The market hummed with life, filled with the clamor of trades, the scent of dried hides and meat smoke drifting beneath sun-warmed canopy bones. Shadows shifted overhead—massive flags stitched from skin, creaking in the breeze like the wings of sleeping beasts.

Among the crowd, she moved quietly. Her steps were slow, purposeful. The weight of her belly—not cumbersome, but *sacred—was met with bowed heads, respectful glances. Even hardened female warriors softened their gazes as she passed. Some knelt. Some murmured blessings in guttural Old Tongue.

Her hand rested over the curve of her stomach, feeling the slight stir of motion beneath. They were awake.

The twin heartbeats pulsed with warm pressure—soft, but always there. Their presence had become a song in her bones, one the clan listened to with reverence. Even the elder matriarchs, who once scoffed at the idea of a human mate, now treated her as a living relic of fortune.

She wandered beneath towering tusk arches, past traders peddling thick-furred pelts, incubator stones, delicate bone rattles. *Everything smelled of purpose. Of instinct. Of nesting.

A familiar scent tugged at her—burned bloodroot, oils of iron and old ash.

He was near.

She turned a corner.

And there he stood.

*The Grendel King.

He was hunched slightly—massive shoulders folded inward with delicate precision as he inspected a thermal cradle carved from volcanic bone. His black armor shimmered faintly in the sun, edges softened by the weight of fur and fabric bundles piled around his feet.

Two young merchants nervously presented him with options: heating wraps, scaled hammock-slings, shadowed sleep-husks shaped like fanged beasts. He considered each with far more seriousness than he had when planning entire wars.

She watched, quietly.

He was murmuring now, low clicks in his throat, imagining each item with the twins in mind. He touched one wrap and paused. Lifted it. Stared at the seam where fine woven cloth met hardened tusk. His hand, massive and battle-worn, trembled for a moment before he growled approvingly.

He paid too much. He always did.

And he gathered it with the rest.

Not because they needed more—but because *he did.

She stepped forward, slowly. Her presence didn't need announcement. He felt her before he saw her, like he always did. His head turned. His mandibles lifted slightly, breath catching for just a beat.

> “There you are,” he said, voice low, reverent.

He moved to her quickly—still graceful for something so vast—and placed his hand, clawed and massive, on the swell of her stomach. The weight of it was grounding. Comforting. Sacred. His other hand held one of the heat-humming cradles he'd chosen, talons brushing the fine fur-lined edge.

She said nothing.

She didn't need to.

Her eyes lifted, quietly questioning—*why so many?

His mandibles clicked together in a breathless rumble. He bowed slightly, touching his forehead to hers in a rare display of affection, utterly ignoring the market goers who stared.

> “I was a weapon for so long,” he whispered. “But now I build nests.”

And that was all.