(no subject)
Apr. 20th, 2003 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistledearSting found Bonnie in the nursery yet again. The puck was stomping around the floor in an exaggerated manner, aiming for the giggling octies but never quite getting anywhere near them. The little pixiepucks squealed and shrieked, running around their mother’s legs while she growlingly sang “Little Girls” from the Annie soundtrack at them. They seemed to love it.
“Someday I’ll step on their freckles,” Bonnie growled, stomping at one little toddler who shrieked and giggled and ran from the foot, “someday I’ll straighten their curls!”
One of the octuplets noticed Sting by the door and ran over. She held up her arms and hopped in the manner that all toddlers hopped, body jerking but feet never leaving the floor, a silent demand to be picked up. They all knew that kitty Sting was for playing on, but human Sting was for holding and cuddling. He smiled and reached down, scooping the little faery into one large hand, then sat down in a rocking recliner Bonnie used when she read to her children at night.
He had the youngest of them--Sally. Bonnie referred to her as the runt. It wasn’t out of any cruelness, but because she was indeed the smallest of them. She was also the most picked on, as her sisters seemed to delight in ganging up on her whenever Bonnie or the nanny wasn’t looking. Pixies were the wildest of all the wild fae, just a sentient thought away from being complete animals. Smaller pixies often didn’t live long. The larger ones usually killed them. The other seven seemed to give in to their wilder urges and whaled on poor Sally incessantly.
Sally sat on his palm, her legs hanging over the side of his hand and kicking at the air as she grinned at him. He grinned back. Who could resist such a little charmer? She was just like her mother. She beamed at him and grabbed a handful of her flaxen hair, soft as cobweb, and tugged on it.
Sting had taken advantage of Bonnie’s extensive library to read up on the world. Living as he had in the wilds of India, the manticore in his previous incarnation had had no access to research materials. This meant he took full advantage of his opportunity in the Wild Court.
He had read what books had to say of the manticore and laughed at most of it. It seemed like no one had come close to knowing anything about his kind except for the poison and their appetite. He had read of other things too, like the animals he resembled.
He read about lions. One thing he found interesting was that a male lion, when taking over another male’s pride, would kill the former pride leader’s offspring. He looked at Sally sitting so trustingly in his hand and found he was glad that it wasn’t in his instincts to do the same.
Manticores, he thought, were a matriarchal society. Or they had been when there were more of them. The paired in twos, manticores did, and males accepted only female mates that could beat them in a fight. No male wanted a weak female easily beaten. They felt the weakness would be passed on to their offspring.
But no pairing was set in stone. A male might choose a mate, but another female could come along and take him away. A mateless female might challenge a mated female to a fight for her mate. Should the mated female be killed, the winner would take her male mate without fighting him. After all, if she could kill the female that beat him, then it was given she could beat him down as well.
It had happened to Sting once. He had found himself a beautiful and strong mate, who had given him three perfect cubs in their seasons together. Another had come along, challenging her. And his mate had been beaten and killed. And his new mate had done what all female manticores did when taking over another’s mate--she had killed the offspring of the losing female. He still saw it at times, in his sleep. When the nightmares took him, he saw his poor slaughtered babies.
“Sad,” Sally said suddenly, pulling him from his reverie. The little pixiepuck’s bottom lip was stuck out and trembling, and Sting realized his emotions were showing on his face.
“Yes, sad,” said another voice near his ear. He turned and realized Bonnie was crouched beside him, worry etched on her lovely face. “Are you okay? What are you thinking about to make you look like that?”
He almost told her, then changed his mind and said instead, “The werewolf. Ollie. His child was by a prior mate, yes?”
“I don’t know if you could call Lacey a ‘mate’ or not,” Bonnie said with a derisive snort. “He knocked her up, he had to stay with her almost twenty-four seven to make sure she didn’t go out and get rid of the baby, and then she disappeared three days after she gave birth. But yeah, biologically Jade’s not mine. Biologically. But that doesn’t mean shit. She’s mine in every other way.”
“So when you take a mate,” he said slowly, “you take everything that comes with him. Children and all.”
“So far Ollie’s been the only one to come with children, but yeah. Of course. Why?”
