“Awesome,” I said as I smiled at her. Then I turned to Youleena and Keefaye. “I’m glad everyone is working well together.”
“Of course,” Youleena replied as she bowed her head. The white-skinned woman with the black eyes hadn’t spoken much since I’d returned, but her ability to shape stone was going to be an amazing asset to our tribe, and I was really excited about seeing what she and Trel could come up with.
“You know,” Keefaye began as she ran her fingers through her golden hair and fixed her glowing gold eyes on me. “Most people drink my blessed water for the healing and celebratory effects. Victor, you should indulge in it some time. I am certain you will enjoy the taste and the effect it has on your body.”
“Once we find a new home, I’d love to throw a party.” I smiled at her, and the beautiful golden woman with the horn on her forehead bit her lip slightly as she gazed at me.
“Galmine, how is the garden?” I asked.
“The lovely plants we set in the earth are performing splendidly,” the rock-woman answered. “They really enjoy it here, since there is plenty of sun and love.”
“Uhh, plants feel love?” I asked.
“Of course!” she laughed, and her green eyes sparkled. “Every living creature feels love.”
“You haven’t been outside these walls much, have you?” Emta asked. “It’s a war out there, and--”
“But it isn’t a war in here, beautiful,” Galmine said with her usual care-free shrug. “We protect each other, and our beloved dinosaurs, and our helpful plants.”
“And we are going to leave your plants behind when we move.” Emta’s eyes narrowed as she shook her head.
“I can bring them with us,” Galmine giggled. “They will want to come. It will give us a nice start when Victor finds us a wonderful new home.”
“You can bring them?” I asked with a bit of surprise.
“Sure!” Galmine laughed. “We can fill one of the holding parts on the big dinosaurs with the plates--”
“Stegosaurus,” I said.
“Yes, those,” she laughed. “Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock are such sweeties. They haul all of our stuff. They won’t mind carrying our plants for a few days. We’ll just put a bit of dirt in the bamboo box area and go.”
“Hmmm,” I said as I glanced back to the stegos. “The plants won’t mind being uprooted again?”
“They will be a bit upset,” Galmine admitted, “but I will tell them it will be okay, and then they will be fine.”
“That’s one problem I don’t have to solve,” I laughed. “Great news. I was worried about leaving the garden you just made.”
“Just make sure you find a new home with lots of sun,” she cooed as she smiled at me.
“Kacerie and Quwaru, how is everything going with creature comforts?” I asked.
“We started on the paving stones,” Quwaru said as she stood gracefully from the rock where she was sitting a few spots on my left. “I’ll show you one.”
“Trel and I talked through the toilet idea,” Kacerie said while Quwaru walked away. “We think the best way to do it is to build a small raised building with a roof and a door for privacy. Inside of the room will be a spot to sit. Then a shaft will lead down to a basin where we will collect the waste.”
“Yes,” Trel continued. “We’ll need to make the basin out of a thin sheet of copper so it won’t weigh that much. I’m considering how to make rollers for it so that it can be pulled away from the base and emptied into one of these compost piles that Galmine speaks of.”
“Our waste has valuable nutrients for the plants,” the green-eyed beauty said. “It will help us grow magnificent veggies and herbs.”
“Whatever,” Trel sighed. “I just don’t want to be the one switching out the shit buckets. The activity is beneath someone of my amazing intelect, birthright, and position as Victor’s first and most important wife.”
“Trel, do you even consider your words before you speak?” Kacerie groaned. “That was super insul--”
“I think about all of my words, yes, of course,” Trel hissed as she wiggled her fingers at the pink-haired woman. “My point is merely that everyone has their place in our tribe, and my place is not cleaning the shit basin.”
“We’ll figure out who will do it later,” I said. “We just need it built.”
“I’d like to incorporate water in the design,” Kacerie said. “On my world, the toilets all use water to flush away the waste into a plumbing system that then takes it to treatment plants.”
