[Teal]

I'm going to be very busy, methinks... *scratches ears* Reposting my fics, as requested...
Aanyway... Here's "Jas," and no, it didn't ever get a better title... *mutters*


One

Deep in the hatchery corridors, two sligs were playing cards. It was a dingy corridor, and pretty hard for them to see by the dim lighting, so both were cheating as much as they could get away with without the other seeing.
One studied his cards with a scowl, scratched his face round the edges of the ill-fitting mask. "Raise yer ten."
"Y'ain't got ten to raise," the other scoffed. "C'mon, Narik, give up. Much more an' you'll gamble that promotion away, too."
Narik gave him a black look. "Don't see why I oughtta pay yer, I saw yer cheatin'," he said, sulkily.
"Ho yeah? Prove it, then. 'Sides, I saw you cheatin', too," the other slig snorted.
"Don't have ta prove nuthin'. Ev'ryone knows yer cheat, Jark, yer the biggest liar in the whole hatchery," Narik replied, with a pout, scratching the back of his head again.
"Oh yeah?" Jark jeered, scrambling noisily to his feet.
"Yeah," Narik was up on his feet, by now, and the two sligs were almost touching snouts. "Wanna make somethin' of it?"
Both were tensed ready to fight, and probably would have, had a loud voice not interrupted. "JARK!" it boomed; "I WANTED YER TEN MINUTES AGO!! WHERE THE FRACK ARE YER?!"
"Aw, great," Jark muttered. "Comin', boss!" he yelled back, over his shoulder, and gave Narik a scowl. "Yer lucky. Now c'mon, cough up," he demanded, holding out one hand and tapping one metal leg on the ground, impatiently. "Yer still owe me for them Scrab fights, too, remember?"
"'Kay, 'kay, keep yer pants on," the other slig grumbled, sorting his colleague's winnings.
"ONE MORE MINUTE, JARK, AND MANAGEMENT'LL BE WANTIN' TER KNOW WHY THESE EGGS DIDN'T HATCH!! AN' YOU'LL BE THE ONE TER TELL 'EM!"
Jark gave Narik a scowl and ran off in the direction of the voice. "I'll be comin' back this way, sunshine, so yer'd better 'ave it ready by then," he howled back over his shoulder.
Sure enough, Narik was waiting where he'd left him, scowling but holding quite a handful of cash.
Jark smirked and snatched his payment off him in passing. "'Bout friggin' time, an’ all," he muttered.
"Yeah, and thank you, too!" Narik yelled after him, sarcastically.
Jark honked a laugh over his shoulder, and broke into a gallop as fast as his pants would let him run. The trolley of mudokon eggs bounced crazily, but he was used to running this route, knew where all the bumps were, and the large eggs had pretty sturdy shells, as it was. He was taking them to Mudokon Hatchery Nine; more and more slaves seemed to be escaping these days, so the sooner these hatched the better.
If he hadn't been so concerned with collecting his owings from Narik maybe he'd not have been running so fast, to regain lost time. And if he hadn't been running so fast, maybe he wouldn't have collided with the slig marching along in the opposite direction with a cart loaded with Skillya's eggs, heading for the slig hatchery
Eggs spilled to the floor and rolled in all directions.
"That was yer fault!" both Sligs barked as one. Then snapped; "No it weren't!"
Jark gave the other slig a shove. "C'mon, if the old lady finds out she'll skin us…" Checking no-one had seen, between them they hurriedly gathered up the spilled cargo, shovelling up the eggs and getting most in the right trolleys.
"And watch where yer goin', next time, Jerk!" The other slig yelled as a parting shot. Jark honked rudely at the departing footsteps, then turned and went on his way.

