Children.
It wasn't the first time the subject had come up between them. Lillet and Amoretta weren't just lovers, after all; they were a couple, a family. Amoretta knew that Lillet loved children, and hadn't just discarded her thoughts of becoming a mother some day when she'd realized as a girl that she had a talent for magic.
Amoretta was a different case. She'd never been around children, and indeed had never even been a child herself. As an artificial existence, she was incapable of bringing forth new life and indeed lacked any biological drive to do so. Lovemaking for her was exactly that, a means of expressing and strengthening love and intimacy, the reason why it was only Lillet that aroused her. Perhaps it was because she was a homunculus, or perhaps again it was because that body had been built around an angel, a purely spiritual entity with no previous tie to a physical existence. Amoretta couldn't be sure, since she had no memory of her past life before her current incarnation, only vague ghosts that sometimes danced in her dreams.
In a way, she'd realized a few years ago when the topic came up, it was fortunate that the one who loved her was of the same sex. Even if Amoretta was a normal human woman she would not have been able to conceive a child with Lillet, so the infertility inherent in her body's nature didn't make things any worse.
But it didn't make them any better, either.
"I've been thinking about it more often, lately," Lillet said quietly. They'd released their embrace, but still stood closely together, Lillet's hand warm around Amoretta's.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Amoretta asked.
Lillet smiled wanly.
"I don't think that would do any good."
"It might, even if it's only to let me share what you're feeling. And if you're in pain, it doesn't do any good to hide that truth."
"Oh, Amoretta, you're always so honest."
For her part, Amoretta always found it strange how people were so often dishonest with themselves and each other. It was so much neater and cleaner to simply say what one meant. Yet people so rarely did so, and even more oddly the lies were so often not for sinful reasons but to avoid causing others pain and worry--yet, Amoretta thought, the major reason that the truth sometimes did wound was because people were so conditioned to expect a polite lie that the truth was like a sudden bright light in pitch darkness.
"Do you still love me?" she asked.
"Of course! Amoretta, how could you even--"
Amoretta reached out and pressed two fingers against Lillet's lips, silencing her protests.
"Then so long as that isn't what you have to say, nothing you can tell me, no pain you have to share, could hurt worse than seeing you worried and hurting and bearing the burden alone for fear of hurting me." Saying it was easy, because it was true. Getting Lillet to believe it might be harder, but Lillet trusted her honesty.
"All right," she told Amoretta after a moment's consideration. "You're right; I'm not being fair to you." She glanced around the foyer. "Can we go somewhere else and talk about this?"
"Why not the parlor? The tea things are already set out."
"A cup might help me relax," Lillet agreed.
The parlor was a light and airy room, with a series of bay windows facing the front of the house. The predominant color was white, with floral patterns on the wallpaper and carpet that gave the room an atmosphere of feminine elegance. They used it often for receiving social calls from Court ladies and gentlemen, whether it was Lillet's rank and position or Amoretta's growing fame as a singer that drew them. A silver tea-tray sat on the low central table; Amoretta removed the padded cosy from the china teapot and poured the still-steaming liquid into a delicate cup, then added lemon and passed the cup to Lillet.
"Thank you."
Though they usually sat next to one another when they were alone together, often touching, this time they took facing seats as if by mutual instinct. Lillet sipped her tea, gathering her thoughts. Love and family, Amoretta had learned, were the only things that could put Lillet at a loss for what to do, so she waited patiently, letting Lillet come to it in her own time.
"I've...been thinking about it a lot over the past few months," she finally began.
"Oh?"
"You know that it's always been a thought for me, that I wanted to have children someday." When Amoretta nodded, Lillet continued, "When I was younger, though, it didn't really matter much. I mean, at eighteen or nineteen, I had much more immediate concerns and wants. Having a baby was a matter for the far-off future, so my concerns were...abstract, I guess I'd call it."
She took another sip of tea.
"But I'm older now, getting into the age where most women who want children have had one--or more--and it's really started to hit home. It's...it's not that I have any regrets. I've gotten to do things and live a life that I could only dream about as a girl. I mean, if Dad had told me that when I grew up I'd visit the palace and regularly talk to Her Majesty and live in the capital in a home big enough for everyone in the village, or that I'd become a magician and fight ghosts and devils and evil wizards, or that I'd find the kind of love that poets and playwrights and storytellers go on about and be able to feel it grow stronger every day for years on end...well, I'd have thought Mom had let the cider ferment too long! I wouldn't give up a bit of it!"
Lillet sighed, then smiled wanly.
"I guess it's just human nature to always want more. I know there are some people who don't want children and are perfectly happy that way, but I do want a family. I do want to be a mother."
"I see."
