“Yeah, yeah, rub it in.” He grinned.
Quirion grabbed his shoulders and held him away from his body to look into his eyes. “I’m not rubbing it in. I’m well aware how personal growth and insights have their own pace. I’ve read enough psychological books and essays to know this is something that can’t be forced. I’m genuinely happy you made the step and are now free of the shackles of your past.”
“You really are the best. I don’t know how I deserve you.” Milo’s heart overflowed with love for his grumpy, scholarly demon.
“Well, the same way I deserve you and before you ask, I don’t know either.” Quirion winked before he lowered his head to kiss Milo.
“Then let’s be clueless together,” Milo panted after the kiss ended. “Even if being clueless goes against our very nature. I also got the invitation for the soiree today. They’re asking me if I’m bringing a plus one.”
Quirion grinned, showing all his teeth. “I guess we have to go tux shopping for you.”
“Just for me?”
“Just for you. I know exactly what I’m going to wear.” The evil gleam in Quirion’s eyes made Milo wonder if the SBW could take away his funding before they had paid a single cent. “Oh, and we need to go home. I think Mildred’s babies are hatching.”
The words jolted Milo out of his worries like a bucket of cold water over his head. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”
“Because, strange as it sounds, there were more important things to talk about first.”
“The babies are coming, Qui. I think that takes priority.”
“We can discuss our differing list of what’s important later. Now we have to go.”
“So, all of a sudden we’re in a hurry.” Milo winked.
“Yes. Don’t you want to see all those little tadpoles?”
“I want.”
“Then let’s go.”
Quirion sliced time and space.
* * * *
“There’s so many of them.” Milo sounded absolutely awed.
Quirion was awed as well, and a tiny bit worried. There were indeed very many tadpoles, so many that the water in the moat seemed to solidify. And they had no idea how many more were to come. Mildred had dug the moat deep enough for herto completely vanish, which was not a promising sign. Quirion tried to recall if she had, at any point during the mating with that no-good male toad who’d come out of nowhere, dove under water to lay part of her eggs farther down, but all he could remember was the kiss that had brought him his mate. Toads on Earth laid their eggs in shallow water so perhaps there was hope—
“I think there are too many, Qui.” The worry in Milo’s voice was a perfect mirror to his own feelings.
Mildred seemed to have come to the same conclusion because she awkwardly swam and hopped around the teeming mass of her offspring to where the moat was closest to the ocean and started digging again. They watched her for a few moments.
“She’s never going to make it in time.” Milo was choked up. There were now so many tadpoles, some of them were already pressed against the steep walls of the moat, their bodies only partly immersed in water. “We need to help her.”
“And we need help to do it. Get Sammy. I’ll try to come up with a viable plan.” Quirion pressed a kiss to Milo’s forehead. His gorgeous mate nodded. Quirion opened a rift through which Milo ran at full speed.
Quirion still wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed when, only a few minutes later, Dre, Sammy and Jon came back with Milo. His brother clapped him on the back.
“Hi, Quirion. Barion is getting the others. We thought it would be better to come immediately.”
Quirion nodded. “Good thinking, brother.” He gestured to the moat and the tadpoles. Some of them were now out of the water, writhing like crazy, clearly fighting for their lives.
“Oh no, we must help them!” Sammy stared in horror at the scene. “Is there a way to get more water in there?”
Quirion had already thought about it and wasn’t sure if this was the right idea. “The ocean is right there. We can use hosesto pump water into the moat, but I don’t know if that’s the best thing to do. We don’t know if all of the eggs have hatched, and the ocean water is different from the water in the moat. I know, because I have made tests. It’s a bit like on Earth with saltwater and freshwater, just with different components.”
“Oooh, really? You have to tell me everything about it!” For a moment, Sammy got that gleam in his eyes before he focused back on the problem at hand. “After we’ve saved all those poor babies. I think we need to risk the ocean water, unless you have another huge source of moat water somewhere? And Mildred is digging toward the ocean. Shouldn’t she know what’s best for her babies? Also, can we help her?”
