I awoke rather late the next day. We had opened a portal to Dragonhaven and gave them the tour. The offer of trade, after seeing the town was pretty much given. I had gone back and placed a full portal outside of their harbor and then Haladoria and I made our way home. Haladoria was wrapped around me to the point I couldn’t move. I couldn’t help but chuckle. After a while she finally stirred, then moaned.

“Are you alright love?”

“Sleepy. I don’t know why.”

  I wondered for a moment if she was sick. Maybe she was just not used to all the flying we did, but then again, it was really no more than we did when we went to find the other worlds. She finally untangled herself and did a lazy stretch.

“I feel so… I don’t know… tired lately.”

I watched her as she left the lava… then my eyes widened. “Oh my…”

She looked over at me. “What.”

“Um… how do you feel otherwise?”

She cocked her head. “Not really that different. I don’t know, it’s like I feel heavier.”

I smiled. “Might be the eggs.”

“Eggs?” Then her eyes widened and she looked at herself. “Oh… OH! I’m… oh my!”

I laughed. “I think the word is pregnant?”

“We're going to have… um… children?”

“I suppose that works.” I said smiling.

“Gods, what do I do? I have never had eggs before.”

“I would guess, you lay them and then keep them warm, which shouldn’t be a problem where we are.”

“The lava won’t hurt them?”

“I rather doubt it. We are the parents, so they should have our traits.”

“You mean all of our traits?”

“No, but probably most of them. We are both planar so… oh…” My eyes widening over the obvious.

“What?”

“Well, lets say babysitting might be a problem.” I said with a far away look in my eye. I could see tiny dragons appearing out of nowhere to… I stopped my thoughts before they traveled any farther down that road.

“Why? Oh… Oh my…” I could see the realization set it.

“I don’t know how long it takes for them to get their talents, but this could get interesting.”

She stared at me in abject horror. “There will be no way to control them…”

I sighed. “I worry more about everyone else. We are born with knowledge of how to use our skills, but less than stellar control.”

Her eyes looked at me pleadingly. “What do we do?”

I sighed. “I would say take it as it comes. We have no idea what their personalities will be like.”

  I think we both had visions of tiny uncontrollable magic wielding killing machines… but cute.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the last of that thought.

She still looked a little panicked but she was calming. “So, how long does this take?”

“I haven’t a clue. I am new to this as well.”

“So they might hatch at any time?”

“Well, I think you have to lay them first.”

She snorted. “You know what I meant.”

I had a thought. “Um, Ta, could you tell us?”

To my surprise, she appeared, floating above the lava. “You have a few days before they are ready. It will take about a month before they hatch.”

“That fast?”

“Yes, it’s a survival trait. The longer they are in egg form, the more likely they are to being attacked. Once out of the egg, they can fully defend themselves.”

I stared at her for a moment. “Um… fully?”

“Yes, fully. I do have good news for you thought.”

“Oh?”

“They will inherit all of your traits, we were not sure it was possible, but it seems you are hatching the next generation of dragon gods.”

“Um… this is good news?” I asked weakly. Micro dragons with the powers of creation and no self control crossed my mind.

She smiled. “We will watch them for you. They will come to no harm, nor will we allow them to harm anyone.”

Haladoria was shocked. “I do not mean to sound ungrateful, but, um… why?”

Strangely, she turned to me and smiled. “It is the least that we can do for you.”

Then, of course, she disappeared.

I looked up at Haladoria blankly. “What the hell did she mean by that?”

  Naturally everything got complicated after that. It didn’t take long for everyone, and I do mean everyone in the empire and the other two lands to find out. It was strange the way the people reacted. I think the dragons were the worst. They literally had a flying guard around the mountain and rotated shifts. The wyvern had to be held back or they would have burned themselves trying to get closer to Haladoria. I wound up putting up a shield to keep them out. The inter ring was full of people all waiting on the news of the eggs. I was half amused and half terrified. The fay were almost as bad, but at least they stayed outside the cone where they wouldn’t get fried.

  Once the eggs were laid, things mellowed a bit. Not much, but a bit. I stared at the little spheres and wondered at how they could effect almost twenty planets. That month seemed to take much longer than the previous century. Haladoria recovered quickly, but, as expected, would not leave the eggs alone for a second. I suppose I was just as bad, as I didn’t leave the cone either. It was a strange time, like the entire empire was holding it’s breath, waiting on those eggs to hatch.

  The day finally came. The dragons hovered overhead as the eggs rocked back and forth. The wyvern wove in and out between them. Haladoria and I lay there entranced as the eggs formed cracks, then split open. Then their occupants crawled out. We had no clue what to expect. We thought we had figured out most of the things that could happen. We were wrong. Once they were all out, they turned to me as one.

“Greetings… lord dragon.” I heard in my mind with a chorus of laughter.

I looked up at Haladoria and she looked back at me with her eyes wide. “I take it you heard that?” I asked.

Noregus, from behind me said; “I think we all did… lord dragon.” Then he snickered.

I suddenly heard all of the dragons laughing as well as the people down on the plains.

