“I wonder if that could be the reason?” Minori-san said now, pointing to a window. Sunlight poured through it. It was a sort of skylight, but the glass around here wasn’t like the industrially manufactured, consistent stuff I was used to in Japan. The thickness of any given pane of glass could vary widely, and sometimes the material was warped. Here, it almost acted like a lens, focusing and heating the light that came through it.
“I vaguely remember hearing that how long it takes an egg to hatch can be affected by temperature,” she said.
“Really?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. There’s a numerical relationship between temperature and incubation that’s consistent across a species. Like, if it takes a month to hatch an egg at 25 degrees, then the number is 750. At 20 degrees, it would take forty days, but at 35 degrees, it would be just twenty-five days. I think the sunlight from the window must have been hitting just the one egg.”
“It’s possible,” Cerise said. “Brooke and I aren’t here during the day, so we didn’t notice.”
So, to sum up: a warped pane of window glass had acted like a lens or prism, focusing the light and producing an effect that even Brooke and Cerise hadn’t anticipated—but only on one egg. I guess we could count ourselves lucky it hadn’t ended up fried. It’s one thing when glass bends or splits light, but when it focuses it on a single point, that point can get very hot. If the temperature had gone up to fifty or sixty degrees, the point at which proteins start to degenerate, this baby might not have been born at all.
“So this little one was born first, and decided to have an adventure in the yard,” Minori-san said, glancing at the child Cerise was holding. “Which is where Shinichi-kun found it.”
“Yeah, and had no idea what it was. It was all... round.”
“That’s something we do to protect ourselves from enemies while we’re resting,” Cerise said, as the infant in her arms gave a big yawn. Rows of little fangs were already growing in its mouth. The twenty-odd puncture wounds in my hand were a testament to the nastiness of that creature’s jaws. Ugh, just remembering it made my hand hurt again... Even if Minori-san had disinfected and bandaged it with supplies from a first-aid kit. My nose had suffered less thoroughly and got by with just a Band-Aid. It might be a baby, but it was also a lizardman... and I guess they grew faster than humans.
There were lots of animals, even other mammals like horses and deer, whose infants were capable of walking within an hour of being born. Maybe humans were just behind the curve.
“Still, Cerise, you should have let us know your eggs were going to be hatching,” I said with a half-smile, and she looked apologetic.
“I’m quite sorry about that. As I said, I thought I still had a while until they hatched, and I intended to inform you properly then...”
She seemed to be set on not getting any special attention or treatment from us.
You might recall that the reason Cerise and Brooke had lived apart for a while, or been separated or whatever you want to call it, was because their eggs had been broken without hatching. In their minds, they probably felt it was too early to tell anyone about the eggs until they were safely hatched. They didn’t want to celebrate prematurely.
“Well, whatever the case, I’m just glad this little one is safe and sound,” Minori-san said, smiling.
“You’re right about that,” I said. The first of the eggs had hatched with minimal fuss. My eyes met those of the child Cerise was holding, and I found my mouth softening into a smile. There were obvious differences between human and lizardman babies, including the fangs, scales, and general appearance, but it had that sort of SD cuteness. It did look just like a tiny version of Brooke and Cerise, and it was actually really charming.
Not only that, but when our eyes met, the baby waved its tiny arms and legs in response to me.
Wow, that’s so sweet! Without really thinking about it, I reached out to give the child a pat. I was sure it had just been surprised before. Not to mention the whole poking-it-with-a-broom thing. But right now, we were all nice and calm, and I was sure it would be fine—
“Gyu!”
“Nrgh?!”
—or not.
The innocent flailing suddenly became animal speed as the child latched onto my fingers.
“M-Master!” Cerise quickly grabbed the child’s mouth so it couldn’t bite down any further. That meant I at least escaped with all my fingers intact (again), but boy, those tiny teeth really bit deep. This was a hunter, latching onto prey so it couldn’t escape.
At that moment, the door of the little house came flying open. “Cerise!” Brooke rushed in. Of course, his face looked substantially like it always did, but from his body language you could tell how and agitated he was. He was holding a scythe, presumably something he used to cut grass while doing the groundskeeping. “I—I heard one of them was b—”
He saw the child in Cerise’s arms and couldn’t say another word.
It was perfectly understandable that he, the father, would be in a tizzy on hearing that one of his eggs had hatched earlier than expected, but Brooke was completely frozen to the spot.
“Born.........................”
He looked at us blankly. Specifically, looked at me, and at the baby lizardman currently biting down on my fingers.
“Master.” Cerise forced the child’s jaws open so I could finally free my hand, which I gratefully pulled back. During the entire thing, Brooke was completely silent. Everyone in the small house, with its nervous air, looked at him—and finally he slumped to the ground right where he was.
Huh?
What was with him? I had been sure he was going
