[imgright]https://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/imag ... uncert.png[/imgright]At first he had thought Bloodroot was just getting a little bit fat, due to his dogged insistence (see also: crying) that they find proper food that wasn’t the stinky root.

He had nibbled a piece off it one time just to get to shut up about it and he would regret tasting that foul thing until the end of his days.

So for a while he’d enjoyed her ever increasing roundness (it made a great pillow), until one particular evening when he had pressed his cheek into her belly and something had pressed back.

He was not ashamed to admit that he had given a rather high-pitched squeal.

And then came the realization. Because they’d gotten rather close during their travels together. As promised, there had been quite a few surprises in store for him, including a few near death experiences, which always did wonders for a newfound libido. 

“You’re pregnant!” He had exclaimed in a panic and then blubbered for a few hours while crying that they ‘had to go home RIGHT NOW!’ and that ‘PEEP WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO!’. Everything he had ever known about being a parent and a Mother completely abandoned now that he was a father-to-be.

Marked had been hurrying them along as fast as one pregnant doe and one blind buck could travel and they were nearly there. He could smell it!

Bloodroot wasn't fussed about the moving bits within her, but what she was fussed about was the increasing sensation of bloat and nausea. Since he was panicking and crying and pushing her along, she supposed returning to his land of provided food and safety would allow her to drop cute lil' foals off without trouble.

Unlike him, she could see other cute lil' foals in the territory up ahead, and groaned as they stumbled into the wonderful pastoral dreamscape that was the Mothers Club.

"Ugh," she said, the skirret falling off her back once more.

She had managed to drag it the whole way, but she had a feeling it would not be safe here. With a quick hoof, she dug a hole and buried it up to its chin before letting Marked push her along to whichever peeper 'knew what to do.'

@Ruriska

Despite his desire to move quickly, Marked had stood quietly by as Bloodroot buried the root, grateful that was one thing he wouldn’t have to explain to anyone.  Then it was onwards, back to familiar grounds, so many scents and sounds he knew well, steadying the frantic beating of his heart.

Into the Mothers Club and - well, he’d been expecting a little bit more fanfare as he arrived. A few friends and family rushing over to exclaim over his absence would have been nice. Just a 'oh we've miss you! would have sufficed. With the lack of reaction from anyone around, his relief at having arrived slowly faded, only to be replaced by sullen disappointment.

“Oh hi Mark,” said a passing kin, as if he’d been around all along and just come back from a stroll.

“Well,” Marked said to Bloodroot as he came to a halt. “This is it.” He kind of squinted, in a very blind sort of way, searching for the telltale glow of Peep’s eyes.

“Over there, I think,” he mostly guessed and nudged Bloodroot in that direction. “Is there a tiny Acha mare? It’s hard to tell from this distance during the day.”

There was indeed a tiny Acha and she was definitely looking their way.

@Maxx

Bloodroot was ready to scream "I did not kidnap him! It's not true! It's bullshit! I did not kidnap him! I did not -" if a whole horde of defensive flower-smelling baby-lovers came running over to reclaim Mark(ed), but this did not come to pass. Instead, her brow was crinkled by the incredibly fresh smell of soft grass as he was modestly greeted in his entrance. The whole place was almost too perfumed for a witch to bear. She should have kept the skirret around.

"Yea," she said, squinting in the instructed direction, "I guess it must be a mare instead of a baby since her eyes are glowing.

"I think she might be judging me.

"Or you.

"Hard to say."

( you're tearing me apart @Ruriska )

“She doesn’t do that,” Mark(ed) immediately retorted, rather defensively. “Judge, that is. My mother never judges anyone.” And he really hoped that was still the case now that he was bringing home his weird pregnant swamp witch girlfriend.

It hadn’t even occurred to him that there was a possibility of judgment until he had arrived and nobody seemed to have noticed his absence. But maybe they were glad he’d run off? Just one less kin to watch over, one less burden.

They hadn’t even talked to Peep yet and he was ready to toss his head back and cry, ‘Everyone betrayed me! I’m fed up with this world!’.

But he refrained, and instead took a steadying breath and said, “well come on then!”

Forward he marched until those glowing eyes were undeniably the soft, warm glow of his mother. As soon as he felt her there, his anxiety eased, her nose touching his cheek with the same reassurance it always provided.

As for Peep herself, there was indeed no judgment as she greeted her son with a touch and then looked over at Bloodroot with a gentle, only mildly curious smile.

“It’s about time you both came for a visit,” she said, clearly not at all perturbed by either his long sabbatical or choice of partner. “Will you be staying until the foals arrive?”

( oh hi @Maxx )

The amount of comfort Marked received from Peep's gentle nature was completely reversed for Bloodroot. The epitome of placid grace put her fur on end, and when she was so tense, she could feel the little unformed hooves pushing against her innards.

Food, safety. Free food, and safety and food, and someone else could take care of these foals.

Food.

"Hi," she decided, seized by her unnatural tenderness, "yes, hope you'll like them."

Someone take care of these foals.

@Ruriska hahaha what a story Marked

Bloodroot’s discomfort was secondary to Marked’s affront to the realisation that his mother already knew. He’d spent the whole trip trying to figure out how to tell her about his travels with his weird girlfriend while also dealing with his state of PANIK, that coming to terms with the fact that this was clearly no big deal for anyone else but him was deeply upsetting.

