Chapter Five
Fred
Outside of guarding Elio, our unlaid egg, and my children here on Starscale 1, I spent most of the previous six months helping Liatris explain to everyone that opening the gateway wouldn’t be an instant fix for anything. The door he opened wouldn’t connect directly to Earthside or any other world in particular. It would connect to one particular spot in the Other World and from there dragons could travel and find other doors. Someone might stumble through our door onto the world and that’s why it had to be guarded around the clock. The morning of the ceremony I still wasn’t sure if Hush and the other world leaders understood the situation but we’d done our best to explain it to them.
I had Clarence Moonscale in my ear babbling about being ready to locate the door in the Other World as soon as it was opened. He had a team of dragons ready to start the search. Medwin, his mate, was more than ready to be reunited with their second born, Sunny. I didn’t blame them. I missed all my egg brats but would let him go through the trouble of mapping out the path here. It would give him something to do besides annoy everyone else for a while at least.
“What’s the timeline looking like?” Clarence said in my ear, and I almost swatted the earpiece like a gnat.
“It is what it is. We have timepieces but we don’t keep a political schedule. Hush isn’t here yet. The casters are still in the caster tent. I’ll let you know when.”
“I still don’t understand why they refused our request to have it broadcasted to us,” Clarence huffed.
“Because some worlds still value their privacy and the privacy of their members,” I said. “Not saying you don’t but they don’t televise everything here. Nothing really. Besides, Liatris asked for no cameras to be out and about, and we respect the casters. Remember what we magic users did to Ginger Barrell. So, let him have his way on this. I know you’re used to calling the shots –”
“Fred, I want to see my kid and my grandkid. Teal and them want to see Sunny too. Medwin’s ready to run around the Other World shouting at everyone about a new door popping up. I—”
“I get it, Clarence or is it, Clarry now?” I laughed. “I have a pregnant mate and a toddler trying to swing from the trees. Still, I have three kids, and Frost only knows how many grandkids and great grandkids by this point over there.”
“What are you going to do about that?” Clarence asked.
“It’s undecided,” I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. “We can’t really make a move while he’s pregnant. Can’t change everything up while we’re waiting for that. The nest is built here. Hell, with how everything is here---” I stopped myself from babbling on about how the egg brats would grow up safer here. Earthside was home in so many ways but I didn’t worry about someone who hated me because I did the right thing or because my parents were morons going after Minter or Teddy here and that added a lot of weight to the pro side of remaining here.”
“Is Dad bugging you?” Sunny asked, motioning for me to hand him the earpiece.
I handed it off and scooped up Minter to pull a blade of grass out of his mouth.
“Mine!” he squirmed. “I eat it!”
“No, buddy. No eating the grass. You’re not a deer. You’re a dragon.”
“It veggie!” He squirmed, flailing his arms.
“No, little man. It’s grass. Don’t eat it,” I laughed.
“It won’t hurt him,” Elio shrugged.
“Chicky?” Teddy asked, arriving at the perfect moment with a basket tucked under his arm.
“Please tell me it’s cooked,” I sighed.
“I’m not feeding the baby raw chicky—I mean chicken,” Teddy laughed, whipping out a tiny drumstick as if by magic.
“Thank you! Chicky! Chicky!” Minter cheered.
“You’d think we starved this baby to death every day,” I laughed. “He ate before we left and then he had a PBJ when we got here,” I said, catching the chicken leg he almost dropped.
“He’s a growing hatchling. Do you want some?” Teddy asked, holding out the basket.
“Never gonna turn down free food,” I said but nodded at Elio to take something first.
He hesitated and I almost started in on both of them about how they were family now and neither one of them had wronged the other. They had to get over this shit.
“Go ahead,” I said instead.
Elio shook his head and covered his mouth, turning away. I passed Minter to Teddy who pulled the basket back away from us as I followed Elio into the bushes where his pregnancy sickness finally began. I yanked on Izora’s tail over the Moonscale link. Pregnancy sickness usually came pretty early in the process of growing an egg. This late---
“Could mean he’s close to laying,” Marsin appeared on Elio’s other side. “Our carrier went through this with him. He was a rather large egg too.”
Elio flipped his brother off for calling him a fat egg while I rubbed slow little circles on his back. Marsin offered up his water bottle and Elio took a sip from it.
“I think I need to go home and lie down,” Elio said between sips.
“Marsin could you get Minter for us?” I asked him.
“No,” Elio shook his head.
“You’re right. HE should see this whole door thing. I’ll let Teddy know—”
“You should stay! You came all the way and ---” Elio spoke until he was sick again.
“I’m not sending you home alone. I’m not sending you anywhere without me,” I shook my head.
Marsin looked back and forth between me and his sick brother unsure of what to do. Teddy poked me over the family link but I didn’t have an answer for how he or anyone else could help.
“Let’s get him inside the caster tent,” Izora said a moment later as if he teleported next to us. Since moving into the mushie forest with his wild born mate the man snuck around like a thief in the night without making a sound.
“I don’t want to interrupt them,” Elio shook his head.
“Liatris won’t mind,” Teddy said, walking up without Minter.
For point two seconds I almost grabbed him by the ear and demanded to know where Minter was.
“He’s with Sunny,” Teddy said before I got the words out of my mouth. “He started screaming about how the baby couldn’t get out of his egg. Sounded like something you said Duke would say when you were getting close. Well, sort of. It reminded me of those stories.”
“Into the tent,” Izora said, scooping up Elio and it took all my might not to grab him up by his belt loops and launch him into the sun after taking back my mate.
