The Story of a Lifetime Ch. 05

I sat there in silence. Granny, the aged elven matriarch, sat in silence too. The chair creaked as I shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable. It was hard to find a good position when your stomach looked like you'd swallowed a watermelon.

She looked down at her notes, back up at me, and back down. She sighed. "Okay."

"Okay?" I asked, not sure what to make of the one-word answer. "Okay, what?"

She rubbed her eyes. "I just needed a moment to process that. That was a lot."

"I did warn you that it was quite a story," I told her. I could feel a blush creeping up my face and warming my ears.

"That you did, Amaranthea, that you did." She seemed to rally, and sat up straighter. "I've been keeping track of the days going by and, assuming your recollection is good, I've built a bit of a timeline here. It's very approximate, but it's the best we've got. A half-elf's menstrual cycle is all over the place at the best of times, but if we take the averages we can get likely ranges."

I nodded, following along. She had laid some of this out before, but as she turned the notebook around to face me, I saw how much more detail she'd added.

"Between week six and seven are the likeliest, and it was during that time that you had sex with the satyr and the dwarf. It's true that the dwarf pulled out before finishing, but it's still technically possible to get pregnant in that situation. Fortunately, I think we can rule out your Captain Rockbeard, because the odds of impregnation after a pull-out are much lower, and dwarf and elven bloodlines have a low rate of mixing."

"So that's one man off the list," I said, trying a smile. My smile met her stern face, sputtered out, and died.

"Yes, one man down. I still believe that we can rule your human ex-boyfriend out. Of the five remaining partners, the satyr is the most likely candidate. You had sex with him during this prime fertile period," she tapped a spot on her timeline with one bony finger as she spoke. "But we don't know for sure if that's when you were ovulating. If it happened a bit earlier, it could well have been one of the three orcs whose seed quickened in you."

I nodded, looking at the diagram she'd drawn. "But if I ovulated later than the six to seven week mark, it could have been..."

"The minotaur?" she confirmed, and I nodded. She settled back in her chair and sighed again. "I truly don't know. I've heard of very few reports of a human laying with a minotaur, and never an elf, and none of those stories mention progeny. These reports were all third-hand information, so they wouldn't be reliable anyway. Whether a human or half-elf could procreate with a minotaur..." she shook her head again. "It depends on what exactly a minotaur is."

"How do you mean?"

"One piece of lore claims that minotaurs were once humans, cursed or blessed by the gods to have bestial form. If that's the case, then they are almost certainly able to breed with humans. If minotaurs are instead a fully separate race from a different branch of the tree of life, then it is very unlikely that cross-breeding is possible."

"So, Tialdin is a 'maybe' on our list?"

"I'm afraid so. I just don't have the data I would need to make an inference there. He was during the later end of our assumed fertile range, but it's certainly a viable possibility."

"How much further does that 'late range' of the possible conception extend?"

She frowned down at the notebook, and dragged a thin finger along the line. "It's possible that you ovulated as late as week eight after your period, which would be day fifty-six, in which case conception could have occurred as late as day fifty-eight." She looked up from her notebook and turned her frown towards me. "Why? You didn't have another sexual partner before then, did you?"

"I, uh..." I stammered, looking away from her, and she sighed.

"Who did you sleep with? And more importantly, what?"

********

Once you've seen one port city, you've seen them all. While I was first meandering the streets of Limani, I had been stricken by the differences in architecture, clothing, speech, food, and just about everything else. But after a few hours, I realized it was the exact same as Newport: fisheries and docks close to the water, with taverns that appeal to sailors, then mercantile stretches along the big roads to and from the docks, and nicer homes up the hill. The food tasted exotic, but it was still mostly fish-based like other port cities.

After getting myself some skewered and roasted salmon, I tracked down a cartographer and got the best map she had to offer, which used up most of my remaining coin. Finally, sticky from sweat and sea air, I needed a bath.

Unlike my home country, Patridike seemed to have less regard for modesty. On a stretch of lawn I saw a woman lounging in the sun, wearing nothing but a small towel on her lower quarters. I managed to avoid stopping and staring at exposed breasts, but it took an effort of will.

