Zenora
59. Day Off

Brock’s point of view:

Yesterday was a good day, a day with a lot of fun, and only good things happened. Emily needed that for a change. She had this crazy fast agility, and she told me that the air explosion is the windswept ability of that of a warrior. That lady-whisp had told her that, when she was in the forest.

She wasn’t surprised at all, that her father had agreed for her to become my wife. She just gave me a small kiss and said ‘I told you.’ in a teasing way. Of course, she had to tell Anna and Natalya straight away and they jumped up in surprise and celebration. They were happy to be asked to arrange everything for the wedding, just as she expected them to.

We had lunch, after she had pulled the sword out of the ground and afterwards, she had some little practice sessions with me and some of my warriors. She beat us all, not a single blow reached our target. Dennis was right about her new speed; I could barely see her movements and it was really hard to avoid her hits. Luckily, I was still the most difficult to beat warrior on the fields, my ego was still intact. Barely though, because she still managed to beat me.

I decided that she didn’t need any more warrior training as she surpassed all my expectations. So, today she had a day off. I wanted to take her to the Riptide Chasm and relax at the hot waterfall. She was surprised by my idea, and really wanted to go. But there was something disturbing, that interrupted my idea and I knew she wanted to stay home for it. Bastet became ill.

Emily’s point of view:

I had checked her vitals three times already this morning, she had a fever and was sweating in her sleep. Some growls left her beak every now and then, but she responded to nothing I said or did. Her soft purple fur was now diminished so far, that only a few patches of her once beautiful long hair, was still on her body. Most of the purple and pink feathers fell out as well. A few hard spikes of new feathers was to be seen and felt.

Nightwing didn’t know what happened to her either. I tried to get a vision from him as Bastet didn’t show me. But all I could see, was that her fur and coat deteriorated by the day. His vision didn’t show me any cause to her illness. He was laying behind her, and caressed her head in a cute way, but other than that, he couldn’t help either.

I was worried, and I couldn’t find any logical reason as to why she was so ill. Maybe Cirilya knew more of this, as she is a druid now and she is much, much older than any of us. Brock already told me earlier that he didn’t know what the shedding of her fur meant and there are no animal doctors, besides me. But Gryphons aren’t really spoken about in any veterinarian schoolbooks, so I had to come up with another plan.

Cirilya won’t be here for another day. I couldn’t wait for that long, and I was thinking of how I could reach her as fast as possible. Nightwing was the fastest Gryphon besides Bastet, but I couldn’t take him now as he wanted to stay at her side.

“What would Cirilya do if she was here? What would Cirilya do?” I thought in my mind, while I paced back and forth inside the barn. Several more times, I said those sentences in my head, but I couldn’t come up with any idea.

“Emily, is that you?” I heard Cirilya’s voice in my head and I jumped up.

“What is it love? What’s wrong?” Brock asked me and I pointed towards my head and told him to wait for a second.

“Can you hear me Cirilya? Can you actually hear me?” I questioned her in confusion.

“Yes, what is wrong, are you going to tell me or what?” I smiled and I told Brock that I was talking to Cirilya.

“Yes, I’m sorry, Bastet is ill and she is…”

“Finally! I’ll come over as soon as possible, don’t worry, everything will be alright.” She cut me off before I could ask her about it. Finally?? Why did she say ‘finally’?

I told Brock what happened, and he didn’t look amazed anymore. He said that I was learning these abilities so fast, that sooner or later my mage would surface again with a new thing that I was able to do. I smiled at him, and asked him to get me some cheese and medical supplies for Bastet. He took Nightwing with him so he would be back from the castle faster.

Brock came back with the supplies, and Bastet actually managed to eat some cheese. A few hours passed by, when we suddenly heard some loud squeaks and scratching at the barn door. I opened the door and a big grey owl with green eyes, stepped inside. The guards were pointing their swords towards the owl, but the animal looked strangely familiar, so I told them to ease their spirits.

The owl had a crescent moon shape on her left wing, and on top of her head was a small, single threaded tiara, that lined up between her feathers.

“Cirilya, is that you?” I asked and the owl squeaked.

I grabbed one of Bastet’s blankets from the railing and held it around the owl. Then, I motioned for Brock to face away, and he waved his hands in the air, as if he wanted to argue with me. I looked angry at him and then he just turned around, without a word spoken. I told Cirilya that she was safe to shift now and then the bones of the owl started to twist and grow where needed. The feathers disappeared into thin air, the wings turned into arms and the claws into feet. As I imagined, she wasn’t shifting back with her clothes on. So, quickly I wrapped the blanket around her and gave her a hug.

“Thank you for saving me, when I almost lost my powers.” I whispered to her. I never got the chance to say that to her, so I wanted to do that first, before we continued to help with Bastet.

