Unexpected Outcome [Finished]

[Tigeress]

So far she'd planned out all the scenarios in her head, things to say when she spoke to Pravus. "Pravus... I'm pregnant. P.S, please don't kill the kids, I'd like to keep them." Just wasn't much of a feasible option. And while it seemed they'd been getting closer, what with his very personal delivery of someone she'd thought she'd never see again, she still understood him well enough to know this would Probably go badly. Quite badly.

Pausing at Serafino's day office door where she'd been instructed that he would be, she knocked twice and waited a moment before speaking. "Your majesty, it's Sekhmet. I request a small counsel over a.. ah... recent... development." Well now, THAT had been a weird way to put it. She had a feeling he would know the best route for her to take, and perhaps, if he spoke to Pravus in private, he could... convicne the feline to be a little more tolerant of the situation.

She wished she could go to him privately, this seemed so awkward, like a court for a divorce where the couple couldn't so much as be in the same room or look each other in the eye. In a strange way she was excited, she'd always wondered if she'd ever have the opportunity to have kids, though... she knew how they'd been conceived. Though they'd visited a few times after the event, they hadn't had sex since... Perhaps she should keep her mind set on more important details.

[The Jenn]

Serafino despised paperwork with every part of his being. Nothing about the task appealed to him, not getting ink on his fingers or getting eyestrain after staring at small print or trying to figure out the best way to verbally intimidate without actually looming over the people in question. He far and away preferred face-to-face communications, but they weren't always possible. After two hours of this nonsense following several early-morning meetings he was ready for any legitimate distraction and looked up hopefully as he heard a knock on the door. Dymphna?

No... but not far off, ironically. Counsel he could do. He did it all morning some days. Really, anything but paperwork at this point was eminently doable. "Yes, Sekhmet, just come in. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it."

Maybe it would be something big enough to carry him away from the paperwork altogether. It was a nice thought, but the stuff needed to be done sooner or later and he would rather have it finished before his mid-afternoon tea. A distraction now wouldn't be much of a setback, though. At his feet, Sultana yawned and stretched in a tiny patch of sun, her colorful fur soaking up the heat. He'd much rather join her in that, but the windows weren't open quite wide enough to accommodate him.

[Tigeress]

His voice came and filled her with relief, her muscles relaxing slightly when it seemed he was in a good mood. In reality, he either had nothing to do at the moment and didn't mind the distraction, or he assumed her problem would be quickly dealt with. She didn't know if it would or not, Serafino knew Pravus better than she did, even with all that had happened. She opened the door cautiously and stepped in, quietly closing it behind her before taking a few steps forward. The bulge to her stomach wasn't extremely pronounced yet, but it was there.

"It seems Pravus and I have some talking to do... eventually. I'm not sure how he'll take this news, and I want to be safe, for mine and the children's sakes." She had a feeling that if he was the type to not want to father kids, he would probably just quietly kill her somewhere and hide the evidence. More likely, he would have something 'accidentally' befall her which would be comprised of a nasty blow to the stomach. She hoped the Queen didn't mind her coming right out with it, but she'd become increasingly comfortable around him with the small glimpses he'd allowed into his own self. He wasn't very different from herself, and while the thought should have frightened her considering what he was capable of, it was calming.

She moved towards a seat and sat down heavily, sighing with the relief. Her back muscles weren't used to the extra weight, she'd always been nicely fit, and so the sudden addition was a little bothersome for her body at the moment. "I fear for many things, I simply don't know Pravus' take on offspring. Could you help me, majesty?" Her voice was emotionless but soft, carefully neutral because at this point, she didn't know whether to be happy, or frightened by what was in her. Pravus wasn't as much of a monster as everyone made him out to be, so it wasn't fear that they'd end up like him, but... she had never even thought of kids, never wanted them before this point. Yet, here they were.

[The Jenn]

Fino watched her enter and made absolutely no note of the unusual curve to her stomach, slight as it was, until she flat-out mentioned children. Then he blinked and stared a little before looking down. He could, in fact, see something different in the line of her stomach. Something mirrored to a somewhat more noticeable degree in Pravus. He cringed back on reflex, then forced himself to hold still and just put it from his mind. Which was rather difficult, as that's what she wished to discuss.

