The first rays of sunlight crept through the cracks in the curtains. Zel opened an eye and turned over in bed.
"Lina?"
"Hmrmphm..."
"Lina?" He whispered again, this time in her ear, and placing a hand on her shoulder.
"...What?"
"It's Sunday."
"So?"
"I don't teach any lessons today."
"So?"
"And today you don't open the shop."
"I know that. Now, let me sleep in." She scrunched the blanket around her head.
"Blair knows this too."
Lina opened her eyes.
"WEEEEEEEEE!!!"
The door burst open, and little feet propelled Blair into the middle of the bed.
"WAAAAAKE UUH-UP! Mommy! Daddy! Wake up!" Blair continued to shake the bed. She sat still for a moment in the silence, watching the 2 parent-shaped lumps. Her face fixed into an expression of scepticism, and she carefully removed the thick quilt. ...Revealing 2 piles of pillows.
"Gotcha!" Hands griped around Blair.
"AAAH! DIEM WING!" Swirls of wind erupted around Blair, and consequently, around Lina. They were taken up into the air and thrown several feet, before Zel calmly stepped out of the closet and caught them.
He set them down, and watched with a smile as Lina and Blair started their tickle fest.
The magic shop's door chimed open, then shut again.
"Blair," Lina glanced behind her, as the child came back inside. "Grab that plate of bread rolls, OK?" Lina asked, she herself carrying a plate of cooked sausages and eggs.
"OK, Mommy." Blair set down the letter she had just brought in from the courier at their door. She dragged her stool over to the kitchen counter, the wooden legs screeching for a bit against the floor. She stepped atop the seat, grabbed the bread rolls, and followed her mom over to the breakfast table.
Zel set down the last set of utensils and napkins on the table, and picked up the letter Blair had brought in. "Lina, this is from Gourry and Sylphiel." He announced, sitting down.
"What? Really?!" Lina set down the serving platter and looked over Zel's shoulder, as he read over the letter.
Blair set down the plate of bread rolls. "Let me see! Let me see!" She hopped over to an empty chair at the table, and stood.
"Looks like Sylphiel is pregnant again." Zel continued scanning the letter.
"Counting those twins from the last time, this would make 3 already." Lina smiled. She turned to Blair. "You remember your Antie Sylphiel and Uncle Gourry, don't you, Blair?"
"Ummmm... I think?"
"Well, you were little at the time, so we'll have to bring you to visit them again soon."
"Um, Mommy?"
"Yes, Blair?"
"What's the letter mean by Auntie Sylphiel being 'pregnant'?"
"That means she's going to have a baby, Blair."
"Oh." Blair sat down.
Zel froze for a moment in his letter reading. He had just heard what Blair asked and did not like where this was going.
"....Mommy?"
"Hm?"
"Where do babies come from?"
Zel mentally smacked his head.
"Uh-uh-ummmm...." Lina stuttered. "Help me out here, Zel!"
But Zel was too busy hiding his beet red face behind the letter.
"You're a real help." Lina muttered. She scratched her head for a moment. "Well, Blair...Um...Babies...they, uh....come from their mommies' tummy."
"Their tummy?" Blair arched an eyebrow, very remenicent of Zel. "Why their tummy? Did they swallow the babies?"
"Oh, no, no, Blair!" Lina waved her hands. The urge she felt to laugh began to loosen the mood.
"So why are the babies in their mommies' tummy?"
"Um...." Now Lina started to turn a little pink.
"Blair." Zel calmly began, as he set down the letter. "Your mother doesn't mean a mommy's stomach, when she means their tummies."
"Huh?"
"She means that in a mommy's tummy, very close to her stomach is a place where babies can grow, until they're ready to come out."
"But how does the baby get in there?"
"Well," Zel tried very hard to control his blush, and not look at Lina. "There's this thing that only grown ups can do, because they're old enough."
"But wha - " Blair almost asked.
"Shh." Lina bent down slightly and started whispering. "It's supposed to be a secret. We're not supposed to be even talking about it. We could get in big trouble already."
