Raising An Egg

When the light faded away, Iris's mates all looked quite confused at the large egg in Iris's hands. As far as they knew, it was too early to give birth and this was not how it worked! Ember slowly walked forward and sat on the ground as he took one of Iris's hands and asked

"This isn't our children, is it? I'm pretty sure it isn't food either. However, I get the feeling you are going to want me to take care of it....."

Ember looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders as he said this. Incubating eggs did take a lot of time after all so it would be a lot of time to invest while staying in his beast form.

Normal eggs take between ten days and three weeks to incubate. Of course, it was perfectly safe for the process to be interrupted to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom. The egg would cool, but no harm would befall the egg. Still, Ember wouldn't be able to do much else if he understood this responsibility.

Granted, if Iris was pregnant with his children, then Ember would have to incubate their eggs for a few weeks as well when they were born. However, Ember knew that phoenix eggs were usually smaller than the egg his mate was holding. Yes, even if phoenix eggs were far larger than chicken eggs, this egg was still too large to be Ember's.

Thus, Ember half expected it when Iris explained

"No, this egg isn't ours. I'm still very much so three to four months pregnant. In which case, thank goodness I have a proper bed to sleep on, my back has been killing me.

Anyhow, I got a task when we first set out to build a home within three months. Since we were already doing that I didn't bother mentioning it. This is just the reward for completing the task. It is a familiar or personal pet that I'm supposed to have a bond with.

I don't necessarily want to trouble you to incubate the egg, but I don't necessarily want the reward to be wasted either. After all, a familiar that is a bird could be quite useful in the future."

Ember scowled as he questioned

"Why do you need another bird? Where will you find one better than me?"

Iris laughed lightly as she replied

"No bird is going to make a better husband than you. However, surely you wouldn't question me wanting to keep our own children?"

Ember shrugged but felt much better as Iris continued

"If I teach you all to read and write them I could teach a familiar to deliver messages to you or to carry small items back to me. Since few others in the beast world can read, the messages would be secure when sent this way."

Basil thought this made quite a bit of sense as he added in

"It is true we are all quite busy with leading the tribe to build homes, farms, etc. right now. Even later on we would still have things to do outside the home. In the event of a conflict like with Ivy before, Iris could more easily get help from one of us."

Ember scowled as he relented

"Alright, I'll raise the egg, but you all need to figure out someone else to teach the tribesmen how to farm. Fern doesn't know how to tell the weeds apart from the plants yet and Iris is too far along to go out."

Iris pursed her lips unhappy with being told what to do, but decided not to argue. She didn't feel like she had the energy to do much lately anyway. Caspian who was used to arranging things for the tribe offered up

"I know a craftsman from the wetlands tribe who is quite good at the building aspects. He could work with me on getting all the building tasks done while Basil helps Fern with the farm work. This would also guarantee Basil is more readily available if there are any health issues in the tribe."

Caspian didn't want to explicitly mention Iris's pregnancy being his main concern, but all the males seemed to have a silent agreement that this was the real concern. Feeling quite satisfied with this setup, everyone easily took up their new roles.

While Iris could no longer sell anything due to essentially being under house arrest, there were less concerns with money now. Iris had already been able to receive the first month's payment of twenty crystals each from the seven females in the tribe. The hundred and forty crystals were still just under the amount that Iris was paying each day to the workers, but it was still already a return on their investment!

Plus, while Iris couldn't hold a conversation with Ember in his beast form, she would feel far less lonely. She could sit near him and stroke his feathers and even talk to him. She just wouldn't have much chance to hear him talk to her.

Due to both Caspian and Ember being busy and Fern being unable to hunt, obtaining prey would now fall to Basil for the month. Since it only took a few hours a day to attend to the farmland, this wasn't an issue for Basil. He could easily catch breakfast and dinner for their family and then cook for them as well.

None of Iris's mates wanted her to strain herself by cooking or doing much of anything else right now. In fact, at lunchtime, Ember would threaten to not incubate the egg if Iris even looked like she wanted to start cooking. Thus, she could only snack on her slowly dwindling jerky and plants until she no longer felt hungry.

Luckily, Ember wouldn't complain if Iris did tasks like sewing, reading her books, or even having her friends over, or else Iris might truly die of boredom. Holly snagged the house next door to Iris while Fawn was just a few down from that. So they would often come to visit Iris in the daytime when they sent most of their mates off to work.