Jark had delivered his eggs and vanished off to catch the end of the Scrab fights when there was a sudden commotion in Hatchery Nine; a brilliant flare of white light pierced the gloom of the dimly-lit room, startling the mudokon hatchery attendant. He shielded his eyes and watched as a portal opened up, through which half a dozen native mudokons fell. "What's going on?" he asked.
As if in reply, the first Mudokon scooped up as many eggs as he could carry – he managed three – and leaped back through the still-open portal.
"Rescuing eggs," one supplied, scooped up two and shot back through the portal.
The hatchery slave caught the next one's arm. "Where you rescuing them to?"
The mudokon picked up an egg. "Our village, a long way from here. You going to lend a paw?"
The slave gazed at the long rows of eggs remaining. "Better not. Who'd look after these?"
"Another slave? "
"I-" the slave shrugged, and shook his head. "What if one hatches before they find out I'm gone? Nah, I'll be fine. You'd best go – guards'll be back soon."
The mudokon nodded, scooped up another two eggs and bounded out of the portal.
It was only when the fuss had died down that the hatchery slave noticed that, of the pile he'd carefully sorted out of the newest eggs and put ready to be moved to a different hatchery, three were gone. Two he discovered had fallen off the back of the trolley, but that left one egg still missing.
And he knew only too well where it was.

The mudokon rescue team stood back and surveyed their catch, smiling and congratulating themselves on their success.
In all, they'd managed to retrieve seventeen eggs, of which sixteen were all the reassuring greenish-grey of healthy mudokon eggs. One egg was a shade different, though – a little rounder, more greyish-olive in colour, and noticeably smaller… It caused a little consternation, at first, making some worry that it would turn out to be in some way damaged and they would only find out upon its hatching. But, since it was warm and they could sense slight tremors in it every now and then, they left it with the others, a little reassured, and waited to see what would happen.
Carefully, they arranged the seventeen eggs in a nest lined with soft grasses, posted a watch, and waited patiently for them to hatch…

They waited for a long time. It was two months before the first two eggs split open, and another six weeks and four days before the next four hatched.
The remaining eleven, ten of which had all been laid at a similar time, took another seven weeks and two days to hatch. The nest attracted quite a crowd when the attendant yelled that he could see cracks on three eggs. The rest of the eggs all hatched that day, spread out over five hours or so.
So by now the remaining hatchlings had all been adopted, and most of the proud guardians had drifted off with their diminutive charges held gently and protectively in their arms; a few had remained, those without infants to look after, talking excitedly among themselves. After all, all the eggs had hatched, and all the young were healthy, and-
"Hey!" a voice called. The younger Mudokon who was clearing away the mess of broken eggshells, sweeping them into a rough cloth sack to be disposed of later, had noticed that… there was one egg left – the odd-shaped, odd-coloured one. It sat in the otherwise-empty nest, half obscured by bits of shell.
"There's one left, here…!" He yelled
One of the attendants sprinted back. "Another egg?"
"Yeah – the weird one."
The attendant crouched next to it, gently pressed a hand to its shell. "It's still warm, so it's not dead… wonder why it hasn't hatched…?" He frowned. "Get this mess cleared up, then we'll have to just wait and see what it does."
For an hour and a half, nothing. Then…
The eggshell cracked across, smartly. The attendant crouched nearby, ready to aid the hatchling if he needed to. With a sharp series of little cracking sounds, the occupant of the egg managed to break it up enough to push the bits apart. It lay in the mess of broken shell, breathing hard from its exertions.
As one, the cluster of mudokons all took a pace or two backwards. The pale yellow-green hatchling wailed noisily and waved its stubby arms, then the mouth below the fringe of prehensile tentacles found its hand, and it quietened down, blinking huge reddish eyes at the circle of mudokons.
A murmur of disgust spread round the group. A baby slig! No wonder the egg had looked so different…! Why in the name of Odd hadn't they suspected…?
"Let me through, please," a calm, authoritative voice said from the back of the crowd. The crowd automatically parted for the speaker, an old, worn female, her topknot gone thin and her skin grey and wrinkled with age. Bea was a truly ancient mudokon; no one was really sure how old she was, just that she was very old – some said she would have been a queen, but something went wrong while she was still in the egg, and she didn't develop properly afterwards. As a consequence, although she was female – whereas most "males" were actually asexual – she looked like any other mudokon, and her reproductive organs were withered and useless, so she was sterile. She crouched next to the slig hatchling, and frowned, thoughtfully; the little creature stretched out its arms for her, bawling noisily again, looking like it wanted to be held.
"What should we do with it, Bea?" one asked, leaning over her shoulder and rubbing the back of his head – the old lady was universally respected, and her opinion frequently asked for. "Give it to the fleeches?"
"Absolutely not," she told him, sternly. "I'll take it," and reached out for the mewling infant, which went quiet as soon as she'd picked it up.
"But… it's a slig!" Another mudokon said, as though he couldn't believe his ears.
"I know," she replied, calmly, cradling it gently in her arms, and scrutinised the squashed-up little face with a faint smile.
"Bea – I think you're getting' a few bricks short of the load, here…" The first said, hands on hips. "You know what they're like! Vicious little buggers! In fact, I'll bet when it's big enough, it'll-"
"Oh shush," the old mudokon cut in, gently. "I remember a time, before Queen Skillya, when sligs were a highly sensitive race; that was when parents took care of their offspring, and took notice of the need for parental love and attention." The infant slig in her arms found one of her paws and sucked noisily on her thumb. "They're not instinctively callous, you know."
"Sligs? Highly sensitive?" The second dissenter snorted. "All that's highly-sensitive about a slig is the trigger finger, I'd say."
A ripple of laughter ran through the group.
She gave them all a stern look. "A few kind words can often work wonders, and you would do well to remember that. Now, unless you have something constructive to add, I should like to be excused," she said, dryly, and stood up. "I have work to do."

