Free Gratuitous Epilogue : Touchstone Extras by Andrea Höst

over with. I had a lot
of fun today – they announced it while the kids were at school and
I had Mara and Ketzaren as bodyguards (or torturers, since they
were forcing me to seriously dodge them or get all bruised from
being tackled) with Lohn watching and making impish comments. When
the invitation arrived by email, Lohn read it first, while Mara and
Ketz were doing their best to push me without swatting me, and Mara
ended up accidentally knocking me onto my ass when Lohn suddenly
yelped out the Taren equivalent of: "Holy shit!"
    Ketz picked me up while
Mara gave Lohn a reproachful look, but he just gabbled: "Read your
email, read your email!" and so we did and there was a very sweetly
worded email from Maze and Alay inviting everyone to a party that
night to celebrate their engagement and coming child. I had to
pretend to be preoccupied with my bruised ass so that I could turn
away and hide my grin at their complete dumbstruck
disbelief.
    They all opened
channels with Maze and Alay and tried not to sound too amazed while
they gave them their congratulations. I kept quiet, doing the one
thing I'd long planned for when the news came out – sending a
carefully prepared email off to Zan which gave her enough detail so
she would understand the situation. I had written most of the email
over the last month, filling it in with general news along with the
stuff about Maze and Alay, so that it wouldn't be an obvious "I
know you like him but he's taken now" message.
    She hasn't replied yet,
and I'm fretting, and feeling guilty for being so pleased for
Alay.
    Everyone in First and
Second seems delighted, at least, most of them gathering at my
house on the day of the announcement to have a big gossip session.
Nils all of a sudden pounced on me and asked "How long have you
known?"
    "Since Sen greeted Alay
with a joyous cry of 'Baby' about a month ago," I admitted, and he
laughed and said Maze must make more convincing threats about
spankings, and they were all surprised but sort of reassured that
I'd known about it.
    The engagement party
was fun. Sen announced that the baby's name was 'Secret' (Katen),
which Maze and Alay thought very sweet, but they're underestimating
how much she means it. The party was at Maze's parents' house,
which I hadn't visited before, and again involved interesting
traditional baked treats. Since it's not picnic or patio weather it
was a tight fit, even though they'd restricted the guest list down
to closest friends and family. Alay got taken off and given a stern
talking to by the rest of her squad. Nils teased Keer about him
having to hurry up and get engaged to one (or all) of the few
remaining Senior Setari still available, and less lightly teased
Zee about getting left behind (he wants to marry her, but she wants
to hold off). I spotted Mara talking a bit sadly to Lohn – it bugs
her a lot that she didn't immediately fall pregnant.
    We didn't stay too
long: I did some projections (to explain ice-skating) and we left
the party fairly early to put Sen to bed. And maybe to think about
some of the complexities of being parents ourselves.
    Lira might
(technically) be a little younger than Ys (we've settled on next
month as her twelfth birthday), but she's far more physically
developed. I've already bought her training bras, though she
refuses to wear them just yet. Kaoren and I had the funniest
conversation at the party, because we'd both noticed Del (Mara's
nephew) and Lore (Ketzaren's young brother) watching Lira with
unmistakeable interest, and both of us immediately wanted to hide
her away. She is undoubtedly going to have a great many guys after
her, not only because she's getting more and more gorgeous, but
because of the whole tragic Lantaren heroine almost-princess thing.
And she has a certain proud charisma which can be very compelling.
For the moment she's following Ys' lead and being painstakingly
polite and wholly unwelcoming to anyone, male or female, who pushes
to get closer to her, but I don't