“No reason.” He smiled and slid his arm back under her hand until he could wrap his fingers around hers. “I like your mating habits.”
Bonnie grinned impishly. “I’ll say. I bet we woke up people on Long Island last night.”
He gave a playful snarl and raised her hands to his mouth, nipping her fingers. Sally slapped the hand she sat in, frowning every bit as ferociously as a female manticore. “Bad! No bite!”
“You tell him, baby,” Bonnie giggled. “You better watch it, kitten. I’ll sic my girls on you.”
“Oh, the horror.” He growled at the tiny toddler in his hand, and laughed as she growled back. It was a kitten’s growl she gave, as well given as a manticore cub. He felt a small surge of pride as she bent over and bit one of his fingers. This little runt wouldn’t be so easily killed. Given time, with a bit of growth, he felt she would soon be able to hold her own against her sisters.
“That’s not what you meant though, was it?” Bonnie asked, stroking the rim of his ear. “Why did you want to know about Jade?”
“Oh. No reason. Just thinking about something else.” He smiled at his mate who he shared with five others. Sometimes he wondered why this didn’t bother him. Then he thought about how easily she gave her affection. He never felt slighted or unfavored. And when she smiled at him so sweetly puckish, he felt he would share her with a hundred others so long as she would smile at him like that again.
“Okay, be like that.” She tugged on one black lock and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I love a man with secrets. So, what do you think it’ll look like?”
“Hmm? What?”
She gave him a softer smile than usual and stood up, picking up his hand and guiding it to her stomach. “This one. I’m really curious. Puck and manticore. Won’t he be cute as a bug? Or she. Although I’d really rather have a little boy. I hardly have any boys. Girls are cute, but there’s something so sweet and charming about a little boy. What about you?”
Sting just stared at her, stunned beyond speech. He remembered at Sally just in time to set her down carefully on the floor, then stood up, pressing his other hand to her stomach as well. Bonnie just kept smiling at him.
“You--it took?”
“Sweet Faerie, as many times as you tried last night? I should say so!” She pressed closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I can feel it nestled beneath my heart already. Feel the humming joy of a nice life. I love that feeling. You’re going to be a poppa, Sting sweetie! How does that feel?”
He stared down at his hands pressed between them, then into Bonnie’s face. He threw back his head and let out a joyous roar that made the octies shriek and scream around his feet. Sally laughed and tried her own roar, which made her sisters stop and stare at her. Bonnie just laughed at them all and hugged him tighter.
This strong, beautiful mate of his was going to give him a child. A mate that would never be easily beaten, if ever. Perhaps, Sting thought as he relaxed in her embrace, it was proof that gods will listen to even a manticore’s prayer.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-20 09:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 05:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-20 09:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 05:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-20 10:01 pm (UTC)Bonnie! Consort! <3<3<3!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 05:10 am (UTC)*squeals*
Date: 2003-04-20 10:36 pm (UTC)Conciousness is the only nightmare I'm subject to I'm afraid
PS. You never said if I could make those plushies...I don't feel like selling them or anything, maybe giving one to Firedreamer, but I'd feel better knowing I've got permission.
Ja Bai Bai!
Re: *squeals*
Date: 2003-04-21 05:12 am (UTC)Yeah, Sting gets a new cub. I bet he's gonna be a little handful too.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-20 10:51 pm (UTC)I also love the interaction with Sally, although I've got to say, this fic is making me feel terribly broody. I'm getting that aw-I-want-one-of--those feelings.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 05:14 am (UTC)See? Fics like this is how I work through those feelings. =D
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-20 11:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 05:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-20 11:49 pm (UTC)... *hugs* ^_^ Keep it coming. I, for one, can't wait.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 05:15 am (UTC)Hmm...
Date: 2003-04-21 11:49 am (UTC)Though being me, I always have a question.
Is Sting from Faerie, Or India? He's a magical creature, but you say he's from India. Are there magical creatures still around in Gaia from before the magic started to die, or something?
Re: Hmm...
Date: 2003-04-21 12:13 pm (UTC)And yeah, he's from India.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 11:58 am (UTC)I like Sting. and Bonnie calls him "kitten" ::snerk::
as always, look forward to what you write next :]
(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 12:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-04-21 06:06 pm (UTC)