The woman touched the cold slab of stone that stuck out of the ground. She traced her fingers over the words engraved in the stone, then moved onto the stone's twin that stood besides it. A single tear slid down the woman's face as she thought of the reason these twin stones stood here. They were tombstones, the markers of two graves, one for her father, and one for her mother.

 Beside her laid the egg of her first born, who would hatch in a few months. The woman placed a hand between the two tombstones, touching both at once and placing her other hand on the egg at her side; remembering the end of one life, acknowledging the beginning of another.

"Ari, there you are!" the woman, Ari's, mate came running up to her, helping her up from where she sat on the ground. "You shouldn't wander when you have the egg with you. Who knows what could happen." Ari simply nodded to him, picking up her shell encased child and holding the round form close, the faint heartbeat inside synchronizing with her own.