Family Matters
© 2022 by M. Mitch Marmel

Thumbnail art by  NX-42

Part Fifty-five



Matt:

The day after our Solstice dinner, the sun was out and the area around Tali’s mobile resembled a holiday card. Fresh snow in the sunlight with a clear blue sky is very pretty, so I and my wives decided that the weather was perfect for taking a little stroll.

Missy didn’t go with us. Why? Although she’s carrying Tali’s baby (and I’m not thinking too hard about that, thank you), she hasn’t asked to become part of our little family group (although I did welcome her into it). Besides, she doesn’t like men.

[Note appended to manuscript: “A fact she will relate to you. Again, and again, and again . . . “]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Shaddap.”]

Low-chan and Tali were still giggling when I finished singing Walking in My Winter Underwear, and Tali said, “Hey, Low?”

“Yes, Tali?”

“I’m thinking – “

“I don’t see any smoke.”

Tali stuck out her tongue. “It’s all solid-state now. I was thinking that we should introduce Matt to Grace.”

I glanced, from the feline to the mustelid to the feline again. “Grace?”

“I know how you like straightforward, plain-talking femmes, my dear,” Tali purred.

“Yes?”

Low-chan grinned. “You won’t find many femmes as transparent as Grace, right Tali?”

“Spot on, Low.”

Some sort of joke was being set up. Oh well, they’ve done it before, so I was pretty okay with it.

My wives started giggling before falling silent and suddenly stepping away from me. I glanced from one to the other.

They were looking behind me, back the way we came.

I started to turn around.

And yelped as a whitish-blue blur, all scales, wings and teeth, barreled hard into me.

I ended up flat on my back in the snow, blinking up at a dragon – no, wyvern; two legs, two wings with fingers like a bat – who was blinking back at me. I could see a vigorously wagging tail behind him.

“Westie!” My ears swiveled as the Master came trotting up. “Oh, hello Matt.”

“Master. Who’s this?”

“Westinghouse.”

“He’s not; he’s westing on my chest.”

The Master said something that sounded almost exactly unlike Old High Martian. The wyvern looked at him, looked back at me, and stepped daintily into the snow, muttering apologetically, “[Fbjjl . . . ]”

I took a guess. “It’s okay, little fella,” and I sat up and patted him on his head. “Westinghouse, you say?” I asked the Master.

The roebuck nodded. “Hasn’t Tali told you?” He gave my wife an accusing glance, and she promptly started whistling innocently. Winterbough sighed. “My son, by adoption. Westinghouse, this is Matt.”

“[Zngg?]” Winterbough nodded, and the little drake burbled happily.

“Your . . . son. Oh, yes, Tali showed me a picture.”

“Yeah,” and he gave me a short explanation of how he ended up with a wyvern as a son. “We were playing around in the snow. Being an ice-wyrm, he likes it cold.”

“I foresee a long and lucrative career,” I said as I started to get up, “working at a ski resort.” I dusted off some snow. “Or maybe in hockey, judging by the hip check.” Inwardly, I shuddered at that. The Broad Street Bullies would have been something else with a dragon on their squad.

Winterbough looked a bit baffled at those sporting references, so I guessed that Faerie doesn’t have the Agony of Defeat Competition here. I brushed myself down and asked, “How’s your family, Master?”

“They’re all doing fine,” the roebuck said with a smile. “And yours?”

I glanced back at Low and Tali. “Well? How are you two doing?”

Low smiled. “I’m fine, thank you.” She stuck out a paw. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Low-chan Mason-Hartoh.”

The roebuck introduced himself, and as he shook feeling back into his paw he looked at Tali. “How are you doing?” he asked, looking at her midsection rather pointedly.

Tali grinned. “Looking forward to losing my passenger.”

“I imagine so, if Missy’s constant complaining is any indication,” and with that he gathered up his son and the two went wandering off, Westie bounding through the snow and clearly enjoying himself, sending sprays of powder everywhere like a manic plow. We went in the opposite direction to see what the village of Greytor was like in the winter.


***


Winterbough:

Elves Don’t Lie, I’m glad that no one saw what I was doing while I was out with Westie. See, Windimere told me that while she was fully prepared to help teach Westie how to fly, she insisted that I make sure that his wing muscles were strong enough. That meant that he had to flap his wings.

So I’d made a game of it, and we had been running about in the snow with me flapping my arms and Westie following suit.

We were alone out there, so no one saw me looking like a fool.

[Note appended to manuscript: “As if everyone didn’t already know you were a fool.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Pissy wolfess.”

It was thirsty work, as Westie had all the energy you’d expect a child to have, and we had ended up fairly near the [Sheaf of Arrows]. Obviously, it was the Lady’s will, so I took the hint.

All of the conversations in the public house died when the denizens saw me at the door with a young wyvern, said wyvern shaking excess snow off his legs and wings.

What, you think he’s been raised by wolves?

“[In day’s bright youth, peace and greetings,]” I said to them.

