[Commission] Hearts Forged Together
Fandom: The Elder Scrolls Pairing: Sotha Sil/Monstrous OC of unspecified gender ("Lunar"; it/its pronouns; sometimes referred to as Sil's "wife") Rating: Mature Content Warnings/Tags of note: NSFW, moderately-explicit sexual content, breeding, planned pregnancy, pregnant sex, use of magical technology, medical experimentation, medical examination, belly and breast growth, visible belly movement, lactation, mild praise kink, mild D/s relationship, mild transformation, multiple fetuses, food cravings, asexual (but not sex-adverse) Sotha Sil Length: 3,296 words
Summary: Far into the future, Sotha Sil passes his days by recalibrating the somewhat unstable genetics of the curious being he calls his "wife". With progress being made and Lunar increasingly insistent that it wishes to build a family with him, Sil decides that it's finally time to indulge it, curious about the changes it'll experience over time.
Commission for @living-rot!
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The air is thick with the scent of oil and hot metal, while a haze of smoke lies over the city like early morning mist. Above, light shines down from the Celestiodrome to glint off obsidian towers adorned with polished brass filigree. An endless web of pipes weaves throughout the arcano-mechanical metropolis, interspersed here and there by the shimmering metallic foliage of fabricant trees.
On a balcony high above the hustle and bustle of the Brass Fortress stands a lone figure, draped in silks of white and pale blue. It's not unlike a statue in some ways, still and silent as it observes the movements of the city's patchwork populace below.
While the citizens of this mechanized city come from a myriad of races and origins, both natural and synthetic, its watcher is something… else. More than a man, less than a god. The Father of Mysteries, patron of artificers and wizards, and the architect of the entire plane of Clockwork City—the Tinkerer himself.
A puff of warm air from a simulated breeze stirs hair as fine and pale as spider's silk, blowing the soft strands across ash gray skin. His eyes –a rich carmine– are surprisingly impassive, giving him the distant, cool gaze of a being who's seen and done much beyond the ken of mortals.
He watches, but he no longer mingles.
He observes, but he does not participate.
Sotha Sil regards his city for another quiet moment, the lifework which has become his place of solitude now that he’s withdrawn from the rest of the world. Then he turns, gestures, and disappears into a swirl of ice-blue light.
—
Down in the bowels of the Brass Fortress, tucked amidst the subterranean chambers of the Mechanical Fundament, lies the neutral center of Clockwork City. Therein, Sotha Sil finds sanctuary. Therein, he has a place to call home.
There are many rooms in the Tinkerer's private sanctum, most devoted to study or research, but the one he enters today is more reminiscent of an infirmary. Of course, it's much more sophisticated than any Nirn might boast of; it's not prideful to say so, for it is a simple fact.
In the center of this room lies a broad tank of metal and glass, its interior filled with a bubbling, murky liquid. And floating in the liquid is a creature.
"Hello, my love," Sil murmurs, dragging the fingertips of his mechanical arm across the cool glass before giving the surface a pointed knock. "It's time for you to awaken."
Within the tank, the creature stirs.
There is no name for the entity that is slowly coming around, for it is just as much of a one-of-a-kind creation as the city above—though not one of his own.
In the dim glow of the healing tank, the creature drifts weightlessly in the viscous liquid, like a phantom trapped in ether. Its slender, alien frame floats with a gentle sway, two pairs of voluminous wings extended and partially curled around its form like a cloak. Bioluminescent red patterns run up and down its limbs, casting soft ripples of crimson light into the tank's fluid. The black and white skin that bisects its body contrasts sharply beneath those crimson motifs, forming an ethereal, unsettling beauty.
Its head hangs forward, the white feathers of its head fanning out and drifting through the fluid like seaweed. The creature's face is calm, with its large eyes still closed as if it is deep in slumber. Two pairs of arms ending in sharp claws twitch and curl, while a long tail trails downward, coiling near the bottom of the tank.
Suddenly, diamond-shaped eyes snap open.
The glowing red of its slit pupils pierces through the tank's murk, staring outward with unnatural stillness. For a moment, the current of the fluid seems to still, almost as if in reverence or fear. Its mouth does not open, but the angular lines of its face tense slightly as muscles shift beneath its skin, revealing that the creature is fully aware of Sil's presence—no longer sleeping, but silently watching.
The being remains motionless, like an ancient god caught in suspended animation, poised between awakening and outburst.
