Three days passed, and though he knew it was too soon for an egg to hatch, he was already wishing it did; he hated being out of the water for too long, and overall he hated eggsitting. In his opinion it was the most boring task in the Pride Lands, but he had never voiced out this opinion to Akina, knowing she loved kids (despite she already knowing this trait of his).

He hadn't seen the Lion Guard these days. He was actually glad they weren't poking their noses into his business: he had been the one who found that bird; he had been the one she entrusted her child to despite him being a predator. He was aware he wasn't the most… altruistic animal in the Pride Lands, but at the very least he kept his promises… the ones he was willing to make and were within his power, at least.

Today it was particularly sunny, and he was starting to feel the heat in his body reaching its peak; he needed to cool down. Makuu glanced at the river where the other crocs were napping, then at the egg; due the hot temperature he had removed some of the incubating leaves to keep the egg from boiling. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt if he went to take a quick dip, right? Besides, the females in the float hadn't laid their eggs yet, so the monitor lizards weren't around yet. What was the worst that could happen?

…

Small yellow eyes waited until the crocodile had gotten away from the makeshift nest to make his move. Weird, crocs weren't supposed to next until a few more weeks, but in this occasion that one had been looking for one. It looked like it was only one egg, but it was even larger than the normal crocodile egg, probably it would be even tastier because of it.

Licking his scaly lips, the lizard swiftly ran over towards the reeds an into the nest, noting it wasn't buried, but put in a nest made of flattened reed and kept warm with dead leaves, which also served as a camouflage to some extent. It was even larger than he imagined! Definitely, he would get quite a meal. The lizard looked around to make sure the crocodiles weren't nearby, and then picked the egg in his mouth to take into his lair; such a big prize deserved to be eaten back home. Sadly, the larger size of this meal made him move slower.

He rushed into back from where he came as fast as he could, unaware that someone had seen him.

…

"MAKUU!"

He jolted awake when Akina's voice rang in his ears, lifting his head out of the water. He found his mate next to the… oh, no! He had been so relaxed he had fallen asleep! He quickly swam over to the reeds, noticing Akina's expression was one of fright. He feared the worst as he rushed out of the water and towards the nest… only to find it empty.

"Where is it?!" he asked his mate, frantically searching around the reeds to see if it hadn't rolled out.

"I came to check on it, but it's gone!" Akina replied. She noticed very familiar prints on the ground that came and moved away from the nest. "Makuu…! I think it was a monitor lizard!"

"How can that be?! They aren't supposed to be around here until…!" He didn't dare to finish the sentence, and took advantage of seeing the shape and size of the footprints. With a snarl, Makuu followed the footprints as fast as he could, thankfully the size of the egg would slow down the predator.

"Hey, Makuu!" Suddenly, the Egret from the Lion Guard (Ono… right?) flew down from the sky, looking like he had something urgent to tell him. "What happened?!"

"I've got no time for this, kid!" Makuu snapped at him; it wasn't particularly on purpose, but he was too upset about the prospect of losing that egg to mind his manners. "A monitor lizard kidnapped the egg!"

"That's what I wanted to tell you! When I was coming to talk to you, I spotted a monitor lizard trying to drag an egg away-!"

"WHERE?!"

Ono flew back in fright when the crocodile snapped his teeth at him, but given the circumstances, it was understandable he'd be angry. "Over there!" he pointed towards the direction he had seen the lizard, but barely had time to react as Makuu rushed in that direction. "But-! Makuu, wait-!"

He didn't listen. All he cared about was retrieving the egg. When he spotted the thieving lizard, he made a quick burst of speed to catch up with it, but as he came closer he noticed a small, familiar blue gecko was harassing him.

"Get your own egg, you runt!" the monitor lizard snapped, stomping his tail on the spot where it had been a few seconds ago.

Despite being smaller, Hodari knew monitor lizards couldn't keep up with his agility and speed. "I'm not letting you take it!"

Before the monitor lizard could react, Makuu stamped his foreleg on top of his tail, making him drop the egg

"Gotcha!" Ono cried out as he landed just on top of the egg to keep it from rolling away.

The lizard gulped in fright when he felt the crocodile's piercing eyes on top of him.

"What did you think you were doing?" Makuu hissed, baring his teeth and looking down at the monitor as if he were looking down upon an insect.

