Pompods

1

There had been a quake that day and the damage it caused to the surroundings had been minor. Kaia cleared up the debris from the teaching area and returned home. She was shocked to find that a section of the stone wall had fallen in and had buried her precious pod.

Many of the villagers helped her remove the rubble to rescue the pod. When it was found, Elder Ino noticed a marking on one side of the pod. He concluded that something must have pierced the pod when it had been buried.

Most pods simply failed to hatch if pierced or severely damaged but incredibly this pod had resealed itself and had left a starburst scar as the only sign that something had happened to it. Since no previous pod had ever survived such an event, only time would tell if the podling inside survived, or if it would ever hatch at all.

When the time for it to hatch had passed, Kaia's hopes diminished. When the pod had begun to harden, the remainder of her hopes slowly waned until one day, a hole, barely visible at the center of the starburst scar, opened.

Elder Ino, the eldest of the healers had been called to evaluate the pod's condition. "It's weak," he said as he laid his fingers upon the pod to let them sense the pod's internal condition. "But it's alive."

"I had almost lost all hope."

"Fret not, dear Kaia. Your pod is unique; that it survived the quake is no small feat and thanks to our ancestors, we are quite resilient."

"But no pod has ever hardened before."

"True, but your podling should have hatched quite some time ago. Due to the events of that day, we could not ascertain the damage that was caused, nor do we know what it was that pierced its shell. All these factors are quite different for what is normal for a pod."

Kaia remained silent and wished to know more but knew that Elder Ino was also the most proficient of the healers and did not want to distract him more than necessary from his task at hand.

"Hmm, interesting."

"What is it?" she asked.

"I can sense a faint breeze emanating from within," he said as his fingers hovered over the starburst shaped aperture. "From the shallow excerpts of air, I would have to surmise that it's breathing."

"But podlings don't breathe!" she exclaimed.

"True, perhaps breathing may not have been the best term to use. Whatever is happening inside this pod, it currently looks like it requires an exchange of air... quite interesting indeed."

Days passed with no change in the pod's condition. Yet Elder Ino stopped by each day without fail to examine its progress. He would lay his hand upon the pod's surface and occasionally murmur 'interesting, indeed.'

"Elder Ino, what do you suppose created the pod's scar?" asked Kaia.

"Possibly a stone pushed its way inside when it was buried under the wall."

"Do you suppose that it could have been a gem? There had been one near the pod when it was found."

"I pray it is not a gem as no unborn podling could survive such an encounter," he said as he raised his slender fingers to his face and stroked his chin. "But I wonder... Kaia, would you hand me my pouch."

He opened his pouch and retrieved two vials. One vial contained water gathered from the mouth of the mountain's source and the other was unmistakable for anything else; it was water from the silver lake.

Elder Ino uncorked the vial containing water and slowly emptied out half its contents over the small opening. It pooled briefly before being sucked into the pod. No more than a few seconds passed before the pod spit out the water, spraying the elder.