Granny shook her head. "A satyr?"
"Well," I hedged, weighing the benefits of being bashful. I figured there was no use trying to backtrack on that, so I just nodded.
She shook her head again. "My word."
"He was very pretty, in both speech and body," I said, shrugging.
"Oh, I know well the allure of the fair folk," she said with a wistful sigh. Before I could unpack that statement, she gave me a much sterner look. "Do you still have it?"
"Have what?"
"The shawl," she said, her voice patient yet insistent.
I nodded, and went to my backpack, fishing around until I pulled the fine garment out. "It doesn't fit me right now," I said, gesturing at my very round belly, "but it's truly the nicest piece of clothing I've ever owned."
She extended a hand for the cloth, and I handed it to her. She rolled fabric between her fingers for a moment, and shook her head. "You told me you had nothing of any worth to give, and yet you carry a shawl woven by a nymph of the Old Woods?"
I stopped short, shocked. It hadn't even occurred to me to offer this memento as payment.
She shook her head wistfully, and handed it back. "You've promised me the story of a lifetime as payment, and I accepted. I suppose it's only fair that you hold on to this." I took the cloth back as she bent over her notebook again, suddenly all business as she added a few new lines. "If your menstrual cycles range between two and four months in length, we'll assume approximately three months for your average. How long was it between the end of your last period and your first encounter with the orcs?"
I closed my eyes, trying to wade back through the many months. "It was a bit more than a month after my period ended that I had sex with my human boyfriend, I think. Maybe five weeks? Then my first... 'encounter' with Davor was about two days after that. And then again the night after, then the next morning."
She nodded, adding a few more notes to her book. "Your 'sweet spot', in terms of conception, would be before the halfway mark between menstruations. That could be week four to five if we assume a two-month cycle for that period, or as late as week eight or nine if we assume a four-month cycle. So, if we look at the average, we'll assume the actual conception took place between the start of week five and the end of week eight."
She took a moment to consult her notes, then nodded again. "It's possible, though unlikely, that your human mate is the father since he falls just within that range. Your orc companions would be in the early portion of that range. Your time with the satyr would be right in the middle of where we might assume you were most fertile. Satyrs are well known for their fecundity, so it's likely that he was the father." With that she snapped her notebook closed. "A half-fey, most likely to be born as a pure satyr. I believe we have our answer."
I nodded, having come to that conclusion once before. "Unfortunately," I added hesitantly, "If we assume that my prime fertile period could have been as late as week eight, we haven't ruled out the... other lovers."
She froze, halfway to taking a bite out of a cracker covered in a slice of cheese. "Other lovers," she asked, a mixture of horror and admiration on her face. "How many more were there? Why on earth would you have sex, unprotected sex at that, with five different men and a nymph, and then consider doing so again?"
I paused, mulling over my answer. "Well, there was some wine."
She chuckled ruefully and dropped her cracker back onto the simple wooden plate. "That seems to be your undoing. So, if not the satyr, who else could be the lucky man?"
I fidgeted again before finally answering. "Well, after leaving the satyr's side, I boarded a ship..."
********
I'd only been in this town two days, and I was already absolutely sick of it. Newport, the city of a thousand ships, smelled more like the city of a thousand dead fish. The inns were a shade too expensive for my budget, which was dwindling daily, unless I wanted to risk sleeping in the shoddiest of sailor's pubs.
I had checked the schedules of a dozen ships. Few of them were going anywhere worth being, and those that were charged an arm and a leg for passage. I felt trapped in this sodden harbor town, like everyone else who had the misfortune of living here.
Stepping into a patch of sunlight, I stopped and stretched for a moment. There were still good things to focus on, like the sunlight itself, which seemed to be a rarity in this rainy town. There were still more ships to check before hope was lost. If all else failed, I could always walk back to Pux or Davor and stay with them.
I shook my head, clearing my thoughts, and marched through the front doors of the Seaport Porters & Co, the next shipping company on my list.
A dour looking secretary stared up at me over the stacks of paper on her desk, forehead crinkled in a frown. "Yes?"
I was genuinely impressed that even the greeters here were grumpy. "I'm looking for captain..." I looked down at the folded sheet in my hand, scanning for his name, "Rockbeard?"
She frowned, like this was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard, then sighed. "He's here. Upstairs, second floor on the left." She had stopped paying attention to me even before she'd finished speaking, and ignored me as I meandered towards the stairs.
The second door was indeed open, giving me a view of a small office with a small man behind a desk. Small was maybe an unfair word, perhaps stout was more accurate. His shoulders were almost as wide as he was tall, and his beard reached down to his gut. He was dense looking, even for a dwarf.
I knocked on the door frame, and he studiously ignored me as he wrote in as ledger. Finally, after a minute or so, he set down his quill and looked up at me. "Well?"
As he spoke, his beard quivered slightly, making the small stones woven into it click together. This would probably be Rockbeard.
"I've heard your ship is sailing across the Emerald Sea," I ventured.
"And?"
He looked impassive and bored, and it made me surprisingly nervous. "Uh... that's my intended path."
"You own a ship?" he grunted, and I shook my head. "Hope you're a real good swimmer, then." With that, he picked up his quill, evidently done with the conversation.
I took a moment to center myself and gather my courage, then spoke again. "I was hoping to buy passage aboard your ship."
"We're not a passenger ship, we're a cargo ship."
That sounded like a no, but he was still talking, which meant this wasn't over yet. "Yes, I know. I was hoping that if I paid a fare and offered to work on the ship, perhaps in the kitchen, you might be willing to take me on."
He looked up again, frowning. "Galley."
"Pardon?"
"On a ship, there's no kitchen. There's a galley."
"In the galley, then," I said with a shrug. "I'm no chef, but I can chop vegetables and cook a stew about as well as anyone."
"How much?"
