Comfort Brigette and confront the chief

“We’ll get through this sister,” you tell her.

“Tell me. Tell me we will,” Brigette gasps and holds you tighter, almost painfully, but she needs this, and you hold her back.

“We will. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Oh sister. Don’t you understand? It’s you I’m worried about!”

Her love for you touches you like nothing else. You hold her tighter and closer than before. “I understand. I understand. But Brigette, I need you. I need you more than ever right now. Please. Lend me your strength.”

Brigette looks down to you, her long dark hair swaying over her like a veil, her fathomless eyes looking into yours. She nods in silent understanding and guides your lips to her breast. Wordlessly you take the rigid nipple between your teeth and gently squeeze. Brigette gasps and clutches you to her green breast. “Sister,” she moans as you tease the nipple, coaxing the thick milk from the duct, sucking it down like the sweet drink that it is.

You draw strength from her milk. When the chief returns some hours later you have the strength to sit up, attentive and aware, separating from your goddess’s teat. You sit before Brigette, who places a hand warily on your shoulder, supporting you with her presence.

You notice at once the thin line of the wug’s mouth. His eyes are fixed and hard. The metal he wears bound in his fin ring with the way his body trembles in restrained emotion.

“Is he dead?” you ask at once.

The chief stops at the door of the stall. He looks at you from afar but you recognize the shame in him, the silent tells you have begun to pick up since you took his seed within you. He crouches before you on his squat springy legs, his webbed fingers between his legs and before his loincloth.

“It is complicated She-who-speaks.”

Your hand tightens to a fist on the floor. “How?” you demand. “He tried to turn me into no more than a cow for milk and breeding. He tried to control Tokonga for himself! How can you let him leave unpunished!”

The chief reaches forward and lays his hand on your stomach. You grow momentarily quiet as you feel him stroke your egg stuffed abdomen, biting your lip to quiet a moan as he runs his webbed fingers across the taut flesh.

“I know She-who-speaks. But you must understand. It has been hard times. Few females to bear the young and feed us their milk. Many clutches did not survive the pools. Our enemies are many. Ships with soldiers, other tribes, and predators in the swamps. We are not so many anymore. We have need of medicine Wug. Without Kroak, many would sicken. None would look after Brooding ones when they grow ill. Clutches are few. More would die. We cannot sacrifice medicine wug now, when we need him most.”

You shudder with the realization of what this means. “So we are supposed to simply wait until he tries again? And he suffers nothing for this? For what he did?”

“I do not like it either She-who-speaks,” the chief admits. “But must think of tribe first. First above all. But...”

You look at him closely. “What?”

“If you swear yourself to me as mate,” the chief says, his large round eyes fixing on your face, “you are mine only, and so he would dare not touch you. Not even Medicine wug would dare. When young are born, you will be my breeder, and part of tribe. Our young will make tribe strong. And you can protect tribe with me against Kroak until new medicine one chosen.

“But,” he adds regretfully, “would understand if want to leave, after this. I ask you not before young are born, but will understand if you go now.”

Though still furious, you find yourself oddly sympathizing with the wug. He has a tribe, it is true, and to lose their spiritual link as well as healer would surely damage the community. The weight of responsibility he bears on those strong reptilian shoulders for a moment silences you. You press your hand to your brow and lean over your stomach, running your hand over the young that even now, germinate inside you. Wugs to be born to this tribe and its uncertain future. Would it be right to bear them into a community that would only die? To take them away and birth them in some squalid pool of the swamp? Or worse, only live because they must suffer the machinations of the sick medicine wug?

You shudder, torn, but feel Brigette’s touch on your arm. You look back at her worried face and your worries ease. The answer is simple. You must do what is best for Brigette.