“So have you thought about names?” Dagrun asked as we made our way through smooth tunnels lit by flickering torches.

  “I thought we were all reincarnated, so it would already have a name.”

  “It?” She turned and arched a pale eyebrow at me from beneath her hood. Why did people keep doing that to me?

  “He she they. Whatever. No offence, but I just want the damn thing out of me. I can only afford so many gerkhins.”

  “Well then, I guess it’s a good thing you chose to stop by before you decided to lay the egg.”

  The tunnel let out onto a large chamber, maybe twenty metres across. In the centre sat a pair of eggs on small piles of gold. One had a silvery-blue shell that glistened wetly in the light, and the other was a mishmash of black and red swirls.

  “You said ‘decided’?” I muttered as a sinking feeling went through me.

  “Once the egg is implanted or created, you just have to decide to lay it. Was it an evolution?” she asked kindly as she made her way to the eggs and began wiping them down with a damp cloth from a bucket that sat between them. Her movements were graceful and loving. I was willing to bet these nascent dragons hadn’t had to deal with Kat slagging them off from the other side of their shell. These lucky bastards would get warm encouragement, not “what’s taking so damn long, you idiot,” yelled at them.

  “It was. And I could have gotten rid of it at any time?”

  “We aren’t mammals, Bob. We don’t gestate live young, we make the egg with everything the widdle dragon needs to grow, then we pop it out and keep it safe.”

  I had spent weeks with this monster growing inside me, warping my attitude, messing with my mood. The morning sickness hadn’t been fun either. I had developed a new level of respect for the shit that women's bodies put them through during pregnancy.

  “I thought we just left it with a pile of gold, a small pile of gold, and headed off to do our own thing? Reptiles aren’t famously maternal. Or paternal.”

  “We all used to be human, humanoid at least. Jace came from Barlostic, and he was what we’d call an alien, you know, like one of the Grey types? Big black eyes, skinny bodies? Would you have just abandoned a child back on Earth?”

  “No comment. Look, I wasn’t ready, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it…”

  Dagrun glared at me. “Make better choices.” A wave of the power I remembered from the pub when she had appeared as a hooded stranger washed out, and I felt my scales tighten as it passed over me.

  “Sure, sure. So I can just, you know, plop it out and I’m done? You’ll look after it?”

  “I will provide a basic education with regard to Helstat and guide the baby through those first precious evolutions. Then they are free to do as they wish. As you say, we’re reincarnators, so most of the basics are usually covered in advance.” She sighed sadly. “Just once, I’d like them to not curse me out as their first words. A ‘mama?’ or a ‘your scales are so pretty!’ would be a refreshing change.”

  “So I just need to will it?” I focused. It was time, little dude or dudette. Time to fly my body and sit for a few months while you go from a yolk to a mini-me. My stomach contracted in a very uncomfortable way.

  Dagrun looked at me for a moment. “You just made the decision, didn’t you?”

  I nodded, then winced as another spasm wracked my lower body.

  “Ok, so let’s focus on the breathing. Big deep breaths, in and out. That’s right. Now come over here and lie down. Stretch out or curl up, listen to what your body is telling you and trust that it knows what’s best.”

  “My body is telling me I’m about to drop a Bono!” I gasped as I moved away from the eggs and curled up, wrapping my tails over my head as I buried my head under a leg.

  “A Bono? Oh, a very large turd. Ha, I liked that show as well. Keep breathing, nice and slow. So what was your favourite food back home? It was burgers and fries for me.” She patted me on the shoulder gently.

  “I didn’t really… have a favourite… I do like Janglebonk now… though.”

  “Tut tut. Eating sentient beings isn’t good for your soul or your digestion. What’s the most wonderful thing you’ve seen on Helstat?”

  “Fuck off… Have you got any… gas and air or something? Give me… drugs!”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Oh, it’s all natural here, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, you’ve got this, dear. Just keep breathing deeply and focus on pushing when the time comes.”

  “How will I know when the time comes?”

  She smiled up at me and shrugged. “You’ll know.”

  Had my mum had to suffer through this? Her constant low-level disapproval of me kind of made sense now. Pushing a baby out of a much smaller orifice only to end up with a Bob must have made it all seem unnecessarily pointless. God, that hurt. A wave of pain, sharper than the rest, swept down my body. I pushed.

  “Not yet, sweetheart. You’re not there yet.”

  “My body, my choice. I’m pushing.”

  It didn’t help. Dagrun was right, and it took another three hours before I started making some headway on the eviction. I will refrain from sharing the details; suffice to say that I swore a lot and began to understand why chickens are such assholes.

  There are many ways to reproduce, so why the concept of eggs was a thing was beyond me. Babies of every sort ought to be born at a reasonable size to minimise the pain their expulsion causes. I would be writing a strongly worded letter to the WOO when my claws stopped shaking.

  But I’d done it. Behind me, carefully wrapped by half of my tails, lay a disgustingly moist envelope of leathery eggness. The shell was soft, which I could only assume somehow happened after it had ruined my aching cloaca, a midnight black with lines of purple running from top to bottom.

