Hey. Did you know I, Lowefantasy, the writer of Shay, have a website? :P It has all my books and my Works in Progress. ^.^ And random blogs and poetry, but who reads that? Now, we return to your usual program of "I'm Probably Shameless for Writing This"

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Asher wiggled into the family far easier than Shay had expected. It started out as 'Shay's weird pet to help her cope with the loss of her baby' which none of the males seemed to question, since apparently, she was a legendarily sensitive mommy to them. But slowly, as Asher came to befriend the curious snake daughters, he came to learn the snake language pretty quickly.

By the time they finally found their perfect new home, a gem of a glade background by thick forest and fronted by grassland and beach front, he had all but become fluent in it, and the little girls were constantly coming up to Shay one at a time with stories of Asher.

"He says his daddy was this big! Bigger than our daddy!"

"Asher once lived with big scaled things!"

"Asher says neither his mommy or daddy could turn human, but they said they once could."

"Look, mommy! Asher is growing back legs!"

"He says his mom and daddy could fly! They fill up their tummies, like this, and..."

Sky, who had been the one telling the story, puffed her stomach as big as she could before typing back into Miur's waiting arms.

When Ryan had solemnly explained that Asher was a colossal child and what exactly a colossal was, the girls became confused.

"But, if they're big beasts dumb like our meat, how can he talk to us?"

"How did he understand mommy?"

"I think you have something wrong, panther," said Luna, very softly, once her sisters had had their ways saying all sorts of exclamations.

"Well, obviously," said Harvey, who had been listening from the side. The girls never lacked for a lap to sit on, though Shay had found that Harvey, though he appreciated the beauty and wonder of the little girls, didn't fall gaga over them like Parker, Ryan, and Miur did. The girls didn't seem as interested in him either.

"Maybe we could talk to the colossals and ask for an emerald for mommy's hand," said Sky.

"Yeah, we could have Asher talk for us!" Luna lifted up Asher under his armpits like a puppy. If it weren't for his length, he'd be the right size for one.

The hand in question, which, even though it had healed, would probably never work right again. Shay hid it in her lap when it was mentioned. The crooked, bumpy fingers put her off even after having looked at it for so long, and her nails had grown back bumpy with wavy ridges.

She happened to catch Curtis's eye and realized he had seen. His frown cut to his jaw line.

It had been especially sad when the girls had begged their mother to play the harp for them again and Shay found she could hardly do it with one hand. It was clumsy, and the girls had wilted in disappointment.

At least, Shay thought, she was lucky to have so many people around her willing to help her with tasks that might have required two hands. For not the first time she was jealous of the males healing ability in this world, as she eyed the ragged scar on Ryan's ankle from when his achilles had been sliced. His tendon had grown back alright, at least with Harvey's surgical help. Too bad there was nothing he could do about the tiny torn ligaments and joints of a hand.

Summer was in full swing as the men got to work with the foundation of the new home. Shay could only watch on, dismayed at her uselessness. Not only was her hand out of commission, but she had just begun to gain back her lost strength and weight and all insisted she take it easy to recover. To Shay's chagrin, the girls thought it was a great game to bring mom snacks, and Shay always had more than she could eat in fruit, fish, and coconuts. Thus, in some effort to help out, she tried to dry them on a flat rock in the sun with salt Ryan had helped her distilled from the sea (aka, watched the water boil for hours on end while she plucked her harp and dozed). It worked for the most part, which eased her useless feeling a bit.

Every once in a while, Shay would take the girls and Asher to the beach. But since it drew away half of the men from their work for guard duty, and it was important that the house be up before the cooler seasons, she found she couldn't justify going nearly as often as her and the girls wanted.

Then, a month after they had arrived, several young red pythons,  all with blue freckles except one, which had a long black stripe down its sides, raced into the prairie.

Instantly, Curtis stopped and swung around.

"Is that how you dare to enter my territory?" he slapped his tail on the ground. "Manners!"

All the boys froze in place, even as their heads turned towards their mother and their tongues shivered. Shay stood still as well, even though she echoed their anticipation and joy at their long awaited meeting. She couldn't wait to run into a pile of silky babies and kiss each of their heads, but she also knew she needed to respect Curtis's boundaries in that regard. He was being revolutionary enough just letting them visit let alone touch her, and she needed him to know how much she appreciated that.

