The Hatchling
(Dragato/ Tali/ Gravel / Ramset)
(Dragato/ Tali/ Gravel / Ramset)
Hibernation was a necessity for many different species of the universe.
During the cold. When food was scarce and creatures couldn’t keep their temperature warm. Saved energy, saved lives. Other warm blooded animals made due, but suffered.
North Nova had hibernation, in a sense. Cold nights meant cold blood meant cold bodies and cold metabolisms. Was it sleep to the outsiders? Or something like a nightly near-death?
A Zoos has to be very aware of their burrowing place when time came to sleep. Avoided slaughter by enemies and feral beasts that way. Digging was best. Couldn’t kill if you couldn’t find.
West Nova didn’t have predators like that. But the cold remained with the seasons’ turn. To forego a nightly near-death for a months-long torpor was a difficult trade.
Gravel had chosen it, though. And torpor was always destined to end.
The canyons had begun to warm with the onset of spring. Sand-colored rock soaked up the sun’s rays, heating their collective surfaces. A breeze swept through with the dredges of what once had been a winter bite, now reduced to a nip in the air. All throughout, the temperature slowly rose, day after day. Still cool, for now, but most of the cold season had passed.
Spring was fast settling in, and with it, the birth and revival of creatures both young and old.
Deep within the rocky range, tucked away behind outcroppings and hidden among the twisting, jagged curves of the canyon’s bottom depths, a cavern sat quiet and dark. It was a place that hadn’t been disturbed for months barring the occasional visit, and might have continued to remain so had its most diligent guest not made an appearance a few days prior and made himself comfortable.
By all outward appearances, it would have been only an empty cave. Inside, though, it was anything but. It was a home, and for one guest with too much energy and excitement to spare, cleaning needed to be done.
Furniture was dusted. A fire pit was cleaned out and stocked with fresh wood, ready for its owner to use when the time came. Food began to fill the rocky shelves and furs of all sorts were beaten, shaken out into the open canyon air before being tossed back into their proper places, everything made ready for their owner’s return. All of this over the course of about three days, because someone refused to leave.
Normally, it wouldn’t be quite like this. Visits didn’t have to stretch on for days a time, and in years past they hadn’t – it was enough just to drop by and check on things as the weather warmed. Hibernation took awhile to come out of – nobody would be missing anything.
But this year was special. Spring had brought something wonderful and sitting around just waiting patiently for someone to wake up was proving to be an arduous chore.
Better to get the energy out productively than end up waking Gravel prematurely.
And Ramset has to say, it has to be very, very good luck that the waiting pays off sooner than expected.
It’s easy to miss. Gravel’s resting place blended well with the rest of his home, a burrow dug out into the furthermost wall and piled high with rock and dirt such that it seemed no different to the expanse of rock around it. If someone hadn’t known to look – and what to look for – nobody wouldn’t have seen it.
But Ramset knew. And no matter how dark it was in the cavern, there isn’t any way he would miss the disturbance of the debris keeping Gravel’s den hidden, nor the sight of it as it loosens nor the sound as it slowly begins to crumble quietly apart. Something within stirs, slowly.
Ramset’s excited. Ramset could not be more excited. He was always excited to see his partner after hibernation, of course, but this year was different. Something had happened and it took everything in him not to just shout, right then and there. His grin pulled too hard on his face and his mouth hurt.
But he had already agreed with Dragato that this was something better left to Dragato himself, when Gravel had his bearings better in the hospital. Gravel wouldn’t appreciate the loud noise to his already sensitive hearing anyway.
Still, he can’t help whispering a quiet, cheeky, “Good morning, sunshine,” as he kneels to begin the process of helping Gravel, slowly, out of his burrow.
It’s a process that takes awhile. Hibernation took a lot out of someone and Gravel isn’t as spry as he used to be, and Ramset, unfortunately, can’t help as much as he’d like. He would have loved to do more than move a few large rocks and get some water and cloth ready, but Gravel didn’t need the added stress when he was already so weak and oversensitive in practically all of his five senses.
Gravel never wanted all the extra help anyway. The process of waking up and leaving the burrow was a thing that had to be done by himself, he’d said. Letting nature take its course. Ramset was thankful he even got to participate at all, much less participate as much as he had.
In the end, all Ramset can do, ultimately, is sit back and tend to the warm water and cloth at his side, fidgeting his fingers while Gravel very, very slowly works the rest of his way out.
There’s tension in the air, Ramset knows. Gravel is going to smell it the moment he’s aware enough to make sense of his surroundings. For a second, Ramset again debates telling Gravel the news – but he couldn’t take that from Dragato. He’s far better than that.
It sure kills him though.
Bit by bit, Ramset watches as the rest of the debris falls away. Rock and soil loosen, collapsing in on itself and revealing the burrow’s entrance to the outside world for the first time in months.
