As Luna felt her stomach, eggs ready to be laid, she couldn't help but feel excitement about the dragonets inside, but also anxiety over what she was soon going to experience.

"Do you think I'll be okay?" Luna asked Swordtail.

"Huh?" Asked Swordtail, looking at her curiously from the butterfly he was watching.

"What if I can't bear it?" Luna continued. Luna had never been put on Misbehavior Way or been stung by any of the HiveWing toxin, but from what Cricket had told her, who'd both laid an egg, and been injected – by Carabid at that, the strongest of HiveWing toxin carriers – Laying an egg was supposedly much worse. The thought of being injected by HiveWing toxin had always made her nauseous, and she was glad to have been spared the experience on their journey (many others weaker than her hadn't), but if egg laying was worse, had she really been spared in the long run? And this was something approximately 50% of dragons were not spared. Of course, her children would be worth it, but she wasn't sure if existing as herself was worth it if the coming pain was as bad as she feared. Couldn't her children be born without the only dragon Luna could experience being having to go through such pain she didn't even care to imagine?

"If you can't bear it, don't worry about it," Swordtail replied, "You're going to finish laying the egg whether you can bear it or not, your inability to bear it is not going to mess it up from happening."

Luna wondered how Swordtail could make something such as unbearable pain sound so comforting. Must have ended up on Misbehavior Way too many times back in the days of Queen Wasp.

"I'm just anxious, that's all," Luna said. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply, imagining all the tapestries she would make of her children. Unfortunately, though she knew that her children would be perfect for beautiful tapestries she had in mind, the very act of how they would come into the world was the kind of horrible angst her tapestries tried so hard to escape from, and though Luna's tapestries would escape from the tale that Luna was about to live through, she knew she herself would not.

Luna looked back toward her back legs, "You know how this is going to go, right?"

Swordtail went a little red, "Of course, that's how all eggs are laid, right?"

Luna blushed. Even being married to him, she still felt self-conscious sometimes that he knew so much about her that didn't apply to himself. It was strange knowing that the one closest to her was so physically the opposite. But somehow, she found it fitting, knowing that Swordtail knew these things about her and was so considerate about it made him all the more charming.

"Isn't it strange that our minds make the idea of the whole path toward having eggs seem so appealing, yet when it actually happens, it's so painful we want to cease existing as our own selves?"

Swordtail just shrugged, he really didn't know how it was going to be like for Luna, he could only wish her the best. He knew some pain you couldn't just grit through, but you could survive it. Swordtail didn't find that the most encouraging truth for Luna, but he didn't know how there was anything he could do.

Luna returned to her breathing, focusing on her kids, trying to relax. No point worrying about it now, it was going to go how it was going to go regardless of how she decided to handle it.

And then Luna felt the first of it. Here we go, she thought grimly. Luna felt that sense of gapingness growing inside her, that sense of, I want to get off, the need for her body to return to its state of normalcy where it belonged before her body reached a point that was too terrible to bear. But ready or not, her labor was here.

"Please don't make me go through this," she begged to Swordtail as the tightness grew in her, knowing full well there was nothing she could do. She imagined Cricket when she had laid her egg, when she had even gotten stung by Carabid, had she wanted to "get off" her body when all that happened, when Swordtail had been injected all those times he went to Misbehavior Way? She knew full well that they hadn't been able to, and she knew what she was about to face now, she would have to face it full on as well.

Luna knew that no matter how much it shook her to the core, there would be no "getting off" her body, so many dragons less stable in their own bodies then her have faced so much more than they'd been able to bear, she knew that now, she'd be no different.

"Goodbye," Luna said, the realization hitting her that her moments of self-tolerance were suddenly over.

And then the first contractions hit full on, sharp and penetrating. In an instant Luna was screaming, her body folding into itself, she collapsed to the floor. She writhed, she screamed, but they just kept coming.

Okay, you can handle this, she tried to tell herself through horrific pain, like every other dragon. But then the contractions increased again, faster than she could keep up with, and with a scream, Luna knew she could not. The pain, too much to bear, no matter how much she screamed, it could not encapsulate the reality of the pain, her mind had no way to comprehend how her body could go through this.

