A First Time for Everything

By Dash

In a dark room, a light on a small screen flashed. In response to the small light, a door opened, and two men walked into the room. One examined the screen, then looked at the other object in the room. The screen had two cables coming out of it, and the other ends were attached to a tall pod. The pod was made of thick glass, with a black metal base and top. The inside of the pod was lit, and the contents were fairly visible. In the pod was a thick greenish liquid, and suspended in the liquid was the body of an animal, curled into a circle.

“How is the subject?” the second man asked.

“Ready,” the first replied. “Should we go get the others?”

“No,” the second replied, “if she’s ready, deactivate the pod.”

The first man nodded and pressed the screen, where the light was still flashing. The liquid slowly drained out of the pod, the form inside settling on the bottom. A line appeared in the previously seamless glass, and it slid open. The animal fell out, but the men caught her and laid her carefully on the floor. As she took her first breath, the men grabbed nearby towels. One dried off the light golden-brown fur on her body, long ears, and longer tail, while the other cleaned off the dark gray natural armor that covered her back, starting in spikes that began between her eyes, smoothed down at the back of her head, and went in smooth ridges down her back to the tip of her tail.

In response to their tender ministrations, she took a deep breath and slowly opened her deep black eyes. She lifted up her head and looked at the man in front of her, and he held out his hand to her. She sniffed at it, then licked it and smiled nicely at him. She twisted her neck around and looked back at her body. Using the armor covering the tip of her tail, she felt the spiked plates on the top of her head.

“Wow,” the man behind her said. “Here, let’s help her up.” They put their hands under her body. She looked at them curiously, but then seemed to realize what they were doing and stood up shakily. “Oomph! She’s heavier than she looks!”

The first man laughed and replied, “Yeah,” then surveyed the creature standing before them. “She sure looks a lot bigger out here,” he remarked.

“Yeah, almost as big as that Pike guy’s drakens,” the second man agreed. The animal stood a bit less than hip height at the shoulder, around thirty-two inches, and was eight feet long, about half of which was her reptilian-style tail. She looked at the two and made a happy barking noise. “Y’know, we probably ought to name her. Something nicer than ‘the subject.’”

The first man crouched down next to her and scratched her behind one ear, which she seemed to enjoy. “How about ‘Teyaka’?” he suggested.

“It fits,” the second man replied. He crouched down in front of her and held her chin gently in his hand. “Teyaka.”

Teyaka cocked her head at him, then opened her mouth. “Teyaka!” she repeated with a smile. Both men started in surprise. The sudden movement startled her, and she scurried back a few steps, a worried expression on her face.

The men recovered their wits quickly. “It’s okay,” one said soothingly. “We didn’t mean to scare you.”

She warily walked toward them a step. “Teyaka?” she said questioningly.

The other man smiled and pointed at her. “Your name is Teyaka. My name is Frank,” he said.

“And my name is Carl,” the first man added.

She walked a bit closer. “My… name is… Teyaka?” she said hesitantly. They smiled warmly at her and nodded, so she said, “My name is Teyaka,” again with more confidence, as well as another nice smile.

“Very good!” Carl praised. “Teyaka, stay here for now, okay?”

“Stay!” Teyaka agreed. She curled up on the floor, looking at them curiously. The two men walked a few yards away, and she quickly lost interest and started looking at the thinks in the room.

“Wow, she’s pretty quick,” Frank remarked. Carl nodded, and they glanced back at Teyaka. She rubbed one of her big ears with a forepaw, obviously paying them no heed.

Carl glanced around. “Say, why is it so dark in here anyway?” he asked.

“That pod was taking a lot of power to run,” Frank replied. “The lights would’ve blown a fuse. But now that the pod’s offline….” He reached over and flicked the light switch on the wall. The lights flashed on, startling Teyaka enough that she was up in a flash, ready to take on any threat. However, seeing only the two humans, she quickly calmed down and curled up on the floor again, studying the lights.

Carl laughed at the show. “I suppose we should show her to the rest of the team,” he remarked. “They’ll want to see that our work has finally paid off.”

Frank nodded and called, “Hey, Teyaka!” Hearing her name, Teyaka’s ears perked up, and she looked around to him. “You can get back up now. Come over here.”

