New Beginnings

Summary: A young kobold who has followed his wife to a distant Imperial posting brings his egg to the clan and discovers that he doesn’t understand as much about his new society as he thought he did.

A/N: Rated general audiences, no particular warnings.

Pale morning light caressed the creamy yellow shell of the egg, speckled with blue like Morning Daughter’s eyes. Third Son rearranged the little puffs of cotton warming their egg for the fourth or fifth time. “It’ll be all right,” he’d told Morning Daughter before he left their rooms at the far end of the compound, and she’d nodded bravely. It was the egg—it was harder than they’d thought it would be.

The rest of their move from the violet tier to the black had been difficult, but it was a good opportunity, and it hadn’t been more difficult than expected. There was the journey, which, thanks to some complications during the crossings, had taken nearly two weeks, and there was the tier itself—although this had made up for its cave-like qualities by turning out to be startlingly beautiful. Third Son had heard that the seasons on the lower tiers had more to do with location than with time, but he hadn’t really understood what that had meant until they had arrived in the middle of a raging snowstorm that gave way within a half hour’s walk to a warm, quiet spring-like day. There was also getting settled, half their furniture being lost somewhere on the green tier, and finding out just exactly how different a shared language could be.

But, realistically, they had expected all that. Third Son was, well, a third son. Morning Daughter was the youngest of four and would not inherit anything from her mother’s estate. When she was offered a governorship on the black tier, it was not an opportunity they could afford to pass up, no matter all the attendant frustrations. It was just—the egg was a wrench.

Third Son hadn’t expected how much he would want to cradle the little one and warm them and sing to them. He hadn’t expected how much he would want to name them, and Morning Daughter clearly felt the same. She always got quiet and terse and focused when she was hurting, and she had been very quiet and very terse and very focused that morning, making sure they had everything they had been told they would need to give to the nursery along with the egg.

It wasn’t much. The nurseries on the black tier were well-equipped, and the egg would have all its needs tended to. Children were highly valued and protected here, and, realistically, Third Son knew the egg would be fine, and knew also that as the newest governor, it was important that Morning Daughter become the mother of all the eggs in the clan, not just theirs. It was just…oh, Third Son wished he could see his child grow up, and know it was his child—just to give them that little extra bit of love, and make sure that they knew—but of course it wasn’t possible. And all the children would know that they were very much loved.

Taking a deep breath, he wheeled the perambulator with its precious cargo up the sloping ramp to the nursery cave, where he was surprised to find that behind the hanging fronds in front of the small entryway, there was a closed door. Deep in the center of the Fishing Clan’s compound, most of the caves did not have doors, since it would be nigh impossible for someone without the clan’s best interests at heart to reach. The nursery, of course, must be one of the most important caves, but when Third Son knocked, someone called out to Come in, and it wasn’t locked. So what was the point of the door?

Inside, there was a cozy-looking little cave, with a lit fire-pit set into one wall, fenced off with an iron grate, on which a kettle was whistling merrily. A young man was seated behind a solid-looking oaken desk, folding up the morning paper he had evidently been in the midst of perusing when Third Son knocked.

“Um, good morning,” Third Son said awkwardly. Frustratingly, his voice was trembling.

“Good morning—I don’t know you,” said the secretary, getting up and putting out a friendly hand for Third Son to shake. “So you must be the new governor?”

“Uh, her husband?” Perhaps it shouldn’t have been earth-shattering to realize there was anyone in the world who might confuse Third Son with Morning Daughter, but he almost felt as if his ears had started ringing with the shock.

“Ah, that’s right—I couldn’t remember which of you was the governor and which was the spouse. Pleased to meet you—I’m Flowernose.”

This was, if anything, even more confusing. A man holding such a position? Third Son reminded himself that the customs on the black tier were very different from those he had grown up with and that he must be patient while he learned them. “Um, pleased to meet you. My name is Third Son.”

“That’s an interesting name. Does that mean you’re actually the third child in your family?”

Third Son blinked. “Uh, yes. The third son. I have one younger sister.” Why he was speaking of Golden Dawn now, he didn’t know. He shook his head. “Um, I’m here to, to drop off our—I mean, we made a—I mean.”

“That’s right, you sent a note over a few days ago. Dropping off your egg?”

Third Son nodded and hoped that his lower lip wasn’t trembling. He sometimes had a very unfortunately expressive face. It had caused him trouble in the past, and he only hoped it would not go so far as creating a diplomatic incident.

Fortunately, Flowernose didn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss. He sat back down behind the desk and went through some papers stacked haphazardly over the top. “All right, and of course your household’s support for the nursery is in place—I know there was that big to-do getting everything set up for our new governor last year. Does your egg have any specific requests or needs or anything?”

“R-Requests? Needs?” Third Son parroted blankly. “I’m not sure I understand…?”

“Oh, well, like my egg,” said Flowernose, casually. “It prefers being near the fire.”

“You—you know which one your egg is?” asked Third Son. “I mean, I thought—they were all eggs of the clan now?” Maybe it was because Flowernose worked in the nursery, but if that was the case, maybe Third Son could work in the nursery.

