Lily had heard things she never wanted to know from Crystal, and she felt all the better for it. Not because she was happy with the knowledge her friend had imparted to her in whines and whispers over the course of the last few days, going through her problems one shaky explanation at a time in far more detail than that first, impromptu session.
No, she would rather not rememberthe details. But telling everything had unburdened Crystal, and the change, while not total, was so obvious that Lily was surprised nobody else noticed. Crystal was lighter now, standing taller and moving more gracefully.
"We are going to go do some persuading tomorrow, right?" Crystal asked hopefully, tapping her tailfins on the top of her egg. Her voice was low but eager, and her eyes so shifty Lily worried she might draw attention to them both.
"Honey is watching the eggs, so yes," Lily replied quietly. "You remember how we're going to do it?"
"Of course. I will try to make them my friends again, and you will pretend to be along out of curiosity and slip plenty of hints."
"Yes," Lily praised. She was proud of herself for coming up with that; it might not be the most efficient way of making sure the next season-cycle's fledglings paired up without issue, but it also got Crystal to reconnect with the friends who had without exception dropped her around the time Gold and Pearl disappeared. That, she now knew, had hurt Crystal, who of course hadn't complained because Lily had lost Pyre right around that time.
Lily still sometimes felt like biting herself for not noticing her friend's spiraling unhappiness before she had, but Crystal had hidden it well, and was far more deeply affected by losing casual friendships than Lily herself would be. It just wouldn't have occurred to her to wonder whether going from a large group of friends and family to just one person might hurt Crystal so deeply.
All she could do was acknowledge her failure and try to do better, which in this case meant watching Crystal more closely for unhappiness, making sure her friend confided in her, and solving as many of the issues Crystal suffered from as thoroughly as possible.
Such as getting Crystal a new circle of casual friends to spend time with. First, they would go after the younger light wings, but Lily had plans for Crystal to develop at least a few connections among Claw's mates, though that would be harder for her. Her best friend forming connections with said females would also allow Lily to more easily approach and convert them when she needed to, so it was a win-win for the both of them.
Crystal's tailfins continued to tap the egg, and Lily glanced over at them. "I wonder what that sounds like from the inside," she remarked.
"I do too," Crystal agreed, her tail stilling. "I do not want to frighten them."
"Maybe hum to it," Lily suggested. Another problem, another pain Crystal had tried to hide from her, another thing to address. The lingering fears of inadequacy and future struggles were not so easily addressed as Crystal's lack of friends, but they were no less important. Lily just wished she had an easy fix for them too.
O-O-O-O-O
This time around, the group of fledglings landed from their flight just short of the entrance to the cavern, clearly not meaning to linger outside at all. Lily understood that; every day was colder than the last, and it was fast approaching the point where flying, even for fun, would not be worth doing.
Not that such a thing mattered to her; at this point, though her tail had healed, she was pretty sure trying to fly in the freezing wind would put her off of flying for good. She had decided to wait until warmer weather to officially return to the air. It didn't bother her.
Crystal, however…
"Come on, Lily," Crystal urged, "you cannot seriously want to stay on the ground after not flying for so long! I would be up there until icicles formed on my wings!"
"Eyes on the prize, Crystal," Lily admonished, "not on the sky. Remember, they think you will just ignore them. That's probably all that is stopping them from approaching you." And good old-fashioned laziness, but that wasn't something one mentioned in the middle of a pep talk.
"I know, I know," Crystal barked, shuffling from side to side in the entrance to the cavern, clearly eager to be doing something. Whether it was flying or reconnecting with friends wasn't entirely clear.
The fledglings were noticing that Crystal was intentionally blocking the way into the cavern by now, and that Lily was beside her. Lily sighed as she noticed the now normal reaction even the sight of her caused. "Like I said, you know what to do." She stepped back and to the side, moving out of sight and accidentally treading on someone's ear. The main chamber of the cavern was still as packed as ever.
By the time Lily was done apologizing to and generally calming down the angry female she had stepped on and could return her attention to her best friend, things were clearly already well underway, and extremely awkward.
"Have not seen you in a while," Liona mumbled, not meeting Crystal's eyes. "How have you been? We have been… busy… recently."
"I have been well," Crystal said stiffly. "And you, Ash?"
"Same," Ash agreed, obliviously stifling the conversation even further with his ridiculously brief reply. The other fledglings were already dispersing.
Well, if Crystal couldn't break the ice, Lily would help. She spotted Mist, bounded over to her, heedless of the annoyed grunts and barks her hastily-planted paws caused, and seemingly tripped right in front of her.
"Stop your friends from driving Crystal away," she hissed as she righted herself, subtly slapping Mist with her tail. "She wants to be friends again, and it was not her who chose to stop."
Mist stared at Lily for a long moment, looked back at Crystal, who was still awkwardly trying to make conversation with Ash, and nodded, looking down at her paws. "You have a way of making me feel guilty about everything I do," she groaned under her breath.
"And you know the way to fix it," Lily replied sternly, walking away and discretely making herself scarce before the various light wings she had stepped on could figure out who had done it.
"So," Lily heard Mist calling out, though she couldn't see anything useful at the moment, too busy placing her steps to look back, "Crystal, where have you been?"
"Here," Crystal replied.
"Well then, I guess we missed each other in all the chaos," Mist said kindly. "I do not think I have seen you in a moon-cycle! What about you, Cedar?"
"Well, no. She could have joined our flights…"
"No," Mist shot back, "we always kept away from adults, and I guess nobody thought about how that would work for Crystal. You could join us next time, you know."