Ugh. Pregnant. Why the hell was everybody around him becoming pregnant?! It was such an unpleasant thing to think about and it made his skin crawl every time he saw evidence of the little parasites sitting inside someone's stomach, just waiting to burst out like something from a horror story.

"Pravus's take on offspring is... fluctuating at the moment, I think," the Queen finally said, voice even but something about the way he sat screaming 'discomfort'. "Very smart of you not to approach him directly without someone else present. I know that he will gladly kill anything related to him that is of an inferior rank. I do not know his feeling on 'children' beyond the larval stage." He used the term with utmost distaste.

[Tigeress]

She couldn't help but allow her lips to form a half-smile when Fino cringed, well, she could tell His take on children right away, at least. She had a feeling Pravus wouldn't be so straight forward. She rested a hand lightly on the small bump, obscuring it mostly from vision. Perhaps, out of sight, out of mind worked with Fino? She didn't enjoy making him uncomfortable, amusing as it was to watch the utter distaste flutter across his feminine features.

"Oh? This could be good for me I suppose." At his compliment she merely nodded her head in thanks, she hadn't thought it was particularily smart so much as... not suicidal. Perhaps her attention to detail had made her note particularily early on how... picky Pravus could be. But she supposed anyone who had been in her position might have caught on that when someone was unsure of how Pravus would react- it usually meant not to go it alone at any cost. "Hmmm, I can see rank being an issue, it is unfortunate that I was not able to become a King myself in the short span of time between." She stopped to consider herself, in the middle of a Jack quest, and him, a King, would that really result in such low children? Fate had a way of being nasty, but she couldn't see anything lower than an 8-9 coming of this. Then again, she'd never had children before. Nor witnessed any being born.

"Do you think then, that you should talk to him alone, or that we should go together with you basically acting as my- ah, bodyguard?" She knew that if anyone could keep Pravus from outright killing someone, it was Serafino. In fact, there wasn't much the Queen couldn't keep Pravus (or anyone else for that matter) from doing if he truly wanted. Hence being The Queen of Hearts. She simply didn't know how fast, or how viciously Pravus might react, so it might very well be that having her there was a bad idea. She didn't know, really, so she'd leave this decision to his majesty.

[The Jenn]

Fino frowned at the idea of being anyone's 'bodyguard'. The whole idea set him off a bit, and her saying it made it even less appealing. Even if she was granted slightly more leeway, that toed a line. "Whatever you may be at the moment, I am most certainly not your bodyguard, or protector, or anything of the sort. I may be willing to act as a sort of mediator, but that is all. At the moment he actually shares you... delicate... undesirable condition. I am not yet certain how this will affect his general attitude."

He put down his pen, mind quite happily pushing the thought of paperwork aside. It did not so readily grasp onto the idea of 'juggling' two pregnant people at once. How completely and utterly distasteful. Even if he couldn't see the telling bulge, he knew very well that it was there. She was sharing her body with tiny little parasitic lifeforms. The fact that some people actually aspired to the condition rather than merely ending up falling victim to it boggled his mind.

"I might be able to offer you something in advance, before your meeting and the eventual birth, that will make their deaths... less likely. At least, one of their deaths. The most likely to die." He considered. Casting spells for favors of that nature wasn't his specialty, but he was of course able to do so.

[Tigeress]

She figured he wouldn't like the wording, but she'd had no other way to put it, she simply couldn't protect herself against him. However, that comment changed everything. Ignoring the rest, she chose to focus only on that little bit of info about Pravus. "Then perhaps I have less to worry about. I was simply thinking I'd be too slow to defend myself very well, what with this little burden. But if we're in the same boat, not only will he have a hard time attacking me, but perhaps he will be more considerate..." She nodded her head thoughtfully, staring out the window as she considered the scenario.

She listened to his proposal with slightly narrowed eyes, not quite comprehending what it was he was saying, and then suddenly it hit her, optics widening without her consent. "Serafino, really, I didn't come to ask for pity favours, I have not done enough for you to deserve that. I've not even finished my Jack quest yet to make myself useful in the courts, though I do intend to." She hoped this wasn't a game in which he would be asking for payment later. It was a gift that she wasn't sure she'd be able to pay off anywhere in the near future, and she had enough to worry about.