“Of course they’re clan eggs.” Flowernose put his head on one side, as if he were faintly puzzled. “Most people keep tabs on their own, though—did you not want to? Oh, I’m sorry, I can offer you a stamp or some paint if you’d like to mark the shell—I just assumed you’d have already done that, being the governor’s spouse and all.”

“No no—yes—please—I want to!” blurted Third Son rapidly. “I didn’t know—I mean I thought—I didn’t think you were allowed to know which one was yours!”

To his credit, Flowernose didn’t burst out laughing, though he clearly wanted to, but his eyes twinkled. “Yes, well, you don’t have to,” he said, after a moment. “There are some folk who want to contribute to the clan but don’t care for the bother of running around after an egg themselves. But I’ve found that most people enjoy interacting with their offspring.”

Twisting his hands nervously together, Third Son took a moment to compose himself. Rather flustered, he started to do a traditional curtsey and paused, turning it into a little bob of the head. “Thank you,” he said. “I would be very grateful if you could spare some paint.”

“No trouble at all.” Flowernose pulled open a drawer in the desk and started rummaging through it. “I see,” he said, in a slightly dry tone of voice in the next minute, heaving up a bucket. “This ought to do.”

“Is that what you used?” Third Son asked, as he was still wondering how to know if your egg liked to be by the fire, and this seemed like a good prelude to asking.

Those bright eyes flicked up and twinkled at him again, but Third Son couldn’t understand why. “Um, no,” said Flowernose, in a slightly odd tone of voice. “No, I can’t say I use anything like paint to keep tabs on my egg.”

“Then how do you do it?”

A small squeaking noise came from the drawer. Flowernose’s lips twitched a little, and he leaned down and scooped something out, something that at first just seemed like a little orange ball of fur. He deposited in on the desk, where it sat up and squeaked again. “Note the subtle gradations in the shell,” he said dryly.

“Um,” said Third Son. “Wait. That’s…your egg?”

The tiny fox cub stretched, yawned, and curled up with its nose on its tail.

“One of our more motile eggs,” said Flowernose blandly.

“I, uh, oh, you, uh, you married, I didn’t realize—I thought that everyone on the black tier—” Lucifer’s light. Third Son shut his mouth, feeling his cheeks heat up in a fiery blush. Here he had thought he was so well-prepared, so well-studied, and within the first ten minutes, he’d already discovered quite a number of his most important assumptions about living here were just—wrong. “Are there many inter-species marriages among the clan?” he asked politely after a moment, attempting to rally.

“Oh, there’s quite a few members of the clan without scales,” said Flowernose. Third Son tried not to wince at the implied correction. “I suppose it’s different for you, but I haven’t met many people who want to emigrate. Though Jeweleye cousins keep going to university on the blue tier and not coming back—I think they’re all living together up there, making their own mini clan. Old Fisher’s been lamenting it, they used to do all the bookkeeping.” He stretched and got up, picking the fox cub up absently by the scruff of its neck and cuddling it close to his body. “Let’s get you that paint and get your egg settled.”

Third Son followed him into the next room, which was big and airy, with high glass doors that opened onto a sunlit play area. Outside, there was a colorful play structure, covered in shimmering triangular runes. Third Son wasn’t much of a mage, but he recognized at least a few of them—several had to do with softness, several more with lightness. Beside the play structure, there was a little sparkling fountain, inlaid with crystal, and overflowing with soft, iridescent bubbles that wafted gently upward. Two more fox cubs and a baby troll were giggling and chasing one another around the area. Another adult kobold was seated in the doorway, watching them.

Inside the room, lit by another roaring fire shut safely away behind glass doors, were a series of nests, also glimmering faintly with runes—clearly the Fisher Clan worked diligently to ensure the safety of its children.

“Oh, I would like to work here.” Third Son hadn’t meant to speak the thought, but it came out all the same. He cut himself off and bit his tongue in shock.

“Oh, you would?” said Flowernose cheerfully, as if he hadn’t just spoken terribly rudely and out of turn, as if he hadn’t suddenly voiced a deep-seated desire to a near-perfect stranger. “We probably could use an extra pair of hands, come to think of it. Ever since Sharpscale eloped with that Speaker Clan kid, we’ve been a little overworked. And we just got in that ridiculous egg from Old Fisher’s kid who knocked up a bird from the second level and somehow convinced her that it should be raised here, so we’ve been having to shuffle things around to make room for it.”

Flowernose tapped the side of his nose, thoughtfully. “Yes, the more I think about it, the better an idea it seems. Let’s get you that paint and get your egg settled, and then how would you like to come and get lunch? You’re the only arrival scheduled for today, and Deep Light can supervise the nursery for an hour or so—it’ll be good for her. It’ll be easier to talk there, and I can figure out if you’d actually make a good fit.”

He was the supervisor. Gods above—ancestors below?—Third Son had thought he was the secretary. For one blinding moment, he thought he was going to have to refuse out of utter shame. Then the thought of how excited Morning Daughter would be if he told her that not only would they get to know which egg was theirs but he would be able to look after it personally made him swallow the anxiety and push himself to respond positively. “I’d like that?” he said hesitantly. “I clearly have a great deal to learn. I’m so sorry for any inadvertent rudeness.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Flowernose cheerfully. “You’re not at all what we were expecting either. We’ve both got a lot to learn. Doesn’t this seem like a good time to start?”

Third Son had to admit that it did.