"N-Nothing, at all! I was just casually passing b-by, and I noticed that poor egg was lonely! So I t-thought about giving it a little w-walk…!" he started to tremble as the crocodile narrowed his eyes in disbelief and anger. "I would have never harmed your egg, madame!"

"MADAME?!"

Ono did his best to contain a laugh, but Hodari was wise enough not to show any humor given the situation; Makuu glared at Ono, annoyed, making the egret look away shyly.

The crocodile glared down at the monitor with narrowed eyes. "Get out of my sight. Now."

The lizard retrieved his tail when Makuu lifted his paw off it, releasing it. "T-Thank you! Bye, Ma'am!" With that he was off.

Makuu sighed, irritated. He didn't know what was worse, having to babysit an egg, or being mistaken for a female because of it. He noticed Ono was at the verge of bursting into a fit of giggles. "You'll be next if you don't take that grin off your face, kid." He growled walking over to the young egret to pull the egg closer into his hold. "I'll take it, if you don't mind."

"You should be more careful, you know! Just because female crocodiles haven't nested doesn't mean monitor lizards aren't out looking for something else to eat. You're lucky Hodari was around to stop him."

Right, the little gecko. Makuu turned to him with a surprised look. "When did you arrive, Hodari?"

"I was just arriving a while ago when I saw that monitor stealing the egg." Hodari said cheerfully. "By the way, congratulations!"

"It's not actually mine, Hodari. Not that way. It promised a dying bird I'd look after her child since I was the only animal around." Makuu explained. And frankly, I'm starting to regret it.

"Oh. Well, that explains why the egg wasn't buried in the first place…"

"Anyway, thank you for stopping that thief. Unfortunately, I have the feeling he'll spread the word about the egg." He recalled something Ono had previously said, and turned to the egret. "You said you were coming to talk to me, kid."

"Oh, right! After putting the ibis's remains to rest, we discussed the issue with King Simba."

Shoot. "And?"

"He agreed with you in a way, saying that promises should be kept."

Makuu read the expression in Ono's face. "Okay, what's the catch?"

"Well, Rafiki took a look at the injury that killed the mother. It wasn't a bite mark, or a claw mark, or any wound inflicted by any of the animals in the Pride Lands, and when he examined it more closely… He found a tiny black stone inside her chest."

Makuu looked down at the egg. It was just as she had said. But it didn't make any sense. How could a tiny stone kill an animal? Knock out, perhaps, but kill? And how did it manage to penetrate skin and muscle at all?

"A stone?" Hodari asked. "How did it look like?"

"It was black and round, very round. And that's not all." Ono explained. "When he saw the mother, he knew she was an ibis, and asked me to tell you the incubation time for the egg is 28 days."

28 days? That was all? It wasn't long, at least in comparison to the three-month incubation period crocodile eggs had. "Well, thanks for the… information, but I really should take the egg back before it starts getting cold."

"If you need any sort of help, Rafiki offered to lend you a hand anytime, if only for the chick's wellbeing."

Makuu grunted in acknowledgement, carefully picking up the egg in his teeth and into his throat pouch, turning his back on Ono just as the egret flew away. Then he went back to the river, followed by Hodari

After the incident with the monitor lizard, Makuu named Hodari the egg's official bodyguard, much to the gecko's delight. He took the job seriously, and rarely left the nest, which gave Makuu more time to himself. This enlightened his mood considerably, and he had to admit Hodari was quite a decent bodyguard too.

Days passed.

Like Ono had said, the egg's incubation period was much more shorter than that of crocodiles. A week after the stealing attempt, he could faintly see the outline of the embryo against the sunlight, and as days passed it grew more and more at a rather quick pace. Sometimes it moved around, other times it remained still, almost asleep.

Makuu and Hodari found themselves protecting it not only from predators, but also from the climate; sometimes the day was so hot they had to partly uncover the egg, others he had to look for a large leaf to act as a sort of umbrella during the heavy downpours. Akina would cover Hodari when he went to look for something to eat; she claimed it was practice for when she and Makuu had their own clutch, much to the latter's dismay.

One morning, though, Hodari thought he saw the egg wiggling. Alarmed, approached and examined the egg closely, sniffing it; when the egg wiggled again, he stepped back in surprise, especially when it started to crack from the inside.

He recalled Makuu had asked him to let him know when the egg hatched, and called out to him. "Makuu! It's time!"

