Deepwood elves Eleni and Therese visit the annual fertility festival to choose fathers for their child-to-be.

 

“Leave it down,” I told my wife, seating myself before the mirror at my dressing table. “I look much nicer with it down. You can see all the greens.”

My wife, mouth already full of hairpins, nodded at me in the mirror and began her work. Ordinarily I’d close my eyes and enjoy the feeling of having her fill my hair with scented oil, brush it and plait parts of it—but not today. Today, I watched her, imagining what other people would think as they considered me.

Blue skin was not uncommon in elves—there was nothing particularly special about it. I didn’t have any special markings, or freckles, or any dappling like the water elves had. I thought the contrast between my light blue skin and my dark blue hair was quite nice, though—surely, someone would find that pleasing?—and my amber eyes had flecks of all sorts of other colours in them, too. As a child, my parents had told me they were rare and beautiful, but they had to say that. They were my parents.

Soon, I would be saying the same things to my own little child.

My wife Eleni had much more oddly contrasting colours—orange skin, green hair and blue eyes. When I’d first met her, I thought them horribly discordant; I found her hard to look at. Despite that, I found myself gazing at her, trying to determine what combination of who could produce such colours in a child, and before long, I was asking her, and meeting her family and, eventually, falling in love with her. Five hundred years later I found her colours vibrant and beautiful, and wouldn’t change any of them for the world. I would have liked to see what sort of colours she’d produce in a child—maybe one day.

“What do you want?” her gentle voice asked me, hands in her hair.

I knew without thinking. “A girl.”

She gave me a wide-eyed stare in the mirror for a moment and then laughed. “I mean with your hair, Therese!” she said, a big smile across her bright face. “Front plaits or no?” She held my hair beside my face to show me.

Oh. I blushed. “The front plaints are nice,” I told her, and then found myself chuckling as well. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

In the mirror, I could see her gentle smile. “I was, too,” she confessed. Her smile deepened. She spent some time pinning my plaints exactly where she wanted them. “Yes,” she decided, wistful. “A girl.”

When she was done with my hair she helped me changed into the simple, thin cotton dress (how odd it felt to wear something so light and simple!) and then dressed herself in the darker and more elaborate dress, lest anyone be confused about which of us would bear the child.

After we’d painted our faces and filled our long ears with glittering jewellery, we stood before the mirror at our front door.

What a pair we were. Such bright colours between us; we stood out against the white marble of our house and the darkening sky through the windows.

Eleni smiled. “You look beautiful,” she told me, her fingertips brushing my arm. “If I saw you just now, I would choose to have a child with you in a heartbeat.”

I grinned. “You may be a little biased,” I pointed out.

“I may be,” she agreed. “But you’re still beautiful.”

I looked back at my reflection. I hoped so? I certainly found nothing to dislike about my appearance. But although there was nothing to dislike about it… was there something to choose about it? Would a couple look upon me and think, ‘Yes, this is the woman who will bear our child?’

I hoped so. I hoped someone would look upon me and see his future heir in my face, and I hoped I would see mine in his.

Outside, the great bonfire was already visible across the hilltops over Deepwood. Light and smoke billowed up into the sky, and I could already hear cheering and singing in the distance. A hand found mine.

I looked across at Eleni; she had this silly big grin on her face. “This is it,” she said, as we walked up the mountain path towards the Midsummer bonfire.  “When we return down this path, you’ll already have our child growing in your belly.”

I couldn’t help but mirror her smile. This was it.

When we made it over the crest of the hill and looked down upon the scene below, my stomach fluttered: there were hundreds of couples there. Elves from all over the plains and all through the hills—and even some from further afield. hundreds of faces I’d never seen filled the gathering, singing, dancing and talking, and walking amongst each other in consideration. It had been a hundred years since I’d seen so many people in one place, Deepwood was normally so peaceful and quiet that even though I knew they would hold the fertility festival here, I’d never have dreamt so many people would come to it. Truly, it was exhilarating. Amongst all these people, we’d find a matching couple!

