Chapter 16 Badge of Honor

In the days that followed, a new and profound ritual took shape within the safety of the great stump. One by one, we came to Grub. It was a ceremony of soft touches, whispered encouragements, and absolute trust. Snag went first as he performed the gentle, intimate work. Grub's breath hitched, his hands clenching the moss beneath him, his eyes were squeezed shut in a look of pain. A single, soft egg was placed within its warm, sacred cradle.

Next was Grill. Then Fort. Then Muddy and Trog together, one steadying the other. I was last. Each time, Grub accepted the new, precious burden with a low grunt, a sheen of sweat on his brow, and a smile that trembled at the edges but never fell. It was a painful, stretching, exhausting process for him, his body was being asked to do something immense.

But his smile was real.

After the last egg was safely nestled within him, he lay back, panting softly, his body now the vessel for six fragile beginnings. We gathered around him, wiping his brow, bringing him water.

"Thank you for bringing new life to us, Grub," Muddy whispered.

Grub’s trembling smile widened. He placed a gentle hand low on his swollen abdomen.

"It is a good weight. A heavy, happy weight. I am Dada again. The pain is nothing. It is the feeling of life being made."

------------------

For the next seven days, Grub's world became the clutch. He moved with a slow care, a living incubator. We treated him with reverence, bringing him the best food, the softest moss to sit on. He would often talk to his belly in a low rumble, telling the eggs about the swamp, about the safe, quiet home that awaited them. The pain was a constant companion, but he wore it like a badge of honor.

While Grub bore the eggs within him, the rest of us prepared the world to receive them. In the deepest, warmest corner behind the root-screen, we built the hatchery.

It was a sacred midden. We used the broken, largest piece of the human pottery. A wide, shallow basin as the foundation. Into it, we layered the perfect fertilizer: our own rich, processed feces, carefully saved and mixed with dried, shredded swamp grass for structure, and softened with clay to hold moisture, blended it all into a uniform, warm, peaty mound. Finally, we watered it not with plain water, but with our urine, the ammonia and salts perfect for breaking down nutrients the eggs would need. The result was a softly steaming, pungent, life-giving hill inside the clay basin. It was the opposite of everything humans found clean, and to us, it was the sweetest smell of promise.

Grub’s time came on the seventh day. He had grown progressively heavier; his movements reduced to a waddle. A deep, rhythmic pressure had begun to build within him, an unstoppable tide.

“They are coming, eggs are coming,” he grunted, “They push… they want to see the nest.”

We guided him to the prepared spot beside the hatchery basin, a bed of the softest moss. He knelt, bracing his arms on the ground, his body trembling with effort.

What followed was not a gentle laying. The eggs, having grown plump and firm inside him, were now too large for their cradle. Grub’s body had to open, to release them.

He screamed.

It was a raw, guttural sound of immense strain, devoid of fear, full of primal effort. The first egg, slick and gleaming a healthy, leathery white, burst forth and dropped onto the soft moss with a soft thump. I was there in an instant, hands cupped, scooping it up with infinite tenderness and rushing it to the warm fertilizer mound, burying it halfway in the nurturing muck.

Another scream, another mighty heave. A second egg. Then a third. Each one was a tearing, ripping passage that left Grub shuddering and gasping, sweat pouring down his face in rivulets. But between each wave, he would gasp, “Good egg… good egg… strong push…” encouraging himself, encouraging them.

The fourth and fifth eggs came in a final, agonizing pair. As the last one slid free, Grub let out a long, shuddering moan of exhaustion. All his strength left him at once. His braced arms collapsed, and he fell forward, his face smashing into the ground, his legs splayed out behind him. He lay there, panting, spent, a river of sweat and shit pooled beneath him.

We didn’t pause. While Snag and Muddy gently turned Grub onto his back, Grill and I hurried the last two eggs to the hatchery, nestling them into their warm, stinking beds alongside their siblings.

Only when all six eggs were safely nestled in the fertile mound did we turn our full attention back to Grub. We carefully lifted his limp body and carried him to his soft moss bed a few feet away. He was already half-asleep, a profound, weary peace smoothing the lines of pain on his face. As we covered him with a light blanket of dried reeds, his lips moved.

