A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 38: Revelations

The smile on her face faded after a time. This was a wonderful dream, but something still seemed to be missing. Perhaps she still needed that child she'd decided to have before she could truly be happy. Or maybe she was just sad that he would leave her for a time. Her hand began to brush against the side of his face. "Tomorrow, before you go, I want to make a hot meal for you and your friends. Make sure the contraption you're making works - not that I don't trust your skill I just..." She just wanted to delay his departure as long as feasibly possible. Naliira sighed. "I just want to make sure you're well-fed before you have to travel. What kind of wife would I be if I let you journey on an empty stomach?"

"That would be lovely, my dear." He smiled. "But I will need to finish it. I still have about an hour or so of work. But I am sure my friends will be happy to stay and eat." Selene might complain, but she would still eat the food. He yawned. "First, we should get some sleep. I think that the drow have done so already, and we need to wake up a little earlier than them." He leaned over and gave her a light kiss. "Goodnight, my leafy love." With that, he snuggled up to her, and shut his eyes.

Caleldir woke up rather early and slipped out of the bed. He regretted leaving so quickly, but he needed to get that hotplate finished. So he dressed rapidly and hurried to the table, getting right to work.

Ashyr exited her room before all the other women when the sky just started to get light. There was her usual look of mischief upon her face. She walked several steps into the dining room before affecting to just then notice that she was completely naked. Then her clothes materialized around her and she sat at the table. She had made sure that Naliira wasn't there to see her 'accidental' lewd display. Ashyr had also made sure that Caleldir had ample time to see it.

Caleldir broke out into a huge grin. He rather shamelessly ogled her, drinking in her form. He had missed her so much. Even three days apart had been too much. "Very soon, I hope." He muttered to himself while looking at her body. Looking back up at her face as she clothed herself, he laughed at her 'accidental' display.

"Good morning. Selene's still asleep. Almost done with that?" She asked as if nothing at all had just occurred.

As he opened his mouth to answer her, Naliira walked out with a sleepy but contented look about her. Strangely, he felt a surge of affection towards her, but not in the same way as he did Ashyr. His affection for the dryad was mixed with something like pity, after all.

"I don't think I slept so well in ages." The dryad said. It was quite possible that she wasn't exaggerating. "Oh, you're up - Ash..yr, was it? I trust you slept as well as I did." This time there was mischief in Naliira's eyes.

"Oh yes." Ashyr responded solemnly and she brushed her fingers through platinum hair to get some of the tangles out and right any trinkets that sat at odd angles.

Naliira walked over to Caleldir to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Good morning my love."

"Good morning to you as well." He returned her kiss, shooting Ashyr a half-apologetic look when the dryad was not looking. Ashyr merely winked at Caleldir, showing that she didn't mind too much. Relief was obvious on Caleldir's face. He could tell that she wanted to give him such affection as well, a feeling that he definitely shared. But like her, he was not inclined to make the dryad suspicious. It might have made Selene grumpy, but the younger drow was in bed and asleep and safe from seeing anything that would cause jealousy.

Their morning greeting finished, Naliira turned to Ashyr. "As I told my husband, I would like to make everyone a nice hot breakfast before you have to leave. I suppose you'll want meat. All I have is fruits and vegetables up here." The dryad didn't seem too sure about the notion of hunting, though. It had been a long time since that was necessary. Actually, she couldn't remember the last time she'd hunted for food.

A small look of surprise appeared on Caleldir's face. "Meat? Huh. I almost thought that you were a vegetarian. I suppose I was wrong. Well, with this hotplate, you will no longer need to be." With that, he went back to work, paying only half attention to their continued interaction. "Have a good hunt. I will be ready to cook in about forty-five minutes or so."

"I do not enjoy the taste of meat as much as I like fruits." Naliira confirmed. "But whether it be meat or vegetable, something has to die. I do not see the difference."

"I suppose that you have a point." Caleldir mused in response to Naliira's statement about how plants and animals were the same in that they were living things. A tree would think that, and ultimately that was a very dryad and nymph view of the world.

