Days had passed since Fomoria and Harlan saw one another, and Fomoria had since spent his time trying to research the Castian mental problems.

There were hundreds of Others also working on the same problem, freed from their duties as marshalls since Ur had not sent any attacks against him, and while they lacked his magical power in raw strength, they had his mind.

So, when Mother Elk called him, he had little issue moving away from the problem at hand.

Yara found himself more than a little amazed and worried by the city.

The women all shared the same features, nearly all walked with the same gait, and when she heard them speak they sounded almost the same.

But she was given little time to look around, Fomoria headed directly to the lab with her under guard of Daughters.

Mother Elk met them in a stark white room with little inside outside of a tank of the green substance which the Daughters were grown in and a desk for Mother Elk.

“Emperor Fomoria, I am glad you were able to arrive on such short notice. Lady Yara, I am Mother Elk, and I have discovered a probable way for you to become pregnant without being disrupted by Aarde.

If you agree, I could start today, and within a number of months you could return home with a child.”

Yara paced back and forth, breathing in and out in a steady rhythm.

“What are the risks?”

“Well, we don’t know. The idea is to harvest an egg from you, then germinate it with Fomoria’s seed before implanting it back in you. But, because the soul would be entirely from you and not him, the strain on your body would be far greater than a normal pregnancy. So, we will keep you inside of the vat, the ichor will keep you healthy even if there are certain complications.”

“Are you being truthful? Because you said nothing about the real dangers, but you seem prepared for them.”

“We’ve used this method in the past, and it has worked with normal births. My calculations are based on what we’ve been told about the birth of the other child, Viviane, and her six month gestation period as well as her nearly doubled growth rate from infant to toddler. What I couldn’t figure out, because of your changed biology and the amount of that which is a direct result of magical manipulation beyond what is considered normal. Your child could grow in a week, or a month, or it could be stillborn despite all of my efforts. I cannot say the risks because I can only speculate on them with little real data to say which would be most likely. If you feel uncomfortable, you could refuse, but I am interested in what will happen here.”

“I need to talk with my fiance.”

Under a veil, Yara paced back and forth, and Fomoria let her have the first word.

“Should I do it?”

“I can’t say that.”

“Yes you can.”

“No. You are the one who is going to be in a tank for weeks or even months as it grows instead of you.

We want a child, but that doesn’t mean you should put yourself in any undue risks.”

“That’s not normal. You have something else planned, right?”

“I can’t say. If you don’t want to do this, I will understand.”

The veil was one sided, and she looked out at the strange room.

The idea of being inside of the vat, one of the only two things that took up the room, sent a shiver up her spine.

“I can’t.”

“Alright.”

Fomoria dropped the veil.

“For the foreseeable future, we are going to refuse the offer. But don’t worry, this is not a problem for our present deal, weapons and armor will continue to flow into Tochter.”

“Very well.”

Mother Elk packed up the papers on the desk and inside the drawers into a box and a Daughter took it away.

Fomoria had time to calm down since learning that Aarde denied him a child.

He couldn’t throw a tantrum, and his plans to perhaps find the Castian god, kill her, and steal her divinity to allow him to bypass Aarde’s will started seeming more and more foolish the more he thought about it.

Even if he did, he would probably be throwing away his friendship with Marigold and Xol, and everyone who he knew was going to become targets of angry gods, he would be giving up the life that he had in order to have a child that he didn’t need, it would be nothing but selfish to do all of that, to put his empire in jeopardy, to-

“Hello?”

“Huh?”

“I’ve been talking. Are you upset? I could go back to Tochter and-”

“No. Sorry, I’m just thinking about something else. I know you were upset that we couldn’t have a child, and I’ve been having terrible thoughts about how I could fix that.”

“Terrible for you, or terrible for normal people?”

“For me. I don’t want to throw away everything we have just for a child, I have a duty beyond us that I cannot abandon.”

Yara calmed down, and a smile crept onto her.

“Why are we here?”

“You will know in just a few minutes, and- Shit, I should’ve asked Amber to be here.”

Amber was luckily free to join him.

“Why are we here?”

“First, we need a ride.”

Fomoria formed gill-like openings on his neck and a high pitched but quiet sound came from him.

