victormakesart | (no subject)

(no subject)

More of the Sanir's eggs have been hatching since Victor started meddling, hooking them up with calcium supplements and dark leafy greens, and this hatching ceremony is particularly productive, in part because Victor's hatching an egg as well. Metaphorically.

She's burning herbs with the rest of the prospective parents, singing the birthing song, fretting a bit over the health of her spawn (and the other children of the community). She spends so much time here that the past batch of hatchlings all know her by name, and the oldest of elders hum greetings to her.

They're all painted in the room, with plant paste, with clay, and she has feathers woven into her hair because she has no feathers of her own.

It's stifling in the hut, with the eggs surrounded by warm rocks and cloths, and a long shape under a sheet, about the size of a child.

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Cole makes his way over to the girls, kneeling down next to them. "Hey, girls. Jude's awake, do you want to play with him?"

Wide-eyed and happy they squeal, Athena floating out of the pen, Anya determined to try to climb out on her own (that should probably be nipped in the bud). "Nah nah nah yay Jude!" Anya yowls, in her rendition of the Beatles, with very little beat, even less tune.

A chorus of tiny birdchildren echo her.

Jude hops up and Victor clambers up with him. She directs him, tells him to slow down, he's not used to having to watch where he walks, and there's fire and people in the way.

Cole picks up Anya before she can get too far. "Careful there, kiddo."

Athena bobs and floats right into Jude's arms.

Anya isn't sure if she believes this is her brother. All of the times she's seen Jude it's been through a computer monitor. And Vic did explain it, but Anya is two, and Anya doesn't get it.

But Vic takes her from Cole, and carries her gently to Jude. Anya grabs at Jude's cheek, while still in the safety of her father's arms.

"Hey, ouch!" he says, laughing.

At least it's a good test of if the pain receptors are working. "Careful, Anya. We have to play nice with people."

Anya makes a grab for Jude's hair and Vic stops her hand, curling her fingers gently around the teeny fist. "Stop," Anya orders, looking as innocent as a painted cherub.

Victor shakes her head. "That's not how it works, darlin'. No hair pulling. No hitting. No pinching." Pause. "No biting. No scratching. Okay?"

She's conspicuously silent, so Victor bounces her a little. "Okay?"

"Okay." She says it grudgingly, lower lip pooched out into a pout.

"She doesn't know how to play with you, yet," Vic says.

"Roger," Jude says. He climbs carefully into the kid pen, sets Athena down next to him, and reaches his arms up for Anya. "We'll play don't-hurt-your-brother first, how's that?"

"Maybe a nice round of peekaboo?" Cole suggests. It's something familiar and holds very little risk of accidental injury, after all.

"Yeah, we'll do that."

Anya climbs into Jude's lap and Victor gives her a warning look.

But Jude goes, "Hey, hey, hey, look. Look. Where'd I go?" in an excited, high-pitched voice, hands over his eyes, and Anya laughs. He's there, still, of course!

The laughing is a great sign, and Cole feels comfortable leaving them to it just long enough to whisper in Vic's ear. "Still worried?"

"Not even a little bit," Victor murmurs back, smiling, watching her kids, and then watching the ceremony, then the kids again.

"I told you there was nothing to worry about. You did a great job."

"Look at what a good kid he is," she says, proudly, and her nose stings like she just might cry, and she's looking at the way his face moves when he smiles, the way he expresses emotion, and you'd never be able to tell he wasn't flesh and blood.

He puts his arm around her, and kisses her forehead. "You did that."

"He's amazing," she says, her voice cracking high. "I did that. I made a kid."

"Not in the usual way... but that's very you."

Not in the usual way at all, but... it might be the only way she can. "I made a child." Her eyes go glisteny and she has to wipe at them.

He pulls a hanky out of his pocket and hands it over. "Here you go."

She wipes her eyes with that, instead. "I'm not crying. I'm too manly to cry."

She's crying, for sure.

"Who says men don't cry sometimes?"

"I'm so tough, though," she sniffles.

"All right, have it your way. You aren't crying." He does give her forehead another kiss though.

She hugs him tightly in that warm room, that smells like strange alien spices, with the sounds of hatching and baby birdpeople, and the melodious singing of the parents, praying for a good hatch. "It's like when I made Person, but more. Person took a few days to sculpt the way I wanted, and then he just popped into life. I feel like I really made Jude."

"You've spent a really long time working on him. That's pretty natural, I think."

She brushes his hair back, fingers gentle. "You're gonna make a great parent, when you're ready to have kids of your own. I'm really proud of my family. I'm really proud of you."

"I'm not the one who built and hatched a robot kid today. You're not so shabby yourself."