Lily purred happily, found a spot she could maneuver into a place to sit down, and watched as Mist pulled Crystal and various members of her little group of friends back together. Maybe Mist was doing it partially out of guilt, but by the easy way she and Crystal interacted once the ice had been broken, it didn't matter how it had started.
After a few minutes of watching, Lily realized something truly annoying. She had planned on using this time to bring the fledglings around to the realizations as to who they should be wanting as mates, but five of them truly wanted to avoid her, and the sixth wanted to keep up appearances. What was more, they were all occupied at the moment. She would have to make time for her own plans later. Still, that was fine. What mattered at the moment was watching the slowly closing gaps between Crystal and one group of friends who had accidentally abandoned her. They might not be close friends, to even be able to drop her like that, but that was fine. Crystal just needed connections to other people right now. Casual friends worked for that.
O-O-O-O-O
"Thanks for the push," Mist muttered the next morning, walking up beside Lily as she was getting a drink from the pond. "We should have followed up when she stopped hanging out with us."
"I don't think it was really her choice," Lily murmured back. "I have another task for you."
"Already?"
"Just tell me whether it would be easier to get your friends to acknowledge my existence, or to tell you what pairings I think are best and let you do the convincing," Lily requested. She had spent a good part of the last night thinking about that choice, and she was pretty sure it was a good one if it would be easier. Mist not only had the inherent advantage of being on the good side of her friends, as opposed to basically being invisible, she also had the inbuilt trust of friendship, and a stake in the matter herself. She was the right light wing for the job, and if called out she had the perfect excuse to protect herself with.
"Oh, me, definitely," Mist confirmed. "It would not be hard to get Liona, Root, and Danda to talk to you, but Cedar and Ash? I can do it. We should go somewhere else."
Lily wasn't surprised by the seemingly abrupt change in subject; several other light wings were approaching the pond, and it would soon become obvious that they were talking if they did not leave.
"Agreed." She backed away from the pond, shook her head to be rid of the freezing droplets of water under her mouth, and made for the waste pit, the only other place they could reasonably go without being obviously up to something. Mist followed.
Of course, Lily didn't intend to actually go to the waste pit; it was just a convenient direction to head in until they were out of sight of anyone. She veered off of the most direct route as soon as that happened, and took a few random turns before hunkering down between two tall boulders. "There. This is better."
Mist crouched opposite her and shivered dramatically. "Hurry, it is freezing out here. I can convince them if I know who to talk to."
Lily nodded. "You and Root, Cedar and Liona, Ash and Danda. I think Cedar can help Liona be confident, Danda can keep Ash from doing anything stupid, and you don't dislike Root. I suspect you should make sure Cedar sees Liona as the best choice, and point Ash toward Danda as well, just to be sure they do not challenge. Of course, you'll also need to handle Root."
"I am not used to manipulating my friends, but it is for their own good, and I can handle it," Mist agreed. "Give me until a few days after we all move back out to the valley. We're planning a little celebration for then, and I think I can have it done by then."
"Agreed." Lily considered that plenty of time to spare if Mist didn't succeed; three moon-cycles before the ceremony was more than enough breathing room, especially considering Mist would surely succeed in attracting Root, if nothing else.
"I can do it. And Lily?"
"Yes?"
"Thanks for doing this. You are not just helping yourself, and that makes me happy to help you." Mist leaped up onto the lower of the two boulders and flew away.
Lily purred happily to herself as she took a longer, ground-bound path back toward the cavern. She wasn't entirely comfortable with delegating her manipulation, but she supposed it was inevitable, and this was the perfect opportunity to try it. No risk, high possible reward, and plenty of time to do it herself if Mist failed. Not to mention a built-in observer in Crystal, just to see if Mist had any obvious successes or failures.
O-O-O-O-O
In the moon-cycles that followed, Lily was grateful for three things above all else.
The first was that Crystal had managed to continue the tenuous connections she had reforged with the fledglings. Pursuing that and by extension spending time with them gave her something to do through the long, boring cold-season days, made her happy, and gave Crystal something to talk about when there was nothing else to do, though there was little to nothing on Mist's progress most of the time. Lily was content to let that play out as it would until Mist's self-imposed deadline, so having no news didn't bother her.
The second was that as the cold-season worsened, everyone became more and more sluggish. Not like Crystal and Honey had gotten while they were carrying their eggs, far less pronounced, but far more useful when it came to the atmosphere of the cavern. Fewer and fewer arguments broke out as the cold-season wore on, though one would have expected more as venturing outside more than absolutely necessary became even less desirable, and thus everyone was more confined. Sleepy light wings did not start trouble so much as ignore each other, it seemed. Nobody wanted to start anything when they were tired, and everyone was tired more often than not. Not everyone was peaceful and content all the time, far from it, but things did not get worse as the snow piled high outside and the clouds blocked the sun for days on end.
The third, possibly most important thing Lily was grateful for was the way time seemed to fly by every time she looked away. Days passed as if in a hurry to be gone, and even the most boring, eventless day did not linger overmuch. She wasn't sure if that feeling was another side-effect of the season or just a subconscious effort to stop from going insane through inaction, but she was grateful for it all the same. The days slipped past unless something interesting happened, which was not often.
O-O-O-O-O
"You heard, right?" Crystal asked urgently.
"No, what?" Lily hadn't expected urgency; Crystal had just come from spending a day with Danda and Liona specifically. She had expected contentment, or maybe annoyance if a petty argument had broken out. 'And how would I have heard? I've been here all day."
