Family Matters
© 2022 by M. Mitch Marmel

Thumbnail art by  immelmann

Part Fifty-seven



Winterbough:

In hindsight, I should have been more on my guard. My old I&RA magic instructor, Lt. Rutter, would have been furious with me, and the boar would probably have plagued me with feral wasp’s nests for several days, all the while berating me for failing to keep my guard up.

And the worst part of it was I couldn’t blame him for being disappointed in me.

I was cavorting in the snow with Westie, as I’ve described earlier, flapping my arms to encourage him to exercise his wing muscles and stretch the membranous wings themselves. He was enjoying this, and I appreciated what the Wolf Queen (now Missy Sage) had meant by young Elflets learning faster if the instruction was more like play.

Elves Don’t Lie, I was enjoying myself too.

I pronked while flapping my arms, leaping slightly over a small snowdrift.

And my hoof came down on a ward.

There was an explosion and I went literally flying through the air. Westie stood there and watched as I soared over his head.

Thank the Lady, I landed in a deep drift of snow. While I thrashed around, trying to get out of the drift and get my hooves under me, something apparated over my head.

It was a bucket.

Which upended, pouring its contents over me.

Westie backpedaled, saying “{Lhpx.}”

I had to agree with him, since the bucket was full of ant-spraint.

While I spluttered and tried not to swear (I almost gnawed my tongue off), I applied cantrips to rid myself of the stinking mess. I was also casting detect-magicks and dispelling other explosive wards that I saw scattered around.

My wyrmling son, though, was already on the job. He started sniffing while walking toward a section of stone wall that marked one boundary of the field we were in. He sniffed again about ten yards from the wall and reared back on his haunches, spreading his wings wide.

His mouth opened, and I saw the now-familiar blue light as he breathed out at the stones.

Something moved against the wall, getting out of the way before ice appeared, and the camouflage-cantrip faded.

“W-Wolfess?!” Yes, it was Missy, and Westie eyed her suspiciously. “What the Netherhells?”

“And I would have done a lot more, if it hadn’t been for your meddling kid,” Missy said tartly. She held one paw up in the time-honored Two-Finger Salute. “But I’ve paid you back for,” and she indicated one upraised finger with her free paw, “not telling me about the wards you put on Chef Ernest’s room, and,” she touched the second finger, “for that incident with the poo gas in the High Lair.” She then sniffed, turned around and flounced off, nose in the air.

Elves Don’t Lie, I had thought she’d forgotten about the poo gas thing. I know I had.

Westie galumphed over to me, sniffed, and then hugged and nuzzled me. “{Znzn, ner lbh nyy evtug?}”

I hugged him, and assured him that I wasn’t hurt – well, maybe my pride. All right, definitely my pride.

But I’m going to have to wait until after she has her baby before I decide how to get back at her.


***


Tali:

Well, as it usually manages to do, Winter started to change into Spring.

Obvious, right? I mean, it’s not like Winter will give Spring and Summer a miss and go straight into Autumn, now will it?

And yes, I know there are alternities where that’s happened. Pedants.

Temporal Corps R&D sent me a message to tell me that there’d been a few minor breakthroughs. The energy surge that signals a Gap forming is still elusive, but my research into dispelling the Gaps is giving some of the engineering types among the Big Brains ideas about a device that can generate the energy wave-form required. A pilot project’s being set up, and if it works, it’ll come in jolly useful for stopping them.

Preventing them remains a problem, but ever since the Musashi’s collision things have been pretty quiet.

The Master’s adopted son, Westie the ice-wyrm, is growing like a weed. His wings are getting stronger and I’ve seen him glide short distances after making a running jump off a wall.

Which brings me to a funny story that happened a little while after Missy got the Master with a bucket of ant-waste. Westinghouse had been doing the gliding after jumping off walls thing for about a week, and he finally twigged to the notion that if he started from a higher point, he could glide that much farther. Sensible, right?

You can well imagine the look on Winterbough’s face when, after hearing something on the roof of the Master’s Lodge, came outside to see Westie on top of the building and gauging the wind direction.

