Conan and his baby. (Patreon)

Conan and his baby

By

Cooper and Kadee

It was his baby’s kicking that woke Conan, well before dawn. He put his hands gingerly over his swollen belly. “Calm, calm,” he whispered in his soft voice, not wanting to wake Sonja. As he sat up, his breasts swayed, and he realized they were leaking.

“Ugh.” Another kick, and a hard one.  Conan got up, found a rag to dab the milk leaking from his nipples. They were tender, and he winced even as his baby delivered another kick.

What’s gotten into you? There was no point trying to go back to sleep, so he decided to climb out of the tent, get the fire going.  His breath steamed in the chill morning air, and he was about to step out of the tent when he froze. There was a man on the edge of the camp, a Nemedian raider by the looks of him. He had his blade drawn.

“Sonja!” Conan screamed, retreating into the tent, terrified. He wrapped his arms around his belly and cowered, though it shamed him to do so.  Ever since his body swap, he’d felt an ever growing need to protect his baby at all costs.

“What is it?” Sonja said, instantly snapping awake and seizing her scimitar. A trained warrior, she could go from a deep sleep to fully alert in less than a second.

“A man!” Conan said, his voice high, strained, shaking with fear.

Sonja burst through the flaps on the tent. Conan heard the clatter of steel on steel, then a groan and the sound of a body thumping to the ground. Footsteps began to crunch slowly toward the tent.

“Sonja?” Conan whispered. He looked around for a weapon, something he could wield with his small arms, and he grabbed a pillow, brandishing it.

A moonlit shadow hovered outside the tent. Conan’s heart raced. “Sonja?”

A hand pulled back the tent flap and Sonja glanced in, clearly annoyed. “Hush! There may be more  of them!”

Conan nodded, now clutching the pillow to his ample chest. Thank the Gods! Sonja was alive.

“Stay here and don’t make a sound!” Sonja hissed, pulling the tent flap closed.

Conan trembled.  His baby kicked and kicked again. Conan almost whispered to his baby, wanting to calm it, but Sonja had ordered him to stay quiet, and she could be so cross with him when he didn’t listen. Instead, he began to rock gently back and forth, hoping to calm his baby and himself.  The second seemed like hours. All he could do was wait.

Eventually, he heard rustling in the bushes, and Sonja called, “It’s me. Don’t  be afraid.”

Conan sighed and almost fainted with relief. He crawled out of the tent.  It was hard to even move, his belly had grown so great with child. Outside, Sonja was searching through the clothes of the raider.  She had blood on her face and hands.

“Are you hurt?” Conan gasped.

“I’m fine. The blood’s all his. He was alone. I didn’t find any other tracks, but we should probably get moving soon. Make yourself useful and start breaking camp.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Sonja scowled at Conan, and he looked away, ashamed.  He knew she looked at him as a burden now. A pregnant woman, he slowed her down and to her mind didn’t provide much value. He knew.  But hadn’t he been the one to warn her about the raider?

He put a hand to his belly once more.  Had his baby sensed the danger?  Had it been kicking so much to warn him? Conan smiled as he did what he could to pack up the camp, collecting and storing small objects in the saddle bags of their horses. He liked to think so, to believe that his baby had warned him.  In spite of his initial horror at finding himself with child, Conan felt a growing connection to his baby, a maternal love unlike anything he’d ever experienced.  It was so powerful! He wondered if he’’d ever been in love before, this new love was so strange and marvelous.

Sonja picked up the corpse of the raider and threw him over her shoulder.  She was so strong! “What will you do with him?” Conan asked.

“Throw him in the gully over there.  The wolves will do the rest.”

Conan’s heart ached for the boy’s mother.  He looked so young! She would never know what happened to him, never see him again.  It was so sad, and Conan had to hold back his tears.  Sonja would  be so angry if she saw him crying over some useless raider, especially one that had meant them harm.

He understood. He once would have felt the same way, but, well, feelings were feelings, and he couldn’t control his woman’s heart.

