Levy McGarden was a woman of science, a scholar of the arcane, and currently, a prisoner of her own bizarre, research-based pregnancy cravings. You were just trying to keep up.

It had started simple enough. A sudden, intense need for pickled fire-newt eggs, which she’d read in Gastro-Alchemical Pairings, Vol. VII were rich in transformative proteins. You’d spent three hours hunting them down. Then came the phase of exclusively eating foods that were the color blue, based on a thesis on "Chromatic Nutrient Absorption in Expectant Mages." You’d never seen a person consume that much blueberry paste and lapis-lazuli-dusted seaweed before.

But today… today was a new frontier.

You found her in the guild’s library, not reading, but staring intently at a massive, leather-bound tome titled The Sympathetic Properties of Mineral Aggregates. She looked up, her brown eyes wide with scholarly fervor.

“You,” she stated, pointing a finger at you. “We need to go to the river. The one with the smooth, grey pebbles.”

You blinked. She needed that much for a walk? “Not for a walk,” she said, slamming the book shut with a decisive thump. “For ingestion. Chapter twelve, subsection C: ‘The Geophagic Calming Effect on Developing Ethernanos.’ The text is very clear. Consuming small, smooth stones from a flowing body of water can promote a calm and stable magical core in the fetus.” She patted her stomach with absolute certainty. “It’s for the baby’s mana circulation. I’ve cross-referenced three separate sources.”

You ran a hand through your hair. She… want to eat rocks.

“Specific rocks,” she corrected, as if you were a particularly slow student. “The riverbed’s alluvial deposits are key. Their prolonged exposure to moving water creates a sympathetic resonance with the body’s internal energy flows. It’s basic sympathetic magic theory, Gajeel!”

The mental image of Levy, the bookworm you loved, solemnly chewing on gravel while citing academic journals was almost too much. A snort of laughter escaped you before you could stop it.

She crossed her arms, a pout forming. “This is serious scholarly pursuit! Don’t you want our child to have optimal metaphysical grounding?”

You grumbled, but you were already grabbing your coat.

The walk to the river was spent listening to her excitedly explain the mineral composition of igneous versus sedimentary rocks and why the latter were “digestively preferable.” She was ridiculous, brilliant, and entirely herself—pregnancy had just given her weirdness a footnoted bibliography.

At the riverbank, she meticulously selected a handful of pebbles, examining each for smoothness and color. She held one up, a perfect grey oval. “See? Ideal hydrodynamic shaping.”

Then she looked at it. Really looked at it. Her scholarly resolve wavered, replaced by the practical reality of what she was about to do. She glanced from the rock to you, her nose scrunching up.

“…Maybe,” she said slowly, “the text was more metaphorical. About internalizing stability. Not… literally internalizing.” She dropped the pebbles with a defeated sigh. “I just really wanted ice cream from that shop that shapes it like little books.”

You burst out laughing, pulling her into a side hug. As you walked away from the river, her hand in yours, she mumbled, “The ice cream could be seen as a dairy-based primer for literacy…”

You just shook your head, loving every bizarre, bookish moment of it.