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.Repatriated	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 3308 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
It was the monsoon season and everyone was indoors. Ted was bemoaning the rain.
"I mean, the roof is right THERE! There should be the frying-steak spatter sounding on the tiles."
"Yes, yes," Ritch agreed. She didn't look up from her accounts. "Life is unfair for the duke married to two dukes."
Hort smiled but didn't comment. Ted looked across his table at his wives. Ritch was doing something with the books. Her desk was moved out to the edge of the dollhouse floor so she could be 'with' the rest of the family.
Hort was sewing a banner that had lain on the dining table for two weeks now.
Phoebe was draped across his thigh, melting under his gentle massage of her entire body.
Water piping from the hot spring heated the house so they were cozy despite the three weeks of rain. But it was such boring rain.
Something about the magic that protected the islands also shrank the weather.
A downpour like he remembered from Florida was barely a heavy mist here. Puddles appeared and visibility was limited. But there was no clatter, no spatter and the winds were absent.
"It's just, there should be something, some noise, some indication from out there that tells us we're cozy in here," he complained.
"We are warm and cozy, your grace," Hort said.
"But the cozy's just better during a thunderstorm," he muttered.
"Aw." She put down her awl and walked around the table to where he sat. "Is his grace-ums feeling fwustwated?" She spread her arms and he picked her up. They kissed carefully but lovingly. Three fingers held her sitting in his hand, one stroked her thigh.
She smiled and leaned back in his grasp. Her legs spread slightly. With one hand on Phoebe, he had to gently move Hort around in his grip until he could slip a finger under her skirt.
He raised it, revealing her ankles, a calf, the other calf, a knee-
"Okay!" Ritch called out. "Here's what I want to do about Wayne Enterprises Expansions." She picked up a pad of paper and walked around her desk.
She sat at the rail, feet dangling over the edge and looked up.
Hort stood on Ted's hand, arms crossed and glaring. Phoebe stood on his other hand, glaring. Ted glared.
"What?" Ritch asked.
"Nothing," Ted growled. "Just a mood broken."
"The maid's will sweep that up," Ritch said absently. "Okay, we're starting to get too many workers to adequately track all the payroll accounts. I've purchased some slaves and-"
"You what?" Ted asked.
She looked around. "I thought I enunciated," she said apologetically. The other two were being lowered to the room beside her. Ted was leaning forward and staring.
If anything he was more upset than about the broken... Whatever had been broken.
What was wrong? "I said, I purchased some slaves."
"No," he said. "No, Wayne Enterprises does not own slaves."
"Yeah, you do," Hort said with surprise.
"Well, Phoebe isn't really a slave-" he corrected.
"No," Ritch said. "She's a Crown prisoner that you've been charged to hold. The state reimburses us monthly for her maintenance. Gruel and Toiletries, mostly. The costumes come out of your pocket.
"No, what Hortesnaed was talking about are the slaves you already own."
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"I thought you knew," Ritch said. And if I'd known it was a problem I'd have brought it up, she thought to herself. Hort's expression seemed to echo the sentiment.
"No," he said. "Why didn't someone tell me?"
"Why would they?" Phoebe asked.
"Because slavery is wrong!" the man mountain thundered. "If we own slaves, free them."
"NO!" all three women protested. Ted blinked. If all three were on one side of an argument, experience taught him that was the side to be on.
He took a deep breath, rubbing his temples. "Okay. Maybe I'm hung up on the word. Explain to me, what slaves I own. And why I can't free them. Will it upset the king?"
Ritch snorted. "He could give a rash."
"Rats," Ted corrected her idiom, still rubbing.
"Rats could give a rash?" Ritch tried.
"Anyway," Phoebe encouraged.
"Okay. Well, the job market for women is pretty small," Ritch explained. She stopped and everyone waited to see if Ted would make a short joke. 'Everything on Lilliput is small' or something equally original.
He was silent so she went on. "Girls that don't have an arranged marriage to look forward to, or who aren't heirs to a substantial estate, are sold into slavery."
She ignored Ted's teeth grinding. "What that means is, it's kind of the feminine form of an apprenticeship. Boys get contractually obligated to an artisan, to learn the job and eventually become an artisan themselves.
"Girls are taken into something like a boarding school, where they master skills that are of use in administrating a business."
"The boarding school buys their contract, I take it?" Ted guessed. Ritch nodded.
"And they rent the girls' services to various companies. Most of our payroll is done by girls from Madame Efflester's or Madame Gigisted's."
"More like a temp agency." They stared, he waved the comment off. "So their contracted labor eventually turns a profit."
"Yes. And the girls are freed, with a percentage of their earnings presented as a graduation gift."
"Not much to retire on," Ted said.
"Oh, they don't retire," Hort said. "That's a nest egg. They usually find some apprentice that's at the end of his apprenticeship, looking to go into business for himself."
"Ah." Ted seemed to understand it all. "So...they get an education and practical experience, companies get short-order business majors, and young men and women get complementary skills and a head start."
"Yep. Or, sometimes, someone has enough money to buy the whole contract rather than rent." Ritch pat the pad of paper. "We did that."
----
Ritch had introduced two young women to the giant some time back. It was during the preparations for the intentions ceremony, though, and details were shaky in Ted's mind.
Ritch insisted that she had mentioned the word 'slave.' Ted insisted he'd have remembered.
"HEY!" Hort finally shouted. "Flag on the play! The past has passed! Who blames who is not productive. Let's get past this before someone gets a ten yard penalty. Capeetsh?"
"Right," Ritch agreed. "I'll go get Islaae and Genndelt."
Hort nodded and looked up at her husband. He remained silent. "What? You disagree? Or did I get something wrong."
"No, no," he said. "If anything, you got it amazingly right." She beamed at the compliment. "Do you have any idea what you just said?"
"Not a clue," she admitted.
Islaae and Genndelt looked like teenagers to Ted. But most Lilliputians did. Age touched them but lightly until very near the end.
But these two... Even for someone so small being under a giant's scrutiny, they were inhibited and reserved. He purposefully sat on his hands as they were introduced. Giant hand-waving did not improve the moods of shy people, he'd learned.
"What do you two do for us, here in the duchy?" he asked softly.
They muttered something towards the floor. Or maybe towards the buttons on their blouses. Ritch stepped between them and put an arm around their shoulders.
"He won't bite you," she promised. "Not raw, anyway." Genndelt giggled. Islaae shuddered. "They do your books, your Grace," she told Ted. "Household accounts, the major tenant rents and so on. I review the status every week and we have a lengthy breakdown every month."
"Which frees you for the business accounts," he nodded.
"Which are getting too big for me. That's why I want Wayne Enterprises to own a stable of accounting slaves. Loyal to us, familiar with our standards and practices, and eventually they'll be freed to-"
"Yeah, about that," Ted interrupted. "Where I come from...and now that I think about it, where Arlene comes from, there's a lot of negative connotation to 'slave.'
