What can I say? Rakhii are particularly susceptible to your strange human charms—even me.
But then, it isn’t as if all of you are irredeemable soulless alien succubi. Some of your kind prefer to remain with a single partner. Some of your kind are loyal. And one of your kind can love even a beast like me.
You are lucky that my mate is a human like you. She has softened my dislike of your species to the point that I might not snap your neck and burn the evidence of your body’s demise.
You are also lucky that thanks to my mate, we have a pup. A healthy, beautiful, half-Isla pup. And raising whelps teaches you patience. I’m far more charitable with your people because of my learned restraint, which feels as if it's being forged in fire some daycycles.
But back to our offspring. All of my mate’s forced socializing must be melting my brain cells, because I want to share with you a glimpse of this event in our lives. Let me tell you how the birth of a half-Isla brought many surprises. Good ones, actually. Which, in my experience, are the very rarest type of surprises.
I have more claws on one hand than the number of times I’ve known my dam to travel far from my parents’ den. Female Rakhii are bold in all things—save for one’s tolerance for travel. It’s rare for one of our females to thirst for any adventure beyond her cave door. There’s so much to do right where she’s standing, my dam has always said.
I’ve secretly maintained that she doesn’t appreciate the way complete control of her domain is revoked once she ventures beyond the thick stone walls of her kitchen, and she becomes a ruler no more.
(To think that everyone wonders where I get my thirst for having absolute authority from.)
But when it was revealed that Isla was carrying our first litter, and as the whelping day approached, my dam was prepared to leave her sanctuary and make the brave trek to be at Isla’s and my side when it came time for Isla to whelp.
Rather than have her dam-in-law—her fearless, spice-tongued dam-in-law—grow uncomfortable moving through unfamiliar environments though, Isla decided to whelp in my family’s own den.
It was an event of almost unprecedented proportions.
Hobs who had assisted in human birthings joined us, as well as Angie, a human who has experience acting as a midwife to her kind. Angie’s mate, Arokh, accompanied her of course. And between them and my dam and myself, the homecave I grew up in was full to bursting. My littermates abandoned the abode and I think my sire would have too if he weren’t so invested in meeting the outcome.
Isla birthed a boy. We have a son.
When Isla struggled through that final push, it was the most relief I’ve ever felt in my life.
I felt everything at once: awe that we’d created a new life, wonder that I already loved it, gnawing anxiety at the hours of agony Isla had endured to bring our babe forth, and unparalleled joy that she succeeded and safely.
And perhaps the greatest shock of all came to me: I was grateful to be surrounded by family and friends. I had thought I would have preferred the privacy of our cave for Isla to quietly birth at home, but this… to share such an experience with loved ones, to see the females midwifing with their gentle understanding and tireless encouragement, to lend their assurance and strength to my mate as she labored, and for my dam to be present to usher in the next generation, amethyst tears shining in her eyes as she beheld her newly birthed, beloved grandpup—it was something I wouldn’t have traded for the world.
My dam soothed Isla, telling her to rest, bustling around to make her comfortable and generally glowing with pride that her adopted daughter had fought such a formidable battle and come out victorious.
But if we hadn’t had my dam here, if she hadn’t mopped the sweat from Isla’s agonized brow and been here for every minute of the horrible labor, I expect her response would have been far different. She’d have held her newly birthed grandpup in her arms, her face radiant as she beheld his tiny form, and then my dam would have looked to the pair of us, pinned us with an adversarial stare, and asked, “When will I get the rest of them?” As if we’d made some agreement and hadn’t yet delivered the