It was barely past noon and I found myself bone tired and shuffling through the sparse main street to a little cottage tucked between a livery and a blacksmithy. Knocking on the door, I was greeted by a tall Rugoshi, his curled horns gleaming with fresh wax. He looked to be later past middle age, but his features hid his true age well enough. I sighed, not sure what to ask.

“Can I help?” He let me into the shop. Warm tones. Shelves full of bottles, pots, and jars. Amulets, small animal bones, and cooking pots hung from the series of rafters that span the little building. A deep green door sat opposite of the shop entrance. A mild fire cast a yellow glow across a series of heavy tables with medicines in various stages of preparation. The dirt pack floor had been smoothed and polished to shining.

“I don’t really know. Maybe. I travel with a Rugoshi and a Karamide. I was sheltered as a child, heavily.” I couldn’t quite meet the man’s patient gaze, not with that type of lie. Instead, I loosely filled my head with the accoutrements of his shop. “You see, I have only, um, only now learned of something that I don’t know how to handle. As I said, I was very sheltered,” I gulped.

The apothecary raised an eyebrow, pointed to a seat at a crowded table, and offered a cup of rose pink liquid to me to drink. It tasted vaguely of raspberry, watermelon, and basil. I found it to be more than relaxing. He smiled gently as I settled against the backrest of my chair. “Can men really have children?” My filters of wariness and embarrassment dropped away like water from my skin.

The man chuckled gently. “Yujin can’t, no, but the rest of us, yes.”

“If it wouldn’t be too much, please, I don’t understand.” I found myself going back for more of the rose pink liquid.

“We have wombs, four or six depending on the People. Eight of the Nine Peoples don’t have a separated entrance like Yujin women do. We call it a channel.”

“Do women of the Eight have a penis then?”

“What could better be assumed of as a psuedopeen. It can engorge, but it does not produce life liquids. They also do not possess a sack and pair of testes like males.”

“Males have ovaries, though?”

“Ovaries?”

“Small organs near the womb that create the other half of the factor that lets…oh, that, body cutters aren’t a thing, so maybe that’s not…”

He cocked his head at my muttering. I guess that was something I would have to find out for myself.

“Never mind. Seasons? They are different from…” I couldn’t quite formulate the words. The apothecary pushed the cup to my lips. I swallowed, becoming warm and aware that the liquid probably was meant to make me comfortable at asking questions I was too afraid to ask. “Seasons are different from being, I don’t know what the right word is here, but aroused? Wanting to, I guess penetrate, rather than be penetrated?” I offered my muddled understanding.

The man chuckled at that. “Your tutors have done you quite a disservice, my young noble.”

I stared at him in horror. What had given me away? All the warmth evaporated from my gut.

He patted at the air in reassurance. “Now, now, now, don’t be so flustered. Your bearing alone would give you away, but that chain in your ear, and the cuffs along the other give you away as having money, my little noble.”

I touched the chain I had found comfort in running my fingers along.

“You have a Rugoshi and Karamide in season, though? And you come to me asking what is to be done? And maybe a lesson in what is happening?”

“I will pay for your time, sir.” I reached for my pocket bag.

He motioned me off from it. “No, no need for that, young noble. That you would come asking for advice tells me that you mean well by your slaves, and that in itself tells me you will most likely buy from me if I was to take advantage of you. No. Drink so that you are unafraid of questions and I will see what I can explain.”

“What is this?” I lifted the cup for him to pour another round.

“It is not toxic, and it will not make you do or agree to anything you do not wish to. It just makes it easier to talk.”

“So, wine.”

He chuckled at that. “No, not even that. It is steeped peva berry that’s been blended with wveck. It will only loosen your questions from you without you becoming embarrassed. I find it agreeable to use with patients who come through my doors with complaints they find difficult to express.”

“Ah, like stds.”

“Stds?” He cocked his head in a way that reminded me of Rowan.

“Sexually transmitted diseases.” I took another sip.

He shifted to regard me with lowered lids. “You know what those are, but not the form of your slaves.”

“Not slaves, no. My traveling companions. They are not as forthright in explaining, and this town does not have a library where I might consult a book to explain. So, I find myself taking advantage of your time to find if I need to be doing something for them.”