She stood up and walked over. “Here?” she asked.

“Yep,” Carl replied. “Now, we need you to follow us, all right?”

Teyaka smiled. “All right!” she chirped. The men laughed, opened the door, and walked through, Teyaka close behind them.

They walked down a hallway and went through another door. “Frank, Carl, you’re back. What happened over there?” a human in the room asked.

Teyaka walked into the room. “Is that…?” another man asked.

“Yes, she’s our subject,” Frank replied. “She was ready, so we let her out of the pod.”

“She’s progressing very fast,” Carl added. “The protein encoding for data seems to be working fine. She just needs to be reminded of something to unlock the stored knowledge.”

“My name is Teyaka!” the subject of the discussion piped in, sounding very proud of it.

“You see?” Frank put in. “She knows how to use words, she just needs to hear them first.”

“Interesting,” someone remarked. He stood up and walked over to Teyaka. She looked at him, and he tapped one of the dorsal plates of her back. “Her armor is fairly hard. That’s good.”

She looked back to where he had tapped. “My armor?” she asked, looking back to the group.

“Yes,” the man said. “It keeps you from getting hurt.”

She looked at him, then swung her tail around and bit the end, where the armor covered it all the way around. “It doesn’t hurt,” she remarked.

“That would be the point of it,” the man replied with a smile.

“Why?” she pipped.

“Do you mean to ask why you have armor?” Frank interpreted.

Teyaka pause, as if something had occurred to her, then nodded.

“Well, we felt that it would be a good idea for you to have it,” another man replied. “You getting hurt would be a bad thing, and we don’t want that to happen to you.”

Teyaka considered this, then nodded. “Hurt is bad,” she agreed. She stretched and yawned.

“Uh oh,” Frank said. “It’s probably time for you to go to sleep. You’ve had a big first day, after all.” She nodded, eyes half closed, suddenly very tired. Frank led her to a room that had an open door. In it were two big dishes and several cushions arranged in a circle. “This is your room, Teyaka,” he said. “You can eat and sleep here Right now, I suggest you go to sleep.” Teyaka walked to the cushions, rearranged a few, then lay down on them. Frank walked to the door. “Good night,” he said.

“Good night!” Teyaka murmured. Frank turned off the lights and left, and Teyaka quickly fell fast asleep.

*      *       *

A month passed. Teyaka read a few simple books and expanded her vocabulary. The men at the lab became fairly fond of her. She had free reign to wander the lab, and the humans always left the doors open, except for a few, and she was very curious about what was behind them. Whenever she asked, though, the men just laughed and said not to worry about it. She didn’t worry, but she was still quite curious.

One day, she was walking around, and wound up standing in front of one of the closed doors when one of the humans came out. “Hello Teyaka!” he said, reaching down to ruffle her ears.

“Hello!” she replied, dodging playfully. The human laughed and walked off. Teyaka was about to leave too, but then she noticed something unusual. She walked over to the door and pushed at it with her nose. It swung open a little! She looked around the hallway, but didn’t see anyone, so she walked into the room.

The room wasn’t very empty. It had a lot of tables with all sorts of glasses and equipment on them. She reared back a bit and put her paws on a table to get a better look at something, but, in doing so, shook the table, causing something balanced high up on some stands to topple over and hit her on the head. The container cracked, bounced off, and broke open on the ground, but the armor on her head kept her from getting hurt. “Ow,” she muttered. The contained had held some sort of blue liquid. She sniffed at the puddle on the floor. It smelled all right, so she dipped the tip of her tongue into it. It tasted good, and she started lapping it up. As she drank, she noticed an odd tingling sensation behind her tummy, but in front of her hind legs. She disregarded it and kept drinking the nice tasting stuff.

Suddenly, two of the men ran into the room. “Teyaka, no!” One grabbed her around the neck and pulled her back from the puddle. “How did you get in here?” he demanded.

“I…um…” she stammered, her ears drooping.

“I…must’ve left it open when I left,” the other man said.