“Fred!” Elio said, grasping at the air to reach me.
“I am invoking healer’s privilege,” Izora shouted over the crowd. “Under Starscale Flight Law the crowd is to part for a healer in route to treat a patient or who is transporting a patient.”
The crowd moved as one all murmuring about who had already managed to get hurt. Liatris poked his head out of the tent at all the commotion and then tore the flap open to motion Izora and us inside.
“Alpha!” Elio squeaked as Izora laid him out on the pile of blankets on one side of the tent. He shoved up his shirt with one hand while pulling out his portable ultrasound machine with the other. Somewhere close by Teddy shook. Flashes of Lotus surrounded by doctors played through his memories. I dropped to my knees beside Elio wishing I could tear myself apart to be in two places at once. Someone else stepped into the tent behind Teddy and I suppressed a growl betting good pizza and beer that it was Selt. Sunny’s hair came into view, and I let out a sigh. Yeah. I still hadn’t forgiven the other asshole.
“The baby’s with Laken and the twins,” Sunny announced.
“Give us some space, please,” Izora said as his mate, Nycto, poked his head into the tent to see what was going on. “Everyone clear out, please! Nycto, love, please tell Castor that someone will need to prepare the OR back on the ship.”
“The OR?” Teddy asked as Sunny pulled him out of the tent and out of the way.
“Don’t!” Izora said as my fingers reached out to grab him. “Fred Moonscale, you tell that overgrown glitter bunny inside you to sit his ass down and let me do my job. It is very rare that a dragon shifter needs anything near a c-section but that is the case here. The egg has descended but from my calculations isn’t going to come out naturally due to its size and the angle its chosen for its decent. I’m sure this has happened before even here.”
“Yeah,” Elio nodded. “My grandpa had a ---” he said and screwed up his face trying not to vomit again.
“You be sick if you need to,” Izora said. “We’ll get you something on the IV when we get back to the clinic.”
A voice cut through the murmurs outside. It was Hush Starscale himself finally making an appearance and clearing out the crowd – telling them all to go home and they’d receive a new date for the ceremony when an egg and carrier weren’t in an emergency state.
“No,” Elio frowned, tears welling up in his eyes. “Fred!”
I loved my name on his lips but not like this – not scared and desperate and looking at me for answers.
“Medwin Moonscale chose Izora to be the healer aboard the Medwin 2 because he thought he could put Sunny back together if something happened to him. Medwin is the pickiest son-of-a-bitch about doctors that I have ever met. I swear that upon every song I’ve ever danced to. He’ll get our egg out safely.”
I didn’t add on then we’d have to figure out how to get the egg from the ship into the nest. That was a problem we’d have to take care of later.
“I don’t even feel like--- I’m not in pain,” Elio stumbled over his words.
“I think we caught it earlier than we usually would,” Izora said, pushing the tent flap open. “Fred. Marsin. Figure out which one of you are carrying him.”
“I can fly!” Elio objected.
“I will,” I said.
Running Glitter Bomb and Green Bay back on Earthside meant I’d dealt with my fair share of vomit, and I wasn’t sure Marsin had ever been puked on in his life. Besides, brother or not, Marsin wasn’t as good of a flyer as I was. Most of the dragons here never flew through combat zones. Not the younger ones anyway. Marsin didn’t argue with me as I scooped up Elio.
“What is happening? It’s too much. Too everything!” Elio shook his head. “I feel fine! Will our egg be okay?”
“Everything and everyone will be okay,” I said and meant it.
“That’s what you have to tell me,” he said as tears welled up in his eyes again.
“No, it’s not. If you’re not feeling anything bad yet, that’s a good sign. It means you’re not in distress and the baby can’t be in distress. The baby is just a little egg. Our baby doesn’t know anything is going wrong. That egg brat just knows you’re a little upset and that we’re up in the sky again. So, we’re gonna breathe through this and we’re going to get to the ship and hear out Izora. C-sections happen all the time with furry shifters and with some dragons when they can’t deliver the live births their bodies have grown. Hell, I’ve performed an emergency c-section before,” I said and winced at what I just admitted to.
“Did the carrier survive?” Izora asked from nearby
“Yeah. Twins did too. Had to make one breathe but both of them are alive and well. Moved from the GGB to some place that was once part of the Wildlands,” I nodded. “That’s before Doctor Michael Lawngry was in Green Bay. That’s one of the reasons I wanted a real doctor there. I never wanted to do that again.”
“Don’t blame you. Doesn’t sound like you had the right equipment.”
“If the carrier wasn’t an alpha, I don’t think it would’ve ended great,” I admitted.
“Alpha?” Marsin asked.
“They were an AFAB alpha, idiot,” Elio laughed. “Right?” He glanced at me as if to ensure he was not the idiot.
“She was and lucky for her, the doctors guessed right,” Fred laughed.
“I remember the first time I told Clarence the term AFAB and he thought I was talking about someone being in afib and he started poking everyone in the hospital for a crash cart.”
“Assigned Fucking Insanely Beautifully?” I laughed.
“Maybe,” Izora nodded.
It turned out that Elio’s stomach was done for the moment, and he was able to fly part of the way back to the ship on his own but I still couldn’t take my eyes off him. While I didn’t like to admit I performed a surgery on a close friend without any real qualifications for it, the story did its job and calmed Elio down.
Back at the ceremonial grounds Minter rambled to Teddy and the others about how many doors he had seen. In particular, he described the grain of our bathroom door as ‘squiggly worm.’ Maybe he’d grow up to be an artist.