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Gunilla Goodmountain knew humans had funny ideas about certain things, but he’d never thought marriage might be one of them.
When he was three, Boddony stole his horsemeat pie, and he tried to bite Boddony’s nose off in response. When they were thirty, he snuck some of his gold into Boddony’s pile, because, Boddony wouldn’t stop talking about a new device called a dis-organiser and how he didn’t care if it were dangerous, he was going to go even deeper into the mine for more dangerous work to get the gold needed to buy one. When he was sixty-nine, Boddony almost got caught sneaking out of his room in the morning, and later, Gunilla said, “I want to marry you.”
“Because we almost got caught,” Boddony had asked.
“No, because that’s what more-or-less what I decided to say if we did get caught.”
“Well, I want to marry you, too, but if you never want children, we aren’t right for one another. Once I get properly married, if making a baby isn’t an option, we’ll be looking into adoption. I heard about this one dwarf adopting a human- wouldn’t go that far, but maybe a sickly baby or an older orphan, I wouldn’t be too picky.”
“If we can, I want children, too,” he said. “Which of our parents should we tell first?”
Boddony’s parents were thrilled about the marriage part and a bit dubious about the part where he and Boddony were going to try to make a go profiting off movable print.
His parents were also thrilled but said, “He’s an okay miner, always better at building and things involving machinery, but you, you were a born miner. Why don’t you just earn his marriage price here, and we can work something out for yours?”
Since his older brother had tried to kill him shortly after he was born and hadn’t warmed up to his existence over the years, he’d actually expected something less-than-enthusiastic, at best, and outright hostile, at worst, from him, but instead, he’d merely taken him aside. “It’s not the type of thing I concern myself over, but I just need to make sure you understand that, if you marry him, neither of you will ever have babies.”
“If you mean neither of us will ever carry a baby inside us, yes, I understand, but we’re going to find an orphan to adopt once we’ve got everything set up.”
His brother shrugged. “As long as it’s a dwarf orphan.”
This is just how dwarves do things. Even now, with female dwarves appearing, it’s still how things are done. There are sometimes questions about children, but generally, if a couple has them or not isn’t anyone’s business. He knows his brother could have children and could likely make them with Downer, but his brother has always hated children, even when he was one, and Downer seems perfectly happy with not making any.
“But which of you is the woman,” the human insists.
He insists in such a way Gunilla has to fight down the instinctive urge to draw his axe.
“We’re dwarves,” he answers.
Even if one of them were privately female, he’d give the same answer. Sometimes, a dwarf is determined to try to have a child with adoption not being an option; in those instances, it’s understandable they need to discreetly establish certain facts in order to decide whether to offer marriage or end the courtship. This doesn’t mean, however, they have any right to go around telling anyone else what facts have been established.
“I always thought you lot were abominations, but knowing it’s really a man and woman marrying, that makes it alright. Now, I just need to know which one of you is which.”
He’s never killed anyone, but he has maimed a few dwarves in his day. Humans might be taller and heavier, but most of them, in his experience, don’t know how to properly avoid being attacked with an axe.
Except, of course, the watch, he gloomily remembers, and they don’t like the press. Moreover, he has a sinking suspicion William might just take their side in such an instance.
He almost asks, ‘why do you need to know,’ but he’s afraid the human might take this as confirmation one of them is, in fact, female.
Personally, Gunilla doesn’t have anything against female dwarves. He can see how a skirt could be more useful than trousers in certain situations, and he’s always thought there was something vaguely artful (artistic?) about the things Boddony builds. If other dwarves want to show an artistic (artful?) side by putting paint on various parts of their body, good for them. Like with the skirt, he can see the advantages heeled boots could bring to someone skilled in utilising them.
It’s just, he and Boddony aren’t, and one of them shouldn’t have to be in order to not be called abominations.
“Ah, Mr de Vorde’s newest guest,” Otto’s voice says from the shadows. “Rocky will escort you.”
“A troll,” the guest exclaims. “A vampire?!”
He suddenly feels himself being pulled firmly away from the now irritated Rocky and the even more outraged human.
Once they’re in the darkroom, Gunilla sits down. “William isn’t going to like that,” he says. “But all the same, thank you.”
