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 Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 1:41 pm
Orriole was early, as usual, and Feodor was late. "Herschu, how are you?" he greeted as they touched cheeks at the door.
"Good, very good," Hirschel lied, in German. He always lied in German. It just felt easier. Easier still that Orriole knew it was a lie.
"Mm," hummed Orriole, and they made their way to the study.
Hirschel enjoyed these moments, the quiet and the calm prior to Feodor's arrival. As they sat in the study, sipping their tea (the almost sickly-sweet stuff Orriole preferred) and perusing random books from his family's collection, Hirschel almost wished Feodor would never arrive. But he always did in the end, and his absence would have been more painful. The moments before Feodor arrived were sweet and precious, but Feodor's loyalty meant something more in this lonely, lonely world.
They made small chatter, Orriole asked about the weather on Hirschel's lands, Hirschel asked about the music classes Orriole was teaching. "There is one student," Orriole said cautiously, "very promising. Unusual mind, for a human." But it was not a serious topic for discussion, just a note of interest.
Feodor burst into the room and threw his hands wide. "Fantastic news!" he announced.
As far as entrances went, this was not Hirschel's favorite. He immediately groaned and sank down in his chair, tipping his great-grandfather's intricately-scrawled diary over his face.
Yuki appeared in the door a moment later, arms crossed and glaring at Hirschel. She resented having to answer the door for Feodor, and Hirschel would pay for that detail later. He did not relish sleeping on the couch again, or being denied his bedtime snack. He wasn't sure which punishment was worse. On the one hand, snacks were important. On the other, the warmth of his wife's body in the bed next to him was, too. Priorities. Hirschel had never been very good at them.
As inclined as Hirschel was to pessimism, Orriole maintained polite interest. "Oh?" he chirped, ears perking. Yuki lingered in the door just long enough to make sure Hirschel understood her displeasure and departed.
Feodor reached into his jacket and withdrew three cigars, one of which he stuck in his mouth, one he handed to Orriole, and the third he tossed at Hirschel. It hit Hirschel on the head and landed on his chest. He opened his mouth to yell at Feodor but Feodor stopped him. "Ah ah! Good news first! Yelling later." To add insult to injury, he patted Hirschel twice on the head. "Kip and I are pleased to announce we're having a boy!"
"Oh how lovely!" exclaimed Orriole. He titled his head to the side curiously. "Aren't the cigars for when the baby is born?"
Feodor sighed loudly. Sometimes Orriole completely missed the point. He looked to Hirschel for confirmation but received only a glower. "Oh, come on. Really? Cigars!" He popped his lighter into his hand and shook it.
"Cheap cigars, you a**," muttered Hirschel.
"You should light cigars with matches, not lighters," said Orriole, rising and fetching the fireplace matches from the mantle. He lit his cigar and Feodor's first, then offered the light to Hirschel, who accepted it only with great reluctance.
This fact was not lost on Feodor. "At least pretend to be happy for my good fortune, Hirschel. It won't kill you."
"Ah, yes, and you'd be the expert on that, wouldn't you?" Hirschel glared. "Fine. You want congratulations? May you have nine years of marital happiness." It was a traditional elven insult, the equivalent of accusing someone of both a shotgun marriage and poor birth control measures (which had the secondary implication of calling the female component of the union a birthing cow).
"What," Feodor immediately replied, eyes narrowing.
But Hirschel wasn't done. "You don't deserve offspring." He gripped his cigar so tightly it snapped in two.
Feodor sprang from his chair and Hirschel stood ready to receive him, both of them tightening hands into fists. They would have done it, too, for the hundredth time, had Orriole not stopped them in their tracks. Literally.
"Stop it! Both of you!" demanded Orriole, freezing them in place like statues. "Feodor, you will sit down! Hirschel, you will be polite! We will have tea and we will enjoy it!" With a flick of his finger Orriole slammed them both back into their chairs and released them.
There was a moment of silence. Neither Feodor nor Hirschel wanted to aggravate Orriole. Feodor broke the silence. "Sorry."
There was no apology from Hirschel. After having his eye ripped out and being forcibly blood-bonded, Hirschel rather felt he was entitled to insult Feodor. Actually, he felt he was probably owed at least one of Feodor's eyes. He might have taken it, too, if not for that pesky blood-bond. He only reached down to pick up the smoldering half of the cigar before it burned a hole in his three-hundred-year-old carpets.
Feodor cleared his throat. "Uh, your eye."