Before the Master could stop him, and in front of a growing crowd, Westie took a good long run the length of the roof and launched himself, wings spread wide.

Missy told me later that she thought he lacked some finesse, but he was young. He’d learn. Of course, she has wings, but hasn’t used them in a while since she started showing. The added weight of her – our – daughter messed up her flight dynamics.

Anyway, Westie did a fair job, managing to glide several hundred meters with the Master pronking along beneath him.

He caught up to his son as he began his descent, turned, and started to back up, saying “I got him! I got him!”

Guess what?

Yeah.

He got him.

He got him real good.

Westie plowed into the roebuck, sending them both tumbling into one of the remaining snowdrifts. The young wyvern ended up on top of Winterbough and he cried out, “{Gn-qn!}”

Stella translated, and we all had a good laugh. “Ta-da!” indeed.

Well, to give the little tyke credit, he did stick the three point landing.

[Note appended to manuscript: “It was a six point landing, THANK YOU very much.”]

The Master wasn’t hurt, apart from his pride.

And maybe his underwear, but I don’t want to know that.

Westie was practically dancing, joined by Sunny and Stormy – Stormy, or Sturmhilde, is a snow-fox who’s also adopted by the Master; she loves the snow and cold as much as Westie does – and Missy and Ooo-er and I watched them for a while.

Yeah, we were half-sitting against a low wall. A little respite from tired feet and aching backs.

I craned my neck and past Missy at Ooo-er. “You look like you’re almost ready to explode, my dear.”

Ooo-er gave a tired laugh and stretched. “If he stays in here any longer, I’ll look like a whale. I already feel like one.” She stretched again, making her Corps jumpsuit flex in very interesting places.

Eh? Ooo-er never wears anything, apart from her pearls? Ordinarily, yes, and she told me so. But she’s well along in her pregnancy, and while she can float in the pond at the Grotto, there are times when she has to get out of the water and walk. And you could tell that she really needed some support for that belly.

Enter me, who told her that the maternity-issue jumpsuit (yes, the Corps supplies them, don’t look at me like that) can provide her with some support. I offered Missy as a graphic training aid (not like that), and Ooo-er gradually let me persuade her to at least try it while she was going dryfooted.

And she still wore her pearls. Looked quite fetching in them, too.

“But Spring is coming,” I pointed out, “and my mother told me that Spring’s the best time for babies.”

“Oh?” Missy asked, as lupine and lutrine ears perked my way.

“Sure,” and I began to sing.

“The babies that come in the Spring
Tra la
Will be pretty and all full of grace –
So we happily wait and we cling
Tra la
To the wonderful hope that they bring
Tra la
So we don’t try to drown them at birth!
So we don’t try to drown them at birth!
And that's why self-delusion’s a wonderful thing
As we wait for the babies that come in the Spring
Tra la la la la
Tra la la la la
The babies that come in the Spring!”

The wolfess and otteress gave me funny looks, and I said, “My mother used to say that I was more than a bit of a pawful.”

Missy chuckled softly. “I can’t imagine why.”

Ooo-er and I started laughing and I added, “She told me once that she tried to sell me to a traveling circus.”

Wait for it . . .

“What happened?” Ooo-er asked.

“Mama said that they paid her to take me back,” and we all started laughing. “She was joking, of course,” I said when I got my breath back.

“I would hope she would be, by the seas,” Ooo-er said. “I’m sure that your mother loved you.”

“Sure did, and still does,” I said proudly, “even if I was responsible for some of her gray hairs.” I levered myself up to a standing position. “I’m going to head back to my wagon for some hot tea. Coming with?” My fellow pregnant friends nodded, and after we helped each other up we started off.

Ooo-er paused, placing both paws on her belly as her tail suddenly shuddered.

“Hello.”

Missy looked at her, and winced.

“Hello.”

I looked from one to the other, and the first pang rolled through me.

“Hello.”

We all looked at each other.

“Hello,” we said in unison, and the idea of having tea was tabled for the immediate future.




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