Year 5

Zelgadis braced himself and knocked on Amelia's door. Would she still be angry?

As soon as she opened the door he said quickly, "I had something to investigate near Dragon's Peak, way on the other side of the subcontinent and it took me this long to get back." He didn't mention that he'd been putting off investigating that particular lead for more than a year before that.

Amelia just hugged him wordlessly and leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh of relief. He hugged her back, relieved in turn that she was willing to greet him with a hug rather than an accusatory finger. As that initial worry faded, he slowly noticed that there was something wrong with the feeling of Amelia in his arms.

Before he could place what was wrong, Amelia suddenly straightened in excitement and pulled his hand against her belly. Her surprisingly rounded but hard belly. He felt something move under his hand. He looked questioningly into her eyes and saw the confirmation there. "Oh no," he breathed.

Amelia's face fell.

"Is it mine?"

Amelia glared at him.

"I'm not questioning your fidelity. It's just..." He leaned against the door frame for support. "...if it's mine, that means it isn't human."

Amelia gave him a different glare.

"Two-thirds human isn't human," he argued back.

He sank down to the ground and buried his face in his hands. He didn't bother with questions like, 'How could this happen?' or 'What have I done?' because he knew the answers perfectly well. He should have been more careful, but he had assumed that as a chimera he wasn't capable of having children. Amelia shook his shoulder. He ignored her. She shook it more insistently.

He realized he was being selfish so he stood up again and asked her, "How are you doing? I don't know what effect carrying a part-golem, part-demon child would have on the mother."

Amelia struck a pose of glowing health.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this? It could be dangerous for you."

Amelia put a protective hand over her belly and glared at him again.

"Typical Amelia, no sense of self-preservation whatsoever."

Amelia indicated again, this time with an air of exasperation, that she was the very picture of glowing health. She grabbed him by his cloak clasp and pulled him inside so they could continue the conversation somewhere other than the threshold.

Zelgadis paced the room restlessly. "I'll just have to find a cure for both of us. I'll redouble my efforts. I'll make this right."

Amelia grabbed him as he went past and pulled him onto the couch. She put an arm around his shoulders, put his hand on her belly again and looked at him meaningfully.

With the thoughts whirling in his head, he couldn't understand what she was trying to say. He stared at her blankly. She touched his chest, then hers, then their hands on top of her belly. Then she kissed him.

It was a message of emotions rather than words but his mind automatically handed him a rough translation of, 'This isn't a problem; it's a baby. We're a family.'

He broke free and started toward the door. He heard a muffled sound of protest behind him. He turned back to look. Amelia was taking off her collar.

He quickly went back and put his hands over hers to stop her. "I just need time to think. I won't go far."

Amelia looked up at him with tears in her eyes but nodded understanding.

He headed for the garden door instead of the front door. The woodpile caught his eye. Good, something to take out his feelings on.

He had chopped enough wood to last them until winter and the sun was starting to set by the time his head finally felt clear. He rinsed himself clean of sweat with a bucket of water from the well and went inside to face Amelia.

She was sitting on the couch, looking unusually subdued and sewing a baby-sized shirt. She looked up at him with a mixture of wariness and hope as he walked in.

Zelgadis knelt down at her feet and handed her a jewelry box. "I was going to tell you that this wasn't an engagement ring but just a present because I love you, but now... It can be an engagement ring, wedding ring, whatever you like."

Amelia opened the box and hugged him in delight.

"I'm going to stay here with you until after the baby is born. If something goes wrong, one recovery spell could mean the difference between life and death."

Amelia nodded enthusiastic agreement. She pulled him up onto the couch beside her and burrowed into his arms. For a very long time they just held each other, happy to be together no matter what the future held.

Some time later, Zelgadis said, "When I resisted getting married I wasn't trying to escape my commitment to you. I was planning to remain your husband in all but name as long as we're here and switch to being your faithful knight when you went back to Seyruun so that you would be free to marry someone more suitable. Either way, I planned to always love you and protect you. I don't know if I made that clear at the time."

Amelia shook her head.

