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Ramoth’s second clutch is even larger than her first - 45 eggs, with another queen - and no one is more pleased than the Weyrleaders.
“Well, it was a rather good flight,” F’lar comments with a satisfied smirk.
Lessa opens her mouth, preparing an indignant response, but he only laughs, and she realizes nothing she could say would perturb him in the slightest. The man is incorrigible. A slight smile of remembrance curves her lips, and her eyes take on a faraway look.
“Deny it all you want, you know you were thinking it too,” he teases. He’s absolutely correct, she thinks, but that doesn’t mean he has to be so smug about it!
Before she can start to sputter or object, F’lar picks his mate up off her feet and spins her about in an excess of emotion, grinning when she alternately laughs and curses at him.
And then...
Her attention is diverted by an unexpected sensation in her lower abdomen: a slight fluttering, the first stirrings of movement from the child growing inside her. The sensation is faint, but she’s certain she’s not imagining it.
She gasps and stiffens suddenly in surprise, and he sets her back on her feet at once. She clutches at his shoulders to steady herself, then a hand falls to her slightly rounded stomach.
“What’s wrong?” F’lar demands, his levity swiftly erased by concern.
She smiles gently, reassuring - he is so quick to turn protective, these days - and looks up at him with eyes shining in delighted amazement. “Butterfly kicks,” she murmurs, wondering.
“I don’t know if you can feel it from the outside yet...,” she continues, and places his hand under hers.
He concentrates a minute, then shakes his head ruefully. “I’ll have to take your word for it, love. But it seems this one is a true child of the Weyr.”
“Indeed?” she inquires, curious as to his reasoning, though she is in no way inclined to disagree. There is no way to know for certain, nor does it even matter, but Lessa is privately convinced that this pregnancy is an additional souvenir of the flight.
He wraps his arms around her, and presses a soft kiss to her temple. “He wanted to share in our celebration.”