"Diora's egg hatched," Crystal revealed, flopping down beside Lily. "Female, because of course it is. We have to do something for her, remember?"
"Yes, I do." She had put Diora out of her mind for a while simply because there was nothing to be done, but now there was no ignoring her. She needed to either be corrected or countered. The former was risky and the latter likely to be an ongoing task, but both needed to be tried.
"Good. You can go now," Crystal insisted. "I can take the eggs for the rest of today."
Lily stood, though she doubted that she would get a good chance to work on Diora the same day her egg hatched. Crystal clearly wouldn't be put off of her urgency without an argument, and it would easier to just go, politely fawn over the hatchling for a short while, and then return if there was no chance to do anything more.
"And do not let her insult Pearl," Crystal called out just as she left. "She does not get to talk about her!"
Lily snorted to herself as she made her way through the corridor; what did Crystal expect her to do, shut Diora up by slapping her every time she bad-mouthed Pearl? It was probably a good thing Crystal was not coming along; she obviously felt far too strongly about all of this to be helpful, unless Lily needed outright defiance on her side.
But enthusiasm was still vastly preferable to the subdued moods Crystal had been prone to previously, so Lily wasn't about to complain. It was good that Crystal felt strongly; she should, Pearl had been a good friend, and Diora responsible for at least some of her suffering.
But none of that was useful when it came to preventing new suffering, so Lily did not let herself dwell on Pearl's pains for too long, pushing them to the back of her mind. Regardless of what any good light wing should feel, she needed to be calm and manipulative, not worked up and angry over past actions. There was still a chance she could get Diora to change her ways and going in angry wasn't going to help with that.
Lily stopped just in front of the entrance to the side-cavern she was fairly certain she recalled Diora sharing for the cold-season, and crooned politely. Again, she was not going to sabotage herself by provoking Diora in any way, even if she would rather not show her any respect whatsoever.
"Oh, come in if you must, but be quiet!" Diora hissed irritably. So much for not starting off on the wrong paw. Lily obligingly slipped in without greeting the female, taking in the situation as she approached.
Two sleeping light wings Lily did not know by name were lying at opposite ends of the cavern, their paws pressed over their ears. Ivy, Diora's mate, was nowhere to be seen, and Diora herself was lying in the center of the chamber, her hatchling nowhere to be seen.
"What do you want?" Diora hissed.
"To see your hatchling and congratulate you again," Lily offered diffidently, wondering where Diora had her hatchling hidden. Her wings were folded up against her back, and there was no telltale bundle of white scales and skin huddled against her side or chest, or even under her tailfins.
"Come back when she is awake," Diora hissed. "You know how it is with them, always wailing or bawling for no reason for the first few moon-cycles. It takes time to teach them better."
Lily didn't know how it was, not really, but she doubted it was as bad as Diora made it sound for everyone. Maybe it was just what she already knew of the female coloring her perception, but what Diora described didn't sound normal at all.
Still, she had been told to come back later; she could return to Crystal and plan to come back at a better time. Or, she could press the matter, because this was as close to alone as she was likely to get with Diora and her hatchling.
Lily decided to press the matter, seeing no real advantage to waiting. "Surely you can just let me see her while she sleeps," she suggested politely. "I have never seen a hatchling so young, and I hear they grow fast."
"Not fast enough," Diora grumbled. "If I show you her and she wakes, you have to deal with her until she falls back asleep."
Lily was momentarily taken aback, though perhaps she shouldn't have been, knowing what she did of Diora, so it took her a moment to respond. "I… Yes, of course I can."
"Oh, good," Diora sighed. "She is a whiner, so have fun losing your hearing." With those words, she lifted her body, revealing that her daughter was sleeping under her, resting between her lower stomach and the ground.
Lily resolved to ask Dew or Pina whether that was a normal place to keep a hatchling; it looked risky to her, but short of trying it herself she didn't know whether it actually was. She certainly didn't trust Diora to give her an accurate assessment of the possible dangers, so asking her was out of the question.
"She is beautiful, and I will teach her to be quiet soon enough," Diora said proudly. "Look at her glint."
"She does not appear to have one," Lily observed, leaning in. "Am I missing something?"
"Oh, the glints are almost impossible to see at this age, but there is some on her ears and forehead," Diora explained. "Silver. Can you think of a more attractive color?"
Lily could think of several; it was not as if one color in particular topped all of the others. She was pretty sure any bright color would be striking in the right lighting. "Silver is certainly unique," she said instead, thinking that Diora wouldn't appreciate what she really thought.
"Yes, it is," Diora purred. "And she has-"
A small, tentative whine worked its way out of the small body in front of them, and oversized eyes flicked open. The hatchling struggled to move her head around, hunching her body up and continuing to whine.
"And there she goes," Diora said fatalistically. "You get to deal with her."
Lily wasn't sure she understood; surely the hatchling was only whining because she had been woken and was no longer warm and cozy under her Dam? That seemed like it would have an obvious, easy solution, but Diora acted as if it was unsolvable.
If this was anyone else, Lily would have sought clarification, but she needed to teach Diora better, and if it turned out she was just oblivious to a simple solution, then it would work better to just demonstrate and use the results to establish a precedent.
With that in mind, Lily crouched in front of the hatchling and offered a paw, placing it alongside her, crooning wordlessly in order to hopefully soothe the little female further.
"That will not work," Diora huffed. "See?"