"Oh!" Blair started whipering. "Don't worry, Mommy. I won't tell anyone that you or Daddy were talking about it."
"That's good, Blair." Lina smiled in thanks. "And it's better if you don't talk about it anymore until you get old enough. Or you might get caught and in trouble too. OK?"
"OK." Blair smiled that she now knew a grown-up secret.
SIGH OF RELIEF
Lina sat down at her seat, and they each took a helping from the serving platters.
Alone in the house/shop, Blair took another book from the shelf. She sat on the floor and opened the big, heavy spellbook.
She had made a promise to herself a long time ago that she would read every book in her mom's magic shop. Then, she would find her mom's secret stash of special spellbooks and read all of them too.
Blair laid down, elbows proping her chin up, over the book's pages. She glanced up at the light coming in from the locked front door of the shop, streaming past the posted "closed" sign.
"Now remember to keep the door locked until we get back." Her mom had reminded.
"How long are they going to take a bath anyway? I wanna go swim in the pond too!"
Zel leaned forward, resting his head on his forearms on the edge of the pond. He opened his eyes to glance up around the surrounding thick forest, then closed them again, listening to Lina splashing around somewhere behind him.
Lina joined him at the edge of the pond, grabbing onto a ledge of earth on Zel's right. "That was a close one at breakfast, huh?"
"Mm-hm." Zel murmured.
"Jeeze. Even when you're fully relaxed you blush!"
The tint in Zel's cheeks slightly deepened.
Lina gazed at the surrounding crowns of foliage. "If only you weren't so damned stubborn, the subject would have been easier to drop."
"What?" Zel's head lifted. "What do you mean, I was stubborn? Blair was the one who kept asking questions."
"Yeah, but she inherited that stubbornness from you, so it's your fault." Lina smiled, closing her eyes and resting her head on her crossed arms.
Zel stared across the pond's edge, at her smug, sleepy smile, with an amused annoyance.
The sound of water rippling on Lina's left, came over to her back, then quieted.
Zel wrapped his arms around her, rested his chin on her shoulder.
"Zel... Was it really 6 years ago?" Lina opened her eyes, watching a fern in front of her glisten in rogue rays of sunlight.
"Yes. It was." He smiled, his eyelids softly shutting too. One hand slid around to her stomach and began to slowly rub the place where their child had been. His hand came to her side, letting his arm gently hold her to him. "Lina?"
"Hm?" She hummed against his skin.
"You never explained that peanutbutter-and-fish craving."
"Oh, shut up." Lina smiled at the old memory. "See? It's just like I said. You kept asking me about that when I was pregnant, and you're still asking me now. Stubborn." Lina ended.
"Though," Zel tightened his arms around her. "Blair wouldn't have started asking the question in the first place, if you weren't so curious."
"I'm curious?" Lina smirked, turning within his arms.
"Very." Zel's smile full of implications.
Shadows came over Blair's reading light. She looked up from the floor and her pile of books, to see sillouettes behind the shop windows' front curtains, which were glowing with sunlight.
"I swear, Zelgadis Greywiers. If I start throwing up every moring in a few days, you're going to get it!" Lina's muffled voice came through. knock knock "Blair, it's your mommy! Let us in!"
Blair left her newly opened book "Priestesses' Ceremonies and Regulations", on the floor, and unlatched the shop door.
"Hi, Blair." Zel smiled down at her.
"Uh, Daddy?" Blair lead him by the hand to her book. "I just started reading this book..." She picked up the thing clumsily, it's vast weight shifting in her small hands. "And I don't understand the first page."
Zel and Lina glanced at the already relatively large (for a 6-year-old) pile of read books, then took a look at the book Blair handed him.
"Let's see..." Zel began reading. "'A priestess must be pure of heart, mind, and body. It is essential that during training, she remain a virgin - ' .........!"
Lina uh-oh'ed.
"Yeah, that word! What's a 'virgin'?"