Hirschel reached up. His eye was indeed leaking from under his eyepatch. He cupped his hand over it and Feodor handed him a kerchief. Hirschel made a valiant attempt to curl up in his chair and sulk, but the chair wasn't quite big enough for that and he ended up in an undignified half-sliding pose.
"I didn't mean it like that," said Feodor.
"Forget it," grumbled Hirschel. "Your family line will continue. I'm happy for you."
Orriole's face scrunched up in concern. "Hirschel..."
Hirschel waved his hand. "No, forget about it! What's done is done. Where is the wine..."
Something occurred to Orriole. "Maybe -- maybe there is a way. These people, at the Lab, they have a method of creating children inside cabbages."
Ever so often, Orriole would say something that could only be described as strange. He was not the most modern of elves. He still had trouble accepting ideas like the earth was round and the Earth orbited the sun. Hirschel thought Orriole had somehow gotten the old human adage mixed up.
Except Feodor said, "Oh, right, you told me about that. The girl on the football field, she was one of them, right?"
"Mm," Orriole nodded, "and there are ways of using combined genetic material as I understand it."
Despite his issues with the cosmos, Orriole knew something of modern genetics. Hirschel's understanding of science ended at turn-of-the-century chemistry. Hirschel must have had a blank expression on his face because Feodor felt it necessary to offer explanation: "They take a bit of you, a bit of Yuki, and mix. End result: baby. Science to the max."
"Bah," said Hirschel, but he was not completely dismissive. He quickly changed the subject before that tiny bit of hope he still held out overwhelmed him completely. "I'm more worried about your new addition. Are we to assume this is going to be like the last pregnancy? Maybe I should change the locks."
"Heyyy," wailed Feodor, throwing up his hands in defense, "you wouldn't close your doors on a man in need! I don't have anywhere else to go! Not funny, Hirschel! You've seen her when she's pregnant! You'd condemn me to eight more years of that!?" But Hirschel only laughed and laughed, partially to cover the pain and jealousy, but mostly because it was pathetic and funny to have Feodor at his mercy for a change.
Behind his combination of cheap cigar and teacup, Orriole quietly watched, a faint smile on his face. Maybe, just maybe, he would be able to make up for the Council's actions by doing this for his friend.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2008 5:44 pm
Hirschel did not pretend to understand the pamphlets Orriole gave him, though he could read English perfectly. He read them, four times over, and could not figure out how this was science and not magic. He finally gave the pamphlets to Yuki. She reviewed them with pursed lips, dull eyes flicking across the glossy paper, mentally translating the words into her native Japanese. There were spells to facilitate language barriers, but Yuki refused them except for the minor charm required for elven, which she needed for certain basic interactions in the elven realm. "Is this a joke," she asked at last, in Japanese.
When he answered, it was in elven. "I do not think. Orriole, certainly not. Feodor, maybe, except even he I do not think would be so cruel."
Yuki's eyes narrowed, as they always did when Feodor was mentioned. She put the shiny pamphlets down on the table.
Hirschel's ears drooped rather severely when he was feeling guilty. "I'm sorry. I know it's not exactly ideal."
They had been trying, despite the obvious, for five years because Yuki insisted magic was fallible, because she had no interest in bearing or raising any child that was not of her husband's origin, and because she believed that her world's modern medical achievements would be able to help them. Nothing ever worked. They were as childless today as five years ago. They still went to the clinics and doctors, but without expectation of anything.
"This," said Yuki coldly, "is not reproduction." Accelerated early growth, genetic recombination, cabbages. It was sheer madness.
"It is an opportunity! Perhaps the only one. If it works." Hirschel could not help but to cling to hope, so profound was his desperation.
"If it doesn't come out of me, then it is hardly my baby."
The biological component was a strong one, Hirschel knew, but he had hoped Yuki would look past that and see this opportunity for what it was. To have a child which contained something from them both, the fulfillment of their union, surely that was more important? "I cannot give birth, but that would not make any child your bore less mine. Perhaps there is still some way, if you wanted to breast-feed, or..."
For all that she possessed a core of earth, Yuki could be as cold as ice sometimes. She took the pamphlets, threw them at Hirschel, and said, "If you want it so badly, you breastfeed it. You already have the breasts."
Hirschel was so stunned he stood there with his mouth hanging open. He closed it quickly, fangs on the inside for a change. His nostrils flared with anger. "I will be in the pond!" he yelled at her, and stormed out.
It was not fair. The Council had only done what it felt was necessary to avoid the creation of any future mixed-breed abominations, but it was an impossible punishment to accept. It had not been because of anything he had done -- and Hirschel had done some terrible things in his life -- but simply because of how he had been born. For five hundred and eighty-five years of his life, it had not mattered, but then he had met Yuki and suddenly it did. For all that they shared, for all that they had, there was no physical manifestation that showed their love to the world. To continue his bloodline was not so much important, but to continue what they had together?