The crocodile leader lifted his head from the water, and almost immediately swam towards the shore to witness the event, followed by Akina. A few other crocodiles approached, curious as to what kind of animal would hatch from the egg. By the time they got there, the little chick had already popped its naked, featherless head out of the egg, and was looking at its surroundings with half-closed eyes. After blinking a few times, it looked upwards.

The first living creature it saw was Makuu himself.

Meanwhile, the crocodile was looking down at it with a little curiosity.

After a few seconds of silent staring from both their parts, the chick finally chirped. "Mama!"

Makuu blinked in surprise when the little chick referred to him as such, but before he could correct it, he heard snickers behind him. He immediately glared at his subordinates. "I don't find it any amusing!"

"S-Sorry, but…!" Akina apologized, barely trying to contain her laughter. "Mama…!"

The chick finished breaking the rest of the eggshell, and tripped out of it. The crocs could take a closer look at it now; it was very small, though not as small as a songbird would. Its head was pink and featherless, but the rest of its body was covered in a fluffy gray down; he looked nothing like his mother. Oh, well, probably baby birds didn't look exactly like the adults of their species, unlike baby crocs who looked like miniature versions of their own parents and relatives. The chick clumsily tried to stand up on its long little black legs, flapping its fluffy wings for balance.

Once it managed to stay on its feet, it looked up at Makuu once again, continuing to chirp. "Mama! Mama!"

"Aww, he's cute!" Hodari exclaimed.

"Alright, kid, this is getting embarrassing…" Makuu muttered under his breath, again glaring at the other crocodiles when they continued to snicker at the chick's insistence. "Could you at least the very least call me dad?"

The chick seemingly ignored him, or didn't understand what he said. "Mama! Hungry!"

Oh, right. It simply had to be hungry, though he didn't blame it after 28 days inside an egg.

"HUNGRY!" the chick yelled louder when it didn't get any food.

"Don't you think we should feed it?" Balozi inquired.

Makuu rolled his eyes. "What makes you think that? The fact that he's just said 'hungry'?"

Ghubari had to raise his voice over the chick's yelling. "What does he eat?!"

"How should I know? It's not like I could ask the mother for instructions!"

Thankfully, Hodari said something actually intelligent. "Baby birds tend to eat insects, but since ibises live near the water, their chicks could eat small fish."

"FOOD!" the chick repeated, flapping its wings for attention.

"Okay, okay! I heard you the first time, kid!" Thankfully, there was still one little fish he hadn't eaten yet, small enough to give to the chick. He grabbed it and put it in front of the chick. "There you go."

The chick stared at the fish, then at Makuu, then at the fish once again, and then it opened its beak, expectant.

Makuu frowned. "What now?"

"He wants you to feed him by paw." Akina stated, noticing the chick's open beak. "As far as I know, chicks cannot eat by themselves, their parents have to chew their food and then give in to them."

Wonderful. First egg sitting, now paw-feeding. Rather reluctantly, he picked up the fish into his mouth and chewed it until he was certain there was nothing but a pulpy mush of fish, and carefully regurgitated it into the chick's beak.

The chick swallowed the fish pulp, but then it started to cry again. "Nice food! Food, mama!"

The crocodiles groaned in exasperation, but thankfully Akina had thought ahead of them, and she approached, already chewing a slightly bigger portion of fish, which she regurgitated for the little one. Hodari managed to catch a fly had been was flying around the fish with his paws, and carefully gave it to the chick. The chick burped, satisfied, and clumsily made its way to Makuu's side, cuddling up just next to him. "Me sleepy, mommy."

By then, the other crocodiles did manage to contain their amused snickers, but still Makuu felt uncomfortable by the… physical proximity, and the chick referring to him as like that. "Sorry to break this to you, kiddo, but I'm not your mommy."

"You are." The chick said groggily, snuggling up against the crocodile's scaly hide. "You're the nicest mommy ever."

Akina giggled when she saw Makuu's expression. The other crocodiles decided to leave the scene before they burst out into laughter and upset their leader even further. By then, he wished he could dig a hole into the ground and disappear, but the chick was oblivious to his suffering, and had already fallen asleep.

"Definitely it is cute!" Hodari pointed out as he stared at the fuzzball.

"Look on the bright side, Makuu." Akina said, approaching. "At least the little one likes you."

"But I don't like it." was the grumpy reply.

"Why not? It's adorable."

"And it makes me look like a softie!"

"Aww, but you are a softie sometimes!" Akina pouted, rubbing against her mate's head, which seemed to soften him up to some extent. "How should we name it?"