Slowly, an arm begins to appear. Familiar shaking fingers flex as they scrape across the rock of the floor, catching on the ground so that their owner can painstakingly pull his way out. It’s so, so slow that Ramset swears he can’t breathe for how intently he watches, and he has to squeeze his hands tight to keep himself from going over and helping, to the stars with everything else.
Four long months after departing for hibernation, Gravel once more emerges into the world.
It’s a landslide of leaves and dirt and mineral that heralds his arrival, along with a sad flopping to the ground that accompanies it, a great, hoarse heave in his lungs that rings of exertion and stale air. Overall, the process had gone quicker than in the last few years at about an hour – maybe he’d already smelled something in the air and wanted to investigate.
Ramset lets him rest for a few minutes. Careful not to say a word nor do anything that might chafe against Gravel’s horribly heightened senses, he inches forward with water and cloth and gives his husband a smile that can’t possibly convey the warmth in his chest.
A bleary eye blinks up at him. Gravel really shouldn’t be using that eyeball, but the smile Ramset gets in return butters him up enough to look past it.
They go through the usual routine. Carefully, Gravel is wiped down – dirt and leaves swept away gently, as feather-light as Ramset can be although Gravel still winces at the contact. Ramset doesn’t get everything off, but he does enough, and by the end, at least Gravel isn’t as uncomfortable as he was.
They the customary questions and answers. What is Gravel’s name, Ramset asks in a whisper? Where is he? Does he know who Ramset is? His children? And Gravel answers each one as well as he’s able, his voice hoarse as if he had swallowed glass during his long sleep. Gravel. Home. He knows Ramset. And Falspar. And Dragato.
The questions aren’t really needed. Gravel remembered himself just fine every year. But it was for a good cause and it helped Ramset feel better, and it was the thought that counted. So Gravel played along.
Finally, eventually, when Ramset had done all he could and there was little more to do but wait, things fell quiet. Ramset sat by Gravel’s side as Gravel very, very slowly manipulated himself upright.
The family is whole again. Sentimental, but true. And not only is the family whole, but again the thought strikes him, the news, the excitement of the past few days. And Gravel doesn’t know. Gravel sits there, breathing quietly and inhaling the cool air of his rocky home, and he doesn’t know a thing.
Ramset is terrible at swallowing surprises.
“...You.” Gravel grunts, “You. Are thinking about something…”
He doesn’t need his sight to know that much. He smells it in the air just fine.
“We’re all thinking of something at any point in the day.”
“Really…? With you, I’m not so sure.”
Ramset chuckles quietly at the gentle prod. Stars, he had missed it. Years and years of this and the ache at his husband’s absence never got any better. It always made him appreciate the value of Gravel’s presence so much more each spring he woke up well and unbothered, even if things didn’t fly so smoothly as they used to.
Speaking of flying…
“Falspar will probably be coming by later,” He murmurs. “to pick us up. The usual.”
“And Dragato?”
Ramset chews his lip.
“He’ll be by the hospital later. Heeee is busy!”
“...Too busy to come greet his father after his long hibernation?”
Ramset resists the urge to rub his face. “...Something like that.”
“I see.”
He’s onto him. It’s impossible not to be, and Ramset really hopes he doesn’t pry. He doesn’t know if he could keep his mouth shut if Gravel decided to needle him for answers.
“Then maybe you can tell me...what all has happened since I have been gone. While we wait.”
He doesn’t prod. Thank NOVA. Ramset jumps at the shift in topic, sitting up straight. “Oh, so much, Grav!”
They fall into the familiar lull of conversation and routine with an ease that speaks to their many years together. Ramset carries most of the conversation while Gravel nods along, merely prodding occasionally for additional information as things come up. Both of them soak in each other’s presence, neither willing to move and interrupt their time together; it’s easy for Ramset to get lost in it after months apart.
It speaks to just how sensitive Gravel is to everything right now that he’s the one who notices Falspar’s arrival before Ramset does. A small tilt of his head, a focused pinch to his face, and when Ramset looks over to the entrance, their son is there – beaming, excited, Warp Star at the ready.
Falspar knows about what’s been happening recently too. It’s a wonder he doesn’t crack under the pressure to tell Gravel the big news himself, but Falspar has an easy charm that betrays nothing. Gets it from his dad.
Still, Ramset thinks as they set themselves and Gravel up on the Warp Star, careful and slow. As good as Gravel’s nose was… He could probably smell the buzz of unspoken words on Falspar too.
Just a little bit longer.
-------------
Gravel may not have been able to see, but he knew tension when he felt it.
Oh, Ramset spoke just fine – he and Falspar were having quite the conversation about what Gravel had missed while he had been asleep, eager to fill him in as they did every year. Gravel enjoyed listening to their stories and cherished it greatly.
But Gravel could feel it. It followed them like an irritating scent stuck to the furs of one’s garments, buried in their arms and hidden in their voices. He had already known from the first scent of Ramset’s nerves the moment he had been aware enough to piece out his senses, but that it lingered on Falspar too only incited his wonder further.
