Chapter Thirteen

Castor

The day of Caxlin's birth I woke up with a horrible spasm in my back and thighs. I bit my lip not to cry out and wake up Axlin and Melon. She wouldn't let Casimir sleep in the nest because her inner beast was convinced that he was too large, and might roll over in the middle of the night and squash the egg despite it coming up to his hip now. In a few short weeks my belly had continued to grow and so had their egg.

We had a meeting about the Other World gateways that day. So, I kept my pain to myself the best as I could. At least, I tried to. Axlin sat bolt upright as the pain coiled around me. He breathed heavy as he pressed his palms against the small of my back. It was a trick Izora had told us about that helped during some carriers' labors. He pressed hard and I pressed back against him. Eventually, the muscles relaxed, and I panted out what was left of the pain. I downed two bottles of water and managed to sit upright. Caxlin was definitely ready to come out and greet the world. If I was honest, I was ready to meet him too. His tenancy inside my body was nearly over and I desperately needed relief from the bulk I hefted around for months now.

"I need to be at that meeting," I said to Axlin over our mating link, glancing at the clock across the room.

It was only six in the morning. The rest of them were probably still out cold. First time live births could take hours, if not days, but I knew the pain wasn't going to lessen over time. It would increase until I was nothing but pain and instinct. I needed my head on straight for the meeting.

"I'll get Casimir up," Axlin said over our link. "I'll get him up and he can tell the rest of them."

"I want some ice," I said. "It's hot in here."

"Is that normal?"

"The dining room isn't normally hot," I shook my head.

"I meant is it normal for you to be hot right now?"

"I don't know!"

"I'll get Izora before Casimir then," he said and climbed out of the nest.

I leaned back against the edge of the nest and closed my eyes. I tried not to remember how much it had hurt a second ago. I tried not to think about how much it was going to hurt when he actually came out of me. Instead, I imagined holding him in my arms. Building the Frost-damned Medwin 2 hurt as well. Days at the forge with a hammer left my whole body aching. If I could build a whole Frost-damned ship I could birth one little baby. He was probably about nine pounds. I carried thousands upon thousands of pounds of materials to build the ship that now housed us. I could do this. I could give birth to this baby. No pain lasted forever. Inside his inner sanctum my dragon rocked on his feet, soothing both himself and me. We could do this. We had to do this. Together we were going to get through the meeting and birth this blessed baby.

"Castor?" Melon whispered through the dark. "Do you want me to turn on the light?"

"Not yet," I shook my head. "Sorry if I woke you up."

"It's your scent – the pain on it," she said, leaning her elbows on the edge of her own nest.

"I'm okay. It's not hurting right now."

"It's normal to be hot. I was burning up all day before my egg came. Couldn't stand to be touched. Had to chase Casimir out because he kept touching me and it was too hot for all that damn affection. He meant well, but it was chase him off or eat him to feed the baby. I figured chasing him off was the kinder thing to do."

"Probably," I chuckled as Izora walked into the dining room and turned on the light.

My dragon squeezed his eyes shut. We both preferred the dark for this, but Izora might need the light for something. Melon tucked herself back down into the nest while Izora stole my pants to see how far along things were.

"You're at the beginning, Captain," he whispered to me. "Just a couple of centimeters."

I nodded.

"We can have them move the meeting back. Axlin mentioned you were worried about it," he said, covering me up with a blanket.

"No, I need to know what's going on. Baby or no baby, this project has to get underway."

"Well, my concern at the moment is you and the baby, not the meeting or connecting worlds together. The doors can wait. This baby will come when he wants to and you're going to be in a bit of pain until that's over."

"I'll live," I said, gritting my teeth for another pain as Axlin came into the room followed by Casimir.

They both climbed into the nest and Izora moved back as they claimed either side of me. He told them that I was only getting started and Casimir shooed him off to tell the others to cook up something sweet because I'd need the energy. Izora grunted at being ordered around like a common intern, but he didn't complain.

"We're right here with you, mate," Axlin whispered to me as my body tensed and coiled and tried to bend into a pretzel that my belly wouldn't allow it to.

"I have candy," Melon said as the pain abated. "It's sweet and fruity."