Some might view it as monstrous. Others, a strange conglomeration of reptilian and avian features that should not exist.
Sotha Sil looks upon it and sees someone beloved.
He hums in acknowledgement upon seeing its eyes open, though little of his expression changes. "There you are, Lunar. Come on, it's time for you to take a break so I can check your biodata."
With a few taps of his fingers, he toggles the release mechanism for the cables that have been plugged into the back of its head for the past couple of days. His attempts to recalibrate its genetics to a state more congruent with the myriad of its incompatible parts have been somewhat successful—slow going, but enough to call progress.
Lunar sinks and kicks off from the bottom of the tank, rising to the exit hatch. It emerges from the tube with practiced, fluid ease, dropping to a crouch on its digitigrade heels.
"Wait," he orders, his voice calm. With a flick of a wrist, he motions for a factotum to approach with a large rectangle of absorbent fabric.
Lunar trills out its impatience, shifting restlessly as if weighing the prudence of shaking its body free of the liquid still dripping from its skin.
"Wait," Sil reiterates, his tone lower and clipped in a way that conveys he won't accept disobedience.
The being settles, watching him closely as the mechanical construct drapes the towel over its form and methodically rubs it dry.
It's not until the factotum completes its task and shambles back to its place that Sil reaches out to rest his organic hand between Lunar's horns—one tipped in red, and one tipped in pink metal. "Good girl," he murmurs.
The effect of his words is immediate. Lunar shudders in visible pleasure, nuzzling up onto his hand. "Sil," it coos, its tail thumping happily against the ground. "My darling. I missed you."
"I've missed you as well. Now, how are you feeling after this last treatment?"
His recalibrations generally go well, part of a near-constant study of the unusual creature he’s come to call his wife, and the being chatters on about its experiences in the tank as Sil scrawls notes on an arcane tablet. Lunar does its best to peek at what he's writing, both its primary and secondary wings fluttering in interest. "What's it say?" it chirps, its tail twining around his leg in contentment. "Am I healthy? Am I thriving? Is it finally time for babies?"
The question brings Sil's writing to a pause. That's a question Lunar has asked many, many times over the years; considering its affinity with the 'fertility' of this fabricated plane, he can't say that its urging is all that surprising.
Sil makes a soft, thoughtful sort of sound and carefully sets the tablet aside to shift his focus to it. "You are healthy, yes, and your body seems to be more stable. I trust that you've refrained from constructing any more hives beneath my city?"
He's in tune enough with his creation to already know the answer, but Sil still tries to encourage honesty from the chaotic being who’s engaged in its share of mischief.
"No no no, no hives. No more empty eggs. No drones. I have been good." Lunar's head bobs in its excitement, and its clawed fingers curl eagerly around Sil's arm. "Very good, just like I promised. So, can we make babies now? Please, my love?"
Its enthusiasm is almost enough to tease a faint chuckle from the otherwise stoic Dunmer. "You've been waiting so patiently while I've finished up a few other projects," he says, pulling it up from its crouch. Cradling Lunar against his side, Sil slides a couple of cool metal fingers along its cheek. "To be frank, I've been monitoring various biomarkers related to conception during your regular treatment. And though you may not currently be in season, it was simple enough to adjust your hormone levels to a more beneficial level for its facilitation."
Lunar tilts its head and blinks. "So… babies?"
His wife is not the most intelligent being ever, but he still finds something about its simplicity refreshing. So he offers it a rare smile. "Yes, my love. Babies."
—
Sex has never been a driving force in Sotha Sil's life. He's always found the act of procreation to be more of a curiosity, an experiment in the nuanced workings of mortal bodies.
That said, he can't deny that coitus doesn't provide its own sort of gratification.
Like now. Lunar lies sprawled across his bed in a jumble of limbs, a maw filled with jagged teeth open and panting while he moves between its thighs. As a quasi-deity of fertility itself, Lunar yearns for the creation of new life in much the same way he yearns to understand how it works; it clutches at him and keens as he fills the soft, clam-shaped protrusion of its genitals, eternally fascinated with the fleshy filaments that eagerly pull him deep and try to coax out his seed.
“My love,” it croons, its hips rocking up to meet Sil’s every thrust. Its eyes are almost entirely black but for the red, dilated slashes of its pupils. “My darling. Please, please give me babies. I’ve been good!”