“Has something happened?” Gravel asked once about halfway through their trip when curiosity got the best of him. “...Did someone get hurt?” Dragato hadn’t shown up today when he ordinarily might have, and Ramset had been cagey about it, which did worry him a little. They knew he didn’t care for surprises too much, and if it concerned his child...
“No,” Falspar had said, quick and sure, and Gravel heard the truth in his tone. “No! Everything’s fine, nobody’s hurt, it’s great.”
“But?”
“Ah, stop worrying so much, Grav,” Ramset lets out a chuckle and grazes Gravel’s arm fondly, careful of his touch. “You know we wouldn’t keep a secret from you. Just...be patient, alright? You’ll know soon.”
Gravel hadn’t been too satisfied with the answer and Ramset had known it, but he trusted his partner with his life. If Ramset was holding something back, and nobody was truly hurt as Falspar said…then it couldn’t have been too serious.
He wouldn’t be surprised if it were a party.
“I don’t care for surprises…” Gravel grumbles, still.
“Oh, trust me. You’ll love this one.”
So he said.
They make it to the hospital in due course without further event. Gravel has to spend most of the day in bed while Alba and Mends both tend to him, asking their questions and taking stock of his vitals and bodily functions. It is exhausting, to be surrounded by so much noise and smell and touch even as gentle and quiet as they try to be. The bandage over his eye blots out any trace of light he might be able to see, and it’s both a blessing and a long-persistent curse. If he weren’t so stubborn to see his family, then maybe he wouldn’t need to wear it, Alba had tutted.
He expects Ramset to say something about this surprise after he’s settled in, or perhaps for Falspar to spill it. Neither do. Gravel gets only reassurance and warmth and vague half-answers that don’t satisfy his curiosity at all, and by the time everything begins to quiet and Falspar leaves for the night, he is quite sick of it and exhausted of all the waiting and just exhausted in general.
Gravel doesn’t expect more visitors. Gravel doesn’t necessarily want more visitors after the day he’s had. Ramset at his side was plenty enough for him. If it weren’t for how sterile this hospital smelled and how the sheets and bandages chaffed at his hide, he might have been at rest by now.
But he gets them.
He doesn’t need to see to know of their arrival. Far from it. Gravel needs only take one breath through his nose for him to register a very familiar scent circulating through the sterile smell of chemicals and disinfectant.
The door creaks open, quietly.
“Dragato,” Gravel greets. “I was wondering when you might come see me. A little late this time, hm…?”
He hears Dragato chuckle quietly as he steps through on polished floor to come closer. Gravel, interestingly, hears nothing from Ramset at his side. “Sorry,” Dragato whispers, “I was a little caught up in something…”
Gravel sniffs again, to reorient and re-familiarize. His son’s smell hadn’t changed no matter how he had grown, and Gravel could recognize it anywhere, but perhaps Ramset wasn’t entirely wrong in worrying over Gravel’s faculties each year. He himself feared forgetting the signatures of his loved ones sometimes.
But.
“…”
He sniffs.
Again.
And again.
...
“...Who is with you?”
That is the scent of his son, yes. No mistaking it. And had Gravel not been as keen to his senses as he was, maybe he might not have noticed, as faint as it was. But there was something else. Close by. Close to Dragato’s own, barely present, nothing he knew though it made his frills buzz in familiarity.
Someone else was here. It was too distinct to be anything else.
Dragato lets out a noise that Gravel can’t parse. His mind turns, searching, waiting for Dragato to say something and furrowing his brow when he gets nothing. Dragato hesitates. For what reason? He has nothing to fear.
“Is it a friend you’ve brought with you?” Gravel prods. “...A significant other? Why do they not speak?”
“...Why don’t you hold out your arm.”
“...What?”
“Just trust me. You’ll see.”
Gravel wants to push. He doesn’t understand. Why the secrets? Why the tension? What is going on?
But Gravel trusted them all with his life. Nobody would ever have reason to lie to him for a nefarious reason, least of all his sons.
Gravel holds out his arm.
He hears Dragato’s feet step across the floor, louder the closer he comes to stand by Gravel’s bed. Both scents bolster as they get closer to his nose, and here he can smell more of the intricacies of the unfamiliar signature – warm and distinct, familiarity without a real memory.
The touch to his arm is slow and gentle with respect to his awareness, and Gravel allows Dragato to manipulate it as he will, feeling each movement of Dragato’s hand and parsing it for any clue. He finds his arm hooked, held aloft a bit, hears the sound of rustling as Dragato moves something in his grip--
--And suddenly
Gravel is holding a baby.
…
Gravel knows it’s a baby. Here is why.
They are tiny. That’s his first thought. A baby is tiny. This one, especially, and Gravel thinks that this one has to be...young. Very, very young.
He also knows it’s a baby because, he realizes Dragato has manipulated his arm in such a way that is meant to keep the child secure. To keep the baby’s head propped, their back supported, and their weight held gently. He hadn’t realized it before, because he hadn’t expected it. He hadn’t expected a baby. It squirms in his hold with the transfer of grip and he automatically adjusts to keep them steady.
