In the last tale I told about a good gentle who is either inactive in the Society or if active are not very often seen in the environs of Seleone. I’m going to continue in that trend by introducing our SCA offspring.
For starters, it is somewhat embarrassing to have to admit that my union with Isolde has produced issue in light of the fact that our personae are not married! (See Vintage Tale #12: An Old Fashioned Wedding.) However as you know accidents do occur and so it was with our firstborn: Johnny.
A few months after Isolde and I had become what they so proseaicly call “an item”, a young man by the name of John joined the Sire of Morgana back in Eastrealm. John was a rather tall gentleman, 6 feet 2 inches if I recall rightly, with red hair and a somewhat diffident nature; Isolde and I became friends with him.
One evening during the Spring semester, Isolde was doing some baking when John showed up at her apartment. He had been out throwing the Frisbee around with some friends, (This is a rite of Springs in the climes of Eastrealm), and had tripped and scrapped his knee. He had been headed back to his apartment when he decided to drop in on Isolde and I.
Isolde cleaned up and medicated the wound, sewed the torn knee of Johns’ jeans and gave him a freshly baked cookie. At this point, John looked at Isolde with watery eyes and asked, “Can I call you Mom?”
I quickly averred that of Isolde was his mom, I must be his father and so Isolde and I became parents.
Isolde reports that SCA motherhood is really rather nice, delivery is much less painful than mundane delivery and you don’t have to wait nine months. It is however, a little embarrassing when someone a head taller than you calls you Ma and the mundanes give you that,” Well preserved aren’t we?” look.
For several years Johnny was a lonely only, then our daughters were added. The girls, Elane and Susan were from the governors’ gifted program of the Gulfport School System. As their special project they chose to study medieval life and got in contact with Isolde while I was off a viking. One of the girls was a senior in high school and the other a junior, although I’ve forgotten which was which, and they were both very pretty, blue eyes blondes.
Once a week they would come over to Viking Vineyard Manor where Isolde and I would teach them about different aspects of medieval life. Isolde taught them how to sew cote hardies in preparation for the culmination of their lessons, attendance at the Axemoor Yule Feast and Revel.
The girls arrived at the Revel on Friday evening along with their instructor as chaperone. It was obvious from the start that their teacher was going to be a hard case; she didn’t like sleeping in a cabin or for that fact that men and women were sleeping together. Isolde tried to point out that those men and women were married to each other but this didn’t seem to make a difference.
In an effort to soften her up, Isolde introduced Sir Esteban to the teacher. Santos was the premier hand kisser of Axemoor, but the poor man nearly died from frostbit lips. Saturday morning, on a pretext, the teacher bolted.
This, of course, left Isolde and I with loco parentis. Since the girls had attracted the attention of several young men in attendance, I was a bit concerned about this, until I realized that it was rainy and cool outside and there was no privacy inside. I decided to give the girls their heads and enjoy the event.
Elane and Susan had a wonderful time; they played Pente most of the day and danced away most of the night. I did however noise it about that they were our daughters, so any young man with ideas would know who they would have to answer to.
The next morning did present us with a problem: namely how to get our charges back to Gulfport. We could have squeezed one into our little GLC wagon, but with all the equipage we could not fit both.
To the rescue came Rodrego, a young man from Seleone, who didn’t have much gear in his car and could take both girls. However, when Rodrego pulled his vehicle up the girls took one look and exclaimed, “It’s a Pinto! We’re all going to die!”
It was then that I realized that Elane and Susan were truly my daughters, they have the same twisted sense of humor.