It was among the last few days of Leafchange when Ilie’s clutch began to hatch. The Twocrest Sharptooth had spent the better part of three weeks huddled over the nest, cradling her four eggs tightly to her body. She was their shield against the biting, creeping cold that slid serpent-like over the crags and valleys of her home in the Greystone Peaks— the first signs that the warm colors and whistling breezes of Leafchange would soon give way to the howling, freezing, dark days of the Cold Times. One by one she watched as other Twocrests bore their young, nurturing them, feeding them scraps of scavenged flesh and occasionally a fish from the river a half-day’s walk from the nesting area. The squeaks and blinking, beady black eyes grabbed and twisted at her heart, and as the days grew shorter and the pride leader’s visitations became less and less frequent, she began to lose hope.

   At first, he had been enthusiastic about stopping by, eager to see how her clutch would turn out. Of the pride’s females, Ilie was easily one of the most beautiful; her yellow body, striped with the faintest lines of tan and brown, was sleek, but not unhealthily so. Her teeth were sharp, her eyes bright, and her crests— two orange and red ornaments adorning the top of her head— always shone with a vibrant, optimistic light. She was his favorite, the “pride of her pride,” as he liked to remark, or any pride for that matter. It was a joke that always elicited a chuckle from him, and an obligatory laugh from anyone else in earshot. But as her clutch continued to fail to impress, even her beauty wasn’t enough to distract from the obvious— an infertile female, however visually stunning, was useless to the pride in the long run.

   But on a dark morning, one tinted with the faintest blue of the distant Bright Circle and tinged with the icy touch of coming Cold Times, Ilie’s clutch hatched, and gave birth to an aberration.

   It was the noise that woke her, the subtle cracking and scraping of tiny claws against smooth eggshell rousing her gently from another restless slumber. At first, she was certain she was hearing things. Many times before, she had been tricked by the snap of a branch, or some other similar sound, but this time she could feel it; the four eggs beneath her were shifting, moving, and as she lifted herself off the nest to peer through the murky morning dark, as well as the haze of her own sleepiness, she saw a crack begin to form along the surface of one egg; a dark slit from which two little wet claws quivered, scratching at the shell. Immediately she shifted off the nest, threw back her head, and emitted a loud, triumphant cry, one that was met almost immediately by a series of annoyed grumblings. She didn’t care. Her clutch was finally hatching.

   Turning her attention back to the nest, she softly nuzzled the egg, rolling it upright. Flakes of shell fell away as she did, and it was all she could do to hold back a sneeze. The crack widened, and in the darkness she could see a single yellow orb, a pupil set in the middle of it contracting and dilating as it adjusted to the light. She heard footsteps behind her, and knew with the utmost certainty that Surs, the pride leader, was behind her. She couldn’t wait any longer. As squeaks began to come from the little life inside the shell, she picked away at the infant’s egg, eager to show Surs what they had accomplished. Her claws went to work peeling away soft membrane and hard shell, and once she even felt the delicate touch of young skin beneath her claw. Contact was met with a sharp squeak, and she drew away, reminding herself that it was the duty of the young to break free, not the mother.

   A head emerged soon, and for the first time, she finally saw the face of her progeny. The young Twocrest was beautiful, its slender jaw perfectly shaped, and its dark eyes wide with the curiosity that only comes from seeing the world, and indeed experiencing life itself, for the first time. More egg fell away, and Ilie felt hot breath on her neck. Surs was leaning down beside her, watching the little one intently.

   “It’s going to have your crests,” he whispered excitedly, “look at how colorful it is.”

   He was right. The tail was next to emerge, and as light broke over the horizon, she could see the faint outline of stripes, stripes that would no doubt become well-developed as the infant grew to maturity. The young Twocrest gave a growl, and the shell around it shook, little cracks spreading over its surface as the little dinosaur’s feet pressed against it. Ilie could barely sit still. Soon she would know whether her firstborn was a son or a daughter; a challenger to the pride leader, or a successor to her, and as the final pieces of eggshell fell away, and the sky began to glow with the light of the coming day, she knew right away that her firstborn was a son.

   But that didn’t matter.

   It didn’t matter because what she fixated on the most, what made Surs draw back with a sudden hiss of disgust, was the crooked, bent, unmoving arm the young creature held close to its chest.

   “I- it’s- what have-” Surs stammered. Ilie couldn’t bring herself to look at him, instead keeping her eyes locked on the young male now hopping around the nest, examining the three other eggs of his soon-to-be siblings. Aside from the arm, he seemed healthy, but the arm… she couldn’t look away from the deformed facsimile of a limb.

   His incoherent muttering complete, Surs’ voice fell to a low growl.

   “Perhaps the others will be less disappointing.”

   And then he was gone. Two of the other eggs hatched, each birthing a beautiful female and male into the pride. The fourth and final egg never hatched, and soon it fed her children. Surs doted over the two “normal” hatchlings, and claimed that she had nothing to worry about, that the Cold Times would take her little abomination before long, and that even naming him was probably a waste.

   But the Cold Times didn’t take him.

   The next year she named him Wesper, “one who survives.”

Hey everyone! I'm back with something a little different. This is a side project I've been working on for a little while now, and I figured now that I've been confronted by writer's block on "Fields," this might be the right project to get the old gears turning again. As I explained on Fanfiction.net, this doesn't mean "Fields" is gone. Rather, I will be working on it alongside this story. Ideally, once I get this tale underway, it'll be full steam ahead on both of them!