"Make it stop, make it stop," Luna whimpered as the contractions finally slowed down. But then they again increased, and Luna shrieked, her body bending outwards. "MAKE IT STOP!" She screamed.

She had never wanted to imagine what real pain could feel like, she knew her experiences had been fairly mild in the past. She knew painful experiences had existed for other dragons, her friend Cricket had been through some pretty horrible stuff, but those were some things Luna just wanted to hide from her mind, overlook them and focus on the good stuff that followed. But right now, this was an experience Luna could not turn a blind eye from, it was happening to every nerve of her body as we speak, and every second of it was so excruciatingly painful, it sucked every other positive thought out of sight except for the desperate need for relief. It was that horrible moment where Luna realized, this was her, and there was no escape from your own existence.

"HELP ME!" She screamed.

She couldn't take it anymore, her body was trying to shut down, to spare her another moment of this, but no matter how much her body couldn't do this anymore, it wouldn't stop contracting. It was as Swordtail had said, it didn't matter if she could bear it, her body would experience it either way, and no amount of escapism could make her stop experiencing the sheer agony she was feeling right now. He had meant it encouragingly, but right now it was the worst thing she could imagine. SHE NEEDED IT TO STOP! She screamed and writhed, but stop it could not.

Luna felt herself breaking, her perception shredding like strands of frayed silk, all those beautiful tapestries she made, to show the beautiful things in the world rather than the bad, but now her very existence had become the very thing her tapestries had tried so hard to escape from. Life was beautiful, but the experience one had to go through to make that life possible was the worst thing she could imagine. For future life to exist, how could she go through something that made her wish she never did? If life never existed then there would be no one to find beauty for, but in order for life to exist, one first has to be born, and in order for one to be born the mother first has to experience pain beyond anything that could make one able to bear existing as oneself. How could a dragon who lived through what she'd lived through, overcome what she'd overcome, eventually end up going through this later in life, she was a role-model to many, how could she tell those who wanted to live by her example that being her was too painful for anyone to be worth living? That almost half of them should already be wishing they didn't have to be themselves because they'd eventually end up laying an egg anyway, because that's something almost all female dragons do at some point, whether they are partnered or not. Luna wanted to declare herself "poor Luna", but she was no more unfortunate than any female dragon who had ever dared exist long enough to lay an egg, a fate that would surely inflict all the female heroes of Pantala and Pyrrhia eventually, no matter what kind of agonies they'd managed to avoid on their journeys. Luna cried out in pain once more. Oh, it hurt so much! It was so unfair! Truly a role model everyone would wish they could be.

Swordtail at least was on that half of the population that didn't have to experience the inability to endure one's own existence to appreciate the existence of the next generation, perhaps right now, Swordtail was a dragon worth existing as, but still, for him, seeing Luna screaming like this was hard to watch. "In my headcanon," Swordtail said with uncertainty, "I'm just going to pretend it doesn't hurt worse than it has to," Swordtail briefly looked away, "I can't watch you be in that much pain, and I can't leave you like this."

Luna didn't know if it was fair that he got his headcanon while she was stuck living through a much more painful truth, but everyone had to do what they could to cope.

Luna tried to regain some level of stability, "Swordtail, this hurts," she stammered, "I can't exist through this, I can't-" And then the contractions struck again and Luna screamed horribly. "LET ME DIE!"

Swordtail could take his headcanon, this was way worse than anything fathomable! Swordtail couldn't bear believing the truth, but Luna was living that horrible truth right now. Luna screamed and screamed, she couldn't take it! A contraction felt like it ripped her stomach apart, and in a second, she puked, all over the place, heaving, wishing she could die. Swordtail's headcanon may be helping him cope, but there was no way Luna would ever be able to cope with what was happening to her body right now. But hey, at least he could cope with her existence given he didn't have to live through it himself right now.

"Hey, listen," Swordtail said finally, "At least…" he stopped himself, he couldn't think of a positive spin to put on this. He remembered all the times he'd been taken to Misbehavior Way, he couldn't imagine what Luna was going through. All those stings he had taken so Luna wouldn't have to, every time he had felt like he wanted to scream his Soul out to escape the pain in his body, but unable to, and now Luna was going through something so unimaginably worse, at least she could scream out her pain, but her screams now were a thousand times more agonized than anything he could have thought of doing. Luna, such a levelheaded dragon, her pain must be severe for her to be screaming like this.

