[Jaykobell]

The desire to snuggle against them, to hug them and love them just one last time was uncontrollable. Yet again, Agrona had to stop herself from making such a decision, for fear that the babies would wake up from her touch. She simply towered over her grown clutch, all three babies sleeping soundly and peacefully, unaware of what was happening. You have to understand, Agrona cried to them, even if the voice was only resonating into her own mind. You have to understand why I'm doing this. You have to understand. When you grow up, you have to understand why I did this, the mother kept insisting, squeezing her eyes shut and turning her head away to avoid letting her tears fall onto the sleeping babies.

Agrona gave a heavy sigh as she turned back, giving one last look to her babies before finalizing her decision to abandon them here, away from their father, away from their home, and away from their mother. I love all of you, Agrona continued to say, even if the words couldn't echo past her own mind despite her efforts. I have no other choice. This is the only thing I can do for you to stay safe.

With the deed done, the Voidbringer forced and convinced her mind to stop, and to give way for the second part of the plan. With the silence of a trained and skilled hunter, Agrona turned tail, running away from the small hatchlings. She sometimes looked over her shoulder, afraid they had woken up, or afraid that something had snatched them up for a quick snack; but despite her paranoid thoughts, the babies were always asleep and calm, and the atmosphere still gave off no threatening presence. They would be safe here. The female Paragon not too far off would help them; at least, Agrona could only hope. This was why Agrona's decision was perfect in every way, yet completely flawed and irrational. Still, the Voidbringer could only wish and pray for fate to be on her side, and to understand why she'd made such a choice and taken such a chance.

As she exited the small forest, the white Paragon spread her wings right away and pushed herself up, lifting up into flight quickly to start the journey back home. Throughout the whole journey back, Agrona let out heart-wrenching cries, but despite her unimaginable pain, the cries were silent. The Voidbringer simply kept her mouth opened the whole way, with only a few meaningless noises forcing their way out now and again. She had to empty most of the heartbreaking feelings out of her system during this journey, or else she would spill the beans. The Voidbringer had to stay focused, and to remember why she'd taken such a decision. No one in the Hive could know about what she'd done: no one. It had to be her secret and hers alone, and she had readied herself to be one carrying this solitary burden.

[Jaykobell]

She'd almost spent her entire night up and standing. Her delirious state of mind and exhaustion helped with the act.

"What do you mean, the hatchlings are missing?!" Palmer hissed angrily, Agrona standing in front of him with a pitiful expression, which mixed in both anger and heartbreak. "Where did they go, then? You're the one who watches over them!"

Once she'd returned to the Hive, Agrona immediately started the game. She landed close to her den in a panic, crying out that her hatchlings had gone missing. She was so genuinely sick, exhausted, and heartbroken that her painful and overwhelming display of emotions was beyond believable. In a panic, the Voidbringer kept crying out that she couldn't find her babies, and that they were seemingly nowhere to be found.

Needless to say, her cries had been so loud and panic-stricken that a few noteworthy Paragon had woken up, including Teofila and the father himself. Palmer, upon hearing the news, reacted angrily instead of being devastated emotionally.

"I was asleep!" Agrona cried out at his accusations, her four swollen eyes glaring at him through their tears. "Th-they sometimes wander off on their own! Th-they could've been snatched by a Serraptor or another dinosaur!" the mother cried out in a panic, giving off strong and painful gasps and pants, something akin to a panic attack. Of course, the Serraptor example hadn't been used only as a coincidence or because that had been the first thing to come to mind. "Y-you're the one who taught them how to hunt! I-I bet th-they wanted to do it on their own, and now they've wandered off b-beyond the forest barrier!"

Snarling and giving the mother an accusing look, Palmer eventually stepped back as Teofila stood up to protect and support her younger sister. "It's nobody's fault, Palmer!" the aunt cried out indignantly, showing her teeth to the Nago: something very surprising for the older Voidbringer to do, but the situation called for control and desperate measures. "It might not be too late to search for them on a bigger radius! If you want to try to find them, you should go out and search for them!"

Huffing smoke from his nostrils, and with his teeth still bare, Palmer quietly dropped the subject in order to apply Teofila's advice. Spreading his wings, the father dashed away and went off into the forest in order for search for the last babies.

[Jaykobell]

Once Palmer was out of the picture, Teofila focused all her attention and energy on comforting her sister. The younger Voidbringer was still hiccuping and gasping painfully from the sobbing, and Teofila found it difficult to avoid crying herself. "Agrona, I'm so sorry," she apologized quietly as she grabbed her sister by the shoulders. "Don't worry, it'll be all right. We'll find them, the Hive is looking for them. It's going to be all right, Agrona."

"I-it's too late," Agrona went on to say, taking loud breaths between her words and sentences. "Th-they're so diligent, I-I'm sure a predator got them," the Voidbringer insisted, her voice so high-pitched that it was almost painful to listen to and to speak.

Agrona knew they would never find them. The only comfort she could give herself was the fact that they were still alive, far, far away into that little peaceful forest. None of Agrona's emotions were fake or forced; the Voidbringer had never hated or refused to give her accident hatchlings a chance. From the very beginning, she'd loved all three of them unconditionally; she had cherished them, loved them, fed them, protected them, taught them. That was why the decision hurt her more than anyone else in the entire clan: she was the only one who was truly suffering from the loss, and she had no one else to blame for this unbearable pain but herself.

"Don't think like that," Teofila continued, unaware of the real story, and unaware of what Agrona actually knew about the situation. "I'm sure they'll find them around here somewhere. Just give them time."

The two sisters stayed together for a long time, up until Agrona complained that she was too tired and worked up to do anything. Lasting through an all-nighter also had the Voidbringer begging for sleep, and Teofila helped her sister reach her den. She helped Agrona fall asleep by staying by her bedside until the heartbroken mother had gone to sleep.

Of course, as time went on, the search parties stopped looking. A big part of the Hive had been monopolized in order to get in teams and to search for the missing hatchlings. From the beginning, Agrona had known no Paragon would be able to find them; she'd flown too far away for anyone to find them. Eventually, the story was left without a conclusion. The consensus was that the hatchlings had wandered out of their mother's den while she was asleep, for a reason unknown. Because of that, the babies were probably snatched away by a wild Paragon, or they had been killed and eaten by predators. Ultimately, the story confirmed that the hatchlings had gone not only missing, but had ended up dying in the process.

The event left Agrona living with the burden of her decision for years. The only positive thing from the whole story was that Palmer had finally stopped paying attention to her. She was now officially on his black list, and the Nago even refused to make eye-contact with her. The Voidbringer was fine with it; the less she would have to tolerate his face, the better.

Beyond that, the mother suffered alone, haunted by her own reckless decisions to abandon her hatchlings in order to save them from their own father for years. Ultimately, Agrona kept telling herself that, to her, her decisions had been the right one. Every day, she kept convincing herself of that, a part of her hoping that her children were safe.

[* The End ...