "Y'all have a nice fucking day!" I roared after them cheerfully. I figured it would be about twenty minutes before some of them came back with others to shoot at us. "You could have just asked them to leave you know!" I told her, wondering at the odd way she politely asked them to leave. When I saw the gleam of mischief in her eye, I had the answer to my tacit question.

"They won't." She said instead, answering my unvoiced concern. "One of them will succumb to curiosity and check her bank account. Her excitement will induce the others to as well. None of them will be back to bother us."

"How the hell did you do that? How the fuck are you reading my mind as well. Or... Wait... Did this happen to you as well when you were me now?"

Her chuffing laughter made the lake ripple around her and slosh over its banks. "I told the Guides to. I know myself, and I can tell what you are thinking just by the expressions in your eyes. As for me having met myself, by interacting with you I have created a new branch of time that includes me having met me. In my timeline I had not met me."

My eyes whirled in confusion. "Stop, please god, just stop. I can't handle all these personal pronouns. How do you know what will happen anyway?"

She chuffed laughter once more but did not answer. Sobering, she trod through the water which parted before her in waves. As soon as she had stridden on to land, a violent twitch of her hide from nose to tail sent a solid cloud of water into the air around her. As this rained to the ground it revealed that she was as dry as she had been before her plummet. Remarkably, her cape was as dry as she was.

"You'll have to teach me that, and what is that cape made out of?"

No answer came to my question and request as she paced by me, my head only three quarters of the way up her flank. It was the first time I had felt small since my transformation.

Curling into a half moon, she folded her rear legs and collapsed to the ground in a wave along her body. The shuddering of the ground as her weight fell to it made the water ripple once more.

"How much do you weigh anyway?"

"Come lay with me young one." She ignored my question and raised her wing invitingly to reveal her side. "We have much to talk about."

I raised a fore leg to approach her, and then put it down once more without moving. "I...I don't... I don't know..."

She looked at me with her eyes gleaming, and she spoke one word. A name. "Shadi"

"No! How do you know that name? That isn't possible!"

Her eyes peered into mine searchingly. Emerald gazing into emerald. "I know that I am smart Kim. Why are you asking me questions that you already know the answer to?"

"But..." I couldn't accept that this was really me. Until now I had though this a game of Tomoko's. This couldn't be true. She couldn't... How did she know that name? How could she know that name? Was Tomoko, was fucking Thumper, reading my mind again?

"Tomoko, Thumper, and the others can only read minds in a very small way. They can only tell what you are actively thinking at the time that their attention is upon you by sensing electrical and chemical signals. Since I know you have no reason to have ever thought about our friend, they would not know of her. There are no tricks here Kim. I was you, and you will be me. Shadi is the name that you had given the big sister that you had never had. The big sister that you always wished for. For you, I will be Shadi. I will be your big sister. Please young one. I want to see you happy. I want to see your doubts, your worries, and your fears, laid to rest."

Her scales opened, and for the first time, her emotions were expressed. Love and a sense of invitation rolled over me. While my resistance crumbled before this sensation, myriad other scents enveloped me. Belonging, comfort, understanding, acceptance, and belief. All of these overrode my inhibitions and took me back to a time that I had covered myself in my blankets. To a time when I had covered myself and talked to a sibling that I had never had. To a sibling that I had so desired.

"Are you... Please.... Please don't... I... Don't ask me... Don't ask me to... I can't... Please!" I finished with a small squeak of pleading that did not fit my hulking frame.

"Kim, I was strong, just as you are. But do not close this part of you away anymore. Talk to me. Open your concerns to me. Be better than I was. Be better than I am. Tom will always be our mate, our love, our light. But he can never be your sister. I offer you a chance to open up to someone that knows you like no one else."

Her scales began to ripple in short cascading bursts while her scent changed rapidly, intensifying the feeling of love emanating from her. The smell of her yearning to comfort enticing me forward until my forehead bumped against her throat. Ultrasonic rumbling ran through our point of contact into me as her great wings swept forward to engulf me.

Under their cover, I was once more the little girl under her blankets speaking to Shadi. Once more I was four years old and talking to an imaginary sister that had now come to me from five hundred years in the future. I wanted this so badly, that I did not, could not, care if it was real or not.

My eyes burned as I raised my tear stained muzzle to look up at hers pleadingly and whispered.

