It was a quiet sunday afternoon, with Ethari and Runaan doing dishes after lunch while Rayla sat at the table, deep in thought.
"Runaan? Ethari? Can I ask you guys something?" she finally asked after a while.
"Of course you can. What's on your mind?" Ethari immediately answered cheerfully as he and his husband turned to look at her.
"Lately, I've seen and heard adults telling kids they need to learn about 'the crackle birds and the bees' and making weird faces. Do you know what it could mean?" she asked, frowning when Ethari's eyes went wide and Runaan grimaced.
"Exactly faces like that!" she cried, pointing at them.
"A-ah... I should have known this day would come at some point but it means-" Ethari went to say, but Runaan cut him off.
"They're disappearing at an alarming rate, thanks to dark magic! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to kill humans that make them disappear!" the assassin spoke loudly and quickly before stalking towards the door, only to cry out and flail in pain when Ethari grabbed him by the horn and yanked him back.
"She's gonna figure it out sooner or later so we better get this out of the way before it comes back to bite us in the ass. Now sit your ass down because I'm not doing this alone!" the smith hissed before practically throwing the other elf info another chair at the table.
Runaan barely managed to keep himself from topling over before shooting his husband an exaspirated look.
Ethari answered said look with a stern one that resulted in them having a full conversation in only facial expressions.
Any other day Rayla would have found the display amusing, but right now she was too confused and a little frustrated.
"Is somebody gonna tell me or what?" she huffed, crossing her her arms.
The adults stopped their facial conversation and looked back at her, back at each other and shared a reluctant nod before Ethari plopped himself into a chair next to his husband.
"Right. Okay. Rayla." he awkwardly adressed her as Runaan cleared his throat, both looking like they wanted to be anywhere but there.
"Yes?" the girl huffed impatiently.
"A-As you know, everyone grows older at some point." Ethari started and Rayla rolled her eyes.
"We grow older? I never noticed." she sassed before flinching under Runaan's glare.
"Watch the attitude." he grunted and she obediently settled down, uncrossing her arms too.
"As I was saying!" Ethari called for her attention again. "Everyone get's older and at some point changes start to happen to both the body and mind."
"Like getting taller and my horns getting longer?" Rayla asked, this time seriously.
"Yes, exactly! Those are great examples!" Ethari nodded encouragingly.
"But there's more that will start changing. Boys will see that their shoulders will get broader and their muscles will develop more while girls, while they can be just as stong, keep a slimmer, thought more defined form as they will grow slightly bigger hips and breasts on their chests." Ethari explained and Rayla nodded, face thoughtfull.
"Like how mom looked a lot smaller than you guys and dad, right? That's because she's a woman." "Right again!" Ethari was starting to feel like things wouldn't be too bad, but then realised he only told the easy part yet.
"Your turn." he decided, fixing Runaan a stern look.
The assasin's mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried to find an excuse before finally closing with a click at his husband's glare.
"Another thing that you should know about is something that will happen to only girls." he stated, looking uncertainly at Ethari who silently urged him to go on.
"At some point, since you yourself are a girl, your body will reach a point of maturity where it's decided to be capable of carrying and birthing a child itself." he went on and Rayla nodded.
"I guessed that, when I'm as old as mom was when she had me, right?" she asked, frowing when they both grimaced again.
"Not necessarily... When most girls are in their adolocence, their body is already ready and every month their uterus wall prepares to have a baby, but if there's no baby, that uterus wall will break down and you bleed. Your body will evict this blood, along with some mucuss and cells." Runaan explained.
"I'm seriously gonna bleed out if I don't have a baby?!" Rayla cried out in horror, making both her guardians flinch back.
"No, no, no, Rayla! Of course you won't bleed out! You'll only lose a little blood for a few days and then it stops and your body will make enough new blood for you!" Ethari quickly reasured her.
"O-Oh. T-That's good, I guess." Rayla giggled awkwardly after calming down, "Then, how's the bad blood and other stuff gonna come out? Am I getting a nosebleed or am I gonna have to cut my finger?"
Her new calmness quickly left and was replaced by worry again when neither of the others answered, instead having another conversation with just facial expressions, like they were debating if they should tell her.
"You won't be bleeding from your nose or any cuts, Rayla. Instead it will be... from your regions." Runaan told her after a moment of hestitating.
