Day 2: Children
A scream echoed through the jungle, making Leo snap his head up, his eyes wide in panic. Without a moment's pause he scooped up the bowl he had just been filing and dashed through the trees to the base of the mountain he and Karai had made a shelter in. Bowl clenched between his teeth, he climbed up the jagged slope, moving painfully slow towards their cave when another scream tore through the air. It was high pitched and animalistic. Could it be Karai?
Leo climbed faster, scaling the rocks with ease from the months of practice he had under his metaphorical belt, and upon reaching the top he threw himself over the edge – not spilling a drop of water. In an instant he was in the cave.
"Karai?!" He called, muscles tense for a fight.
"Damn you, three toessss…" Came a strangled hiss and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw a trail of blood and other fluids leading to the corner of the cave where Karai – in her snake form – was curled, panting heavily, her scaly skin glinting in the dim light with sweat.
"Karai…" He breathed a sigh of relief as he moved closer. "I'm sorry… got here as soon as…" Freezing he looked at the object Karai was wrapped around. "That an egg?" He stupidly asked.
"Do you… know… how bloody… hard it is… to get… one of those… out?" Karai bared her fangs, her reptilian eyes flashing dangerously. "Next time… we need… protection…" Aside from blushing at the intimate information provided, Leo didn't respond. His cobalt blue eyes were solely fixed upon the egg. The shell was a speckled pale blue colour, no bigger than his two cupped hands.
"May I?" He breathed, completely in awe about what was before him. He saw Karai stiffen slightly – her paranoia and closed off nature from the past year showing itself once more – yet she relaxed and nodded. Leo placed the bowl of water next to his wife and took the cloth which must have fallen on the floor during the birth and dipped it in the water, draping it across the snake mutant's head. Karai closed her eyes and sighed with relief.
"But seriously…" she whispered, "I don't care… if you want another… kid… I am not… doing that… again." The former leader smiled and planted a kiss on her forehead as he lifted up the egg and began to clean it off as well.
"If it means anything, I didn't mean for it to happen." Karai nuzzled into his side.
"Lair."
"Okay." Leo smiled. "Let's just wait and see if it hatches before we jump to conclusions." He hated to dampen the relief of the birth being over, however he knew that as mutants – well technically half-mutants – their reproductive abilities may be hindered and any offspring could be deformed, stillborn or not even come to light. Once the egg was cleaned, he passed it back to Karai who had slowly begun to morph back into her human form, her upper body now that of a human, just with her scales still showing, while her legs remained as a tail. She curled her tail around it and gave a contented smile.
"I still hate you."
"Next time I'll carry the egg." The turtle teased, getting a smirk in reply. He pressed the back of his hand against the egg and felt it was cooler than before. They needed to incubate it. "Need to keep it warm for the next couple of months." He muttered, half to himself, half to his partner. Karai turned to him, eyes ablaze.
"I am not sitting… on an egg for a… 'couple of months'" She hissed, earning an eye roll.
"That's birds, Karai." Sometimes Leo felt that he were speaking to Mikey… Mikey… His breath hitched. His brothers, all the way in New York, knew nothing of this, of Karai and his relationship and of how he had found her. He had sent a message to Splinter saying he had found Karai, yet if he returned with a child… Shaking his head, Leo moved away from these thoughts. He would cross that bridge when he came to it, right now he had to look after the egg. Deep in his chest his heart skipped a beat. No, he scolded himself, not the egg – our egg, our child… "We're both reptiles." He continued aloud, noticing the stare he was getting from the kunoichi for the long delay in finishing his explanation, "And if we don't have an actual incubator, we do what our animal relatives would do in the wild. We bury it." Karai blanched.
"That seems a bit backwards… to me… You bury… dead things."
"Humans bury dead things." Leo once again corrected. "Animals leave dead things above ground to be eaten." Karai rolled her eyes.
"Pedantic."
"You love me really." He grinned as he moved to the mouth of the cave where the evening sun was casting a crimson glow over the ledge outside. He stooped down and pressed a hand to the fine grained dirt which covered the ground. "It's warm here, you get sun most of the day." Without another word he began scraping away at a messy hole with his bare hands as Karai watched on, the egg pressed close to her chest. By the time the sun had almost set, the hole was completed and Leo gestured for his wife to come on over. With a pained groan, Karai, now fully back in human form, moved beside Leo and together they lowered their creation into the ground and began to cover it with a thin layer of dirt so that the child could crawl out easily... At least in theory.
"What do we… do now?" Karai whispered as the last handful of dirt covered the egg. Leo embraced her and stroked her damp forhead.
"We wait."
…
…
…
…
58 DAYS LATER
"Any change?" Karai woke with a yawn as she rolled sideways and pressed herself against Leo's leg who sat with his carapace pressed against the cave wall.
"Yes."
"Oh." Karai yawned again and curled up further when suddenly her brain caught up with what had been said. She bolted upright and looks at the patch of dirt just in the mouth of their cave. Every morning for the last 58 days she had asked her husband the same question and received a negative reply, however this morning there was a clear sign of change. The once flat dirt had been raised slightly, suggesting movement from below, as if whatever was in the egg was trying to get free. Karai turned to Leo's awed expression, fixated upon the ground and did the thing she felt was most appropriate at this moment in her life. She punched him. Hard.
"What was that for?" He cried out, tearing his gaze from the ground.
"Why didn't you wake me?" Karai hissed, annoyed at his lack of sympathy. She had carried that thing around for months and had spent hours in agony forcing it out of her body and Leo wasn't going to wake her when it hatched? Some husband.