  Three and a half feet long, half that in width. I could only conclude that the gods had a sadistic sense of humour, having decided this was a good way to reproduce.

  “You know what you need to do now,” Dagrun said softly.

  Greed-goblin reacted badly. I didn’t want to.

  “You’ve got a lovely hoard, how about you share a little of that for the little dude?”

  “Bob. It’s tradition that the parent leaves the seed money. It’s a terrible curse on the hatchling if you don’t.”

  I placed a handful of gold coins at the base of the egg and looked at her. She crossed her arms and scowled. I added a few more and earned a slight nod, then a glare as I made to back away. I added a couple of hundred and received pursed lips. Dammit, she’d run out of disapproving expressions before I ran out of reluctance.

  She did not. Eventually, I was glowered at enough to deposit a few thousand gold coins around the egg. I patted it gently. Bastard. That had hurt. Not just my ass, but my wallet. Kids, always the same.

  “So you’ll keep an eye on it now?” I asked, waddling away and turning back to look at the egg in the flickering torchlight. Parasite expelled. I pulled out a jar of pickles, looked at them for a second, then put them away. I hated pickles.

  “Of course. Now about your other problem… I think I might be able to help you.”

  “With the Shadow Flight? That would be great. Do you know their numbers, strengths, and weaknesses I can exploit? Do you have a hidden army of not insane dragons who will fly to my aid and swoop in to rain fire down on the enemies of the light and goodness?”

  “Jesus, no. The Shadow Flight are constantly changing members; it could be a couple of bad eggs or an entire factory farm of evil chickens worth.”

  “Can we steer clear of egg metaphors for a while, please?” I adjusted my gait slightly as we made our way back towards the hoard I was very much not jealous of.

  “Hmm? Alright. Like the TOTS, they aren’t a strictly organised group. Most dragons are members of one or the other at one point in their lives. Sometimes both. But we have a tradition among the TOTS, we call it a grand tour. When the younglings are ready to spread their wings and fly the nest, we send them off with an established dragon to see a little of the world. Would you be agreeable to playing the role of guardian?”

  “I’m not exactly the responsible type,” I admitted with full honesty. “I tend to just do what I want.”

  “Perfect, you can be the counterexample. They aren’t children in the classical sense. Most of them died of old age, but their bodies are young, so, well, hormones and whatnot. I imagine going from an elderly human body to a powerful young dragon has an effect on their minds as well.”

  “They’re horny?”

  “And boisterous. But they’re good kids. One moment.” We had arrived at her lair, and she strode to the ledge, looking up at the cloud-strewn skies above. “KIDS! GET YOUR ASSES BACK INSIDE RIGHT NOW!”

  “You find that approach works with octogenarians reincarnated as flying reptiles?”

  She smiled and mimed looking at a watch that didn’t exist. A few seconds later, the silvery-blue dragon slammed into the ledge and skidded across the floor on his belly.

  The white one with pink eyes was next, landing gracefully and stepping over the silver one as he struggled to untangle his tails from his wings. Blue, red and green followed soon after, and they lined up in a row, staring expectantly at Dagrun. She turned and buried herself in her hoard, then it expanded as she turned back to her real body and a pink-scaled neck twisted out to point her house-sized head down at us all.

  “Jace, Lille, Cheong-sook, Bargleblaster, and Pete. It’s time for your grand tour. Bob has set in motion something that he doesn’t understand, but in the end, I believe with your help, it can become something wonderful. You have been with me for nearly three years; it is time to fly the nest.”

  “Where would we be going?” asked the white one cautiously.

  “Back to the human Empire with Bob, Lille. You will get to see what humanity is like on Helstat.” Lille nodded enthusiastically.

  “Is it dangerous?” asked the green dragon, curling his tail up over his back like a scorpion and miming shooting something from it. He made quiet pew-pew noises as he did so.

  “Possibly, Bargleblaster.”

  “Cool.” He nodded his head decisively. “I’m in. This place is boring.”

  Jace, Cheong-sook and Pete?” A massive pink eyebrow rose, the long, prehensile plait growing from it snaked back and forth.

  “Umm, ok. I’m Jace,” said the red dragon. He waved a foreclaw at me. He had webbing between his toes for some reason.

  “Well, if the rest of these idiots are going, I’d better go along to keep an eye on them. But I won’t tolerate any funny stuff,” the blue dragon muttered. “I am Cheong-sook, but you may call me Chi. You probably won’t be able to pronounce my full name properly anyway.”

  “I can pronounce stuck up bi-”

  “Thank you, Bob,” Dagrun rumbled. “Pete?”

  The silvery-blue dragon looked up at Dagrun and nodded very slowly.

  “Wonderful. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time. Stay Safe. Remember who you are, and make good choices!” Dagrun's head withdrew into her pile of shinies with a relieved sigh.

  “So why are you sparkly, Bob?” asked Bargleblaster.