“Of course I’ll like them,” Peep was saying because of course she would, they were her grandfoals.

“You KNEW,” he interrupted, the knew not specific and yet somehow encompassing pretty much everything that had transpired over the last few months. And because he wasn’t stupid, the lacklustre greeting from ealier clearly meant that everyone knew at least something.

Or at least knew he wasn’t lost or dead in a ditch and thus weren’t concerned.

“Oh,” Peep said, softly, solemnly. “I’m sorry - yes, I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I know how much it meant for you to be independent and so I didn’t want to tell you but I also wanted to make sure you were okay.”

And how was he supposed to be mad at that?

Marked sniffled and turned his head to bury his nose in Bloodroot’s pungently familiar hair for comfort.

@Maxx

Bloodroot let Marked huff her head, instead more preoccupied with the mare's reveal

"You've been keeping an eye on us all this time?" She said with incredulity, eyes wide, "did you watch us ████?"

@Ruriska im sorry

Peep was very rarely flustered. In all his time as her son, Marked had never once known his mother to be anything other than calm and measured.

He couldn’t see how her eyes went wide in response but he did hear the raised inflection in a quickly uttered, 'oh NO' and knew that had been completely taken off guard. 

“Absolutely not, that’s not- I would never. Your private time is your own and I- oh my, how about I bless the little ones now?”

Marked was quietly impressed but also horrifically mortified that his girlfriend had just said ████ in front of his mum. He took another deep breath of swamp hair.

@Maxx no you're not XD

"Yet, you know I am pregnant. Curious."

Bloodroot had her head slightly turned, having found her footing against such suspicious kindness. She was not ashamed. They were goats kin. It was a fact of life they would ████.

She looked down at her bloated belly critically, letting the irony slip past her completely.

"What's there to bless them with if you feed them and stuff? Was Marked blessed?"

Her muzzle touched his slightly, though her eyes were also critical. She had taken a shine to him certainly, but she did very much find him tangled in roots blind and helpless on first meeting.

@Ruriska a lil bit

Peep also looked down at Bloodroot’s belly and then back up with a slightly arched brow. “I would say it’s fairly obvious. You have all the telltale signs. And besides,” she smiled, “it is my job to know.”

She had performed many blessings in her time and very rarely was the parent quite so suspicious.

“I had already ascended by then, there was no need to seek a blessing. When I realised I was with foal, I asked that they be born healthy and happy, and I was granted my wish.

I would like to offer the same to you.”

Marked was keen to move things along and get Bloodroot settled in a thicket somewhere with a pile of food, far away from everyone else, and so quickly accepted with, “yes, please mother.”


@Maxx i love bloodroot so much

"Automatic, eh? How convenient," Bloodroot had a dim view of such generous blessings from the Motherfather.

It seemed easy. The best tasting caiman was the one that almost murdered you.

But Bloodroot could appreciate differencies in opinion as Marked accepted a blessing on their behalf.

"Healthy and happy is fine, I guess," she said grudgingly, "thank you."


@Ruriska thank god, I would be really sorry if you didn't

Marked was visibly relieved when Bloodroot accepted the blessing, not that she could really refuse it anyway. Which made him wonder if there was any kin out there whose brood had been blessed against their wishes and now the offspring they’d wanted to be unhealthy and unhappy were destined to be the opposite.

“You’re welcome,” Peep was saying. “May they be-”

“And independent!” Marked interrupted suddenly, then immediately flushed and stumbled over his own words. “P-please, also... maybe they could be independent and uh... and follow their hearts?”

He’d heard many a buck and doe ask for extra fancy blessings and it didn’t seem fair that he, as the son of the blesser, should not be able to as well.

“Of course,” Peep said smoothly. She didn’t mind. They were her grandchildren after all. “May they be happy and healthy, with strong hearts and strong minds, free to choose their own path.”

Marked gave a small sigh of relief. "Thank you."


@Maxx that would be a little awkward if we got this far and I decided I wasn't a fan 

Bloodroot waited a little while, before noting/questioning: "is that it?

"All done?

"OK thanks again," she wasn't thoroughly convinced of this blessing efficacy, for she didn't feel very different, but she supposed the proof was in the birthing and the eventual growing up.

"I think I could do with some food."

Thinking of food, she leaned over to Marked.

"Imagine" she said in a whisper, "all the kiddies will have a taste of the familial root vegetable."


@Ruriska it would yeah, I would need another The Room meme to express my complexity of feelings 

“Yes, it’s done,” Peep confirmed, wishing (not for the first time) that blessings came with a more tangible feeling. If the MotherFather could just include a little tingle or something, everyone would appreciate the process a lot more.

Now a lot more relaxed about his upcoming fatherhood, Marked was finally starting to feel good when Bloodroot whispered something horrible in his ear.

Oh no. Oh no no. Not his children. Not the rot. It would undo everything.

Marked shuddered and vowed that he would do everything in his power to spare them that vile taste.

“Mhmm,” he mmm’d noncommittally. “Let’s uh... let’s go find you some proper food first. How about some fruit?” He still had time to get rid of that thing and help Bloodroot get in touch with the normal doe that was surely inside her.

Everything was going to be fine.



@Maxx $10 says we could have a whole rp out of just the room gifs