“I thought we said we were not accepting gifts?” Galyn asked as he went through a pile of gifts. Everyone had gone home now and things were going back to normal, but Retvik, Litvir and Arkay had insisted that the happily married couple have a few days off, to get over everything that had happened.
“Yes but I guess people like us enough to get us gifts?” Vikalos shrugged. “Well, maybe not you two. You two were exiles up until a few days ago.”
“Hmph!” Itaviir grunted. “Everyone just brought gifts for you, Vikalos. This is the second box I have found full of rounded glass beads in the colour of fire and lava.”
Vikalos took the box off Itaviir. “Huh. You’re right. There’s another box. I think that’s three now.”
“But why?” Galyn asked. “What are you going to do with three boxes full of gems?”
Vikalos shrugged some more. “I don’t know. They are pretty though, I’d love to put them all into a little water fountain or something.”
A grunt interrupted Vikalos. Galyn nudged another box up to him.
“More beads?”
“More beads!” Galyn hissed. “Why are the Justar obsessed with bloody glass beads? I don’t understand! Like, these other gifts make sense! Matching scarfs, matching underwear, matching daggers, these were clearly all bought with the three of us in mind. But all of these have notes on them saying they’re from the Justar!”
“Well, apart from this one…” Itaviir held up a small box. “But this one is from Thyel and Vret and they both wrote, and I quote, “lol just fuckin wit u!” on the bottom of the box.”
“Did they get us an actual gift?” Galyn grunted.
Itaviir nodeded. “Yes. Vret got us scarfs, like everyone else did, but Thyel got us some bottles of dark mead and some, uh, toys for the bedroom.”
“What sort of toys?”
Itaviir didn’t answer at first. He fished around for a box, then pulled it out and timidly showed it to Vikalos and Galyn.
“Oh…” Galyn muttered.
“What is that for?” Vikalos asked. “The rings, I recognise, but I have no idea what that long thing is.”
“Um…” Galyn struggled briefly. “That… that is… a double-ended anal vibrator.”
“For your butt and Itaviir’s butt?”
Galyn nodded awkwardly.
“At the same time?”
“Yes.”
“Oh well, maybe we’ll try them out on you later!” Vikalos perked up. “We have a lot of gifts we need to get through, and we are going to have to write thank you letters as well.”
“I am not thanking Thyel for the double-ended anal vibrator!” Galyn exclaimed. “He is lucky he isn’t present, otherwise I would put that up his own back end!”
“Eh, you say that, I think I’ll use the penis cages on you both!” Vikalos teased. “But I have a list of people to write letters to, so don’t worry about that.”
Itaviir grunted. “I am just surprised how many scarfs we also got. I think Galyn and I are going to start wearing scarfs as well.”
“You can never have too many scarfs!” Vikalos smiled.
“Well, you can’t!” Galyn rolled his eyes. “You keep many of yours in a hammer space. Itaviir and I have limited closet space compared to you.”
“Well, dear, I shall put your scarfs in with mine!” Vikalos smiled. “Anyway, what is that box down there? it is coloured blue and green but not red oddly.”
Galyn and Itaviir both turned to the box that Vikalos was pointing at.
“I… I didn’t see anyone leave that one…” Galyn muttered, as Itaviir picked up the box.
The box wasn’t particularly large, about 20cm by 20cm and rather flat. The top of the box was split in two diagonally, in blue and green, but the edges were all solid, metallic gold.
“Does it have a tag on it?” Vikalos asked. “Maybe it is from some of the Phantai, directed to you both? I know Fengar gave you both a small gift as an apology.”
Galyn was very confused, but Itaviir slowly started to work out who it was from. He had seen a similar box before, a long, long time ago, but with a pure white lid. Itaviir had seen Lightblade be handed those boxes on the regular, back when Itaviir had been in line to becoming a Black Blade, serving the Great Blades themselves.
Itaviir hesitated, then opened the box. Inside were two sheet of papers and two glass tubes, which had clearly been attached to some sort of syringe, but also seemed to be ribbed, “for her pleasure”, on one end. The tips of the tubes were tinted in exactly the same colours as Itaviir and Galyn’s skin.
“Oh no…” Itaviir stuttered.
“What?” Galyn asked. He clearly wasn’t understanding what he was looking at.
“Oh no…” Itaviir repeated himself.
Galyn glanced at Vikalos, hoping that Vikalos knew what Itaviir was on about, but he was also just as confused.
“Uh, Itaviir, darling…” Vikalos patted Itaviir on the back. “What’s wrong?”
“We… we…” Itaviir was struggling. He swallowed awkwardly before continuing. “Galyn, you and I, we… we are officially fathers now.”
Galyn blinked, still not understanding. “What do you mean?”
“Itaviir handed the green-tipped tube to Galyn. “You know when those Beh’ena kidnapped us? Well, they took our samples and this is… confirmation that they have used our sperm to inseminate themselves. We are officially fathers now, we have created a new generation of Beh’evok!”
Galyn was still clearly confused and now also in shock. Vikalos put an arm around them both and shrugged.
“So you two will be dads? When do we get to see the kids?”
Itaviir sighed. “The eggs most likely won’t hatch for a good fifty year-strings, and it takes another fifty years for them to not be little squiggly kid things.”
“I see…” Vikalos sniffed briefly. But he quickly settled down. “Oh well. We’ll still be here in fifty years time. We’ll always be around to see them grow up.”
Itaviir settled down as well. “You’re absolutely right, Vikalos. We are not going anywhere. I am certain we will at the very least be told when they hatch. Galyn, are you alright?”
“I am not alright in the slightest…” Galyn sighed. “Sorry, all of this has been one emotional attack after another.”
Itaviir and Vikalos both hugged Galyn tight.
“I know, my dear, I know… but don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”
Galyn sighed some more, then smiled. “You’re right, Itaviir. Everything IS alright…”