The Beginning
I know it's been a while, but here's another one-shot for my shared AU with @asyakiya. This time, it's how it all began... with one little egg.
Enjoy!
—*O*—
“Asthra?”
Grigon quietly opened the door, and after some hesitation, stepped inside. The room was dark—it was always dark these days—but he still made out the unmistakable shape of his wife on the bed, curled up, her back turned to the door.
“…Your parents and Askja have been asking for you. They want to know if you’re okay…” He tried, but got no response. Asthra didn’t even shift. Grigon quietly moved closer, considering his next words carefully. “You can’t keep going like this, love.”
Grigon flinched when Asthra tensed, and her quills shivered wildly. He mentally prepared himself for a verbal lash-out, but his wife simply sniffled. Sighing, he walked to the other side to meet her face to face, but regretted it when he saw the state she was in: Asthra’s cheeks and the corners of her mouth were stained with long-dried tears; her nubs were clutching a small silk figure shaped like Shaak’vi, one of the many toys she’d woven with her own silk for their first—
Grigon squeezed his digital eyes shut and took a deep breath, pushing the thought aside. Then, he knelt and tentatively placed a hand on Asthra’s body.
“It pains me to see you cry, my love,” said Grigon, his own voice shaking. “I’d do anything to see you smile again.”
Asthra stiffened, her ears pressed against her head. “…There’s nothing you can do…” she whispered.
“I know it hurts, Asthra, but… it’s been months. You have to—”
“You think I haven’t tried?” growled Asthra, her volume rising briefly—a faint remnant of the strong-willed woman he loved so much. But the fire extinguished as soon as it’d appeared. “I miss it…I miss them all so much…” she sobbed, clutching the little silk figure tighter. “I see them in every egg at the baptisms… In every larva I spot in the Colosseum… In my sister’s healthy egg… I feel like I’m going mad, Grigon! Mad!”
“I know, I know—”
“Do you?! Because you’re just going on about your day like nothing happened!”
This time, it was his own temper that flared. “They were my children too, Asthra! You think it doesn’t pain me?! But unlike you, I don’t have the luxury to lie down and mope all day!”
Grigon regretted the harshness in his voice when Asthra broke down into sobs again. He rubbed his temple, and carefully picked her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest as she cried.
—*O*—
“Your Wrath, Lady Asthra is back… and she wants to see you.”
Grigon lifted his gaze from his desk. “Why?” he asked Gronk.
“She wouldn’t say, but… It’s about the Aoki ship that crash-landed in the badlands.”
Intrigued, Grigon left his study and headed toward the main hall, before Gronk told him Asthra was waiting for him in their bedchambers. On the way there, he noticed the guards seemed tense but tried their best to hide it as he passed by them. Something must’ve happened at the crash site.
He found Asthra near the balcony door. She was looking down at her hands, cradling something against her chest plate.
“Did something happen? Are you alright?” asked Grigon, approaching his wife.
Then he saw it: a round, pale blue object carefully cupped in Asthra’s metallic hands. An egg. But it wasn’t a Hylurgian egg.
“… Where did you find it?” inquired Grigon, digital eyes fixed on it. Then he remembered Gronk’s words. “The Aoki ship?”
Asthra nodded. “Its parents didn’t make it. The mother, she… She was dying, and yet the only thing she cared about was her unhatched baby…” she paused. “She asked me to keep it safe.”
“Okay… Then what? Should I send a messenger to Cryos so someone can pick it up?”
“I promised its mother I would keep her child safe, Grigon.”
His eyes widened, realizing what his wife was asking of him. Then he frowned. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“It’s an Aoki, Asthra. Hylurg is no place for a species that thrives in polar climates.”
“We can adjust a room with the right temperature.”
“Then what? What will you do if it tries to take a bath in the lava baths?” insisted Grigon. “You cannot expect to raise it as a Hylurgian! It is not!”
“Who says an Aoki can’t learn our ways?”
Grigon rubbed his temple at his wife’s stubbornness. “Do you know what the Noble Houses will say if they see you babying a foreign child?”
“Since when do you care about what they say?” retorted Asthra.
“When they have a point. You know why outsiders are not allowed in Hylurg. Our enemies must never know of our true forms, and yet the Royal Family keeps an Aoki, a species with mental abilities that could very well disclose that information, in the very heart of Hylurg? How do you think that sounds?”
“You’re saying I should have just abandoned an unborn child to its luck?!”
“Yes, because it’s not yours! It’s not even a Hylurgian!”
Asthra stepped back, her ears flattened against her head, eyes narrowing dangerously as she tucked the egg protectively against her chest, growling dangerously. Grigon met her gaze with a stern look of his own, his fists clenched.
“… It won’t replace the ones we lost, Asthra.”
There. He said it. He nearly regretted it when he saw Asthra flinch, but he didn’t retract. As much as it hurt them both, she had to hear it.
“… I know that,” whispered Asthra, her mouth briefly welling up with tears. “But it needs me. And I want it.”
Grigon wanted to keep arguing, but something about the tone in her voice… and the way she held that egg. For the hate of Shaak’vi, just the fact that she’d left bed and entered her carapace after two years.
“…Fine. Keep it.”
Asthra relaxed. “I’m sure he’ll be a great son—”
“I said you may keep it.” Grigon interrupted, voice and expression hard. “That doesn’t make it my son.”
He didn’t wait for his wife to reply as headed to the door and left the room.
If it helped her recover, he’d let Asthra keep her pet for now. She’d probably lose interest once they had their own child—if the chick even made it past infancy, that is.
It's just wonderful, I really felt the stress of parents who really wanted their children but couldn't have them❤️
And how everyone copes with grief in their own way.
