First, a lesson in family genetics

"Ummm, my lady, I believe that Princess Penelope may already be..." Kathryn started, her voice dying off and another blush coming across her face as she tried to explain. "That is to say..."

"Mother, it's likely that I'm already with child." Penelope cut in, finally clarifying what Kathryn was struggling to say.

"Ohhh, is that so? You naughty little minxes." Amelia's mischievous tone had so much blood rushing to their faces they were on the verge of passing out. "Now, Penelope dear, how much have I explained to you about the royal bloodline?"

"Well, you personally, not much." Penelope said taken a little aback by the sudden change in topic. "However my tutors have told me about the hallmarks of our family line, we only give birth to females, not to mention the pink hair, the grey eyes, the *ahem* ample bosoms."

"It seems that you are woefully under educated in this regard, perhaps this is a side effect of not spending enough time with your doting mother?" Amelia put on an impish pout, fully adopting the role of scorned matriarch. "Regardless, there are several parts of our royal inheritance the scholars would not know as much about, first and foremost, a hearty resistance to impregnation."

"One of our ancestors, I forget which one if I'm being quite honest, was involved in a ritual to try and grant our bloodline immunity to poison, she mostly succeeded, and I must admit that it is quite handy to not have to worry about being poisoned, however it seems that this ritual counts semen as a 'poison' to be fought off." Amelia continued, reaching out one arm to wrap around Penny's shoulders so that she could whisper conspiratorially in her ear. "This results in the Sigardian royal family being incredibly difficult to inseminate, a good thing I suppose, otherwise you would have far more sisters than you already do."

The blush in Penelope's face was so strong she could hear her heart beating in her ears, obviously she had first-hand experience with just how much her mother slept around, just thinking about it brought back all of the memories of times that she had walked in on her mother in a 'compromising' situation. Though something about what Amelia had said had struck a chord in her analytical mind though, a resistance to poison, that was awfully vague, if the ritual would count semen as a poison to be eradicated she wondered just how far the definition could spread.

"Umm, does that mean that we would be immune to other things that aren't poisons?"

"Such as what, my dear?" Amelia responded, a lilt of intrigue in her voice.

"Ummm, perhaps something like..." Penelope leaned forward to whisper in her mother's ear. "Goddess' flame."

Amelia's eyes lit up with smug knowing, Penelope blanched, of course she should've known that her mother would know that Goddess' flame was a powerful aphrodisiac and would rightly assume that it had been a prominent ingredient in her love potion.

"Unfortunately my dear, we would be fully immune to its effects." Amelia responded loudly, her voice haughty and self-satisfied. "I'm afraid there's not much in the way of concoctions or infusions that could affect our enhanced constitution."

Penelope struggled to grasp what that meant, if she was immune to the effects of her love potion, then that would mean what she had done up in the tower had all been...

She couldn't bear to think on it further, worried that the overload of shame might very well kill her.

"Another interesting fact that you may like to hear, the Princess tower that you've set up your rooms in." Amelia said, one hand helping Kathryn up from where she had knelt stunned for quite some time. "Well it was originally named as such because the Queen would reside there whilst she didn't have an heir and she was only allowed down when she finally produced a princess. Now I believe, you two have somewhere to be."