Chapter 1- New Beginnings
A dragoness of middle age wakes up in the early morning as light from the rising sun flows through the entrance to her cave. She gets up, groaning happily as she stretches; first her hind legs, then her front, then her back and wings. She walks over to the side of the bed opposite of hers and lightly nudges the silver and gray dragon who lays there, his muzzle facing away from the opening of the cave, and as she pulls her forest green muzzle back, his kind, sky blue eyes meet her own olive green ones. They smile.
"Good morning, my mate." The silver dragon whispers as he begins to lift his head to the level of hers.
"Morning Relid." She replies, helping him up.
Once he gets up, he walks over to the cave entrance before throwing a goodbye over his shoulder to his mate. He flares his dark silver wings, then, bringing them back to his sides quickly, he sends himself rocketing up until he becomes little more than a shimmering dot in the early morning sky.
Several hours pass as Crimsa begins to feel a shifting in her lower abdomen, something that eventually grows extremely painful.
"Gods above, are you okay?" Relid exclaims, immediately dropping the two deer and running to Crimsa's side upon seeing her pained countenance.
"Yeah, I think so." She manages weakly.
"Let's go find some friends to assist with your laying, god knows I can't do it on my own." Relid suggests softly, muttering the last part to himself.
Crimsa nods faintly before following her mate out of the cave and, less than elegantly, taking to the low sky, unable to go higher with her heavily gravid body weighing her down.
They fly for a while, Crimsa coasting in her mate's wake for the majority of the flight, and eventually land outside of another cave, this one slightly smaller than their own, but still able to comfortably house a pair of dragons.
Crimsa thinks back to her time learning draconic and barks a friendly "hello friends!" into the cave, alerting the residents of her unexpected arrival.
A minute or so passes before a dragon comes into the light outside the lip of the cave's mouth.
"Yes Crimsa?" He says friendlily
"Hey Lortic," Crimsa responds politely, "I was wondering if you could help with my laying in the next few days."
"Sure," The dragon returns, "when do you want me to be at your cave?"
Just as Crimsa opens her mouth to reply, Relid speaks, "Just head over, we may as well be there for when it happens."
Lortic nods before leaping to the sky and heading off in the direction of Relid and Crimsa's cave. The two mates also head off, but to the West instead of the North and, after a few minutes of flight, they land outside of a small cave. Crimsa runs over to the sad form of a young dragon that sits just outside of the cave's mouth, crying.
"Hey, are you okay Delim?" Crimsa asks worriedly, running to comfort the young male.
The young dragon looks up at Crimsa, tears wetting his face and muzzle.
"Crimsa?" Delim says surprisedly, not expecting a visitor, "Why are you here?"
"I wanted to ask if you would assist during my laying in a day or so," Crimsa replies sweetly, trying not to be imposing, "are you okay to help, or do you need a little time?"
"I'll be fine." Delim says assertively, welcoming any diversion from his horrible life.
"Why don't we head back." Relid says worriedly, his mate's crippling pains having visibly gotten worse since the morning.
Crimsa nods grimly in agreement as the three take to the sky.
The sun having set long ago, the three have only the moonlight to guide themselves by. Upon their return home, Crimsa and Relid settle on their bed and Delim makes use of the dirt floor across the room from the already sleeping Lortic; the three new arrivals soon fall deeply asleep.
...
Delim is awoken by the sounds of movement nearby. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness around him as the dim early morning light filters into the cave.
Delim, can we get some privacy in here?" Relid requests lightly, knowing this is early for a dragon of his age to be up and working.
Delim nods and, by channeling his natural elemental abilities, creates a thick cloud cover in the cave's mouth, blocking any view from the outside. Relid then informs him that he will be in charge of putting dampened reeds around Crimsa's crown to stop her overheating. He slinks shyly over to Crimsa, who is curled into a small ball on the floor, a small nest sitting ready behind her, whispering something in her ear; she nods, whispering something back to him.A few hours pass before Crimsa shrieks in agony, a sudden tightening in her stomach warning her of the beginning of the laying. Delim rushes to her side, allowing her to clasp his paw while placing the reeds on her head. After a long, hard hour of work for everyone, another, albeit this time more guttural, roar from Crimsa tells everyone that their jobs are almost complete. Delim is allowed to close his eyes until the egg has been pushed out of Crimsa's opening, allowing her to bite down on his tail instead of placing the reeds. It takes a few more agonizing seconds for Crimsa to push the egg out and, once she does, she blacks out, her strength utterly drained. Delim places a few more newly wetted reeds on her head before stumbling off, somewhat drunkenly, and promptly blacking out himself, his paws aching, his tail bleeding slightly from Crimsa accidentally sinking her K9 fangs into him, and his strength gone from what is likely to be the most work he had ever done in such a stressful, short period of time.
Relid invites the only other conscious being in the cave to stay until the egg hatches to allow the hatchling to catch his scent. The guest accepts before heading off to sleep by Delim, wanting to inform him of Relid's invite before he leaves.
Author's Note: Sorry if I fucked up everything about this post/story. It's my first one on both accounts; anyway, if you liked this (as if anyone's reading this), please let me know.
There may or may not be around 40,000 more words of this story pre-written..