A few moments later (which felt significantly longer than that), all of the pressure releases, and you feel your mind being your own again. You look to the second Frostwyrm for its expression, to see if it’s satisfied with what it found – to see that its head has reared back, with all four of its ruby-red eyes peeled wide. Its nostrils flare as it goes from you to [fw.name][fw.andNykke| to Nykke] and then back to you.
<i>That was your clutch?</i> it asks, as if it had not seen for itself through your own memories. Still, you confirm. <i>And that was your nest? Large enough to hold such a clutch?</i> Again, you confirm – and, in fact, it could hold much, much more.
The second Frostwyrm’s voice in your head goes silent. Its body remains tense, each of its muscles wound up as it considers what it had just seen and what you had just told it.
You turn to [fw.name] and ask her what a typical clutch is for a Qim and a Qal. You don’t really have a basis for how large it ‘ought’ to be.
<i>Two,</i> she answers. <i>Three is uncommon.</i>
… Your clutch is significantly larger than that.
<i>Indeed it is.</i>[fw.andNykke|
“For reference, I was an only child,” Nykke adds.]
Why don’t, or, didn’t, Frostwyrms have larger clutches? You’d have gathered that, with how much she enjoys mating, larger Frostwyrm families would have been much more common.
<i>There are a multitude of reasons. Anything from food insecurity, to nests not being large enough to sustain more, to the nest being in a precarious location, susceptible to attacks from lesser creatures hoping to poach the kips as they incubate. The location of my nest – in the ocean, away from poachers, in a hollow island, and surrounded by limitless fish to eat – nullifies all concerns.</i> She lowers her snout to you, her throat trilling as she affectionately nuzzles against you. <i>And if I am particularly libidinous, it is because <b>you</b> make me so, my Qal. My kind do not typically mate for the pleasure of it, and yet, with you… the moments I find I am truly satiated are few and far between.</i>
The second Frostwyrm continues to sit there and stare at you, gobsmacked at everything it’s seen and everything it’s hearing. And, as you recollect on what [fw.name] just said, even from a non-Frostwyrm standpoint, she’s making your arrangement sound awfully attractive: food security; a massive nest; no poachers trying to snatch her eggs; and, apparently, all the mind-numbing sex a gigantic, twenty-foot-tall forty-foot-long dragon could ask for.