“Yes, we will do that with the second version,” Trel said. “I’m still figuring out the water pump, but now that we are going to be leaving our wonderful home, I’ll have to reconsider the entire idea.”
“I’m back,” Quwaru said as she returned to her seat holding three pieces of molded gray clay. “Here is the paving stone. Here is the shingle for the roofing, and this is a brick that we can use for walls.”
I took each one after she handed them to me and spun each in my fingers before setting them down. It looked just like the kind of red-hued stuff I would see at a hardware supply store for ten cents a brick, or tile, or shingle, but I knew how much work had gone into them.
“They look great,” I said. “I’m surprised by how uniform they are.”
“The molds work well,” Adella sang. “Quwaru, Nomi, Emerald, and I worked hard on them.”
“Good work,” I said as I smiled at each of the beautiful women. “How much do we have?”
“We could roof one of the huts,” Quwaru said. “And pave from Hope’s nest to your hut door, but we’d need about twenty times as much to do the whole inside of the smaller walls.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to carry them with us,” I said, “but it was good to figure out that we can do it.”
“It was surprisingly easy,” Adella sang. “We just needed to find the right mix of dried pine needles and mud. We can make more easily, it just takes time. It was kind of fun. Everyone helped out when they had a chance, except Gee and Zoru.”
“I kept cooking them when I got close,” the fire born woman laughed.
“I’m feeling much better now,” Zoru sighed. “I’m ready to help.”
“If you rip my stitches, I’ll kick you so hard you’ll change into a woman,” Kacerie scoffed, and the rest of the women laughed.
I laughed too, but part of me wondered if Zoru was actually a woman now, since he’d lost the fight to the black winged asshole. I almost opened my mouth to ask him, but I didn’t know if it was something private in his culture, so I decided that it really didn’t matter if I knew. The purple-furred monkey creature didn’t really seem feminine at all. So, I found myself starting to think of it as a man.
“Even Trel helped,” Urka snickered.
“Only because I needed to show you all how to properly make it,” the spider woman laughed as she tapped her fingers together. “Don’t forget that when Victor is gone, I am the de facto leader of our tribe.”
“Sure thing, Duchess,” Kacerie said as she rolled her eyes, but Trel wasn’t looking at the pink-haired woman.
“Any other updates?” I asked as I looked at the women.
“One more,” Kacerie said as she reached down to where she was sitting. “Last night we played around with knitting. Take a look.”
“Oh, cool,” I said as I saw her raise a piece of what looked like green burlap cloth. It was actually a bit thicker than burlap, and when I held it, the fabric felt smoother and a bit thicker.
“It is quite barbaric, actually,” Trel scoffed. “But that is not because of a lack of ability on any of our sides. We used the plant fibers from the ferns, and they aren’t quite small enough to give us a neat thread.”
“Still better than nothing,” I said as I ran my fingers over the small piece of cloth.
“Trel used her fingers to make the first part,” Kacerie said, “but then I used a bone hook and needle for the second half, you can see the thread pattern change a bit in
the middle.”
“Yeah,” I said as I looked closely. “The smaller ones are Trel’s?”
“Of course,” Trel replied. “But that is not Kacerie’s fault, my fingers are more graceful than her tools, and I have been weaving my whole life. She did a great job given the situation.”
“How are you such a bitch and so nice at the same time?” Emta groaned.
“I am wonderful like that,” Trel cackled. “You should be used to my behavior by now.”
“Trel, you once said you could make silk,” Sheela said. “Could you just make us cloth--”
“I could,” Trel said, “but it requires a lot of calories, and I’d like to save those for my brood.”
“How about just undergarments?” I asked.
“I will consider it, my husband,” she sighed, and I guessed that I might be asking too much of my lover. Outside of the combat stuff that Sheela handled, and the small amount of gardening tasks that Galmine did, the spider-woman was involved in every single task going on in the camp. I realized that she was probably exhausted, and while I knew Kacerie helped manage the day-to-day tasks, I imagined that each of our new projects involved someone asking Trel how to do it efficiently. She wasn’t complaining about it, but I knew that her attitude had changed a lot in the last six weeks, and she really wanted to help everyone more than she let on.