"So I still feel like I should free all the slaves I can-"
"NO!" Lae and Genn shouted, echoing the duchi and the songbird. Then they remembered they were shouting up at a giant, and a Duke, and their owner to boot. They hung their heads and dropped to their knees, begging forgiveness.
"I can forgive them but I can't free them?" Ted asked wryly.
"You'd BETTER forgive them," Ritch snarled. "I won't be able to read the accounts for all the teardrops. And Genndelt's handwriting is hard enough without crying jags."
"Mistress?" Genn protested.
"I'm sorry. Forgive me. My time exposed to the sense of so-called humor the Englishman imported has ruined me for polite company."
Genn giggled a tiny bit. Ted thought he saw signs of a smile on Lae's face, too.
Ritch assured the girls that she was more than satisfied with their work, and held up their example as a reason that the new slaves would be a sound economic investment.
"More scrutiny, specialization, better time management..."
"Yeah, yeah," he agreed. "Stipulated. But..." He gestured to the teens. "I can't really trust my accounts, my money, to people that are afraid of me."
"You own us, Your Grace," one mumbled. Ted couldn't even tell which one.
"And I'm a duke, and I'm the size of a good castle tower, I know." He thought for a second. Hort, Phoebe and Ritch passed a conspiratorial wink around.
They knew that once he accepted that slaves weren't a bad thing, he'd turn the idea around and own it.
"What are you working on right now?" he asked the girls. They muttered something. He turned to Ritch. "Why don't you get us the accounts for domestic payroll?"
She was back in a moment with a book as long as her torso. She lay that on the edge of the floor and opened it. Ted squinted. "Icey? Could you please explain the most recent entries for how we pay the maids?"
"Islaae usually works on the consumables," Ritch said.
"Then Genny? Could you explain the maid payroll to me? I know we don't pay by the hour..."
Genndelt started slow and quiet, but soon her comfort with the material made her comfortable talking. Ted asked a few dumb questions so she got to feel superior as she educated him.
Ritch ran off to get the book for household expenditures. Hort put an arm around Islaae, who saw her doom coming in the form of lecturing to The Duke.
But half an hour later, she was correcting his math. "No, Your Grace, you carry the TWO. The ONE goes behind the break."
------
Ted examined the Blefuscan hotel that was being purchased for his slave kennel. He had firm ideas about the standard of living and security concerns for his contracted workers.
Kneeling beside the windows, he peered and poked and asked people to open closets and doors. He would have scandalized watchers passing by if his reputation on the island wasn't so high.
Hort was quick to point out which of his ideas were impractical. "Stupid, you mean?" he laughed.
"I mean, we don't need showers in every room. Communal bathrooms are expected. They bond there."
"And plumbing is not something you want near the beds," Phoebe sang into his ear. She also hit his cheek with one of her hooves.
Today she was a giraffe.
"Superstition?" he asked.
"Flooding!" Ritch replied.
"It will be better than they grew up with," Hort promised. He seemed satisfied with that.
They traveled across the city to Madame Efflester's, then Madame Gigisted's, meeting the new slaves. He was quite charming with the contractors and contractees, though Phoebe felt his teeth grind every so often.
When the giant was finally satisfied, he stood, claiming the most difficult part lay ahead. Explaining this to Arlene.
He tried to explain the history of racial strife in the US as he carried his family to the university.
The closest anyone could come to actually understanding the issue was the religious prejudices of previous generations. Shortly after Lilliput conquered Blefuscu, they forced everyone to join the state-mandated religion. "But the religious weren't physically different," Hort pointed out. "We couldn't just look at one and know."
"We could when they got beaten by the Church Police," Phoebe said. "Anyone wearing their clean clothes and bleeding about the ears was a Big Endian."
He said it didn't really matter if they understood about the strife, as long as Arlene understood about local slavery.
They were greeted warmly and welcomed into the giant Chancellor's home. Refreshments were made available on top of her low table and they visited with her and some of her ranking professors.
Then Ted shifted to English. He wanted there to be fewer misunderstandings.
The men and women on the table watched the giants. She got cross, he spoke quickly, she sneered, he spoke faster.
Then he stopped. They watched patiently as Arlene thought about things for a moment. She got up suddenly and started looking through her shelves for her money chest.
"What did she say?" Ritch asked Hort softly.
"She said," Hort translated, " 'I get to own me some white people!'"
"That doesn't parse," Ritch complained.
"I'm not sure what it means, but I think she's adapted to the idea," Phoebe observed.
-------
No one was terribly surprised that Arlene took to owning slaves except Ted. And he stopped trying to explain why he'd been anxious.
She actually had a few innovative ideas about using the slaves she could get ahold of.
"Education," she said simply.
"Okay," Ted said with a nod.
"Oh, don't pretend you understand that," Hort snorted.
"She is much smarter than you are," Ritch pointed out.
"I know," he said easily. "But education's still very important. I suspect you just bought a school for your locals' kids?"
"Exactly. I can set one to teaching math, one to teaching Fuscan, all the basic skills. And lesson planning. And advanced shools." She stared off into the distance.
She turned to Ted. "Did you know that only ten percent of the children on Lilliput get education past reading and writing?
"If I do it right, they'll retire knowing how to go anywhere and set up a school system. And the whole nation'll become educated!"
"Like the Peelers," Ted said. Everyone stared at him. "Robert Peel. He established the rules for creating the constables in London. Men who learned to be cops, basically, became known as Peelers.
"And other towns would hire experiences men from the program, so there were peelers all over the place."
"I thought London cops were called bobbies?" Arlene protested. Before Ted could explain, her eyes lit up. "Robert! Bobbies! Of course!"
"Told you she was smarter," Ritch laughed.
"Yes," Ted agreed. "Which is why we're probably going to see the spread of Arlene's Educators across the islands."
"Leaners?" Arlene said experimentally. "Arlees?"
"It doesn't matter," Ted said. "It'll happen on its own."
As they slept on the guest pallet, they still heard Arlene trying out names. After a few minutes she snorted. "Oh, with my luck they'll be called the Brownies."
------
Hortesnaed was surprised that Ritchasska wasn't waiting for her at the breakfast table. Servants were already laying out both duchesses' eggs, the prisoner's 'gruel' (which looked surprisingly similar to miladies' breakfast) and hauling in the duke's roasted cow and pig.
If they were all in the same province, they always had breakfast together. She raised her hand in the 'wait one' gesture her husband favored and went downstairs to see what the matter was.
Three maids were in the hall outside Ritch's door. "What are you loitering here for?" she asked them. "Is she ready?"
"She threw us out, milady," one explained. "We haven't even gotten started."
"Unlike her," Hort murmured. "Well, if there's anything else you should be doing, go do it. If not, let's see if we can get started."
She rapped on the door and went in. Ritch was standing by a full length mirror, wearing nothing but a smock. She looked depressed.
Hort thought she looked like cannibals were due to eat her, except that she'd seen what Ritch looked like in such conditions.
"Not participating in the day, today?" she asked her wife.