My sister... Please tell me it will be alright. Please tell me... Please tell me my children will never blame me for what I became. That my children will always love me... I... Big sister...

A wailing cry tore itself from my long throat, ripping it apart as my shout blared from my open and gasping mouth. Horror shook me as I waited for the last echoes of my scream to die down, horror at what the answer that I sought might be.

Bowing her head, she tilted mine upwards with one of her fingers and delicately licked my nose clean of tears. The rush of her heated breath upon my snout, the feeling and warmth of her body against mine, the smell of her encouraging love, made me relax centimeter by centimeter. Until at last I lay curled into a small coil, sheltered against the curve of her body, with her head next to mine, and both of us covered by her protective wings. As I shivered convulsively, battered by wave after wave of emotion washing over me, the gentle sound of a cooed melody began to thrum through my body. One that I frequently hummed for my children, both as a human and as a child of the egg. Now it was being used to comfort me. I began to hum in tune, bolstering her seismic ululations with my meager ones.

I want you to look at this. She folded a wing and used her tail to sweep the fabric of her cape forward until I could see it. This...this is a very special material. I want you to look closely at it. I want you to smell it. I want you to taste it. I want you to feel it. Do you know who gave this to me? Our Luke, our Lucy, our Irma. This is a result of their life's work. I want you to bite it as hard as you possibly can, I want you to try as hard as you possibly can to tear it.

I reeled in horror at her suggestion. But... This is...

Do it! She demanded. Little sister I want to show you that nothing is stronger than the love of one's children! Bite! Tear! Prove their love to me! Prove their love to yourself!

I did as she demanded and latched onto the silky material. Feeling it flow unbroken between the hardened surfaces of my teeth. Jerking backwards with all my strength I attempted again and again to find some weakness in the love of a child for their parents. I snarled and I thrashed, and I roared until at last I lay panting before me elder self. She, despite the savagery of my test, had remained unmoved with indomitable strength. The cape and collar, just as flawless as at the start.

Never once had her conviction failed her. Never once had doubt creased her snout. Her belief in the love of her children was as absolute as the strength of the display of that love.

Bringing the cape upward with her tail, she let it flow like water over the limb, with the look and smell of sadness making me croon in sympathy. This is the strength of my children's love for me. I loved them, I protected them, and I helped them to lead lives that led to new love, to new life. Because I loved them, and they loved me, I protected those lives, and those loves. That, I am afraid, is a gift that I cannot show you. That is the greatest expression of their love, and their trust, that I can possibly receive.

Do you understand? This cape is what I can show to others to demonstrate the conviction of those that I had raised. But here.Her tail blurred forward and impaled her chest, just above her heart, with a meter-long spike and a sickening thump and screech of bone upon bone that she endured without flinching while I did not. here is where I hold what truly matters to me. In my heart I hold my children's love and pay it the homage it deserves with their protection. All of them. Young one, their love is what has made me great. She opened her sheltering wings to flare them widely, more than spanning the width of the lake we lay beside. I have grown because of their love. I am awesome, because their love is equally awesome.

My body collapsed with relief. It helped so, so much for me to hear that. To hear that spoken in my words, my voice. I closed my eyes even as tears leaked from them once more.

Thank you big sister.

Her smell grew and then came the feeling of her nose nudging mine. I felt the soft caress of her tongue running across the sensitive scales of my face and the tough pebbly hide around my eyes. The fiery hurricane flowing from her nostrils struck mine and I opened my eyes to reveal the enormity of hers looking back at me with bottomless emotional depth.

Little sister...anything for you. Our children depend on it. You could even say...

She lifted a front paw and twirled it meaningfully. I waited for the punch line that I knew I would say.

...My life depends on it!

Her cackling roar of mirth drowned out my own as we collapsed against each other and she held me within the embrace of her wings.

For hours I talked with my self on topics ranging far and wide while I was little spoon to her big. She was always very careful not to reveal much (anything really) about my future. But was quick to share with me insight that she had gained or just to provide another angle on our shared experiences. Holding me tightly and cooing sympathetically to each other as I made us relive the awful hours of feeling our children change within us. My crippling doubt at what I was now. My terror that my children would one day reject me. Fear that the children I would soon nurture into this world would never be accepted by my human ones. Or that my hatched children would reject my human ones. My whimpers as I tried to grapple with the fact that I would watch my human babies grow old and die while I hardly changed at all.