And oh, it has, hasn’t it? There’s a faint whirl of clockwork as Sil adjusts his position, his robotic limbs angling Lunar’s hips for deeper penetration. “That’s right,” he murmurs, his crimson gaze raking appreciatively over its lithe, quivering body. “You have been so obedient for me as of late.”
Lunar nods, its feathered wings fluttering restlessly against the sheets. The way it moves beneath him is enough to stir even Sil’s cool heart to passion. It seems to have lost its words, unable to do little more than trill amid its pleasure, a pointed tongue lolling from its too-wide mouth.
“And such submission should be properly rewarded.” A few strands of pale hair fall messily around his face as he begins to move within it with more intention. “How can I possibly tell you no?”
Sil wants to see how his wife changes during pregnancy, its body shifting and swelling to accommodate his offspring.
He wants to know what their children will look like, a fusion of Dunmer and whatever creature Lunar is.
He wants to finally, finally present it with a gift it’s been begging for for so long: the gift of progeny.
And with those thoughts in mind, Sil releases the immaculately firm grasp he’s held on his control and spills into his eager wife.
—
“Babies?”
Sil arches a pale eyebrow but otherwise does not respond to Lunar’s query. There’s no use, at least not yet, not when he’s only just begun his examination.
Spread out across a large brass table in one of Sil’s labs, Lunar can barely remain still in its excitement. It’s been only a few days since they last copulated, but his wife’s eagerness for this potential pregnancy has left it clingy and jittery. While Sil feels that it’s far too soon to notice any indicative changes, he also hasn’t had the chance to examine Lunar during an active pregnancy; it’s because of this lack of knowledge that he eventually gives in to Lunar’s begging, knowing he won’t get a shred of peace until he does.
The fact that it gives him another excuse to canvass Lunar’s body is merely a bonus.
“Please, dear,” it coos, wriggling across the polished surface in a manner that heralds much more to its reptilian aspects than its usual avian ones. “Check for babies.”
“Patience,” he murmurs, though he’s unable to keep the corner of his mouth from curling in a faint smile. “I cannot check anything if you keep moving around, my love.”
He waits until Lunar complies before pressing a long metal rod back against its abdomen, the round, blunted end of it nudging firmly into its soft skin. A long cable trails from the rod back to a humming, gently rotating ball of condensed magicka held within an iron cage—a device of his creation, inspired by the scrying magic of the fabled Obscuros. Coupled with Sil’s own arcane abilities, the apparatus both amplifies his Sight and casts a holographic construct into the air above it. In this case, he can use it to reveal the mysteries within Lunar’s body.
With one hand, Sil holds the wand in place. With the other, he gestures at the crackling silver-blue, three-dimensional projection, zooming in and rotating it with a few flicks of his fingers. There’s not much to see within the darker cavity of Lunar’s womb, unfortunately, and certainly no sign of offspring.
“I don’t see anything, my love.”
Chirping softly, Lunar playfully flicks his thigh with the end of a feathered tail. “Look closer.”
So Sil zooms in again. And again. And again. Red eyes search the image with the patience of a deity, looking for anything out of the ordinary. When that still doesn’t reveal anything, Sil curls his free hand into a fist and sends his fingers flying outward in a burst of swirling blue Alteration magic.
And just like that, a pair of glowing orbs like sun-kissed sapphires appear, tucked to one side of the hologram and highlighting two tiny lives in the earliest days of their existence.
Struck speechless, Sil silently watches the dancing motes of light for a few moments before turning back to Lunar, his eyes bright with unspoken amusement. “You knew, didn’t you? Of course you did.”
Lunar giggles, clearly pleased with itself. It drags a claw over its featureless chest and pauses, lingering carefully around a darkened patch of skin that had not been there the last time Sil examined it. “To feed the babies,” it purrs, the stain of red on its cheeks growing faintly darker.
Their offspring are little more than a pair of zygotes at this stage, impossibly small and featureless where they lie tucked into the lining of their parent’s womb. But they are there.
Sil can’t help but be pleased.
—
"Sil. Look, darling!"
Months have passed since Lunar conceived. It's but a flash in the life of a near-immortal being, but that fact doesn't change the inherent wonder that comes with the development of new life.