The bonfire lit the night so brightly even the elves who couldn’t see in the dark would not struggle to find parents that pleased them. Amongst all the cotton-wearing couples, elaborately dressed hosts—priests and priestesses, most of them—weaved in and out with food and wine for us. As we descended into the crowd, I took a long glass of wine from one of the trays, and held it to my lips. As I drank from it, I realised this would be the last wine to pass my lips for many years. That thought and the bubbling excitement in my stomach made the wine taste even sweeter.

Eleni was all smiles as she took a canape from another hostess and took an indulgent bite of it, fingers still laced with mine. “Here we go,” she whispered, surveying the people around us.

As we began to walk amongst them, I could feel eyes on me. Openly staring was still rather rude—even here!—but glancing was not, and there were many pairs of eyes darting in my direction.

I felt more exposed than I had for many years. I may have been dressed, but I felt as if I wasn’t wearing a single thread on my body. If I’d been younger and more insecure I may have been overwhelmed by that; angry, even. But today, I wasn’t. In fact, it was rather exciting. It very much pleased me to have so many people look upon me and imagining making a child with me. I wasn’t normally like this.

It’s your hormones speaking, I decided, a little surprised at just how easily I was apparently prepared to give my body up to every stranger who looked at me. I supposed the Midsummer fertility festival took place while we were all in heat for a reason.

I didn’t have to look too long and hard at other couples to see them wrestling with the same eagerness—even men I knew to ordinarily have no interest in women were looking at me with a twinkle in their eye. I had much the same response to them, finding them far more beautiful than I would normally find a man, and far more interesting. I wondered what those flat, hard chests felt like underneath me.

There were women looking at us too (and we, them), and I could see eyes darting down my body and then sideways towards my lovely wife.

As we passed another female couple that were giving us what I could only describe as bedroom eyes, Eleni lent across to my ear and whispered, “If we don’t find suitable fathers, I have some other ideas about how we could pass the night.” I grinned at her.

The women saw us whispering, and one of them raised her glass at us. As we passed beside them, I saw Eleni trail lingering fingertips along the woman’s forearm. I had to laugh at that. My wife was nothing if not very predictable.

There was another woman that held perhaps more interest for me, given our goal: a woman who appeared to be here with her husband. They wouldn’t be here if they could produce a child on their own, and she was the one wearing the cotton dress. I was curious about that—would she plant the seed in another woman or bear the child herself?—but before I could decide which I thought it would be, I noticed she and her husband were already talking to a pair of wives. I was immediately disappointed I had missed my chance. I thought I would have very much liked to have a biological child with another woman.

We made our way through the crowd, considering the people around us.

Linking arms with me so as to whisper more easily about the people we passed, Eleni nodded at another couple. They were woodland-blooded elves, I think; all greens and yellows. I liked the face of the one wearing cotton, but there was nothing that particularly caught my eye about him. I shook my head.

Further through the crowd someone did catch my eye: an elf with red and orange skin, shadowed with deep browns and blacks. His hair was such an electric colour that even in the firelight it was hard to look upon. I thought that was most interesting. “How about him?”

Eleni’s eyes twinkled. “You want to have a fire elf baby?”

Looking upon him, I knew the answer. “Of course?” Then I realised our problem. “I don’t know how he’d mix with me, though.” I didn’t think his electric oranges would pair well with my deep blues. I did rather like the idea of birthing such a bright child, though, if my colours didn’t mute his.

“Well, we’d never lose our daughter in a crowd,” Eleni whispered as we passed him. “Do you want to want to risk it?”

It was a genuine question, and I think she would have been happy for me to choose him, but—I couldn’t make a decision. I supposed that in itself was a decision. “Let’s keep looking.”

We passed couple after couple, laughing and chatting, drinking and browsing us just as we were browsing them. There were so many people to choose from and in truth I think I would have been reasonably happy to bear a child with any of them.

It was only when I’d decided that perhaps we should take a brief respite and have another wine that I spotted a pair of husbands on the edge of the clearing who appeared to have decided the same.