She held me while I brought up and gave voice to each of my concerns. Each of my fears. Every time I tried to make half truthful statements, she told me not to fucking lie to her. Every time I tried to shy away from saying something I didn't want to but needed to say she gave an intense elemental growl that prodded me forward. Whenever I told her I didn't want to bring up something to Tom for fear of seeming weak she called me a foolish dumbass child.

Tom... How we talked about Tom... She strove to drive home just how much Tom meant to us. A truth I said I didn't need reminded of. In response, she cuffed the back of my head with a great paw making me recoil from her warily. I looked up at her with stunned eyes as hers narrowed into ones of anger.

You hear but you do not listen young one. I can and will help you with what Tom cannot ever understand. Tom will never get to know the feeling of carrying life within himself. But Tom is you... Tom is me...

Her scales sealed shut and all of the smell of her emotions evaporated as an unreadable expression entered her eyes. Pointing with her snout into the air I followed it to see two great wing spans high in the sky. It was the third time since we'd been here. It was Tom and one of the others checking on me. To make sure this giant that I lay next to had not eaten me. Tom... What would I ever do without you? I weighed her last words and how to proceed without driving her to do something that might kill me.

Please tell me I was with him at the end.

Her head snapped downwards to look at me with slitted pupils and flaring nostrils pointed fixedly at me. For several moments she froze me in place with this aggressive expression pinning me beneath its weight. Then, her pupils began to widen until her irises were almost completely swallowed and she looked away. A loud whine came from her that went on and on and on, making my fins and my body sag further and further as the minutes passed by. The sound abruptly cut off and her wing pressed me painfully tight against her body as it silently twitched.

Not long after he had given me his final gift. She answered my unspoken question first. And yes I was.

She swept her tail forward to show me the end. The seven spines I had seen before were naturally the most obvious. But seeing it closer revealed what she wished to reveal now. The eighth one that had just begun to emerge. She was pregnant.

It was the first time he has ever crossed the finish line before us. My light has left me behind and taken his place amongst the stars. I long for the day mine will join his. Together, there we will remain until time's flow has ceased and the world is no more.

A wracking sob travelled her colossal frame once, twice, and thrice. Then her body stilled, and her emotions calmed. She looked down at me as I attempted to comfort her in the sorrow that one day I would suffer as well.

There is no guarantee that this is how the twilight of your years will be.She said, the scent of the bittersweet duality of her words radiating from her body. I dearly wish young one that you never have to feel this abyss open inside of you. The love my children shower upon me knows no bounds. But Tom... Tom... Tommy... My heart burned in sympathy for her. I couldn't imagine what she was feeling right now. I had known Tom for only twenty-two years. She had known him for five hundred.

I am sorry young one. I should have not told you about the end for my Tom and I. That will not necessarily be yours. But... She raised her eyes until she could follow my Tom as he circled high above us. The sight and smell of him once more, so young and vibrant, has shaken me badly. She preened my fin silently for a moment as I waited and enjoyed the alien sensation of having the nerve rich membrane nibbled and licked at. Is there anything else you would like to get off your wings? I hope that I have helped you with the many things that weighed heavily on my mind in these days. This was something that I had always wanted, just a small thing that in time faded from notice as my life was filled with a mate and many children.

You have done more than I had ever hoped Shadi. Is there anything I can do for you? A bad meal I should skip? Some stocks I should invest in? She laughed and bent her head to nose at a large faded scar on her shoulder running beneath her wing. When you go to Boise to find the mother and her child, dodge right instead of left when she attacks you for getting too close to her son. This really hurts when we fly. Your life will be much better without it.

How did you get the rest of those scars? Some of them looked incredibly nasty.

She scowled as she looked herself over. DEWs.

DEWs? Rain drops?

Directed energy weapons. Not everyone is going to be happy with the changes to come.

Did you make them pay?

She smirked while flaring her wings and fins proudly. You bet your cute sweet tail little me.

Would you be willing to tell me what makes us so important that all this effort is put out for us?

