Quincy
He sat by the small stream that ran behind the castle, half listening to Fialia and Xam happily chasing squirrels and to the squirrels’ annoyance at having their work collecting winter provisions interrupted.
Everything felt slower these days, and he did not think it was simply the world around him getting colder and darker as the season advanced. No, something inside his own body demanded it as well; growing life was not a matter one could rush.
It was a testament to how deep inside he was that when the water in front of his eyes began twirling and started forming a cylindrical shape, he still only watched. It was a snake made of water, twisting around and dancing to the beat of the stream.
He had never seen the like: it had been a long time since it was acceptable for water magic to be exhibited for its beauty. Behind him, he heard a low exhale and for just a moment, he thought the snake’s tongue came out to hiss at him before the whole figure dissolved with a small splash.
“I once made one of my childhood friends jump so far, he fell into the stream further down.”
Quincy turned his head to smile at his mate. “You were probably a handful as a child.”
Valgar shrugged a little, eyes twinkling. “I might have been a little spoiled, I suppose.”
There was an edge of sadness that inevitably touched the past joy he’d lost, and reaching a hand out to him was pure instinct. Valgar took it in his and knelt by his side, the heat of him a welcome bulwark against the cold. Quincy’s whole body turned into his with a little sigh of relief.
“You could come inside,” his alpha suggested, arm secure around him.
“Later,” Quincy told him. “I... I feel at peace out here.”
It was as close as he could get to explaining what called him out despite the more extreme weather at these higher latitudes.
Valgar kissed his eyebrow. “Okay then, I’ll have to come with and keep you warm.”
“I thought you had work to do.”
“None more important than this,” he was assured, so he closed his eyes and brought his mate’s hand to join his own on his belly.
***
VALGAR MIGHT HAVE BEEN Quincy’s mate by both magic and law, but he did not see how any of it could have worked without Mar’s unfailing support.
And yet, he couldn’t think of how to talk to her about what was happening to his body as the pregnancy took hold.
In truth, he felt afraid of offending her somehow. His body was changing to be closer to a woman’s, after all.
And Mar’s body was... Amazing. He loved the curves of her hips meant to protect life within, the weight of her breasts in his hands, her—
But he’d been sick for the first time in months when he’d noticed his own chest growing tender and soft; suddenly no longer able to ignore that the mound of his belly was too firm to come from overeating.
And now this... He’d woken in his own bed with half the blankets on the floor and covered in sweat.
It was not so unusual since he couldn’t make it through a night at a comfortable temperature no matter what he tried.
He nearly called for a bath before something registered as odd and he froze, eyes squeezed shut, heart trying to pound its way out of his throat as he reached out a trembling hand, bypassing his cock and. ..
Valgar came aware at once, sitting up sharply wherever he was, and Quincy couldn’t— He rolled onto his front, knees slightly bent to protect his belly.
He had to, for he felt like he was falling apart and he didn’t know what else to do to hold himself together. He was still there when the door opened.
“Quincy!” Valgar was crawling on the bed with him and dragging him backwards into his arms, an anchor in a tumultuous sea. And it was worse somehow, he was sobbing openly, and he couldn’t manage a single word.
Valgar stopped asking, rocking him a little in place and making stupid soothing sounds that made Quincy want to punch him.
But that would have meant letting go of his alpha’s tunic where his arm crossed his chest. So he just cried harder, furious and helpless and wanting to burn the whole world down, each pointless reassurance Valgar offered only making it worse.
But nothing could make it better, that he knew with absolute certainty.
At some point, he fell back asleep, exhausted, and when he woke up, he looked Valgar in the face and seeing his reddened eyes, Quincy’s anger evaporated. It was hopeless, was it not? Valgar had offered to let him end the pregnancy, after all, and Quincy...
Quincy had chosen this. It didn’t help; to know he’d done it to himself.
It didn’t feel like he could have chosen anything else, not once the baby existed. He pressed his palm against his belly and breathed out in relief at the flutter of life within.
Perhaps it was inevitable that he had come to love the baby. And even rationally, he thought it might be nice to have a child to teach and guide. But now that it was time to pay his dues, he wasn’t sure he could live with it.
Valgar was holding his hand, laying on his side next to him and waiting. He wanted to do something. Anything to make Quincy feel better.
“I need...” His voice was so rough he had to pause to swallow. “I need to be alone.”
He kept his head down as his mate flinched at the words. “Of course, I’ll... I’ll be here, when you want me,” Valgar told him so formally he nearly expected a bow.
Cocal came in a while later with food, clearly sent by his mate, and Quincy drank his Veolian tea and stared out the window still in the same sweaty clothes he’d slept in.
She chattered away about the weather, but his mind seemed to have stopped, only noticing whatever was in front of him and letting it go like it had no meaning.
It didn’t, not to him. How could the outside world matter at all?
***
HE DIDN’T LEAVE HIS rooms for the next three days as the change took, night by night, what was left of his body. First, his sack had retreated into his body, then the area had swollen into a mound, and finally the flesh had parted into an opening right beneath his dick.
The fourth day he woke with the same thought that he had gone to sleep with; how long would the baby need him to live after he brought it into the world.
And then he put his hand down and found... his cock, still where it had always been. He sat up at once, tugging at his tunic and saw it was true, it was there.
So was the mound of flesh that he knew opened deep into his body thanks to the bath he’d forced himself to have the day before.
Was it over? The physician had told him the change took three days, but somehow, Quincy had expected it to be complete. He clenched and felt it in his new hole, shuddering a little at the spike of...
He asked for another bath.