“Master...” Brooke said, his voice uncommonly soft.
“What?” I asked, going over to him. I noticed Hikaru-san arriving through the open door. He was out of breath; probably from running after Brooke who had raced over when he heard about his child.
But anyway...
“Me, I’m... a father.”
“You sure are. Congratu—”
“And being as I’m a father now...” For some reason, he lifted the scythe in his hands.
Uh, um... This was a very small room for such a big weapon...!
“...let the responsibility for my child’s misbehavior be on—me!”
“Stop! Halt! Don’t! Elvia, stop him!”
“On it!”
Before Brooke could bring the scythe down, Elvia grabbed his arm. But it was all she could do to hold on; there was no hope of wrenching the weapon away from him. They were almost equal on strength, Brooke’s arm trembling as Elvia dangled from it.
“Do not stop me, wolf! Master, please, let this be settled with one arm of mine!”
“No! You really don’t have to settle anything!” I cried.
I said I couldn’t stand gory stuff!
The relationship between me and Brooke was ultimately one of master and servant. I could see what was going on here: the servant’s child had injured the master, and now Brooke thought someone had to pay for it. That if he sacrificed an arm, I might be satisfied. But that was going too far! Even the you-know-whos settled grievances with just one finger! And apparently even they were modernizing in a hurry these days and chopping off fewer fingers than ever! Okay, not really relevant.
“Lizardmen are carnivores, right? Maybe the baby just doesn’t know it’s not supposed to eat humans yet.” Minori-san’s comment was almost but not quite on point. And what was I, a prey animal?! I mean, yeah, I guess I pretty much was. But this kid was only a few hours old and it was already hunting game several times its size. That’s aggression for you.
“Wh-Whatever, listen—the kid was just born, it can’t even talk yet! These things happen! It’s okay! I’m all good, right? I’m hardly even hurt!” I hid my injured hand behind my back as I spoke. It was actually exceedingly painful, but if I said anything like that, I could tell Brooke would lop his arm straight off, so I just put on my best face.
“Anyway,” I said, trying to change the subject at least a little, “I’m amazed how it gets around when it just hatched. Lizardmen grow in a hurry, huh?”
“Yes,” Brooke said, finally starting to calm down. At least he had lowered his arm, Elvia and all. “At least compared to humans, I should think. I would expect the child to be walking within the day, and speaking three or four days from now.”
“Geez, there’s fast and then there’s fast!”
It took humans a year to start standing and walking, and at least that long to make more than baby gurgles. Sure, you might get a word or two out of a younger infant, but meaningful sentences started at around three or four years old. Lizardmen were way ahead of us. Wait... Could it be lizardmen were actually a lot smarter than humans...? Or maybe they had about the same intellectual capacities as humans, but just reached them faster?
It was all enough to make my head spin. But I was sure starting to feel some biological inferiority...
Maybe I should have expected as much from a world with magic and dragons and stuff.
“So, Brooke,” I said, with my best it’s-really-no-big-deal smile. (Uh-oh. Maybe lizardmen were no better at reading human facial expressions than we were at reading theirs. A mystery for another time.) “Hurry up and hold your new child.”
“Thank y’, sir,” he said after a long moment, finally hefting himself off the floor.
“Here, Brooke,” Cerise said, walking over to him and handing him the baby.
He took it with hesitation and wonder. For a while, he just stared at the kid, who waved and squirmed in his arms. He looked partly moved, and partly just confused. We all watched him, our hearts in our throats.
After a long silence, he said, “Cerise.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Just that. We waited, but he didn’t say anything else.
Cerise said, “Of course.”
Just that. They weren’t embarrassed, or tongue-tied. They had a bond of trust that made those words enough. Maybe this was what it meant to be so close to someone you could almost read their thoughts.
This husband and wife, they were really... awesome.
I discovered that made me happy.
Some time after Brooke’s emotional meeting with his child...
We had gathered in the living room for a bit of a banquet. I wanted to take this opportunity to get to know Brooke’s new family member.
I had wondered if lizardman infants would look sort of craggy in comparison to human babies, but the kid’s big, round eyes made it surprisingly (in a good sense) lovable. I guess plenty of people hate snakes, but when you really look at them, they’ve got cute eyes. I’ve heard lots of girls have pet reptiles. As long as you’re okay with the scales, they really look pretty sweet.
But anyway...
“Come to think of it, what are you going to name it?” I asked Brooke and Cerise as I watched the baby tumble on the carpet.
“Yessir. We were considering Man’ya.”
“That’s a nice name.” It... fit this child, somehow. It was cute.
Speaking of cute, I was just realizing that the baby was a girl.
Myusel and Elvia crouched by Man’ya, enjoying watching her as she wandered around. Man’ya, for her part, was capable of standing upright, but her balance wasn’t very good yet, and every few steps she would tumble to the ground. Luckily, she didn’t have far to fall, and she instinctively curled up into a ball, so it didn’t seem to do her any harm.
“U-Um, Cerise-san?” Myusel looked up at Man’ya’s mother with some nervousness.
“Yes, do you need anything?”
“W-Would it be... all right if I touched her...?”
“Of course, go ahead,” Cerise said.
“What, really?” I asked,