  I studied my new children. I didn’t have a clue what sex they were. They were all a pearly white with hints of shimmering color that seemed to ripple across their scales. Black horns and claws. At a guess, they were about three feet long from snout to tail tip. They didn’t have the pudgy look of the juveniles, but the sleek look of the older dragons. Their eyes seemed to glow with the colors of the rainbow. There was intelligence in those eyes. A deep knowing intelligence. It was a little frightening. They looked at one another and then jumped into the sky. They went through my shield like it didn’t exist. The dragons fell back as they flew out of the cone and circled around all the people gathered there. They were glowing streaks, going as fast as an ancient at full speed. Then they slowed down as if to show themselves to all the people of the lands. They made their way back and landed. Then they made their way into the lava with a contented warble. It almost sounded like birds.

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  I looked up at Haladoria and she looked back at me. Unspoken was the question. “Now what do we do?”

Ta and the other gods appeared. They hovered over the lava and looked at the newest dragons in the lands. They looked at each other and all of them disappeared except for Ta.

She landed on the shelf and smiled at us. “It would seem that we do not need to worry about your children.”

I stared at her for a moment. “They are fully intelligent.”

“Yes.”

Haladoria, looking a little lost, asked; “What are we to do?”

Ta’s face lost it’s smile a bit. “We do not know. It would seem your children have the sum knowledge of both of you.”

  What do you say to that? I looked down at the three tiny sleeping dragons at a complete loss.

  Strangely enough, they acted like children… for the most part. Curious, they explored as they would. They were polite to a fault, however. Most of the time they were together but then again, it was nothing to find them wandering the streets alone. Or one of the other planets. They had no fear, why would they? Even if anyone tried to do them harm, which was unthinkable, if the dragons didn’t get them, the rest of the population would. They were idolized. We gave up trying to keep track of them. We were outnumbered. Most of the time they didn’t mind us following them around, others, they would just disappear. Sometimes it was the reverse, they would follow us. They took to riding on our backs if we were flying, then they would dart away if something caught their eye. They didn’t seem to want to talk, so we didn’t force the issue, but we knew that sometime soon there would be a discussion. It was inevitable.

  Haladoria seemed a bit lost. I think part of her was expecting the joys of motherhood. Not to have fully sentient gods who were mostly fully developed. I stayed with her and the children did as well, when they weren’t out exploring. Ta even dropped in to visit every now and again, she rarely said anything, but would watch the tiny gods with a slight smile on her face. We didn’t know what to think about that.

  Things were going well, but I started thinking about getting back out into the galaxy. Since we had already charted several worlds, we were still expanding, but before too long we would have to go back out and search some more.

  We were laying in the lava pool just after waking up. The children were cuddled up between us.

“Good morning father.”

I jumped slightly.

“Good morning.” I replied cautiously.

“I am Tristan.”

“I am Ronan”

“I am Eric”

  There was no real visible way to tell them apart, but I knew which was which.

I stared at them for a few minutes. “Pleased to meet you.” I finally replied.

“We realize that this is rather hard on you. Mother especially. We will try to help out where we can.”

She finally spoke. “Thank you. We were not prepared for you.”

“We know. We are sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, it just came a surprise is all.” I said.

“We do need to get back to work, though. We hear dragons crying.”

“What?” I asked stunned.

“You have not found all of the castaways. There are dragons out there in pain.”

Haladoria was fully awake at that news. “Do you know where they are?”

“Not exactly, but father knows how to find them.”

I do? Wait, I never finished searching the second ring. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  They smiled.

  We ported out to the end of the mana trail and I took a look back at the pattern. It looked like four more systems this time. To save time we split up, with Haladoria going to one with Tristan. We stopped back and picked up three wyvern apiece, then went hunting. My system was dead, no planets were in the sweet spot. I was about to go join the next in line where Eric was, when I got the call from Ronan.

“Found them. We need to get them out as fast as we can, this planet is a death trap.”

  I felt a chill as we ported in. The planet was literally coming apart. It was almost impossible to see, the air was choked by ashes and steam from the boiling sea. Everywhere you looked mountains were spewing molten rock into the air and the land was split open with lava flowing out of the cracks. The land shook in an almost continuous earthquake.

  The wyvern took off to map and I started my radar scan. I went to the first cluster and found about half a dozen who were in pretty bad shape. I ported them to one of the planets we hadn’t colonized yet and told the others which one it was. When the wyvern finished we knew we had to work fast. The next group I took was in fair shape, but I had to heal one who was severely burned. I got a call from Haladoria and went to her. There were four and two were on the edge of death. A mountain near by blew its top and I raised a shield. Haladoria was crying. I told her to try a healing spell, just to trickle the mana into it. She managed it, but she was shaking afterward.

  The children managed to get more than we did, but we almost lost a couple of wyvern in the process. I wound up porting them all home. They were scared and trying to follow us, not paying attention to where they were flying. There were still two groups left so the children grabbed one and we got the other. We left with the last group.

When we got to the dragons they were starting to come back to life a bit, but we still had some major healing to do. They were not equipped to deal with the volcanic ash in their lungs. Many were blinded as well. There were less than forty all told.

  Haladoria was not in good shape, this little expedition had shaken her. The children gathered around her and I watched as she was enveloped by light. When it was over, she looked the same, but she wasn’t crying. I didn’t have time to think on it as I was healing them as fast as I could.

  The rest of the day was a blur after that, but we finished with them about the same time. To my surprise, Haladoria was the last to finish and was smiling. I looked at her curiously.

She smiled at me. “It looks like we are all divine now.”

  I looked from her to the children, wondering just what else they could do. They were born into their powers.

“I did find something interesting on the planet I went to.” Eric said as he gave me a knowing look.

“Oh, what?” I asked.

“Trolls, they are guarding something.”