“The world is a small place. Trust me on that.” - Old folk saying.

“Oh, up already? Didn’t peg you for an early bird,” said Aideen the next morning when she noticed her bedmate for the last night stir from his contented slumber. It was still early in the dawn hours, and while Aideen had thought to leave to meet with Celia, their meeting time was not until noon anyway, and she had some hours to spare. “You know, I had not pegged you for a first-timer at this either. You must be younger than you look, aren’t you?”

“Uh… Was it… that obvious, ma’am?” asked the young elf as he visibly blushed with embarrassment, as if looking for a hole he could jump into at any moment.

“I mean… c’mon, boy, nobody fumbles and mistakes where to put it in that badly unless it’s truly their very first time around,” replied Aideen with hearty laughter which just further deepened the blush on the young elf’s face. “At least you got lucky and had someone who knew what to do. I’ve seen that sort of shit make some youngsters swear off sex just because both of them were virgins and royally fucked it up their first night!” she added, still laughing from the gut in between sentences. “So at least we spared an innocent young lass, or lad, a traumatic experience!”

“Seriously though, how old are you, lad?” she finally asked him directly after her laughter subsided at last.

“One hundred and two, ma’am,” replied the young elf, his cheeks still blushing with embarrassment. That was a young age, just a bit over what was considered to be an adult for most full-blooded elves. Elves in general consider someone an adult when they have sexually matured, which for them tends to happen somewhere in their eighth to tenth decade. “Had my coming of age just before I went out on this trip, three years ago.”

“Huh?” an unpleasant premonition struck Aideen when she heard the young elf’s age, especially when she combined it with his Blessing of Life. On their own, neither of those features were particularly uncommon, and since they took in the Forest of Shadows as a whole, the Lichdom possessed the largest elvish population of the southern continent, so that part was not unusual either. Put them together, however, and a probability she did not consider the day before dawned on her.

“Right. As silly as it may be to introduce ourselves at this stage… What’s your name?” asked Aideen. She often did not trade names with people she only planned to have some casual fun and not see further, so she had not asked nor introduced herself the night before, having thought nothing of it at the time.

“Calais, ma’am. I’m Calais Edrunviel,” replied the young elf, the exact name Aideen hoped she wouldn’t be hearing right then.

“Oh, Tohrmut damn it,” she cursed helplessly as she covered her face with one hand. “Yvgenia’s gonna have my hide for a rug if she caught wind of this.”

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“So you know my mother, Miss Aideen?” asked Calais ten minutes later after the two of them got dressed and ordered some breakfast from the innkeeper. Fortunately the old matron was an early riser herself and had been cooking breakfast already by the time they went down the stairs. Two piping hot bowls of seafood soup were served up before them in a matter of minutes.

“We’re related, in a way. Not blood relations, mind you,” explained Aideen as she sipped on some of the soup in her bowl. The steaming, fragrant soup hit the spot in the freezing morning weather of the jarldom, and the rich natural sweet-savouriness of the seafood was cut by a healthy dose of peppers, something that does not grow in the Jarldoms, but was one of the Lichdom’s main exports. “My niece is your older half-sister’s wife.”

“Wait… you’re big sister Èirynn’s aunt?” asked Calais with some incredulity in his voice. “Both my older sister and sister Èirynn are in their late two hundreds already… how old are you, then, Miss?”

“Boy, you should never ask a woman their age unless you are looking to get slapped,” replied Aideen with an amused chuckle at Calais’ reaction. “Seriously though, don’t do that to strangers. As for me, I’m just hitting my third century now. I’m around a dozen years older than Mimia, if you want an easy comparison to use.”

“Oh. So you’re the aunt Aideen they sometimes told me about,” said Calais as he finally realized her identity. “I feel kind of foolish for not having recognized you, now.”

“To be fair, kid, I left for Alcidea when you were still in diapers and not even a year old. I’m not surprise you don’t recognize me at all… though it was negligence on my part for not noticing you earlier,” replied Aideen with a shrug of her shoulders. “What do you say we just let bygones be bygones and treat that as a secret lesson from an elder to their junior.”

“Works for me… Aunt Aideen,” replied Calais after a while, his face once more blushing with embarrassment as he probably recalled what they did the night before. “Would mother really flay you alive if she learned of it?”

“I meant it metaphorically, but then again, it’s not like getting flayed would be more than an inconvenience for me anyway,” replied Aideen all too nonchalantly at his question. “No, I suspect she and Drietven would keep the tidbit in mind and just use it to tease me without end instead. That’s something I can definitely see those two do for some centuries to come if they learned of this.”

“I’ll be keeping it mum, then,” promised Calais after he took another sip at the hot soup before him. “On that note, where are you traveling to, Aunt? I assume you have just returned from the northern continent?”

“That’s the case indeed, kid. I’m headed west to Istria, and from there straight across the border back to the Lichdom,” replied Aideen with a nod. “Why? Want to come along?”