Familial Anomalies

Roxanne deliberately made her nest near the edges of their territory. She loved her family, she really did, but she didn’t want them smothering her or her hatchlings. They were too complicated. Her cousins had never fully warmed up to Roxanne or her siblings, and her parents were hardly around. Eventually, she could trust Randolph and Rebecca with their nieces and nephews, but for now, she wanted time alone with her children.

In the end, it turned out to be only one child. She laid a single oval-shaped egg, which meant it got all of its mother’s love to itself. Sometimes she left the nest to visit the rest of her family—they knew she was gravid, and must have pieced it together that she’d laid, but she didn’t want them visiting just yet—and spent every other moment with the egg.

She spoke to it softly, telling it the names of its aunt and uncle, who she was sure would love it as much as she did. Sometimes she mentioned its grandparents, briefly, uncomfortable with the twinge in her heart. (She had to be a better parent than either of them.)

Roxanne couldn’t help but wonder what the little hatchling would look like. She never met her own grandparents, and all of her siblings had something that set them apart from their parents. Randolph’s crest was red, not golden like Kyrien’s, not to mention he and Rebecca were both stark-white, and Roxanne glowed. No one in their family glowed, as far as she knew.

She knew exactly who her hatchling’s other mother was: a battle-scarred cryolophosaurus named Abandon.

But what if her baby looked nothing like anyone she knew?

She couldn’t decide if she wanted it to or not.

Either way, she wouldn’t love it any less, and perhaps that was all that mattered.

#

“So, the father,” Rebecca said, keeping pace with her sister, “is he someone we know?”

“There isn’t a father. And the mother, um… You don’t know her.”

“Does our little Roxanne have a girlfriend?”

She was barely little! Randolph was hardly a minute older than her!

Today was the day. It wasn’t that the egg had started shaking, or had cracks form on its shell, but Roxanne just knew that it would be hatching today, and she knew her siblings had to be there. So she was being nice and ignoring their teasing, focusing on retracing her steps back to the nest.

They made it just in time.

“It’s hatching!” Rebecca whispered.

Randolph chuckled. “Obviously.”

“I’m going to be an auntie! And you’re going to be an uncle, and Roxanne’s going to be a mom…”

“We all know that already!”

Roxanne kept silent, unable to take her eyes off of her egg.

“I know! But it’s different when it’s really happening! I mean, at any moment-”

Crack!

In an instant, they fell silent. A spiderweb of cracks had appeared on the egg’s shell. Roxanne hardly dared to breathe.

She was about to meet her baby.

After what felt like an eternity, a dark little snout poked through the shell. Soon the whole head had popped out, and then the whole hatchling had stumbled into the grassy, yellow nest. A little female. She looked up expectantly at the three adults. None of them spoke. Rebecca’s mouth hung open.

It took a while for Randolph to be bold enough to break the silence. “Your girlfriend was pink?”

Roxanne was very certain that Abandon wasn’t pink. She was just as surprised as her siblings to see that her baby was a bright, vivid pink, like a sakura blossom. Darker stripes ran down her sides, speckled with pink spots, and white blotches on her legs and tail. Those blotches were the only resemblance she had to Roxanne’s family.

She could hardly hold that against her own daughter. Roxanne smiled, warm and gentle, as she leaned down to get a proper look at her. “Hello, little one.”

She’d ignored Randolph’s accusation of having a pink girlfriend, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was smiling, too, watching his niece take wobbly steps towards Roxanne and touching the tips of their noses together.

“You know, I really thought your kid would glow,” Rebecca said, her snout brushing her sister’s as she crouched down to look at the hatchling. “But she ends up pink instead. How does that work?”

None of them had any idea how their bloodline worked, really. Roxanne wondered if Abandon’s parents were pink. Or Kyrien’s. Or Jolene’s. It really was a mystery.

The little pink baby cheeped.

“Chiruka,” Roxanne said.

Randolph finally joined his sisters in settling closer to the hatchling’s eye level. “Chiruka?”

“That’s her name. Isn’t it, little one? Do you like the sound of it?”

The hatchling chirped again, rubbing her head against her mama’s chin.

“I guess that’s a yes,” Randolph said.

Roxanne stood to her full height. “Come on, Chiruka. Let’s go on a walk.”

Randolph, who had just gotten comfortable in the grass, raised an eyebrow. “You’re not bringing her back to the others already, are you?”

“Of course not! But she needs to walk if she’s going to lose that wobble. Maybe we can find her something to eat on the way…”

She started walking, and Chiruka followed after her, determined not to be left behind with her unsteady legs.

“Forget finding something for her,” Rebecca said, ambling after them. “I’m starving!”

#

It turned out that it wasn’t very difficult to feed a hatchling. Chiruka was, for now, small enough to be full after eating a few lizards and dragonflies, and she was already well on her way to being able to catch them herself. Rebecca whined about not having anything bigger to eat, but she didn’t turn down having a lizard for a snack, either.

When they got back to the nest, the sun was setting, and Randolph hadn’t moved an inch. He snored quietly.

Roxanne sighed, a fond smile on her face. “I guess this means you two are staying with us tonight?”

“Unless Chiruka has a problem with it,” Rebecca said. She leaned over to get on the hatchling’s eye level. “You don’t mind your auntie and uncle staying over, do you?”

Chiruka looked up at her, and Roxanne held in a laugh seeing how small she was next to Rebecca. She was hardly the size of Rebecca’s head. After thinking very hard, Chiruka shook her head, and offered a shaky smile of her own.

“Roxanne.” Rebecca stood up straight. “Your baby is adorable.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know. Let’s get to bed.”

The two sisters settled on either side of Randolph, who didn’t stir at all as they pressed against his flanks. He was always such a heavy sleeper. Chiruka settled next to Roxanne’s nose. Rebecca fell asleep quickly, but Chiruka didn’t. She stared up at the sky, craning her neck to get a view of the stars that were beginning to show. Roxanne had never been so proud of carving out a life in the grasslands; it gave her daughter a perfect view of the night sky.

Roxanne gave her a little nudge. “The stars are beautiful, aren’t they?”

Chiruka nodded, but her eyes were still on the sky. Suddenly, she scrambled onto Roxanne’s head, earning a small yelp of surprise from her.

“Oh! Is it a better view from up there?”

“You glow, too,” said a tiny voice.

That was it. Her daughter’s first words. Roxanne was so awestruck, she nearly forgot to respond. “I do, don’t I? Just like the stars.”

They laid in comfortable silence, mother and daughter, watching the stars come out of the darkness.