Why does his son have a baby, he wonders. Why does his son have a child, he thinks with a heart that begins to pound loud in his ears. Is he babysitting. Is he watching someone’s child for them.
(No, Dragato isn’t.)
Gravel sniffs, to catch the scent that he hadn’t been able to understand. And now that he knows what he’s looking for, he can recognize it, truly – feeling over their little arms, their cheek, the top of their head. Warm and sandy. The scent of meat, a little bit, and something like milk but not exactly.
The babe chirps – the first sound he’s heard out of it – and nuzzles against him, hide against hide, paws kneading. Burrowing without thought. It’s so familiar and he now knows why.
This is an infant. But more than that--
“Father Gravel,” Dragato murmurs, “...I’d like you to meet Tali. My daughter… And your granddaughter.”
This is an infant Zoos.
This is his grandchild.
Gravel has never wanted to tear the bandages off of his eye more than now. To the stars with his light sensitivity.
“...You.”
He can’t find words.
“Father Gravel? Your bandages are-”
“It’s fine.”
His words come out almost too choked to understand. The sob is in his throat, fighting to come out, and he swallows it back with a hard, raspy breath. Still, the tears fall, staining his cheeks, ruining the bandages over his remaining good eye. He doesn’t care.
He’s a grandfather. He, Gravel. The mistake of his clan, the curse, reviled and spat on. One who had never thought he would survive long enough to amount to anything, much less live to this day, to witness the growth of his family.
How had he gotten here? Gravel doesn’t understand. How had he managed to obtain such loved ones. A family. A husband, children, friends. Even now, years and years later, he marvels at it.
And now, here he is. A grandchild in his arms, and a son who had so eagerly been willing to offer them up for him, the omen, to hold. It didn’t feel real.
Gravel holds her close, gentle in his grip but so unwilling to let her go. She’s a Zoos, through and through, although where his hands graze her back he feels the slight protrusions of...wings, he believes. Slight differences that give him tell of her heritage.
Beside him, Ramset and Dragato, quiet in the dim of the room, watch on with a certain kind of awe in their faces. They watch as Gravel, weak-armed, raises a young little infant to his face, nuzzles against her, and lets out a rough sound that both know to be a purr. The infant, blind, small, soft in her young age, lets out a little growl of her own and paws with the instinct only infants possess.
Gravel opens his mouth to speak as he holds her close.
The language he speaks is nothing either of them have ever heard before.
It’s a noise that can hardly be differentiated from any kind of growl or snarl. Quietly, he speaks, and the snarl in his throat rings soft and lilting, halfway to a rumble, his voice twisting and turning around words and letters that only his ancestral people would know fluently.
Dragato trades a brief look with Ramset who looks just as mystified as he does and silently shakes his head.
But they say not a word. This was between Gravel and his grandchild.
Eventually, as Gravel’s voice peters off, he turns his head in the direction of his son, where he knows Dragato still stands. For a small time, he’s quiet. Tali, cooing in his arms, has begun to settle, and as she curls up, Gravel finally, slowly, holds her out for her father to take.
“...I am so proud of you.”
His voice is so soft. Weighed down by too many emotions to name. He could never put to words just how his chest feels, or how it feels to know that his son has done right for himself, and that Gravel has, for once, done right by him. By them. All of them.
“Thank you. For trusting me. With her. Anything I can do for her-- she will never go without.”
Dragato looks at him, and at his other father. The both of them. And he smiles, no matter that Gravel can’t see it, holding his child close.
“I know. You were the best there could have ever been, for me and Falspar. There’s nobody else I’d rather have as her grandfather than you.”
And Tali would be loved and cherished more than she could ever know.
“I have every faith in you, father Gravel.”
The sob that Gravel had tried so hard to swallow bubbles out into the air.
It’s late, now. Tali is asleep and his father needs to rest after the long day he’s had. Dragato will need to take his leave, much as they’re all loathe to have him go. Gravel still has so many questions.
But Dragato promises him – they’ll visit again, morning tomorrow. And Gravel will have all the time in the world to learn everything very soon.
Gravel thinks he can be content with that.
Some surprises weren’t so bad after all.
During the cold. When food was scarce and creatures couldn’t keep their temperature warm. Saved energy, saved lives. Other warm blooded animals made due, but suffered.
North Nova had hibernation, in a sense. Cold nights meant cold blood meant cold bodies and cold metabolisms. Was it sleep to the outsiders? Or something like a nightly near-death?
A Zoos has to be very aware of their burrowing place when time came to sleep. Avoided slaughter by enemies and feral beasts that way. Digging was best. Couldn’t kill if you couldn’t find.
West Nova didn’t have predators like that. But the cold remained with the seasons’ turn. To forego a nightly near-death for a months-long torpor was a difficult trade.
Gravel had chosen it, though. And torpor was always destined to end.
