Um, it gets worse before it gets better for our Torajinn and our ryujinn. But it does improve…I promise! *g*
Flash
His chest was swelling.
It was hot and painful to touch, and absolutely pointless.
He could feel his nipples become more sensitive and change to a dark pink color…and he dropped his head and wept.
What good was it to develop the ability to feed a child that would not be nurtured from his body anyway?
Yet, he couldn’t resist poking at the slight swelling.
It hurt, yes, but it was a reminder. It was a reminder of the loss he was about to suffer and the even worse heart rending agony he was about to endure.
“Javen,” his mate whispered, but the ryuujin turned away. He wrapped himself tighter around the egg that held the place of honor in his nest.
He had been there for days, crying, brooding, and wishing that he had never left the Space Station. Even if the humans had been secretive and dangerous, he was sure that they would have at least let him nurse his child through infancy.
But these so called Ancients, the elders that brought them forth, had turned out to be the worst monsters he could ever imagine.
There was always a cost, and Javen knew this. He realized it from the first time that he was labeled as unmatable and destined for destruction. He knew that there would be a cost when he found his Gara and had reared the child with all the traditions and culture that the winged pairs had created for themselves. He knew that he would have to pay when his mate rose in the ranks to become High Lord Chancellor and again when he discovered that he was carrying their child.
But he never expected the price to be so high.
“Javen,” Gara sated again, this time reaching out and gripping the distraught dragon’s shoulder.
But he couldn’t summon up enough energy to move. He didn’t really care.
No one could understand what he was going though. No one knew what it felt like to have their soul rent into two.
“Javen, My One….”
“Leave him,”
Javen flinched, his eyes narrowing as he heard the voice of his second. Mizuki sounded concerned, but Javen could barely rally more emotion than resentment for him.
He was trying hard not to hate Mizuki, the ryuujin had nothing to do with the ancients, but still…it was hard.
Javen wrapped his arms tighter around himself, and pretended that they all didn’t exist.
“Mizuki,” Gara began, but Mizuki cut him off.
“He has to grieve.”
“We have to go!” Gara sounded no more ready to abandon their egg than Javen was to move, but he was still insisting.
“The world can wait!” Mizuki almost screamed, the fear of the High Lord Chancelor noting when compare to another maternal creature responding to a beloved family members pain. “Those filthy humans won’t die out if you give Javen time. He had his heart torn out after being offered its ease. He needs time to grieve.”
“Ever since he told me of the message, of the message Otohime
delivered, I have done nothing but grieve.”
“Yet you were not the one to bear the desired burden of carrying a child only to be told that you have to give it up.”
“But….” Gara sounded confused. “We will only be gone a short time….”
“You seem to forget your own creation, young one.”
When Mizuki spoke like that, Javen knew that it would force Gara to acknowledge that the green haired ryuujin was centuries older than him.
“You seem to forget that we Ryuujin have an instinctive need to imprint ourselves…just as the Torajinn. It is safe to conclude that this child will imprint itself on the first being it sees. And because Shinji cannot actually sit the egg with the right amount of heat and cold, it is also safe to assume that I will be sitting that egg. And when the egg cracks and your child breaks free, High Lord, who do you think will be the first one it sees?”
There was a heavy sigh, a heart wrenching sound, and Gara spoke again.
“I know that, Mizuki, but…. But I must do what must be done. If not, we run the risk of all of us being expelled from this place. And if that happens, what will happen to both of your eggs?”
“I understand that very well, high Lord Chancellor,” Mizuki returned. “But that does no matter when your paradise has already been torn asunder.”
Shortly after that, the both left, and Javen was again left alone to ponder the unfairness, the brutality, and the injustice of this life he was forced to lead.
“Can’t live, can’t die, only go forward,” he sighed, more tears pouring form his red swollen eyes.
Soon, he would be leaving soon. He knew he had to and he would do his duty, but that didn’t stop the pain…and it didn’t stop the hate.
Why in the name of the Creator and the Ancients did a martyr have to be sacrifice to be a hero?