“What was that?”

“You people have no sense of adventure. Just wait.”

After a few minutes, a drake swam ashore.

“Little Shadow, you called?”

“I want to go to the Island of Mist and Petals. This is my sister, and this is my fiance.”

“Then a ferry to fairy shall I be.”

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“She’s a Pixie.”

The Sea Drake snorted, nearly blowing them down, but still let them ride.

“Why not a boat?”

“I don’t like boats, motion sickness.”

“You haven’t fixed that yet?”

“The Darkness told me that it was an inbuilt weakness so she could kill me if needed. I don’t think she used those exact words, but that’s what she meant.”

“OH. I know where we are going.”

Amber and Fomoria looked at Yara like she was stupid, but Yara had simply been so preoccupied with her own worries that she wasn’t thinking straight.

They reached the shore and the drake turned around, letting them walk down his tail.

The moment they stepped onto the sand an alarm sounded, shells plucked from the beach turned to horns let out a deep bellow.

Amber and Yara looked somewhat worried, but Fomoria had complete confidence.

Dawn led the Pixies, and behind her was Darrath.

“It’s been a while.”

Fomoria skipped forward, pulling the two of them into a hug.

“Yes, it’s been a while.”

“Since I doubt you destroyed the empire in the time since we’ve been gone, at least, I hope time inside here is the same as the outside, I’m sure you are here for another reason.”

“Let’s just move somewhere private first. Oh, and you can call off the locusts.”

The Pixies were buzzing as the clung to the trees, their swords were made from wood and leaves hardened with magic and then soulsmithed by Dawn.

When they reached the town, all of them were amazed, but none more so than Fomoria, who remembered when it was nothing but trees with rooms carved into them.

High above the forest floor there were many homes, but more than that Fomoria could see other kinds of building, commercial, storage.

The bridges between the buildings were covered in vines with multicolored flowers, and the whole area had a floral scent that the Pixies and the women loved, but Fomoria disliked.

“You seem light on defenses.”

“Right now we just have the plant monster and the hawks to deal with, and there are no walls which could keep either of them out.”

“Have you considered a forest of golem trees? They would-”

“Periwinkle has been very against us changing the forest. We can use magic to carve the trees, grow vines, but we cannot cut down or distort them. The terms aren’t clear, but if we start doing something wrong she comes to tell us to stop.”

“Darrath, do you want to ride on my shoulders?”

“No, a king shouldn’t do that.”.

“So, you finally set up a kingdom. What is the name you decided?”

“Periwinkle decided. This capital and country is Dartmoor, from the place she was born.

My home is here, on the forest floor.”

Darrath led them inside without another word.

Once they were all inside of the room, Darrath dropped the facade, tearing up as he hugged his father.

“I missed you, I missed you so much, and the other Pixies were being mean, and Thyst got hurt, and I had to hurt them, and and and-”

Fomoria patted Darrath’s smooth head and hugged him tightly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I couldn’t be here for you. Is your friend ok? Thyst?”

Darrath couldn’t speak through his crying, so Dawn took over.

“She is fine, but the Pixies underwent their teenage hormones and they aren’t suited to handle it, they don’t have parents, just Periwinkle and myself to guide them as best we can. Darrath… he had to fight them off, and he killed three of them during the fight. They beat him so badly he almost died.”

Fomoria let out a bellow, but he didn’t want to scare Darrath so he forced himself to stay calm as best he could.

“I hope the others are dead?”

“No. They are still children, they don’t even understand what they are doing, and they-”

“Darrath, was this your choice?”

He sniffled and pulled away, trying not to be wrapped up in Fomoria’s rage.

“They didn’t know any better, they had bad friends, and they didn’t have a papa to teach them to be better.”

“THEY-”

“DON’T YELL.”

Darrath crossed his arms and stood up on the couch of soft leaves, bringing him to eye level with his father.

“I am the king, I can decide how to rule. You said you wanted me to be better than you, so let me.”

Fomoria couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I knew from the moment I saw you, that you are growing up, and I’m sorry, sorry that I couldn’t be there to see you through that.”

“Papa, don’t cry. Why don’t you tell me who these pretty ladies are?”

Fomoria looked up and brushed away his tears as he chuckled.

