Chapter 337: The Offer

The young at the corner rocked again.

Ren watched water enter beside the cracked cover stone and push across the sheltered bed. The broodshell moved the loose cover back into place, but the next surge shifted it again.

He checked his slate. There was still some time to work before they had to leave. The descent beside the channel, the exposed shoulder, and the road back all had to fit within the allowance he and Vesper had set.

"I can turn that current aside from outside," he told Eira. "Leave its stone where it is."

"Where would you put the barrier?"

He pointed to the outer shallows, upstream of the gap and clear of the rooted margin.

"There. Low, at an angle. Water can still pass around both ends."

Eira studied the flow before looking back at the cracked stone. "And nothing moves under that?"

"Only the bed outside the roots. Watch the edge while I do it."

— • —

Ren knelt on the bare rock beside the outer shallows. The broodshell stayed over the brood, facing him, with its fringe resting against the bed.

He put his palm into the water and against the stone.

With Earth Law, he raised a short ridge outside the rooted margin. He worked slowly along the section he had chosen, keeping the movement away from the nest’s foundation. After the first small rise, he stopped to watch the gap.

The current still reached the corner. He added a little height, and water began following the angled face toward the far end of the pool.

"The cover hasn’t moved," Eira said.

Ren raised the ridge slightly farther. The young rocked once under a weaker push, then lay still against the bed. Water continued past the screen, with a gentler movement behind it.

He held his palm in place while he checked both ends. The upper shallows still fed the pool. At the lower end, water flowed out toward the channel. The cracked stone remained tilted, and the strap beneath it hadn’t shifted.

The broodshell’s fringe lifted along one side and settled again. It stayed over the young.

Ren released the working and took his hand off the rock. The ridge held its shape. He waited through several more pushes of water; none reached the corner strongly enough to move the young.

"Check the outlet?" he asked Eira.

She went along the outer rock, staying clear of the nest, and dipped her hand where water left the pool.

"Still flowing. Still warm." She watched the surface beside the ridge. "The level isn’t rising."

Ren looked back at the sheltered corner. The loose cover lay where the broodshell had last put it. The adult no longer had to keep shifting it back.

— • —

He sat back on his heels and flexed his wet hand.

At home, the craftsperson’s short stone barrier had turned Loom’s current past the strip intended for a nest. Ren had tested the water on both sides before leaving: quiet behind the blocks, still moving through the princess’s pocket.

"It was quiet behind the stones when you left, Ren."

Kaia’s voice was private. He remembered holding his fingers beneath that sheltered water while Eira wrote beside the marks on his sketch. They had prepared a place to examine against the creature’s needs. Until today, they hadn’t seen a broodshell or its nest for themselves.

He stood and returned to the recess where the opened substrate container waited.

The adult turned toward him. Ren stopped with room between himself and the shallows leading to the nest.

"I have a place you could live," he said. He indicated the container, then himself. "That ground came from it. There’s warm water behind a stone barrier, like the shelter I’ve made here. We’ve planted the bank beside it."

He gestured toward the new ridge, then the brood.

"We’d have to make room for all of you and check what else you need."

The fringe stirred. He waited, but the broodshell remained in place.

"There’s someone there whose core is still incomplete. She has support, but she needs a nurturer. That’s why I came looking for you."

He spoke plainly and watched for a response. He couldn’t tell how much the words conveyed beyond the ground he had shown it and the work he had done.

"You could live there without a bond. I’ll help keep your young with you whether or not you can help her."

Eira waited behind him. The brood lay beneath the cover, undisturbed by the weaker current.

"We can’t cross from here," Ren added. He pointed back along their approach. "There’s a gate down the road. We have to arrange for it to open. You couldn’t use it whenever you wanted."

He lowered his hand. The broodshell had investigated the sample once, but had gone back when its young needed it. He left the way to the container clear again.

— • —

"What would it need to leave the nest?" he asked Eira.

She looked from the quiet corner to the adult.

"It went back as soon as the cover shifted. When you approached the stone, it blocked you. It let you work out here while it stayed over the young."

"Cover first?"

"Cover, and water calm enough that they stay beneath it. It’s willing to move away briefly when they’re sheltered." She indicated the young at the corner. "We would have to keep that one from being rolled around for the whole journey."

Ren looked down the slope beyond the pool. The cut path had narrow places and missing sections. Even a vessel large enough for the brood would have to pass those without tipping or sending water across the young.

"So a carrier that keeps the water and cover steady," he said. "With all of them inside."

"That’s a starting point. We still don’t know what they’d tolerate. Warmth, depth, movement—we’d need to check them before lifting anything."

Ren nodded. "Then the inspection at the landing, before the office opens the gate. We’d have to arrange the time so they aren’t left waiting there."

"And work out how to get them down this path."

He glanced toward the broken cover stone. The screen had eased the immediate problem, but it hadn’t shown him how to move a nest.

— • —

"Ren. Time to start down."

Vesper stood at her watch position with Mistwhisker against her chest, its dressed paw clear. She had checked her slate and was already looking back toward their approach.

Ren nodded. Leaving now would preserve the extra time they had allowed for the damaged path.

"Then they come with it, or none of them come," he told Eira. "If we can carry the young safely, we take them together. We don’t remove the adult and leave the brood here."

Eira picked up her kit. Ren straightened, preparing to collect the sample container.

The broodshell moved before he stepped toward it.

It shifted to the edge of the brood, leaving the remaining young beneath the cover. This time the loose piece stayed in place. The adult lowered its fringe around one of the small shapes and moved forward. The young moved with it, tucked beneath the rim and still submerged.

Ren stayed where he was.

The broodshell crossed the shallows to the recess. It stopped below the container, where the water was deep enough to cover the young beneath it. It made no attempt to climb onto the rock or follow him toward the path.

Eira watched the small shape settle against the bed. Behind the adult, the rest of the brood remained sheltered in the nest.

Beside the container, the broodshell settled over the young it had brought, keeping it beneath the water.