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Sthassa cringed. Her belly was well full. She'd needed to lay for the past couple of weeks, and there hadn't been any good sites along the coast. She was getting tired from the constant looking, though her mate Lyppeor had given her a welcome respite by offering to scout ahead. She swore she could feel the wyrmlings inside, their curious and tenuous psychic vibings feeling for the outer world.

Likely, they'd all be males. Too long inside her hot body. Well for them – the nesting sites were all taken this year, and she and 'Eor had to go a bit farther afield. It hasn't been a gentle journey, and her spawn would be disadvantaged. Though, she knew, if they could find a nest far enough out, they'd be fed better and possibly outpace their peers.

“Stha," came the rumble. The sleek, silver-yellow image of her mate, elongated and flicking his tail to cut through the surf, found her mind. “There's a likely spot! Only about ten miles swim. We'll be off the coast. Bay in a tiny islet. Plenty of vegetation and kelp. Lots of little munchthings for our brood." She felt his excitement, palpable, through the vibing.

“'Eor, that's lovely. I hope you know exactly where I'm to drop. I'll surely bust if I have to go another day." Her heavy anxiety of the pseudopregnant carry of her eggs thrummed back, a greyish sharp tinge to the vibe.

'Eor sent back ceruleans and dark mossy browns. Concern, sadness, worry. “I'll be there in a minute. Can you see?"

Sthassa raised her head up, neck as long as a palm trunk. She indeed saw the ripple of light as he pushed water before him, two raised plumes of water flying from each side of the stabilising crest he'd raised to keep the current from pushing him. He was hauling haunch from the look of it. The warm golds, reds, and whites of love for her partner overfilled her own fatigue and impressed themselves through the vibe. No words necessary. The reverberating violets and indigos of his own affection echoed through her mind like a kaleidoscope.

Lyppeor drew up closer to the coastline, deploying his webbed ruffs and crests for a major hydrobrake, sending spray all up with foam in huge white flecks. He stretched his legs and touched into the sand, extending his head up above the waves as he walked up and in. He was truly handsome – lithe and lean at the front, arrowlike, with a broad tail and powerful quarters to drive his hindlegs. He flicked his webbing, and it went from a white to a deep rose pink as it flooded with blood for cooling. He breathed deep, not bothering to take up his nictating membranes.

“I came fast as I might, Stha," he rumbled. “Do you need a push in?"

Oh, thank the venerable elders – “Does a mako shit in the ocean? 'Eor, you are a blessing. I'm fat and tired, and these eggs need down." She shifted her legs in the sand, preparing to get traction beneath her talons. When 'Eor had nestled his head comfortably against her spine, they vibed together, their strength and bodies coordinated as one to be gentle with the cargo within and still heft the bulk of her largeness.

“Don't say it." Of course, it was impossible to hide anything through a deep vibing. She'd already seen the way she looked in his mind. He was obviously caricaturing her features, half-playfully, half male fantasy. She was larger as was the female's provision in life, and in the ghost-image he held her hips were incredibly full, her belly distended, her webbing rose red as her tail lashed; her heat-scent of sun-baked stone and kelp raft came through pungently.

“I wouldn't dare, Stha," 'Eor lilted. Cleverly. He was deferent and subservient, as a good male in his place would be. He knew the matriarchs dominated laying time, and he was well-worth his smaller size for his social craft. He sent energy for the final push, and she lifted herself up and forward out of the sand with her tummy barely scraping the surface of the sand until, blessedly, the water took her. Her membranes lowered so that she could swim without peril.

She felt like a baleenkin; all torpedoed and bloated, unable to turn on any corner, her mass making her distinctly ungraceful and slow. And again, Lyppeor sent his love. He glid through before her, aligning his body one and a half lengths before her and breathing as their vibing stabilised. She felt surer, calmer, as he projected his confidence and readied himself to cut the slipstream. With his hindlegs raised up and clamped sideways against his tail, forearms clamped under his chest, he flicked his tail.

The suction created by his motion forward combined with the coordination in their vibing made ease for Stha to get speed. She felt the heaviness of the eggs rubbing inside her, the shells calcified to some degree due to the sheer length of time she'd waited. There was a relief in being nearto weightless on the sea, carried partly by his force, and it was all cemented in the primal Love that drove all things to life and living.

The journey passed relatively quickly. 'Eor made gradual changes in course, having come this way and having the feel for the currents so they would not have to change unduly much. Blessings upon blessings. She hoped to name their first Lyppeot, for him and his strength, courage, and diligence. She held that part of the vibing back as best she could, impressing it towards the wyrmlings. There was frission in it; vibings did not do well to be resisted so, and she nearly fell back out of his slipstream. He'd notice, of course, and he also knew that privacy of mind was sacred, even when two or more beings vibed as they did.

The spot was glorious. She felt the anticipation as they'd neared, and nothing could mar the unexpected and welcomed perfection. As promised, there was an ocean inlet to a tiny bay that meant the nest would be sheltered from high weather and large predators who weren't partly amphibious. Whatever lived in that bay would be well consumed and dare not the hunger of a mama wyrm and her mate.

She made it to the channel, feeling heavy and lethargic as cramping overtook her guts. She clawed into the mud, swaying gently as the tide wanted to push her further up, and the survey was crucial. She elongated her neck outward, flicking her tongue into the water for the taste. Some of these things didn't have precision; they were dealt with by her instincts, going back all the way to the first dragons who had made their way without the Tongue to have words for guidance and existed only as the dim, dark impressions of appropriateness.