They rode south toward Nemer, the capital of Nemedia.  It had been Sonja’s decision. “There are many wizards there,” she said. “Perhaps one of  them can help you with your – condition.” She referred to his condition in the same tone of voice she might use to refer to a pile of shit.  “And, failing that, we can at least find you a midwife.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Conan had said at the time. “I am not having this baby.”

“It may not be up to you,” Sonja had said, looking at his belly in disgust. The baby will come when it wants to and whether you like it or not.”

Conan hadn’t answered.  He was lost in despair thinking about the possibility that he would have to give birth to this child, to feel the agony of childbirth, to have it slide out of him. He was Conan! He was a warrior and a man! Such a thing should not be possible. Crom! He’d thought. Blast the gods and their infernal toying with the lives of… men?

Since then, Conan’s thoughts had changed.  He took comfort in the thought that he would have a midwife present and dreaded the thought he might have his baby in the wilderness. He no longer dreaded the thought of baring the child; he merely accepted that it was likely his fate.

Conan the Barbarian had made peace with the idea that he would be a mother.

His mind went back to the day he’d been trapped.  He and Sonja had come to Nemedia in search of a fabled tomb said to be filled with riches and magical treasures. Sonja had acquired the map from a dying adventurer– or so she said. Conan suspected she may have killed him.  They set up camp near the Salt Pools of Genghos, and after making love, Conan had decided to take a bath. Sonja had declined, saying she liked the smell of him on her.

Conan smiled, thinking back on that love session, perhaps the last he would enjoy in this life. Making love to Sonja was like wrestling a tigress.  She made him earn every second of it, and her ferocity had driven him to a mad lust like he’d rarely experienced.

The baths were said to have wondrous restorative powers, and Conan had been thinking that if it were true, he would return to Sonja ready for another struggle in the hay. As  he’d approached the pools, he heard a soft sobbing.

Was that a woman?  Conan had followed the sound and found a petite woman, a girl, truly, great with child, tears pouring down her cheeks. She gasped with fright at the sight of him, and tried to scurry away.  “Do not fear me,” Conan had said, holding out his hand.  “I will do you know harm.”

“Can you help me?” The girl said, wiping her tears, looking up at him with her big, innocent green eyes. “My husband and I were traveling and he grew sick. I am alone and with child!”

“I will bring you to a safe place,” Conan said.  “We passed a village some leagues back.”

“You are a most noble man!” The girl had said, holding out her hand.  And, just as Conan reached to take it, a wicked smirk had played across her lips, and those innocent eyes had slit like a serpents.  Conan started to pull his hand back, but she seized it, and he felt himself wrenched from his body, spun and then he was looking up at– himself?

He looked down and saw small hands, a swollen belly. No. No. This can’t be, he’d thought, refusing to believe he was now that girl, refusing to believe it was now he who carried a child.

The girl laughed in his deep, thundering voice. “Conan the Barbarian! It is I, the witch Deselia. You fell right into my trap.”

“Undo this curse!” Conan had cried, shocked at the sound of his small, female voice. He tried to get to his feet, but unused to the burden he now carried, he fell  back down, landing on his rear.

Deselia grabbed his chin and forced him to look up at her.  “You are a just a girl now, and you will soon be a mother! Get used to feeling helpless!”

Conan had punched her, but his tiny fists just slapped harmlessly against her hard muscle.  Deselia laughed once more, then shoved Conan onto his back and swaggered away.

“Come back here!” Conan screamed, struggling to his to his feet. “You can’t leave me like this!”

His only answer was the sound of a deep, masculine laugh.

Conan sat there for a time, terrified, shocked, too ashamed to even think about facing Sonja in this body.  But night began to fall, and the air grew cool and loud with the baying of the wolves.  Sonja was sitting by the campfire, roasting some sort of prairie animal she killed, when a meek little woman, clearly with child, had crept into camp.

“Sonja,” she said in a sweet, pretty voice, her cheeks flushed with shame.  “It’s me.  It’s Conan.”