Hirschel left most of his clothes on the dock and waded into the water. It was freezing cold this time of year, the trees bare and birds flown. The vampiric blood that ran through his veins kept the effects of the cold at bay. He could tolerate most any cold temperatures because of his ancestry, but the price he paid for that little benefit was too high.
He stared up at the blue sky, floating on his back and watching wisps of cloud drift by high above. There were still a few ducks around the pond who would spend the winter in the barn with the horses, but aside from their harsh, lonely cries, it was quiet.
Yuki came down from the house and stepped out onto the dock. Hirschel pretended not to notice her, even as she undressed and left her clothing in a neat pile next to his. She dove into the water headfirst, ignoring the freeze and swimming out to Hirschel. She was shivering by the time she reached him. "I'm sorry," she managed, German. She pulled herself onto his chest and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her. They had tried everything else available to them. She supposed they may as well try this.
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 3:58 am
Hirschel had his friends, and Yuki had hers. When she met Masamichi at the door for their monthly standing appointment she noted with approval that he had brought her a bottle of merlot. A decent year, moderately-priced. On his salary she appreciated it. "Merry Christmas," he said, the only words of non-Japanese that were spoken for the entire afternoon.
While Hirschel, Feodor, and Orriole preferred the musty study, Yuki and Masamichi chose the shady, windowed atrium, through which they could see several birdhouses and feeders in the high branches of the trees. Most of the feeders and houses were quite old now, part of a collection set up by Hirschel's sister Edwina, who had died nearly ten years ago. Though the feeders were rarely refilled, birds still frequented the area, even in winter.
Yuki had the usual array of Japanese foods ready. A bit of their childhoods, a bit of their pasts. Their work had taken them both abroad from Japan and turned the cuisine of their homeland into an occasional meal rather than the daily ritual they had grown up with. Masamichi still cooked Japanese food at home every few nights and had rice nearly all the time, but Hirschel preferred meat to fish and did not like rice. When she wanted such things, Yuki had to cook her meal separately. It just seemed too much of a hassle to do daily or even semi-daily. Masamichi had found the foods he took for granted in Japan were often priced expensively in other countries, and on his budget found it more fiscally responsible to eat locally inexpensive things.
Picking at the seafood and pickled vegetables, they did not speak much. The only constant was the sound of chewing and chopsticks tapping. Only when most of the saba was gone and all of the maguro did Masamichi venture conversation. "You and Hirschel are expecting?" He read Yuki's silence correctly. "Orlu told me."
Yuki's eyes narrowed slightly, a faint hint of insolent concentration. "How much has he said."
"We talk a lot," said Masamichi carefully. The same could not be said of him and Yuki, but Yuki was not the type of person that encouraged a lot of frivolous chatter, except possibly where Hirschel was concerned. "I teach some of them. At the Liberty Center." But it was li-ba-ti sen-taa, the name halfway disappearing into Masamichi's accent when he spoke Japanese.
"That's nice," said Yuki, but did not mean it.
Masamichi continued his attempt. "In this day and age, you have to take whatever opportunities are presented."
"I could get a divorce and ******** you," said Yuki impassively.
It was no secret that he had been in love with her, and still was a little. They had been classmates all through middle and high school and his crush on her had been profound. She had never wanted to make time for any romance, and if she had, she would not have chosen him, anyway. He had been an awkward, isolated teenager. He still was.
Masamichi looked hurt. "Yuki... That's..."
She was silently pleased with herself that she could still reduce him to that stammering schoolboy. "But instead I stayed in a childless marriage and now I have this opportunity."
They resumed eating, Masamichi so he could collect his thoughts. "Would you rather continue as you had been?"
Yuki ground to a halt, staring at her plate, darkness clouding her features. Masamichi stopped, too, watching her openly.
"You really want children, don't you?" The question was soft and sad.
She answered slowly, "Yes." She could not say any more than that.
Masamichi smiled then, very faintly but with encouragement. "But not my children. His."
If there was ever anything that was not in question, it was Yuki's love for her husband. That lone, single thing kept her in this house. She could have gone anywhere and done anything and none of it would have mattered without Hirschel.
"You're very brave, Yamashiro Mayuki-san." The admiration was sincere.
Yuki snorted and dove back into the food. "Of course."
