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“—and no, I’m not lookin’ for a charity. I just want t’ be able to see them after an’ have a say in where they go—”

“Our service is not to house, feed and care for your children for free while you waltz about the continents doing as you please with every intention to return and—”

“I’m not askin’ for that—”

“We take children whose parents cannot or will not provide for them, but once in our care, they will be seen to here, and have no paren—”

“Fine, I’m done. You c’n run your shite arse—”

Lithian — in the courtyard with his mate and speaking with one of the children — turned at the drift of conversation, ever-increasing in volume, and decidedly familiar. He frowned, standing from a crouch and looking for the source of—

There.

Takhi, as she emerged from behind the curtained doorway of an inner room of the building and out to stalk across the courtyard, did not look pleased. Nor did she look quite as he remembered her in general. Lithian’s eyes, in spite of himself, flit down to where she idly held one hand over her stomach — decidedly larger than he had last seen — as she trounced and scowled. Her pace stuttered, though, catching on the two of them.

“Are you…really?” she blurted, her expression immediately warming a half fraction, though there was still a pinch of lingering upset from earlier in her look. “What on Magesc and all its gods and hells are you two lovebirds doin’ in a dump like this?”

“Oi, ‘m certainly that much,” Takhi agreed. “T’ be honest I didn’t much expect it myself either, though apparently a body’s gonna do what it will. Tryin’ to work where t’ go from here at the moment.” Her gaze flit between the two of them, and then off. “Maybe we should chat a spell? Or are you busy here…”

“We could talk,” Lith said. “We were just…we’ve been coming for some time now. Casseth and I…” He glanced towards his mate. “As he said, we’ve…been hoping to expand the family a bit ourselves. But…” He shook his head as he eyed her again. “You look exhausted and as though you’ve had a busy day—”

“You ain’t tellin’ me,” she agreed, shoulders bunching up a fraction with a huff as one hand dropped back to her stomach. “I’m tryin’ to keep my ah, ‘family’ within the bounds of what I think’s most realistic, but these here—” She trailed off, frowning and quiting her voice a touch. “Perhaps best we go some’ere else, aye? Not upset the children.” She glanced to the two of them. “And it seems a good lot has happened and we have more than enough to speak on…”

So, they did. At Lithian’s suggestion and Casseth’s agreement, the group headed back for the afternoon towards their house, and it was in the comfort of privacy — and a cool drink and a meal with friends — that Takhi spoke more earnestly with them. She spoke of Drannath and her continuing, if unconventional ‘relationship’ with him, of their accident and her intentions to find a solid home for the children sired by it.

“I’ve no interest in settling just yet,” she said. “And if I tried t’ juggle that with a pair of infant girls…it just wouldn’t be the life they ought to have at the moment, an’ I know there’s better out there for ‘em. But I refuse t’ put ‘em someplace that won’t let me see ‘em again after. Aye, I won’t be the ‘mother’ most’d expect, but I’m bringin’ ‘em into the world, and I want to see to it they’re cared for. S’not an insane want, eh? So…I’ll be lookin’ a bit more, it seems as.”

She frowned, reaching down as one of the two in her stirred, kicking restlessly.

“They’re lively little ‘uns, I’ll give ‘em that much.”

Takhi blinked, startled momentarily but nodding a moment later. “Not in the least.” She moved, settling herself better and then lifting and bunching her top slightly above the growing bump at her stomach.

Across from her, Lithian flushed, eyeing the interaction and shifting his weight, but not moving. Instead, he watched Casseth, a warmth blooming in him just to see his mate so genuinely interested in the proceedings, and the gentleness with which he went about them. Lithian, of course, had always wanted children, but he knew just as well that it was a much newer — and daunting in some ways — concept for Casseth. His concerns that he was pushing his mate into something he didn’t want or wasn’t ready for, though, were eased in moments like these.

Takhi’s attention flit between the two of them and eventually lingered on Casseth. “So, y’ve been out orphan shoppin’…”

Lithian’s brow pinched.

“Happen to come on any place or any couple you think that’d work with a mother a touch? I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout makin’ the trip to the hybrid city so as to seein’ they wouldn’t be as much of a pair of outcasts, but…what’s more important to me is that I c’n keep track of ‘em. See to it their parents treat ‘em proper and so forth…I know I won’t be the biggest role in their lives, but doesn’t suit me to leave them to the sands either. Better I carry ‘em with me myself than that.”

Lithian’s pulse stuttered in his chest at Casseth’s words, surprise and a quiet, nervous hope blossoming simultaneously. Granted, he had been toying with the same thought himself as soon as it had become obvious what Takhi was doing in the orphanage, but he hadn’t expected Casseth to voice the thought first. It relaxed him, too, though, in its own way — as it had to see Casseth’s initiative when the children began kicking — to know that his mate truly wanted this.

Takhi looked as though she had been waiting for the suggestion to drop from one of them, and some unspoken uncertainty in the room felt immediately lifted when she responded. From there, conversation flowed more fully openly. Tanarah and Talanah, she said, were the girls’ names. She had consulted with a healer from the pit early on when she had found out she was heavy to begin with and learned their genders. ‘Identical’ the healer had told her, from tip to toe in their genetics, split from the same energy.

Aside from their names — which she wanted to keep as her gift to them as their mother — she said the girls would be theirs entirely. She wanted only open communication and honesty: the freedom to visit and watch them grow, and an upfrontness about the girls’ birthright with them when they were old enough to understand. She said that Drannath, too, wanted connection with his daughters, explaining that he had actually expressed regrets that she even wanted to adopt them out and a willingness to start a family of their own, but conceded only when she insisted she was not at such a point in her life to be ready for that level of constraint.

Eventually, they parted with only the basics discussed, but arranged to meet and speak more as the pregnancy progressed to detail their intentions and make more permanent plans.