"Hortesnaed!" Ritch wailed.
"Yes?"
Ritch spun around and lifted her smock, baring her bare body from about the ribs down. "Look!"
"Oh, please, not before breakfast. I know, our loving husband would have us bared before him morning, noon and night, and when I'm...in the moment, as it were, I have no objections but-"
"No! LOOK! Look at me!"
Hort glanced down and back up, meeting her former employee and best friend's gaze firmly. "You're naked. There's nothing there I haven't seen before.
"I mean, well, the hickey has faded and leaves no permanent scar, but I'd think that was cause for celebration not...whatever this is?"
"I'm fat!"
"You climb seven flights of stairs a day just to say good morning, husband. You're about as fat as a well-used broomstick."
"Hort! I'm late!"
"Yes, breakfast has been set out. Others wait on us to dine." That she was sure of. Ted wouldn't start eating until everyone expected was seated. His mother apparently taught him better.
He tended to rub his forehead when the subject came up, muttering something about frying pans.
Ritch stormed over to Hort, took one gentle hand in her own and held Hort's palm to her stomach.
"Something's IN there!"
"You already ate breakfast?" Years later, her lack of insight would be a told and retold story. Friends and loved ones would worry that Ted's insensitivity was catching from exposure.
For now, a frantic Ritch pulled her wife's head down to her lips and whispered urgently. "I'm pregnant!"
Cold terror ran down Hort's back. No words formed in her mind but she knew this was a calamity.
"Well...well..." She reared back and looked down at the frantic woman, snatching her hand away. "Well, STOP DOING THAT!"

Hortesnaed paced. In a society where adultery was well practiced, well known and never, ever discussed, people just accepted that children of a married couple were the product of the couple.
Even if the kids looked nothing like their father, it was just not done to point it out.
But this child...there was no way to acknowledge it as anything but a bastard. But to do so would make them laughingstocks.
Ted obviously didn't care, but just as obviously it would harm the various businesses he was cultivating.
But to pretend that it was 'their' child? They'd be lampooned by people that hated them, and even their friends would be uncomfortable with the fiction.
Ritch slumped in a chair, fighting tears. She watched the older woman pace, hoping for some sort of miracle.
"Well. Well. Okay. Alright, first of all..." Hort said. Then she was silent.
"Yes?" Ritch asked hopefully.
"Um... Okay. Are you sure it's pregnancy? Not a false pregnancy?"
"As sure as I can be before my water breaks," Ritch said. Hort nodded and paced some more.
"Okay. Alright. First things...first?" she finished vaguely. "Who's the father?"
"WHAT?" Somehow the question made Ritch more upset.
"Well, obviously it's not Ted."
"Hortesnaed? How can you ASK that? I've never been with ANYONE since we met Ted! He's the only one that's been in ANY position to do this!" She waved towards her belly.
"Well," Hort corrected. "Not quite THAT position."
"Well, no," Ritch agreed, her voice back to what Hort considered her normal tone, "technically the positions the church approves for reproductive sex are not actually possible for why the ZUCK are we talking about THIS NOW?"
"I don't know." She paced over to the door. "But you have to appear at breakfast or come up with a convincing excuse."
Ritch looked hopeless. There was nothing in her mind that could help at that moment. "Right." Hort opened the door. "Dress her quick." Maids scurried.
----
Ritch wasn't showing so that gave them some time before they had to break the news to Ted, and then the world.
But Hort knew, if explaining a bastard was going to get them laughed at, claiming a miracle pregnancy was going to get them burned at the stake.
They dressed her quickly but loosely. And they touched her much more gently than they usually did, as if she was made of glass. And they gave her encouraging smiles, as if to say it would all turn out alright.
Ritch realized the staff had overheard enough about her condition to ruin any chance of keeping it a secret.
Then again, a secret in the giant's household tended to stay in the giant's household. Everyone this side of the barn door would know, but inquisitors themselves couldn't get the details.
So they had a few weeks to come up with a story, then get Ted onboard with it.
It would have to be worked out perfectly before Ted became involved. He could be fiercely territorial and Hort feared he would hunt down any possible affair. Murder would not improve the matter.
Especially murder of an innocent man.
They walked up to the breakfast table to find Ted teaching Phoebe a 'song from his childhood.' Hort flinched at the image of fiery dogs in armor chasing fat kids, skinny kids and rock climbers, then calmed her face.
"A problem?" Ted asked.
"Just a bit of indigestion," Hort said.
"Morning sickness?" Ted said jokingly. Ritch dropped to her knees, bawling her eyes out. Everyone froze except one.
"Well, now you've done it!" Phoebe said. She ran down his arm to jump to the floor and gather Ritch up in her arms. Hort shook herself and moved towards the two of them. She gestured and the servants started moving. They quickly deposited loads and shot for the stairs.
"What did I do?" Ted asked.
"I don't know," Phoebe snapped, "but it's obviously your fault!"
"Technically," Hort said as she knelt beside Ritch, "he's the only one we can be sure is innocent."
----
Ted reached down carefully and cupped his hands around the three women. Then he paused.
"Oh, pick her up," Phoebe shouted. "She's not breakable like glass!"
"She's also not deaf," Hort cautioned.
"Wasn't," Ritch said with a sob, trying to regain her aplomb.
"I just don't know if she wants me to comfort her or if she's going to blame me," Ted said.
Ritch's crying stopped like a blown out candle. "Blame you? For... For what?"
"Well, in my homeland," he said in lecturing tones, "during pregnancy the woman blames the man. 'You did this to me,' sort of thing. For why she can't stand up straight or walk or sleep comfortably.
"I never wondered if you do something similar here." He shrugged, hands still waiting.
Ritch stood and slowly stepped to his thumb. She stroked it. "You... You take...the BLAME for this?"
"Are you saying you think you drove her into another man's arms?" Hort asked.
"There is no other man," Ted said confidently. Ritch started crying again. He rolled his hand away, drawing her into his palm. Then he lifted her to his cheek. She covered it with kisses. He stroked her back with a thumb.
"There isn't?" Phoebe whispered.
"She swears not," Hort whispered back.
"Then how?"
"Weird things happen in the giant's vicinity. Maybe this is one of them?"
"Could be," Phoebe said absently. Hort glanced over. The woman was staring off into the distance, fingers moving.
"What are you doing?"
"Counting days since MY last one," Phoebe replied. Hort barked a laugh. Then gulped and tried to remember the day's date.
--------
Ted wanted to build an addition for the nursery. When he started describing what all would be there, Hort snorted. "That's not a nursery. That's a pediatric hospital."
"OH!" he exclaimed. "We'll need bandages! Lots of bandages. Kids scrape their knees!"
"We know, milord," Phoebe snarled. "We've seen a few about the islands, here and there."
"I once saw one on safari," Hort claimed. "It was in the distance, but our guide was very sure it was a child."
Ted looked down at Hort. "This is the sort of reaction that gets men sent to boil towels, isn't it?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Men here have little or nothing to do with pregnancies."
