By evening, I was already standing at the stove, cooking food.
The day somehow flowed into calmness on its own. The room gradually became warmer from the fire and the smell of food. I liked it. Not that I had suddenly become a fan of quiet evenings, it's just... there was something right about them.
When Alastia returned, I didn't even turn around right away.
"Listen," I began, turning the food in the pan, "maybe you could get me a job?"
She froze at the door.
"What?"
"A job," I repeated. "I don't want to feel like I'm living at your expense."
Alastia slowly closed the door behind her, took off her cloak, and looked at me with that exact look that usually preceded either a sarcastic remark or a very sarcastic remark.
"You are already living at my expense," she said calmly.
"Exactly."
"And what suddenly bothered you so much?"
I shrugged.
"I don't know. It's just... unpleasant. You work, you carry half of this place on yourself, and I sit here, eat, sleep, and sometimes walk around with a smart face."
"Sometimes?" she clarified.
"Alright, almost never."
Alastia stepped closer, peered into the pot, and only then answered:
"Actually, you created this mountain."
"Well, yes."
"And to be honest, without you, there would be absolutely nothing here."
"But I don't get paid for that."
She scoffed.
"Seriously? Is this how you decided to start family life? By calculating who owes whom how much?"
"No," I said. "I decided to start it by not being useless."
Alastia stopped smiling for a second.
Then she exhaled quietly and sat closer to the table.
"Alright," she said. "If you want to do something so badly... it can be arranged."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Then I'll have to ask Zorgh."
Alastia raised her eyebrows.
"Seriously? Straight to the king?"
"So what? It's normal."
"Do you even have any intermediate steps between 'I'm bored' and 'I'll go to the ruler'?"
"Not really."
She shook her head, but then suddenly thought for a moment.
"Although... I actually have a better idea."
I pushed the pan aside and turned to her.
"Which is?"
Alastia folded her hands on the table and looked at me no longer as a wife, but almost as a person who was about to arrange a small demonstrative disaster for educational purposes.
"We need to show the senior classes what might is. And power."
"Oh?"
"Lately, they sit around thinking that they are almost stepping on the teachers' heels. Too confident, too loud, too pleased with themselves. It will be useful to remind them what a real abyss between 'talented' and 'still haven't understood anything' looks like."
I smiled slowly.
"Wow. Good. I will beat them every day."
"WHAT?!"
"Well, what? Very demonstrative."
"You don't need to beat them, Zenkhald," Alastia said tiredly. "That's not why I'm suggesting you."
"A pity."
"Just teach them something complicated. And preferably the way you usually do it."
"How is that?"
"As if it's simple."
I thought for a second.
Then nodded.
"Alright. I can handle it."
"Excellent then."
She leaned back in her chair, watching as I took up cooking again. It was quiet for a while, only the fire crackled.
And then Alastia suddenly said:
"Zenkhald."
"What?"
She pronounced it so calmly that I didn't even tense up in advance.
"Who would you want? A boy or a girl?"
I blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb."
I slowly turned to her.
Alastia was looking at me completely seriously.
"I will try to give birth to whichever you want," she said.
"WHA-A-AT?"
She didn't even flinch.
"What?"
"You can do that?!"
Now she blinked.
"Well... in theory..."
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"IN THEORY?!"
"Why are you yelling like that?"
"Because you just said something absolutely abnormal as if you were discussing a type of bread!"
Alastia looked away.
"Actually, I just wanted to do something nice for you."
My battle ardor instantly deflated.
"Ah."
Silence hung for a second.
I coughed and said more quietly:
"Oh. Sorry. It doesn't matter to me. Boy or girl—the main thing is that they are born healthy. So don't try too hard."
Alastia smiled slightly, and I, finally calming down, decided that the conversation was going quite normally.
And then, for some reason, I added:
"Eat a lot. They say the fatter the female, the more successful the birth."
Silence.
I felt the air in the room become very still.
I slowly raised my eyes.
Alastia was looking at me. Very calmly. Too calmly.
"Repeat that," she said affectionately.
"I won't."
"Correct decision."
I turned back to the stove.
"Alright, understood. Spoke heresy."
"Exactly."
Alastia watched me for a while longer, then couldn't help it and laughed quietly.