“We’ll keep working on the cloth,” I said. “We all think the seasons are starting to change. I don’t know how soon fall or winter will be here, but we’ll all need new clothes.”
“I’m fine,” Gee laughed. “The cold never bothers me.”
“Everyone but Gee will need new clothes,” I corrected. “Is there anything else we need to talk about?”
“Nope, I think that is everything,” Kacerie said. “Except the whole ‘you going out alone to scout’ plan. We still need to talk about that.”
“I’ll think about it tonight.” I stood up and cracked my knuckles, but as I did so, I saw that everyone but Zoru was staring at my chest. I looked down at my shirtless body and wondered what they were looking at. Then I realized that my skin had a light bronze tan, and the veins in my arms and chest were pushing out against the skin. I definitely wasn’t looking like a body builder, but I was looking like a guy who went to the gym for a few hours every day and knew what he was doing.
“Uhhh, sooooo, Galmine, maybe you want to show me how the garden is--”
Before I could finish my sentence, I heard a toot come from inside the inner fort walls. I could tell it was Hope, but the toot was longer than a normal one she would produce, and I tilted my head to the side as I tried to figure out what she was saying.
Then I heard Bob let out a lower pitched toot.
Then Sonny and Cher both let out matching toots.
“What’s going on?” Liahpa asked as everyone turned toward the gate. The three parasaurses had all moved to Hope’s doggie door, and they were peeking their heads inside.
“It’s the egg,” I gushed as my heart started to hammer in my chest with excitement. “Hope’s egg is hatching! We are going to have a baby!”
Chapter 4
Jinx and I were the first through Hope’s doggie door, and we both skidded to a stop right next to the small parasaurs’ nest. Her single egg was still sitting inside of my lucky hat, and Hope was glancing nervously at the fine cracks that had begun to appear in the shell.
“Hey girl,” I cooed, and she let out a happy toot as she pushed her head into my chest.
Jinx let out a happy squawk as he spun in an excited circle around Hope’s nest, and the rest of my friends, minus Gee, who waited outside the door because of her hot body, circled around us just in time to see the little blue chocobo dinosaur trip over himself and roll on the ground. We all let out a giggle, but Jinx didn’t seem to care, he just bounced back up to his feet and then nuzzled into Hope’s side.
Then Hope’s egg started to shudder, and we all leaned in close with bated breath.
It was a slow vibration, but then the topmost crack opened a bit more. The egg quaked for another ten seconds, and then the crack widened again with a sudden movement. A silver-dollar sized piece broke away from the side, and we all gasped when a foot popped out of the hole.
“It is sooo cute!” Kacerie whispered, and the rest of the group sighed with excitement.
“Here it comes,” I whispered, and we all grew quiet again.
The foot wiggled around in the air as the baby tried to escape its prison, then Hope gently nudged the egg so that it turned over on the side so that the foot could push against the base of my hat. This allowed the baby to get a bit more leverage, and another big section of egg broke away as the tail popped free.
I felt someone lean into me, and I turned slightly as Trel laid her head on my shoulder. Her beautiful lips curved up into a slight smile as she stared at the new baby, and I reached up to run my fingers through her long dark hair before I turned back to the egg.
The baby’s tail wagged a few times, and each movement tore another chunk away from the egg. Finally, a full third of the shell was gone, and the small parasaur was able to back out of the remainder of the egg.
“Awwwwww!” we all gasped when we saw the new baby. It was about the size of Jinx, so about the weight of a housecat, but the crest on top of its head was comically large and a bright red color.
“It’s a girl,” I whispered, and then the new baby let out a high pitched toot, shook her head, and looked up at me.
Her eyes were blue, and the little thing blinked at me several times before she let out another happy toot.
“She is so pretty!” Galmine gushed, and the rest of my tribe all followed suit with similar comments.