The canyons had begun to warm with the onset of spring. Sand-colored rock soaked up the sun’s rays, heating their collective surfaces. A breeze swept through with the dredges of what once had been a winter bite, now reduced to a nip in the air. All throughout, the temperature slowly rose, day after day. Still cool, for now, but most of the cold season had passed.
Spring was fast settling in, and with it, the birth and revival of creatures both young and old.
Deep within the rocky range, tucked away behind outcroppings and hidden among the twisting, jagged curves of the canyon’s bottom depths, a cavern sat quiet and dark. It was a place that hadn’t been disturbed for months barring the occasional visit, and might have continued to remain so had its most diligent guest not made an appearance a few days prior and made himself comfortable.
By all outward appearances, it would have been only an empty cave. Inside, though, it was anything but. It was a home, and for one guest with too much energy and excitement to spare, cleaning needed to be done.
Furniture was dusted. A fire pit was cleaned out and stocked with fresh wood, ready for its owner to use when the time came. Food began to fill the rocky shelves and furs of all sorts were beaten, shaken out into the open canyon air before being tossed back into their proper places, everything made ready for their owner’s return. All of this over the course of about three days, because someone refused to leave.
Normally, it wouldn’t be quite like this. Visits didn’t have to stretch on for days a time, and in years past they hadn’t – it was enough just to drop by and check on things as the weather warmed. Hibernation took awhile to come out of – nobody would be missing anything.
But this year was special. Spring had brought something wonderful and sitting around just waiting patiently for someone to wake up was proving to be an arduous chore.
Better to get the energy out productively than end up waking Gravel prematurely.
And Ramset has to say, it has to be very, very good luck that the waiting pays off sooner than expected.
It’s easy to miss. Gravel’s resting place blended well with the rest of his home, a burrow dug out into the furthermost wall and piled high with rock and dirt such that it seemed no different to the expanse of rock around it. If someone hadn’t known to look – and what to look for – nobody wouldn’t have seen it.
But Ramset knew. And no matter how dark it was in the cavern, there isn’t any way he would miss the disturbance of the debris keeping Gravel’s den hidden, nor the sight of it as it loosens nor the sound as it slowly begins to crumble quietly apart. Something within stirs, slowly.
Ramset’s excited. Ramset could not be more excited. He was always excited to see his partner after hibernation, of course, but this year was different. Something had happened and it took everything in him not to just shout, right then and there. His grin pulled too hard on his face and his mouth hurt.
But he had already agreed with Dragato that this was something better left to Dragato himself, when Gravel had his bearings better in the hospital. Gravel wouldn’t appreciate the loud noise to his already sensitive hearing anyway.
Still, he can’t help whispering a quiet, cheeky, “Good morning, sunshine,” as he kneels to begin the process of helping Gravel, slowly, out of his burrow.
It’s a process that takes awhile. Hibernation took a lot out of someone and Gravel isn’t as spry as he used to be, and Ramset, unfortunately, can’t help as much as he’d like. He would have loved to do more than move a few large rocks and get some water and cloth ready, but Gravel didn’t need the added stress when he was already so weak and oversensitive in practically all of his five senses.
Gravel never wanted all the extra help anyway. The process of waking up and leaving the burrow was a thing that had to be done by himself, he’d said. Letting nature take its course. Ramset was thankful he even got to participate at all, much less participate as much as he had.
In the end, all Ramset can do, ultimately, is sit back and tend to the warm water and cloth at his side, fidgeting his fingers while Gravel very, very slowly works the rest of his way out.
There’s tension in the air, Ramset knows. Gravel is going to smell it the moment he’s aware enough to make sense of his surroundings. For a second, Ramset again debates telling Gravel the news – but he couldn’t take that from Dragato. He’s far better than that.
It sure kills him though.
Bit by bit, Ramset watches as the rest of the debris falls away. Rock and soil loosen, collapsing in on itself and revealing the burrow’s entrance to the outside world for the first time in months.
Slowly, an arm begins to appear. Familiar shaking fingers flex as they scrape across the rock of the floor, catching on the ground so that their owner can painstakingly pull his way out. It’s so, so slow that Ramset swears he can’t breathe for how intently he watches, and he has to squeeze his hands tight to keep himself from going over and helping, to the stars with everything else.
Four long months after departing for hibernation, Gravel once more emerges into the world.
It’s a landslide of leaves and dirt and mineral that heralds his arrival, along with a sad flopping to the ground that accompanies it, a great, hoarse heave in his lungs that rings of exertion and stale air. Overall, the process had gone quicker than in the last few years at about an hour – maybe he’d already smelled something in the air and wanted to investigate.
Ramset lets him rest for a few minutes. Careful not to say a word nor do anything that might chafe against Gravel’s horribly heightened senses, he inches forward with water and cloth and gives his husband a smile that can’t possibly convey the warmth in his chest.
A bleary eye blinks up at him. Gravel really shouldn’t be using that eyeball, but the smile Ramset gets in return butters him up enough to look past it.