"You have an amazing talent," she said, "for saying something sweet in a way that sounds like an insult."
"I don't argue with that."
She stood up and stepped closer. I felt her nearby even before she hugged me from behind, resting her forehead between my shoulder blades.
"But anyway," she said more quietly, "thank you."
"For what?"
"For caring."
I froze for a second, then covered her hands with mine.
She didn't answer right away. Just stood like that for a bit longer, warming herself against me and the warm air of the kitchen.
Then she said quietly:
"Just pick your words better next time."
"I'll try."
"No, really."
"I got it."
"Because if you call me a female one more time—"
"I won't."
"Good."
"Although technically—"
She pinched my side.
"Ow!"
"Do you understand now?"
"Yes. Completely. No more technically."
She gave a satisfied "hmm" and let me go.
I put the food on plates, put everything on the table, and sat next to her.
We ate in silence for a while. Calmly. Without any more nonsense.
Then Alastia suddenly said, as if in passing:
"But a girl with your eyes would be a bit scary."
I slowly turned my head to her.
"So you are already thinking about this too?"
"Of course I am thinking about it."
"And about a boy?"
"A boy with your character is already a disaster."
"And with yours?"
"Then it's the end of the state."
I couldn't help it and chuckled.
"So, in any case, everyone around is out of luck."
"Exactly," Alastia nodded with a completely serious face. "But we might get lucky."
And after those words, the evening somehow became even quieter. And even warmer.
Three months passed. A difficult three months.
Every day started the same for me. In the morning, I cooked food. And right away for tomorrow too, so I wouldn't have to bother again. Then I went to work, so to speak—to show the young mages that between "I know how to do something" and "I really know how" lies an abyss, and a very deep one.
True, the kids themselves weren't happy about such lessons for some reason. Rather, they shied away more and more.
"Today," I began, sweeping the class with my gaze, "we will learn to regenerate."
Silence.
"Kid, come here," I called one of the seniors.
He turned pale.
"Teacher... please, let's not use him..."
"Nope," I said. "You."
He approached as if going to his execution. I took him by the forearm, firmly so he wouldn't twitch, and cut his skin with my fingernail.
Just a little bit. But there was still enough blood for him to start yelling immediately.
"Don't yell," I winced. "I did it painlessly."
"BUT MY BLOOD! IT'S FLOWING OUT!"
"So what? It's not the first time you've seen it."
He kept twitching, and I kept holding his arm, while the others looked at us in horror.
"Watch closely," I said to the rest. "Never panic in such a case. The main thing is calm. Inhale. Exhale. Don't rush."
"TEACHER!"
"Don't yell," I repeated. "I didn't cut your vein. Just scratched your skin slightly. You won't die. Always treat such things calmly. Panic won't help you in this case."
I poked the wound with my finger.
"There are many healing methods. But today we will consider the simplest one. You must close this wound with mana or whatever is more convenient for you. But you can't just block the blood. Otherwise, the recovery will go worse. Go ahead, kid. Act."
Out of fear, he started doing something, but only awkwardly pressed mana not over the entire area, and the blood started flowing stronger.
"There," I said. "Pressed, but not over the entire area. That's why it's gushing stronger. Alright, that's enough."
I touched his arm with my finger, and the wound immediately disappeared.
The class exhaled at once.
"Since you are combat mages, not healers," I continued, "I forgive you for not getting it right the first time. And now cut yourselves."
I smiled.
A wave of terror rolled through the room.
"A small prick on the finger will suffice," I added lighter.
The guy I used for the example stared at me with offense and almost childish despair:
"THEN WHY DID YOU CUT MY WHOLE FOREARM?!"
I thought.
"I don't know. Just for fun."
After that, the respect in their eyes for me seemed to become even less. Although, to be honest, there wasn't much of it before either.
Generally, I wasn't respected by the students for some reason. Why everyone considers me crazy—I don't know. Probably the world is just unfair. Well, and the fact that I look about fifteen also hindered me a bit.
Although some teachers occasionally mistook me for one of their own. True, not for long.
Once after a class, a student approached me and asked:
"Teacher, why did you cut the student and not yourself? Wouldn't that be more correct?"