"Local men," Ritch said insistently. "If you want to be involved, you can be involved. You can hold me during the delivery!"
"Yeah," Hort said, hand to her forehead. "Like we don't have enough scandal in the situation, let's let a giant male shipbuilder act as the midwife."
"Do I get a hat?" Ted asked.
Phoebe laughed. "You're taking this remarkably well."
"What? Someone I had willfully sexed turning up with child? I'd be pretty much a cad to act like it's a surprise."
"I'm surprised!" Ritch pointed out.
"Happily?" Ted asked. There was a stunned silence. Everyone stared at Rich in Ted's hand. She looked around in shock.
"I... I hadn't gotten that far. I was..."
Everyone waited patiently for her to decide. She could tell that Hort was about to say she could take her time. Hort had always wanted Ritch to make up her own mind, even when the Duchess had effectively owned it.
Phoebe had her fingers crossed. Towards what, Ritch couldn't say. But she'd seen Phoebe with Blefuscan children. The woman was a soft touch for sticky people.
And Ted... His pulse was calm against her thighs. Slow and steady and firm. Just like the big idiot. He could teach their child about places, about concepts no one else in the island had ever heard of.
No one here would treat any child as less than a treasure, no matter which parents brought it into the household. It would have three mothers and a father that could built it a treehouse out of trees.
"Yeah," she said. "Happily."
Before anyone in the room could congratulate her, a cheer sounded in the stairwell.
"Do you MIND!" Ted grated. The cheering stopped. "Come on, now! This is a family moment!" He tapped on the floor of the banquet room. "Everyone that's happy for the baby, get out here and celebrate."
Ritch blushed as the sound of a thunderous horde rushed the stairs.
----
After some solid partying, Hort started to regain some control. "Messengers," she said. Thirty men of the staff volunteered. "Alright. Well, the King and Queen. One messenger each. I'll write the cards in a moment."
"Ike," Ted said with a smile. In a lower voice he stage-whispered to Phoebe, "She'll let me make a nursery with a clinic, just wait."
"Arlene," Ritch said. Ted froze.
"Oh, she's going to have questions for us... We might as well upholster a microscope for you until the baby shows up."
Other nobles and business partners were mentioned. The accounting slaves in their barracks. The tenants.
Some would get individual cards, some would get newspaper announcements, some would get handbills posted in the tea room.
But just about everyone was going to get something.
"Shall we alert the media?" Ted asked.
"They're probably almost through type-setting the headlines," Phoebe snorted.
------------
Blefuscan editors were extremely cheerful about the possibility of an heir to the Cashpierent Duchy. They hoped the son would spend substantial time in the lands of his family holdings, learning the ways and values of the original Fuscan states.
Lilliputian editors demanded that the obvious fraud be investigated. Where Blefuscans skipped lightly over the biological details, that was all Lilliputians seemed to want to discuss.
Arlene was interviewed for her scientific opinion.
the biologist shrugged a lot. "I don't know why it would be possible. But as near as I've been able to tell, you guys are humans, genetically. I obviously can't examine the DNA, but I dunno. A really energetic sperm? A fairly drunk egg?
"Maybe a mutation that just used Ted's DNA as a template? Heck, maybe her uterus detected Ted's sperm inside the perimeter and just thinks she's preggers."
It was not a firm denial and was not printed. Blefuscan agents seized the notes and ran the interview in its entirety.
Including the lines as the reporters tried to press the Duchess into stating it was an impossibility. And quotes of "Nothing's really impossible. Unlikely, but even a billion trillion to one is technically possible."
When that was printed, the Mildendo Sentinel declared that the giantess was almost certainly misstating the science for her friends' sake.
The Fuscan Voice asked why the hell they'd asked her in the first place if her bias was that obvious?
The King hedged his bets when he spoke. He said the science was beyond him, but he trusted the integrity of the Duke and Duchess.
"And as a man of the world," he said, not quite admitting to adultery, "where would she find a swordsman who could keep his weapon sharp if he might be caught by THAT jealous husband?"
He got a laugh The Queen was icy cold. "If the Duke says it is not his child, that's for the courts. If he says it is, then that's settled. This has been our law, our tradition and common zucking sense since the very founding of the Realm."
The fact that the Royals took different paths to the same conclusion bore a lot of weight with the general populace.
The Lower Deck of Parliament passed a resolution that welcomed the child of the ManMountain His Grace, Duke Ted.
The Upper Deck wanted to deliberate before passing a similar resolution.
The peers called witnesses, experts of philosophism, naturalism, biologism, medicinism, and law.
They called for testimony from the Duke's staff, the Duchess' staff and proprietors of every hotel within a two-hour ride of the Dollhouse.
Ted gave his staff the day off, with pay, and put them up in a lavish hotel near Parliament. By what was possibly a coincidence, it was the Regency, notorious as a haven for Upper Deck peers having a quickie between sessions.
When Baron De Rhindell said they'd 'get to the bottom of the adultery,' a pun that works equally well in Fuscan as in English, his collegue, Viscount Esterleene said he'd better make sure the right bottoms were summoned from the Regency.
On the day they voted on the resolution, Ritchasska relieved her proxy and took her seat among the peers.
She stared straight ahead as the vote was called. At the Cashpierents' turns, she abstained on her and her partners' behalf.
Arlene's proxy abstained, but had been directed to call the assembly a bunch of sand fleas.
Shortly after that, Baron Sleestandall, Greiestandall's father, was called. No friend of the Duchy, he stood slowly and looked around the room.
"It's no big secret, sirs and ladies, that I do not see eye to eye with the Duke. He and his wives have hoodwinked me in business deals and humiliated me.
"They took great glee in using offlander legal tricks of questionable validity, and which I am appealing in court." He took a deep breath and glanced over. Ritch was still staring straight ahead, though tears welled in her eyes.
"However," Slee continued. "I have noted a fantastic thread of integrity in this woman's person. If she said it was raining dogs outside, I'd endeavor to reinforce my umbrella before going out.
"If she says she can make money turning morning dew into gold, I'd be buying mining rights to my neighbor's yards.
"I not only vote that the resolution pass, I think it's a disgrace that we've spent any time on the issue that could be better spent debating war plans to invade the moon, or attempts to legislate the size of raindrops allowed to fall on the palace."
There were no more speeches after that. The barons voted with Slee to a man. The only dissenters of the lower ranks were three very old Viscounts. It would have been four but Testy kicked one's cane out from under him when his turn came. His 'I say nay' came out 'I-AAAY!'
"Aye," the secretary recorded while Viscount Rdurdy rolled on the floor.
The resolution passed, the child's heritage was secured, and Ritch burst into tears that she blamed entirely on the pregnancy.
Slee and Greis shook her hand on the way out. "That," the Baron whispered, "was the child's first birthday gift. And the last you'll get from us."
"I love it," she said. "Just what he's always wanted." She surprised her honored enemy with a kiss on the cheek. Greis gave her a quick smile, then followed his father out.
