[B] First Time for Everything (Champion x Bitter End)

[Ryuukishin]

Champion wobbled forward, head low. While normally the picture of health, the past few days had found her sore and easily fatigued.

"It must've been the fish," she muttered, staggering to the safety of a bush when another wave of nausea rolled over her. "You can—you can never trust seafood."  

[Maxx D]

First her eyes blinked out of the water, then the entire caiman rose from the shallows, little feet pausing to watch the doe collapse into the brush. Perhaps, she thought, starting to scuttle as soundlessly as possible towards her, if she's already in that state, it'll be nice, standard and easy. A bit of screaming, a brief existentialist crisis, and all done.

Once her snout was in range of her hooves, she nosed up against a back leg and tested her teeth - in a manner she thought of as 'gentle but convincing' - on an ankle.  

[Ryuukishin]

Champion pivoted in a flash, forelegs raised to deliver a crushing blow. This was not her first fight with a hungry caiman, and her aim was true—or, it would have been, if her dizziness hadn't caught up with her. What started off a well-practiced jab turned instead into (what she would call) a full-body punch, and she flopped onto her aggressor with all the grace of a legless toad.  

[Maxx D]

Bitter End wondered if this was the Motherfather's way of further testing her - how come she ran into all the violent does?! While so pregnant, too! Though the flop was gentle enough, it did knock the wind out of her, and her caiman mouth opened to exhale, making it seem like the doe's caiman cushion had suddenly deflated.

She was a mare the next moment, meekly lying very still in hopes that the girl didn't still have some fight in her. "Watch yourself," she recommended, "too much impact is no good for an expectant mother."  

[Ryuukishin]

Motherfather, she was out of it. What Champion mistook for the scaly hide of a caiman was instead the softer (albeit still scaly) form of a Kimeti. She scrambled off the doe, her eyes wide and ears low. After a moment's hesitation, she scooted closer and pressed her nose to the kin's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she said, voice nearly a whisper as she glanced at the kin's belly. "Will they be okay?"  

[Maxx D]

She took a moment to realise what her suddenly genteel words meant, before exasperatedly flailing her limbs and scaled tail about.

"No no no no," she hissed, before realising her annoyance could hurt the doe (even though some part of her wanted to) and instead, met her muzzle with hers. "You're pregnant! And to answer your question - right now they'll be OK unless you keep trying to fight caiman."

Even though the caiman attacked her first.
In her youth she would have hastily buried the inconsistency, but....

"Ughhhh fine eventhoughIattackedyoufirst but anyway," she stated, booping her nose. "You've got to-be babies in you. I don't know how you couldn't tell."  

[Ryuukishin]

"Me?" Champion jumped to her feet, walked circuits around the doe. Of course she remembered the buck: timorous and afraid, yet so compassionate he could be brave in spite of his fears. And of course, for a while, she wondered if anything might come of their time together. But it had been so long... surely, she would have felt some change by now? Yet all she felt was dazed, and she was still tired, and—

Ah.

She sat back down.

"...It was a little obvious in hindsight, I guess," she said with a blush, as delighted to admit her own faults as Bitter End. "You're the first one to mention it, though. How did you know?"  

[Maxx D]

She idly ground her enlargened, almost reptilian jaws against each other, glowing eye pulsing softly as she regarded the doe.

The first thing she really kinda wanted to say was, 'have you seen a Legendary, child' but that would make her sound really old, and she wasn't really old yet, and she didn't want her to feel like she was really old either.

So that was out of the question. Perhaps 'today is your blessed day,' - no that sounded too obnoxious and honestly, pretty silly. Also, a little too open and welcoming for someone like her.

Eventually, she settled on, "I sensed it. I have received a great gift from the Motherfather, so I ease the burden of guilt by using it on others." She flashed a brief, wide smile. "Most of the time, though, it's the parent that seeks the legendary. I've not had to tell someone they're expecting before. I hope you had fun with that buck...and it's not like it slipped your mind or anything." In which case, she privately thought, condolences.  

[Ryuukishin]

Revelation came in bursts it seemed. Champion had heard stories of Legendaries before, told piecemeal between matches and more extravagant, perhaps, than the reality.

"A Legendary? I thought you guys were—well, a legend." She had also thought they'd be as tall as trees and off battling monsters equally as large, but she realized now that might have said more about the company she kept than the Legendaries themselves. And to think! They walked the swamp like mortal kin, biting ankles and kissing babes. At least, they did in the stories. Parents would hold their children high, and the Legendary would give them a tap just so with their ginormous nose, and the baby would grow up a hero. But she had no baby to hold, not even an egg, and she wasn't sure where to go from here.

"Oh, I did; I enjoyed his company quite a lot. Did you... did you want me to bring him?" she tried.  

[Maxx D]

"Oh, no need when you've got some of him in you," she quipped in a fit of wittiness, then swallowed in the face of the rather guileless...seeming doe and hastily changed the subject. "The ways of the Motherfather are mysterious, indeed. To bring me to you - perhaps to save your future children -" a wry smirk quirked up her mouth, " - does seem mythical. But all for the best. Now that you've been presented with one though, you have a chance to play a hand in this 'legend': would you like me to bless your clutch? And if so, with what and why?"  

[Ryuukishin]

Champion snorted at that, and there was a pleased twist to her tail as it swayed behind her. She'd assumed Legendaries would be serious and somber, but this—this, she liked better.

"Yes! Oh, yes, I'd be grateful if you did," she said at the mention of a blessing, sitting straighter. From the tone, she gathered it was more than just well-wishes. Perhaps there was something to the stories after all.

"Um, I don't know what you can do—if you can read my mind whenever you want and see my deepest darkest desire or anything, so just stop me if I'm saying something you already know—but, there was a time when I was lost. Not literally—though that's happened a few times, too—but metaphorically, you know? It's not that I was despondent, or even necessarily unhappy, but I realized that when you took out all the kin who needed me, there was... there was nothing left. I was fighting for others, but not for me." She took a breath. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I hope my own children don't have to go through that—that they can find their own purpose."  

[Maxx D]

Surprisingly, Bitter End found herself very satisfied with this conclusion. It was a rather straightforward answer that echoed a sentiment she'd expressed to the Motherfather - that by this point, was so very long ago. "To find yourself before you fade is a privilege," her glowing eyes shuttered, "and to understand your flaws is strength. Your children may need some time, but like yourself..." she started to bow her head, her hind legs collapsing down as her caiman tail flicked, "they will have their own minds to find themselves.

Take care."

With that, the spring-hued caiman turned, and with one last look over a scaled shoulder, slipped into the water.