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Her.
She’s a girl. She’s a perfect baby girl with big blue eyes and curling dark hair and fur covering her back and arms and claws on all her perfect little fingers and toes. She is covered in amniotic goo and the blood of my pain, and she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I feel a rush of love and connection flowing through every part of my body. She came from me. She is me. But she is also Volt, and more than that, she is herself. Someone entirely unique, a precious little consciousness brought out from the void into the light.
“Baby!”
“Pup,” Volt says at precisely the same time. She is active and she is bright, though understandably disoriented. She nuzzles me, her mouth searching for a source of nourishment. I hold her to my breast, acting out of instinct. This all feels completely natural.
I look over at him. He is looking at her with an expression that tells me one thing. The ship just got a new captain, and she weighs about three pounds.
“Blehehehe!” Bilbo greets the newest member of his herd with happy glee.
“Rest awhile,” Volt says. “Then, when you have strength, we will show the others.”
I can hear impatient snuffling coming from outside. I am sure they can smell the new arrival. I am mere minutes post-partum and frankly I have no desire to go anywhere right now. I just want to hold my daughter and drink in her beauty. But the snorting at the door is already becoming quite intense and I know there are those who wish to make her acquaintance and will not be long denied.
“Let them see, at least,” I say, taking pity on them.
“You’re sure?”
“Definitely.”
Volt opens the door. Sunlight streams in. A dozen wild, shaggy heads poke around the frame, looking from a respectful distance. They open their mouths in wide, toothy grins to draw the scent of the baby in, then throw their heads back and howl. It is a sound of pure celebration and joy, a primal cry hearkening from here into eternity.
Baby joins in, not with a cry like a human child might, but with an awooooooooo, thin and small but with so much potential power. I feel tears coming to my eyes as Volt joins in, his voice and his howl joining with the cries of the wild.
We are family. And we are home.
The End
