Chapter 24: Midwife to Dragons
The deep, liquid ache that had settled in Taichi’s pelvis after the hot spring didn’t fade. It evolved. It tightened its grip, a silent, rhythmic fist that clenched and released for two days, keeping time with a clock he couldn’t see.
He’d been pacing the sun-warmed floor of the nest chamber, his hand pressed low on his back, when the first real contraction hit. It wasn’t pain at first. It was displacement. A tectonic shift inside him that stole his breath and buckled his knees. He stumbled into the yielding, silken wall of the nest, a soft cry punched from his lungs.
Ryuu was there before the sound finished echoing, his human form taut with a predator’s alertness. “Now,” he said, the single word final as a verdict.
The next hours were a blur of heat and pressure. They’d helped him into the nest, the precious, woven gold and silver cradling his monstrous form. The contractions came like waves, each one taller, colder, more crushing than the last. He lost sense of time. There was only Ryuu’s voice, low and steady, and the unbearable feeling of his body being turned inside out.
“I can’t,” Taichi gasped during one endless crest, sweat soaking his hair, his fingers clawing at the furs beneath him. “It’s not… it’s not coming out right. It’s wrong.”
“It is exactly right,” Ryuu murmured, his hands cool on Taichi’s burning forehead. “Your body knows the shape. You must let it.”
But the fear was a snake in his gut. This wasn’t a human birth. What was he even supposed to push? He felt a terrifying, full-body urge to expel, but the mechanics were a mystery.
The pain changed. It localized, sharpened, became a burning, impossible stretch. Taichi heard himself make a sound he’d never made before—a guttural, ragged scream that tore his throat.
The chamber door slammed open.
Hana stood there, a basket of borrowed supplies in her hand, her cheerful demeanor wiped clean. Her eyes, wide as saucers, took in the scene: Taichi, prone and trembling in the massive nest, his legs splayed, his face a mask of agony; Ryuu kneeling between them, his expression one of fierce, focused intensity; and the dim, blood-tinged glimpse of something dark and solid beginning to crown.
“Oh, my god,” Hana whispered, frozen. “Taichi…?”
“Hana!” Taichi sobbed, reaching a trembling hand toward her. The sight of his friend, of something normal and bubbly and human, was an anchor. “It hurts, it really fucking hurts—”
Another contraction seized him. His body arched off the furs, every muscle corded. An inhuman wail ripped through the chamber, bouncing off the humming obsidian walls.
Ryuu didn’t look away from his task. His voice was a thunderous command. “Hold him down!”
It broke Hana’s paralysis. She dropped the basket, apples rolling across the smooth stone, and rushed forward. She scrambled into the nest, ignoring the bizarre, warm texture, and threw her weight onto Taichi’s shoulders, pinning him as he writhed.
“I’ve got you, Tai, I’ve got you,” she chanted, her voice shaky but determined. Her eyes were locked on Ryuu, on what was happening. Horror and a raw, primal fascination warred in her gaze.
Ryuu’s hands were no longer fully human. Black scales traced his fingers, his nails elongated into sharp, careful points. With a reverence that contradicted the violence of the moment, he positioned his palms.
Taichi bore down with a shattered cry. There was a wet, tearing sound, a final, searing release of pressure, and then—
Hana’s breath hitched.
Ryuu caught it. A single, obsidian egg, slick with fluid and streaked with vivid, swirling veins of crimson and gold. It was the size of a large melon, perfectly oval, its shell not brittle but opalescent and deep as a midnight lake. It hummed in his clawed hands, a low, warm thrum of power.
Tears streamed down Hana’s face. “It’s… beautiful,” she breathed, the terror momentarily forgotten.
Taichi collapsed back, panting, drenched. A moment of shocking, hollow relief flooded him. It was over. It was out. He’d done it.
Then the cramping seized him again, vicious and without pause. The relief shattered.
“No,” he moaned, his eyes wild with betrayal. He could still feel the bulk, the weight. The hollow wasn’t hollow at all. “No, no, no… Ryuu, there’s another! It’s coming, it’s coming right now!”
Hana’s grip tightened. “Another? Taichi, breathe, just—”
“No time,” Ryuu gritted out. He had placed the first egg carefully into a depression in the nest lined with glowing moss, his movements swift. He was back in position, his scaled hands ready. “This one is impatient. Push, my heart. Now.”
This birth was faster, more violent. Taichi had nothing left. He was a vessel breaking apart. He pushed with the remnants of his soul, a raw, animal sound tearing from him as the second egg demanded passage.
Hana watched, tears still flowing, as the second obsidian sphere, this one streaked with silver and deep blue, slid into Ryuu’s waiting hands. It hummed a different, slightly higher pitch.
The silence that followed was immense, broken only by Taichi’s ragged, hitching breaths and the soft, dual hum of the eggs. He was shaking uncontrollably, empty and wrecked. Ryuu carefully settled the second egg beside its sibling before turning all his attention to Taichi.
His hands shifted back, becoming fully human, gentle as he smoothed the hair from Taichi’s brow. “It is done,” he said, his voice thick with an emotion so vast it filled the chamber. “You are magnificent.”
Hana slowly released her grip on Taichi’s shoulders. She stared at the two perfect, humming eggs, then at her broken, triumphant friend, then at the dragon lord who looked at Taichi as if he had hung the stars.
“So,” she said, her voice wobbly, trying to find her footing in a world that had permanently tilted. “Twins. You guys really don’t do anything by halves, do you?”
A weak, breathless laugh bubbled from Taichi’s lips. It sounded like salvation.
Ryuu didn’t smile, but the intensity in his eyes softened. He was gathering Taichi against him, ignoring the mess, murmuring low words in a language that predated stone. Hana watched, her hand finding Taichi’s, giving it a squeeze. Outside the arched window, the first true light of dawn touched the mountain peaks, painting the sky in shades of fire and gold.