It was quiet and private in her little sanctuary, a wicker and fabric hut nestling close to the trunk in the branches of one of the vast trees overlooking the village. She sat back against the wall, and looked at the little slig nestled in the crook of her arm. In all, it wasn’t so ugly as glukkon propaganda suggested; most of its face was taken up by those enormous amber eyes – funny that slig eyesight should be so poor, given their size. Its tentacles were shorter than those of an adult, only barely long enough to hide the mouth they formed a fringe above, and certainly not the useful ‘third-hand’ they’d turn into.
"What am I going to do with you, hey?" she asked it, quietly, wondering what she'd let herself in for, as it sucked at her finger, gazing back with those earnest scarlet eyes. "I suppose first of all I'd better find you a place to sleep…"
It whimpered, faintly, the short, vestigial tail wrapped firmly about her arm, and suckled on her finger. Bea frowned, faintly; it was almost as though the little mite was trying to tell her someth-
Of course; it hadn't eaten yet, she realised. Most, if not all, of the other hatchlings had all been fed, but then all the others were little mudokons, and everyone knew what to give them as a replacement for what the Queen would naturally provide.
So what did you feed a baby slig? Presumably Skillya's brood got fed on some kind of royal jelly as well, until their teeth had grown and they could take solids. But until then… Maybe it would take the replacement they were giving the mudokon hatchlings – if it did, so much the better; if it didn't, well… she'd just have to think of something.
She settled the infant into the nest of reeds that served as her bed, and waited for its eyes to close. It didn't take long to doze off, those big lantern eyes drifting shut; satisfied it was safe for the baby up here, she started down the short, rough ladder to the ground. She'd only got a few steps down it, though, when a sharp, strident cry from above startled her.
Scrambling back up and expecting to see some avian predator had somehow got in, she was a little surprised to find the hut empty, save for her little responsibility in the reed nest. With a frown, Bea padded over to it.
The baby slig waved its arms at her and tried to catch her paw, mewling. She frowned, and scooped it up, and the second it was in her arms it quietened down again, nestling itself into the crook of her elbow. "I see; you don't like being left alone, is that it?" she murmured, as one tiny hand went to the little mouth under its fringe of tentacles. "All right; you can come with me, then."
It was a little awkward, climbing backward down the ladder with only one hand free and trying not to crush the delicate infant in her arms, but the ladder was short and she managed it without too much bother.
The rumour merchants had already been busy, so when she padded across the main square nearly every face was turned her way, some looking merely curious, and others vaguely disgusted.
Needless to say, it took a bit of bargaining to persuade her fellow mudokons to give her something she could feed the infant with. They didn't like the idea of the infant slig in their midst, let alone having to provide it with food as well, food that could very well feed their own species' hatchlings…
She settled with her back to a tree-trunk, and offered the hatchling some of the food; it took it readily, so no problems with the feeding regime, then.
Which meant that there was only one real thing left to do, now. Wait for it to grow up, and see whether her bold assertion would be the downfall of them all.