And then Luna gasped, she felt the egg making it's final step on its way into the world. There was no room! She just wasn't big enough for the eggs to pass through. But the contractions wouldn't let it stop. Luna screamed, it felt like she was being torn apart, one part of her that she normally wouldn't even bring herself to mention was being forced so out of shape, Luna couldn't contain her screams anymore, they went all over the place with no sense of direction or rhythm, Luna was just screaming unable to focus on what the screaming was even for except the all consuming pain that had overtaken her. Knowing that Swordtail was here for it would have made her blush, but she was in too much pain to be embarrassed over it right now.

Swordtail just watched, he saw the egg coming, it looked like it hurt so much, it was clear nothing he felt on Misbehavior Way even came close. He felt bad for Luna, he knew his body wasn't like hers, and that he would never directly understand, but he couldn't understand how she could be going through this kind of pain right now. In some ways, he was glad he was not her, and he hated himself for it, how his own aversion to pain could make him so cold and heartless toward the one he love more than anything to be feeling that way.

"I'm sorry Luna," he said finally.

Luna just screamed, the pain was so much she couldn't answer, she could hardly comprehend how she was existing right now to go through all of this.

So Swordtail just grabbed her talon and held tight.

Suddenly, Luna screamed louder than ever before, and then the first egg was laid. Luna lay on her back gasping.

"It's done," she said, "I'm done."

Swordtail just looked at her grimly, "That was only the first one."

Luna looked at him, understanding of what that meant dawning on her.

And then she felt the next one.

Luna screamed.

But unfortunately, her screams did nothing to spare her the agony from which she so desperately needed to escape from, the contractions just kept pounding through her. She would survive this ordeal in one piece, but the pain she felt was far worse than if she was being torn to treads, like a tapestry ripped far beyond repair.

And so Luna continued like that, suffering through each and every moment until her five eggs were finally brought into the world. A process worse than any dragon could take.


Luna laid beside her eggs, weak and exhausted. She was done no more eggs were coming.

She looked at the eggs and felt such love for them, she knew the dragonets growing inside would truly be wonderful gifts to the world.

But then she looked back at her stomach and shuddered. She still couldn't believe what she'd been through, how could the dragon who had faced so much pain be her? She thought of all of the things she had avoided over her life, the things that had happened to others that she couldn't bring herself to imagine. Now none of that mattered, because she was now with them, having bared so much pain that even thinking of her own life, she wanted to turn her head and not witness the suffering. How could that suffering dragon have been her? How could she have faced so much pain yet still be here today to process it. She couldn't process it, yet she couldn't escape the knowledge as well that it had been her it had happened to.

Swordtail came up to her. "Are you okay."

Luna nodded, "Yeah, just a little sore." She shifted her legs awkwardly (which made her wince), she didn't even want to mention where she was sore, but she figured Swordtail already knew. The thought made her blush, it still felt weird knowing that Swordtail should know these things about her. But even though Swordtail could never truly understand what it was like to have lived through what she'd lived through, she still felt like he was the one she wanted to experience it with.

Luna had been through so much pain this night, she knew her tapestries could never go where she had gone, it wasn't the kind of story she liked to tell, and now she understood another thing. It wasn't just because the realities of suffering were too dark that she didn't want to tell them with her tapestries, but now she knew that no fine silk, no weaving could ever do any true justice toward expressing the horrors her body had felt in those moments.

But as she looked at her eggs, at Swordtail, and herself in the middle of it all, she knew that this moment, after it all was over, that was what it was worth. Maybe the beautiful colors and intricate patterns would never be able to express the love she was feeling right now, but she knew that it was something she would pour all her love into, and at least on some level, it would be felt whenever the tapestry was viewed. And that was the beauty tapestry, that that same love as the love you felt for those around you was the same love that would be poured into every thread, every weave of her art; it would truly be made with the love of this moment. She may ever understand how such beauty could come only after such pain, but for the here and now, here was a tapestry worth weaving, a tapestry of her and the new family she had made.