milliways_bar | (no subject)

She gives him one of those giggles he hasn't heard for a while.

"Let's see if you're still saying that in a few months."

But she does look good today. She went swimming today and is still in the bikini. She has a terrycloth coverup on her shoulders to wrap around herself should she get cold or feel immodest.

"Busy with what?"

If permitted, she'll reach up to pet his dreads. She likes the little flecks of white!

He tilts his head into the hand and grins a little. He's glad someone likes the difference.

"Looking for a dead world capable of supporting life with some help."

It gives his hair character.

"Seems like something the legends at home would have information about. I can check for you, but I don't know if there's going to be anything useful in there unless you've got a deity lined up to work some life into a planet."

She shrugs.

"I can take a look during my down time, work it into my huge stack of reading. I've only got a few things that are time sensitive."

"No gods." he makes a face "I won't believe in anything that didn't believe in me. We have our own powers, enough to get things started."

"Fair enough," she says. "Let me know if I can help out, provided it's not too strenuous. My body's been going crazy with fatigue and mood swings."

"Pregnant?" it's a guess based on body changes and her current comments "Right now it's leg work, and that's all me."

She giggles again.

"I gave you too many context clues. I didn't even go for the blatantly obvious morning sickness. But yes, I am pregnant, starting week six tomorrow."

So early yet, but confirmed.

"Leg work wouldn't be all that great for me even if you weren't doing it all. My magic manages to be plenty of exercise at this point."

A glance down at her outfit.

"When I'm not swimming, apparently. It was that or practice my firedancing and I just felt too hot for that."

"To be fair, I've dated pregnant women before." Xaldin informs her with a smile, "Not with my children, obviously, but still. You've got my hopes that the child is healthy."

"You know more about the situation than Draco does. When I first told him, he worriedly asked me if we still had months and if I was going to just....'pop' the child, as he put it, sometime that week."

Wizards are useless.

"I should get him to do some reading on the subject. It would make things easier for both of us."

He starts rubbing the bridge of his nose "I think that's a good idea, Mia. If you want someone to sit with him while you are in labour just let me know."

Mia's eyes widen a little.

"I fully intended to have him hold my hand and feed me ice chips then."

Mia's strong. Mia could probably do it without him.

But Mia probably doesn't want to.

"If you think he's up to it." Xaldin has been present at births before. He doesn't really trust most males to be as calm as they think they'll be.

"To be honest, I wonder if I would even be up to it. What I've heard of the actual process of childbirth hasn't put it in a terribly pleasant light."

Mia, unfortunately, is relying on the very fluid notion that Draco will be the cooler head in that situation.

"Either way, Jessica will be with me. That will make things better, particularly since she has a child herself."

"I'm certain you'll do fine, Mia. Just try to keep yourself in shape. It's a lot of work but you'll be fine as soon as it starts."

"Glad someone around here's certain about that. I often find myself worried about these things when, for the most part, what you've said tends to be right."

She was the same way before becoming Guildmaster.

"I'll get to it when I get to it," she says to dismiss her worry. "Right now, I'll get back to being excited about the baby's heart beating already. Miss Bar had given me a little pamphlet that had said so, anyway. I'm excited to see the developments at six weeks."

"I could go into the ways that most mammalian species reproduce but I don't think you'd get that much out of it." he says with a grin, "I'm really very glad for you."

"Thank you, Xaldin," she says, beaming again. "And you might have a point. I'm still getting into the details of how it's happening to me. There were some things I expected and a lot that I didn't."

She pulls a face.

"The fact that Draco seems to like the name Hyperion included."

"I named my cat 'Cat'." Xaldin says blandly "I am not the person to ask about names. I always figured that if I did have children that either the mother would name them or I would stop at two. 'Boy' and 'Girl'."

"Draco's family has traditions: celestial or Greek names. My family has looser traditions where we sometimes toss in a hero's name. Frankly, I like the name Abraxas, which fits his tradition. It's a little soon for any of the Five Heroes to be namesakes, so no Alexs or Kyles anytime soon and I'm sure Draco will say no Nashs ever."

She thinks a little longer.

"Laike might be nice, though."

Xaldin has the mildly baffled look of someone for whom names just don't really mean anything. "X means something different where I come from. It means the person with the X in their name has done terrible things."

It's all right. Mia didn't think too much on name meanings until now.

"That seems a little cruel to the letter X and anyone who would otherwise be blessed to have such a unique letter in their name," she says. "But if I've learned anything, it's that even a person who has done terrible things is not necessarily terrible."

She holds a hand out.

"Did I ever tell you how I first heard about my husband?"

[ooc: Dear Email, *thwap!* Bitch, why aren't you telling me when I have new tags? No love, the Mun]

He takes her hand gently - he still wears gloves and will until his dying day. "I know that it doesn't, but it reminds me constantly of what I need to atone for. I will never be Dilan again."

"No, I haven't heard that story."

"You only have to atone until you forgive yourself, but you're probably right about the other part. I hope you're not offended, but I don't know if I should be sad about that or not. It would have been nice to met Dilan, but I like Xaldin."

She gives his hand a kind squeeze.

"Not too long after I first came here, I went to Halloweentown to help fight off nightmares that were invading there. Not Heartless, I don't think, just nightmares. But the nightmares played mind games on me, made me think I was reliving a curse I had a few years ago. I had to be carried back here and was left on a couch, fevered, nauseous, and clawing at my ears. That's how Will, my sort-of brother, found me. He carried me to the infirmary so Doctor Tam could treat me."

There's a pause where she presses her lips together.

"Three days later, I was out of the infirmary and Will was out of the cells. He had met Draco the same night he helped me and they got into a fight. Draco used his magic to torture Will, used a curse that is Unforgivable in his world. Draco was the first person here that I was truly mad at."

Xaldin listens to her speech and murmurs; "I don't think you would like to meet Dilan. He will become me, after all."

And she can't stop that from happening.

"I don't know," she says. "Would you believe that, after what I've just told you, the first time I met Draco was very pleasant and didn't end with me setting him on fire?"