"I would have woken you if there was any movement, I woke up and it was like that." He defended, and Karai dropped the matter. Wouldn't want the kid to be born to the sound of arguing, she thought, then cursed her soft thoughts. How soppy.
Together they moved over to the spot and waited for any signs, yet after an hour of nothing, Karai began to get worried.
"What if we've buried it too deep?" She hated the way her voice betrayed her anxiety, yet she could see in her lover's face the same panic building up. "Should be dig it out?" Much to her surprise Leo agreed and frantically they uncovered the egg, and Leo let out a cry.
"I see something inside!" Karai rolled her eyes, but her heart gave the same jump at the news. Looking where Leo was pointing she could see a small section where the shell had been broken and a small patch of emerald green skin.
"Great, another turtle." She teased, but both of them had wide grins on their faces.
"Male or female? Quick, place a bet." Leo breathed.
"Male." Karai guessed. She had no idea what gender the snake's DNA she had been infused with was, but as Baxter had designed it for the turtles she guessed it had been male, and with Leo's DNA being a mix of his own and Splinter's there was an overwhelming male majority in the gene department.
"I'm betting female." Leo smiled, his eyes shining with joy and anticipation.
"How can you even tell with turtles at birth?" Karai suddenly realised, "You feel around for a dick?" The statement brought a deep flash of crimson across her husband's cheeks, making her laugh.
"There are various signs which do include looking at the tail… openings…" Another blush. "But a good way is to see if the plastron is slightly concave – as in, does it curve inwards, that's a sign of being male. Or even if the carapace is more rounded then that's a sign for it being female. But it can be difficult to tell until they grow up." Once again they fell into silence when suddenly, the skin beneath the shell moved and the crack grew. Leo and Karai reached out for one another and joined hands, eagerly awaiting the arrival. A chunk of shell dropped off revealing a small section of carapace which rose up slightly and the top section of the egg popped off.
"A turtle!" Leo cheered. "It's so cute!" Karai watched wide eyed as the little face, almost the same shape of Leo's own head, just with more of a point at the back of the skull, turned to her and she saw blue markings framing the child's closed eyes, just the shape of the tattoos which surrounded her own. She gripped Leo's hand tighter until the little mutant rolled sideways and collapsed out of the egg, smashing the remaining shell into tiny fragments. The expectant parents froze.
"What on earth…?" Leo muttered, taking in the child before him, trying to get his head around what had occurred.
However on the other hand Karai's smile widened and she scooped the baby up into her arms and held it close to her breast, feeling its tiny heart beat next to her own.
"Thank goodness it's not another turtle!" She grinned, then lowering her voice she lent close to the child's head and whispered, "Thank you for being more interesting than just another giant turtle." Meeting Leo's eyes, she watched him feign hurt at the statement, but the sparkle of his eyes betrayed him. He was also in love with this little mutant already.
"So I guess my tail and plastron theories won't be of any help." He joked, looking at the lower part of the child's torso. Up until the waits, the child appeared just as Leo and his brothers had as children, chubby limbs and a tiny shell and carapace, yet from the third row of chest plates, the child had the lower body of a snake with a light blue and purple glint to the scales as a line of plastron plates made a row down the centre of the tail. It was a half turtle-half snake mutant, and it was adorable.
"How are we going to know what to call… it?" Leo continued flabbergasted at the merging of his and Karai's genes and the sheer joy he found in just looking at his child – his own flesh and blood.
As if hearing his words, the child opened its eyes, wide blue orbs meeting the gazes of the two mutants staring down at it and it's mouth opened into a wide smile as the tiny hand gripped onto Leo's hovering hand, the small fingers barely making it around one of Leo's fingers.
"She looks like a girl." Karai smiled, taking in the eye shape and the flat edges of the plastron sections. Beside her Leo could only nod, too overcome with emotion to speak. "What shall we call her?" Taking a deep breath Leo met his wife's gaze.
"It's your choice. Whatever you decide I'm happy." Then he paused, thought for a moment then added, "Unless you choose anything like 'killer' 'dagger' or 'fear' then I'll object."
"What about 'fearless'" She teased, enjoying the flash of horror that darted across the turtle's features, but as he realised she was joking, Leo just smiled and shook his head. Karai turned her attention back to her daughter when the perfect name came to her mind.
"How about, Miwa?" Leo squeezed her hand in agreement as she continued, speaking directly to the child. "As a baby I was stolen from a life of love and happiness, my name taken from me and my past concealed. By giving you this name I promise to allow you to live the life I never had a chance to and to grow up surrounded by family and friends instead of fear and suffering."
The child, now known as Miwa, met her mother's eyes and nuzzled closer to her, seeming pleased with this title.
"Welcome to the world little Hamato Miwa." Leo whispered, placing a tender kiss on their daughter's forehead, "Anata o mamorimasu." I will protect you.
Karai squeezed Leo's hand and leant into him, savouring every second of the magical moment.
She would always be there for her little Miwa and it would be this child which would allow her own rebirth after nearly losing her mind after her mutation. Maybe Miwa could be the one to save her for good. Leo may have brought her back to reality, yet now it would be their child who would hold them together and form the base to Karai's new life.
"Watashi no sukuinushi, watashi no musume." She muttered. "Arigatō."
My saviour, my daughter.
Thank you.
Once again, my OC Miwa makes an appearence.
Here is the birth of this little trouble maker. I really needed an excuse to write more about her!
Hope you enjoyed, please leave your thoughts in a review.
Hopefully see you tomorrow.
LL99 out.