“No problem hunny, I’m glad that I could help. You’re one of my best friends, so don’t mention it.” She smiled to me, and then walked over to Bastet when she put a knot into the blanket. I smiled at the small flowers, that sprung up from underneath her feet. Cirilya barely noticed them anymore, I guess she is used to them already.

“Now, let me help you get the eggs out of you, because I guess they are stuck.” Cirilya said to Bastet and I hit the front of my head.

“Of course! She is pregnant! But what do you mean ‘eggs’, as in plural?” I said and asked.

Cirilya explained to me that she is part lioness and part eagle, so the first part of her pregnancy is within her womb and then when they are almost ready to be born, the amniotic sac calcifies into hardened eggshells. But as these shells are formed in stage two, there is a chance, that if the babies are large, the eggs will be large as well. Which results in a difficult labour. Gryphons lay between four and twelve eggs in one pregnancy and after laying the eggs, it will take two more weeks to hatch. She also told me that when she saw Nightwing court Bastet, that soon she would become pregnant, as Gryphons only mate with one partner and clearly, they were fond of each other.

“How do you know what an amniotic sac is, at all? And what does shedding her fur, has to do with her pregnancy?” I asked her. The shedding of her fur is what took me off-guard, because of that symptom I didn’t think about a pregnancy at all.

“O, right yes, I took some classes on earth, about eighty years ago. And about her fur, that is not related to her pregnancy. It only happens with rare Gryphons, every once in a decade and only if the Gryphon likes its master. The colour of her fur resembles the character of its master. You’ll see soon enough, don’t worry about that.”

Bastet her belly began to move and Cirilya told Brock and Nightwing to leave the barn. Nightwing didn’t want to go at first, but Brock pulled on his head and took him outside. I told Nightwing, that I would take care of his mate, and he squeaked softly.

“Emily, lay your hand on her belly, and ‘see’ what is going on in there, just like you did with Rhydon’s leg. Remember?” Cirilya asked me, and I knew what she wanted me to do.

I did exactly the same as I did with Rhydon’s leg, so I put my hands on her belly and closed my eyes. I let my mind search for what I wanted to see. A layer of muscles, bones and then her uterus was to be seen. Seven beautiful but big eggs were in the birth canal, but the first one to come out was laying sideways. I told Cirilya what I saw and she told me to twist it, with the point of the egg towards the exit.

“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked her.

“Well your mage training was to start tomorrow, but I guess this time is as good as any. Your mage powers are surfaced as well, hence the reason you could communicate with me. I bet you can read minds also, don’t you?” I nodded with a smile, but told her that I couldn’t do that to everyone though.

“Well I’ll teach you that later, but first you need to learn how to create a forcefield. Focus, calculate in your mind how big the forcefield must be, then use both of your hands to push some energy out of your body and curve your hands into the shape that you need. Try it on that bale of hay over there first, you don’t want to blow up your Gryphons uterus.” She said with a stern voice.

Exploding her uterus?! Wow no pressure… no pressure at all. She must have spent a lot of time with Anna, as her communications skills aren’t any better at this moment! I smiled though, I loved her character, just like Anna’s.

After focussing and failing and actually exploding a bale of hay, I managed to make a stable forcefield and lift a new bale of hay slightly off the floor. Then it was time to carefully turn the egg. I gave Bastet a kiss on her head and spoke to her some comforting words. During a contraction I would turn the egg, as a contraction already hurts, turning an egg wouldn’t be noticed by her. That’s the idea at least.

It was fun though to use both my hunter and my mage abilities at the same time. Maybe I could come up with more combinations to use during our battle.

Again, I laid my hand on her belly and searched for the out-of-place egg. Then with my other hand, I focused on the shape of the egg and imagined that I would grab the egg, just like I would normally take it out of the cardboard box. Bastet moaned, giving me the sign that she had a contraction, so I turned the egg and it went out smoothly. It dropped into the hay all safe, without a crack. I was so relieved! Good, six more to go.

When all the large eggs were out, Bastet moved her butt to look at her treasure. The eggs were really big, at the most broad part, I could barely surround the eggs with both my hands. Four of them were cream coloured and had orange spots on them, two were evenly brown coloured and the last one that came out was pitch black. I helped her arrange the eggs comfortable into the hay and I petted her head. She squeaked softly and curled up around her offspring. Nightwing and Brock came inside again and Nightwing ran up to Bastet as quick as he could.

“You’re going to be a dad soon, Nightwing.” Cirilya said to him, but he didn’t respond, he just laid behind Bastet and tried to re-arrange her feathers, gently caressing her.

Brock gave me a hug, while standing behind me and whispered to me.

"I can’t wait to become a dad, one day too."

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