The thick, muscular man in the darker cloak had my dawn-blooded colouring: deep blues with bright eyes. His husband, slightly taller and more willowy, had colours that reminded me of Eleni’s: orange skin and discordantly coloured hair and beard. In his case, a sunset purple. Like my wife, I couldn’t place his blood and that made him interesting to me. He also stood a little nervously with his long body hunched, fidgeting with his light cotton cloak. He was half-hiding behind his long curtain of purple hair, and when he noticed me looking at him, he blushed.

I found it terribly endearing. To Eleni, I said, “How about him?”

Eleni considered him. “I think I’ve just realised my wife has a type,” she said with a smirk, but didn’t seem to have any hesitation in leading me towards them.

The taller man straightened as we approached, but with how uncomfortable he looked, I had no doubt he’d rather have shrunk. In contrast, his husband gave us both a big, delighted smile and walked forward to greet us. “Good evening,” he told us, clasping one of our hands in either of his. “Would you like to drink with us?”

I stole a glance up at his quiet lover, who was a glorious shade of sunset pink under his purple hair and long lashes. “Very much,” I said, warming to this lovely man more and more. As a spoke, I noticed a ghost of a nervous smile on his lips.

His husband beamed. “I’m Red—yes, I realise how ironic that name is—and this is my husband Alorin.”

“Alorin,” I repeated, tested that name on my lips. I liked how it sounded. I rather think he liked me saying it, because even though he couldn’t bring himself to look at me, a secret smile graced his lips. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Alorin.”

Eleni was watching me. “I think Therese is quite taken with your husband,” she dryly told Red. “I’m Eleni, anyway.”

He squeezed her hand. “Nice to meet you,” he agreed, and then quite openly gave her a once-over, noting her heavier, darker dress. “Are you sure you wouldn’t consider bearing? It would be a shame to waste your rare colours.”

She laughed once. “Rare? That’s one I’ve not heard before. Most people just call me a mutt.”

A voice spoke from under that purple hair. “No one can decide what I am, either.” It was gentle and sweet. When we all looked at him, he went pink again and hurriedly retreated behind that waterfall of hair.

I wanted to part it immediately. Well—actually, I wanted to tear open his cloak, throw him to the ground and sit atop him. However, I was also very aware that was completely the work of my hormones. Instead, I reached up and lightly brushed his hair behind his long ears with my fingertips. “People may not be able to figure out what you are,” I said to him. “But I know what I want you to be.”

I heard his breath catch in his throat; his soft lips parted. A wavering smile, so nervous, so uncertain, pulled at them.

Eleni and Red were watching us. Eleni was giving me a look. “It seems our spouses have chosen for us.”

Red looked just as amused as she. “Well, your wife has excellent taste, if I do say so myself.” He shot a wink at Alorin. “Well. Shall we find somewhere more private to become better acquainted?” He offered his arm to Eleni. Grinning, she made a show of noticing the muscle on it before she accepted it.

I looked to Alorin. Shyly, he held out an elbow to me. As he did, he looked up from under his long doe-eyed lashes. His eyes were as blue as Eleni’s. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. Feeling very certain I had made the right choice, I took his long and slender arm and let him escort me behind Red and Eleni out of the clearing and away from the bonfire.

The woods were full of foursomes already. The hosts had made certain to place fertility rugs all throughout the forest for us, and most of them seemed already taken. Around us, there were elves in various stages of undress and bodies writhing together on the forest floor. So much skin, so many colours. There were bare breasts and arched backs, spread legs and people moving between them; groans, and moans and whispers—and the sound of dozens of people finding their pleasure.

It was so odd to think all these bodies coiling together were councillors, doctors, scribes, even perhaps members of the dignified and ancient Queen’s Court. We all looked like a pack of animals on each other, and it pleased me to imagine I might meet any of them about the city one day, dressed in tightly-pulled corsets and with neatly coifed hair.

Even when we found a vacant rug, the clearing beside us there were already two couples naked and entertaining each other. It was impossible not to watch them as we all sat down upon our own rug.

