|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 2:40 pm
A wave of relief washed over Kelebek as he hadn't caught her slip. She was safe, for now. But then he'd turned the conversation around, and with each passing word she felt that longing ache grow.
Oh no, this was much worse.
Peaches had begun to snore gently, and Kelebek kept silent for a while, hoping for her feelings to pass.
No such luck.
She couldn't hold it in anymore. Perhaps it was the lingering amorous feelings from Venus Day combined with the fact that it seemed every time they went, someone close to them found themselves with child, compounded with the "game" they had played--he knew she wanted more children--but she had to say something. Even if the answer was a hard no, at least she'd know and could mourn.
"Have you...have you ever thought about having children.......with me?" She felt like her face was a thermal vent, it was so hot. She leaned up slowly to watch his expression.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 3:17 pm
Had he heard that right?
Had he actually heard that right?
"I don't suppose we are still talking in hypotheticals anymore... are we?"
Smooth.
His eyes darted away; if he was a land-pae, a thin film of sweat would have coated his skin. A non-insignificant part of him just wanted to bolt, but he had a sleeping tot pinning him in place. Tricky tricky. Wait, was this the reason she'd invited him over? To ask him if he ever thought of having kids? With Kelee so comfortably away in dreamland, there was no escaping the question. He didn't want to make things awkward when neither of them could move to ease the tension, but he didn't want to lie about something like this even more.
He couldn't make eye contact anymore and stared upwards towards the ceiling.
"Honestly... no. I've not given the idea much thought."
That much should have been obvious, right? Right? He hadn't even considered anything resembling names before today.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 3:44 pm
Kelebek's heart soared. That wasn't a rejection! Maybe she could encourage him to give it some thought.
As she began to speak, she stared down at Peaches, twirling the tot's hair around one finger softly. The more she spoke, the more words spilled out, the harder it was to stop speaking, and the less she was able to look away from that one spot.
"I....I have thought about it. And I've been thinking more and more about it recently. You must already know that I want more children. Our children are all grown and gone, have families of their own." She hesitated a moment before continuing. "And to be honest, and of course I'd never tell them this, but sometimes the sight of Toli, Zoran, and Moana can be painful. They certainly weren't planned, and every time I look at them I'm reminded of how long I spent agonizing over something I knew would never come to be. I was so foolish to wait so long, hoping fruitlessly that he'd come around and love me, instead of going and looking for someone who actually did." It was vaguely unclear whether she was talking to Hjortur or to herself. "And Pearl was such a blessing because she was mine alone to love, without any memories or anything, but the truth is that I want children who were born out of love, not as happy accidents or as a gift from the Spirits out of pity for my lonely existence."
She stopped abruptly. "No, that's not a real reason to have children," she amended her statement. "Hjortur, I want to have children with you because I love you so much and I want to have children that are part of each of us, that we can teach to sing, and play music, and go for swims around the kelp forest, and..." She trailed off and sighed, almost as if exhausted.
"I know we found each other after becoming parents already, and I know we have our hands full with huge extended families, and I know it must be the last thing on your mind right now, and it's selfish of me to ask, but I can't keep silent any longer. I-I trust you enough to bare my heart."
If she was a land-pae, she would have been weepy. However, it was notable, not that she herself noticed, that although she'd laid her vulnerabilities at his fins, she was still visible in full-color.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:21 pm
Having just taken the brunt of her monologue, Hjortur looked like a deer in headlights.
He'd thought they'd been poking fun at each other with that Venus Day couples game's question by implying that they wanted more children... or had he really? Could he say for certain that there wasn't a part of him that hadn't been expecting a moment like this to come in due time, that perhaps he wasn't trying to get a reaction out of her when he egged her on?
He didn't want to hear Kel talk about Turin; he hated when she talked about him, thought about him, hurt because of him.
Honestly, would he have liked to have a child with Kel? Yes. But it wasn't for the sake of making love... he just wanted proof that she was thinking of him, only him, not Turin. That she loved him more than him, than she ever had loved him. He wanted something physical he could flaunt around, something that would show Turin that Kel was way happier now that she was over him and that she was, in fact, over him for good. That Turin could take that new family of his and shove it up his metaphorical a** because Kel didn't need him anymore. And Hjortur knew it was particularly mean-spirited to feel that considering what had happened to the young princesses, but he cared so little it almost frightened him.