She shook her wings out and then resettled them upon her back. Her neck then extended imperiously until it reached its full height and she raised her paw to place it against her chest. Opening her mouth as if she was about to say something important, she glance at me. Looking at my eager expression as my head began to weave back and forth energetically, she instead laughed and dropped her paw. Of course not, Great Mother. I felt my neck bow as my head retreated to its safe harbor against my chest in confusion and wings collapsed in disappointment. What kind of fucking answer is that? Great mother? What the fuck is that? Who is that? Was that a clue? I think I'm a great mother! Damn right!

She laughed at the dazed look on my snout. Come, it is time to take you back to our home. She rose and stretched herself out with a series of tremendous popping noises from her body and made a curious curling motion with her tail. When she launched, the blast from her wings filled my opening ones and yanked me off my paws with a startled wail. I scowled up at her as her thundering laugh erupted above me and then scrambled into the sky after her. Circling upwards we joined my mate and Hayate. Tom craned his head out to nuzzle me and ask me if I was alright, I told him.

"Never fucking better!"

I sure felt it too. I hadn't felt this light in...well since our change! I knew that my children would never turn their backs on me! What parent wouldn't feel on top of the world? Tom laughed as I soared above him, doing carefree spirals and flips around him while we flew to our house. I reveled in the feeling of free fall and the gale upon my face. Filling my lungs with the same wind that filled my wings I shouted in joy. My children! My mate! My flight! Fuck yeah! I was ecstatic!

As my future self's vast and steady wing beats led us home, and she was peppered with questions by Hayate that went unanswered except for non-verbal grunts, my joy bled into Tom and soon enough he joined me in my acrobatics.

Immediately upon landing I was swarmed by young of all species. Angie bounded toward me talking excitedly. Luke and Lucy ran eagerly into my equally eager embrace as I snuffled at them to fill my senses with their sight, smell, and feel. The youngest of the Suzuki children ran twice around my entire length before turning their sights onto future me with cries of: "Big! So big! Why so big? I learn!"

She looked around at everyone as they stared back at her in awe. "For those of you that are not of my family I count you among my dearest of friends. Especially you little one." She said, looking at tiny Angie.

"Me?" She squeaked, trying to hide behind her mom and making us all laugh.

She turned to look at Luke and Lucy, her eyes clouded with pain but she betrayed nothing beyond looking at me and them again, I nodded. Her head drifted until it had settled on Alex and a smile blossomed on her snout.

"Alex... You sacless rat cutting nerd. I know when I told you earlier that I'm over five hundred years old you knew what that meant for you." A smirk twisted his face and he nodded. "But what you have meant in our life is something that can never be forgotten or replaced. Would you please come closer?"

Without a moment's hesitation he approached the snout that he could have easily fit entirely within looming over him. That snout lowered until his hair danced in the rhythms of her breaths, and then her jaws cracked open for her to say something that was so silent that even I couldn't make it out with my remarkable hearing. He blushed and made a half-aborted turn to something behind him before stopping himself and facing her again. Instead he reached his hand up and placed it in front of one of her cavernous nostrils where she inhaled his scent and closed her eyes with a seismic rumble.

Moving on to Allie her eyes glowed with amusement and she spoke one word.

"Bitch."

Outraged, the tall Aussie recoiled before retaliating "Well fuck you, you fucking git!" The amused snort that came from my snout sent Allie into a tumble that only stopped when she ran into Alex whose blush deepened as he helped her to her feet.

She turned to look at the Suzukis and began to address them in their first tongue.

"Anata no y?j? wa watashi no kansha to onaji kurai mugendesu! Ido no kaeru wa umi o shiranai" They looked at each other with stunned amazement for a moment and then turned their heads back to hers to sit back on their haunches and bow.

The earth grumbled as she sat back on her tail to return their bow before slamming her paws to the ground once more. Her head turned until it looked at Tom. From my position I could see her nearest eye stricken into a paper thin slit and then expand until it almost consumed it's iris before moving on, while she made not a sound. At last, looking at Prometheus, she nodded her head. It was time for her to go.

"Kim." Tom started, not oblivious to her intentional movement. Her head recoiled at the sound of his voice before turning back to look at him with a mixture of horror and profound sadness.

"Yes..." She stopped and collected herself, the mask falling back into place once more as her tail and the edges of her wings disappeared. "...Yes Tom?"

"Thank you, and I am sorry that I left you behind. I promise you that it won't happen to my Kim."

