"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Cour asked of his betrothed on the way home. The sun which had been shining the day before was still shining, bathing the tops of the trees and the soft, fluttering petals of the flowers in summer heat, but it felt strangely distant in a way that it hadn't the day before. The older teen found it hard to believe that so much had happened in less than two days. Now that the cub had a name, its existence had become so real that it was hard to think of the birth being a little over four months off.
"At first it was," his companion lamented plaintively, wringing tense hands through the already abused front of his tunic.
"But the end wasn't."
"No," Tay reluctantly conceded. "It ended up better than I thought it would. I'm still not sure if it will work, but at least now we can talk things over." Grey eyes peeked sidewise at Cour. "I really am sorry I was so awful about going."
Smiling, Cour met the glance. "You weren't awful, just uneasy. And you didn't lose your temper once, either. I was expecting one of you to, but I'm glad you didn't. I'm not very good in an argument."
"No," Tay agreed, smiling for the first time since they had begun the discussion with Sol. "Still, it's good to know there's something you're not good at. As bad as that sounds."
"Oh, there are so many things I'm bad at, I don't even want to think about it. Let's talk about something else now."
Tay thought a moment; then his face fell. "I ought to be thinking of what I'm to tell Vayrsila. If we're going to get married... He knows we want to, that part won't be hard to tell. But do you want to tell about Cunelbren yet?" Grey eyes lit with the sudden hope that maybe Cour wouldn't, and the next words stumbled out in a rushed gasp. "We could wait until after the wedding, do you think he'd seem more like our cub if we did that? Maybe-"
"I think, if you're going to take that tack, we might be better off telling now," Cour interrupted dryly. "Are you even listening to yourself, Tay? You're making excuses."
"I... I didn't mean to," the other began again, hesitant. "But I am... aren't I." Shoulders slumping, he sighed. "You're right, it would be better to tell now. It would be over with. But I'm just..."
A stilling hand swung out to clasp Tay's arm.
"Shh, I know."
Their talk settled into comfortable quiet, fringed by the barely noticed sounds of birds chattering, tree-leaves rustling, and the hushed, damp crumpling of the grass under their moving feet. The fields which Tay and the rest of the village had worked so diligently on had erupted into long green sprouts whose tender stalks waved lazily at the pair as they went by, and slowly Tay's tension melted away into the warm honey-golds and bright greens of an early summer afternoon. It was more than a little disappointing to both when the languid walk ended at the front door of their destination.
They paused together on the patch of ground just in front of Vayrsila's doorway, hands still twined, thinking.
"I... I think I'll tell him now," Tay decided after a while, the words spilling out like deer from the hunter's grasp, rapid, quivering and frightened. "Then it will be over with, and I won't have to think about it anymore... Or maybe tomorrow," he corrected hastily, "because maybe he's - busy! But no, I should really try today - if I can - "
"Tay," Cour scolded fondly, wrapping his arms around the shorter boy and hugging him, hands rubbing calming abstracts on the back of his tunic. "You shouldn't argue with yourself. It will only drive you insane. You're right, you should tell him today, it will make you feel much better. Do you want me to come with you?"
In spite of the shivering he couldn't hide, Tay shook his head in the negative.
"I have to do this part. Vayrsila is all I've got as family... I have to tell him by myself."
"All right then," Cour conceded, giving his betrothed one last squeeze before pulling away. "Shall I wait around for you then, or go home? I can wait right here if you'd like."
Flushing, Tay shook his head once more. "You don't have to. Today may not be a field-working day, but I'm sure you have plenty of other things to do at home. I should stay home and help Vayrsila after I tell, too. I haven't really been here as much as I should lately."
"Oh, you haven't been out that much. No getting guilty now! Go and have your talk. I'll go home, but if you need me come and get me right away. Promise?"
"I promise."
He waited long enough to wave goodbye to Cour, but as soon as his husband-to-be was gone Tay ran the few steps to the door. He wanted to get things over with before he could change his mind.
"Vayrsila!"
"Something wrong?" his guardian questioned mildly, looking up from his lapful of needlework to blink blindly in the sunlight flooding the dim room from the open door. The wicker of the stool he had occupied creaked as he deserted it.
"Why the gloomy face, cub? Did you and Cour have an argument? You're not hurt, are you?"
"No, I'm not hurt," Taydren assured his fosterfather quickly, but somehow he couldn't quite capture the smile he had tried to put on with the words. "I need to talk with you, is that all right?"
Vayrsila shook his head. Smiling, he took Tay by the hand and drew him back toward the stool, where Tay took up his usual spot by his elder's feet.
"Of course it is! What did you want to talk about?"
Taking a deep, long breath, Taydren made himself look up into the other's face, securing from his own brain a promise that no matter how embarrassing or painful the discussion got, he wouldn't look back down. Then for long minutes he struggled with where to begin. There didn't seem to be any kind or calm way to break such news, and yet there had to be one. There had to be a place where it had all started, didn't there?
"I slept with Sol!" he blurted finally.
No, that wasn't right...
"I... I didn't mean to say that," he apologised weakly. "I mean, I did," he felt himself flush red, "but that's not what I wanted to talk about."
A strange sort of smile spread over Vayrsila's face. It reminded Tay of the bitter taste of Denen's herb concoctions paired with the solid, heartlifting knowledge that that taste was driving out whatever ailment you had.
"You're pregnant, you mean?"
The tone was gentle and without a trace of anger, even tinged slightly with happiness, but Tay was too taken aback by the words themselves to listen much beyond. His promise forgotten, he stared upwards anyway, unable to look down even if he'd wanted to. The bow of his fosterfather's lips quirked ruefully at one corner.