“Why would a Yujin care for a Rugoshi or a Karamide? Let alone travel with them? It may do you well to know if you are traveling into the mountains, that this is the last free town for Rugoshi and Karamide.” The apothecary forewarned.

“Sir?” I blinked at him, a cold pit sitting in my stomach.

He gave me a sad sort of smile that told me this world might be beautiful and terrible at the same time. “Let’s come back to that. For now, let’s turn to Rugoshi. They possess six wombs and go into heat every sixty days or so if they are in good health, both male and female. Males can bare male children only, and those that they bare will not grow horns. You have encountered this?” He guessed as a lightbulb went off about Rowan’s features that didn’t match the apothecary.

“Yes. My companion lacks the horns and has bright yellow eyes unlike your’s or many Rugoshi we have encountered on our travels.”

The apothecary gave me another approving smile. “It’s not so much that they are rare, but that often they are born in the military and kept in the military when it happens. It is common and encouraged in Kawl, for the men to keep the seasons from hampering them, to retain.”

“How would that even help? That must be uncomfortable at best and dangerous at worst.”

The apothecary encouraged me to sip again at the liquid. “Do you know much about the time it takes for a Rugoshi to carry a child?”

“No. Not at all. I didn’t even know their males could carry. Reason I’m here.”

The apothecary gave me a half nod, like he finally understood the whole scope of my being. “They can retain seed for several months before finally allowing pregnancy. Gestation is commonly a total of seven hundred days, give or take ten. It could take more than eight hundred days from the time of provision to when a child can be born and in that time, seasons end for the Rugoshi. It is common practice within the the military, especially a mixed military that isn’t Yujin, to have children timed in groups because of this.”

“And Karamides? Do they do the same? Is this common for the other groups?”

“It is. Yujin femlaes are the only ones who gestate without retention. They do not easily become pregnant either. But they are also long lived, so they have time to wait.”

“Can they cross?” I hadn’t remembered seeing anyone who looked like they were half one group, half another, but I had also hidden beneath my cloak hood for the most part if only to keep from embarrassing myself by asking something foolish yet again. Priscilla had looked only like her father, and I vaguely remembered Rowan saying something about providers that made me file the information away as weird genetics.

“Yes, they can. It is not uncommon, but different nations and cultures have their own judgements with regards to those children.”

“Is there anything I can do for my companions now? Are they in pain?” I ventured.

The apothecary sighed, a twitch of his lip giving away that he found this to be a pleasing question. “No, they aren’t quite so much in pain as they are bothered. Maybe frustrated would be a good way to explain?” He hedged. I nodded at that. “And they will wish desperately to make that restless energy stop. It is quite common when traveling to lock oneself away into a room and give their key to the innkeeper so that they may receive food and water, so as not become nuisances to the other patrons. They can, in their search to ease that sensation. You may have noticed on your travels that inns are sparse and rather rare. That is because most People do not travel, at least not long distances because of this.”

I shifted at that. Did I have their room key then? Could it lock and unlock both our doors? I hadn’t thought to check. It would have never occurred to me.

“I have some tools, and some creams that may be helpful. When did their season start?” He pushed away from the table and started rummaging about his shelves.

“We’ve only just arrived in the last couple of hours. They burn with fever, but neither were acting much different other than for that.”

The apothecary nodded at that. “Talk to them while they are still lucid and see if any of this will work for them.” He came back to the table and handed me a modest sized, woven bag. I reached into my pocket and drew out a silver clink without even looking at what he’d given me. He had sat, and talked, and explained. I would pay him for that alone. He tried to refuse it, so I laid it on the table. “You should be paid for your time. Value yourself enough for that.” I collected the bag.

“You are different, little noble.”

“I shouldn’t be.” I gave him that kind of sad smile that seems to universally share when two people mean much more by a little phrase like that.

“No, you shouldn’t be that different. Thank you for caring enough. I hope these help. Go, talk to them.”

“Can I get a bottle of the pink stuff too?” I pointed to what he had been plying with me.

“Yes, of course.” He pulled a waxed bottle from a different shelf and I pulled out a copper clink and raised an eyebrow to see if it would cover. He shook his head and handed it to me. “Your companions should be a bit more forthcoming, and you’ve paid me more than plenty.”

“Thank you again for your time.” I let myself out of the apothecary’s storefront and made my way back to the inn.

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