---------
Arlene came to the Dollhouse for regular checkups. There were doctors closer, but both giants wanted the opinion of someone who didn't think tides caused heart attacks.
"I do want you to remember I'm a marine biologist," she disclaimered. "But she looks perfectly healthy to me."
"That's great, doc," Ted replied. "You wanna come inside where you can actually see the patient?"
"Oh, if I must." She held Ritch and examined her as best she could. Ted paced the length of the bench until four women threatened to break his zucking legs.
She pronounced her healthy (again), and predicted a clutch of 300 or so eggs.
"Thanks a lot," Ritch said.
"It's what they taught me in marine biologism school," Arlene shrugged. "Man, I'd give anything for the Obstetrician Barbie playset right now."
"With the amniocentesis kit?" Ted smiled. The little women looked back and forth at their faces as the conversation went Englishman over their heads.
"Am I being mocked?" Ritch asked.
"You're naked in the hands of a giant lesbian," Phoebe pointed out, "with your legs spread and a giant finger checking your heartbeat by resting between your boobs. What else is left to mock?"
"They're not mocking you," Hort said. "They're just sharing a moment, a meeting of giant idiot minds."
"Well, alright then. Can I get dressed?"
--------
Ted was informed by Testy that it was absolutely required that the child, if it was a boy, attend a boarding school. Society demanded it.
"You cannot learn properly if you're coddled at home," she pointed out.
"What if it's a girl?" he asked. She waved the silliness aside.
"The very fact of your overwhelming maleness has almost certainly fathered a male upon your wife," she explained. "Honestly, for someone with so many technical toys, you haven't the most shallow knowledge of how the world works, do you?"
"Man, I'm going to love to see the look on your face if the boy comes out as a girl."
"Don't be impertinent. Now, anyway, the better schools require some degree of preparation. The best schools require quite a bit of preparation."
"We should apply right now?"
"No, of course not. His baptism will be fine. But for now, you should probably donate a gymnasium or a running track to the school you want to have a chance at."
Ted nodded. He went outside. Arlene, still visiting, was just coming back from a walk. Her bag was full of samples of flora and one deer that was still wondering who turned out the lights.
He waved and took twelve giant steps from his front door. "Arlene?"
"What, Ted?"
"I'm going to build a boarding school right here. Can I get some Brownies to stock it with?"
She smiled and nodded. "I'll have a full set ready in...six years?"
"Perfect. What do you think of the Ted's Kid's Boarding School?"
She shook her head. "Your school and mine are going to turn the world upside down. New views, new ideas, new directions. You know what you have to name it."
------
Shortly after the impending construction of Hogwarts was announced, Baron Slee donated funds earmarked for the construction of a gymnasium.
"Is this another gift?" Ritch asked.
"No," Ted said. "I think the Baron's a shrewd operator and sees the handwriting on the wall. No gift, this is an investment."
Hort sent him a receipt for the education of one grandchild, paid in full.
-------
Each morning, Ted awoke, bathed, dressed and apologized to the entire Dollhouse for his impending idiocy.
Then he waited impatiently for his expecting bride. He doted, he indulged, he hovered and he broke things. If she hiccupped he spun around to call for the doctor.
If she groaned, he tried to carry her and ease her burden. But he was afraid to strain her or hurt the baby. But he knew he had to learn how to gently handle a Lilliputian infant. But they were so small!
Hort suggested he get to know the children already in the dollhouse, the staff's offspring.
The members of the staff that were in the room at the time flinched, all together. Ted laughed at the sight of a well rehearsed anxiety squad. "Good one," he told his wife. "Maybe we should make some practice dummies, instead?" He smiled as the butler started to breathe again.
---------
"I've seen bigger peanuts!" Arlene exclaimed. She was visiting when the first crash test infant was revealed.
"You're not helping," Ted groaned. His first task was to pick the baby up. It lay easily inside the basinet. Easy for anyone with hands the size of a pair of tweezers, anyway.
His wives looked on from the table. Most of the staff watched from the upper floors.
"Okay, first off," Ted said. "We build a bassinet with removable sides." He pinched and tore. That gave him room to lift the mattress with a fingernail, rolling the baby up like a hot-dog in a bun.
Ritch watched with her hands in Hort's, squeezing in anticipation. Phoebe stood as close as possible, listening. Reeds had been used for the baby's bones. If he snapped them, he failed.
He lifted the dummy to his palm.
"And nothing was broken!" Phoebe announced. The household cheered.
Then Arlene sneezed. The mock baby flew off Ted's hand. He snatched it out of the air reflexively. With a number of loud snaps.
Ritch fainted.
-----
The Dollhouse was in a pretty brittle mood for the next month. Ritch cried at the slightest thing. Sometimes at nothing. Hort tried to console her, Phoebe tried to console Ted.
When neither one made any headway, those two cried on each other's shoulders.
The staff didn't know what to do, how to reconcile big lumbering but loving giants with the needs and fragilities of the tiniest of beings.
Aguellsta, despite the promise of not revealing Dollhouse issues outside the home, took a great chance of offending every one of her employers.
She asked for a day off and was absently granted it. She returned in Testy's private coach. The two of them climbed the front stairs and marched through the Dollhouse to the shocked stares of the house.
The family was brooding silently over their lunch when they looked up at the interruption.
"I'm sorry," Aguellsta started to say.
"Don't apologize unless this doesn’t fix anything," Testy said. "You! Giant! Let's go for a walk."

"Right," he said with a shrug. But when he reached for her, she turned and stepped quickly down the stairs.
He went out his own door, around to the front. She wasn't there. He waited for a moment.
The Little General leaned out of a window. "Oi! Meet me in the kitchen!" and she was gone.
"Spry for an old lady," he muttered. He tried to remember where the kitchen was, then lay on the ground near a window. He peered in to see one of the maids removing the shirt of one of the kitchen firemen. "Oops!" he said.
They both screamed. He retreated. Test was waving her cane from the other end of the building. "KITCHEN!" she shouted.
"Right," he said. He stood and went back inside, sitting at the table. Testy scurried up the stairs, pausing when she saw him sitting patiently.
"You're supposed to be-"
"I can't fit into the kitchen as you well know," he said. He reached out to scoop her up. "You've illustrated your point wonderfully. I just don't know what it is?"
"There are things in this life that you cannot do," she said in lecturing tones.
"Stipulated," he nodded.
"You can't fit in a Lilliputian home. You can't roll your Q's. You can't dance a flolly."
"I have too much mass for the hang time that requires," he said.
"Shut up!" She rapped his wrist with her cane.
Down on the table, Ritch gasped. Hort and Phoebe turned to her. "Mom doesn't use a cane! Unless she's really pissed off!" she whispered.
Ted didn't notice. He was too busing being nicely depressed at the woman's long list of things he couldn't do.
"And so on and so on," he muttered. "I'd drown myself in tub if it wasn't going to be such a burden to whoever found the body."
