>>5696117Cliff grunts and shrugs noncommittally, and hands her his bowl without looking away from his gaggle of giggling daughters and their new idol. The dishes are heavy-duty but well-sanded woodwork, carefully maintained for reuse, with just BARELY enough bowls to go around with all your attendants herein assembled in the somewhat-crowded space. The home itself is obvious handcrafted, the work of years and of a vast array of common, practical skills refined to quiet, understated perfection—all made by this male, with great love, for these females of his.
“Had to, didn’t I?” he eventually muses. “There’s work to be done, and no sons to do it. When there’s things to be done, and they’ve got to do it, you raise them to be what they need to be.”
You nod, thinking of the wyrmlings, and of your children to come—those gestating even now inside the Seprent Queen and Human Queen, Eka and Sseztlussth. What must they each be? Will each be a ruler, or will they follow other paths? What do you envision for them?
“Must be nice, having sons?”
Cliff asks the question of you and—you realize—Ekaterine. You exchange a look, the Human Queen of Bloodrise blushing and stammering.
“My ssonss are from another marriage,” you explain, placing your hand upon Ekaterine’s own. “Though we are exxxpecting.”
The woman of the house scrunches up her nose in distaste before she manages to hide it—for polygamy, perhaps?—but Cliff just nods and says nothing. You reflect on is question, and on your now war-blooded warrior sons, and again think of Nat in the barn.
“It iss good, though,” you agree. “They are very capable already, dessspite being sso young. They will be fine… Men.”
Cliff nods again, towards his daughters, and admits with poorly-hidden affection: “Mine are ‘capable’, too, I suppose.”
“Sso learning ssome Dark Elven sswordplay iss no issue, then?” you ask.
Cliff shrugs again.
“Good for a girl to know how to defend herself,” he answers, though he frowns as the Duelist displays her subtle, inhumanly-elegant sword-style—slowed down and made gentle for demonstrative purposes. “Just as long as they don’t get too fancy with it. No room for fanciness, out here in Blackpine.”
That much certainly seems to be the case, and segues nicely into your intelligence-gathering phase of this operation.
“What iss life like, out here in Blackpine?” you inquire.
“Quiet,” Cliff answers. “Respectable. A man works for what he has up here—or a woman or a girl does, I suppose—and keeps what he works for. Simple as.”
“Busy,” Cynthia answers from her wash-barrel, with some weariness. “Rewarding, but there’s always something to do. No one to lean on to do it for you, if you don’t.”