"Now, though, there doesn't seem to be any point in not getting married." He put a hand on her belly. "Blood binds more strongly than any ring."

Amelia put her hand on top of his and returned his serious gaze.

"Did you know the last time I was here? Is that why you wanted to get married?"

Amelia shook her head. She pointed to the door with a mock-angry expression, walked two fingers down her leg, made her gestures for sundown and sun up twice, and then put on an expression of suspicion turning into dismay, turning into a wistful gaze into the distance.

"You realized two days after I left? And ever since then you've been waiting here with a chimera in your belly and no ring on your finger unsure whether I was ever coming back? That must have been rough."

She grimaced agreement but then settled into his arms with a sigh of contentment.

"Yes, I'm here now," he said wryly. "Now you're free to be the barefoot, pregnant mother of a family of chimeras in a shack in the middle of nowhere. I hope it makes you happy."

Amelia waved her arms around indignantly.

"Okay, fine, a charming and well-kept little house in the middle of nowhere, but the rest of it still stands."

Amelia accepted his retraction with a satisfied nod and gave him a smile that implied that she was very happy with that plan indeed.

They had to endure plenty of teasing at their wedding about the bride being heavily pregnant, but it was all good-spirited. Amelia looked even more radiant than usual in a dress she'd sewn herself in between making baby clothes. It was cut to emphasize the fullness of her breasts, which had grown from large to truly extraordinary since she'd become pregnant, and to de-emphasize the fullness of her belly.

After the ceremony, the mayor came up to shake Zel's hand and give Amelia a fatherly hug. "May I be the first to offer my congratulations? It's a good thing we have a new name for you, Mrs. Greywords, because 'silent maiden' was becoming an increasingly inaccurate description."

Zel and Amelia exchanged glances. Zel knew that Amelia had no intention of changing her name to match his, but he also knew that she had no intention of revealing her real family name. By unspoken agreement, they let the mistaken assumption stand. For as long as they remained in this town, she would be Amelia Greywords.

"Thank you," Zel said for both of them.

It wasn't an easy birth but it wasn't as difficult as Zelgadis had feared. Amelia was strong, energetic and unafraid of pain, and it turned out that the baby had skin as smooth as polished stone and only a few wisps of hair as fine as jeweller's wire. Thanks to a recovery spell, Amelia was soon cured not only of any extra damage caused by the baby being a chimera, but even of the bruising normal new mothers had to put up with. The midwife described it overall as, "about average for a first birth except for that creepy silence."

When it was all over, Zelgadis anxiously searched Amelia's face to be sure she was really okay. She smiled back reassuringly and handed him his child. He unwrapped the blankets to see what he had wrought. The baby was a boy. His skin was thinner and more translucent than Zel's, making him look lavender rather than blue. He didn't have enough hair to judge the colour accurately but what little hair he did have glinted like silver against his purple scalp. His ears were pointed but rounder than Zel's. Other than that, he was a typical newborn with huge eyes, a tiny nose and little spastic hands that liked to latch on to adult fingers.

"I think his eyes are going to be as blue as yours," Zel said wonderingly. It was finally sinking in that the baby was a real person. He had a son. He re-wrapped the blankets so the baby wouldn't get cold. "Since you can't name him, I will. His name is Rodimus."

Amelia looked like that wasn't the name she would have picked, but she nodded acceptance.

Little Rodimus proved to be a generally happy-tempered but intense child. He did all the usual baby things like staring with myopic curiosity at everything around him, throwing up on people's shoulders and failing to sleep through the night. He seemed completely unaware that he was a chimera.

Looking after a newborn was too much work for one person to handle on her own so Zelgadis stayed with them for the first few months. Finally though, as the seasons started to change for the third time since he'd last left the town, he told Amelia, "I need to go back to searching for my cure. With little Rodi here, it's twice as hard to leave but twice as urgent that I do."

She held him tightly in protest but nodded her understanding.

As he strode out of the claustrophobically boring town at last, Zelgadis felt the lightness of freedom but at the same time he felt his heart rip in two with half of it staying behind in the little stone house on the hill.