They go through the usual routine. Carefully, Gravel is wiped down – dirt and leaves swept away gently, as feather-light as Ramset can be although Gravel still winces at the contact. Ramset doesn’t get everything off, but he does enough, and by the end, at least Gravel isn’t as uncomfortable as he was.
They the customary questions and answers. What is Gravel’s name, Ramset asks in a whisper? Where is he? Does he know who Ramset is? His children? And Gravel answers each one as well as he’s able, his voice hoarse as if he had swallowed glass during his long sleep. Gravel. Home. He knows Ramset. And Falspar. And Dragato.
The questions aren’t really needed. Gravel remembered himself just fine every year. But it was for a good cause and it helped Ramset feel better, and it was the thought that counted. So Gravel played along.
Finally, eventually, when Ramset had done all he could and there was little more to do but wait, things fell quiet. Ramset sat by Gravel’s side as Gravel very, very slowly manipulated himself upright.
The family is whole again. Sentimental, but true. And not only is the family whole, but again the thought strikes him, the news, the excitement of the past few days. And Gravel doesn’t know. Gravel sits there, breathing quietly and inhaling the cool air of his rocky home, and he doesn’t know a thing.
Ramset is terrible at swallowing surprises.
“...You.” Gravel grunts, “You. Are thinking about something…”
He doesn’t need his sight to know that much. He smells it in the air just fine.
“We’re all thinking of something at any point in the day.”
“Really…? With you, I’m not so sure.”
Ramset chuckles quietly at the gentle prod. Stars, he had missed it. Years and years of this and the ache at his husband’s absence never got any better. It always made him appreciate the value of Gravel’s presence so much more each spring he woke up well and unbothered, even if things didn’t fly so smoothly as they used to.
Speaking of flying…
“Falspar will probably be coming by later,” He murmurs. “to pick us up. The usual.”
“And Dragato?”
Ramset chews his lip.
“He’ll be by the hospital later. Heeee is busy!”
“...Too busy to come greet his father after his long hibernation?”
Ramset resists the urge to rub his face. “...Something like that.”
“I see.”
He’s onto him. It’s impossible not to be, and Ramset really hopes he doesn’t pry. He doesn’t know if he could keep his mouth shut if Gravel decided to needle him for answers.
“Then maybe you can tell me...what all has happened since I have been gone. While we wait.”
He doesn’t prod. Thank NOVA. Ramset jumps at the shift in topic, sitting up straight. “Oh, so much, Grav!”
They fall into the familiar lull of conversation and routine with an ease that speaks to their many years together. Ramset carries most of the conversation while Gravel nods along, merely prodding occasionally for additional information as things come up. Both of them soak in each other’s presence, neither willing to move and interrupt their time together; it’s easy for Ramset to get lost in it after months apart.
It speaks to just how sensitive Gravel is to everything right now that he’s the one who notices Falspar’s arrival before Ramset does. A small tilt of his head, a focused pinch to his face, and when Ramset looks over to the entrance, their son is there – beaming, excited, Warp Star at the ready.
Falspar knows about what’s been happening recently too. It’s a wonder he doesn’t crack under the pressure to tell Gravel the big news himself, but Falspar has an easy charm that betrays nothing. Gets it from his dad.
Still, Ramset thinks as they set themselves and Gravel up on the Warp Star, careful and slow. As good as Gravel’s nose was… He could probably smell the buzz of unspoken words on Falspar too.
Just a little bit longer.
-------------
Gravel may not have been able to see, but he knew tension when he felt it.
Oh, Ramset spoke just fine – he and Falspar were having quite the conversation about what Gravel had missed while he had been asleep, eager to fill him in as they did every year. Gravel enjoyed listening to their stories and cherished it greatly.
But Gravel could feel it. It followed them like an irritating scent stuck to the furs of one’s garments, buried in their arms and hidden in their voices. He had already known from the first scent of Ramset’s nerves the moment he had been aware enough to piece out his senses, but that it lingered on Falspar too only incited his wonder further.
“Has something happened?” Gravel asked once about halfway through their trip when curiosity got the best of him. “...Did someone get hurt?” Dragato hadn’t shown up today when he ordinarily might have, and Ramset had been cagey about it, which did worry him a little. They knew he didn’t care for surprises too much, and if it concerned his child...
“No,” Falspar had said, quick and sure, and Gravel heard the truth in his tone. “No! Everything’s fine, nobody’s hurt, it’s great.”
“But?”
“Ah, stop worrying so much, Grav,” Ramset lets out a chuckle and grazes Gravel’s arm fondly, careful of his touch. “You know we wouldn’t keep a secret from you. Just...be patient, alright? You’ll know soon.”
Gravel hadn’t been too satisfied with the answer and Ramset had known it, but he trusted his partner with his life. If Ramset was holding something back, and nobody was truly hurt as Falspar said…then it couldn’t have been too serious.
He wouldn’t be surprised if it were a party.
“I don’t care for surprises…” Gravel grumbles, still.
“Oh, trust me. You’ll love this one.”
So he said.