"Fresh meat would be nice. I can help out with whatever you need." Ashyr offered. She was, after all, a ranger. Hunting in the forest was her specialty, and something she actually enjoyed as well. With a dryad around, the drow didn't have to worry about getting lost. This could be an opportunity to stock up enough for the rest of their time in Caleldir's homeland.

She turned to Ashyr. "I would very much enjoy your company on a hunt." She told the drow with a friendly smile. "I would like to get to know my husband's friends as much as I can."

"Makes sense." Ashyr agreed. She stood and looked over to Bard, who was at that moment curled up on top of Althaia. "Think you can get my wolf down?"

"Have a good hunt! Be sure to bring back some for us to smoke and preserve. I will include a setting for that on the spell matrix here. Until Althaia wakes up, our supplies are still limited."

Naliira could get Bard back to solid ground, it turned out. Both dryad and drow got themselves out of the treehouse and ran into the forest proper to find breakfast and a little extra food for the road.

And so, he continued working on the hotplate, giving the two women a smile as they left. He continued his work until Selene appeared just as he was finishing up the last touches on the plate. It was something to be proud of: a simple, elegant round wooden plate that could fold out into an over, or simply heat up enough to boil pans sitting on it, all without heat. He felt incredibly drained, but ultimately satisfied with his efforts. "Good morning, my Lady." He said solemnly to the younger drow. The younger drow was as naked as the older one was when she entered the same room earlier that morning. Selene, however, seemed to have legitimately forgotten to clothe herself. He felt that her nude appearance was somewhat funny, especially given her apparently distracted look. But then, looking past her body (a difficult proposition) and at her uncomfortable, ashen face, he stopped. Something was wrong. "Selene?" He asked in a worried tone. "Are you okay?" The answer to his question came when she stumbled into the bathroom. Caleldir stood up in a hurry. Rather loud retching noises followed. "Selene? Are you ill? If so, I can provide some healing magic for you."

It was about a minute before Selene exited the bathroom still naked with that same uncomfortable look on her face and a completely empty stomach. Her hand lifted to her hair to pull it out of the loose knot she'd hastily tied to keep it out of the way. The drow seemed to be doing her best to ignore Caleldir for the time being. She sat down at the table hunched over herself. A curtain of hair covered her face from view. Caleldir telekinetically grabbed a blanket from the next room and draped it around the drow. He hesitated a moment, before putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Selene ignored the gestures for a time.

"I think I am ill." She said finally when she decided that so much nausea was not worth keeping just to give Caleldir the cold shoulder. It was hard to be angry with him when she felt so sick anyway. "Go on; heal me if you can."

"I think you are ill as well." Caleldir said dryly. "Let try to 'remove sickness' or whatever that spell was named." Closing his eyes, he thought through his inner library of spells. He had never been able to cast any of them like he should, for some reason the gestures and incantations never seemed to work right for him, but those few he did know he could use without any words or movements. So it was that he found some magic that should at least make her feel better and silently channeled the white magic through his hands into her. "Feel any better?" He asked. "If not, I can increase your constitution, which should help you better resist the illness."

The drow groaned. The noise was almost sexual in nature, though really it was noise of monumental relief. It did make her feel better. She still felt an undercurrent of nausea, but compared to what she had been feeling before, it seemed of little consequence. "I haven't felt so tired and sick since... since." The drow looked up at him suddenly as realization sprung to her features. She hadn't felt this sick in a good thirty years. Her hands, which had already been holding her stomach, dropped slightly lower and gripped more tightly against her dark flesh. "Oh. Oh no." She said with quiet horror in her voice. Selene quickly cast her eyes around the treehouse. Where the hell was Ashyr and that dryad bitch? "Where did my cousin go?" She demanded.

A look of confusion spread across his face. She had obviously discovered something that scared her. "She is out hunting for supplies with the dryad. What seems to be wrong?"

Her gaze fell upon the door into the treehouse. "I suppose they're not going to be back for a while then." Selene said with a sigh.

"Probably not." He agreed with her. "I would assume another hour or two at very least."