Beside me, Eleni and Red were already idly stroking each other’s fingers. She gave me a look over Red’s shoulder; I’d know that look anywhere. Her clothes were a moment away from coming off, too.

“Tell me,” Red asked of us, eyes still fixed on the foursome coupling near us, “are you two from Deepwood?”

Eleni nodded. “We live not far from here. You?”

He shook his head. “We’ve come from up north, near the Glacier.”

Her eyebrows rose. “That’s quite a journey.”

“Well, we very much want a child,” Red told her, “and the festival won’t be held that far north for many years.”

I looked around us and for the tray of wine and cheese normally left with the rugs. “Will you stay?” I wondered, pouring us all wine. It wasn’t unusual for couples to be apart during the pregnancy and only move close after the birth of the child. I didn’t much like the idea of moving up north, though. I hoped they wouldn’t ask us to.

Red accepted a glass of wine from me. “We planned to,” he said. “But we haven’t made any arrangements.”

As he answered, Eleni reached across to him and pulled his hand towards her so she could take a cheeky sip from his glass. “You’re not sure about staying?”

Red chuckled, letting her. Sharing a private glance with his husband before he replied, he said, “Well, I would have organised a house for us, but Alorin wasn’t sure we’d find anyone to couple with.”

I looked across at my quiet chosen. Judging by his earlier comment about his odd colouring, I guessed his concerns where aesthetic.

Red’s face softened, and he reached across between us to put a warm hand on Alorin’s knee. “I told you we would, my love.”

Their story painted such a beautiful picture in my mind: quiet, willowy Alorin and cheerful Red spending many weeks on a ship to be here, staring out to sea and hoping for a child. Dreaming of one.

It was truly my pleasure to grant them that wish.

I set my wine glass aside, looking to Alorin. His hair had fallen across his face again; I brushed it behind his ear. This close I could see the blue highlights in his beard; such an interesting contrast with the orange of his skin. He was pretty, I thought; not woman-pretty, but pretty in his own right. His slenderness was a nice contrast to the thick, muscled body of his husband. To my delight, as I considered his body, I noticed that our little foray watching our neighbours couple had obviously been more pleasing to him that had first been apparent. I could see a tent of fabric forming at his groin. He shifted to try and hide it.

He needn’t have. We’d been talking only a few minutes and I could already feel I was ready for him.

Spurred on by this, very much on impulse, I reached up and touched a hand to his cheek, bidding him to lean down to me. Panic visible, he did anyway.

I’d never kissed a man before. I’d been curious about it, but it was only wanting a baby that had made me ever have that much interest in sating my curiosity. I expected his lips to feel very different than Eleni’s; I was wrong. They were soft and gentle as hers, far more hesitant than hers. Eleni would happily throw me down on a bed, tear off my clothes and ravish me, but I got the sense that Alorin was far more retiring. I’d need to use kid gloves with him. I had to slowly, gently part his lips with my own, and slowly, gently search out the blade of his tongue with mine. When I pulled back to gauge his comfort, those big doe eyes of his fixed me with such a look of wonder and hope than I soon found myself back kissing him again.

I spent longer on that first kiss than anticipated. When I sat back from him again, remembering there were two others who probably wouldn’t like to be left out, I found our two spouses settled quite comfortably across from us and watching. They’d even poured themselves wine.

Eleni raised her glass at me. “Please, continue! We’re very much enjoying the show,” she said with a grin, but then nodded at my dress. “But we’d like to see much more of you.”

I gave her a tired look, but I was smiling as I undid the bow that held my cotton dress closed. “Impatient as always,” I commented dryly.

She shrugged and took a sip of her wine. “It’s entirely your fault for being so attractive.”

I ignored that comment, turning back to Alorin as my dress loosened. Slowly and deliberately (perhaps a little teasingly, on reflection) I parted the thin fabric so it hung open on my shoulders and bared my breasts to him. I was proud of them. I thought their size and shape rather nice, and I very much enjoyed the effect they always had on Eleni.