They make it to the hospital in due course without further event. Gravel has to spend most of the day in bed while Alba and Mends both tend to him, asking their questions and taking stock of his vitals and bodily functions. It is exhausting, to be surrounded by so much noise and smell and touch even as gentle and quiet as they try to be. The bandage over his eye blots out any trace of light he might be able to see, and it’s both a blessing and a long-persistent curse. If he weren’t so stubborn to see his family, then maybe he wouldn’t need to wear it, Alba had tutted.
He expects Ramset to say something about this surprise after he’s settled in, or perhaps for Falspar to spill it. Neither do. Gravel gets only reassurance and warmth and vague half-answers that don’t satisfy his curiosity at all, and by the time everything begins to quiet and Falspar leaves for the night, he is quite sick of it and exhausted of all the waiting and just exhausted in general.
Gravel doesn’t expect more visitors. Gravel doesn’t necessarily want more visitors after the day he’s had. Ramset at his side was plenty enough for him. If it weren’t for how sterile this hospital smelled and how the sheets and bandages chaffed at his hide, he might have been at rest by now.
But he gets them.
He doesn’t need to see to know of their arrival. Far from it. Gravel needs only take one breath through his nose for him to register a very familiar scent circulating through the sterile smell of chemicals and disinfectant.
The door creaks open, quietly.
“Dragato,” Gravel greets. “I was wondering when you might come see me. A little late this time, hm…?”
He hears Dragato chuckle quietly as he steps through on polished floor to come closer. Gravel, interestingly, hears nothing from Ramset at his side. “Sorry,” Dragato whispers, “I was a little caught up in something…”
Gravel sniffs again, to reorient and re-familiarize. His son’s smell hadn’t changed no matter how he had grown, and Gravel could recognize it anywhere, but perhaps Ramset wasn’t entirely wrong in worrying over Gravel’s faculties each year. He himself feared forgetting the signatures of his loved ones sometimes.
But.
“…”
He sniffs.
Again.
And again.
...
“...Who is with you?”
That is the scent of his son, yes. No mistaking it. And had Gravel not been as keen to his senses as he was, maybe he might not have noticed, as faint as it was. But there was something else. Close by. Close to Dragato’s own, barely present, nothing he knew though it made his frills buzz in familiarity.
Someone else was here. It was too distinct to be anything else.
Dragato lets out a noise that Gravel can’t parse. His mind turns, searching, waiting for Dragato to say something and furrowing his brow when he gets nothing. Dragato hesitates. For what reason? He has nothing to fear.
“Is it a friend you’ve brought with you?” Gravel prods. “...A significant other? Why do they not speak?”
“...Why don’t you hold out your arm.”
“...What?”
“Just trust me. You’ll see.”
Gravel wants to push. He doesn’t understand. Why the secrets? Why the tension? What is going on?
But Gravel trusted them all with his life. Nobody would ever have reason to lie to him for a nefarious reason, least of all his sons.
Gravel holds out his arm.
He hears Dragato’s feet step across the floor, louder the closer he comes to stand by Gravel’s bed. Both scents bolster as they get closer to his nose, and here he can smell more of the intricacies of the unfamiliar signature – warm and distinct, familiarity without a real memory.
The touch to his arm is slow and gentle with respect to his awareness, and Gravel allows Dragato to manipulate it as he will, feeling each movement of Dragato’s hand and parsing it for any clue. He finds his arm hooked, held aloft a bit, hears the sound of rustling as Dragato moves something in his grip--
--And suddenly
Gravel is holding a baby.
…
Gravel knows it’s a baby. Here is why.
They are tiny. That’s his first thought. A baby is tiny. This one, especially, and Gravel thinks that this one has to be...young. Very, very young.
He also knows it’s a baby because, he realizes Dragato has manipulated his arm in such a way that is meant to keep the child secure. To keep the baby’s head propped, their back supported, and their weight held gently. He hadn’t realized it before, because he hadn’t expected it. He hadn’t expected a baby. It squirms in his hold with the transfer of grip and he automatically adjusts to keep them steady.
Why does his son have a baby, he wonders. Why does his son have a child, he thinks with a heart that begins to pound loud in his ears. Is he babysitting. Is he watching someone’s child for them.
(No, Dragato isn’t.)
Gravel sniffs, to catch the scent that he hadn’t been able to understand. And now that he knows what he’s looking for, he can recognize it, truly – feeling over their little arms, their cheek, the top of their head. Warm and sandy. The scent of meat, a little bit, and something like milk but not exactly.
The babe chirps – the first sound he’s heard out of it – and nuzzles against him, hide against hide, paws kneading. Burrowing without thought. It’s so familiar and he now knows why.
This is an infant. But more than that--
“Father Gravel,” Dragato murmurs, “...I’d like you to meet Tali. My daughter… And your granddaughter.”
This is an infant Zoos.
This is his grandchild.
Gravel has never wanted to tear the bandages off of his eye more than now. To the stars with his light sensitivity.
“...You.”
He can’t find words.
“Father Gravel? Your bandages are-”
“It’s fine.”