“Gobby friends... Eggs... All… safe?” he slurred.

“All safe, Grub. You did it. Big and strong eggs. Promise of healthy gobbies with big ears.” I whispered, wiping his brow. 

A smile, faint but triumphant, touched his lips before he fell into the deepest sleep of his life.

----------------------

The next day we gathered around the hatchery basin, a circle of scarred, hopeful faces looking down at the six eggs in the rich, dark fertilizer. Grub was among us, moving with a slow, painful, and comical waddle. His backside was swollen and tender, forcing him to walk with his legs wide apart, his butt stuck out awkwardly behind him. Any other creature might have laughed at him. But we felt only a surge of pride. That funny, broken walk was the badge of his sacrifice. The eggs he had laid were large, with strong, thick shells, a sure sign of healthy hatchlings to come. 

We didn't just watch. We spoke.

Muddy began, his voice a soft murmur as he leaned close to the mound.

 "Hello, small ones. The world is wet and green here. It smells of life and old wood. You are safe. You are loved."

One by one, we took turns. Snag told them about the different types of mud, the sucking kind to avoid, the good packing kind for walls, the clay that holds heat. Grill spoke of the taste of sun-warmed berries and the sound of rain on a clay roof. Trog, stuttering with nervous affection, described the colors of dragonflies. I told them stories of Kaka, of patience, of roots that heal.

All goblin minds within the shells absorbed the sounds, the rhythms, the knowledge of our voices. We were giving them a head start, planting the seeds of language and love into their minds.

While some of us talked to the future, others tended to the present. Our foraging runs became swift and efficient. The need to provide for the coming hatchlings sharpened our focus. We dried more fish, stockpiled more tubers.

And Fort mastered scouting. During our time in the swamp, he had turned tree-climbing from a survival tactic into an art. He could scale the tallest, slimiest cypress as easily as walking, becoming a living part of the canopy. Now, with new life on the way, his watchfulness took on a new, sacred dimension. For hours each day, he would be a green speck in the high branches, his eyes sweeping the horizons, mapping the flows of water and wind, ensuring no threat, human or beast, crept towards our precious, talking mound. His vigilance was the silent shield over our whispered hopes.

The days passed in this gentle, urgent rhythm. Talk, gather, watch, tend. The swamp hummed around us, and within our stump, a quiet miracle was brewing in a bed of warm shit and love.

---------------

A week later, the rhythm of our days was shattered by a new sound.

It wasn't a loud sound. It was a dry, persistent click-click-scritch coming from the hatchery basin.

We froze, handful of mashed roots halfway to our mouths, ears swiveling as one. Our eyes met across the stump. Then, we were moving in a silent, scrambling rush.

We crowded around the clay basin, hands trembling as we carefully lifted the woven grass lid we used to retain heat. The warm, stinking smell of the fertilizer hit us, and there, nestled in the muck, was the miracle.

The eggs were moving. A network of hairline cracks, like a map of a new world, had appeared on each shell. As we watched, a tiny, claw-tipped fist, smeared with sticky albumen, punched through one shell. The crack widened, and a milky, confused eye peered out.

The first hatchling didn't seem to understand it was inside something. It began to flail wildly, turning itself in a circle within its own shell, bumping its head against the unbroken parts with soft bonks. It let out a muffled, frustrated squeak.

Another egg rocked violently. The hatchling inside was trying to stand up within the egg, pushing its head and shoulders against the top of the shell, lifting the entire egg off the fertilizer mound. It managed to balance for a second, a wobbling egg on tiny legs, before toppling over and rolling down the side of the mound, coming to a stop against the side of the basin with a dazed cheep.

The third seemed to think the way out was to eat its way through. We watched, horrified and mesmerized, as it began to lick the inside of its shell vigorously, its little sandpaper tongue rasping against the leathery surface. It paused, seeming to consider the taste, then went back to licking.

The fourth and fifth hatched in a tandem act of spectacular clumsiness. They must have been positioned back-to-back. They both pushed at the same time. Instead of breaking their own shells, they shoved against each other, causing both eggs to roll together and get stuck in a depression in the fertilizer. They were now a writhing, cheeping ball of stuck eggs, pushing each other deeper into the muck with every desperate wiggle.