Intimancer

The silence in the room was deafening.

“Y-you’re pregnant?”  Rick eventually croaked out.  “How?”

The elf turned her piercing emerald gaze to him.  “I think ya know how.”  She smirked.

Okay… I ran into that one.  He thought wryly.  “Yes, I’m aware of that.  What I meant was how could you be pregnant when we’ve been so careful with all the birth control?”

Tyr strode towards him on her impossibly long legs and placed her large hands on his shoulders.  “We were careful.  But, me brave little rabbit, don’t ya remember the time ya evaded me for so long before we made love ta each other?”

Rick froze.  He remembered being hunted by Tyr throughout their house in vivid detail.  But upon further review of the events after getting unceremoniously caught, one lack of detail stood out.

“Are you saying it was all because we forgot to use the medicine a single time?”

Tyr bent down and gave a gentle fanged smile.  “Aye.  And now yer the father of my first child.”

Rick’s mind swam.  He had knocked up one of his dearest friends.  What were they going to do?  They were all so young, they had their whole lives ahead of them.  He had no idea how to raise a child.  What sort of tools would they need for the baby?  No, forget that, how were they going to even deliver the thing?  Panic raced through his mind at a breakneck pace, nearly causing his knees to buckle under the strain.

“I’m so sorry…”  He whispered, his eyes filling up with moisture.

Suddenly he was housed up by his armpits and Tyr’s face dominated his view.  “Oi!  What in the blazes are ya apologizing fer?!”  She growled.  “This is a blessing!”

“A… blessing?”  He asked, his mind still reeling from the sudden jolt out of his downward spiral.

“Aye, a blessing.”  Tyr repeated.  “Do ya have any idea how bloody difficult it is fer an elf to get pregnant?”

Rick shook his head and the amazon holding him up arched a brow in confusion.  She sat him back down on the sofa chair and crouched down in front of him.  She reached out and cupped his face gently.  Her eyes shone with love and affection.

“An elf couple could rut themselves into a coma every day fer an entire year without any protection and still not make a child.”  She said with surprising softness.

“The odds are that low?”  Sade gasped.  “I knew that elves had an abysmal fertility rate, but no source I have found had ever gone into specifics.”

“Yep.  Which is why we don’t get too hung up about mating like ya mayflies love ta do.  It’s all fer fun, and if we get a baby, we celebrate.  Nothing more, nothing less.”

“I… I guess this is all just incredible.”  Rick said simply.  He was still numb to everything that just happened and couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Tyr hummed in agreement.  “And I even got an extra point in luck after Lilie confirmed it just now.  I suspect yer own luck jumped when ya gave me this little miracle.”  She said while rubbing her lower belly tenderly.

So that’s what that was.  Rick mused.  There were so many fortunate events that had happened recently that he couldn’t even guess which one caused his luck to jump once more.

My luck…

It was just as high as Tyr’s strength and Sade’s intelligence.  Both made them monsters in their respective fields.  It made a sick sort of sense that his luck was equally monstrous in its ability to bend and warp reality around him in his and his friends' favor.

“Wait, you already suspected you were pregnant, and still grabbed a magical construct that had enough lightning inside it to kill a person outright ANYWAYS?!”

Everyone flinched when Sade’s voices rose to near screeching levels by the end of her rhetorical question.  If Tyr had a tail, it would have been firmly tucked between her legs as she grimaced and held her hands up in surrender.

“I did cast ‘bark skin’ on meself.  That spell is known ta defend against lightning.”

As Rick himself could attest from personal experience, that explanation in no way helped calm the angry mage down in the slightest.  For the next ten minutes, Sade bombarded Tyr with every conceivable argument imaginable on why her actions were idiotic and unnecessarily dangerous for the unborn child.  While it was quite painful to watch, Rick also felt a small spark of satisfaction that it was someone else who put their foot in their mouth for once.

Once the tirade had finally run its course, Sade lay in Tyr’s arms, sniffling loudly inside the crook of  the larger woman’s neck.  The elf was simply smiling gently as she rubbed her curvy human’s back.  The scene made Tyr look like a doting mother already.

“Hey, uh, odd question.  Will the child be a half-elf or…?”  Rick asked awkwardly.

“I can answer that!”  Lilie said with an enthusiastic clap of her hands.  “When two tribes intermingle, the resulting child typically has a higher chance to be of the same tribe as the mother but still with a healthy mix of the father’s traits.  While the opposite could still happen, the chances are much lower.”

That was interesting to learn.  “So our child will most likely be a forest elf?”

“Most likely.”  Lilie confirmed.  “But to answer your question about half-elfs, hybrids do occasionally crop up from time to time.  This is even more rare than the child being the same tribe as the father, but it has been observed that unions with humans often increase the likelihood, although it is still considered unlikely.”

“Fascinating.”

The healer nodded her horned head.  “It really is.  There’s a whole section in the library that is just filled with research on the subject.  I think I also had to take a couple classes going over it too.”  She tapped her chin in thought.  “Come to think of it, almost all the material focused on all the different ways elves could reproduce with other tribes.  Maybe it was because it’s normally so difficult for them to conceive.”

“I suspect it is an avenue that the school’s financial backers would be greatly interested in.”

Rick looked to Sade, who was still firmly wrapped up in Tyr’s arms but had turned around at some point to lean back into the elf’s massive breasts and pay attention to the conversation.

“And why would you say that Sade?”  He asked.

“Mya University is funded by many varied and influential parties alongside the crown and the city itself.  As you know, almost all key positions of power and influence are controlled by high elves.  Like their woodland cousins, they too suffer from a low birth rate.  So it comes as no surprise to me that they would fund research into magically improving that shortfall.”  She said simply.