Testy struck his palm. "Ow," he snapped. Then he realized just how much it hurt. "OW!" He glared. "Where they hell did you get a sword can, you evil woman!?!"
"Notice that you didn't throw me across the room or smash me to the table?" she asked with a victorious smirk.
"Of course not," he said. "I like you, Ike. Or I used to." He looked closer. "I'm bleeding!"
"So..you're extra careful around people that are important to you?"
"You know I am," he snarled.
"So, you can't change the baby's diapers? My grandson will not know the rough touch of your fingers until he's old enough?"
"No." He remained sullen, but there was a spark of something in his gaze. Hort thought it just might be hope.
"Okay. My husband, Egg shell his soul from harm, couldn't carry a tune. His lullabies knocked birds out of the sky and made squirrels stuff nuts into their ears."
"He was horrid," Ritch said softly.
"But Ritchasska grew up knowing her father loved her and would die for her."
She stood up and gently tapped her cane's tip on his palm. He flinched but didn't cry out. "What will your child grow up knowing?"
"That..." He paused.
"That Father's hug is warm enough to make winter go away," Phoebe shouted.
"That Father's pocket is better than the best treehouse any friend has," Hort added.
"Pfft." Ritch responded. "Father makes tree houses out of entire trees."
"That Father loves with all his heart, and that heart's the size of a decent carriage."
Testy nodded as the three of them continued. Ted's eyes teared up a bit. "Oh, lean back before you drown someone," she snapped. "And put me down. Gently, I'm old."
"You're about as fragile as jerky," Ted laughed.

Rather than lower her, though, he gathered up his wives, which by now included Phoebe as far as anyone in the Dollhouse was concerned.
They all hugged Ritch's mom, Ritch going last. They promised they were done being stupid and invited her for dinner.
Aguellsta was fired. Ted apologized over and over, but rules were rules and he had insisted that no one tell tales outside of the home. She nodded and went to pack.
Ritch waited in the hallway outside her room. "You know, we've got an opening for a governess coming up. I've been wondering where, oh where, can we find someone with integrity... Goal oriented, not someone he can twist around his chubby little finger."
"But his Grace fired me," Aguellsta protested.
"Yes," Ritch agreed. "I figure a nanny needs to stand up to the Lord once in a while. Tell him what's best for the kid, no matter what politics might indicate." She took the woman's arm and led her towards the stairs.
"Go tell him you’re the best choice for governess. We'll call it your audition."
"I couldn't!"
"Please. You just brought the family back together and got my idiot husband out of a depression that threatened to ruin us. What do you have to fear?"
"That he'll sell me to your mother," Aguellsta said instantly. Ritch laughed, then had to sit down on the landing. She waved the former maid upwards and onwards.
She stepped across the table and looked up into the giant's eyes. He looked curious but not angry. Phoebe hung from his hair by one ear, also looking curious.
Hort looked up from where she and Testy were sitting. She was surprised to see Aggie for a moment, then thought about it, then smiled and nodded.
Testy was already nodding with approval. For some reason that inspired Aggie's courage.
"Milord? I know I've failed you as a maid. But I had only the baby's interests at heart. He deserved to be born into the loving, confident family we, all of us, know and love.
"With that in mind, I feel that I would be...lax in my duties to the family, that even transcend my dismissal, if I did not say... I..."
She paused. Ted still waited. She curtseyed. "Forgive me, your Grace. I shouldn't lecture. I implore. Please allow me to submit a request, to be considered for the position of Governess for your new child."
"Can you change a diaper?" he asked.
"Milord, I am the oldest of eighteen children."
"Ah," he grunted. "Overqualified."
"Say yes or I'll brain you," Phoebe threatened.
"It's not just up to me," he protested.
"Darling," Hort said, "it's not even up to you. Ritchasska just sent her up here to see if she was brave enough to tell you off."
She rose and put an arm around their new nanny's shoulders. "Welcome back, dear, we've missed you."

As the pregnancy progressed, things changed. Ritch thought she got fat and ugly. Ted thought she glowed.
She got hornier at the same time she was sure she was getting repulsive.
Ted was attracted, but absolutely terrified of hurting her or the baby.
"Oh, stop it," Hort said after a whine. "Be big and brave! Let your feelings out! What's the worst that could happen?"
"She divorces me," Ted said instantly. "And you two leave me in a show of solidarity. The only one who doesn’t leave me is Testy. She moves in to make my life a living hell until the baby is 18, then he sues for my duchy."
Phoebe and Hort stared. "Ted, my love," Phoebe said, stroking his thumb where his hand rested on the table. "You're a zucking idiot."
Hort nodded. "He'd sue at age 13."
"Oh, well, that's five years of fearful fretting I'm free of!" he snarked.
Ritch waddled into the room just then. "Well, the slaves have their marching...orders... What are you all staring at?" She cringed. "Stop looking at the circus fat lady!"
Hort glanced from her wife to her husband. Ted's expression was clearly of concern for Ritch, but he wasn't reaching out to her.
"That's it," she snarled. "You! Baby mama! Over here."
"I don't think-" Ritch protested. Or started to.
"Get her," Hort snapped. Phoebe shot off like a gazelle as Hort turned towards her idiot. "You! Fold down the safety rail. Now, hands together, like this."
She cupped her hands and he followed suit. "Stretch them out. In here." She guided his arms until his hands hovered overhead like a big pink chandelier.
Phoebe was impelling Ritch over to where Hort indicated, cheerfully ignoring her resistance.
When she was in position, Hort commanded the hands to lower, resting on the floor. The women were inside the boundaries of hands and forearm, at the focus of his gage.
The two moved Ritch backwards, easing her down into a seat on the giant hands. He cooperated when he realized what they were trying to do.
"If you want me to pick her up-" he started to say.
"Hush," Hort snapped. She evaluated Ritch's positioning. "Roll your fingers up a bit... That's good."
"Hort, it's okay that he doesn’t carry me."
"It's not," Hort said, "but that's not why we're here." She strode down to where his elbows just rested on the edge of the flooring. "Husband? What do you hold in your hands?"
"Ritchasska," he said with a small shrug.
"More," Hort commanded.
"He sees a fat lady," Ritch snapped.
"I don't see any fat!" he protested.
"And he thinks I'm stupid."
"No. I see the smallest person in the world right now that owns a piece of my soul. I see her carrying another piece. I see... I sometimes see her glow."
"By ignoring the fat," she snarked. He shook his head.
"I ignore nothing. Your body's just doing what it has to to make our son's body, to care for it, to protect it. You're not fat, but you have been invaded."
Phoebe rolled over his wrist and went to sit by the piano. Hort ducked carefully behind his elbow and joined her.

"I'm ugly," Ritch moaned. Ted laughed. She glared.
"If you're ugly, then I have discovered a fetish for ugly women."
"You just love the big giant boobs."
"Doesn't hurt. But that's not what makes me horny." She raised an eyebrow. "They're not the only things..."
