“How long?” Fray says again, though it is reedy and thin from how many times he’s asked the same question. “How long for it to happen?”
Right, bent over the little clutch of eggs—the same way they’ve been for the last hour—says nothing.
Fray’s still dizzy from laying. He’s been collected in Anya’s arms and sits limply in her lap, his decency returned to him in the form of a thin blanket. He keeps expecting to see the bulge of his stomach whenever he looks down. It’s gone. That part is done.
“Right,” he says.
Right remains quiet. They have been carefully turning the eggs, all five, making sure they are dry and clean, easy for their occupants to fight their way out of. But none have, yet.
“You s-said an hour,” says Fray, “an hour ago.”
“I did,” agrees Right.
Anya’s great hand smoothes the blanket over him again. He wants to throw it off and leap to his feet, go to the clutch, his clutch, his kits. But he’s too tired. He can barely move. “So …?”
Right, finally, permits an emotion to cross their face. It is one of pain, or perhaps sympathy. “I’ve heard,” they say, “that first clutches can be prone to this.”
“To what?”
“Stillbirth.”
The silence that follows is leaden. Fray manages to keep his composure for all of five seconds. “No.” Anya’s massive hand tightens around his shoulder, and this minute gesture sets him off worse than the sight of the motionless eggs. “N-no! That c, can’t, that can’t be right!” He lurches forward, ignoring the lingering pain in his hips and thighs. Anya keeps him from falling. His tongue, disobedient at the best of times, threatens to tie itself into knots. He blurts out a final demand before his exhausted body gives out. “Then what was the point?!”
Something hot and wet slips down his cheek, dispersing into the fine fur. Startled, he paws at it. It came from his eye, where more begin to follow. He feels stupid. He feels hysterical. He feels like someone has torn his guts out.
He’s spared further embarrassment by Anya wrapping him up in her arms. He had nearly forgotten she was there, and dimly he realizes that if this is true, it’s her loss, too—but he can’t bring himself to spare his energy for her. He can’t even control himself, or he wouldn’t be loudly sobbing into her arm. Their kits, his kits, all that fear and worry and the slow hope that had risen like a glorious sun, gone. All his doubts and excitement, wasted. It is a loss unlike anything he has ever felt.
“I’ll keep watching them,” Right says quietly, though not to him. “Anya. Can you get him more comfortable?” Above him, she nods, and he glimpses her expression: blank. She heaves a great sigh and gathers Fray in her arms, and despite having heard every word of the conversation he panics.
“No!” he shrieks, voice breaking. He’s begun clawing and kicking at Anya’s arms. “I can’t leave them—I won’t—they need me!”
“Fray—”
“You’re just going to eat them!”
Anything else he meant to say withers on the vine as he processes his own words. Right is watching him with their pointed face void of emotion. Another huge sob wracks his tiny frame. “I’m sorry,” he says in broken syllables. “I-I’m sorry …”
Right draws near. They smooth a hand over his jaw, and presses their cheek to his.
“So am I,” they say. Then Anya takes him away.
The hour that follows is the longest one of Fray’s life. Anya carries him to the tent, doubling up the bedrolls to make them more comfortable. He’s made to lie down on them, and Anya lies down too, holding him. He weeps. Between the crying fits, once or twice, he catches Anya wiping at her own eyes. He cannot comfort her. He cannot do anything.
Fray has just begun to wonder what the point of anything is if your children can be born already dead when it happens. There’s a shuffle of gravel and twigs outside, and then the tent flap flies open to reveal Right. Too worn out to sit up, Fray barely even lifts his head. The civet’s eyes are the size of saucers, and they hold something tucked against their chest.
Wordlessly, they cross to the pair. By now Anya has pushed herself upright, and at Right’s brisk, “Help him up. Support his back,” she does so. Quite against his will, Fray soon finds himself sat back upright. He is an embarrassing mess of tear-crusted fur and red eyes. Right says, “Hold out your arms. This one’s hatching.”
Fray stares at them.
“Hold out your arms,” Right repeats, and reveals the egg they are carrying. Spiderweb cracks line its surface, and a tiny chunk of shell is missing from one end. Fray’s eyes grow wide.
He takes the egg, cradling it automatically. It’s warm, a little leathery to the touch. Under his mute observation, something within it stirs. A huge huff of air disrupts the fur on his head—Anya’s excited snort. Right has hunkered down at their sides, eyes huge and round as they too watch the shell be destroyed from the inside out.
The fur of Fray’s cheeks may never be dry again, the way tears pour from his eyes. He hardly cares. He hiccups and shivers and stares, stares, stares, until the shell falls away from its contents. Wet, a little bloody, and gasping in its first lungful of air, the kit squeaks and opens its eyes.
The tent will flood with tears, he thinks, pulling his eyes away from the newborn just long enough to see the wet in his companions’ eyes. He can’t manage it long, though. This little fighter has too much to look at: fine silver-and-rust curls; huge gray eyes touched with lilac; delicate little hooves on its hind legs, and a short, flickering tail. Fray is enraptured. He’s in love, suddenly and fully, ready and willing to fight God herself on this tiny person’s behalf. Then he remembers. “R-Right,” he says, voice still weak. “The others …?”
Right’s almost fawning expression (the first of its kind) falters into a furrowed brow, and Fray needs no more answer. His heart breaks again to think of the four motionless eggs Right had moved by the fire, and his throat seizes with emotion once more.
But the kit gives a squeak that turns into a yawn, showing off a tiny pink mouth, and Fray falls in love all over again. He’s only interrupted when Right slowly turns and begins for the tent flap. Anya lows inquisitively, and Fray falls after them. “Baj? Stay.”
They turn, straightening, and look him over with doubt. “It’s not my cub,” they say presently. “It’s yours.”
Fray laughs, something he never thought he would do again an hour ago. “Ours.”
“Fray.”
“Stay. I want you to name it.” At Right’s flabbergasted expression, he goes on, “Then we’ve all three given it something.”
“But it’s—” They sputter. “I don’t—um. What if—”
“Baj,” says Fray, suddenly exhausted, “this is the b-best and worst day of my l-life. Just get back here and think about names.”
Right does get back there, uncharacteristically fidgety and cowed-looking. They settle, slowly; they show Fray how to hold the kit to let it nurse. They let him catch their collar and pull them in for a soft but deep kiss. “’M sorry,” Fray says quietly. “Shouldn’t have said that. About—eating them.”
“No,” agrees Right. “But I understand. I forgive you.”
“Baj …”
“It’s forgiven,” says Right, shrugging, and Fray begins crying again.