Her hands grabbed at the blanket around her and pulled it closer to her body. Why couldn't Ashyr have been there? She needed her. Why was she always gone when she needed her?! The drow's head fell to the table in front of her. She groaned again - not because of any physical discomfort she was feeling, but because of the unfortunate reality she was about to make more real by speaking it aloud. "I think I'm pregnant." Selene finally said. "Lolth damn them, I wouldn't put it past them."

Caleldir, who had been looking at the door after Selene, snapped his head back to her when she suddenly dropped a bombshell revelation. His face went ashen. He had been having a lot of sex with her recently, so the child could have been his, but the way that Selene stated the information, she seemed to think that the Duskhaven males were likely the culprits. Which, given inferences from Ashyr, meant that she was likely pregnant by rape. "Are you sure?" Caleldir asked. He closed his eyes. He did not have a way of guessing at the child's parentage, but he could see if Selene's instinct was correct. When he opened his eyes, they were glowing light green. He looked at her stomach, and let out a sigh. The spell dissipated. "I sense two life-forces on you. You are right. You are pregnant."

"That explains how tired I've been... Damn them all. Damn them all." Selene mumbled into the table. "I should have known that water tasted funny, but what the fuck was I supposed to do?!" She groaned again, and covered her head with her arms. Her body began to shake slightly. Ashyr wasn't there, but it looked like Selene was going to fall apart anyway. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't hold it in. "I thought I was finally free from them." The drow growled in tearful frustration. "But they still get their way with me even now."

Although he wanted to give Selene a hug and tell her that things would be all right, Caleldir simply stood there and looked upset. How was he supposed to comfort a woman who was pregnant by rape? Embracing her seemed like the wrong thing to do. But what else could he do? Well, besides listen.

Then she flinched, and her wide-eyed tearful face looked up at Caleldir. It hadn't occurred to her immediately, since her brain focused mostly on the trauma she'd experienced and not what she had been doing directly before being captured by the Duskhaven males. It occurred to her now, however. The child was definitely a product of rape - but whose rape was it, exactly? "Gods, it could be yours, too, from the first time I..." She trailed off. There was a look of horror on her face. How could she, Selene of House Duskhaven, most promising female wielder of magic and second in line for title of Matron, be the carrier of a half breed. All because some idiot males thought that they could control her body.

He thought back to that day. Oh dear. The timing was perfect. If he had gotten her pregnant then, the baby would start to be showing right about now, assuming her pregnancy progressed at around human rates. Which Elven pregnancies did not, but if magic was involved... "I... I do not know what to say." He said honestly. "I have no idea what I can tell you. All I can promise you is this: if you want my help, I will do everything I can to support you and the baby, regardless whether it is mine or your kinsmen's." He sort of hoped that it was his. Putting aside his own mixed feelings about being a father, and sharing a child with Selene of all people, it would probably be better for her long-time mental stability to have had a child with him, who actually liked her, rather than her murderous kinsmen.

"Why would I need your help?" She snapped at him. But she wasn't looking at him; her tear ravaged crimson eyes were trained south. Somewhere that way were a handful of people that she would dearly like to strangle at that moment. Her hand rubbed at the back of her neck in the vain attempt to comfort herself, a motion very similar to what Ashyr was doing when she desperately wanted to maul Caleldir with affection upon finally seeing him again. Actually, she would very likely need his help. Brothers cared for sister's children, but she'd be damned if she let any of those assholes near her new child.

"I did not mean that you absolutely need my help." Caleldir said solemnly. "But my responsibility is to serve you and Ashyr, so if you want my help I am at your service. Tendency to get kidnapped by mad dryads aside, I think that I can be useful." He could leave aside his mixed feelings about what it meant for him to become a father, if he even was, and simply concentrate on the facts of the matter: Selene was pregnant, and needed his help. Regardless of what he had just said, she needed his help. "If it is mine, though, perhaps we can retrieve that information from the monastery that I talked about? We cannot change the baby's genetics this far along, but we can insure that they do not look like a hybrid at least."

Her eyes flicked back over to him. That was something, at least. Then only Caleldir and Ashyr would know her shame. "We will see to it that we get the information, then."

