"Elves're weird. - not that I am expecting to be doing very much of the baby care."

"Yep, I don't know how the species has limped along to modernity but in the present day drow are solving it with slave labor and surface elves with a gentle extinction. Maybe on our original planet there are drugs that make us like babies or something."

"Or make them grow up faster. It's not five years for us."

"I wouldn't really want to tolerate a baby for a year either but I'd be more confident I could manage it without shaking it to death."

"They're sweet after a couple of months. They pay attention to you and smile and stuff."

"But they don't, like... talk. Like, I don't have anything against stuff that can't talk in full generality but stuff that can't talk and also wakes you up in the middle of the night -"

"I guess. I'm kinda with Fazil, I'd have eight but not twelve. If I had to bear them...I dunno. Sounds really unpleasant."

"I've heard it's bad for humans, yeah."

"Is it not, for drow?"

"I think less? I dunno, I can't actually rule out the possibility that there's a conspiracy among human women to claim it is the tortures of the Abyss to be sharply limited because their husbands won't leave them alone for reasons like 'she wanted him to'."

"Knew someone who didn't like magical healing after childbirth for that reason. 'I get two months off, don't you dare-'"

"Anyway, barring exotic theorizing I'm given to understand that elf pregnancy is gentler and childbirth nothing one can't handle on a bottle of wine."

"Well, that's good."

"Yeah. I can think of unrelated reasons behind every small drow family I know about."

"Infertility?"

"Well, yes, one way or another - we can turn it off, space things out, it's kind of a lengthy process to toggle either way but people do it a few times over the course of their lives. But it's usually motivated infertility. I don't have a ton of brothers and sisters, my mom was a softie."

"That's - good, I guess?"

"Sure."

"...I don't know much about drow, maybe it's not."

"No, I do mean sure, it's better there's not lots.

I have a sister though."

"Is she back with your family?"

"With our grandma and great aunt who household together, yeah."

"Can't take her with you?"

"Underage, they'd've chased us."

"For how long?"