Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Unintentional Suggestion

Krill didn't like the idea of not knowing what was to come, but she was by no means negligent. She was taking care of herself to the best degree she knew how, following all the studies on the subject, and the diet which he himself had recommended. She was more than willing to take the supplements, as long as they were native to anin – which was fine either way because they were the best for Drev. Hijan was her primary instructor during these times, giving her all the known advice that she could about sustaining a healthy pregnancy and berthing a healthy child.

Krill had secretly looked into the Drev practices and found them to be sound advice.

The only thing Sunny would not submit to was exams, ultrasounds, and she adamantly refused that she would not give birth with the help of a physician. He had been given permission to be close by, but she would do so in private, as her people tended to do.

And this was true enough, Krill had never delivered a Drev infant.

He had examined them plenty, even minutes after they were born, but he had never witnessed a birth, a fact the had in common with the males of the species. He didn't know a Drev male alive who had ever been witness to such things either.

The only thing he had managed to convince her into, was letting him sample a small amount of DNA from the child in order to create a species profile. A Drev male is always required to nurse the baby after it is born, but Sunny had no Drev Male, and even if Adam was here there was certainly nothing he could do about the subject.

I this case her offspring was going to have to be fed on formula.

Drev Milk and human milk, while serving the same purpose, was not all that similar chemically. In fact they diverged quite dramatically, It would be important to know what percentage the child was human and what percentage it was Drev, in order to know what sort of chemical concoction he was going to have to make. Sunny did not wish to hear the results of his singular test, and he did not offer them to her.

The child was a 70/30 split human Drev hybrid, more human than it was human. He was not sure what that would mean, but it seemed that human formula would be a good base to start with. Adding some extra vitamins and compounds that would be found in Drev milk was not dangerous or inadvisable.

"My shift is over." He announced to the two of them, "I will be heading home."

Katie gave him a wave and Sunny gave him a nod as he passed out the doors. Once upon a time krill had rarely taken breaks from his work, spending most if not all his time working himself to the bone, like he thought was his life's purpose. For the longest time he assumed he was part of a hive society wherein all pieces worked together to keep society running.

It turned out that was not the case.

Vrul were designed to be highly individualistic, and actually received many benefits from personal pursuits.

Krill was doing his best to cultivate such interests. Through sheer force of will he had developed a liking for and an ability to withstand certain types of human music, primarily relegated to those types of music that did not have an overly noticeable drumline. Instead he busied himself with the classical music pursuits, and was even trying his hand at a little composing, though he kept that fact to himself. He would not show anyone until he was quite sure that it wasn't horrible. Aside from that he was cultivating a new interest in landscape photography, and, though he would never admit it, Competitive online gaming of the PVP variety.

One might ask if it should be considered cheating to play with two controllers each set of arms separately controlled by two of his four cortical hemispheres, but Krill saw it more as a natural genetic advantage.