Chapter Text
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Alone.
Her body aches and sores in places she didn’t think imaginable, exhaustion weighs heavy on all her limbs, making most attempts of movement nearly useless… but it’s fine. Her nest is warm and out of danger. She remembers making it on the best sunspot of the house and with the softest pillows and blankets she could get her hands on. She knows this is the safest place they could be.
Alone… No…
She is not alone.
Her clutch, a handful of teal and pink tinted eggs, all connected by their string and just disconnected from their mother… Her children… Her beloved kin… They must survive.
With tired hands she cleans all and every single one of them, making sure there is no dirt or slime left on the thin film. She can’t be sure, her eyes are too tired and this darkness makes it even harder to notice, but she believes just one or two of this clutch is actually alive, full of her and her mate’s love.
The others, the duds, will feed her child when she is inevitably gone. That makes a wave of relief go through her body.
She is alone. She will die alone. But her legacy, her epitome of love to her wife, will live on on her stead.
She is at peace at this.
Her ears twitch sometimes, there is movement around her but… she is safe, her clutch is safe. She can ignore the noise as long as they don’t harm her eggs. She feels something touch her arm and shake it a bit, but she ignores it once again. She hums, an attempt to send the annoyance away. She is too spent to growl properly.
It works. But not before another graze happens on the top of her head. It is nothing but a soft touch, so she once again ignores it and checks on her clutch again.
Her babies…
She will protect them with her life.
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Watching and cleaning, cleaning and watching. Her duty is simple and her body, while still exhausted by the labor, it's starting to recover some sense of mobility.
A day has passed, if the periods of sunlight warming her entire beings could tell. It helps to keep her nest warm and the eggs happy. So she is happy.
She still feels her ears twitch occasionally, like if an annoying flutter is always near her looking to distract her. An opportunist, probably. She feels herself growling when it’s insistence gets to her. Her throat is dry and hard but alive enough to give the predator a warning.
It doesn't work this time.
The noise continues. Not particularly louder, but it feels closer and sets all nerves on high alert. She carefully grabs the string with her longest tentacle, suddenly strong and deft enough for the movement. She hides the eggs between that one and the others behind her, forming a safe haven for her children while she deals with this threat.
She feels a touch on her arm once again. The mother doesn’t think twice, she hisses and bites the air in that direction, once, twice, unable to properly twist enough to actually bite the trespasser. That seems to work, the touch is gone at least.
The noise, however, is insistent. So she continues to growl and hiss.
Now that her eyes aren't trained on her clutch (She needs to clean them soon) she can try to see the intruder. Her eyes are still a bit unfocused and she wonders why it's hard to pinpoint the danger. It takes her a few moments to notice that it is dark once again.
There is a light. Dim and pink in color at the far end of the place where her nest is.
Pink…
There are also two golden orbs on a blob of white, the ends of some of the mass is also a soft light pink.
She… she likes pink… and cream and gold… the back of her mind reminds her of it.
Her growl quiets, only a bit. She stops baring her beak at the intruder for now and just… tries to look. There is more noise once again. What’s that sound again?
The intruder, the bold thing, once again tries to reach for her eggs so her snarl is back. Her tentacles wiggle to make sure there is no way her clutch is exposed and once again, the creature seems to get the idea and backs away. She goes back to the furthest part of her nest to check on her children, feeling relief at them all being intact and safe in her arms again. The noise is gone and so is the blob.
Good riddance.
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Marina nearly bited her hand off.
Not that she is against her wife biting her but, what the actual fuck?!? That was a full “fuck around and find out” bite. A “get closer and I will eat your fucking finger” kind of bite. Pearl knew that Marina would be tired as fuck after laying their eggs, but this is a level of wild fuckery that she wasn’t really expecting of her tired partner in life.
Marina hates hurting others, it was hard enough on her to scratch Pearl by accident with her claws and let alone getting the idea through her head that her wife likes a good love mark every now and then… hell she struggles to kill bugs on her plants for fuck sake!! But THAT was a threat of violence so out of character of her that it shook the inkling to the core.
What. The. Fuck.
Out of fear of upsetting her more, she retreats to their temporary room. The married couple wanted to have a room near the nest in the living room so that Marina could walk around the blanket fort and an actual good bed on her whims and so that Pearl could be close by if she needed anything. But she stayed on the mess of comforters and sheets since before her first contraction started and hasn't moved a muscle out of it since then.
