Life of Longing
When Mimicry met Peng for the first time he was traveling alongside the eastern shore. He was young back then, still not an adult but already alone. He had no place to call home but the whole wide world to travel so he wasn’t unhappy, only a little lost.
Peng was older than him, a young adult that had her life figured out. They met one evening, when the sun was setting over the forest, leaving the ocean to darken faster than it probably should. The stars were already shining, mirrored by the ocean; they gave enough light to bask Peng in a soft pearl-like glow. No wonder Mimicry fell in love on sight.
“You’re beautiful,” Mimicry said so quietly he thought the stranger wouldn’t hear.
But Peng’s ears were keen, they caught the words carried by wind and so she looked around until she saw who said that. When their eyes met Mimicry could feel how warm his cheeks turned so he quickly lowered his eyes, too shy to actually look at Peng. But the green para smiled softly and said:
“Do you want to try those seaweeds? They’re delicious.”
***
The days they spent were soft and a bit gloomy. The rain wouldn’t stop so they mostly sat hidden in a cave, telling stories to each other. The feeling Mimicry felt at that time wasn’t mutual so he did not act upon it. He liked that they could be friends, he liked having friends. But the day it stopped raining he knew he had to go back to his journey.
“Can’t you stay just a little bit longer?” Peng asked the morning he was set to go.
“I feel the call. I still have so much world to see, I can’t stop before I see it all.”
“But it gets so lonely here…”
Mimicry smiled. “We will meet again, I promise. I won’t let any predators eat me, that’s for sure.”
Peng smiled back, with sadness in her eyes.
They parted their ways and Mimicry went down south, to discover places he never dreamed before. For a moment his heart was telling him it was a bad choice. That he should change his ways, return to Peng, stay with her for as long as it takes for her to open her heart. But he knew that it would be a mistake, a one that he would regret his whole life. The moments of pain and sadness were to be quickly forgotten as his travels lead him through his life.
***
When they met for the second time Mimicry already had kids. It was a big surprise to Peng, as the kids seemed to be… Of the wrong species.
“Peng, I want you to meet my kids: Niecierpek, Jawor and Cowsie. Kids, this is auntie Peng I was telling you about.”
Three pairs of cryo eyes looked at Peng from below. They blinked and she blinked as well. Finally a soft smile appeared on Peng’s face as she processed this rather weird fact.
“It’s nice to meet you, kids” Peng said and it was the beginning of all the troubles.
As it turned out the kids that Mimicry adopted were a bunch of trouble makers. The two older ones, Niecierpek and Jawor, were adolescent and ready to break things, while Cowsie was still barely a hatchling, and a sleepy and sweet one at that.
Mimicry told Peng the story of how he found them and decided to adopt and how it changed his life for the better. Yes, it was a responsibility but it made his life feel full, joyful and purposeful. He wasn’t just wandering aimlessly like before, now he was showing the world to his kids.
Peng found that weirdly endearing. She was still alone though many different dinosaurs drifted through her life during the years she spent living by the ocean. Sometimes aristos would visit her and tell her the tales of all that was happening underwater and far away from the island. Whenever a new face showed up it was as if the world became a little bigger. And face by face she learned a lot and grew as a person too. And now as she looked at Mimicry she felt a kind of peace she didn’t feel before.
In the days they spent together Peng felt a kind of belonging she never felt before. She loved having Miimcry around and his kids too. She helped get the tiny ones on track, she told them stories, she helped make a temporary nest for them, next to the nest she ended up sharing with Mimicry. It was cozy. And the whole time it was raining once again.
And when it stopped raining the time for parting came back.
Peng tried to make Mimicry and his kids stay a little longer and it worked for a little while. Day after day they stayed. The paras ate seaweed and grass while the kids learned to catch fishes and small land animals. The warm sunny weather was perfect but everyone knew - they would be going away soon.
“You could come with us, you know,” Mimicry said one evening. “We would take care of you.”
“You know I can’t. This is my home. I couldn’t live without the sea by my side.”
There were no more words between them, just the feeling of losing something. It would never be the same and it always was a little weird.
The coming morning Mimicry and his kids went away, leaving Peng at the beach. She didn’t cry when they left, but when she went back to her cave and saw the two nests tears rolled down her cheeks.
***
They met again several times in the passing years. Each time it was short and filled with unspoken feelings. Longing and sadness underscored their every word, every interaction. They wanted to spend so much time with each other but couldn’t bear to stand the tension between them.
Finally, years later, something changed. No words were spoken, but when they met not by the sea but in the forest by a river their barriers broke. They cried and they hugged and they knew they would be more time apart than less but it didn’t matter. Their feelings were true and strong and they could bear the separation if at the end of it was the promise of meeting again.
They build a nest together, ready to spend at least the season together. Mimicry’s kids were all adults by now and knew how to take care of themselves. He wasn’t worried about them at all and knew they liked to travel around. And yet when Mimicry and Peng made their nest and the eggs showed up, the cryos stayed around. They still moved and it wasn’t like they were there always and forever, but if they disappeared for a few days they always came back rather quickly. Mimicry didn’t know his kids were this caring and soft. In all their bad temper he wasn’t sure how they would be around kids.
It was a sweet time in Mimicry and Peng’s life. They finally were true to their emotions and were spending so much time together. The nest was kept safe, always someone around to take care of it. And the two paras shared so many stories. Day after day their collection of knowledge grew, building into something huge in the shared space of their minds.
Sometimes Mimicry felt a sting of sadness that he could have had this way earlier. His life could have been this. But it wasn’t. Instead he had loving kids and was about to have even more kids with someone he loved for as long as he could remember.
Soon the spring turned into summer, days got hotter and the waiting was shorter each day. They knew the eggs would hatch somewhere at the beginning of the summer so they were waiting. Even the cryos stayed put instead of traveling around. Everyone was excited, with Cowsie perhaps being even more excited than the soon to be parents.
Mimicry knew the kids would have loving parents, something that he had never known and what he wanted to give to everyone. So far he succeeded in three cases, and these cases went about the world and met more dinos, sharing love but also mischief.
“Do you think our kids will take after their older siblings?” asked Mimicry one night. He and Peng laid together, watching their eggs and dozing off.
“Mmm, if they take after Cowsie I wouldn’t be mad.”
Mimicry giggled. “I was more thinking of the mischief and short temper.”
“Then no, I’m sure they won’t,” said Peng and giggled too.
They talked for a little bit more, discussing possibilities of different traits the kids could have. Peng was sure they would take after Mimicry and share his wanderlust and warmth, while Mimicry assured her that they would share Peng’s strange love for the sea and all the water of the world.
And then, the eggs started to hatch.