They had a similar effect on Alorin. On seeing them he shifted a little in his seat—he was running out of ways to hide his straining manhood—and could only look a moment before he averted his eyes again, smiling nervously. “You’re beautiful.”

I felt so, at that moment. “Here,” I said, suspecting he was too shy to make the move himself. I lifted his hands from his lap (where they were desperately trying to hide what was growing there), guiding them to my breasts. They froze there for a moment, but when I moved mine over his to show him how to touch me, he learnt quickly. When I let my hands fall, he repeated the movements reverently, as if he were at worship.

My skin was so sensitive and I was so very much in heat, that even without Eleni’s expert hands fondling me his touch was electric. His parted lips, the sound of his quickened breath, the tent of fabric at his groin—it pleased me far more than I’d expected a man ever could. I wanted to see him.

Reaching for his cotton sash, I made short work of it, pushing the fabric aside to reveal his body to me.

The plains of his torso were so barren; there were no warm, pillowy breasts for me to bury my cheeks in, no generous curves for me to fill my hands with. Instead, it was all smooth surfaces with small, insignificant nipples and square hips. That plainness finished at his hips, though. Below them, instead of curving into the full thighs I loved on Eleni and the soft folds between her legs, there was a giant unexpected organ straining upward, as if trying to escape his body.

It seemed so odd for someone with such a plain body to have such an eventful mass here, at the crux of their legs; it seemed entirely incongruous. However, with the contrast of his orange skin and his purple hair, and his eyes very much matching nothing, the incongruity of his genitals seemed almost to fit the figure he cut: unexpected, discordant. I found it impossible to look away from him.

I also very much wanted to touch that discordant mass. Reaching out and glancing up at him to make sure it was alright, I gently took it in my hand.

It was much harder than I thought it would be; under the ethereally soft skin it felt like a solid, hot rod of iron. My hands on it did nothing to counter that. It twitched in them every time I looked at it, and I found that, like the rest of him, very endearing. The skin that housed his seed was already pulled tight against his manhood, and I trailed my fingers along it, enjoying this visual friction of his purple hair and orange skin.

Since my face was this close examining it, it was no great leap to trial putting it in my mouth. However, no sooner had I closed my lips over the tip of it and wondered what I should do next, he hurriedly propped himself up and put a hand on my shoulder to prevent me from going any further. “Stop,” he said urgently. “Please stop or you’ll waste my seed!”

It is this easy to please a man? I found myself wondering as I sat back a little to allow him some respite. It had taken me such a long time to learn Eleni’s body and how to work her as I was working him now, but all I needed to do for this man was put his manhood in my mouth for a moment? It felt like cheating; it shouldn’t be this easy to please a stranger.

It must have been, though, because he was so breathless as if I had brought him to pleasure many times already. He seemed horribly embarrassed by that, though, and embarrassed by his near accident at just a mere touch of my lips.

He needn’t have been. I found it both endearing and also a grand compliment that merely being touched by me would have been enough to spill his seed. Furthermore, seeing him so excited was also very exciting to me, and it wasn’t long before I was urging him on again, and he was letting me push him back onto the rug and straddle him.

Rather than guide him inside me immediately I sat there for a moment, considering the sight before me.

I had never really thought too much on how much Eleni loved to call the shots in our bedroom until this very moment: until I had this gentle, beautiful man pinned underneath me, with his groin swelling for mine and unable to breathe with how much he sought release in me. It was I who would decide when he could have that release, and it was I who could allow him to quiver beneath me as long as I chose.

I revelled in it. I loved the feeling of his squirming shyly between my thighs. I loved how he was both terribly excited by what was to happen and embarrassed by how plain it was for me to see that excitement. I wanted more.

I reached between us to guide him to my entrance. Propped on his elbows, frozen in position, he watched me as I tested my weight on him. Despite his size, he slipped into me with no trouble and I sank easily down upon him.