"Well, that's just a natural reaction. The male body reacts to women that can extend the male heritage. That's why 'child bearing hips' never go out of style. Pregnancy just indicates that I can get pregnant so you think of fathering a child on me. Again. Simple biology. Ask Arlene."
"Which," he countered, "still means I don't find you ugly. You just want to minimize my motives rather than celebrate the fact."
"It’s not something to cele-" She gasped, a sudden intake of air.
"What?" he asked.
"The baby kicked!"
"Yay!" Phoebe said softly. Everyone stared up at Ted. He was speechless. Several emotions crossed his face rapidly.
"Would you like to feel him?" Ritch asked. Hort was sure she detected the gentle tone of a taunt in the voice.
Responses warred on Ted's tongue. "Yes," he finally said.
Ritch lifted her dress and undergarments, leaning back to bare her belly as if for inspection.
Ted's thumb moved over and hovered... About one knuckle higher than her stomach. She beckoned. It lowered a bit. Finally she grabbed it and tugged it to and against her belly.
The giant let it rest there for a minute. She breathed in, consciously steady, trying to encourage the little rotter to cooperate.
Then he kicked. Ritch felt him push out one foot and lock the knee. She was going to be listing to starboard for a while, she knew.
But from the lifting of eyebrows, Ted had clearly felt it. Felt their child do something independent. Felt that their child was real.
He mumbled something in Englishman. She didn't recognize it so it couldn't be a swear.
And Ted was an atheist, so that couldn't have been a prayer. She almost asked for a translation. But the look on his face was...awe. That was... That was enough.
He stared at her as if she held the secrets of the ages and the map to the treasure chest that was his soul.
She smiled. Well, maybe he didn't see her as Waddles, the famous circus clown. Maybe he could be trusted.
Maybe she should take him at face value. That big, big, open face.
She squirmed a bit, trying to sit up. He rolled his hands, still resting on the table, until she was sitting. The thumb dropped away.
"Maybe..." she said, surprised at the tease in her tone. "Maybe your Grace could help me with something?"
"Wubba?" he tried to say. She scooted ponderously into one and and lifted her clothes. He pinched carefully and oh-so-slowly helped her undress. "Ahhhhh," he said.
"They are huge, aren't they?" she said, lifting them and squeezing her cleavage. She glanced over to the conspirators to see if this was what they'd planned.
Neither of them had noticed the rest of the family slipping out. Technically, that was a jailbreak on Phoebe's part. But they didn't realize that until much later.

Ted spread his wife's legs and dipped his head to kiss her. He woke up to find his tongue pinched between fore and middle finger.
He looked around. His room was much as it ever was. The nocturnal hamster, Phoebe, was just finishing up her busy night trying to keep him awake on the squeaky wheel.
Ted checked her water bottle and feed bin, then put on pants and stumbled out of the bedroom.
His roommate, Arlene, was in the kitchen with her girlfriend, Ritchie. They were eating breakfast.
Actually, he realized as he poured some coffee, they were feeding bites of pancake to each other. Their relationship was still in the gooey-eyed, magnetic hands, heavy sighs phase, the one Ted referred to as Goobers.
"Man, I had the weirdest dream," he said. He ignored Arlene licking syrup off her girlfriend's chin.
"How weird was it?" Ritchie asked.
"We were married, and you were pregnant," he said.
"You married her?" Arlene asked, scandalized. "You're always married to me in your dreams!"
Ted shrugged.
"Wait, I wanna know more about the pregnancy," Ritchie protested. "How...big was I?"
Ted circled thumb and forefinger. "This big around. But you were a Lilliputian, so it was pretty huge."
"A size dream," Ritchie said. "What does that mean?"
"Pregnancy," Arlene said with a shake of her head. "That makes it a sex dream. It means...he's male."
He tossed a small pancake at his roommate.
Arlene slipped him a short stack as he related the dream. She nodded sagely. "You're just stressed. Hortense has you proofing that entire reprint of Gulliver."
"So you went someplace you could put Hortense in your pocket and tell her to shut up."
"I could put Hortesnaed in my pocket," he agreed. "But shutting her up?" He shook his head.
"Anyway, you obviously want to wear Phoebe like an accessory," Ritchie interpreted. "But who do you think Jussifer was?"
"They hired a girl to help me with Gulliver's Travels," Ted said. "Jennifer. But she's on maternity leave right now."
"So," Arlene summarized. "You married your boss and my girlfriend and got one pregnant. You also married your boss and saved your hamster from execution."
"No," Ritchie argued. "He saved his coworker from an execution and turned her INTO his hamster."
"The hamster that sings."
"Right. And lives in a bear cage."
"Guys," he started to protest. They went on merrily. "Ah, I don't have to take this," he said. Besides, the baby bell was ringing.
"The what?" Arlene asked.
"I didn't say anything," Ted said. He started to stand up. The chair folded and twisted and then he was rolling out of his hammock onto the floor.
Phoebe rappelled down from her cage as he shook the dream out of his head. "BABY!" she shouted.
"I hear the bell," he groaned. He picked her up, pausing to rung a finger down her back and under her shirt.
"What the hell?"
"Just checking for fur," he said. He got to his knees and staggered to the table.
Hort ran up the stairs wearing a robe loosely tied over her smock. "The baby's coming!"
"Right!" Ted replied. "Get her up here, I know the quickest route to the hospital."
Hort paused. "Why would we go to the hospital?" She was seriously confused. Ted felt a moment of anger for how she dumped editorial work on him.
"For...the...childbirth?"
"Ted, idiot," she said lovingly, "the midwife's been on the premises for a month. The governess is ready. The nursery is ready. Everyone's ready. Just...sit down, okay? Have your songbird sing a lullaby."
"Oooh, yes," Phoebe said. "Having my baby! What a lovely way of saying how much you love me!" she sang.
Ted glared. "My roommate has much to answer for," he muttered. Then he lifted the Blefuscan over to the Dollhouse. "Go see if she needs cheering up. I'll be here, chewing my fingernails down to the bone."
"Yes, milord!" she said and ran down the steps.

An ecstatic staff presented the baby's birthday present from them. An incredibly articulated bed.
The sides folded up like a wagon to secure the passengers. That revealed wheels that allowed it to be pushed to the stairs.
There ten stout men (or the Duke) could lift it up by an arrangements of ropes and more articulation. It kept the bed completely level as the bed rose or descended.
And as the staff were not blind, they had made sure there was room for the baby, the mother and two other adults to ride comfortably and safely as the giant lifted it off the wheel and axle assembly.
So Ted held the bed that held Hort and Phoebe holding Ritch who held Renee. The guest of honor waved up at her father.
To the uninitiated, it may have looked like she made teensy fists and shook them aimlessly, but Ted could see behind simple distractions like facts.
--------
Testy showed up with the dawn. She was already prepared to be scandalized.
"What's this I hear about my granddaughter having three names?" she shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
"Family tradition," Ted called back. "She has my last name, and my mother's first name."