“How could you be so careless?” the first man scolded. “This is delicate stuff in here! Not to mention bad for her!” He continued scolding, not noticing Teyaka’s reaction to all this. Her body was all bunched up, tears starting to form in her eyes, obviously upset by their reactions. As the man kept yelling, Teyaka suddenly bolted out the door. She ran until she found a nice dark corner and curled up into a tight ball, quietly crying onto her tail.

Eventually, she stopped crying and she unwound herself. She wiped off her cheeks with a forepaw and looked down the halls. Nobody had come to look for her, so she stood up and started to look around. The area she was in was fairly dark, since no humans were around to turn on the lights. However, a nearby door was open a crack, with bright light coming through it. The area behind her tummy started tingling again, but her attention was fully taken up by this door. Sticking the armored tip of her tail into the gap, she levered the door open, watching the light pool on the ground. She stuck her head curiously out the door.

The room was really big, so big that she couldn’t see the walls. The ceiling was painted blue and white, and was really high up. It only had one light, which the last person must’ve left on, but it was so bright that it lit the whole room. The floor was covered with a tall green carpet, and had flowers and trees in it. She walked into the room, eyes wide in wonder. Not wanting anyone to get in trouble this time, she grabbed the handle in her mouth and pulled the door shut.

*      *       *

“What’s going on?” the head of the lab asked Carl.

“Um, apparently Swanson left the door to his lab open, and they found Teyaka inside drinking his project. Marc yelled at Swanson for the carelessness, but that must’ve upset Teyaka, since she ran off. We haven’t seen her since. We figured we’d let her calm down a bit and then go look for her,” Carl explained.

“Swanson’s project?” the man repeated. “This is bad.”

“Why?”

“That liquid was a test of a few new chemicals. It causes the egg cells to abandon their half-strand of DNA and absorb DNA from the surrounding cells, causing them to have a full set of chromosomes.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, the cells will replicate as if they had been fertilized. Another chemical drastically increases the rate of development.”

Carl looked at him with a stunned expression. “We’ve got to go find her.”

*      *       *

She had been wandering the room in wonder for a while, but now she was starting to get hungry. Unfortunately, she couldn’t figure out how to get back to her room from this one. Oh well. Maybe someone had left some food in this one.

With this hope in mind, she scanned the trees. One of her books had said that trees had apples, and that apples were good to eat. Finally, she spotted one that had round red things in it. They did turn out to be apples, but they were really high up in the tree. She tried to jump for them, but they were too high. “Too high to jump to, so how do I get some?” she mused. Her tummy rumbled. “Oog, I’m getting really hungry.” She impatiently thumbed her tail against the tree, shaking it and causing an apple to fall in front of her. “Hey, it worked!” she exclaimed, and snapped up the apple. Spurred on by this success, she tried again several times, and ate several more apples. “Mmm,” she remarked. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much at once, but I don’t think I’ve ever been that hungry before, either.” In fact, when she looked under herself, she could see a slight bulge in her tummy from her big meal. “Well, I’m not hungry anymore, so I guess I should get moving again.”

Later, she noticed that the one light had moved way down onto one wall, and had turned red. Slowly, it moved further down, and it got darker, and, strangely enough, water started falling out of the ceiling, making her very wet. “Dark means it’s bedtime,” she muttered to herself, “but why is it so wet?” But, true to form, she curled up and had, for the first time, an utterly miserable night.

When she woke up, her fur was thoroughly soaked, and she was very cold. She shook herself to get rid of some of the water. “I want a warm bath,” she moaned, trying to clean some of the mud out of her fur, noticing with some surprise that her tummy seemed a little bigger than it had been last night. How had that happened? She hadn’t eaten anything since then. She decided to put the question aside for now and keep trying to find someone who could help her. Unfortunately, this place was oddly empty of people. Suddenly, something occurred to her. Maybe this wasn’t a room in the lab. Maybe this wasn’t in the lab at all! She looked at the light, which she had now figured out was the “sun.” If she was outside of the lab, then she wouldn’t be able to find her way back on her own. In the middle of this line of thought, she realized her throat was itching a bit, and she coughed lightly to clear it. Anyway, now she needed someone else’s help more than ever. She quickened her pace.