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 4:34 am
Hirschel began to think maybe this was a mistake. It was just so green. He stood in the kitchen staring at it and rubbing the spot on his arm where they had taken the "tissue" sample, which actually had not involved tissues at all, but needles. The worst part was watching them take the sample from Yuki. He should be the only person to puncture her arm and take her blood. What they did with their needles was obscene!
"Hiryu," said Yuki, watching him from the doorway. She did not look at the cabbage, just at him. "They need you in the nursery."
Because of the secrecy of it all, Hirschel had contracted the nursery renovations to the fairies, who would not tell. It was a lucky thing Evgin still thought well of his former master, and that Yuki's mother Asako was so highly regarded in the fairy community.
"It's green," said Hirschel, for perhaps the eighth time.
"It's a cabbage," Yuki shot back, beginning to sound very cross.
"Ja, ja, coming," sighed Hirschel, tearing himself away from the giant bundle of leaves to go handle a dispute over the color of the trim on the curtains. He did not care so much about that detail, but the fairies certainly did, and the results were worth the trouble. Fairies had always been especially good with embroidery and clothwork. Their tiny hands and nimble fingers could achieve a level of detail not found even in magic. The resulting pattern on the curtain was a delicate golden filigree of leaves and chasing lines that repeated so perfectly even a fairy eye would be pressed to find an uneven measurement.
Evgin was there as well. He greeted Hirschel with a cheery "Hey, boss!" and tried to tell Hirschel about his new girlfriend, whom he promised was "a real Swedish looker with a thing for the fangs." Unlike Hirschel, Evgin's fangs had never caused him any social problems. Perhaps if Evgin had been a vampire and not a decorative mininature mockup, things would have been different, but fairies were on the whole much more accepting than elves.
"So, boss, do I get to see the plant?"
Yuki had wandered off somewhere away from the fairies, as they reminded her of flying rats, so Hirschel shrugged and consented. Fairies were also quite good with plants, since they came from flowers, and Evgin cheerily congratulated him about the incredible health and size of this specimen. "It don't quite feel right, though, boss. It's not a plant like any around here, anyway. No resonance."
"Ach," said Hirschel noncommittally, and tore into a canister of peanuts. So what if they gave him peanut breath.
That was the rest of the afternoon, Hirschel wandering back and forth between the nursery and the kitchen, raiding the pantry and the cupboards and even looking once at the pile of only marginally-spoiled lettuce Yuki had dumped in the trash can. She said eating food like that was bad for you, but Hirschel suspected she simply lacked the constitution for it. So long as it hadn't gone moldy or completely curdled, he figured anything was fair game. He found a dark chocolate bar lost in the back of the cupboard under the sink and opted for that instead.
Eventually the fairies left, and Hirschel decided to take a nap in the library on the royal purple chaise lounge in the library, worn threadbare from two hundred years of napping. The wood was beginning to sag and warp and Hirschel fully intended to use it until it broke.
When he woke, it was late. Yuki had not called him to bed. Probably he had forgotten something important and offended her, so he wandered back to the kitchen to see if he could find some leftover duck in the back of the cold storage, or maybe a stray creme brulee. Instead, he found Yuki.
She was in her nightgown, staring at the cabbage. Under the yellowed lighting the green leaves seemed less vibrant, but deeper in color, hiding greater mystery. She must have been coming to fetch him after all, and thought to check the kitchen first. How long had she been standing there?
"Our child is going to come out of that," she said, and turned and looked at him.
Sometimes, Hirschel saw her for what she was: five-hundred and seventy years his junior, a full grown woman, but still so young, a child in comparison. He grinned. "I love you."
It was easy to kiss her, easier still to take the arm she offered and sink his teeth into her flesh, and easiest to feel that electric reaction she had in response to him. Her blood tasted beautiful in arousal. He was careful not to take too much.
"Come to bed," she whispered into his ear.
"Only if I can take you with me," he answered, hoisting her into his arms like a newlywed bride. "Mother."
Yuki smirked. "Tomorrow, maybe. Not tonight."
"Not tonight," he agreed, turning the lights out as they left the kitchen.
The cabbage sat motionless on the table, silent and sightless, but perhaps it understood all the same, for it did not open that night.
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Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2008 2:31 am
Yuki, always the practical one, started the name conversation. "It must be possible to write in both Japanese and German correctly," she demanded of the name, which left Hirschel scratching his head until she demonstrated. His name, if you attempted to spell it out in Japanese, was a horrible amalgam of characters that were not designed to make the sounds needed. When Yuki sounded it out to him he did not even recognize it as his name. The letter L was totally out. Ending consonents were for the most part out, as in Japanese most needed "u" at the end for some weird reason. Most double consonents were out. The list of restrictions was so staggering Hirschel did not think he would be able to meet any of them. Konrad, which he favored after his father, was out. Johan fit the rules somehow, but Yuki did not like it. Heinrich, gone. Gunther, gone. Hirschel was running out of names when he finally stumbled into one that met Yuki's rules and they both liked.