The look on his face as I did so—his lips parted, his eyes rolled in his head, and his jaw fell helplessly open. He relaxed back weakly against the rug, his hands hovering over my thighs as I filled myself completely with all of him. He was unable to stop a deep, guttural groan escaping from his mouth as sat heavily atop him.

So this is what it feels like, I thought, finding a rhythm on him. This is what wives who have husbands feel when they make love. The sensation of him inside me was pleasant without being overbearing, and the movements made me pant without being too tiring. It seemed like something that I could perhaps have enjoyed more of if I’d fallen for a man. It felt peaceful, almost relaxing.

Underneath me, Alorin was having much less of a peaceful experience. For him, I think the experience was overwhelming. He writhed underneath me, twisting, alternating between gripping my thighs and gripping the rug underneath us and the tufted of grass around us. The sounds he was making were nothing sort of erotic: groans, whispers. Pleas, even. At one point he bent up to me, his hands on my thighs again in warning, saying, “I don’t think I can hold it much longer…”

I was just beginning to think I may be able to find my pleasure in it. “Try,” I told him, enjoying the grind out of bodies together.

“I can’t,” he pleaded, lying helplessly back against the rug. “I really can’t.” It seemed he was trying anyway.

I slowed a little for him just in case, but in doing so worried that I wouldn’t be able to find my pleasure in this, after all.

That was, I worried until I felt familiar lips on my ear and bare breasts press against my naked back. “Would you like some help?” Eleni’s mischievous voice whispered, and then I felt her expert hands snake between my legs where they got to work.

The sound that came out of my mouth—I’m sure everyone in the forest heard it. It was from deep within me; the sounds she could bring from my mouth. She was just so good. The combination of her fingertips on me and Alorin filling me up was such delicious harmony that it wasn’t long before I found myself in Alorin’s shoes: not at all sure how I would hold on.

Alorin himself sat up to kiss me which pressed Eleni’s hands even harder against my front and forced even louder sounds from my mouth. I groaned against his lips, feeling him shake with effort underneath me.

“I’m going to—” Alorin began, panic in his eyes. “I can’t wait, I’m so sorry, I can’t—”

I was so close myself at this moment that I didn’t care at all. I kissed around to his ear and whispered in it. “Fill me with your seed, Alorin…”

On command, he bucked underneath me, body shaking, muscles quivering and white-knuckled hands gripping the rug below as he spent himself in me. He cried out—such a sweet sound, that I found myself losing grip of my own pleasure when I looked upon the euphoria on his face. When he opened his eyes again, gazing at me with that same wonder as he had beforehand, I found I could hold myself no more.

Bearing down on him, pushing forwards into Eleni’s fingertips I found my pleasure sandwiched between them, kissed by both of them, my hands gripping limbs of hers and limbs of his in a glorious tangle of hot flesh and hot breath and I cried out against his lips.

As the waves abated and our movements slowed, they both guided me to lie down on the rug to keep the seed inside me as long as possible. Over me, Eleni pulled Alorin to kiss her, too. Their long hair trailed against my torso and across my breasts as they did. I looked down my body at our skin and hair; what a glorious jumble of colours we were.

Keeping Alorin’s seed, it was my turn to watch: first as Eleni bossed Alorin around, pushing him down between her legs and teaching him how to pleasure her with his lips. When she tired of that, she reached across and pulled open Red’s dark cloak—not something he had been expecting apparently—and explored his straining manhood with her hands. Then, she wondered aloud if perhaps she might like to try riding him.

“Can I trust you not to spill in me?” she asked Red, tapping her chin.

He glanced across at his spent husband. “You can trust me not to spill in you,” he said, offering a gentle dig at his husband’s expense.

Alorin blushed a deep pink. “I held out, in the end.”

“Barely.” Red laughed, affectionately rubbing his back. “As soon as she touched you, I felt sure you would have an accident.”

Eleni watched their exchange. “If you’re so skilled,” she said to Red, shedding the rest of her dress and climbing on top of him. “Prove it.” She set about putting him to the test.