His words come out almost too choked to understand. The sob is in his throat, fighting to come out, and he swallows it back with a hard, raspy breath. Still, the tears fall, staining his cheeks, ruining the bandages over his remaining good eye. He doesn’t care.
He’s a grandfather. He, Gravel. The mistake of his clan, the curse, reviled and spat on. One who had never thought he would survive long enough to amount to anything, much less live to this day, to witness the growth of his family.
How had he gotten here? Gravel doesn’t understand. How had he managed to obtain such loved ones. A family. A husband, children, friends. Even now, years and years later, he marvels at it.
And now, here he is. A grandchild in his arms, and a son who had so eagerly been willing to offer them up for him, the omen, to hold. It didn’t feel real.
Gravel holds her close, gentle in his grip but so unwilling to let her go. She’s a Zoos, through and through, although where his hands graze her back he feels the slight protrusions of...wings, he believes. Slight differences that give him tell of her heritage.
Beside him, Ramset and Dragato, quiet in the dim of the room, watch on with a certain kind of awe in their faces. They watch as Gravel, weak-armed, raises a young little infant to his face, nuzzles against her, and lets out a rough sound that both know to be a purr. The infant, blind, small, soft in her young age, lets out a little growl of her own and paws with the instinct only infants possess.
Gravel opens his mouth to speak as he holds her close.
The language he speaks is nothing either of them have ever heard before.
It’s a noise that can hardly be differentiated from any kind of growl or snarl. Quietly, he speaks, and the snarl in his throat rings soft and lilting, halfway to a rumble, his voice twisting and turning around words and letters that only his ancestral people would know fluently.
Dragato trades a brief look with Ramset who looks just as mystified as he does and silently shakes his head.
But they say not a word. This was between Gravel and his grandchild.
Eventually, as Gravel’s voice peters off, he turns his head in the direction of his son, where he knows Dragato still stands. For a small time, he’s quiet. Tali, cooing in his arms, has begun to settle, and as she curls up, Gravel finally, slowly, holds her out for her father to take.
“...I am so proud of you.”
His voice is so soft. Weighed down by too many emotions to name. He could never put to words just how his chest feels, or how it feels to know that his son has done right for himself, and that Gravel has, for once, done right by him. By them. All of them.
“Thank you. For trusting me. With her. Anything I can do for her-- she will never go without.”
Dragato looks at him, and at his other father. The both of them. And he smiles, no matter that Gravel can’t see it, holding his child close.
“I know. You were the best there could have ever been, for me and Falspar. There’s nobody else I’d rather have as her grandfather than you.”
And Tali would be loved and cherished more than she could ever know.
“I have every faith in you, father Gravel.”
The sob that Gravel had tried so hard to swallow bubbles out into the air.
It’s late, now. Tali is asleep and his father needs to rest after the long day he’s had. Dragato will need to take his leave, much as they’re all loathe to have him go. Gravel still has so many questions.
But Dragato promises him – they’ll visit again, morning tomorrow. And Gravel will have all the time in the world to learn everything very soon.
Gravel thinks he can be content with that.
Some surprises weren’t so bad after all.
-The End-
Artist Comment:
June 17th, 2024
-----------------
TIME FOR SOME GRAV FLUFF!!!! 8D
Gravel wakes up from hibernation to find out he's a grandpa!!!! In future stories (When Tali is a bit older, I will be sliiiightly changing something important about Gravel.) Just a heads up 'cause the sketch is already finished for it. >v<
Something important to know about this story: Gravel actually is able to speak a different language. Sorta like how Bate is able to speak Chirp. Gravel is able to speak in a dragon like language. Each Dragon clan in North Nova has their own unique language. So Tali (Who is originally from the Winged Egger Clan) speaks in Landia tongue because of Gravel. She causes to turn many heads in North Nova when she visits, and they hear her tone. >v<
--
The amazing literature written for this illustration is from my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess) ^v^ (Their half of an art trade we did quite some time ago. I just love how the story turned out!)
June 17th, 2024
-----------------
TIME FOR SOME GRAV FLUFF!!!! 8D
Gravel wakes up from hibernation to find out he's a grandpa!!!! In future stories (When Tali is a bit older, I will be sliiiightly changing something important about Gravel.) Just a heads up 'cause the sketch is already finished for it. >v<
Something important to know about this story: Gravel actually is able to speak a different language. Sorta like how Bate is able to speak Chirp. Gravel is able to speak in a dragon like language. Each Dragon clan in North Nova has their own unique language. So Tali (Who is originally from the Winged Egger Clan) speaks in Landia tongue because of Gravel. She causes to turn many heads in North Nova when she visits, and they hear her tone. >v<
--
The amazing literature written for this illustration is from my good friend, Dogblog. (dA- Shadowrealmprincess) ^v^ (Their half of an art trade we did quite some time ago. I just love how the story turned out!)
Species © Nintendo/ HAL Laboratory
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
Interpreted characters created from said species © Rhylem
