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1.
"Your previous mount was pregnant?"
Claude sighed and nodded, the large egg (wrapped in a blanket placed in a cat bed) heavy in his arms.
"And I wondered why she was acting so fussy all of a sudden," he said. "I thought the stables did a better job keeping the males under control, but apparently not!"
In front of him, Lysithea tapped her feet, eyebrows scrunched together in a frown.
"...Why ask me to take care of it?" she asked. "I'd think Marianne or Cyril are better suited for these kinds of things. And why now, when it hasn't even hatched yet?"
"The hatchlings are almost fully formed by the time the egg is laid— having them get used to human voices before they hatch makes them follow orders better," Claude explained. "Marianne's already in charge of the horses, Cyril's got his hand full with every other chore around the monastery."
A nod. He thought she must've accepted that explanation, but then,
"...Why don't you take care of it yourself?"
Claude turned his head around to cough away from the egg.
"I will," he said. "But... it's probably best to not keep it in my room, you know? Not a very hatchling-safe environment."
Lysithea looked at him with a mix of pity and belittlement.
"I see you still haven't learned how to organize. I fear for Fódlan's future."
"Hey, my room's organized, just not in the way most people think," he protested.
"Sure it is," Lysithea replied.
"It's alternatively organized."
"Sure."
A look down at the egg, then at Lysithea.
"...If you let me keep it here, I'll get you caramel from the marketplace every weekend," he said.
Lysithea puffed her cheeks, looking indignant, and stepped aside on the doorway to let him in.
"I never said I wasn't going to," she said, as Claude looked for a good place to put the cat bed. "I don't need bribes, thank you very much!"
He settled on the nightstand, stepped back, and grinned at Lysithea.
"But it did help, right?"
A glare.
Claude figured that was a yes.
2.
Turn over twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening. Keep warm, but not too warm. Talk to regularly. Shower with love. Wait patiently for a month, until hatching.
Those were the instructions Claude remembered from his father on how to hatch a wyvern, as well as the ones he passed onto Lysithea. She'd rolled her eyes at the "shower with love" part, but nonetheless, she let him stop by at her room before breakfast and after dinner so he could do just that.
And one evening—
"...the Camilla, eldest princess of Nohr, swept in atop her dark mount to— Claude?!"
Lysithea, sitting at the edge of her bed, scrambled to hide the picture book she had in her hand behind a pillow, to no avail; Claude walked in and plopped down on the mattress right next to her.
"Don't mind me," he said. "Keep reading. Like I said before, it's good to get the wyvern used to human voice early on."
"What's it going to do by getting used to my voice," Lysithea said, as though she wasn't just reading it a storybook. "It's not like I'll be riding it."
"Why not?" Claude asked. "They're great mounts. Smart and loyal and, well, they fly."
"So do pegasi. And unlike wyverns, their flight is stable enough to cast spells from."
"But wyverns are cooler and don't discriminate against us guys," Claude countered, definitely not biased. "They're tougher, too. The flying's not that bad once you get used to it, and they can pull off way more maneuvers than pegasi can. As for casting spells..."
He glanced aside.
"...I bet you can pull it off."
Lysithea scoffed, but a few days later, Claude saw her asking Teach to be included in flight training— not with pegasi, but with wyverns.
3.
Over that next month, the amount of wyvernry-related books on Lysithea's library checkout list grew. Claude couldn't not tease her about it, but really, he was grateful; he'd hatched wyverns before, so he knew how it all went, but something about having another person help made the process feel— more special, for a lack of better words.
"Claude! It's moving!"
Lysithea's eyes were fixed on the blanket-filled cat (wyvern?) bed, now placed atop her own mattress. The egg rocked back and forth a few times, then a crack appeared on the surface.
They both held their breath as the hatchling inside struggled its very first struggle in life.
A small hand gripped Claude's own as the tiny snout poked through the crack.
"Come on," she whispered. "You can do it."
Half an hour later, a small pitch-black hatchling looked up at the two of them with sleepy purple eyes. It opened its mouth and let out a small "eep" sound, showing its tiny pink tongue and teeth.