Later that evening, she felt really thirsty, and she stopped at a shallow pond on her way and took a drink. “Ah, that’s better,” she tried to say, but as she said it, she noticed that her voice sounded really scratchy and a lot quieter, even though she was talking normally. “What’s going on?” she cried, making her throat hurt, and she coughed hard. “I…c-can’t…” she whispered, then her voice shut off completely. No mater how hard she tried, no sound would come out of her mouth, and when she tried, it made her cough. A wave of despair washed over her, and she curled up on the ground and cried herself to sleep.

*      *       *

She awoke curled up on her side a little, as her tummy had gotten even bigger overnight, and her cough had gotten worse. What’s going on with me? She thought, unable to say the words aloud. She shook her head, then stood up, ready to start going. Off in the distance, she saw something that looked familiar. A city! She exclaimed mentally. People live there! With a little hope restored, she ran towards it.

*      *       *

The city wasn’t as helpful as she had thought it would be. By running the whole way, she had made it when the sun was overhead. She had at first tried to see someone she knew, but nobody looked familiar. Nobody seemed to want to help her, either, and actually seemed to be avoiding her. She looked over herself. She had lots of dirt and mud in her fur, and her armor wasn’t much cleaner. After all that walking and running around, however, her legs didn’t feel like they were going to hold her up much longer, so she lay down on a path near the outside of a wall, her hind legs sticking out to the side, since her tummy had gotten so big. I want a bath, she moaned inwardly, ears drooping. Someone walked past, and she looked pitifully at him, but he kept walking.

She closed her eyes. I’m never going to get any help. She heard footsteps coming towards her, the person’s shoes clicking on the ground. She expected them to keep going past, but the footsteps stopped in front of her. She opened her eyes and saw a pair of big, white, clawed feet. Their owner crouched down next to her.

“Hmm. Don’t think I’ve seen one of you before,” he remarked warmly. He obviously wasn’t a human, even though he wore human clothes, a black t-shirt and red pants. He had white skin, three-fingered hands with sharp claws, big wings that didn’t have any feathers on his back, a tail with a funny fin on the end, and a face shaped more like hers than a human’s. She looked pleadingly at him, then coughed hard. “That’s a nasty cough. Hmmm, not wearing a collar, and you’re a real mess, so I guess you aren’t anyone’s pet. Here, I’ll take you home. Maybe I can do something to help you.” Hope shone in her eyes, and she tried to stand up on her worn out legs, but they didn’t support her very well. “Yikes,” the nice not-human exclaimed, “you’re in worse shape than I thought!” He stopped her from getting up. “No no, just let me handle this.” He rolled her onto her side and curled her into a tight ball, being careful of her tummy, and picked her up in his arms. “Whoa, you’re pretty heavy,” he said conversationally. “I’ve got a lot of friends that are about your size, but they’re a lot lighter.” She stared at him, but then set her head down on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

*      *       *

He carried the odd creature into his apartment, and, noticing she was asleep, set her down carefully on his bed. Whew, that was a workout, he thought. Well, she doesn’t have to fly, so weight wouldn’t be as much of a problem for her as it would be for a draken. He ran a hand softly down her back. And that armor isn’t going to make her lighter. He sat down on the floor and looked thoughtfully at her, the end of his finned tail twitching. Wonder where she came from. She sure looks like she’s been from here to the Plains and back, during a flood. His eyes moved to her belly. Plus, she’s pregnant! This can’t have been good for her, or her kids. He smiled and rubbed her furry, gravid belly. She smiled and moved her mouth, almost as if she was trying to say something, then gave a few coughs. That doesn’t sound too good either. He ran a claw over the spikes on her head, then decided to take a shower to wash the dirt off himself before his guest woke up.

*      *       *

She slowly woke up, but kept her eyes closed. It felt like she was on her cushion bed back home, instead of the hard ground she had been sleeping on lately. Was it all a bad dream? she wondered. She slowly opened her eyes. She was curled up sideways on a human’s bed, sideways because her tummy had gotten big enough that she couldn’t lay straight up. She started to panic slightly, not knowing where she was. She bunched up, looking frantically for some pointer to something familiar. A door opened, and the not-human who had helped her calmly walked in, his black shirt slung over his shoulder. He noticed her posture and ran over to her. “Don’t worry,” he said soothingly, stroking her fur, “I’m a friend. Calm down girl, calm down.” His methods were effective, and Teyaka slowly relaxed her tensed-up body. “There, that’s better. You don’t need to worry about anything. You’re in my home. I took you here earlier, remember?”