Even looking at these tadpoles before him was bittersweet. They weren't his to coddle, they were Turin's. Turin and Kel's grandtadpoles. Their scales had that unmistakable pink that was absent from his own lineage. He had no place in it. Their father would probably be beside himself if he knew Hjortur was here. How was he supposed to compare to the Captain and Consort of the Queen? It was just ludicrous. He didn't want to expose himself at the risk of becoming Kel's second mistake. If she was at risk...
He'd much rather things just continue as they had been.
His eyes looked down and away. His mouth opened, then closed, before he bit his lower lip as words refused to come.
He couldn't just take her feelings head-on like that and give some cheery, halfhearted 'sure, if it'll make you happy' lip service to move the conversation along. Anything he could say right now would just come out wrong, but saying nothing was also unacceptable.
Damn it all! Why now Kel?
"Are you unhappy with the way things are?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 11:53 am
"No!" exclaimed Kelebek, which startled the tots, but not enough to wake them. She bit her lip and quieted before she continued. "No, of course I'm not unhappy," she clarified.
Was she unhappy?
No, she decided. She was the happiest she'd ever been. "The time I spend with you makes me happier than anything. And I'm sorry for springing such a serious topic on you...it kind of just...bubbled up." She gave a bit of a nervous laugh before continuing. "And I want you to know--seriously--that if you don't want children, I will make peace with that, and we can stay like this forever. I just...I wouldn't feel right never telling you how I feel."
Kelebek had spent entirely too long keeping her feelings and opinions to herself for the comfort of others. She was still eminently accommodating, of course, but she would let anypae know how she felt--especially when she felt as safe as she did around Hjortur.
"You don't have to give an answer right now. We can just enjoy these baby snuggles before we contemplate any of our own any further." She offered an inquiring smile, as if to say "Ok?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 1:26 pm
Hjortur looked back up with a start as Kel's uncharacteristically-loud outburst, the breath he didn't know he was holding escaping as she quieted down.
He ran his hand through the young Kelee's hair as he looked down.
Yeah, of course he'd gone and made things awkward. That was what he did best, even when he wasn't trying. Ahh... He just wasn't good with these kind of serious talks. Of course she'd take what he'd said like that. Really, what had he done to deserve to be intimate with someone this too good for him? Here he was being jealous, petty, spiteful... yet she just continued to accommodate his feelings over her own. It made him feel a bit bad. Well, more than a bit; it had him feeling like he was taking advantage of her inclinations as they suited him without returning the actions in equal measure. She was offering to sacrifice such a large part of her just to suit him, and what was he doing?
"It..."
He started, still looking at the sleeping Kelee and entirely unsure where his words would take him. There was a gentle smile on his face.
"It makes me happy... that you would want to have a child with somepae like me..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 11:55 am
Now she was....very confused. Kelebek wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, as she exhaled a breath that she'd been holding, but it certainly hadn't been that.
She was quiet for a long time as she processed that simple phrase. What did that mean? Did that mean that he did want children? Her heart leapt in her chest--she hoped that's what it meant! But it could very well just mean that he was flattered she'd want to, hypothetically. But why would he phrase it like that? She chewed her bottom lip contemplatively.
Still, Kelebek was always one to hope. Until he stated otherwise, outright, she'd choose to believe that he meant he did want children, one day.
"I don't know what to say," she squeaked, resting her head on his shoulder again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:13 pm
Hjortur gave a slight shrug as Kel's weight came to rest on him, his head tilting to rest lightly atop her own. His hand gave a small squeeze after free arm reached out to wrap around her body and hold her side.
"No worries, I haven't the slightest idea what to say either."
He laughed and gave her another playful squeeze as he added on. "I am not great at these kind of serious talks about the future; I have always been a more of a 'take life as it comes' sort of guy. So..." frankly, he had never really had a pregnancy close to him that wasn't a (happy) accident, so he wasn't aware of there being any specific steps necessary to conceive a child. It was always just something that... "...if it happens, it happens. If not, then so be it."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 6:02 pm
Kelebek was content to rest in Hjortur's arms for a moment, and did so silently, and with a smile on her face.
Until she processed what he'd said.
A confused frown furrowed her brow and she looked up at him, though keeping her head on his shoulder. "I mean...if we decide we want children we can't very well leave it to fate..." She wondered that since all of Hjortur's children had been....less purposeful....if he didn't know how one went about conceiving children intentionally.Daisicle short post sorry! gotta take off from work
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 9:18 pm
Hjortur returned her confused look with one of his own. Was she so against the idea of them leaving things up to chance? Surely it was just a matter of time before it eventually happened; no need to rush.