I found more people able to speak my language than I'd expected, and I quickly learned that bathing came in three varieties in Patridike: small tubs in your own home, expensive private baths that catered to nobles and rich merchants, and public bathhouses. Inviting myself into someone's home wasn't going to work out well, and I certainly didn't have enough money left to go to a fancy bathhouse, so I managed to track down a public building that had a low enough cost while still keeping an adequate reputation.

I stepped into the building and immediately appreciated the refuge from the sun. It was a long building broken into the front area where one pays their fee and leaves their shoes, a small storage area for your goods, and then three large pools of water.

One of the pools had a family in it, and I passed them by. Of the two remaining pools, one was a bit above room temperature, probably heated through an alchemical or magical source, while the other one was icy cold on my foot when I tested it. I decided on the warmer pool, and stripped down beside it. I folded up my clothes and set them on top of my shoes within easy reach of the pool, and walked down the ramp into the warm waters.

The pool was simple in its construction: a rectangular shaped container sunk into the floor, about four feet deep in the middle. At one end there was a ramp for getting in and out, at the other end a pipe fed fresh hot water.

I picked a spot about halfway along, where the water was warm but not uncomfortably so. The wall of the pool had a sort of bench under the water, so one can sit while they soak, and I happily settled onto it. The warm water started working its magic on my muscles right away, and I sighed happily as I felt myself loosening up.

A splashing noise and movement in the water told me someone else had chosen this pool, and I opened my eyes and looked up to see a man at the bottom of the ramp putting one foot into the water to test it. One hoof, rather.

I followed the line of his leg up, up, and found the muscular torso of a human on the body of a horse. The centaur kicked his hoof in the water once more, nodded to himself, and trotted down into the water. I watched as he moved towards the hotter end. He didn't bother with the bench, and probably couldn't have used it anyway. He simply folded his four equine legs under his horse half, and settled down into the water until it came halfway up his human portion.

He looked over at me, and gave a nod. "Hope you don't mind the company. This is the only pool here deep enough for me." His voice was accented, but at least he spoke the same language as me.

"Not at all." I shifted as he looked in my direction, pulling my legs up and angling them so he wouldn't be able to see my breasts... or anything more sensitive. Being naked in a public place was kind of a new experience, and I wasn't sure I appreciated it. I looked off to the side, as if I was just zoning out, and tried to ignore him. Even still, I felt his gaze pass over me a few times more than was necessary.

"You from Yamen En'sol?"

His question had distracted me from my reverie, and I blinked a few times. Yamen En'sol was the elvish nation of this continent, and I guess it was reasonable to assume any elves around here came from there. "That's my destination, actually."

"Are you going to take the highway South around the Unclaimed Woods, and then back up? That's the route I usually take."

"I was actually going to go as far East as I could," I told him, "cut into the woods, then go Southeast to detour around the deeper parts."

He nodded slowly, as if working through that route in his head. "That's a rough trip for a horse and wagon, but if you and your group are on foot and know how to navigate a forest, it's probably quicker."

"No group, just me. How many times have you made the trip?"

He blinked a few times. "You're going to hike through the woods alone? Those woods are also home to some nasty creatures, and what if you break your leg?"

"I'm not a horse, my leg doesn't break so easily-" I caught myself a moment too late. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be racially insensitive. I just mean that I can handle the woods."

He threw back his head and laughed, drawing stares from the family in the next pool over. "No, you're right," he told me, the laughter still in his voice. "I have to be a lot more careful where I step than you do. And to answer your question, I've made the trip South a lot of times, but I don't usually go back as far north as Yamen. I pull carts for a living."

I smiled, glad he had been willing to laugh off my ignorance. "You pull carts?"

"Sure. Lots of business in this area. The merchants need someone to help move their carts, and having a centaur at the front of a convoy makes bandits think twice about getting in the way. Sometimes richer merchants will hire a few of us to range ahead to keep an eye out for trouble."

"Pulling a cart seems like hard work."