"I am looking, love," he murmurs, sprawled out on his side in their shared bed as they enjoy a slow start to their day. Lunar has just finished yet another meal of the fish it’s been constantly craving as of late, and it seems to have moved on to attention-seeking behavior instead. Not that Sil can genuinely say that he minds; the pregnancy has been the catalyst for many changes in Lunar's body, and Sil finds himself eager to record each and every one of them.
These days, his wife’s luxurious feathers have transmuted into soft, silky hair to match the more mammalian features of its mate. Its once nondescript chest sprouted a pair of dusky nipples before newly formed mammary glands began to swell the tissue with milk. Its body is clearly preparing to care for their coming young, even if it means changing in ways Sil has never seen before. But most noticeably, the once-faint paunch of Lunar’s abdomen now juts prominently from its waist, a massive mound that undulates thanks to the active offspring growing within its womb.
Sil presses his organic hand against the surface, reveling in the way it shifts and squirms beneath his touch. "Our children are quite vigorous, much like their carrier."
With a happy trill, Lunar slips out from under his touch and spins onto its hands and knees, coyly peeking back over its shoulder at him. From this angle, Sil is presented with a breathtaking view of its sex peeking out at the apex of its thighs, with its heavy belly hanging temptingly between them. “Look, Sil,” it simpers again, arching its tail and flicking the tip from side to side. The cilia that surround its opening quiver and extend in a clear display of excitement.
And Sil looks.
He looks, and he touches, and it isn’t long before he’s kneeling behind it with a hand on each buttock. Gray skin on white, polished brass on black, squeezing as though to test the firmness of both, while Lunar whimpers out its need.
His fingers follow the contours of its swollen, roiling belly, fascinated by the movement of their near-term young.
He checks the weight of Lunar’s new breasts against his palms, fondling the taut skin and thumbing at its engorged nipples until they drip and the creature beneath him sobs.
And when it all becomes too much, when Lunar is practically mewling and grinding back in near-feral lust, Sil wraps his fingers around a pink-tipped horn and gently but firmly presses its face down against the bed, silently urging it into submission. It takes a moment for his wife to yield, its body trembling and its breath coming in harsh gasps, but the moment it does, he gives it what it wants. What they both want, in their own unique ways.
Lunar craves pleasure, the sensation of being filled and bred. Sil desires the chance to observe and study as he dutifully plunges in and out of its warmth. Together, they move as one, the product of their shared affection visibly wriggling in the massive orb swinging heavily beneath Lunar.
The great brass hands of the clock ticking down to the eventual dawn of parenthood might be moving with steadfast speed, but in this moment, they exist outside of time.
Lunar is a vision like this, its wings quivering and its tail coiling around his torso like a brassilisk. Arching, writhing, scrabbling at the sheets, Lunar warbles out its delight as it enthusiastically takes what Sil provides, until the moment when everything becomes too much and it swiftly shatters.
Sil allows himself to follow just behind, gears whirring and lips parting in a satisfied gasp.
—
There’s a warm, sated haze that hangs over them after, the two beings tangling instinctively together while their bodies return to homeostasis. Sil’s hands move meticulously over Lunar’s sweat-damp skin as he spoons it from behind, eternally exploring, while the twins within its belly continue to kick and tent its skin. Lunar merely purrs, seeming to savor the attention.
Then, it shifts. Its strange, angular face peeks back over its shoulder to fix Sil with a gaze full of entreaty. “Darling? Sil? My dear?”
Sil hums in response, his organic fingers tracing glowing red designs and the taut boundary between black and white skin. “Yes, love?”
Lunar attempts to give off an air of coyness, but there’s clearly something mischievous behind those slitted eyes. “I want more fish.”
“Do you, now?” Sil asks with a deadpan expression. “You just ate.”
“Yes.” The end of its tail swishes lazily back and forth, the fine hair at the tip brushing teasingly over his bare skin. “Babies are hungry.”
“Are you sure that it’s not merely Lunar who is hungry after all that exertion?”
The creature chirps, offering Sil the widest, most innocent gaze it can manage while cheekily toying with a still-damp nipple. “Lunar’s body feeds the babies, so Lunar needs to eat. So… more fish, please?”
Lunar can be a chaotic, vexatious puzzle, a wild thing that upends Sil’s otherwise orderly life. But at the end of the day, Lunar is perfect in its imperfections, for he loves it too much to claim otherwise. Sil laughs then, the sound rare and soft, like the sigh of a clock that has just remembered how to chime. “How can I possibly tell you no?”
—
AO3
