Tell Me What the Rain Knows 🍆🪼

Three

King Xavier Fellmore was a man of many accomplishments. He fought in the war against the Dwarves and won back the coal mines. He made a peace treaty with the Centauri and now shared a large stock of land in their kingdom. He even had a seaweed contract with the merfolk that allowed the Culla safe passage on the sea. He had seen a lot of things, a lot of creatures, and a lot of unique things these creatures could do. But he had never in all his years seen what he was looking at right at that moment. The distended belly of his son that was quite clearly not just a little fat around the midsection. It was taut and had a strange pattern that seemed to press out from the inside.

He had seen in some other species where the men could carry the progeny of the species, but they usually had a beastly background that was carried on by the generations. He had never seen a pregnant human male.

Zubrick walked over to his older brother and bent at the waist, looking at the distended mound with a sneer.

"That's so gross..."

"Zubrick!" Xavier growled.

Diho moved his robe to cover his stomach and turned to the side. He glared at his younger brother as Xavier went over to his wife, patting her hand. He eventually got her to wake up and she sat up from the couch.

"I'm so sorry... I could have sworn I saw something quite taboo..." She looked over at Diho again and seeing his stomach, her hazel eyes widened but then they got sad. "Oh, my dear boy, what has become of you?"

Diho tied his robes back. "Nothing has 'become' of me. I'm just pregnant."

"You say that like every day there's a pregnant dude walking around." Zubrick said.

Diho shrugged and Xavier came around the couch.

"Who did this to you?" he asked, his gaze becoming dark. "Did someone force you to accept this? Is this why you were gone for so long?"

"No, I was gone because Atreyu suddenly left. Did you know that he's actually a dragonshifter?" he asked with a curious look to his parents.

Xavier and the queen looked at each other. "No, we didn't know..."

"I mean, neither did he. He was found at an orphanage and basically raised as a human with me, so he wouldn't have known. Apparently every few years the dragons send out a signal that only other dragonkind can hear and it basically brings them back to Heigabar. Since Atreyu had no idea he had dragon blood, he didn't know what was going on and so he just started following the signal."

"This is very concerning." Xavier said, pacing as he put his hand to his chin. "The guardian of the Crown Prince is actually a dragon?"

Diho frowned. "Why are you acting like this suddenly changed Atreyu as a person? He's still the same guy. He's still my most trusted companion."

Zubrick suddenly brightened and he gave a side glance to his brother. "Tell me this wasn't his doing, right?" Diho didn't say anything and Zubrick clapped his hands together. "Ha! I knew it!"

The queen looked at her son in horror. "Is this true, my son?"

"It... it wasn't like that..."

"So Atreyu did do this to you?" Xavier asked point blank.

Diho looked away. "Yes... This is because of Atreyu."

"That's not what I asked you. I'm asking you if Atreyu was the one who did this to you. I don't think I need to make myself any clearer for you to understand the implication." Diho hesitated for a moment but finally nodded. Xavier closed his eyes. "I see..."

"But it's not because I was forced to!" he yelled, trying to clear his friend's name. "I... I volunteered to help him."

"Help him ram you?" Zubrick said, confused.