She looked at him and tried to say something, but her scratchy throat wouldn’t cooperate, and she started coughing again. “Step one should be to take care of that for you,” the not-human remarked. He closed his eyes, and Teyaka watched him curiously. He held up one hand in front of his face, and a rush of cold wind seemed to blow past her, even though the doors were closed. It blew to the not-human’s hand, and seemed to glow slightly. He pressed the palm of his hand to her throat. A cold rush blew across the insides of her body, radiating from where his hand was. It flowed through her neck, and her throat stopped feeling scratchy. When it reached her legs, they stopped feeling sore and achy. She reeled back a bit and stared at her helper. He laughed and said, “Well, that should take care of that.” He rubbed at a dirty spot on her armor. “Now we ought to get you a bath.” A bath? A bath! She smiled wide and jumped down off the bed and ran a circle around his legs. “Okay, okay!” he laughed. “C’mon, over here.” He led her through the door that he had just come out of. It was a bathroom, and had all the things that normally accompanied a bathroom, but her new friend led her to a big bathtub. She grinned eagerly and hopped in. Her friend laughed again. He turned the knobs and water flowed out of the taps. “Fortunately for you, I was just taking a shower, so it’s already warm,” he remarked. Warm water! She could finally be clean! She waited expectantly as the water level rose. When he finally stopped the water, it was most of the way up her chest.

Happy to finally be in a nice warm bath, she splashed around playfully getting some water on her friend, who laughed and splashed her back. She giggled and prepared to return fire, and then stopped as she realized what she had just done. She worked her mouth a little. “I… I c-can… I can talk again!” she exclaimed. Her friend seemed surprised that she could talk at all. “It must’ve been when you made my throat feel better! Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She jumped out of the tub and started nuzzling him thankfully.

“H-hey! I just got dry!” he exclaimed with a laugh. He rubbed her neck, then held her at arm’s length. “So, you can talk?”

“Yes, and it feels so wonderful to be able to do it again!” she cried jubilantly.

“So therefore, you were able to talk before, but stopped being able to,” he hypothesized. She nodded, and he continued. “Well, let’s get you back in the tub, and you can explain while I get all that muck off you. I’m Dash, by the way.”

“My name is Teyaka!” she happily replied, hopping back into the bathtub. As Dash had suggested, she told him what had happened to her, while he scrubbed the muck and mud and who-knows-what-else out of her fur and off of her armor. When she was all clean, and had caught up to the present, she hopped out of the tub and shook herself off. “Thanks for the bath, Dash! I’m still pretty wet, though,” she remarked.

“I can fix that,” Dash said with a grin. “Stay there.” He backed up a few yards and crouched down, hooking his hand-claws into the carpet. He started flapping, the powerful strokes of his broad wings blowing a huge amount of air at her, blow-drying her in no time flat.

“Well, that worked,” Teyaka remarked as she shook herself to get her fur to lie back down right.

“So I’ve been told,” Dash laughed as they walked back to the bed. Teyaka hopped up and lay down, and Dash scratched her pronounced tummy. “So, when did this happen?” he remarked casually.

“When did what happen?” she replied, confused.

“Well, you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Dash responded.

“Pregnant?” She cocked her head, not understanding, then the association hit. “Pregnant?!” she exclaimed. “I’m…pregnant? But….” She looked at her belly.

“You didn’t know about it?” Dash asked incredulously. “How…?”

“I don’t know how….Dash, I’m only a month old! How can I be pregnant?” She looked worriedly at him. “I’m scared….” He hopped up next to her and hugged her tight, closing his wings tight around them, seeming to form a protective wall between them and the rest of the world.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can help you through this, and I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.” He let go with his wings and pulled back, holding her shoulders loosely, grinning. “After all, we’re friends, right?”

She looked into his eyes and smiled. His happy-go-lucky charm helped to chase her fears and worries away. “Right!” she said confidently.