"It will not be easy." Caleldir said. "Birchborn is a very powerful magister, far more so than me at my ghostiest, and completely mad due to the curse. But with a little luck, we can use the... device we made right nder her nose. And then we will know for certain who the father is."

A thought occurred to her then, and that, combined with the possibility of not birthing some grey... thing... made her feel a bit better about the situation. "Hell, I almost wish it's yours. That would fucking show them that they have no real power over me. And it would probably be a gorgeous little girl."

He smiled briefly in response to her words. Did he want it to be his? He was not sure. If Ashyr was pregnant, definitely, but Selene... well, like she said, better him than the alternative. "Aye, a lovely little drow/nymph." He agreed. "With luck, she may inherit some of her grandfather's abilities. That would be a child to be proud of. But my child or not, I am still here for you."

She bit her lip and hastily wiped tears from her eyes. That wouldn't be too bad at all, would it? "Any child of mine would be someone to be proud of." She confirmed with a good deal of her normal haughtiness shining through her despair and frustration. It was not so much the child itself that she did not like the idea of, especially now that there was a good possibility of it turning out normal-looking no matter who fathered it. She just would have much rather had the choice of timing and the sire. The timing was absolutely awful. The sire? Well, they would find out soon enough who that was. She still looked shaken up, though, and tears still spilled from her eyes. Ashyr wasn't there, though Selene desperately wanted her. But Caleldir was there, and he was the closest thing to a person she actually tolerated (aside from her cousin.) "You can... you can embrace me." Selene told him, "If you must," she added hastily at the end. Yes... If he was hugging her, it was a sign of his weakness. Not hers. That's exactly how it was, definitely not the other way around.

Selene's attempt at pretending that she did not want him to comfort her caused a slight smile to appear on Caleldir's face again. "I would like that. If you would tolerate my weakness, I would feel a lot better." With that, he gave her a tender hug, pulling her to himself just tightly enough that she could feel it.

Selene stiffened. That stiffness melted after a moment, and she went so far as to put her arms around him as well. She squeezed a little more tightly and buried her face into his chest.

Feeling Selene embrace him like that, Caleldir was reminded of how small she really was. The hard drow dominatrix that she acted, she so often seemed larger than life, powerful and controlling. Certainly from his oft position (and introductory position, for that matter) beneath her looking up, she seemed tall indeed. But now she was a small, soft woman, and Caleldir was more than happy to hold her close, to simply comfort her, let her know that he would be there for as long as she needed him.

It was then that she properly noticed her nakedness and quickly made her usual dark robes appear around her. Ashyr would probably be quite pissed if she and the dryad walked in on a scene that involved any sort of nudity. They might not even like seeing Caleldir hugging her, but they could go fuck themselves if they thought that Selene was ready to let go yet. Her fists clenched handfuls of the loose material he wore as she continued to cling to him.

Her sudden robing caused Caleldir to chuckle for a second. "So, you noticed." He said with mild amusement. "I wondered if I should tell you." She seemed only to grasp on to him harder.

"Why does this bullshit always have to happen to me?" Selene wondered aloud in a moment of selfish self-pity.

"Why do these sort of things happen?" Caleldir replied. "The monks would say that Eternity would work out all things for good in the end, that evil was suffered only for a little while, to better test the good, but they are all gibbering ghosts now, so I cannot answer your question. I do not know. But when these things happen, Ashyr and I will be there for you. That I can vow."

"Good." Was all she said in response. Ashyr, at least, had better be, or Selene would hunt her down and make her pay for broken promises. Not that Selene believed that her cousin would fail to do everything she said she would. Hopefully this situation wouldn't change things.

A wicked thought came to her mind then, a testament to her slight recovery from the shocking news she'd just discovered. After all, she had her anger at the whole Naliira/Caleldir situation to think about. "I'd bet your 'wife' wouldn't handle this news very well." She casually observed. Not that she would actually tell that madwoman that it was a good one in three chance that Selene was carrying her 'husband's' child. Selene didn't have a death wish. If she could make Caleldir feel bad about the situation, though, she wasn't going to pass on the opportunity. She pulled her face away from his chest to give him what she hoped was a threatening look but was probably more tearstained and vulnerable.