"How about 'annoying'?"

"Makuu, I'm serious!"

"Me too."

Akina rolled her eyes, and looked down at the sleeping chick.

"Don't you need to know its gender before you name it?" Hodari pointed out.

"Thanks, captain obvious." Makuu responded, though not in annoyance. "I guess you can't tell."

Hodari looked down, embarrassed. "Well, birds are not exactly friendly to me, considering most of them want to eat me."

"Rafiki could help us…" Akina pointed out.

Makuu frowned. "Absolutely not."

"Come on, Makuu! Can't you swallow up your pride for once!"

"My dear, in case you haven't noticed, I'm stuck with a completely dependent bird because I had to promise its mother I'd do so! If that's not swallowing my pride, then I don't know what it is!"

"But Makuu-!"

Makuu finally snapped. "I've made up my mind! I'm not going to ask that old mandrill for help!"

"I can't believe I'm asking that old mandrill for help." The crocodile leader thought bitterly as he headed to Rafiki's tree; he was carrying the still genderless and nameless chick in his throat pouch. Though the little one had been nervous in the inside of his mouth at first, soon the chick got used to it and even came to enjoy the experience. Well, Makuu was not enjoying it, he didn't like the ticklish feeling of the fluffy feathers inside his mouth. Soon he approached the tree, where he spotted the Lion Guard already talking with Rafiki about something.

Ono was, naturally, the first to spot him. "Hey, Makuu!" He was also the first to approach him, soon followed by the others. "What are you doing here?"

Before answering, Makuu opened his jaws and let the chick out of his mouth, then he started spitting out feathers in disgust. "What do you think, kid?!" he snapped, coughing out a bunch.

Almost immediately, the Lion Guard approached to take a closer look at the chick, most of them awing at the little one.

"It's so cute!" Beshte said.

"When did it hatch?" Kion inquired curiously.

"Yesterday." Makuu retorted, spitting the last feathers out of his mouth.

The chick looked up at the five friends, and became instantly nervous at being the center of attention; it scrambled back to its legs and ran towards Makuu, hiding behind one of his legs. "Mama, who are they?"

"Kiddo-!" Makuu growled in dismay, but it was too late. Kion and the others burst into a fit of giggles.

"Mama?" Bunga snickered.

"It's actually normal." Ono explained. "If Makuu was the first living creature it saw after hatching, it's natural it would think of him as its… mother."

"That sounds weird." Fuli commented, noticing how the chick was rubbing against the crocodile seeking attention. "What's its name?"

"That's the issue. To name it, I have to know if it's a girl or a boy." Makuu stated matter-of-factly. "And it's not precisely a topic of my… expertise."

Rafiki had been watching the scene in amusement for a while, but he figured out what he was asking. He approached Makuu, who in turn gently pushed the trembling chick forward.

"Don't worry, kiddo." He assured. "They're friendly, they won't eat you."

This seemed to considerably calm the little one down, even though he still was nervous when Rafiki picked him up and took a good look at him. A few seconds later, the mandrill laughed. "Congratulations, Makuu! You got a healthy little male!"

"A male?" Kion inquired.

"Indeed! When he grows up, he'll be courting ladies in no time!" Rafiki explained as he let the chick down, and almost immediately the little one ran back to Makuu's side.

Bunga approached the chick and leaned in to look at his face. "Will he? I don't think the crocodiles' courting methods will work out."

The chick either understood what he meant by the comment, or he simply didn't like Bunga being so close; he pecked Bunga's nose, making him yelp in pain and take his paws to his nose, to the amusement of the others, Makuu included.

"Well, I guess now you can put him a proper name, but have you thought of any?"

Makuu remained silent at that question. The truth was that he had a few suggestions from his float, but he wasn't sure it would be a good idea to give a bird a name such as 'Kijani' (it meant green). They meant well, but those names were all meant for crocodiles.

It wasn't like he cared that much, but he wanted to give the little one a name that fit him, but since he had just hatched and had not yet developed a personality he could base on, so maybe he could base on something else… maybe the circumstances of his birth? No, too sad.

Then again, that was one way to look at it. This chick was still alive even though his mother had been dying herself, and gave the last of her strength to him. Despite having been incubated by animals that under other circumstances would have been his predators, he had hatched, and lived. It was like he was very pledged to live.

Pledged to live…

"…Kitwana." Makuu finally said when the chick yawned and snuggled against his scales. "His name is Kitwana."