"Any help I can get would be appreciated. If I am forced to carry and birth them, I'd like that the opportunity to keep them." She said the last part with a small sigh, knowing that there was a good chance some would die. Would it upset her? Or would she merely be angry that she'd carried them for so long and gone through all the pain for nothing? She didn't know, she hadn't quite managed to find that motherly attachment yet. She was probably still in shock.

[The Jenn]

Her assessment seemed somehow flawed to Fino, but he couldn't find anything about it that he could disagree with besides the result. He didn't think it would make Pravus any less 'considerate' of the condition. Perhaps less able to attack, but the whole ordeal had certainly left him more moody. Maybe it would leave him more 'emotionally vulnerable' to her appeals or something equally unlike him. With the exception of his own verbal jabs and barbs, the feline seemed remarkably resistant.

"The favor was offered less in pity and more in..." 'guilt' his mind said on reflex, and he shoved the thought away. "...hope that you will be able to keep the children that you seem to want despite the circumstances surrounding them." And wasn't that just a pretty way of saying guilt? It didn't bear overmuch thought. "Your rank is suitable enough for normal circumstances, but my mother was a Queen and my father a King, and still my brother was a Ten. There is no guarantee on such things."

His own experience with children not living up to the parents' expectations rang in his mind like a warning bell and gave him even more reason to dread the impending ordeal. If it happened again - if the children were complete and utter disappointments despite his rank and Pravus's, despite their human forms and matched suits and ideal regions - then he would make sure never to take the risk again. It simply wasn't worth it.

[Tigeress]

She wondered idly if Serafino was the father of Pravus' children. But of course he was, how didn't she catch on sooner? There was no other way that he would be even mildly concerned unless he understood what she was going through. Upon his comment about his brother however, she realized just how very much he understood what she was going through. "I would hate to spend months in agony just to watch my effort be slaughtered before me." She said coldly, not meaning to come off as so detached from the children.

"Besides... I have a bit of a different opinion of Pravus than you might think. He is not such a monster as everyone makes him out to be, though there is a side of him that is, that's not all there is to him." She knew the Queen would know this, but she wondered if by saying it out loud she might upset him. Surely Serafino wasn't the sharing type, and yet he'd shown her no hostility over her continued contact with the feline, nor demanded her to stay away from his room at the courts or any other such thing.

"Well, I think the first thing to establish with Pravus will be, what is, and what is not, acceptable for his children's ranks. Depending on his response, I might have some hope with this, so here's hoping he is not in an.. unreasonable mood." She commented, rubbing the bridge of her nose with the slight headache that had formed. Worrying always gave her a headache. Hence why she teneded to act on instinct more often than not. Overthinking was a bad trait of hers when she left herself to it.

[The Jenn]

The doe's explanation of the wasted effort he could understand, though he personally wondered if it might not be more satisfying to slaughter the things that caused you such pain and discomfort for so many months the second you set eyes on them. He couldn't really say. He had never been pregnant, thank all the gods, and would hopefully never become pregnant and have to find out. The thought actually sent a shiver down his spine.

"Anything lower than eight or nine is unacceptable," he muttered in response, mind latching onto her previous comment. Not the monster everyone makes him out to be. This said about the man who raped her, who sired her unplanned children in that violent act.

Just what had Pravus been showing her? A small, paranoid part of his mind twinged with unease. What could the two of them possibly have shared that made her think any better of the feline? Yes, Fino was quite aware that there was more beneath the surface, many layers to peel back until beneath it all there was nothing but a shivering, needy kitten who was afraid of the dark and crawled towards affection with every bone in his beautifully deformed body. But she shouldn't be.

What... what could she possibly have seen to think that?

He pushed the paranoia firmly aside, back to the depths where he could stew on it for later, when neither of them were in this unnerving condition, and turned his attention to Sekhmet. "He should be in his room at the moment. The afternoon is when he tends to go out. If you wanted to confront him then now is the time."