He tried it out on his tongue. "Otto Kirsch. It has a good sound."
"Mm. And now for a girl's name," said Yuki, and Hirschel wailed aloud and rolled onto his side.
"Yuki I can't take this!"
"You're being a baby," she informed him.
"We'll just have a boy. I can feel it."
Given experience, Yuki did not exactly have a favorable impression of Hirschel's instincts. "I'll do it." She looked rather serious. Hirschel moaned for a few minutes and tried to convince her he was right, then gave up and left her in the library pouring through old books and family ledgers.
After sulking for over an hour, he realized his mistake and brought her lunch as an apology. She accepted the meal, a good sign, but did not speak to him as they ate. When she was finished she returned to the bookshelves despite his pleading. "Yu-kiii," he begged, "please don't stay mad at me."
She finally spoke. "I'm not mad. Let me work." She sounded cross. Hirschel gave up again and went to sit in the corner and spin the cobwebs.
The skies were darkening when she finally walked over to him and dropped the notebook in his lap. "Henrietta," she said. "After her parents."
Hirschel stared at the name, written in German as well as Japanese. "It's perfect," he concluded, hoping Yuki would forgive him now, even though he desperately wanted a son to carry on the famliy name. "I hope I am wrong. I hope we have a girl."
Yuki only rolled her eyes. Hirschel was always wrong.
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Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 1:24 pm
(written up 8/27/09)
It was a chill morning and Yuki dragged herself down to the kitchen with all the enthusiasm of the dead. She was always a bit drained after sex with Hirschel and dead to the world without her morning coffee. It was a good thing Hirschel was moderately receptive of modern appliances or Yuki never would have been able to live with him. She needed her coffee, and she needed it to take less than two minutes to prepare. She also needed a real gas stove to cook on and a proper sink with good drainage. The microwave, however, was purely to appease Hirschel, who found the phenomenon of microwave popcorn to be a think of great amazement and joy. Sometimes Yuki worried he'd be dead of a coronary before 60, then she remembered he was elf and provided he had a constant supply of blood to assuage his vampiric genes would remain in magical good health well into his 800s. Not that Yuki would live long enough to see it. She therefore worried more about what Hirschel might do after she was gone.
She did not notice the rustle of the leaves over the sound of the brewing coffee at first. It wasn't until he had her mug in hand and was sipping at the first cup of the day that she heard it. She turned with idle, barely-caffeinated curiosity and dropped the mug when she realized what was happening. "Hirschel!" she screamed, and started to run to the bedroom.
Asleep, Hirschel did not fully appreciate his wife's initial scream. He stirred in bed and mumbled a sweet nothing into his pillow. At her second scream, originating from the stairs, the idea that his wife was in danger penetrated his sleepy thoughts and he bolted upright and stumbled out of bed. (As dead on her feet as Yuki was before her coffee, Hirschel was by far the less coordinated of the two in the morning.) At the third cry, he actually managed to yell "Yuki!" in reply.
Confident that Hirschel was in fact now awake and on his way, Yuki turned right back around and bee-lined down the stairs back into the kitchen. The leaves were still rustling and Yuki was torn between being concerned that Hirschel be here for this moment and just being concerned about their baby. She need not have worried about either, for Hirschel made it into the kitchen just as the top of the leaves were parting and revealing their child to the world.
It was unexpectedly graceful the way the leaves unfurled, like watching a plant growing on timelapse. Yuki clamped her hands together and despite not having believed in any gods for a very long time gave a little mental prayer.
A hand came into view first. Tiny and perfect like all babies', it was all the excuse Yuki and Hirschel needed to rush forward. Yuki reached in through the shivering cabbage leaves and pulled their baby out, squirming and a bit slimy.
Ten fingers, ten toes, gently pointed ears and two pinpricks of fangs already showing in the gums as their baby yawned greeting to the world. Hirschel did a quick check. "She's perfect," he breathed. Yuki cradled their daughter and Hirschel slipped his arms around them both. "She's perfect, mama." He kissed Yuki on the temple.
"Henrietta," said Yuki in breathless amazement.
"My little o-hime-sama," said Hirschel, for once not caring that his fangs showed when he smiled.
Wrapped in the warmth of both her parents, little Henrietta did not notice or worry as outside it began to snow.
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