Peach Crumb Bars

Chapter 33: Dragon Research

“How are dragon babies made?” Mirabel intentionally waited until Svend took a drink before she let that little bomb drop in her completely innocent tone. 

Svend, predictably, choked on his water and needed two full minutes to cough it out and clear his airway, all the while Mirabel looked on with concern, and not a small amount of mischief. 

 “Quite the same way human babies are made, I imagine.” Svend finally muttered as he tried to will his face to decrease to a less obtrusive shade of red. 

“Well, I know that, silly. I mean, they lay them as eggs, right? What about when the dragon turns into a human? Do they keep a dragon egg inside them? Does a dragon ever stay in human form and give birth to a human? How long do the eggs take to hatch? Does the mother incubate the eggs or the father? Or do they take turns? I’m in earnest, Svend, I want to know all the things.” Mirabel, her mischief managed, turned the conversation seriously to the thoughts that had been plaguing her mind ever since she decided it would be lovely to start a family with her, now beloved, husband. 

Svend, of course, had thought of none of these things because he possessed the blessed empty thoughts box that he could occupy at any hour of the day or night. He had also missed the majority of hints towards starting a family that Mirabel had been dropping with increasing steadiness since he saved her from Vlad. He was ecstatic that Mirabel wanted to take that step, he was just completely unprepared to hash out the nitty gritty details with her. 

“You know, dear, I’ve never had any children, dragon or human, so I cannot in good conscience call myself an expert on the matter. My mother has, obviously, had children. We could go visit her and ask her all these questions if you would like.” Svend thought this was a fabulous idea. He also thought it would be even more fabulous if he didn’t have to be there for that particular conversation with his wife and his mother. 

“Nope, I see what you’re doing. You’re not pawning this spawning conversation off on your mother. She is a lovely dragon but she has no idea what will happen if you and I try to have children because she wasn’t born a human. I don’t need her experiences, I need you to research. Have dragons had children with humans before? We are deep in uncharted waters and I would like to know as much as possible before we proceed.” Mirabel really did want to chat with Svend’s mother, but not by herself, and not about the making babies part, just about the having babies part. Her own mother, who had many children, was also someone with whom she was excited to converse, but she knew as soon as she said the word, ‘baby’ her mother would have a heart attack and jump straight to making cribs. 

Svend pondered their predicament anew. He didn’t know any dragons that had successfully fathered humans. He did, however, know several cautionary tales about dragons impregnating humans where the human formed a dragon egg inside of them that was completely unsuitable for their anatomy and the woman died trying to lay the egg. He was not entirely certain these were the tales that Mirabel would like to hear right now. He wasn’t sure there were any success stories. Dragons generally did not cavort with humans so they didn’t have a lot to go off. Finally, since Mirabel was now a dragon, something they had literally zero precedence for, their information would be even more limited. 

After many discussions together, they decided to gather as much information as they could about dragon babies and human babies and then just proceed with caution. This wasn’t something they could specifically prepare for so they would just try to cover all their bases. 

A few months later, Svend and Mirabel were happily enjoying regularly trying to make a baby, and despite their lack of progress, they were not terribly concerned. It had only been a few months after all. They had fallen into a new routine of baking, smithing, and making deliveries to their new dragon customers. Gregory was a frequent visitor in their house and life was easy and happy and most of all full of hope and potential. 

A few more months passed. Life was still easy and happy, but Mirabel was beginning to feel a little restless at the lack of progress they had made. Her mother had always been able to have baby after baby with apparent ease, never struggling or wondering. In fact, she had never known a woman who struggled for longer than a few months to have a baby. She was beginning to doubt their compatibility, despite her new ability to shift to a dragon, she was a human by birth. Maybe she and Svend would just be a family of two forever. 

A few more months passed. Mirabel had stopped tracking the days to see when she could be pregnant. She was throwing herself into her bakery, working long hours and even making deliveries to the nearby human villages. She used Gregory as her own dragon delivery service and was particularly pleased with the reputation she was building as a baker. Svend was confident their family would grow, dragons sometimes took years to lay a single egg. Svend could see, however, that Mirabel was losing hope and one day he just wanted to cheer her up a little bit. 

“I’m going to make us a treat,” Svend announced to a quietly pondering Mirabel one evening. 

“You are making us a treat??” Mirabel was shocked out of her musings by that turn of events. 

“You’ve taught me well darling, just you wait.” Svend patted her hands with a wink and started bustling around in the kitchen. “Where do we keep the sugar? Oh, never mind! Just relax, I found it!” Svend continued his prattle until Mirabel came and joined him in the kitchen. Content to watch her husband fiddle with the makings of a very delicious treat. This is the treat that he made.