It's been two days, nearly three as of now.
Pearl is worried sick at this point.
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She feels herself drift in and out. An ebb and flow of consciousness and slumber.
When she is awake she cleans her beloved children, she looks for predators around her periphery and occasionally needs to chase the blob out of her nest with some growls. She sleeps on her side, curled as much as possible on herself and with her clutch safely hidden in her tentacles she falls into a light sleep.
Her gut feels worse by the minute. At the beginning she thought it was because of her children leaving her womb, but now she is not sure. Her throat and mouth feel dry and rough, it is getting harder each passing hour to make a convincing growl when her pest returns. A clear click of her beak seems to give the same idea, at least the intruder got the message that one time.
How… How long has it been…?
She can’t seem to think clearly that back, her head feels like it's beating constantly and a rumble shakes her from her very core.
It's fine, she hears herself in her head. It's just the way things are. She has a sole and lonely duty that she must fulfill. Her clutch, her love letter to the universe and to her mate, must survive.
– [Pearlie…] – She whispers softly to herself, the first spoken words in days. – [I miss you…]
– [They… are ours…]
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If it wasn't because she has been so damn attentive to her movements and so worried sick about her, Pearl might have missed that.
But she didn’t.
She was in the sofa nearby, just far enough so Marina should be able to look at her there with no problem but the mother really seemed adamant on not looking anywhere but the inside of the nest.
Pearl feels a bit miserable at this point.
When they found out Marina was gravid they had a lot of different emotions. Confusion, fear, excitement, worry, bliss… they were so fucking happy. It was a one in a million chance and they did their best to take all steps with some semblance of responsibility. They planned it to be a big surprise to all her friends and family, they stayed out of the public eye for the last months of her carrying so that no one would suspect a thing.
They were so excited to show the world their love made flesh, to share to every cephaling their hope for the future, together.
But now, Pearl hates their decision.
Waiting on nothing, looking for information and advice online seemed to get her nowhere because all the finds were for Inklings. Nothing turned up on Octarian behavior that she could find…! Was this even an Octo thing or just a Marina thing?
Fuck, she feels like crying…. The inkling misses her wife so, so much.
– [Pearlie…]
Her ears tenses, overwriting any thought on her head in a millisecond. She looks at the nest and sees Marina still cuddled on her side, she always sleeps like that, like she has to take the least space possible on the bed.
– [I miss you…]
Fuck.
Pearl can’t seem to find the time to process the last phrase. Marina is calling for her so she will damn fucking sure leap for her aid.
She is not a fucking roller on a china shop, so she uses all her self control to approach quietly but swiftly.
– (Mar…? Talk to me, baby…) – Pearl whispers. She wants to hold her so badly, to give her anything she needs, but the last attempts taught her that she has to keep a bit of distance to placate the out of nowhere aggression of her wife.
The octoling mumbles, curling more on herself and once again hiding her eggs out of Pearl sight. She wants to see them so fucking badly.
She tries to reach her again, with a slow and deliberate care uncharacteristic of her. At any sight of her partner's alertness, she stops cold, waiting and counting her own heartbeats until the sleeping mother relaxes before scooching ever closer.
For the first time in days, she manages to lean into the nest enough for it to support her weight. With more tries and slow advances she pokes Marina’s closest pinky finger.
It twitches and Marina’s face frowns. Pearl feels a mixture of hope and fear.
She wants to hold her hand so badly, but she is also painfully aware that Marina never stopped her military training, at least until her gravid got in the way.
And also that she seemed totally okay trying to bite a piece of her off, in a non sexy way.
– (Reena…) – Pearl begs, soft and fragile as she has felt these past few days by herself, watching the love of her life retreat into herself in a way that terrifies her deeply. – (I… I miss you too…)
The frown lessens, even Marina's shoulders seems to relax.
– [Pearlie…] – Is the reply, something like a whine and a plea.
She takes the chance.
– [I’m here… I love you] – Pearl whispers, practiced words in Marina’s mother tongue. She reaches for her wife's hand.
And Marina holds it back, a melodic hum in her throat.
Pearl quietly cries in relief.