"I feel I can tell you the truth, so here it is. If you dug just a bit deeper inside yourself, you'd surely find it as the only truth.

"I am Deirde's and Morgana's child, and the second Moonchild. I come from the future, to save my world and my parents' lives.

"When a child is conceived while a Moonchild is also being conceived, the two fuse into one. This is usually done on purpose, so that the Moonchild feels a stronger tie to the family. They still disappear after three months, but this way they often come back.

"Can the same happen with human twins? I'll take your word for it, I wouldn't know, but you seem a knowledgeable person.

"Deirde's mother—my grandmother—was a Druid and had an affair with the Druid King. She was exiled due to that scandalous affair—whether that was fair or not is up to debate. She took care of Deirde for eight years before she abandoned her. Nobody ever saw her again, to be certain, but my investigation leads me to believe she became a Priestess.

"Why was I named High Priestess in this game? Who knows. I'm the very farthest opposite you could get from a High Priestess, being a Moonchild.

"I was born with both my mother's knowledge, and some of my father's. In a year I grew to what I'd guess would be sixteen years of age, the same age as my mother when she gave birth to me. I've lived an additional fifteen since.

"You noticed, did you? I can't look older than twenty-five, yet here I am. I'd wager my lifespan is triple that of humans.

"What do I do, you ask? I'm guessing you wouldn't buy that I'm a counselor still, ha! I'm a surrogate mother, at the moment. It's a highly fulfilling job.

"My genes are highly desired in the magic community, I am paid handsomely and treated like a revered god, I couldn't ask for a better way to spend my youthful years of fertility.

"My real name is… well, it's best if you don't know. It's best if you don't know a lot of things about me. Briefly, my future is a very bleak one. The third Moon Child Deirde gives birth to is kidnapped and turned into a monstrosity, a true horror of a creature that feeds on dreams, turning them into nightmares."

I nodded my head and took a sip of the coffee I ordered, which had arrived at some indeterminate time while I was listening. It was still hot.

"Alrighty then... What ability did you get, as High Priestess?"

"I can hear everything, past, present and some of the future. It's as if I had a radio in my brain that tunes to important things."

"Wow. What are your powers as a Moon Child?"

"I can move through time and space. If I can imagine it, I can go to it."

And Deirde gave birth to three kids just as powerful…

"..."

- - - -

I do not know where the lies begin and end.

Where to separate what's fact from fiction.

That is what was going through my head at that time, having left the restaurant, heading back to my house to tell Jade how it went.

It was unsettling. Usually lies—usually, they cannot actually harm you, especially if you don't buy into them.

But of course this time was different.

This time I was struck by a strange feeling—I was unnerved. That's strange by itself, but I couldn't recall a time when a lie unsettled me so.

And who wouldn't be? I couldn't distinguish verisimilitude in the previous conversation.

I had a feeling it was all covered in a thin film of truth, but I couldn't even be sure of that.

You know the number one take away from that conversation?

That she was a sociopath.

That I should not mess with her, of that I was certain. And I was even more certain in my happiness that I hadn't made an enemy of her.

She freaked me out.

I can only imagine this is what being molested feels like—I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin at the moment.

I've said all this, but why didn't I believe her, in the first place?

...I was asking myself the same thing. Some sort of internal bullshit detector was going off.

I was the one that proposed the idea, in the first place, that she had children. It was her own clumsiness that led to 'the truth.'

No, it was more than that. It was like she was toying with me back there…

That's what it felt like, the attitude she had talking was the English equivalent of if she was playing with her food.

Gross.

I rushed home, wanting to tell somebody what had occurred.

- - - -

When I got through the door, I was greeted to a pleasant surprise.

Sophie was outside her room, watching reality TV with Jade.

I couldn't stand reality TV.

It was a pretty ironic name, now that I think about it. I'd rather watch one of Jade's cheesy, bad sci-fi shows any day of the week.

"Hi, ladies."

They were so captivated it took them a few seconds to look up at me, even after I'd walked in and said hi.

"Hey, Tayler—"

"—How'd it go?" Jade asked. She paused the show, I took a seat across from the two lazing on the couch in the recliner and kicked out the front.

I gave them the report, everything that was said, leaving out nothing but also saving my personal take on it.