Sure enough, the little female continued to whine and cry, even as she laid her head on top of Lily's paw.
"She has been fed, right?" Lily asked, laying her own head on the ground within the female's line of sight to hopefully distract her.
"Of course," Diora scoffed. "This is not my first child."
Lily flicked her tongue out at the hatchling, lightly tracing a line across her side. She was just trying things at random, hoping to hit upon a simple distraction, but she hadn't expected to get a response immediately.
The whining stopped. The hatchling pushed her little body around with stubby paws, her pale blue eyes coming to a stop on Lily.
"You like that?" Lily hummed, darting her tongue out and licking the little female across the face. Her blue eyes narrowed and she tried to bite Lily's tongue.
Lily chortled at that and stuck her tongue out tauntingly. She was pretty sure the hatchling wasn't mad at her, though trying to bite her tongue could be interpreted that way.
"I suppose that works, if you want to risk getting bitten," Diora huffed. "I do not want you teaching my daughter such crude behavior, though."
Lily dared another quick lick to the female's snout and just barely avoided the clumsy lunge, all the while burying her displeasure so that it didn't show in her voice or actions. She was here to fix Diora if she could, so hearing her issues on full display in statements like that was just helping her get a better idea of how to approach the problem. She couldn't get angry at any of it yet.
The hatchling began to purr, a tiny rumble that shook her body, and she lunged forward, hitting Lily's nose with all the force a hatchling small and light enough to fit under her Dam's stomach could muster, which was to say almost nothing.
"You just wanted to play, didn't you?" Lily asked in a happy voice, nuzzling the little female. "Only a day out of the egg and already playing."
"They can move around and make noise right from the start," Diora growled. "That is what makes them so annoying until they are taught to shut up."
"I think this one would need less correcting if you kept her busy," Lily proposed, keeping her tone casual both for the sake of staying on Diora's good side and to keep the hatchling happy. Growling with her face right there was just asking to scare her.
"That would just teach her to always want to play," Diora replied dismissively. "And when she begins crawling, I do not want her in the habit. No, learning to be still and quiet is better."
Not in the habit of doing things? Lily was finding it harder and harder to keep her calm, particularly given that she knew from experience how stifling and horrible it felt to be raised like that, but she managed nonetheless. "Does that even work? My cavern-Dams raised me in a similar way, and I do not think it was best, looking back."
"Clearly they did not try very hard, given how you turned out," Diora replied dismissively. She had long since sat down a good distance from Lily and her daughter, and was looking out of the chamber, into the corridor. "I started with Pearl too late, but Silva will learn from the very beginning."
Not if Lily had absolutely anything to say about it. She snuck another lick across the hatchling's front, catching her by surprise, and took the excuse of playing with her to calm down for a long moment.
"Why do you want her still and quiet?" Lily ventured. "I, personally, would want a daughter as outgoing and active as possible. That way, if I am to be stuck tending my offspring anyway, it will be interesting and active."
"Are you calling me fat?" Diora growled.
"What?" Lily yelped, completely caught by surprise. She almost reared back and looked at Diora directly, only in the last moment recalling that she was keeping the hatchling - Silva, Diora had called her - busy and not moving. "I wasn't calling anyone fat, I was just saying that if one had to spend time with one's child, better they be active and interesting than dull and boring."
"What you call boring, more intelligent light wings would call calm and polite," Diora hissed, stalking over to Lily. "Good females do not fly around carousing with anyone and anyone they meet, running off with the first male to make promises to them."
And just like that, they were no longer talking in hypotheticals. Lily took a moment to introduce Silva to the concept of a large paw lightly poking her instead of a tongue licking, and when she immediately began to nip toothlessly at that paw, rose to face Diora directly.
"Good females are faithful to their mates, yes," Lily replied tactfully, though she could not keep a slight tension from her voice, "but that is not what I meant. I myself am not as active as I should be, and what I mean is that running, flying, play-fighting, and just socializing with others my age are all things I did not do enough of, and I regret that now. I may have been able to win Gold over were I fitter, faster, more attractive, and had I known him better, and being active throughout my time as a fledgling would have accomplished that." She was proud of that line of reasoning; it was a little personal, but all the better for it.
"She will not be competing for a mate," Diora scoffed. "So no, I do not want her more able to win one. Personality is more important than looks."
"Yes, it is," Lily agreed, working that into her argument on the fly. "But shy and sheltered is not a personality, it's a lack of personality, or at least a hindrance to anyone seeing she has one."
"Why am I arguing with you, of all dragons, about this?" Diora snarled. "This is my daughter, and how I raise her is my choice. Besides, you are a trough who couldn't seduce a substandard male and ended up the lowest of the low because of it. I should not even be letting you near my daughter."
Lily shrugged the insults off like water, if only because they carried no weight, coming from the vile light wing in question. She would have to value Diora's opinion to be hurt by it. "Your methods of raising a daughter did not really work with Pearl. Maybe that means they are flawed?" She didn't expect the lackluster argument to succeed where more persuasive ones had only made Diora angry, but the answer might be informative. At this point gathering knowledge about how Diora planned to treat Silva, and how it differed from what she did to Pearl, was more important, as it seemed intervention and subversion was the only way to go.
"I did not start early enough with Pearl," Diora hissed. "I let her play with females who taught her to resist my teachings. She was always whining and complaining. Silva will not do any of that. Silva will know better by the time she is old enough to talk."