"I knew already," the older of the pair confessed gingerly, lacing his fingers in his lap like a repentant cub. "You were so moody, and for a while there you couldn't hold anything down-"
"I couldn't?" Tay echoed faintly. One of Vayrsila's eyebrows arched.
"You thought I didn't notice? I did have eight cubs of my own, you know. After the first few times, a male learns to notice things like that. You always looked sick after meals, and sometimes when you got up in the mornings besides. But truthfully I thought it was Cour's. You didn't tell Denen that it isn't?"
"No," Tay replied without thinking, and was almost ready to ask why Vaysila hadn't said anything when he realised what his elder had said and backpedaled to review it. His own hands, clasped like Vayrsila's in his lap, made a short convulsive movement of horror.
"You-"
"I talked to Denen about it," Vayrsila cut him off, looking uncomfortable. "I only asked him if there was a chance, and he said that there was, and then it sort of... Don't be angry with him for breaking his promise," the older Kindred added hurriedly. "I've known him a long time, and I could see he was holding something back from me. I wouldn't let him get back to his work until he told."
Tay felt his eyes fill up with tears.
"Why didn't you tell me you knew?" he croaked, fighting back the loud crying that wanted to break out. His throat and his chest hurt with an ache that had gotten much too familiar, which all at once made him more angry than anything. "I thought I had to tell you!"
"Shh, pirit, don't cry," Vayrsila soothed unhappily and set a tentative hand on his foster's head. Tay's mouth trembled uncertainly, but he let the hand stay. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, but Denen said you were so intent on keeping your secret that I didn't want to spoil it. I suppose," he finished shamefacedly, "that I was a little afraid too. I should have spoken to you before going to Denen, but I didn't know that you knew, and I didn't want to upset you for nothing if I was just seeing things."
Helplessly Tay shook his head, not daring to swallow the hard lump in his throat in case it ruptured. His heart throbbed in his ears, and even after the explanation, even though he couldn't deny the truth of it, he couldn't help but feel betrayed. He had spent so much time worrying over what Vayrsila would think, whether he would be angry, and Denen! Denen had promised not to tell! How was he supposed to trust anyone?
"Oh, cub," the older man mourned, burying his fingers in Tay's hair and stroking it. "I'm so sorry, I never thought it would hurt you. I just wanted to be sure..."
All at once Tay lost the will to be angry, and with it the strength to keep the tears away. They tore from him like thunder from a summer storm, wracking his chest with sharp, almost coughing sobs that sent shudders all the way from his feet to his head, and his mind was too caught up to fully comprehend when Vayrsila took him by his upper arms, pulling him onto the older Kindred's lap so that his legs lay bent on either side of Vayrsila's, his face pressing into the offered shoulder.
He cried for what felt like hours. In a way, it felt good; he hadn't cried so in years, and in retrospect he had probably needed to. The tears washed all his worry away in their warm salt floods like nothing else could, and though he had a headache and a stuffy nose and his face felt swollen to twice its usual size when he was finished, his insides seemed to have gotten themselves in order again. The hand still on Tay's head continued stroking even after the tears had long since dried up.
"I'm not angry at you," Tay whispered tiredly at last, trying to keep his voice low as if the sound of it might drive away the hand's gentle comforts. "It's just... everything lately has been this way. I don't know what to do."
"I'm sorry," his fosterfather murmured again. "I haven't been helping. I didn't know you were having so much trouble - I thought the cub must be Cour's, and you and he are getting along so well, it would have been useless to interrupt you. I should have paid you more attention."
"No, it wouldn't have done any good," Tay concluded on a sigh, "there wasn't anything you could have done. Sol and I... when I found out about the cub, I went to Cour, and he's been helping me. I was upset with Sol. I don't know why. I only told him about the cub yesterday morning. No, that isn't true. I didn't tell him. He found out."
"How?" Vayrsila wanted to know.
"We were arguing," the cub-bearer admitted. "I was angry, and it made the cub upset, so I sort of... patted it." The words sounded silly. He blushed, but Vayrsila only nodded.
"Quinn used to do that often. He said it helped, especially when they started to kick."
Taydren sat up, shifting to see his mentor's expression better. "Quinn?"
Vayrsila let out a low laugh. "My husband, Quinteso. I told you about him when you were younger, remember? He would have done better with you," he added remorsefully, mussing Taydren's brown hair. "He was always good for advice when you needed some."
"Of course I remember," Tay demurred, flushing brighter at the idea that Vayrsila might think he had forgotten. "I've just never heard you call him that before. He doesn't sound like someone who would like a nickname."
"Oh, he hated it," Vayrsila agreed lightly, smiling. "He was very straight-laced. Beautiful, but so serious! All the males in the town would have been after him except for that. I used to annoy him awfully. Still, it worked!"
"You hardly ever talk about him," the younger of the two observed.
"Some things are better remembered quietly, I guess. He always did hate it when I talked about him behind his back, and that was one thing I payed mind to. So I suppose that's what I'm doing. I know a lot of people say they can feel loved ones with them after they're gone, but I never could. The house was very empty until you came along.
"I am sorry, Tay."
All of the laughter Tay was so used to seeing in his mentor's face had gone out, and all of a sudden the cub-bearer just couldn't take the strange solemnity in the room anymore. "You're forgiven," he reassured shyly. "I'm not upset anymore."
"Thank you." A smile spread once more over the uncharacteristically serious face, and Tay felt oddly relieved to see it.
"Now, was there anything else you wanted to tell me?"