"Oh, it is," he agreed, giving me another brazen look-over. "Muscles get sore from a long day of work. That's how I know which bathhouses in this city are actually worth their price."

I was getting uncomfortable with his repeated glances, and was about ready to get moving. I was about to get up, then stopped as I realized doing so would leave me fully on display. "Ah," I stammered, "How does one usually... get out?"

"With their feet, mostly," he said, then grinned. He knew exactly why I was uncomfortable, and he didn't seem like he was going to let me off easy.

I took a deep breath and turned around, climbing over the side of the pool and snagging my clothes. I stood quickly and held the clothes in front of me, and started making my way towards the dressing area. A quick glance over told me that the centaur was still watching me, and I had no doubt that he'd gotten quite an eyeful as I got out.

"I do mean it about being careful," he called when I was six or seven feet away. "Despite the name, there are things that are quite possessive of their land in the Unclaimed Woods. I'd rather someone as beautiful as you not end up eaten. Well," he added with a leer, "except by me."

I hustled out and changed quickly, blushing all the while. The centaur was a creep, but he probably wasn't wrong about the woods being dangerous. I pulled my clothes on, packed my backpack back up, and made sure the knife at my side was easy to access. "Just in case," I told myself.

The city of Limani was kind of squat, and wandered aimlessly until it slowly petered out at the edges. There weren't even real walls around the city, so I just walked East as the buildings got further and further apart, until the city finally gave way to farmland. I followed a major road for a while, then took a smaller road, and then an even smaller one from there. Eventually I was just following a pair of ruts in the ground, no doubt left behind by years of merchants' wagons passing through.

When I camped for the night, I went without a fire. The last thing I wanted to do was draw the attention of any nearby bandits. Or worse.

Despite my low-grade anxiety, the night passed without event, and I started up again early the next morning. I kept moving due East, passing through a grouping of buildings that was hardly worthy of the title of a town. After some asking around, I confirmed that this was Xefotodimos, which translated to something close to Gladetown or Gladeborough.

I conferred with my map and found the little untitled dot that lined up with where the town lay, which meant I was still going the right direction. The map also told me that this was the last patch of civilization before things got a bit more woodsy. I decided to spend a little bit more coin and stay in the small inn for a night, where at least I wouldn't have to worry about monsters, bandits... or mosquitos. Then I dropped another coin on tipping the local musician, and the next day traded another few precious coins for some dried meat and fruits. "I may as well have a few extra rations," I told the man at the food stall, who thought I was crazy for wanting to cut through the woods.

Then it was back to the road.

The wagon trail I was following stayed steady through the first half of the day, until the farms started getting farther and farther apart and the trees got closer and closer together. Eventually the road was reduced to a small path, and I followed its twists and turns. As much as I wanted to save time and cut due East, completely losing the trail in unfamiliar terrain would be a bad move.

When it was dark enough that I didn't want to risk going further, I bedded down under a tall tree and checked with my map again. Judging the distances, I figured I could cut through the woods this way for another day before needing to angle South.

I settled into a restless sleep, waking up every time I heard a tree shift. When I woke for the hundredth time, knife in hand, I decided that the rising sun was bright enough to travel by.

I followed a trail that branched from my path, which seemed to be going almost due East. Using the sun to navigate by was dubious at best, and I was very glad to have a compass to rely on. "As long as there isn't a mysterious fey homeland to confuse it," I mumbled to myself.

On I went, as the sun lifted herself above the horizon, then reached her apex and started back down. I moved slowly and with many breaks, not making a lot of headway.

At the next intersection of trails, I tried to guess how far I'd walked, and decided I had probably gone far enough due East. I picked a trail that ran South by Southeast, and started down that way. At this point the sun was well past the day's peak, and moving towards the horizon.

I kept on as the light went from bright to dim, following turns in the path that my elven eyes could make out plainly even in the fading light. I was tired, had been since I woke up, but wanted to find somewhere a little safer to rest tonight - a cliff or large rock to put my back to would be a good start.

I was certainly tired, but not too tired to hear the sound of something moving in the woods beyond. I'd heard it twice before, once far off and the second time a little closer. Now the sound was off to my left side, and I realized that whatever was moving was staying parallel to my path. It was following me.