Dash grinned wider and scratched the gap between her left ear and her armor. “So, now that we’ve got that settled, what should we do next?”

Teyaka’s tummy rumbled. “Get some food!” she suggested with a grin.

*      *       *

“Thanks for waiting, Teyaka,” Dash said. Teyaka had stayed in his apartment and explored while he had gone out to get some food.

He set the bag down on a table, and she immediately went over and stuck her nose in it. “What’s that?” she asked as he pulled something good smelling and wrapped in paper out of the bag.

“A rare regional delicacy,” he said, unwrapping it.

She stared at him as the definition clicked. “You went and got something that rare?” she asked incredulously.

Dash laughed. “Nah, I’m just joking around. It’s a cheeseburger. Want some?” he offered.

She sniffed it. “Cheese-burger? Oh! Okay, I’ll try it,” she replied. Dash tore it in half and handed one to her, scarfing his own. It had a lot of flavors in it, all of which were good. “Mmm!” she added.

“Thought you’d like it,” Dash said. “And now to the stuff that’s good for you.” He pulled out a water dish and put it on the floor in front of her. “It’s not the most elegant, but it’ll probably work better than a glass. Is it all right with you?” he asked.

Teyaka nodded. “Yup. I had one of those back where I came from.”

“Okay then,” Dash said, and pulled out a tall, round container, but he kept his hand over the label so she couldn’t read what it was. He took off the top and poured some of its contents, a brownish-yellowish liquid, into her new bowl.

She carefully tasted it, then eagerly drank some. “Mmm! It tastes like apples!” she exclaimed to Dash, then went back to drinking.

Dash laughed at her enthusiasm. “Well, it ought to; it’s apple juice.”

She stopped drinking to stare at him. “You can get the juice out of the apple without the apple being there?” she asked in surprise. Dash laughed again.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. “Now who could that be?” Dash muttered to himself. He walked over and opened the door. Behind it was a human.

“Carl!” Teyaka exclaimed.

“Teyaka! You are here!” Carl exclaimed back.

“I take it you two know each other,” Dash remarked dryly.

“Yeah, he’s one of the people from where I used to live!” Teyaka explained excitedly.

“Yes. We tried to find you, but it took longer than expected. We got a call that someone had spotted you on a street near here, so we came, and someone told us that they had seen a ‘Dash’ carry her off.” Carl explained. He looked over Dash with some astonishment. “And…um, who are you?”

“This is Dash,” Teyaka explained to him. “He helped me!”

“Well then, thank you very much, Dash!” Carl said.

Dash smiled. “No trouble at all,” he replied. “I kinda like her.”

Carl nodded. “Well Teyaka, it’s time to come back. We need to see how you’re holding up.”

Teyaka looked between Carl and Dash. “Um, actually… I’d like to stay here with Dash,” she said. “I was really sick and he helped me, and I like him.”

“But… we made you! You need to come back with us!”

Dash coughed. “Made?” he asked.

Carl nodded again. “We used genetic technology to create her. That’s why we need her back. She’s the only one of her kind!”

“Not for long,” Dash remarked, patting Teyaka’s gravid tummy.

“All the more reason she needs to come back!” Carl argued.

“But I want to stay with Dash!” Teyaka protested. “I was sick and tired and dirty, and he helped me get better!”

“Come on Teyaka, it’s time to go,” Carl said with finality.

He made a grab at her, but she jumped back. “No!” she said.

He prepared for another try, but Dash interposed himself between the two. “Hold it, pal,” he said, holding back the human with a broad, three-fingered hand. “You may have made her, but she’s her own person, and it’s her call that matters here.”

Teyaka ran behind Dash and curled her tail around his legs. Carl sighed. “I suppose you’re right, and I can’t fight both of you, anyway.” He walked to the door and opened it, then turned back to them. “There’s something I suppose I ought to tell you before I go. Back at the lab, Teyaka drank a formula that makes egg cells absorb nearby DNA, so in essence she’s carrying her own clones. Another part of the formula was to speed up the gestation period tremendously, so she’ll be delivering any day now.” He nodded to them and left, closing the door behind him.