Lily could still feel Silva's weight, now half hanging off the top of one of her paws, and she felt more protective toward it than she had to anything in a long time. She wanted nothing more than to just lean down, pick the little female up, and walk away, but that would lead to screeching and possible attacking and in the end having to give her back, probably traumatizing her in the process.
"Give my daughter back," Diora demanded, seeming as if she sensed some of what Lily wanted to do. "Right now."
"Take her," Lily retorted. "I cannot make myself give her to you right now. Not after hearing that." She contemplated striking Diora once she was close enough, and then discarded the possibility from her mind. It would do no good, and more importantly, it would do no good for Silva.
"I do not want to see you in here again, or around my rock once the cold-season is over," Diora hissed, reaching down and plucking Silva off of the ground with her mouth, holding her haphazardly by the scruff. Silva began to whine unhappily.
"You will not see me," Lily promised, still holding down the now boiling anger in the pit of her stomach. Only the self-control she had long since mastered out of necessity held her back now, and she could not rely on it forever. So, she turned her back on Diora, left the side-chamber, and hated herself for abandoning an innocent to yet another twisted Dam, all while plans for separating Diora and Silva rushed through her head.
Diora planned to have Silva silent and broken to her will by the time she could speak? Well, Lily had another plan that involved exactly the opposite as soon as possible. They would see who succeeded.
O-O-O-O-O
"Diora?" Dew asked, sidling from side to side to balance the hyper fledgling currently jumping around on her back as she walked. "Yes, I know her. Why?"
"I need to call in a favor from you and Pina, and any friends you have with younger fledglings," Lily said quickly, walking alongside her. "Try to set something up where she leaves her hatchling in your care every so often. As often as you can manage, ideally."
"It is not so much extra work, watching two instead of one every so often, and I know Pina will not mind in the slightest, but why?" Dew asked curiously.
"Silva, her hatchling, has to have friends and better examples than Diora and Ivy," Lily said shortly. "I don't care what it takes, it has to happen." This was just one of many small plans she had on the subject, as once she had truly thought about it a multitude of different approaches had occurred to her.
"You say it like she will not have friends, otherwise…" Dew murmured.
"Silva is Pearl's little sister, and Pearl didn't, aside from Crystal," Lily explained. "And Diora thinks she wasn't strict enough with Pearl. We need to counteract her for the good of Silva."
"I will do my best to set up what you suggest," Dew promised. "But would it not be easier to use Honey and Crystal as your potential solutions? They both have hatchlings on the way."
"Possibly, and I may set that up, but I am not leaving this to one attempt." She also hadn't thought about that in the short time it had taken to leave Diora, walk around in an angry huff, and decide on an immediate course of action before finding Dew, but there was no need to mention that. Especially not when the answer she had given was also true.
"That is wise of you," Dew agreed.
"Just fulfilling my responsibilities as Dam of the pack," Lily said to herself, far too quietly for Dew or anyone else to hear. "Just doing what's right."
O-O-O-O-O
A loud, laughing rumble alerted Lily to Claw's presence in the chamber he had assigned to her and Crystal long before she actually reached it, but she didn't turn around. Crystal and the eggs were in there, and Lily didn't trust Claw with anything, let alone fragile, breakable eggs. It sounded like he was just talking at the moment, but that meant nothing.
"So, I said not to tend to you as well," he was saying as Lily slipped into the chamber, talking to Crystal, who was looking up at him with narrowed eyes, not having moved from the two eggs she held safely against her side. "I hope you understand."
Both Crystal and Claw caught sight of Lily at roughly the same time, and their faces both brightened, though for very different reasons.
"Oh, good, you are back," Claw called out. "I was just telling Crystal something you will likely soon need to hear."
"Which is?" Lily carefully replied, keeping to the edge of the roughly circular chamber as she made her way around Claw and to Crystal.
"When you have an egg, you will not be getting any special treatment," Claw explained blithely. "Like your friend, here."
"Fine, then," Lily agreed, safe in the knowledge that Claw was planning ahead for something that would never happen.
"So long as you know," Claw purred. "Are you going to ask why?"
"No. I assume you will tell me or not regardless." Lily was vaguely aware that she could be more tactful, but this was Claw, and she was already angry thanks to Diora. As long as she kept herself to boring, uninteresting responses such as that one, her plan to bore Claw away from her was proceeding as well as it could.
Claw leered at her and sighed condescendingly, though with a hint of frustration that made Lily feel just the tiniest bit smug. "You still are not cooperating," he explained. "Only my favored mates get special treatment. You can watch all you want, but unless you change your attitude, you will get nothing."
"Understood," Lily said shortly, sensing that she wasn't getting him to go away without a verbal response. She didn't really understand what he meant about watching, but it didn't matter.
"I will be back tonight to see if you really do understand," Claw purred. He left with a flourish of his tail, as if waving goodbye, or flaunting himself in front of them.
"I hate him," Crystal hissed once a few long moments had passed and the sounds of Claw's paws on the stone had faded away into the distance. "I really do."
"Agreed." Lily was just glad to hear her friend's vitriol, knowing as she did that it had been restrained and left to fester before. "Did he actually say anything useful?"
"Useful? No. Enraging, maybe," Crystal responded irritably. "He came in, bothered me until I put him off by pointing out that Honey would never stop wailing if he stepped on her egg, and tried to get me to beg for the same privileges Honey gets even though my egg will hatch any day and I have not ever said I care before."
"He did not come close to stepping on an egg?" Lily asked, horrified at the thought. That was so deeply wrong, and she might have been able to stop it if she had come back sooner. If something had happened, it would have been partially her fault for taking so long with Diora and then Dew.