Testy got to the top of the stairs and strode quickly towards the bed wheeled out by Ted's plate. Ted noticed the sword cane. She was quite prepared to fix his errors.
"You've got the baby out in the open? They should be kept in closed rooms! Where's the brave governess? Who's in charge of this circus?"
Phoebe kissed Ritch on the forehead and rolled out of the bed. She grabbed a kickstool and placed it where Testy could use it.
"What is that for?"
"If you want to get into bed with your daughter and Renee," Phoebe said with a short bow.
"Renee, huh?" She arched an eyebrow upwards. "Your mother?" She sniffed. "At least it's longer than Ted."
Ritch smiled across the sideboards at her mother. She was breastfeeding. Testy saw the little bald head and almost smiled. But she wasn't ready yet.
"What is this? Party beds are for the seamy side of Mildendo's pleasure pits! One person, maybe one person and her husband, is all a bed should host. And in this house, that's unlikely."
"Hello, Mother."
"Hello, dear. Renee, is it? Renee Malone. Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, does it?"
"Well," Hort said, "when she's grown, she may choose to go by her middle name."
Testy refused to give them the straight line by asking. "Three names," she muttered. "Who saddles a child with three Englishman names? Except Englishmans. Child won't know who she is when you call her."
"Mother," Ritch asked, gently moving the baby and covering herself. "Would you like to burp Her Lady Renee Testtiffie Malone, the First?"
Phoebe was there in an instant, helping a stunned Testy climb the side of the bed. She scooted close and gently gathered little Renee to her shoulder.
"Oh!" Hort grabbed a burping cloth and handed it over. Renee's first belch, however, managed to miss the cloth and plop straight onto her grandmother's sleeve.
"That's fine," Testy said, waving away apologies. "If you're not prepared for what comes out of babies, you shouldn't pick them up. Should they?" she asked Renee. Renee promptly spit up in agreement.

Ted hovered over the baby and mother for the next few days. Anyone holding the infant was likely to be picked up and ogled. He wasn't quite ready to hold Renee on his own.
But he was shocked the first time Ritch got out of bed.
"Shouldn't you be recovering? Where do you want to go? I'll carry you."
"I want to go to the bathroom!" she snapped.
"I'll close my eyes," he said. "Hold still!"
"Shut up! Get away!" She fended him off with Testy's sword cane. Testy had dropped it to climb into bed and never noticed the loss. He kept his distance but the hand still hovered. She considered baring the blade.
"Yo the house!" a voice called from outside.
"That's Arlene!" Ritch said.
"Yeah, she wants to look the baby over."
"Good! Ask if she knows why Renee's head is misshapen."
"I'm sure she...What?" Ted hissed. He slid to the crib and peered intently at the sleeping child.
Ritch used the distraction to make her escape.
Arlene knocked, then entered. She was as much at home in the Dollhouse as she was at Lake Beauty. They had made her welcome. Besides, the women had nothing she hadn't seen and Ted had nothing she wanted.
She found the giant bent way over, peering at a tiny crib. "Is she in there?" she whispered.
"You can go ahead and talk," Ted said, softly but not in a whisper. "She appears to have acclimated to giant voices in the womb. That or she's deaf." He pointed and she saw a tiny form, sleeping through the noise.
Ted scooted over and Arlene leaned down for her first look. "Oh! Oh, she's adorable!"
"I can't see her clearly," Ted said, "but I'm reasonably certain she is the cutest baby on record."
"Well. On that note," she turned to reach into a satchel. "I want you to know how much I love you, Ted."
"You taught Phoebe a Paul Anka song," he said accusingly.
"Yes," she agreed. She brought out a wooden case and set it gently down on the table. "And I brought you this. And I'll let you use it firstest."
"What is it?" he asked. She just pointed. He lifted the lid. And whispered, "Wow."
Hort found Ritch in the door of the bathroom. She offered an elbow and helped her wife across the floor.
Phoebe and Aguellsta were standing on either side of the crib. They were holding blankets open.
Ted was examining Renee through the largest magnifying glass Hort had ever heard of. "It is sort of...funny looking," he muttered.
"The head?" Arlene asked. "They all look like that. It was just squeezed through a tiny opening. It'll recover. The bones are going to harden. You'll see."
"I will, won't I," he mused, looking at instead of through the glass.
"Gimmee," she said.
Mother and wife reached the side by the time Arlene was through sighing over the girl. She was starting to yawn and stretch.
"Ah, can I hold her?" she asked.
"No," Ted said.
"What?" Arlene, Phoebe and Hort asked. Ritch just moved protectively closer to Renee.
"I haven't held her yet," he said.
"You're waiting for her wedding day," Hort said with a laugh.
"I don't..." Ritch started to say. She bit a lip.
"Ritch, it's okay," Arlene said. "You can say no. I won't get between a mom and her baby."
"But Ted can't say no?" Hort asked.
"Not for stupid reasons." Arlene replied.
"Not for stupid man reasons," Phoebe edited.
"I'm not ready to pick her up, not without someone else holding her," Ted said.
"I'm not ready for any giant to hold her," Ritch said.
Ted and Arlene nodded, made eye contact, nodded again. "Sure," Arlene said.
"I am ever at the mercy of my wives' decisions," Ted said.
"I just... I'm not..." Ritch gave up trying to explain and looked up imploringly.
"It's okay," Ted assured her. "Really. You trust me with your life, your soul, your dreams and that thing you like me to do to you."
"What's that?" Arlene asked.
"I said..." he said tersely. "That she TRUSTS me with it."
"Oh. OH, yes, of course."
"If I may be allowed to continue?"
"Of course."
"Thank you." Ted slid off the bench to kneel beside the table. His eyes were slightly above Ritch's. "Seriously. I know you love and trust me. If you have even a little discomfort at the idea, I'm quite willing to wait."
"Whatever makes you happy," Arlene added with a nod.
Ritch felt foolish crying yet again. But no one teased her. They just waited patiently, touching her if they were not looming giants.
Looming, loving giants. Renee started to cry.
"That's her hunger cry," Ted said.
"Oh, good," Arlene said as Aguellsta started to lift Renee. Ritch sat down on the bed while Hort got a cloth.
"What's good?" Ted asked.
"You're becoming habituated!" she explained.
"You..." He became thoughtful, though he never turned away from the dinner ritual. "You mean I'm getting acclimated?"
"No, it's something wildlife researchers do. You spend time where the wild animal tribe or family can see you, doing no harm. Each day, you try to get a little closer, for a little longer, so they don't run in fright every time you sneeze or snap a picture."
She paused to sigh at the sight of Renee finding the nipple.
"Makes sense," Ted said. "It'll take a while for Renee to become comfortable in my presence. The big looming giant and all."
"No, dear," Arlene said. "I mean it'll take civilized people like your family a while to get you used to the baby."
Everyone but Renee and Ted laughed. And Ted had his suspicions about her...
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.Repatriated