The two creatures watched him leave, then watched the door afterwards. “Well, looks like you’re my roommate now,” Dash remarked. Teyaka cheered, and Dash smiled. “First thing to do is get you your own bed.

*      *       *

“So, what are you anyway?” Teyaka asked Dash. It was a few days later, and everything had settled down some. Teyaka was lying in her new bed, the weight of her unborn children making it hard for her to stand up for long, and Dash was sitting next to her. “You’re obviously not a human. Did somebody make you too?”

“Um, in a way,” Dash replied. “It’s a complicated story. See, I’m a draken.”

“A draken?” Teyaka interrupted. “But aren’t they shaped more like me?”

Dash laughed a little and looked pensively at his clawed hands. “I used to be about your size,” he continued, “but one day, some of my friends and I found out about a bad person who was changing innocent animals into horrible monsters with some device. We managed to find him, but he decided that he wanted to turn us into monsters too. He… started with me.” His voice got shaky at that point, and he stopped.

“But he can’t have!” Teyaka protested. “You’re one of the nicest people I know, not some monster!”

Dash laughed. “Thanks, Teyaka. That means more to me than you realize.” He took a deep breath and continued his story. “The last thing from that day that I can remember is the man pointing the device at me and firing a beam out of it….” He shook his head. “My friends told me the rest. The man did hit me with the beam, but Ragnarok, one of my draken friends, rammed the machine, spinning it back at the human. The man was turned into a monster with his own device. My friends thought that the device had killed me, and tried to stop the monster that the human had become, but he was too strong for them. Right when he was about to start hurting them, and this is the odd bit, I came up behind him and killed him, saving my friends.” He looked thoughtfully at his claws again.

Teyaka stared at him. “Wow. And you can’t remember any of that?”

Dash shook his head. “Nope, not a thing,” he said, then looked over to her. “Fortunately, Ragnarok knocked the beam away from me before it could change who I was. So I wound up still being me, just in a new shape, and a whole lot stronger to boot.” He paused, then shuddered. “It’s kinda scary, thinking about how close I came to….” He trailed off.

Teyaka snuggled closer to him and nuzzled him reassuringly. “Let’s not think about awful things that might’ve happened in the past. After all, they didn’t.”

Dash shook off the depressing feelings. “Yeah, you’re right. Why bother being depressed when so much good came out of it? Among other things, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to carry you here, and we wouldn’t have become friends.”

Teyaka thought about something. “Hey, can you still-ow!” she exclaimed, wincing.

“What’s wrong?” Dash asked her, although he already had a pretty good idea.

“My tummy,” she said. “It hurt suddenly.”

“And with all that armor, you aren’t used to hurt,” Dash added distractedly to himself. He felt her belly; it was hard as rock. “Did you feel weird a little while ago?”

“Well, I think so,” she replied, “but I was so interested with your story that I didn’t pay attention to it.”

“Hoo boy,” Dash remarked. “I think you may be going into labor. Can you stand up? Let’s get you to the bathtub, so we don’t have to worry about making a mess on your bed.”

Teyaka struggled to her feet. “Oog, they’re heavy…” she muttered.

“Well, if they’re anything like you, they ought to be,” Dash remarked as they walked, trying to keep her mind off what was happening a little. “You’re one of the most solidly built creatures I’ve ever met.” Having arrived in the bathroom, he lifted her up and set her carefully into the bathtub.

“Ow…” she whispered. “Dash, this is kinda scary….”

Dash hugged her around the neck. “Hey, remember what I said? I’ll see you through this.”

“Have…have you ever done this before?” she asked breathlessly.

“Personally…no,” he replied. “I’ve seen this happen once or twice when I was a lot younger, but that was a while ago.”

“Very…reassuring,” Teyaka replied. “Ngh… one’s coming….”

“Okay girl, your body knows what to do, so just do what it tells you. Here, you can bite down on this,” he said, holding out a tough toy bone. She snapped it up and bit down hard, pushing. “I can see the head! Keep going Teyaka, you’re doing great!” Soon, the baby was out. Dash took her while Teyaka worked on her next child. He cut the umbilical cord and tied it, then wrapped the pup in a warm towel as she quietly yipped once. By this time, Teyaka’s next one was ready, and the cycle began again. After while and a lot of work, Teyaka finally got them all out. “Wow. Four of them. No wonder they were so heavy for you.” Dash carried the new mother and her babies to her bed and wrapped them up in the blankets. “Good work Teyaka. You’ve earned a rest.”