"No," Crystal said reassuringly, "because I used that excuse the moment he started pawing at me. Do not worry, they are both fine."
"With Claw, that was in question," Lily grumbled, laying down opposite Crystal. She was able to keep one eye on the narrow entrance and one on her friend that way, which was useful as they weren't exactly saying things they would want overheard were someone like Honey to walk in.
"I was careful," Crystal insisted. "Lily, he really tried hard to make me beg."
"Did you?"
"Once I realized he was not going to leave until I did, yes," Crystal admitted. "And you know what he did then?"
"Told you no," Lily guessed.
"Yes!" Crystal exclaimed, sounding equal parts angry and bewildered. "He just laughed and said I am not 'compliant' and 'adjusted' enough! It was like he was just there to make me hate him more."
"That's…"
"Cruel? Antagonizing? Evil?" Crystal supplied, her eyes narrow and glaring at nothing in particular.
"Overly tactless," Lily finally finished, feeling sure she was right. "He's not that stupid. If he wanted to win you over, that was the absolute worst way to go about it, and he would have approached you immediately, not now." It just didn't add up, either. According to Pina, he had won over other females in the past, albeit ones likely less violently opposed to him.
"I guess he is just that stupid," Crystal growled.
"No, he's not," Lily argued. "There's only one explanation for this that makes sense. He doesn't actually want you to conform and give in for real."
"He sure tries to make me give in and do things I hate a lot if he does not want that," Crystal said skeptically.
"Yes, but…" Lily forced herself to ignore the awkwardness of what she had to say in order to continue. "But if you were willing, he would not get to force you to do things. If that is the part he enjoys, then it makes sense that he wants you resentful and more opposed to him. If that was his goal, he would show up now instead of before so that it feels like you are being made to beg for something worthless." She wasn't entirely sure about that last part, but clearly something of the sort had been running through his mind, for him to have waited so long.
"Ugh," Crystal shuddered and gagged dramatically. "I think I like assuming he is stupid better than thinking of it like that."
"So do I, but what we would prefer doesn't matter, only what is actually happening," Lily said firmly. "And we know he is passable at manipulation, because he uses it on the males to get them to challenge. So, he came in here to taunt you and make you more resistant, not less, even if it seemed like he wanted you totally compliant." She thought that he had also probably derived some sick pleasure from basically forcing Crystal to beg for something he always intended to deny, but telling Crystal that would serve no purpose other than to upset her.
"Should I be doing something different to make him stop?" Crystal asked. "I mean, if he likes it, then I should… Do what he wants?" She scowled even as she came to that conclusion.
"That's the problem," Lily sighed. "If you resist, he's happy, and if you don't resist, then he's still probably happy, and it's all the worse for you because he might try and see how far your new compliance will go. You could just try and ignore him like I do, but that has its own problems."
"It definitely does," Crystal agreed. "I suppose I will just keep doing what I am doing if it is all the same anyway."
"Well, if that means using the eggs to ward him off, it might not be possible for much longer," Lily joked.
"I will get a few more days out of it, at least," Crystal replied in a light voice. "So, how did it go with Diora?"
"Not well," Lily groaned. "We're going to have to intervene, because she's not listening."
"I could have told you she would not, but at least you tried."
"I did, and we're not giving up. We just have to be less direct about it."
"When you say less direct…"
Lily flicked her tail in the direction of the eggs by Crystal's side. "Diora doesn't like you, and she doesn't like me, but odds are that between you and Honey there will be a female hatchling near Silva's age in our side-cavern. We can get Honey to reach out on our behalf if we tell her the right things, and we can get regular, unsupervised time with Silva that way. I have other plans, but that's the one we can do soon." Really, the hatchling didn't have to be female, but it would be easier if Honey didn't need to be convinced to lie to Diora about something so easily disproved.
"We cannot do that until we have a hatchling to use as an excuse, though," Crystal objected.
"That's fine. If Diora is any indication, it won't be long now," Lily explained, her eyes on the eggs. Aside from their usefulness in tricking Diora into letting them corrupt her new daughter, there was a host of other concerns and complications that would come once those eggs broke open, but like so many things in their lives at the moment, all they could do was wait.
O-O-O-O-O
The first Lily heard of Honey's egg hatching was a wailing from her side-cavern, followed by a harried crooning that sounded desperate. She had just been returning from a frigid but necessary trip to the pond following a long, pleasant talk with Pina about nothing in particular, and had expected to find a quiet, peaceful side-cavern. So much for that.
"You fed the hatchling," she began as soon as she entered the side-cavern. It was an obvious thing, but she had to be sure with Honey.
"Crystal brought him fish," Honey said quickly. "How do I get him to go to sleep? Everyone says they sleep a lot."
"Maybe cover him and hum to him?" Really, why was Honey asking her? It wasn't like she was an authority on the subject.
"I am already covering him!" Honey complained, shifting her wing aside to reveal a small white hatchling lying on its back and flailing feebly. It was still wailing.
"Well," Lily said sternly, crouching down and nosing the hatchling onto its stomach, "maybe start by not putting him on his back." Given the wail cut off as soon as paws met stone, Lily was pretty sure that was the problem.
"Why does it matter?" Honey asked sullenly.
Lily resisted the urge to bull Honey over and teach her by example, settling for a low growl. "How would you feel if you were stuck on your back with a full belly and no idea what is going on?" She was surprised the hatchling hadn't thrown up; that was a singularly uncomfortable feeling, and one of the main reasons nobody slept on their back after eating. Food just did not sit right like that.