"And of course we can't have a child together. You couldn't even have one with a man, could you?"
Amoretta shook her head.
"No, I don't think so."
"I didn't either. Most alchemical creations don't even have a gender, so it's amazing work that you're female; I have no idea where I'd possibly begin trying to make a homunculus that could reproduce."
It was odd. Lillet was only stating the plain facts, not any kind of insult, and yet it sent a stab of pain through Amoretta's heart. The irony of her own words come back to her bitterly. Lillet not trusting her might have been a worse pain, but that didn't mean that this wouldn't hurt as well.
"You...want a child very badly, don't you, Lillet?" she asked. For her to offer an apology wasn't appropriate; her pain came not from anything she'd done wrong but because she hadn't been able to help her love.
Lillet nodded.
"I do. I want someone to carry on in the future. I want the things that I've done to have lasting value. I..." Her large, bright eyes, their shade more of a true purple than a violet, grew moist. "I want us to be a family in every way."
Amoretta considered that. She certainly judged that she and Lillet were bound together as tightly as any husband and wife, and she couldn't see how a child would change that. Yet there was at least something in what she said. Family was made up of an extended group of people joined by bonds of love. It wasn't the same as having one person to love in the romantic sense. Amoretta had never really had such a thing. Her creator had only seen her as the product of his alchemy, a remarkable creation but not as someone to love. It was why she was with Lillet, who could give her the love she so desperately needed. Indeed, her dependence on Lillet's love was so great it would have been a bit disturbing in a human being; they both knew it, even as they also knew it was an inescapable fact of her nature as a homunculus.
"I'd like that too," she said.
"What?" It seemed to surprise Lillet.
"I'd also like to have a family with you," she said. "I've never been part of one before, and while your family has been very kind to me, they live well away and we don't see them very often. It would be nice."
"Amoretta, are you saying that..."
She nodded.
"I may not be able to conceive a child, but I would not object to raising one." She paused, considering her words. "I don't know if I would make a very good mother, but I'm sure that you would, and I am certain that I would love any child of ours."
Lillet's face lit up.
"Amoretta..."
"Now, the only question is to determine how two women together can have a child," she said more matter-of-factly. Just seeing Lillet happy made her want to jump across the table and embrace her again, but she really wanted to finish the discussion completely. "The first way would be for you to conceive a natural child with a willing man."
"No," said Lillet flatly.
"There are difficulties--particularly since a worthy man probably would not want to abandon his rights and responsibilities as a father, and--"
"I said no," Lillet repeated. "That idea's not even open for discussion. I would never let anyone but you touch me in that way." Amoretta was a bit surprised--Lillet had used the same tone of voice as when she'd pledged her love to Amoretta, that from-the-heart intensity that was almost a kind of fury. "It would be just like adultery, even if it is for a specific and limited purpose. Male or female, for love or pleasure or fertility, it doesn't matter--I'll have you and no one else."
A warmth seemed to spread through Amoretta, almost as if she could feel the heat from Lillet's feelings.
"I'd...have been willing if it was what you wanted, but I'm so glad that it's not."
"Little love, you'll always come first with me, for now and for always." It was an endearment, but Amoretta could feel the intensity behind it that made it a promise as well.
"As will you, with me."
They were silent for a few seconds, letting the moment linger, before Amoretta continued with the subject.
"Anyway, if we rule out a natural child, then that leaves adoption."
Lillet nodded.
"I suppose so," she said, then sighed.
"What's wrong?"
"I...I feel like I'm a bad person for saying this, but...I don't want to adopt. I want a child of my own." She looked directly at Amoretta. "I want a child of our own, one that's of us, not just raised by us."
Amoretta considered that.
"I think that I see what you mean. I doesn't seem like a very charitable attitude, but yet a very natural one. People certainly want children, or else they wouldn't have them." Lillet winced slightly at "not very charitable," which Amoretta regretted, but there really wasn't any other way to put it. A decision not to adopt, after all, meant a child who would have to grow up in an orphanage or on the streets. Yet, at the same time, there was something to Lillet's feelings. The idea of a child who could carry on one's own bloodlines held a powerful appeal. Even Amoretta, a created life without a family history at all, wasn't completely immune to the allure of the idea. The problem was that the idea was an irrelevancy.
"I can understand," she continued, "but Lillet, there's no way for two women to have a natural child together."
"All right, yes," Lillet said. "Nature does require male and female to produce human offspring...but what about an unnatural child?"
"I'm not really sure that I understand."
"Well, you're an unnatural life, in the sense that you were created by alchemy. Magic let you exist, so...I'd like to see if it can bridge that gap. I'm an ordinary woman who as far as I know can have a baby. I just need to see if I can find a way to make that baby yours."
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