And just like that, we’re back on the street, walking to… I don’t know where.

I’m not sure what I expected, and I definitely don’t know what she expected, but from the look on Izzy’s face… it wasn’t that.

I put a hand on her shoulder, and she almost reflexively shrugs it off… and then stops walking.

“What now?” I quietly ask.

Pearl slaps my hand away and pulls my wife into a hug. Out of the corner of my eye I see Artemis tilt her head while Izzy starts to sob.

Something about this situation is triggering a protective instinct somewhere in me…

A violent one.

But I know I can’t act on it. Anything I did now would just make her cry harder, and I don’t want that.

I don’t want that.

Absentmindedly tearing at the plane’s mana, I find it’s unexpectedly thin, at least right here.

But that protective instinct is still there, and it hasn’t dulled at all.

I need to… I don’t know. Not talk to humans right now. I don’t know what I would do to them.

Releasing a breath I didn’t realize I was holding – not that I need to breathe, I move silently to my wife’s back, and wrap my arms around her waist to pull her against me. Over her shoulder I see Pearl glare at me but only for a moment before she accepts my presence.

Izzy is silently shaking at this point, but it’s clear even to me that it’ll be some time before she recovers, assuming she ever fully does.

“Excuse me, do you folks need some help?”

Using True Sense, I swivel my vision without turning my head to observe the human approaching us.

“I should ask you the same,” I intone in a much raspier voice than my new normal.

A gentle chuckle answers me. “Well, it’s not common for folks to stop around here, it’s not always safe, much safer to be about your business than not, yes?”

I notice Izzy’s shaking settle just a bit, while something I don’t completely recognize stirs in her… indecision, maybe?

I’m pretty sure it’s indecision.

“And why do you care?” I flatly say.

They take their flat hat from their head and glance at it, brushing away dust that definitely isn’t there with an awkward half smile. “Well. Let’s just say I have an interest in keeping everything running smoothly around here. It’s important, you know? To the guild, and to everyone else involved.”

“D-daddy?” my wife mumbles quietly, half lifting her head toward the speaker.

“Oh… oh gods, is that…” the human starts –

“He’s not a human, idiot. He’s an indra like your wife,” Nyx quietly snaps.

I see.

“Kiddo? Is that you?”

Izahne pushes off from our embrace before practically diving toward her father and wrapping her arms around the tall indra, her tears starting anew.

“Oh girly, I thought I’d never see you again!” he blurts, hugging her back and starting into tears of his own.

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I glance at Artemis, who offers me a small shrug in return.

Maybe this is a thing that monsters born monsters don’t completely get, and that’s fine.

For now, I’ll just let them have their time. I get the impression that even though she said we’re here to ‘introduce her wife’, this is more for her than for me, or even them.

After a while, they both seem to have calmed down some, after which Izzy’s father seems to remember that it’s not just the two of them here.

“Uh,” he starts, “what happened to you, dear girl? You look different… and who are all these people? Friends I’m guessing?”

“Y-yes… yes, something like that,” she quietly answers.

I raise an eyebrow, but at least this is much better than what we got from my wife’s mother…

“It’d probably be faster to use Identify, but maybe this… no, this definitely needs actual introductions,” I say quietly.

“Yep,” Nyx confirms.

“I have a fast answer to your first question,” I say in a louder voice. “Just use Identify on her, she won’t mind.”

He blinks at me a moment before saying, “Alright, if you say so,” and then his eyes flicker a telltale gray.

…

“By the gods girl, how did you get so strong!?” he blurts…

Noticeably not mentioning her Class change.

“And… wait, you evolved? So that’s why you look different! Oh, congratulations, sweetheart! It’s been a few generations since one of the family managed that!”

My wife mumbles something into his jacket, so I take the initiative. “Yes, she’s quite strong now. I’m pleased with her growth and I’m sure she is too; she’s worked hard for it.”

“No thanks to you,” Pearl quietly jabs.

“I’m sure she is,” my wife’s father says, looking back down at her. “And don’t think I didn’t notice, girly. Your hair, you cut it. Does that mean…?”

She nods against him, and a huge grin slowly spreads across his face. He glances across our gathered group…

Before his eyes stop on me. “It’s you, isn’t it? She might be a quiet one, but she always had an eye for the dangerous types. You seem like you might be the most dangerous one here. Either you, or her? With the tails? No, it definitely has to be you.”

I can’t resist letting a laugh slip free, while Izahne nods again.

I’d reflexively shown my true face when he’d first approached us, but it’s clearly unnecessary… so I let it fade back into my fully-indra façade. “We should probably introduce ourselves, but… Well, this is as good a place as any.”

And without another word, I reach into my dimensional storage for my portal home, and… it’s not there.

Right.

I left it set up at the castle.

But before I can even blink, Artemis disappears, and reappears a split second later to hand me the runed key.

The indra man blinks a moment and then says, “Let me guess, a former System Assistant… that would make you an actual goddess then, wouldn’t it?” He gently pushes Izzy away while giving her a meaningful look, and then turns to kneel before me. “I thank you for gracing this place with your presence, my lady.”

Oh.

I’m not used to this treatment, but it’s… satisfying, I think? I think what I’m feeling is satisfaction. And so I say, “Stand. You are father to my wife, and therefore my own family as well. There’s no need for ceremony between us.”

Without another word, he stands…

And then pulls me into a hug like he did his daughter. For a moment I don’t know what to do with my hands, and then I slowly return his embrace. Izahne moves in as well, hugging us both from the side before her father moves one of his arms around her as well.

We stay like that in silence for a moment, before he gives us both a gentle pat on the back and pulls away. “I still have… oh, so many questions. So many,” he sighs. “But for now, we should go inside. Your room is just like you left it, sweetpea, even though you didn’t leave much here. I’d hoped you’d come back, that… that nothing happened to you.”

“I will never allow her to be harmed, not irreparably. EVER,” I say with a bit more venom in my voice than I’d meant.

“Well, that’s reassuring then,” he says as if he’d missed my hostility.

…

Yes.

This is a good mortal.

He raises a hand to the panel at the door before Pearl interrupts him. “That, uh. That might not be that great an idea? We kinda just came from there.”

That stops him. The tall indra looks at her thoughtfully for a moment, and then his eyes widen. “Oh. Oh no. She… she didn’t… Izzy? Tell me she didn’t.”

My wife looks down and then off to the side, and then nods again as her attempt at calm composure starts to crumble. Without a word, I manifest a few feelers and pull her back into my arms. “I won’t let her hurt you anymore,” I grate quietly into her ear, and she sags into my embrace.

Blinking at the sudden appearance of my extra appendages, I can practically see on his face when Izzy’s father dismisses the questions they surely raise, at least for now.

And then he sighs. “Girly, just… let me deal with her, okay? You know her, she’s just, well. Difficult sometimes. She’ll come around.”

Before he can finish opening the door, I activate my portal home and gesture toward the hazy circle on the wall of the building. “We can speak here. Arty, would you please?”

As my fox wife begins weaving a layer of illusions over the entry point, it occurs to me that my other wife’s father is staring at me…

Or more accurately, at the object in my hand.

“Is…”

“Is?” I ask.

“IS THAT A PORTABLE INTERSTITIAL!? HOW?”