That... Madeleine wasn't even sure that was getting an answer. She failed to see how the cute factor had anything to do with whether or not she should be having a litter or if her pregnancy should not be quite so long. Althea got there first, though. 'They're also far more edible - I don't see the point here.' Not quite how the elemental would have phrased it, but it would suffice. As long as her familiar did not choose to share that her own gestation period was between four to eight months and produced twenty-three snakelings on the last count, everything would be fine. She did not need more ammunition as to why she needed to have yet more children in one go. Knowing her luck, this pregnancy would end up in multiple babies just because the familiars and her mother had been talking about it. "Considerate." No, Madeleine wasn't certain she believed that, but she could play along well enough. "Well, thank you." Did being knocked up somehow mean she was required to say that more often? It felt like it was becoming more of a regular occurrence recently. "It will also be part-me," she pointed out, not even bothering to argue the wereling part. "I am decidedly not." Except when she was, and even then that was debatable. "Besides which, every child has a problem phase." What her own had been, she had no idea.
Mouth opening to argue back against that correction, Madeleine closed it again with the short release of breath that came with refusing to get into that argument. Zaviar wasn't an elemental and she wasn't a snake. If she threatened him with tepid water then perhaps they might come to an understanding. Perhaps. "Althea's loving it. I can feel the laziness in the back of my head..." Which, to someone as energetic as Madeleine tended to be, felt like a rather obvious and slow intrusion. At least it was one she was used to. "Mm, yes. I have a lot more control. There have been no more accidents." No, everything was quite deliberate. "Though I've yet to test my temper." She had lost her temper - at Darcie, for one - but she had yet to let herself really rage even inwardly. Before now, she had set fire to her own door-frames, people's clothing, mailboxes - whatever happened to be within her range or under her hand at the time - but she did not have the control to rein her element in. Now... She had an understanding, perhaps an unfortunate one, that Fire was not meant to be reined in, but she had also been spending more time with her element then before. If that had even been possible. "I've spent a lot of time in the fireplace up to my elbows," she admitted with a faint smile. 'Covered in soot,' Althea added. Tugging the rings from her fingers, Madeleine reached out to run the fingertips of one hand through the growing flames, instantly feeling better for the fire being there. It might not have truly been drier, but she was still more comfortable. Less so with the idea of asking Zaviar about a subject he was apparently refusing to even think about. If his familiar could get nothing from him on the matter, how would she? Pulling her hand back, she tilted her head to rest her temple against his chest, chin lifting slightly. "I saw the news." Well, she'd said it now. "They made it sound like a lamia." The oddly contemplative expression was mostly down to not knowing what else to say. That said, she would drop Knight's name in a heartbeat if she really ran out of options.
'You set the unsympathetic one on the one with the world's best pokerface,' Althea directed lazily at Knight. 'Interesting.' A beat. 'You need a paddling pool. Like my water bath, but for dogs.'