While his brothers stopped to quiver and stared at their finally safe mother, Licorice only glanced to her before turning back to Curtis to hiss something urgently.

Curtis's expression stiffened.

"Are you sure?"

Licorice nodded, then thwacked the brother nearest him with a tail. After some hiss, all the brothers swung their heads around to nod to Curtis.

Curtis cursed under his breath.

"Ryan, on me. Parker, Harvey, Miur," he looked at his flock of giant sons. "And you boys, you guard Shay."

"What's happening?" Shay asked.

"Nothing you need to be concerned about, my love," he slid across the budding yard to give her a long kiss on the brow. "I'll be back soon. Just enjoy your children and eat well."

She nodded, even as she clutched her chest and urged the tight ball of sudden anxiety to ease.

He hissed some more instructions to his sons, slapping his tail as he did so, to which they all arched to bow their heads in compliance.

Sky, the only one who was nearby at the time, frowned as she listened.

"What are they saying?" Shay asked.

"Can't say," said Sky seriously. "You go sit down, Mommy. You need to eat."

"I just ate a little while ago, let me greet your brothers properly."

"Then sit, they come to you. Brothers are strong, you're weaky weak weak."

Shay wilted. "Thanks."

Ryan trotted over to give her a goodbye kiss as well, this time smack on the mouth.

"I won't go any distance that I can return from by the morning," he said lowly. "I love you, my sweet."

"Be safe." She nuzzled him back.

No sooner had Curtis and Ryan vanished into the forest and she sat down in one of her favorite grass cushioned spots beneath a willow nearby then the great wave of red and blue scales rushed over, gushing hisses like water crashing on stones and red eyes bright with joy.

"Babies!" she cried.

Heads the size the length and width of large watermelons ducked in around her, all fighting for a spot to flicker their tongues over a piece of her, their long bodies filling in every inch of space about her and her tree.

"Gentle!" Sky shrieked. "Mommy weak! You hurt, I bite! I tell daddy!"

"It's okay, sweety, they're being very gentle."

And they were. Even though they shoved at each other's heads to have a turn nuzzling and licking her, their touches were soft as fleece. Scary dad and fierce sister aside, no one wanted to hurt mommy.

After the first rush of greetings, Shay called their heads in one by one to hug and smother with kisses.

"Licorice."

"Freckles."

"Dice." He had a pair of freckles that looked like a snake eye dice roll on his tail.

"Pocky." The tip of his nose looked like it had been dipped in blue paint.

"Stars." He had no outstanding characteristic outside of his freckles, so she had thought of his skin as the constellations instead.

She frowned as she reached the end of the five boys.

"Where's Lazy Boi?"

Two of the boys exchanged glances, then looked away, averting her gaze.

When the other three did nothing--Stars especially, since he had been taken into her arms last and wasn't going to leave if she wasn't going to shoo him from her lap--Shay frowned and wondered if it wasn't fair of her to ask them. After all, the boys had been busy watching out for themselves out in the wild. They hadn't the time or thought to keep an eye out for each other.

"Daddy squished him."

Shay's head snapped to Sky so quickly, her neck popped.

"What?"

Sky looked down at her little fingers, tapping a claw on a knuckle.

"Lazy Boi said bad things to Daddy about Mommy not coming home to make more babies with him, and Daddy squish him. Daddy then told him and brothers to leave."

"So he didn't kill him?"

Sky blinked up at Shay with a little frown, a wrinkle between her eyebrows.

"He moved. Went away. Just squish. All squished-ed like--" she made a wet, squawk noise and ducked her chin back into her neck, making her best imitation 'squash' noise.

Shay looked at the boys, who each reluctantly nodded.

She sighed, putting a hand to her forehead, the ball of anxiety in her chest returning, this time with an acidic bunk mate in her stomach.

"Mommy, you don't hate Daddy now, do you?"

"No. I can't expect him to completely hold back, and it sounds like Lazy Boi said something very stupid to provoke him."

All the snakes nodded, with hisses of agreement. Shay was glad her small understanding of snake language hadn't been completely eaten up by the rabbits.

Sky, however, frowned deeper yet.

"Then why you sad?"

"Because I don't want my babies to be hurt," she said, barely avoiding a crack in her voice. "No matter the reason. And I don't want to think that he's...like Thumb."

