There’s a Snek in the Woods
Another story written with the wonderful @nommy-thoughts! This one is a reverse AU of Danger Noodles, in which the nagas in the previous story are human now and the humans in the previous story are naga now.
[This is a link to the Previous Story’s masterpost in case you want to check it out]
Summary: Virgil is a giant naga and a single dad. His son, Logan, is far too curious for his own good.
Janus is on a lovely camping trip with his best friends, the Prince twins, and his therapy naga, Patton.
Their paths cross, and none of their lives will ever be the same. ---
For anyone curious about scales, Logan is 3x human sized, Virgil is 10x, and Patton is between 1/5th and 1/6th. Patton has the proportionally longest tail, about 10', while Logan's tail is around 50'-60' and Virgil's is over 200'.
[This Story’s Masterpost]
Prologue: Logan's adoption
Wordcount: 1.4 K
Summary: Virgil becomes a single father. He wasn't planning to become a father, but here he is anyway.
Warnings/Contains: abandonment, brief scenes of gastric brooding (baby protection vore, in a pouch specifically designed for it)
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Virgil needed to move. His previous home had become a bit too crowded, a bit too overrun by humans, and he was headed somewhere he could hunt in peace, without having to worry about humans noticing the lack of prey animals and starting to hunt him. Where, specifically, he was going, he wasn’t quite sure yet.
Possibly around here. Virgil was deep in the woods now, well away from human civilization.
As he pondered that, slithering between the trees, Virgil came across something he hadn’t expected to see in a place like this: a nest. More specifically, it was the sort of nest a naga would build to lay their eggs in. It had clearly been used for that purpose, too: Virgil could see deflated empty shells inside.
Virgil frowned. Sure, he’d been considering this part of the woods to live in, but he’d hardly consider it the sort of place one would build a nest! Virgil was a full-grown adult, large enough that he scarcely had any predators anymore, but eggs? Eggs were incredibly vulnerable, and they’d be hard to protect in a place like this.
He shook his head and was about to continue on when he saw something that made him pause. There was an egg, still whole, in the nest. Virgil slithered closer to get a better look.
It wasn’t all that odd, really, to see unhatched eggs in abandoned naga nests. After all, in the average clutch, only two or three eggs were viable, and the rest decoys to fool predators. It was, after all, dangerous to be an egg. After the viable eggs had hatched, the decoys were simply left behind as often as not. But something about this felt different.
Something about this egg wouldn’t let Virgil just leave it alone. He set his rucksack aside and carefully pulled the nest open to pick the egg up. It was warm to the touch, and had a certain firmness to it.
Virgil’s eyes widened. This egg was alive. It could hatch.
He glanced around, pulling the egg close to his chest. He looked for any sign of parents, but found none. The only recent tracks were his own, and the shell fragments littering the rest of the nest were dry enough to have been sitting there a few days. The egg had been abandoned.
Virgil looked the nest over again. He could see two empty shells, which meant there must have been two hatchlings. Two hatchlings, and this one late. No wonder its parents had thought it was just another decoy. Two children were enough to raise as it was, waiting for a third they couldn’t be sure would even hatch was inviting trouble.
He supposed he wouldn’t be leaving it here. Virgil gave a small sigh. He hadn’t planned to become a father yet. Virgil had thought that would wait until he had found a mate, someone he wanted to spend all his time with, someone he wanted to raise children with.
But he couldn’t abandon this egg, not when it had already been abandoned once.
With a soft popping noise, Virgil unhinged his jaw. His throat muscles flexed to close off his stomach and open his brood pouch. He shut his eyes and carefully put the egg in his mouth. Tenderly, taking great care not to tear its shell or squeeze it too hard, Virgil swallowed the egg. He felt it slip down inside him, coming to rest just above his waist. Virgil put his hand over the spot. He’d never used his brood pouch before — again, he’d expected that would wait, and he’d expected its first occupants would be hatchlings, not an egg — and it was an odd feeling.
Rubbing the spot gently, he muttered, more to himself than his precious cargo, “It’s going to be okay, little buddy. I’ll be your dad now. I’ll keep you safe.”