I adjusted my top somewhat, tugging at the bottom hem, and used the motion to covertly pull my knife out of its sheath. I kept the blade on the far side of my body, so I could surprise my stalker.

The path took a bend, passing by a huge tree with a lot of open space around it. This would do.

I quickly stepped off the path and put my back to the tree, turning to the brush with the knife still concealed behind my body. "Alright, that's enough," I called. "Come on out."

I was expecting some predatory creature that might run off at the sound of resistance, or maybe something a bit smarter that I might be able to parlay with. What I wasn't expecting to step into my line of sight was a wolf bigger than the last horse I'd ridden.

"Oh fuck," I whispered involuntarily. The creature stood almost as tall at the shoulder as me, and must have been at least eight feet long. It moved another step towards me, its lips curling back from its mouth with a snarl, revealing teeth that were meant to rend flesh and crush bone.

"Oh fuck."

I desperately tried to remember lessons I'd had about woodcraft. If it's brown, lie down, if it's black... no, that was for bears. What the hell did one do about a direwolf? I turned my head to look around me, trying to keep it in sight. The tree behind me was probably big enough to keep me out of its reach, but it was tall and there weren't many low-hanging branches. If I tried to climb it and fell, or climbed too slowly, this thing would be on me.

"Oh fuck," I mumbled again.

The bushes shifted and another creature stepped forward, and I felt my stomach drop. Another wolf's face became visible to my keen eyes, even higher off the ground than the first beast's.

I tried to quell my panic at the idea of an even bigger wolf, then froze. What the hell? Its head was higher up, but so was its chest. It took another step forward, and I realized it was bipedal. This second one wasn't a wolf, but a... I didn't know what. It walked on two legs, and had two arms, and was covered in thick fur. It had hunched shoulders and a wolf face. "A werewolf?" I asked the air.

The second wolf, the humanoid one, made a hissing whistle, and the large wolf stopped in place, radiating barely contained malice.

The wolfman walked closer, until it stood close enough to the direwolf to lay a hand on it for a moment. Then it spoke, shocking me again. "I am no werewolf."

I felt my mouth open and close a couple of times, but nothing came out. Taking a deep breath in, I tried again, but only managed to squeak. The wolfish humanoid had just argued it was no werewolf, and it spoke... in elven?

I took another deep breath, then another. The two creatures just watched me. Finally I swallowed down my panic, and managed to speak. "Greetings." That was it? That was all I could come up with - greetings?

The not-werewolf stared at me for another long moment before speaking. "You are elvenkind," it said, and I struggled to understand. Its dialect of Elvish was different from the one I'd grown up learning, and its wolfish snout mangled its words. "Your kind knows better than to walk here."

"I'm only half elf," I mumbled, then realized how stupid of an answer that was. I was absolutely not on my A-game.

Its amber-yellow eyes flicked from my face down to my boots and back up. "You seem whole."

"No," I answered, automatically, "I mean to say that I am only partially elven, half, and the rest is human. One parent was an elf, the other a human."

It cocked its head slightly, looking for all the world like a dog trying to understand spoken words. A dog that could, at any point it chose, rip me to shreds. "You are half of an elf, then, and should still know not to cross into the realm of the chaluum."

"Is that what you are?" I asked, trying to keep up. "A... cha-loom?"

"Chaluum," it repeated, correcting my pronunciation. How about that, a wolfman giving me a grammar lesson. "Do you not know where you walk? Did your mother not teach you the laws of the woods?"

"My mother was a human," I told him, "and lived many, many miles away across the sea. I am a traveller from far away, and I didn't know this land was occupied. I am coming from the human city in the West, and trying to find my way to Yamen En'sol."

"You cross our lands, and that is forbidden," it informed me. "The humans use roads to the South when they wish to travel."

"I thought I was still in a safe area, I was following my map," I reached for the folded paper as I said this, and the chaluum tensed. I froze and waited to see if I was about to die. Apparently I wasn't, so I very slowly drew my map and showed it to the creature.