"I mean, can we not?"
And just like that he was starting to feel a bit awkward again; was he missing something here?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 8:56 am
Now it was Kelebek's turn to giggle. He really didn't know! "I'm sorry," she said, cuddling into him more. "I assumed you knew." The things we didn't teach boys...
Actually, now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember how she learned how babies were made.
Whatever.
"When we're ready, we'll call Millie. She's a fairy, like the ones at the Venus Day parties, but much older and less silly. She'll bring us something special to drink, kind of like a potion?, and and drinking it will make it so we can conceive. Otherwise it'll never happen." At least, she'd never heard of it happening, outside of strange land-dweller parties. Maybe it worked differently for them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 9:17 am
Well now he just felt silly... Was that really just common knowledge? Not to mention it brought up as many questions as it had answered.
"That makes it seem like childbearing is a conscientious decision, but that is not always the case..." He only needed to look at his family to know about that. Pippin and Autumn and Pearl had all had unexpected children, but they all centered around one particular event... "Does she work for Venus then; how else would there be so many unplanned pregnancies after the parties?" Truth be told, it was probably strange for him to have gone so many years in a row and come out relatively unscathed. "And then how did..." He couldn't recall having ever spoken with a fairy before Calliope and Daedalus were born, nor had it centered around a party. If memory served right, he and Thalia had met up after recovering from being stranded on an island and then shared a bottle of drink they'd found in the process.
A bottle of drink...
She brings potions...
Ah...!
A look of understanding seemed to spread across Hjortur's face as he put the pieces of his own biological children's conception together. It made sense. It had been an accident, but the particular circumstances of how it was possible were not. "I think I have had that drink before..."
"She really ought to be careful about her stock; leaving it on an island, no matter how deserted, cannot be the smartest way to store them. And unlabeled too..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:40 am
"I suppose I always assumed there was strange land-dweller magic at work," Kelebek said with a shrug. There was always all sorts of weird happenings at Venus' parties. Who was to say that babies weren't part of it? Although considering the sheer number of children Venus herself had, it was possible that children were an intended side effect of her parties.
"I have too," she said, with a bit of a blush. It had been disguised as punch at the first land-dweller party she'd been to. How naive she'd been then!
"Perhaps she didn't intend to store it there...maybe it was mislaid?" That wasn't terribly responsible either. "I don't know," she added with a shrug.
"Either way," she said, settling into him once more, "When we decide it's time, we'll send for her." Kelebek was nearly giddy at her own use of when, and not if. She fell silent again for a while, daydreaming about what their babies might look like. Pink and purple...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 4:09 pm
"Hmmm..." Hjortur mused quietly to himself. Sure, the parties seemed to always get out of hand, but there didn't seem to be a reason why it was so different from the understood way of things happening. That said, they were also deity... breaking a few laws of nature probably shouldn't have been all that surprising.
He looked back over at Kel with an eyebrow raised. "I thought yours were from a party?" And right when he was beginning to presume parties =/= Millie, a new piece of circumstantial evidence was here to foil the thought.
His gaze drifted off as he began to think out loud, his hands softly stroking Kelee's hair once more. "Does that mean they lack an expiration date then? How strange..." He notably did not comment on her use of 'when' rather than 'if,' though how much of that was him not noticing and him intentionally not pointing it out was up to anyone's interpretation. "In that case, would it not be better to just have a bottle on hand to use as our fancies are tickled? How would one even send for her though." There were so many questions remaining. At this point, his prior unease had largely been replaced with curiosity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 10:18 am
"Um, yes," agreed Kelebek with a bit of a blush. "I'm still not entirely certain what happened. We were all there on the beach, meeting the land pae, figuring out how legs worked..." She'd been pining after a certain someone, but that hardly merited mentioning at this moment. "And there was a huge bowl of punch, and it was delicious, sweet, warm as you swallowed it. I think it had the effect of....impairing judgment." Or else why would he have noticed her at all? "And I think someone must have slipped a potion into it. That's the only explanation I can think of."
Hjortur's idea sounded practical, and Kelebek had to say she was tempted by it, as a moment's impulse could have the effect she so desired, but it seemed...disingenuous somehow. "I'm...I'm not sure how we would send for her...and I don't even know who we would ask. And....I think I'd rather call for her when we are ready.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
