Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 97: brought to you by baby blankets

Hey. Did you know I, Lowefantasy, the writer of Shay, have a website? :P It has all my books and my Works in Progress. ^.^ And random blogs and poetry, but who reads that? Now, we return to your usual program of "I'm Probably Shameless for Writing This"

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Asher wiggled into the family far easier than Shay had expected. It started out as 'Shay's weird pet to help her cope with the loss of her baby' which none of the males seemed to question, since apparently, she was a legendarily sensitive mommy to them. But slowly, as Asher came to befriend the curious snake daughters, he came to learn the snake language pretty quickly.

By the time they finally found their perfect new home, a gem of a glade background by thick forest and fronted by grassland and beach front, he had all but become fluent in it, and the little girls were constantly coming up to Shay one at a time with stories of Asher.

"He says his daddy was this big! Bigger than our daddy!"

"Asher once lived with big scaled things!"

"Asher says neither his mommy or daddy could turn human, but they said they once could."

"Look, mommy! Asher is growing back legs!"

"He says his mom and daddy could fly! They fill up their tummies, like this, and..."

Sky, who had been the one telling the story, puffed her stomach as big as she could before typing back into Miur's waiting arms.

When Ryan had solemnly explained that Asher was a colossal child and what exactly a colossal was, the girls became confused.

"But, if they're big beasts dumb like our meat, how can he talk to us?"

"How did he understand mommy?"

"I think you have something wrong, panther," said Luna, very softly, once her sisters had had their ways saying all sorts of exclamations.

"Well, obviously," said Harvey, who had been listening from the side. The girls never lacked for a lap to sit on, though Shay had found that Harvey, though he appreciated the beauty and wonder of the little girls, didn't fall gaga over them like Parker, Ryan, and Miur did. The girls didn't seem as interested in him either.

"Maybe we could talk to the colossals and ask for an emerald for mommy's hand," said Sky.

"Yeah, we could have Asher talk for us!" Luna lifted up Asher under his armpits like a puppy. If it weren't for his length, he'd be the right size for one.

The hand in question, which, even though it had healed, would probably never work right again. Shay hid it in her lap when it was mentioned. The crooked, bumpy fingers put her off even after having looked at it for so long, and her nails had grown back bumpy with wavy ridges.

She happened to catch Curtis's eye and realized he had seen. His frown cut to his jaw line.

It had been especially sad when the girls had begged their mother to play the harp for them again and Shay found she could hardly do it with one hand. It was clumsy, and the girls had wilted in disappointment.

At least, Shay thought, she was lucky to have so many people around her willing to help her with tasks that might have required two hands. For not the first time she was jealous of the males healing ability in this world, as she eyed the ragged scar on Ryan's ankle from when his achilles had been sliced. His tendon had grown back alright, at least with Harvey's surgical help. Too bad there was nothing he could do about the tiny torn ligaments and joints of a hand.

Summer was in full swing as the men got to work with the foundation of the new home. Shay could only watch on, dismayed at her uselessness. Not only was her hand out of commission, but she had just begun to gain back her lost strength and weight and all insisted she take it easy to recover. To Shay's chagrin, the girls thought it was a great game to bring mom snacks, and Shay always had more than she could eat in fruit, fish, and coconuts. Thus, in some effort to help out, she tried to dry them on a flat rock in the sun with salt Ryan had helped her distilled from the sea (aka, watched the water boil for hours on end while she plucked her harp and dozed). It worked for the most part, which eased her useless feeling a bit.