"Shadi..."

All of her blank manner bled from her like water, with my heart sinking as the expression and smell upon her did as well.

So he had guessed. Oh, I am so sorry Shadi. My eyes burned as she faded further from sight. Asuka and Haruto gathered their children against themselves as Tom and I did the same. The sadness in Shadi's eyes increased rapidly and she took in a deep trembling breath.

"Thank...thank you Tom. Please..." She sobbed once more as her mask shattered for the final time. "Make sure she never feels the way that I do now. Please... Young one you too, don't do this to each other... It hurts... It hurts so much..."

We sank the talons of our paws into our chests and bowed our heads low as rivulets of blood oozed across our scaled chests. "Never." We clasped tightly against each other even as our tears fell down our touching snouts and mixed to fall to the grass.

Her scales shivered as she began to mumble inconsolably and insensibly to herself. "I can feel you...You're so cold...Tom... I feel so empty... Why do you feel so cold? Tom... I can't... I can't hear your heart... Your heart has stopped Tom... I can't hear it... Why does it not beat alongside mine? I don't understand... Why did you leave me? Tom... Where did you go? Tommy? Tommy where are you? Tommy? Where is your light? Tommy...please?"

That was the last sight we ever had of the proud, broken, widow. It was her tear stained muzzle as it evaporated. With a whisper the last words we heard from my future self came to us on the gentle breeze that stirred across the yard.

"Remember your promises..."

From the air where her head had just disappeared a nearly transparent Tomoko dropped to the ground with a small thud.

"Oh! I am so tired!" Was all it managed to say before toppling onto its side and curled into itself while its eyes closed. Tomoko would not reawaken for days.

I didn't even have it in me to pay much attention to it. Tom and I just lay against each other and tried to grapple with what we had just witnessed, what I had talked about that day, and what it meant for us and our children.

Alex came forward to lead Tom and I to our shelter. Reeling from what had been relayed to us, we were in no shape to concern ourselves with much else at the moment. Not that I hadn't noticed Jerry and Laurence standing next to the one on guard. Fuck 'em. I, we needed some time. So, there we lay, talking in English when we wanted to include our young children. Talking in birdsong nonsense when we didn't. I don't think I'd ever felt so torn between soaring elation and crushing sadness over a single event.

"You should appreciate what it meant for her to come here. Your strength in the future knows no bounds Kim. When she volunteered she knew the pain it would cause her. But in doing this, she also knew how much it would mean to herself." Prometheus explained after we had immediately realized how sick, how fucking sick, it was for my future self to be brought to see Tom alive once more. "As profound as the sadness that she felt was, she will find comfort once more in the children that surround her. She will not be ready to rejoin her guiding light for 43 more years. You have a very long life ahead of you Kim."

I grimaced at that casual disclosure. Who the fuck wants to know exactly when they'll die?

I asked Alex to come get my children and take them to the house. He nodded, knowingly, and gestured for each of us to come closer. Luke hugged each of our noses, followed by Lucy, and then Alex.

"I love you mom and dad! I'm sorry that you made yourself sad!"

"Mom I love you, so much. Dad I love you too! Please stop crying..." Luke cried. "We love you!"

"I will be here for the both of you for as long as I am able. Tom and Kim, I love you both. One of you much more than the other." I pushed him with my snout and he held on to keep from being knocked over. "She was right, I don't ever want to see you go through what she was. Take as long as you need." They left followed along by my nose as I tried to keep my children's smell in it as long as I could. I would have rather they stayed with us but... But I needed to be alone with Tom. In their place the Suzuki family appeared. Hayate grabbed the curtain in his jaws and closed it as he and his parents laid themselves before the shelter to guard us from intrusion. A sliver of light appeared as Sora and Kazane entered with Tomoko on their back. They deposited it in our twin's room and then huddled together in a far corner watching us silently with wide open eyes.

Tom and I spent the rest of the day talking about what the future meant for each of us. What it meant for both of us. By the time we slept, the pillows beneath our heads were damp and cold with tears against scales that were burning with fiery resolve and devotion.

"I love you Kim, and your fight will always be my fight."

"I love you Tom, and your fight will always be my fight."

As we fell asleep the last thing we felt that day was Sora and Kazane escorting our twin children to our tear streaked muzzles.

...