There was no response, of course. It was an egg.
“Right, let’s get moving. I should find a nest soon.” He picked up his rucksack and kept moving.
It was two days before Virgil found a place he thought would be suitable to raise a child. He had worried that the egg might hatch while he was still looking, before he could give it a proper hatching-space. But it seemed that the egg was waiting too. Virgil built a nest, letting his instincts guide him on what materials were best. He placed the egg, surrounding it lovingly with twigs and grass, soft parts toward the shell and its delicate inhabitant, and then he settled down around it and he waited.
Other nagas had partners to hunt for them while they guarded their eggs, and decoys for when they had to go hunting themselves and leave the nest unprotected. Virgil had neither. He hunted a full meal before he placed his egg in the nest, and then he settled down, and he waited.
A naga could last a good while on a full meal, especially if he wasn’t very active. Virgil was prepared to wait as long as it took for his egg to hatch. He worried, though, that the egg might suffer from waiting any longer. It had already been several days since its siblings had hatched; why hadn’t it?
The egg hatched, finally, as the sun dawned on the fourth day after he had found it. Virgil had been dozing on and off through the night, but the instant he heard the soft, tell-tale sound of a bit of shell tearing, he was fully awake.
Virgil opened up his nest to give it space and watched with wide eyes as the shell split. A drop of thick liquid oozed out, and something pushed against the shell from the inside, making it bulge for a moment before it stopped again. The baby was weak, unable to break through. Virgil longed to help, but he feared that if he touched the egg now, he’d risk hurting the vulnerable infant. “You can do it, little buddy,” he said instead, his voice full of warmth and love. “I believe in you. Come on out, I want to see my kid.”
The egg shifted. Something pressed against the little slit in the side again. It pressed harder, and the egg bulged outward. Then, the egg gave way. A tiny fist protruded from the hole it had torn. After a moment, the fist pulled back inside the egg. But the baby knew what it was doing now. Tiny hands pressed against the cut, tearing it open, widening it. A little head squeezed through, bald, as infants usually were. The baby took its first breath of air, eyes still closed, and paused for a moment.
Virgil reached out a hesitant hand, but paused before he could touch the hatching infant. “You’re doing great,” he encouraged softly. “Just a little further.”
At the sound of his voice, the baby started moving again. The baby struggled forth, squeezing through the opening it had made and tearing it wider as it did so. Finally, finally, Virgil’s baby was out of the egg.
His heart felt like it would burst from the joy coursing through him. His baby had hatched. His baby had hatched!
The hatchling lay on its back, covered in egg goo and panting from the exertion of hatching.
“You did so good!” Virgil praised, struggling to hold back tears of joy. He’d been so worried for the past four days over this baby, and now it was hatched.
The baby’s eyes opened for the first time, and it looked up at him. It smiled a toothless baby smile, and it reached up, making grabby hands for Virgil. He was sure his heart did burst now. Virgil reached out his hands, tenderly scooping up the precious little child.
It was so small. The entirety of Virgil’s baby fit in the palm of one hand. His baby had a stumpy little tail, barely the length of its torso, but Virgil was pretty sure that was normal for infants. As it grew, it would lengthen.
“Hi there, baby.” He was a little teary as he cradled the baby close. “It’s me, your Daddy. I’m going to take care of you.”
The baby said nothing, because babies couldn’t talk any more than eggs could, but it reached up for him again. Virgil smiled.
“I’m going to put you in my pouch, now,” he said. “And then I’m going to go hunting. I’m sure you’re hungry, after all that work you just did, hatching yourself!”
Virgil lifted the baby — his baby, his. — to his mouth. It took only a moment’s concentration to open the passage to his brood pouch, and he slipped the baby inside. A baby felt different inside than an egg did. Better. He imagined his kid curling up, though there wasn’t much of that little blue tail to curl, and going to sleep, safe inside him.
Virgil rested his hands on the outside of his pouch again. “I’m going to protect you, kid,” he promised again. “I won’t let you get hurt.”
There was a tiny squirm from inside his brood pouch, and Virgil couldn’t stop smiling. That was his baby. Safe and warm. Satisfied, he slithered off to hunt.