I already opened my mouth to answer something smart, but instead said honestly:
"I am afraid of my own blood."
The student looked at me very strangely.
Minus one more person who perceived me as a teacher.
But a job was a job. I endured. They endured. Sometimes, true, it seemed to me that we had a competition to see who would give up first.
I returned home towards evening. And there everything was completely different.
When I met Alastia, she sometimes wanted something sour, sometimes sweet, sometimes both at once. Sometimes she wanted to go out for some fresh air, sometimes to sit silently by the window. Sometimes she wanted me to be nearby, to care for her, and sometimes, on the contrary, not to touch her and not to interfere at all.
Fortunately, I already understood her well from her eyes. Therefore, I tried to keep a balance. Not to be intrusive. Not to distance myself too much. Just to be nearby in the way it was needed right now.
Personally, to be honest, I almost didn't care in one sense—this wasn't the first time a child was being born in my life. But this "almost" was very small. Because care still had to be shown. And I wanted to.
I sometimes asked: "Is everything okay?" Or: "Are you feeling well?" Or I just silently placed next to her what she wanted at that moment.
Once a week, and sometimes two or three times a week, I tried to bring something new. Strawberries. Blueberries. Some other fruits or vegetables, if I managed to get them. Sometimes I had to search for a long time, because it wasn't the season, it was winter, and our place still wasn't a market in the middle of a wealthy capital. But I brought it anyway.
Every time she tried to pretend that it was a trifle. But in her eyes, I saw that she was pleased.
Her belly had grown. A lot.
And I saw how she worried, even though she tried not to show it unnecessarily. I saw how she touched it with her palm, how she sometimes froze for a long time, thinking about something, how she became quieter when she thought I wasn't noticing.
And generally... I felt sorry for her. Not in a bad way. It's just that she had almost no one left.
She had few friends. Close ones—even fewer. Those who could come, sit nearby, support her, talk to her not as the Supreme Archmage, but simply as a woman who was having a hard time—there were almost none of those.
Her parents died long ago. Her brother too. Her grandmother—too.
Her old friends had long since left one after another. Marla died recently. Dis was already standing almost on the border between this world and that one.
Although... Aurora... I chuckled a little at this thought myself. No. They aren't even friends. And Aurora doesn't know how to support. She knows how to stand nearby, look strangely, and say something after which you either want to laugh or hit someone.
So, essentially, Alastia was left almost alone.
And, probably, this is exactly what hooked me the most. Not the belly. Not the anxiety. Not even the fact of the child itself. But the fact that there was almost no one to be near her at such a moment.
Except me.
One evening I returned home particularly late. After lessons, my eye was twitching, and an indignant voice still rang in my head: "Teacher, why should regeneration be started on oneself?!" "Because the enemy won't let you calmly heal your comrade, idiots." Sometimes their questions scared me.
I opened the door quietly. Alastia was sitting by the window. A book lay on her lap, but she wasn't reading. Just looking somewhere into the darkness outside.
I didn't say anything right away. I put what I brought on the table, only then stepped closer.
"Tired?" I asked.
She turned her head slightly to me.
"A little."
"Does it hurt?"
"No. Just... heavy."
I nodded. And sat down next to her.
We sat in silence for a while. Then she suddenly said:
"You are trying too hard lately."
"Is that bad?"
"No."
She lowered her gaze to her hands.
"I just see it."
I looked at her.
"And what exactly do you see?"
"That you cook every day. That you bring me things. That you keep track of what I want, even when I myself don't always understand what I want."
She smiled slightly, but very faintly.
"And that you try not to show it."
I fell silent. Then said honestly:
"It annoys me that you always pretend like you have to handle it yourself."
She slowly exhaled.
"Habit."
"A good one."
"I know."
I took her hand in mine. Warm. Tired.
"You are not alone," I said. "Even if sometimes you really want to portray that."
She didn't answer anything. Just moved closer and carefully laid her head on my shoulder.
And so we sat for a long time. Without jokes. Without unnecessary words. Just nearby.
And it suddenly seemed to me that, probably, these three difficult months were needed not for me to learn something new. But to simply get used to: coming home, sitting down nearby, and understanding that this is now my life.
Difficult. Strange. But still right?