Boddony still hasn’t particularly warmed up to them working with a vampire, but he’s developed a grudging respect for Otto. Like Boddony, he’s an artist, and undeniably, he’s deeply devoted to William and Sacharissa. He’s literally given his life for them, Boddony, and all the others.
Otto hands him a cup of coca. “Rocky von’t hurt Villiam’s guest, though, Villiam might secretly vish othervise.”
“Ever been in love, lad?”
Sitting down, Otto gives him a small smile. “That is not alvays a happy story, no? Not for some. But yes, is the answer.”
“Sorry,” he offers.
Shrugging, Otto comments, “As they say, what does not kill you- Although, in my case, perhaps, the saying is not so meaningful.”
“You can be dead inside but still breathe and walk around,” he says.
Otto gives him a look he can’t quite decipher, but it’s quickly gone, and Otto inquires, “Are you and he going to leave? Villiam will be sad, but he’ll also be fine. Unfortunately, there are more like that von out there here in the city.”
“No. What people like that human can’t understand- I probably would have lived and died in my old community. Married, maybe had children, maybe not, worked in the mines all my life, and died happy. That would have been enough. It would have been enough, except, when we were very young, Boddony got into an argument with one of the elders about letters. You understand how important letters are to dwarves, right?”
“I have a fair idea, yes.”
“And I saw something beautiful that day. I was too young to understand. He was just this,” he uses a dwarfish word he’d never even attempt to translate around Sacharissa, “who kept trying to steal my rat sandwiches and who hid my pickaxe. Only, he wasn’t, anymore.”
He can't keep his sigh in. “He was so much more than our little community, and I knew then that he had to leave someday. Someone like him, you just can’t contain a person like that. The world needs them somewhere they can truly make a mark.”
“Like here?”
“Like here,” he confirms. “This city is growing and changing every second, and because of what Boddony and William and Miss Sacharissa are doing, it’s growing and changing into something better. It’s where I know my son or, I suppose, daughter, even if they leave someday, can be proud to say, ‘I came from there.’ And if they stay, they’ll have opportunities I never could have provided them in some small, pure dwarf community.”
“I never expected him to love me back,” he confesses. “But some words are too important for Boddony to ever twist or use lightly. When he said he did, I knew I’d do whatever I had to in order to make sure we’d find a place for both of us and our future son or, I suppose, daughter. Even with people like that human- this is it.”
“Good,” Otto says with a happier smile. “And don’t vorry. Me and the others, ve protect our own. No von vill ever do more than just talk harshly, not if ve can help it.”
“Thank you.” Holding up his mug, he says, “Cheers, my friend.”
Giving him a touched look, Otto clinks his own mug against it. “Cheers, mine friend.”
…
After he and Boddony have gone to bed, Boddony asks, “You know my cousin from Genua?”
“The one who had a baby without a husband? Or even a wife?”
Boddony tugs Gunilla's beard. “There were circumstances involved.”
“You’re the one who tried to go around interrogating every dwarf over the age of fifty and under three hundred,” he points out. “Even the married ones. If we hadn’t had to go over there-”
“It all worked out in the end,” Boddony says. “We’re here now with a ship-shape crew. Besides, if what I was doing was torture, they should have had laws written describing it as such long before I ever came there. Now, at least, they have a concrete legal definition.”
Laughing, he kisses him. “Anyway, what about Beaky?”
“He- she- Beaky sent me a clack saying that a friend in Sto Lat rescued an abandoned baby dwarf. If he lives, I thought we could go there in a month or two and see him.”
“That would be good.”
Finding his hand under the covers, Boddony says, “You know, we could get married before adopting. That’s what most dwarves do.”
“We’re not most dwarves,” he responds.
Shrugging, Boddony kisses him, and they curl around one another.
What he’s never told Boddony is: He’s made a list of promises he has to keep before marrying Boddony. They’ve set up their printing business in a big city, they’ve raised enough for one another’s marriage price, and now, he just needs to make sure they have a son or, he supposes, a daughter to raise together. Until they do, he’s going to make sure Boddony always has the option of finding someone else who he can have a baby with either by making or adopting one.