"My... regions? What regions?" Rayla asked and at that Runaan now was the one to give Ethari a pointed look, signaling him to take over again.
Ethari now looked like he wanted to protest but instead sighed and nodded, figuring it was only fair for him to take over again since Runaan told a fair share.
"With regions, Runaan means genitals." he explained, flinching back and preparing himself for what he knew was coming as he watched the colors drain from Rayla's face.
"I'M GONNA BLEED EVERY MONTH FROM MY LOINS?!" she boomed so loudly they wouldn't even have been surprised if someone came knocking on their door to check what the heck was going on.
Luckily no one came and got to witness Rayla's turmoil, the girl having gone into a rant about life being gross and unfair.
Across from her the husbands looked uncertainly at each other, unsure if they should try and calm her down and continue with their awkward discussion or if they should just run for it and pick up again another day.
After a few minutes, though, Rayla seemed to finally calm down, opting to huffing and sitting with a big pout and arms crossed as she glared at nothing.
"So." she suddenly said, lookig at the elves across of her again, "I'm gonna bleed every month for a few days from my loins of all places and I gotta have a baby to stop it."
She went tense again when Ethari sucked in a breath through his teeth.
"What is it?" she asked, purple eyes glancing back and forth between the other two.
"Having a baby won't necesarily solve your problem, Rayla." Runaan told her while slowly placing a hand on Ethari's shoulder as if getting ready to pull his husband back, which was understandable considering the girl's unstable emotions at the moment and what they were about to tell her.
"What?" Rayla snapped.
"After you have a baby, it starts up again every month till you're finally too old to have a baby, which is usually somewhere a little over half the age elved can get." Ethari clarified, gulping nervously when the girl went quiet again.
They all satyed like that for a few moments, the older ones waiting for the younger one to to burst again but when she didn't they shared a worried look.
"Uh... Rayla?" Ethari called out to her, receiving no response as she just glared ahead.
"Raaaaaylaaaaa~" he called again, leaning forward and waving a hand in front of her face.
Still no response.
"Rayla? Can you hear us?" Runaan now tried, getting up and walking around the table, putting a hand on her shoulder and lightly shaking her.
That seemed to wake her up and she suddenly jumped up on her chair with her fists up and waving around, nearly smacking Runaan in the face, who barely managed to dodge.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" she roared.
"R-Rayla, I know it's-" Ethari went to try and comfort her, only to get cutt off by the girl who hissed at him like a Shadowpaw cub, nostrils flaring.
"Don't tell me you know what it's gonna be like! You guys are boys so you never have any of this to deal with!" she snarled angrily.
Neither husband decided to mention how, while maybe not as bad as periods, boys and men still had their own issues with their bodies to deal with.
"I'm not doing this! I'm never doing this! Screw this, screw that and all of it!" Rayla yelled before storming up to her room.
Ethari flinched when her door closed with a loud bang, followed by slightly softer thumping and muffled cursing of what was definately Rayla strowing everything she owned around during her tantrum.
"You okay?" Runaan asked him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"I guess that could have gone better..." he sighed, leaning into the touch.
"But..." Runaan trailed off, gesturing at him to continue and he snorted.
"But, I suppose it could have also gone worse." he grinned at his husband who nodded with his own tiny smile.
"At least now it's over." Runaan stated, walking to the counted and pulling two glasses and a bottle of extra strong liquor they usually only kept for specialoccasion and poured them both a glass.
Even thought it was only a little after noon, Ethari also felt like he needed a strong drink so he gratefully accepted his pwn glass.
"You do realise we'll still have to have the other talk about where she'll probably start liking boys and how to deal with that, right?" he said after a few sips, resisting the urge to laugh at Runaan's groan.
"Maybe she won't even think of boys like that?" the assassin hopefully asked, and this time Ethari couldn't help the giggle that escaped him.
"You mean, what if she likes girls instead? We'd still have to give her a talk." "Or, maybe we'll all be lucky and she won't have any of those urges for any kind of elf at all!" the more desperate to avoid the other talk Runaan looked, the funnier it got.
"Sure, maybe not an elf at all, but what about something else like a human or- Ack!" Ethari chuckled only to yelp at the rough slap to the head he received.
"Don't even joke like that."
"I'm sorry."