“Her red coloring is very attractive,” Sheela said with a surprising amount of emotion.
“I agree,” Kacerie giggled. “I’m partial to that color.”
“Me too,” Quwaru laughed.
“Same!” Gee shouted from outside of the door. “Ugh. I wish I could hold her. She looks adorable.”
“What are you going to name her, Victor?” Trel asked, and everyone turned to look at me. Even Hope, Bob, Jinx, and the new baby seemed to understand that I would name the baby, and I cleared my throat as I tried to figure out a proper name for the cute little creature.
“Uhhh,” I muttered as my brain juggled through all the options. Then I let out a laugh as soon as I realized that the red crest on her head was a perfect hint. “She is going to be named Shirley Temple. She was a well-respected woman on my world who had red hair and brought others joy with her jokes and singing.”
“Singing?” Adella gasped. “That is wonderful. What a fitting name. Her cute little toots sound like she is singing.”
“And she is most definitely bringing us joy,” Zoru chuckled.
Both Hope, Bob, and the new baby let out toots of approval. Jinx also squawked as he inflated his little chest with pride, and then he stepped into Hope’s nest and snuggled next to the new baby.
For half a second, I worried that Hope might lash out at the small blue dino for getting so close to her baby, but Hope didn’t seem to care, and she nuzzled both her offspring and the same sized Jinx with her nose. The sight warmed my heart, and a few of the other women let out happy cooing noises.
“We are one happy family,” Galmine sighed happily as she leaned her head on my shoulder opposite Trel. “All thanks to Victor.”
“It’s not all me,” I chuckled. “We’ve all made this a happy home.”
“And now we are going to leave,” Trel sighed. “I suppose it is for the best, but I am still annoyed.”
“We’ll find a better place,” I said.
“So, you are going to take someone with you?” Liahpa asked.
“I’ll keep thinking about it,” I answered, and the silver-skinned beauty nodded.
We spent the rest of the day watching Shirley Temple explore her nest with Jinx. Of course, we also talked about what we would have to do to move locations, and dec
ided that our main priorities would be making more jugs and containers for food and water storage, improving Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock’s storage tops so they could haul dirt, as well as processing the malachite rocks into easier to move copper metal.
I also realized that no matter what kind of home we moved into, we would need a lot of cordage to build new walls, huts, and sleeping areas, so I tasked the team with focusing on that while I was gone. My tribe and I talked and worked through most of the afternoon, and then we enjoyed a fireside dinner while we reviewed our plans and spoke about what each of us wanted for a new home.
While we talked and ate, Grumpy let out a bellow from outside of the gate, and I laughed when I told everyone that he expected belly rubs. Sheela and Liahpa let the giant purussaurus inside of the courtyard, and he strolled right over beside our camp fire, let out a long growl of annoyance, and then rolled over onto his side so that his massive white belly pointed to the sky.
“Well, looks like he’s come to collect,” I laughed, and the tribe took turns patting or rubbing his belly while we all talked about how magnificent he was. The big grouchy dino just ate up all the attention, and he was soon purring as loud as a hundred kittens.
After we’d spent a good half an hour giving Grumpy attention, I felt the slow ache of exhaustion hit my shoulders, and I excused myself so that I could get some rest for the journey tomorrow. The women and Zoru all bade me a good night, and then I gave Shirley Temple a last session of petting before I retired to my hut.
As soon as I walked inside, I pulled off my pants, tossed off my underwear, and then collapsed on my bed. I could feel the sleep clawing at the corners of my eyes, but then I heard movement from the front of my small hut, and I blinked my eyes open.
“Sorry, I did not think you would have fallen asleep so quickly.” Sheela was on her hands and knees and crawling across the floor of my hut toward my sleeping mat. Her golden eyes looked hungry, and some of the exhaustion seemed to lift from my muscles.
“Was almost asleep,” I muttered. “Hi.”
Tamer- King of Dinosaurs Book 6 Page 6