She looked wearily at him and smiled. “Thanks for being there for me,” she said quietly, and drifted off to sleep.

*      *       *

Dash watched Teyaka fall asleep, thinking that she had definitely earned it. He glanced at one of her children. She looked almost exactly like her mother. The only difference was that her head armor was kinda smoother down, more like the rest of the armor, but he supposed that’d change as the she got older, like a draken’s crest. He looked over the rest of them especially a certain two. He shook his head and went to got get some food for Teyaka to have once she got up, as well as a few other things.

*      *       *

She faded slowly into consciousness. She felt like she was in her bed, but it seemed a little more full than usual. She groggily opened her eyes, and saw that she was sharing it with her four new children, who were still sleeping. She saw someone red, black, and white sitting over on the edge of his bed. “Hi Dash,” she said softly.

“Oh, you’re up. How are you feeling?” he replied.

“Mmm. Hungry,” she murmured. “Tired too.”

“Well, hungry I can do something about,” Dash said. He used his tail to slide her bowls over close enough that she wouldn’t need to get up. “I can understand you being tired, but I can’t help too much with that one.”

The food helped clear her mind, and made her feel a bit less tired, letting her examine her children clearly for the first time. Two looked very similar to the way she did, but the other two were different. Their fur was a dark brown, and their still-soft armor was black. She looked at Dash. “These two are different!” she remarked with some surprise.

Dash nodded. “They’re males, too.”

“But…how? Carl said they’d be just like me!” Teyaka said.

“I don’t know,” Dash admitted. “My grasp of genetics is slim at best, but it may have had something to do with when you got sick,” he suggested.

“Maybe…” she agreed.

“You know, with two sets of identical twins, it might get a little confusing to tell one from another,” Dash remarked.

Teyaka looked over the sleeping pups. “Yes, I can see how we might have a slight problem,” she said with a grin.

“Fortunately for our sanity, I thought ahead.” Dash brought out an arm from behind his back. Held in his claws were four small collars, each one a different color. “We can give each pup, and remember which pup is which color,” he suggested. “I’m the only one who’d be able to take them off, so we wouldn’t have to worry about them switching on us,” he added with a grin.

“That’s a great idea!” she said, rubbing Dash’s leg with a paw. “I’m so glad I met you.”

“Another thing. Since you’re the parent, you get to name them all,” Dash informed her.

“Really? Um, are you allowed to help? I might not be able to come up with good ones,” she admitted.

Dash laughed quietly. “Sure. C’mon, let’s get started.

He held out a blue collar. Teyaka considered is, then nudged forward one of the girls. Dash picked her up and carefully put the collar on. “Hmm…how about Kaya?” Teyaka suggested.

Dash considered it. “Kaya. I like it,” he agreed. He carefully set Kaya down, then picked up the orange collar.

Teyaka thought about it, then gave him one of the boys. “Buck,” she said. Dash put on the collar, holding out a green one next. Teyaka motioned to the third girl. “She’ll be Emerald,” she stated.

“That’s a very nice name,” Dash remarked, giving Emerald the collar that matched her name.

“Thank you,” Teyaka replied. “One of my books had all sorts of pretty rocks in it. The one I liked the most was the emerald.” Dash smiled and held out the red collar. Teyaka nudged forward the other boy. “Um…” she muttered.

“Actually, can this one be Roc?” Dash suggested. “It’s partly after my friend Ragnarok, but also after a sort of mythical bird.”

“Someone this heavy named after a bird,” Teyaka said with a giggle. “Okay, he can be Roc.” Dash gave Roc his collar. “So we’ve got Kaya, Emerald, Buck, and Roc. They’re a cute bunch,” he remarked.

“Yes, they are,” Teyaka agreed, then paused to consider the events of her short life. “It’s been quite an adventure getting everyone here, hasn’t it?”

“That’s the thing about adventures,” Dash replied, “they’re rarely over when you think they are.”