Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 131: brought to you by a girl who needs her boy

Funny episode introduction pending. Sleepy, crampy morning swamped in babies interfering. Cute babies...

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It took a whole day to get Parker's hut up to Shay's standards for potential serving as a birthing room. It included a lot of cleaning with hard lye which Ryan carried out in her stead to protect her more delicate skin. Harvey and Parker worked together to feed and make sure her patient was comfortable while Shay hung lavender and sandalwood from the eaves, and set up beeswax candles which she had perfected over the summer. Cat beastmen could see in the dark, so Parker hadn't bothered to try and build in any lighting into his house outside a single window.

Shay then set up a bed in the corner for her to sleep, but otherwise kept the stone floor open. Birth was a messy ordeal, especially so with human birth. She hadn't seen one in person, but she had read enough to know there was a lot of blood and fluid, and for not the first time was grateful that laying eggs had been such a clean cut deal. The bunnies had been just horrible, but they'd also probably been relatively clean and quick, given their size in relation to a human baby.

Even after she had set up a work space, she kept thinking of more and more things to include in the hut, moved by jittering nerves. This was the first time she'd be helping with such a high risk birth. Neara and her lambs had technically not been all that safe either, but Shay had gone into that thinking she'd be fine. She didn't have the comfort of such ignorance now. And she didn't want her first patient to wind up dead...but she very well might.

When her nerves got to the point her stomach physically hurt, she called over Miur.

"Would you mind telling our scorpion guest, Hane, about his mate's status? And check to see if he's aware of the dangers of the birthing of females. She...she might not live, no matter how much we do, though we are certainly doing our very best."

Miur nodded, but he didn't leave right away, biting his lip as he examined her face.

"What is it?" she asked.

"This isn't for the scorpion's sake," he said carefully.

She looked down at her hands, suddenly ashamed.

Somehow sensing that, Miur grew flustered and reached out to comfort her, but held back, wary of the need for permission to touch her.

"You're very smart," he said. "So is Harvey and Ryan, both who have assisted births. You'll be okay."

"I keep telling myself that..."

He shifted from foot to foot.

"Would you...would you like to come with me? It's been a while since I've taken you flying. Maybe it might...?"

It was a valid suggestion. Flying was much like swimming in the ocean, except you could breathe and see much farther. There was something about being swallowed by such vastness that made your worries seem much smaller.

After verifying that there wasn't anything else she could do with the hut, she nodded.

"Just let me tell Harvey and Parker to move Oda to the hut. She should be more comfortable once she has her own space."

She barely dodged a line of squealing girls on her way inside. Dice was visiting, and the girls, along with Asher, were in a mad game of tag or hunting where Dice was it. He was little more than a long line of red in the grass, with the three little girls dots of brilliant scarlet hair bouncing in every direction. Shay opened the door to the cackle of Asher's frog-like laughter. She happened to glance back in time to see that the little dragon had found a ride on the end of Dice's tail.

"Curtis is watching the kids, right?" she asked the room in general.

Harvey and Ryan were sitting next to the fire with Oda. Ryan was deep in work on Shay's loom attempting to make a rag, while Harvey was slowly rubbing oils into Oda's leg that ended in a clubbed foot.

"He's been circling the house, just outside the fields, since this morning," said Ryan. "You didn't see him?"

"The only snake I saw was Dice. But that works all the same. It's good it isn't raining today, the kids are having fun. Parker's hunting?"

"For Oda, yes," said Harvey. "Is it time to move her?"

"Yes," Shay went on to explain how she wanted to go with Miur on a trip to see her scorpion mate to try and get rid of her anxiety, not mentioning that it was about Oda's impending delivery in concern of worrying Oda herself.

"Take Ryan," said Harvey at the same time as Ryan said, "I'm coming."

"I can't let you leave the territory, let alone meet a homeless beast, without at least me," said Ryan. "We're lucky Miur's a three mark beast as well. We should be enough to keep the thing from trying anything."

"Hane." Oda blinked, as though only hearing her mate's name the moment her lips had repeated them. She shook herself from whatever daze Harvey's ministrations to her leg had caused and twisted about towards Shay. "I want Hane!"

"We can't take you to him until you give birth."

Oda's face twisted up into the most violent expression she'd made since arriving.

"I want Hane! Hane!"

"I'll see about bringing him," said Shay. Something in her gut told her this request wasn't so out of the blue, despite Oda having been fine being separated from Hane yesterday. Perhaps Oda subconsciously sensed her labor was near.

Parker assured Shay he could move Oda by himself, which left her to return to Miur waiting outside with Ryan holding her hand. She squeezed it, happy that his arms had healed so well. Thank the gods of this world for fast healing males.

Miur's form stretched and blurred, abandoning the embroidered kilt she'd made him. In a blink she was facing his majestic, huge black eagle form, looking back at her with one large, electric blue eye. He held his wings away from his body so that she could climb up and get her legs behind his waist. Harvey followed after, leaving it a little cramped on Miur's feathered back. Ryan had planned on following from below, and Harvey had volunteered to keep her warm in flight. It went to show how far Ryan had come to accept Harvey that he actually agreed, if for nothing else than because one more male along to protect Shay reassured him. Shay couldn't help but think that her mates overprotectiveness had reached new heights, but couldn't find it in herself to be bothered by it. She still remembered the rabbits, after all, where she had only had Ryan against a bunch of no mark rodents.

Just as she began to worry that the weight would be too much for the eagle beastman, Miur kicked off the ground with phenomenal strength. It was as though a giant had pounded on the ground beneath them.

Then they were in the sky, beach and attached grasslands gave way to the forest. The edge of the forest facing the direction of the ocean had weather beaten trees, most of which were small and crooked. Occasionally a tree had held on long enough to become a giant to compete with the other, much larger trees deeper into the woods.

Miur took them in further and further till the thick, green trees began to give way to patches of grassland. Far off into the distance Shay could make out a tan line, which marked the beginning of the desert.

Up high, the air was much colder. But by ducking down into the feathers Shay could both stave off the wind as well as partake of Miur's higher-than-normal body heat. As she ducked down into the feathers, Harvey laid low over her as well, protecting her back from the cold as well.

"I should have thought to bring a fur," she heard him mutter beneath the wind.

"Are you cold?"

"Not for me, for you. Male, remember?"

"I don't know the exact extent of your cold endurance. And even if I did, I'd still worry about you, you know, because I like you."

A hot kiss fell on the tip of her ear, followed by a nuzzled past her braid to the back of her neck.