Bung eyed Westie before replying, “[In day’s youth, greetings, Master, and greetings also to the son of yourself by your adoption of him before the sight of the Lady,]” and one or two of the more observant bucks rubbed their knuckles against the backs of their heads.

Ears swiveled as Westie cleared his throat. “[Greetings, and may my small self be vouchsafed the location of the loo?]” he asked in a heavy, growling accent, followed by a slight cough as if speaking Elfhamian (to him a foreign language) gave him a sore throat.

Bung looked at me and I grinned at him before the tapster pointed in the right direction and Westie headed for the garderobe, his toe-claws rattling off the stone floor. According to legend, the loo in the [Sheaf of Arrows] extends all the way to the Netherhells, and I spared a thought for those unlucky souls who were doubtless about to be unpleasantly surprised.

Then again, maybe not. It IS the Netherhells.

I got a pint of plain, gave Siobhan’s nose a scratch, and took a seat in the Master’s Chair by the fire. A few bucks and one wolf approached and congratulated me on how well my adopted son was learning to speak Elfhamian. I made sure that they knew that I’d had the assistance of Sixth and Stella in tutoring him.

After a few minutes, with his call of nature completed, Westie came back and shied away when he saw how close I was to the fire. I formulated a bit of Gramerye, and a portion of the stone flags beside me cooled considerably to a point that an ice-wyrm would feel comfortable. Westie nuzzled his ‘Mama’ (i.e., me) and sat down beside me.

One of the ex-Prisoners took a seat on the floor beside my son, and the two exchanged looks. “’Strewth, Master, yon wee bairn’s an ice-wyrm?”

“That’s right.”

The wolf had a tankard of plain in his paw, and Westie raised his head and sniffed at it.

He suddenly reared back. “Ah . . . Ah . . . AHH . . . “

A blue glow appeared in his open maw, and the wolf flinched backward.

“CHOO!”

Which shows that the Lady, or the Great Alpha, does look out for drinkers as well as children.

Frost rimed the tankard and the fur on the wolf’s paw, and when he finally released his grip on the mug it hit the floor with a heavy clunk and a piece of frozen beer fell out onto the floor.

“[Fbjjl,]” Westie said. I patted his shoulder reassuringly.

“[Eala],” said Bung, “[it is well that the wyrmling has the blue light of himself to presage and warn of the impending ice-magicks of himself, and with the tongue of myself interpretation shall be had of what the eyes of myself have witnessed, that the son of yourself may have the allergy towards the sweet and pleasant odor of plain].”

Looking at the slowly melting lump, I allowed that this might be the sweet and pure truth. I also shuddered a bit. Being allergic to porter would be a terrible thing for an Elfhamian roebuck.

“By t’Great Alpha,” the ex-Prisoner said, “tis a guid thing he breathed out that way, an’ not under his tail, eh?”

The others acknowledged that that was the case, no doubt recalling a rather celebrated farting contest a few years ago. Two bucks had challenged each other, and in the best tradition had Taken It Outside to an area within sight of the [Star-Mirror] and Windimere’s den.

Elves Don’t Lie, I was there as well, along with quite a few others to observe the proceedings.

[Note appended to manuscript: “You didn’t participate?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “No. This was a private matter.”]

Windimere herself came out to watch, and I explained what was going on. She appeared amused, and I leaned up against her (nice and warm it was) while the two roebucks went at it.

My ears had swiveled as a pronounced rumble reverberated through Windy’s vitals, and she excused herself. While we all watched (the two combatants having paused to catch their breath), the wyvern walked over to a stand of trees, gauged the wind, and lifted her tail.

All of us flattened our ears at the noise, and with a groan and the staccato cracking of limbs and branches one tree fell over.

The two combatants, and all of the spectators, doffed our hats and bowed to the victor before heading back to the [Sheaf].

Windimere told me later that she thought it was funny.


***


Tali:

A few heads turned as we moved through the main square of the village, but any number of furs have seen me before, some have seen Matt before, and a few probably saw Low when she decided to go on a bender for some reason.

And no, no one’s found her panties yet.

So we’re walking along, and I spot a vixen, walking along with a young tod.

Okeh, the tod I know. His name’s Dotto, he’s apparently the Master’s natural son from a mission where the Master had transmogrified into a fox (I’m sensing a pattern here), and he’s roughly as wide as he is tall. Between that and the monocle (which, I was told, Dotto was born with – try to figure that out yourselves; I almost broke my brain trying) I wondered about the number of medical problems he was going to have later in life.

Still, his mother (I assume) and the other villagers all seemed okeh with it, so who am I to judge?

He was trotting alongside his mother, who had the same color fur but a curiously neutral, almost morose expression on her face. He was also cramming into his face a huge ham sandwich, on what looked like fresh-baked oat bread.

I felt my mouth watering. I may not have been the only one.

Low-chan walked up to the mother and said, “Hello.”

“Hello,” the vixen said.

“Could you tell me where he got that sandwich?” Low-chan asked. “It looks quite tasty.”

The vixen leveled her gaze on my wife, sort of like watching the Musashi’s main battery turrets traversing, and said, “All is ham.”






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