"That sounds… just unbelievable," Jade gave her opinion of the report.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that thought so.

So it wasn't just me…

"Yeah, I've got a gut feeling she was lying about it. The way she said it, and admitted the truth, and also being caught in the first lie… actually, two lies. I just can't tell what is real or fake."

Riiinnng, riinnnng.

"Oh. Shit."

It was Scarlet.

"It's her… should I answer?"

"Um…"

I answered under the premise that I shouldn't piss her off.

"H-hello."

"What do you mean by you don't believe me?"

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I was just glad she couldn't read minds… I'd already be dead, then, for certain.

"Um—this has got to be an invansion of privacy? Look, you did lie twice before that."

"Men are unbelievable, that's what is really unbelievable here! Ughh."

"I've got an idea. Just prove it, that shouldn't be so hard."

"Hmph. Fine. Head outside your house right now."

Bleeplep.

I lowered the phone from my face.

"She said she'd be here soon to prove it...?"

I ran to the front yard and peered off the railing. It was night time, the moon was out in a crescent.

Jade and Sophie joined me, not in as much of a rush.

Materializing from the faint light of the moon, like I could see the individual atoms of her forming into a person.

It was a naked woman. Not just any naked woman, Scarlet. Glowing and sparkling like the Moon Child, Korrin, when he was first born.

"She's hot!" Sophie yelled. "Ouch!"

Jade pinched her.

"Could you let me inside… I can't do this more than once a night," she was shivering in the chill October night air.

Maybe she wasn't a very smart person… A smart person would've at least asked permission first, probably would've waited to talk about having heard me in my own living room, too.

Jade was actually the one that said, "Please, be our guest. Sophie, go to your room."

Scarlet was wearing Jade's bathrobe, she clearly wouldn't fit into any of Jade's many clothes. We were in the front room, we'd just made some tea, everything was going fine.

"Does that happen whenever you walk through space and time?" I asked.

"Yes… I lose my clothes. Silly me," she slapped her own forehead. "I totally forgot in my rage."

"Well, then…"

"How many kids have you had, Scarlet?" Jade asked.

"Sixteen, in total. All of them healthy," she held her head high.

"Wow… I want to have kids someday, but not sixteen!"

"When will you, ya know, stop?" I asked.

Surely there was a point where you said, "Okay, that's enough kids."

Scarlet said, "when I appear about thirty years of age, then my glory days of fertility will be over."

"Are your children special like you are?"

"Without exception they've all had certain abilities like my own, but to a lesser degree. It's likely if I have one hundred babies that one of them will be normal, though."

"One hundred!" I wanted to faint on the spot.

One hundred babies… I can't even imagine.

Jade got up and walked over to our uninvited yet somehow welcome guest and leaned down to her, whispering something while covering her mouth so I couldn't see.

Not very fair…

Scarlet nodded her head in response, seemingly surprised.

Jade lit up with a big grin and sat down next to me again on the couch.

"I'll tell you later," she said, with a fading smile.

"Do you really think by the time you're thirty that you'll have had one hundred kids?"

"It was just an example. At my current rate of aging, it would probably be closer to two hundred by the time I'm done."

"!"

"So pregnancy must be faster for you, like Deirde?" Jade asked.

"Yes, it takes two months for me on average, but it differs depending on the magic of the baby inside me."

"So double the time than a Moon Child… those really are powerful children you're having!"

My jaw was practically on the floor.

"How long have you been in this… current timeline?"

What the hell do you call it?

"Oh...almost a year now, I had one child in that time."

"And we interrupted you, huh? Why at the school, anyways?"

"I felt like it," she shrugged, taking a sip of her tea.

"Well, I'm glad we have you as an ally, you should be powerful in a fight."

"I practice non-violence, actually, so you're on your own there. I will only defend myself."

Really? I wish I could say the same.

"What about Morgana sensing you as a magic user of Venus?" I asked.

"You'll have to ask him, I'm uncertain of his powers."

Good point…

"Well, I'll take you back to your place."

Scarlet and I stood to leave. Jade stood last, going up to Scarlet again to whisper something.

Scarlet's face shook as Jade whispered.

"No," Scarlet said faintly. "I couldn't possibly…"

Jade said, "If you ever want to, the option is there."

"...I'll consider it."