"Oh… I understand now." Honey sounded embarrassed, which was a step up from defiant. "I did not think of it like that. What do I do now?"
"You should go to your Dam, or any Dam if she isn't around, and get some tips on this," Lily suggested. "I'll watch him and the egg."
"Okay," Honey agreed, standing and moving aside so that Lily could take her spot with the hatchling on one side and Crystal's egg on the other. "I will. I did not hurt him by keeping him on his back, did I? I just thought it would stop him from crawling around."
Well, it seemed Honey was feeling the responsibility now, given her worried expression. Lily felt a little pity for her now that she understood the stakes. "He will be fine, and he's too young to do much crawling right now anyway. What is his name?"
Honey grimaced. "I do not know yet. My Dam suggested Wax for a male, but that is such a simple name..."
"Think on that too," Lily added as Honey left.
Wax. Lily peeked down at the tiny hatchling, who looked up at her with wide, uncertain eyes. What color was wax? What was wax, anyway? She only knew what honey was because Pyre had told her. Her own namesake did not even grow around here. Pyre was not even a word, for all she knew, or if it was, he had never told her what it meant. And what was a crystal?
Really, most of the names she knew she did not know the meaning of or even the actual word. Pina was probably Pine, a tree, but what was Cressa? Cress? That didn't seem like a thing. At least Moss and Granite were common things Lily could put an image to in her mind.
Wax, or whatever Honey would end up calling him, stirred next to Lily, yawning widely. There was still a little patch of odd-smelling wetness behind his ears, a clear fluid that made Lily's nose twitch. She licked it off before she could even think about what she was doing.
Strange. She wasn't used to instinct taking such a strong hold. It was almost discomforting; this wasn't even her hatchling.
No, he was hers. He was hers in the same way every other light wing of the pack was hers, barring people like Cressa and Claw. The actions of a Dam were only appropriate for her, regardless of cause.
Hers, and innocent. A combination of Claw and Honey, but innocent at the moment, and if Lily had her way, a good person. She hadn't ever had to raise a hatchling, or help raise one, but this was one challenge she could rise to easily enough. Pyre's example and her own apparently powerful instincts on the subject would be more than enough, to say nothing of asking advice of Pina or Dew.
"You will be a good male," Lily hummed, patting the hatchling with a gentle paw, looking him over with a searching eye. He burbled happily and flailed his stubby little tail around. "Strong and kind and honest." She might have added smart and cunning to her list of ambitions for him, but given who his parents were, it was probably kinder to only ask of him things both Honey and Claw were or could have been, just in case. She didn't know if he would take after one or the other, or end up completely different.
The little male showed no signs of understanding, blinking wildly and making occasional little noises of no meaning. Everything, even this boring grey cavern and grey-eyed female, was new to him. He probably would have found his own eggshell interesting if it had not already been removed, probably by the males that had attended Honey these last few weeks.
There was a good thing. That was over now; Lily had noticed that all of Claw's commands had hinged upon 'the egg' not 'the new Dam' or 'the child'. As far as she could tell, the morning fish and other little perks had just come to an end.
This also made two of three, when it came to eggs imminently hatching. Lily tapped her tail on the egg Honey had been absently sheltering on her other side, glad she had not left it in the cold in her preoccupation with Honey's hatchling. However interesting and important Honey's hatchling was, she was sure Crystal's would be even more interesting when it hatched. The hatching was coming soon, too. Very soon. The eggs had been laid less than a day apart, and while that did not necessarily mean anything, the little pulses she had been feeling in Crystal's egg now took on a new, more imminent meaning.
It was possible that Lily would be the only one around when Crystal's egg hatched; Crystal herself would not be back until nightfall, and it was just after noon now, with the egg possibly ready to hatch within the day. But as there was nothing to be done to prevent that, Lily decided not to worry. It would happen, and if her friend could not be here, she would be more than happy to take her place and welcome the last of the three hatchlings into the uncertain world.
O-O-O-O-O
As it turned out, the little disturbances Lily had been feeling did not mean the egg was about to hatch, but by chance Crystal still almost missed it when it finally happened twelve days later; by the time Crystal returned to their side-cavern from her day of doing whatever she wanted, the egg was shaking against Lily's side, occasionally rocking away from her. Honey's hatchling, who really hadn't done much of note yet in his life aside from eating and relieving himself on the stone floor, was lying quietly by her other side, entirely unaware of the imminent arrival of another like himself.
Lily barked in relief the moment she saw Crystal peering through the crack. "Just in time!" she called out. "Your egg is about to hatch."
"Good thing I did not miss it!" Crystal said quickly, squeezing through the narrow opening and hurrying to Lily's side. "I do not need to do anything, right?"
Lily resisted the impulse to ask why everyone seemed to consider her an expert; it was probably just because she was knowledgeable about other things and hadn't made it obvious that this was one area she was mostly oblivious about. "Just do whatever seems right," she said vaguely.
"Okay…" Crystal lay down facing the egg trembling against Lily's side, not moving to take it for herself. "Are you sure something is going to happen?"
"Unless eggs shake like this for some other reason, yes," Lily explained. "It probably won't be long now. Which do you think it will be, male or female?"
"Female. I really, really hope it is a female," Crystal admitted, her voice worried.
"A male would not be so bad," Lily countered. "Why do you want a female?"