“Bah!  Of course those pricks would want ta have as little sex as possible.  I bet their womenfolk just lie there like dead fish while their mates struggle ta figure out which hole their suppose ta use.”  Tyr scoffed

“Is that your take on the situation?”  Rick asked rhetorically.  He shook his head in amazement at his wild lover and her incredible leaps of logic when their cultural rivals were ever mentioned.  He wondered briefly what would happen if Tyr ever crossed paths with a high elf.  No matter what, it was bound to be entertaining.

“While many of their contributions to societies at large are considered a net positive, their culture and attitudes towards the other tribes more often than not leaves them generally disliked on principle.”  Sade added with a shrug from her position in Tyr’s lap.

“Are evenings with your group always this… chaotic?”

As one, the room turned to look at Daniela, who was still sitting quietly on the chair across from where Rick sat.  In all honesty due to the veritable roller coaster of events, he had completely forgotten she was even there.  Probably not the best idea when dealing with a professed thief, but the circumstances were indeed quite compelling.

“Not really.  There’s usually a lot more groaning and fucking involved.”  Lilie snickered from her own seat.

When nobody contradicted the lewd statement, Daniela was left staring at the four of them with her mouth open in surprise and a faint flush to her cheeks.  She eventually caught herself and slapped her cheeks to refocus her mind.

“Nope, not important!  Anyways…”  She said with a shake of her head.  “Tyr, Sade… I’m truly sorry for my actions.  It wasn’t my inten-”  She stopped herself.  “No, no excuses.  I simply wish to apologize and vow to do better.”

Sade looked up into her lover’s eyes.  Tyr merely smiled and nodded her head once.  The human gave one last dramatic sigh and turned towards their guest.  “Apology accepted.  I suppose I must apologize as well.  I overreacted.  The stress from the pas-”  She caught herself, and smiled.  “You are correct.  No excuses.  Let us move on and start anew.”

Daniela returned the grin.  “Let’s!”

It was nice to see everyone attempt to give peace a chance.  “So in the interest of moving on and also returning to the topic that brought us all here this evening.  How is it that a person with your background got into the revenge business and sneaking about all the time?”

The blond woman grinned and leaned back into her chair.  “Oh you know, growing up in a hacienda much like this one, being forced to study from sunup to sundown.  What’s a niña to do but try to sneak away?”

It was Sade’s turn to gape in surprise at the simple admittance.  “Sade, I can absolutely guarantee you that mandatory education from a young age almost always produces the same result.”  Rick said with a wry smile.  “Most people are not like you, and children will always prefer to run and play rather than sit through lecture after lecture.”

Daniela chuckled as the human woman struggled, despite her vast intellect, to form a coherent reply to that.  “I don’t know about other children, but that was certainly true enough for me.  The problema was that after the first few times, the staff started to employ trained hunters to track me down.  Turned into an impressive game of gata y ratón after that.  And I loved every minute of it.”

Rick shook his head in amusement.  “They created their own worst enemy.  And the stealing?”

The thief grinned even wider.  “Few things piss off a dwarf more than nicking their stuff.  Mi familia all wore an entire market’s worth of jewelry on themself at all times.  I’m talking two or three rings per finger, a couple bracelets, gold chains on their necks, and even a few earrings or two.  And since they insisted on forcing me to do things, I thought it would be fun to see what happens if some of that… took a walk so to speak.”

“You stole from your own family?!”  Sade gasped, completely scandalized.

“Hey, I made sure to give it all back!  I would have been beaten black and blue if they found out it was me who took their precious things.  So I would usually leave the loot on a table where I knew they would walk past, drop the item off by their feet when they were at the dinner table, or even just put it back in their room to make it look like they forgot it before they left for the day.”  Daniela laughed at the fond memories.  “I even made it a game to swipe something off them and then attempt to sneak it right back where it was supposed to be after they made a whole fuss about it being missing.  The whole clan thought they were going loco by the time I was fully grown and allowed to leave.”

“Wait, that’s it?”  Lilie asked.  “You got good enough to pickpocket a freaking elven ranger by swiping jewelry off your parents?”

“Well… don’t get me wrong, they didn’t make it easy.  After the first few times, they started enchanting their things with wards, tracking spells, and the like.  It downright tickled me to watch them constantly throw gold at the problem, only for it to eventually stop working and they would have to buy another solution.”

“You must really hate learning.”  Rick said in exasperation.  Daniela must have been an absolute hellion growing up.  He hoped to whatever gods would listen that his own child wouldn't be half as difficult.

His child.

Just the thought that he would soon be a father filled him with an indescribably mix of joy and terror.  Remembering the strange and somewhat antagonistic relationship he had with his own father caused his gut to churn with anxiety.  He had no idea what to do, and that made the impending countdown feel like he was awaiting execution.

“Oh, I love learning.  I always enjoy trying to puzzle out a good mystery.  It’s why my grandfather’s death is something I can’t just let go.  I have to know what happened.”  Daniela said, mercifully distracting Rick from his increasingly bleak train of thought.  “I just don’t like being forced to learn something, even if it actually interests me.  All the stuck up tutors, the endless exams, and the feeling that it would just never end drove me up a wall!”

“While your story baffles me to no end, I suppose agreeing to disagree would be prudent for now.”  Sade said with an expression so sour, it looked like she swallowed a lemon whole.  “We will let you join us for training and go on a mission for the hunters together once the semester ends.  We will trust you not to do anything that will make us regret that decision.”

Her voice grew even more serious.  “Don’t make us threaten you again.”

Daniela laughed and held up her hands in surrender.  “Si, comprendida!”