- - - -

I was asked a barrage of questions on the way home, personal ones, but not too personal so that I could answer all of them. I'm pretty much an open book, anyways, so none of it bothered me.

But I was wondering why I was being asked all of a sudden, I was wondering what was whispered by Jade.

We parked in front of Scarlet's house, her directions here were pretty good.

I turned to her to say 'I'll walk her up to the front door,' but then I was stopped—

A kiss was stolen from me.

Stolen, I tell you!

"Thank you," she said. "I'll be good from here. Have a safe drive home," she got out of the car, with the door open she said, "I can tell how good someone is in bed from just a kiss, how do you think you did?"

She closed the door and ran to her house in that same red bathrobe.

Her lips and taste were different from Jades, it felt strange, foreign.

What the hell did Jade tell her?

- - - -

Jade was playing games on her computer, laying in bed—

Topless.

That only meant one thing. I took off my pants and got under the covers.

She'd gotten much better at games recently, if you're wondering. I peered over, she was playing Super Metriod, a timeless classic. I'd gotten her a retro controller and that helped her a lot, too.

"So—what exactly did you whisper in Scarlet's ear?"

She handed me the controller and put the laptop on my lap, saying, "Help me through this boss and I'll tell you."

I couldn't stop staring at her breasts jiggle, so it took me a couple seconds to process it.

"...Oh! Yeah, yeah." I unpaused and started to play.

"I asked her two things that needed to be private. One, I asked her if she'd be my, or I should say our, surrogate mother."

"...And she nodded yes, right?"

So she agreed, with some surprise she said yes. And we'd likely not have to pay as much as someone else. Very interesting, indeed.

"That's great news for us, Jade. You go to the doctors soon to see if you can have kids, right? Just in case we can't, that is really good news."

"Yes, it really is great. And the second thing I asked…" she took a deep breath in, really filling her lungs, then said, "Ifshe'dliketoshareourbedtonight."

"Huh? You said it too fast."

"I asked—if she'd like to have a three sum."

"Oh. Wait a second!" I dropped the controller and clutched my head.

"Hey, you're losing progress!"

"That makes so much more sense! That's why she kissed me!"

"She kissed you...?" She seemed more caught off guard than jealous.

"She said she could tell how good someone was just by a single kiss."

"That is true. I can, too."

"What the hell kind of psychic sixth sense do girls have!"

"It's not like every girl can't."

Her tongue slipped, I think.

"Alright, Miss-Double-Negative."

"You're telling me you can?"

"You're making things confusing for the readers… and no, I can't."

"Is it like some sort of mystery to you until it happens? That sounds like a huge gamble, honestly."

"Why are you interrogating me about it, you're the unusual one for being able to tell that!"

We're way off topic, aren't we? What were we talking about again?

"Are you really okay with a three sum? I mean, we talked about the possibility, but—"

"Duh, Tayler. As long as you didn't change your mind, which is fine…"

"Oh, no! It just seems too easy, or something."

I grabbed the controller and started playing—Jade closed the laptop lid and kissed me, slipping in tongue.

The window slid open and I looked over at it, knowing who it was, or must be.

"Is it a good night, big sis?" A soft, indeterminate of sex voice called to Jade. It was her familiar, Zada, the one who called her sister, but looked nothing like her.

She was wearing what could only be described as a cloak that was long and dark blue, along with a short dress with a floral pattern.

"Yes, it is a good night. Did you find anything?"

"No, I just wanted to bug you."

You couldn't tell when she was joking or not, completely deadpan just as she usually was.

"What'd you find?"

"I figured out that Wheel is a changing location. I am tired now."

"Return to me, Zada."

In a gust of wind swirling around her, the young girl vanished into nothing.

She was doing some investigating for us at night. From sunset till she was too tired to go on, which sometimes went all the way to sunrise.

Jade pushed me down, way more aggressive with her kisses this time.

Honk-hoonk—

"Uh, Jade, is it just me or are your boobs smaller…?"

"HUH!"

Grab, groope

"Yeah, your waist is a bit slimmer, too…"

Jade's face conveyed perfectly that she had the intented to murder me.

"That's not actually bad, though! If your body is getting more testosterone, it makes perfect sense, really!"

"Oh yeah…"

"Ow!"

She clawed my chest!

"Less talking, please."

"..."