It must have been quite a test. Eleni had been with men before—granted, a long time ago—and she was not shy of what to do. It seemed Red had been with women, too. He was not only thick and strong but also confident; he flipped her onto her back with no effort, hoisted her atop him as they changed positions, and then bent her backward as he sat. She tested him and he rose to it, causing her to cry out in pleasure several times before he shouted himself and withdrew from her, throwing his seed on the ground around us.

Spent, Eleni lay next to him, laughing. “Alright, alright,” she conceded. “You proved it.”

Beside me, Alorin seemed a little uncomfortable. His hand sought mine. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for you,” he confessed as our spouses played with each other a short distance away.

I laced our fingers and squeezed his hand. “What they’re doing is not what I was looking for,” I promised him, and gave him a reassuring smile.

His eyes softened as he smiled back, and then leant across and gently kissed me, whispering, “Thank you,” into my lips.

At that moment, there was no other man I wanted fathering my daughter. I would have a child like him—quiet and soft, with odd colouring just like his and Eleni’s—and I could scarcely wait to bear her.

Even though our kisses were soft and slow, they quickly made him hard again, so while Eleni and Red dressed and went to find us all some food, I stroked him until he spilt in my hand. He’d almost finished apologising for it when they returned with a pirate’s bounty of food.

We sat and ate—or rather, I lay and they sat—learning about each other and planning out the many logistics of raising our daughter. It felt like no time at all before the dawn bell rang. All the to-be mothers had lay for long enough, it was time to wash and return to the clearing. We stood and ducked past the river, laughing and shivering as we dunked ourselves in the cold water and put the cotton back on our wet bodies, and then went to dry off by the bonfire.

At the bonfire, the hosts were all waiting for us with the Balance Vials.

They used to be for exactly that, balance: to make sure there were enough varied women and men to propagate our empire. In the centuries before we would watch what other couples chose to decide the fate of our own child; but elves weren’t endangered anymore. We thrived, there would always be enough of all the sexes. The Balance Vials were just a tradition now, a luxury our race retained. A choice we all had to make.

There were three options: drink a long vial for a girl, a short vial for a boy, or refuse a vial and leave it up to the child.

As the hosts walked along us with the trays, I could feel my stomach flutter. I watched some foursomes reach immediately for the vial they wanted, others deliberate before making a choice, and others yet shake their heads and refuse, smiling to each other about what their child may grow to become.

When the tray was offered to me, I drew an excited breath, and plucked a tall vial from it. Checking correct choice in the smiles of my child-to-be’s parents, I poured the hot, bitter liquid down my throat and swallowed.

It took a moment for me to realise what this all meant: it was done, everything was complete. Eleni and I were going to have the beautiful little girl we’d always dreamed of with the sweetest fathers we could have hoped for. She would have my face, Eleni’s strange colours and Alorin’s sweet nature. I touched my belly, scarcely able to believe it was true.

We bid Red and Alorin farewell for their long trip north to gather their belongings, and then arm in arm, laughing at every tiny thing, Eleni and I descended from the mountain, singing songs the whole way.

Back at our house, Eleni opened her special drawer and lifted her mother’s fertility wreath from its box. Thousands of years old, it had hung on a hundred doors, passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. It hung on Eleni’s mother’s door when she was in repose and waiting for Eleni, and now, Eleni lifted it to hang out our door to tell the whole world that inside this house, we were now waiting for our child.

There were tears rolling down her cheeks as she kissed me. “It’s our turn,” she murmured against my lips. “It’s finally our turn, now.”

She turned down our bed with new sheets, and threw open all the windows to let fresh air inside. She brought me hot tea and warm blankets, and then spent a few minutes crouched over me and crying into my belly.

As we lay down to sleep, now parents-in-waiting, she touched my cheek, kissed my lips and eventually fell asleep on my shoulder.

I couldn’t sleep. With one hand around my wife and the other on my soon-to-be swollen belly, I stared up at the ceiling, smiling. We’d waited hundreds of years to make sure we were ready—and I was. I was. We were about to be mothers, and I couldn’t wait for what my life was soon to become.