“There." She raised a forearm and pointed, espying an attachment of kelp to the floor of the bay that was a bit thicker and shadier than the rest. Her younglings didn't need more heat or light; already they would be hard creatures and stiff from the long wait inside. Suppleness was crucial to the ocean life, and having a measure more than they would now would benefit more than the hardness they'd needed for the landed cycle of their life.

Lyppeor didn't need direction. He simply drifted out into the bay, shielding himself as he broke the vibing with a hard snap to the connection. It physically HURT, and they'd need to be separate if he was going to make it safe. The dark aura of fear projected out from him, and it would not reach her or the eggs. It would scare off all the fauna which would otherwise interrupt or poison the few delicate hours that the eggs finished.

The pain was impetus. The torn feeling of being emptied of the love they shared aggravated the cramping in her body, and Sthassa bellowed underwater, a great roar that shook the bay itself like a bell as the sonic reflections echoed back to her. She shot to the soft, silty spot, driven mad with mother's instincts and pure animal rage for feeling ATTACKED. Nothing prepared any sea dragon for the feelings of laying, and there was always a risk of real harm in lashing out. The vibing they'd shared beforehand would have had to have been strong to prevent reprisal, hopefully imprinting enough on the both of their brains that when the Animal rose up, they'd both come back whole.

Wholer, really, for the family they'd share.

Stha took no mercy for the kelproots which dangled down, filled with bladders of air for buoyancy as she tore them to make a hole enough to get centered, rising for a single, steaming breath of air before diving straight down. The mud took some clawing away of sand to get to it, and when she felt, she nosed around, smoothing it as she continued digging with her haunchlegs, spinning in a slow circle until she'd emptied a small bowl of seafloor that would be the correct size.

She coiled into a loop, the next exactly her body length from nose to tailtip. Some ancient instinct that made it perfect; full circle, from birth to birth that would be mirrored from death to death, when her young would come through the kinvibing to eat her body when she passed and arrange the bones. She squat into the mud, feeling her vent mere inches from the coolness of the bay floor.

Exquisite relief and agony wracked her as her insides clenched in new ways, guiding an egg from the oviduct down the passage. Strong as she was, the muscles were hard and corded, and the size of the egg challenged her body to give. The hardness of the precalcified shell did not make it any easier, and she screamed, her webbing fully extended and steaming bubbles of boiling water trailing up from her exposed cooling surfaces. She grunted, gripping into the mud for bite and pushed.

The egg came slowly, the bluntness of the fat end finally passing through her vent and then the sheer ecstasy of having passed it. The water steamed and boiled about it, what little softness and give the shell had left departing as the shell cooled on exposure to the water. This egg, the first, would be the strongest. Lyppeot – he'd have a harder shell to come out of. The hot water would delay the hardening of the other shells as she'd lay the entire clutch, and some of that plasticity would never quite come out of the later.

She rotated, being careful to raise her tail up as she moved leftways around the ring so she did not scrape the tail against the shell. Again, the squat, each egg needing more delicacy and precision than the last for avoiding touching, greater energy and care even after her reserves became more and more depleted. Another roar, another burst of boiling water. Ecstasy and delight as her body expelled her egg, the Love feeling growing as her rage channeled into it. She could not come up for breath; she had to make it on the one until all of her quad were dropped.

Again, the rotation. Her vision blackened, and her limbs were sluggish and feeble. She did not feel the responsiveness of her body as she knew it, felt as if she were beginning to coil up into her birthegg again. The squat, the cramping, the roar, the boiling, and the ecstasy as she dropped her third. She was weak, and geometric spots swam across her view, the world becoming a disconnected panoply of sounds, tastes, and touch feelings.

Last egg. She squat, feeling deflated and empty after the long fatness of growing her eggs, spent from her energy, quavering and wobbly as her long time carrying was coming to an end. The lack of air was getting to her, and the only instincts she had left were to maintain all balance to avoid crushing her new young. The last one, oddly, she almost did not feel. She could taste blood on the water, and she felt fear – fear she had failed, fear that her brood would not make it, fear that it was her time. Raw fear, nameless fear, the abject horrifying fear of the darkness beyond the lightness and the lovelessness behind the Love coming to swallow her up before the final, precious function was complete.

At last, though, her last had dropped. The eggs were nestled up in the mud, and the boiling water did her no favours – she was overheated, deoxygenated, depleted of food and there was only the blood taste…

The Fear became the largest dark spot in her vision, growing beyond the fading blackness of it, and the most primal, ancient part of her recognised it: Predator.

The bite of teeth about her neck was the last thing she remembered before her awareness passed.

***

Lyppeor nosed his broodmate as she woke in the shallows. “Stha? Swiftheart?" He felt the utter confusion palpate through the vibing. Still preverbal, although she'd be back to it momentarily. “Stha, my greattail, my swiftheart?"

Sthassa raised her head slowly, growling. “I feel like I haven't eaten in a decade." She gasped, shock spiking through the vibing. “The wyrmlings!"

“You choked out for a second. Those eggs were much too hard. You're torn a bit, but far as I can tell, you're a mama now. It is done." He nosed her, his webbing extended and flushed rose. “I am proud of you."

She calmed immediately, settling into a low-energy contentment as the colours of her unsettled emotions fell away. “Oh… Lyppeor, you are a rare find in a male." She nosed him back, her own webbing flushing pink before falling back against her head in a shiver. “You'd be rarer still if you could find me a meal."

The sly, knowing wave of his flap decried his knowledge of their vibing all too well. Of course he had food. Whyever for would she have thought otherwise?

[TBC?]