"Hello," Claude said, softly. "Are you hungry?"
The hatchling took a breath, then let out a louder,
"Yah! Rah!"
"She's hungry," he said, lifting the creature out of the cat bed with a blanket wrapped around. "Let's feed her."
Lysithea grabbed the bowl of minced meat on the nightstand.
"It's a girl?"
Claude pushed the blanket aside for just a moment.
"Yep," he confirmed. "What should we name her?"
"You ask me that when you're the one who brought her over," Lysithea replied, carefully placing a small spoonful of meat into the wyvern's mouth.
"You let me keep her here until she hatched," he shrugged. "C'mon, I'm giving you the honors here."
Brief silence, as they watched the little wyvern nibble and swallow.
"Camilla," Lysithea said. "Her name's Camilla."
"Like the princess from the picture book," Claude teased.
Lysithea huffed and lightly jabbed him. Claude chuckled.
"It's a good name," he said. "I like it."
4.
Camilla went into the stable when she was a month old, as hatchlings usually did. Lysithea fretted and fussed as they dropped her off, making sure to wrap the hatchling in her favorite blanket and petting her head plenty, whispering that she'd be alright like they weren't going to see each other for years instead of a night.
Admittedly, Claude also prepared a sack full of tender jerky and snuck it in alongside her toys, because he was afraid little Camilla might be too delicate for the standard wyvern feed.
That worry turned out to be unneeded, however, because—
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
"Yaaaaah!!"
"Claude! Claude!!!"
Claude stumbled out of the bed and answered the door. Cyril stood, holding up a small screaming wyvern.
"Your wyvern, won't stop cryin'," he said, with all the exhaustion of a guy who was in charge of the entire wyvern stable and then some. "She woke up all the other wyverns, then they started screamin', too, and that woke the horses up, and now the whole stable's a mess."
"Yeah, I uh, sorry," Claude said, for a lack of better words, taking Camilla into his arms. "Guess we should've waited to put her in, huh. You guys need help down there?"
Cyril grimaced, but shook his head.
"Seteth and Marianne are takin' care of it," he said. "You... just focus on calming your hatchling down, will ya."
"Yes, sir, will do, sir," Claude saluted, then closed the door.
In the next hour, after lots of rocking and petting and feeding treats, Camilla calmed down enough that she wasn't outright screaming anymore— but she was still clearly in a bad mood, whining and biting at his arm with her little maw.
After some contemplation, Claude made his way downstairs and knocked on Lysithea's door.
"Claude...? And... Camilla...?"
After a hushing motion, he closed the door behind him.
"She misses us," he said. "I think we might need to let her sleep in our bed for a few more months."
Lysithea's sigh turned into a yawn.
"We're definitely spoiling her," she muttered, voice tinged with sleep, "but, fine... I suppose we can do that."
She lifted the sheets to climb into bed, patting the spot next to her.
The three of them snuggled themselves to sleep that night, and plenty more nights afterwards.
5.
"Now, now, Camilla, you know you're not a hatchling anymore, right?"
The dark wyvern licked her rider's face before turning to Claude and letting out an "eep," as if to say, "that won't stop me!"
"As if it isn't your fault she's like this," Lysithea said, scratching Camilla's chin before wiping her face off.
"Hey, we both raised her," Claude said, petting his own wyvern's head. "You also hold some responsibility."
Lysithea glanced over at the pale wyvern, butting her snout into her rider's face.
"I didn't raise Leila and she's still like that, so... it's definitely you," she said. "Or at least, your method of hatching and raising them, since all I did was copy it."
"The storybook part's all you."
"Oh, be quiet."
Claude laughed and knelt down, looking over the new batch of eggs in the large nest. Lysithea followed, reaching out to pet one.
"Maybe we should have the kids hatch these," he said. "Then we'll really see if raising spoiled wyverns runs in the family, hm?"
The two mounts curled up on the barn floor next to their riders, as cozy as could be; Lysithea leaned her head against Claude's shoulder, smiling.
"You know what they say— like father, like hatchling."
Happy noises filled the air, some human and some wyvern and all family.