"I do not ever wish to see a son of mine killed by Claw," Crystal whined, "and I also do not want to see him weak and spineless, or sworn to someone he hates. Best this is a female. We can set her up with a good male if nothing else. Claw will not have her."
Lily wasn't sure if she agreed with Crystal's assessment of the relative dangers, but she couldn't argue that it would be easier to keep a female safe, not after running into at least one male determined to challenge and die for no obvious reason.
The egg's shell cracked a little more, and both adults settled in to watch quietly.
More cracking, more rocking, splintering visible on the outside now. And then, in a moment that seemed to pass far quicker than it should, the egg split, and a white hatchling sprawled out, tumbling forward.
Crystal absently licked it clean, doing exactly as Lily had for Honey's hatchling, proving in the very least that it was instinct that had driven Lily and not just some strange urge. "Male."
Lily did not like the resignation in her friend's voice. "He is still a beautiful, healthy hatchling. You should be happy."
"I would be happier if I could be sure he would live," Crystal said vehemently, reaching out and pulling her son over to her. "Live, and not bow fearfully to Claw."
"We're working on that," Lily said, reminding her friend of that important fact. "And any danger to him is a long time away. Don't be like Granite's Dam. Don't stay distant out of fear."
"I do not want to," Crystal agreed quietly. "I want to do right by him."
"Then you will," Lily said firmly, leaving no room for argument. "Do you have a name for him picked out?"
"No, actually. I am going to wait a while for that." Crystal hummed comfortingly to her little one. "I feel as if I should give him a name that fits his personality, and it will take time for me to know what that is."
That was not normal, as names generally were based on looks, but Lily liked it. "Sounds like a good plan."
"You know what else sounds like a good plan? One of us going for fish." Crystal shrugged her wings. "Can you do it? I would, but…"
"Of course!" Lily leaped up and bolted out of the side-cavern despite being all too aware of the fact that she still didn't know how to fish. She knew people who were sympathetic to new Dams and who did know how to fish, which was almost as good.
O-O-O-O-O
"Thank you," Lily said enthusiastically. "Are you sure you don't want to come in and give them to her yourself?"
"No," Pina purred, backing away from the small pile of fish she had flown out and caught. "A first-time Dam will be tense around anyone she does not know very well, and I doubt I count. No need to stress her. I will just go back to Dew and try to regain feeling in my frills and tail."
"How will you do that?" Lily asked curiously.
"Shared body heat, probably," Pina said, for some reason looking aloof and vaguely uncomfortable. Actually, that was probably the cold's fault.
"Don't let me keep you, then," Lily replied. "Thanks again."
It was the work of only a few moments to gather up the dozen small fish Pina had selected in her mouth and maneuver her way back into the side-cavern. She dumped her delivery right next to the new hatchling, then purred as his eyes widened and he lunged at a fish almost as big as himself. While he was voraciously but futilely attempting to consume it, she tore off some smaller, more manageable strips for him to devour. "He will grow big."
"If he lives long enough to do so." Crystal sighed as he gulped the meal down. "I am trying to be positive, but I do not want him... here. I want him, but not here."
"Where else is there?" Lily asked. "I'm not sure I understand."
"I just want him safe," Crystal said sadly. "However that can be done. I thought, since Pearl left to be safe, maybe somewhere else would be better."
That made more sense, but Lily felt she had to ask the obvious question. "But how do we know anywhere else is safer, or where to go, or how to-"
"It was just a stupid wish," Crystal interrupted. "Here is where we are staying. I just wish things were different."
"We both do," Lily murmured, before lifting her head and fixing Crystal with a stern stare. "But we should focus on the positive for now. He is healthy, he will be safe for the next five season-cycles, and we can work our hardest to make absolutely sure Claw isn't around by the end of that time."
O-O-O-O-O
Later that night, Lily lay awake, her eyes closed but her mind on the warm, moving presence occasionally pushing at her from his place between her and Crystal. Even the thought of Crystal's little son made her heart warm, far warmer than Honey's son or Diora's daughter, and on some level that bothered her. It shouldn't, but it did, and she lay awake puzzling over the faint but undeniably negative emotion buried somewhere in her mind.
Why would how she felt about Crystal's son bother her? He was Claw's son too, but that had never mattered to her, given both herself and Granite. He was also, technically speaking, her brother, but again, she didn't mind that either. Given she would have a paw in raising him, it might end up being impossible to treat him like a brother, but in that case she could just consider him one of her own, or just the son of her best friend, and nothing huge would be lost because she would be close to him anyway.
Maybe that was it; the sinking feeling hit her stronger than ever at the idea of considering this one her son. Because it was strange and twisted? She would have thought herself at the very least numb to that after all that had happened.
Or was it because this was the closest she would ever get to having an egg of her own?
The moment she thought it, she knew it was true. He reminded her that this particular part of life was forever closed to her, necessarily so or not. She had no particular desire to have her own offspring now or at any point in the future, but this little male was showing her what she had decided to miss. Lost opportunity, a chance taken away, hurt regardless of whether she would ever have actually chosen it.
But it was done, and this was almost as good anyway. She banished the little regret to the same part of her mind that she kept her worst memories, locking it away. It wouldn't help her, not with her life, and not with helping raise Crystal's son. She didn't need it.
There was nothing to regret. Just a choice she might have made had her life gone totally differently.
Author's Note: A special shout-out to YouYou098, who pointed out a massive mistake in this chapter that somehow slipped past both me and my beta. I don't know how I forgot that Wax and Crystal's egg shared a Sire. That seems like kind of a big thing to forget.