“Here is your aunt Amber, and my fiance Yara.”

“Why is your skin like that? Are you outside a lot? You aren’t dark like a Goliath can be.”

She found it funny rather than offensive, since she was already viewing him as a little Harlan.

“I’m a Golden, but yes, I do spend a lot of time outside. Why don’t you, me, and Amber go around the town? You can show us around while Dawn and papa talk, is that alright.”

He was hesitant, looking to Dawn for approval, and once she nodded Darrath walked alongside Amber and Yara.

Dawn moved to sit next to Fomoria, and he laid his head on her lap.

“What happened?”

“Since you left, I… everything is fucked. I had another woman, but she used me, she took my sigil and then left, and I feel like an idiot. Then I went to get Yara and I love her and she loves me and everything between us is great, but we can’t have kids. And today we went to a place where she might be able to have a child, but the risks were too much, and I was so scared that I was going to lose her if she said yes, but she didn’t.”

“Did you tell her this?”

“No, I just told her that I’m not upset that she didn’t choose to do it and that it is her choice because she is the one going to give birth to it.”

“It? Not them?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You referred to your possible child as it, not them, you didn’t call them a person.”

He furrowed his brows; why did he do that?

“What is the other thing, the part that you haven’t told me? That has you so absentminded, so disconnected from things?”

“I killed David.”

“Why?”

“He joined up with Nemain, he was killing people on both sides of the civil war in Ragne to extend it so he could tear everything down. I don’t even know why he did it, but I was the one who inspired him.

We were the same, we both fought for what we believed in.”

“Believed? So you don’t believe in it anymore?”

“I don’t know. I know that I had to do it, that David couldn’t be talked down, that something was broken and I couldn’t fix it, I don’t believe anyone could.”

“So you came here for someone who knows you better than anyone else.”

“I came to get Darrath and you, I want my family back together.”

She brushed his hair with her hands.

“But you know already, don’t you.”

He turned onto his side, he didn’t want to look in her eyes.

“I know, I knew by the time we got into this room.”

“He has a duty to this place, to his people. But you can continue to visit, we don’t need to remain separate.”

“I don’t think I can handle being away like this, I miss having him around the house, he was always so childish, he breathed a sense of innocence into my life.”

“Don’t be like that. It’s not like you have to be apart, that’s just stupid. Why don’t you just think on that, and tell me what else has happened since I’ve been gone.”

Darrath didn’t meet with Fomoria a second time, he and Fomoria had the same feeling that if they saw one another again that their composure would break.

When they returned to the beach, the drake was still waiting.

“You reek of sadness, Little Shadow.”

“I can’t take my son from here, he has a duty, a responsibility that I taught to him and he won’t give up.”

“You humans and your familial ties. My mother left myself and my siblings during her travels, I never even saw her. And responsibility is a pointless endeavor, all one needs is sleep and food.”

“Yet you’ve been circling this island in the hopes of getting a favor from a Pixie for over a year. What do you want more than sleep and food?”

The drake bellowed while it thought.

“My journey is instinct, I swim too and fro, yet there is nowhere that I go. To break that instinct is perhaps instinct.”

“You want to be free of the inborn thoughts of being a drake? I know of a wyvern that doesn’t wish to harm a soul. Perhaps you are already free but you don’t realize it? I mean, you have remained here since-”

“Fool. I’ve set a course which I cannot break now for a full hibernation cycle. I cannot leave this place.

Even your wyvern, no matter what they might believe, is a beast, and it cannot resist the urge forever.”

“I think she can-”

The drake dove under the water, leaving the three of them floating.

Yara was barely treading water, and he had to put aside his anger to help her; he made a boat of ice for them.

She coughed out what she had swallowed and shivered with discomfort at the salty water taste.

“I’LL RENDER YOUR FAT FOR SOAP.”

Fomoria yelled over the side of the boat and shook his fist that crackled with black and red lightning.

“Calm down. No point in arguing with a drake, they are stubborn bastards who don’t change their minds easily.”

He didn’t say a word until they returned home, the whole trip felt pointless, everything just felt pointless, his research into fixing the Cast wasn’t going anywhere and he didn’t feel like he had any solution to it.