"Lazy Boi big and strong," said Sky firmly. "Thumb was weak and little. He's probably just afraid of being squished-ed again if he comes home."

"Squished, honey, not squished-ed."

"Squished."

"And any of you would have died doing what Thumb did. Thumb gave his life trying to save me. You should try to speak...more kindly of him. Respectfully, do you know what that means?"

"...No."

The boy snakes just flickered their tongues.

"Then just be more nice about him. He was very brave. Stupid to take on adults like that, but brave."

Sky made a noise like a raspberry, alarming her brothers.

"I bite all the rabbits for mommy," she said firmly. "All the bite!"

"Oh honey, that's sweet, but if you meet someone you know you can't defeat you should run. Hasn't your father taught you that already?"

As Sky tried to pick up an argument with her mother on the righteousness of biting bad guys, no matter the size or strengths, Pocky tried to make the same raspberry noise and ended up just making the rest of his brothers laugh. But he seemed to enjoy that and started up a whole list of weird noises, which stopped any further conversation between Shay and her only present English speaking child. Though her other two daughters soon appeared with their arms full of still wriggling fish they'd caught at their favorite river haunt not far from the house. Thankfully, it was a rather calm, slow moving river, and Curtis had proven to Shay that, extra limbs or not, swimming came instinctively to snakes. (Freaky memory right there, watching her daughters zip around in the water like human worms).

Luna hissed her greetings to her brothers and offered Licorice, as her fellow Daddy fan, a fish.

Dawn however stopped in her path.

"Ugh. You."

Stars and Freckles puttered back and nipped at the two little fish dangling in her arms, to which she hissed and smacked them as hard as she could on their noses, dropping a fish in the process.

"My prey! Get your own!"

The fallen fish vanished down Freckles throat faster than a blink. Dawn shrieked like nails on a chalkboard.

So much for relaxing, Shay thought.

As Stars went for the other fish, Asher appeared in a flash of opal scales, hissing and spitting around Dawn's feet.

All the boys, busy comedian Pocky included, went stiff, heads high and eyes wide on the weird furry puppy snake at their sister's ankles.

"Boys, this is Asher," said Shay quickly, praying no one would get eaten. "Asher, these are my other boys. No one hurts each other, you hear me?"

"He ate my fish!" cried Dawn. "Lazy, fat boys! Asher knows his place, so you know place too! Get your own fish!"

Licorice hissed something.

"Then I'll protect Mommy. Daddy knows I'll do it better too!"

"Dawn! Calm down. Freckles, you owe your sister a fish and if I hear any of you stealing your sisters prey, I'll beat you myself! You love and protect your family members, not steal their food!"

The snakes reacted more extreme then she was used to, arching back into themselves, girls included, and giving her baleful looks. A second later she understood. In this world, discipline was the father's responsibility, while nurturing was mainly the mothers. But if Shay left it all to Curtis she feared his head would explode, or the children would. Or both. If nothing else then because Shay and Curtis had already decided to introduce certain customs not native to the beast world.

So, Shay took a deep breath and quickly gathered her thoughts.

"Babies, think of it this way: if you get into the habit of stealing other prey, you'll lose precious practice getting your own. Or worse, you might steal the prey of the wrong beastman one day and get killed. Sometimes the strong are hidden as the weak, so never be too careful."

She wasn't sure they understood, even though she could tell they were doing their best to listen carefully. Even so, she ended up having to comfort them all in one way or another.

In no time at all, she had all her kids nuzzled close, their heads carefully placed within reaching distance so she could pet their heads in turn, dozing in the heat. The girls had their legs splayed over the coils of their brothers, and even Asher had joined the pile, his head half the size of the boys but no less distant from her touch as them.

Wonderful, glorious peace melted into her from all sides. The only thing that would have made it better was a pillow between her and the tree she rested against. Her back was killing her. A lot of parts of her ached constantly after heaving around and then birthing sixteen rabbits, but she tried to hide it as best she could since the males became murderous at the reminder of the damage they'd done to her.

She eventually managed to wriggle down beneath the blanket of babies to lay on her back instead. It took a bit of maneuvering to get her colorful skirts situated comfortably. But once she had herself in a semi-comfortable position, she huffed a sigh of relief, longing for the day she didn't hurt anymore.

Despite the aches, the incredible comfort of having all her children with her once again quickly eased her into a warm sleep.