I held out my hand and Casimir retrieved the candy. Axlin fed it to me piece by piece. I expected Izora to return before anyone else came into the dining room, but our next visitor was Elio. His hair was wild with sleep and bags hung under his eyes.

"I'll give you the brief version of what I'm going say at the meeting now, if you want," he yawned in lieu of hello.

"Sounds like a plan. I need a distraction. Casimir make Elio coffee and please don't make it so sweet he calls it poison, please."

Casimir scrambled out of the nest to do as I asked. Everything had a sense of urgency with the impending birth of Baby Caxlin. Elio leaned on the edge of the nest and closed his eyes for a second.

"We've come to the conclusion that we need to contact the elves. That should've been easy. You guys have contacts on Earthside. Fred called every elf he knew of, and no one knows which elves started the doors up or where they are now. So, it's become a research project of combing through what lore we have from Earthside and hoping the contacts over there will do the same. It's probably going to be a long, tedious project. We're in it for the long haul, it seems."

Casimir handed him a steaming cup of coffee and it must've had just the right amount of sugar because he gulped it down as if it were ice water and handed the cup back to my cousin before stumbling out of the room without taking questions. I didn't blame the guy. His baby was still a baby that kept him up at night.

With that cleared away I sank into my primal nature and let my dragon call the shots. I snacked on candy and sucked on ice. I squeezed Axlin and Casimir wherever I could reach when a pain came over me. I snapped at Izora when he checked to see how far along I was. I lost all my professional composure and would need to apologize to him later.

"Don't bother," Izora chuckled, picking up my thoughts over the flight link. It was Frost-damned hard to keep them to myself.

"An apology isn't necessary from a patient, Captain," Izora flashed me a reassuring grin. "You're about halfway through."

"I should eat you for telling me that. Halfway!? Only fucking halfway?!"

"Shhhh!" Casimir tried to soothe me, and I snapped my teeth at him.

"Mate," Axlin cupped my chin, so I had to look at him. "It's okay. You're okay. If they're irritating you, I'll throw them both off this ship! But they're trying to help, and I love you."

It was such a weird pairing of words that I decided I wanted to straddle his lap and lean against him as much as my too-big pregnant belly would allow. He hugged me and pressed on my lower back as he had in the morning. Someone was cooking burgers somewhere. It was probably lunch time by then, but I was in no mood to eat. I just wanted this baby to come out of me and for Axlin to never let go.

I stayed that way, leaning against him all afternoon as, with contraction after contraction, Baby Caxlin inched his way closer to the solid world. I gave birth like that, pinning Axlin between me and the edge of the nest. If he minded, he didn't complain. He held me tight and encouraged me to breathe through it all. It took all damn day and most of my strength to birth Baby Caxlin, but by sundown the beautiful dark haired wolf pup was in my arms looking up at me with Axlin's shiny blue eyes.

"You're so strong and he so beautiful," Axlin whispered, kissing my temple and blinking back tears.

It was Casimir who cried at the sight of the baby. My cousin really was a giant softy when the world wasn't trying to carve out his heart.

"Hey, baby," I whispered to him and then covered one of my ears when the whole ship broke out into a howl.

Somewhere along the way Axlin gathered them up and made them practice howling like wolves to welcome Baby Caxlin into the world. That's when I cried. Our kid would never be alone. We'd never let the world come after our baby and stand idly by. He was a Starscale through and through. The bright purple star on his tiny little chest proved as much. He was perfect. He was ours and I loved him more than I knew it was possible to love a person who had just caused me so much Frost-damned pain.

"I love you," Axlin cooed to me.

"I love you too. I'm sorry I tried to beat everyone up."

"You can beat us up any time you're having a baby," he whispered back to me.

"Speak for yourself. Some of us need our hands for our jobs," Casimir teased, and we all laughed.

Life was good. All the most important people were right there with me. When I left Earthside I was on a mission, and I never imagined I'd find a new home when I landed the Medwin 2 on this strange planet. Only now, it was home, and I might never go back to Earthside again. I didn't need all that trouble when we could raise our kid in paradise and for me, that's exactly what Starscale 1 was: Paradise.

Read on to find out which of the crew is next to meet their true-mate!