“BAYBEE!”

I sigh as I watch Livvie roll around on the ground with the as-of-yet unnamed creature… thing that is apparently my sort-of offspring while it rapidly cycles between snarling, giggling, and looking wildly around as it half-crawls, half-rolls around my throne room with her.

Or my old throne room, anyway. For some reason I distinctly thought that gazing out on the void of the space between space might be something for a handful of years in the future…

I’m not really sure why, but whatever. Instinct is something I typically don’t argue too much with. It’s not usually wrong, except when it is.

(That means… you know what, nevermind. Whatever.)

Oh. Hello Nyx.

(Hello yourself. Bringing more atrocities on these poor planes, are you? Although you never really stopped.)

Hey, that’s not fair! I stopped… for a while, I think, at least? And this isn’t really an atrocity probably. It’s a gift for Izzy!

My former Assistant sighs through our bond. (How the hells is turning Pearl into that a gift to anyone?)

At least she isn’t just going to dissipate into nothing, right? And I’m the one who messed up her soul and got her disconnected from the Record, so she’s my responsibility! See? I’m being very responsible! Plus Izzy begged me to fix Pearl’s memory so she’d stop suffering, and I really didn’t want to but finally gave in… I thought it’d be given that would also mean she wanted her alive in some sense, and this is the closest I could get without something really weird like, I don’t know, binding her to an object or something.

…Not that a homunculus is truly alive or whatever I guess, but at least when their Egos merge she’ll be able to move around on her own again.

(And are you Astraea?)

Yes!

…

…No? I don’t know. Probably?

And there’s a other trademark Nyx sigh, no doubt accompanied by her hand sliding down her face. (Then why do you have any assumptions at all that whatever this thing turns into is going to be in any way Pearl? Will she be happy with this? Are you happy with what you are?)

I absentmindedly shrug.

(Yeah, not surprised. Pearl was actually a human before, you know. Before everything else you did to the poor woman. You’re going to owe her a whole hell of a lot, and you damn well better deliver.)

While I partially argue with my old me, I idly notice that my second first wife is watching the events unfolding on the carpeted floor with… what is that, trepidation? Concern?

Hesitation?

I’m not really sure what to call it for sure, but I know how to react to it at least. I’ve seen it a lot and have plenty of experience calming it in my subjects…

Or Astraea did? Whatever.

Slowly wrapping a few feelers around her hands I gently pull her closer until she’s in my reach, then I gently wrap my arms around her from behind.

“Is this really okay?”

I gently press my lips to the back of her head. “I don’t know. But it’s the best I could do, at least right now. I’ll tell you the same thing I told Nyx… it’s at least better than being bound to an object or something? And even if she’s going to ultimately merge with this thing’s Ego-”

“Don’t call it a ‘thing’,” she sharply interrupts. “That thing is Pearl now, and not only does it think you’re its mother, but you didn’t correct it. That’s the same as accepting it, you know? That means it’s your child and your responsibility.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Huh.

“Is that how that works?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

…

We’re silent for a moment, other than for the pair continuing to roughhouse on the carpeted stone, although Izzy does eventually take my hands clasped around her stomach in her own.

“You’re not going to leave again, are you?” I ask cautiously, trying to keep the waver from my voice. I’m not even entirely sure why the thought evokes this strong of an emotion in me. Since when do I care about anything this…

Oh. It’s that Mantle again.

“What? No! No, I’m not leaving. I… I’m not. I just, don’t really know how to handle this.”

I shrug lightly. “Me either. I’ve never had offspring of any kind before, never bothered. It didn’t really seem worth it. Although…”

“Hm?”

I glance down into her eyes, just barely able to reach mine over her shoulder. “A long time ago you wanted a child, didn’t you?”

A sudden blush washes across my wife’s face, and even Livvie, glances up from the floor – although only briefly.

“Should I take that as yes then?”

Our eyes remain locked, although she’s clearly silently thinking over the situation…

Until my fox wife interrupts her internal conflict with a practically yipped, “Yes!”

“Yes, what?” Izahne asks, her gaze suddenly swiveling toward Arty.

…Who then suddenly wraps the small horror up in a massive hug and spins it around. “Baby! Child! Raise? Raise!”

“Oh, huh. Well, hmmm… Izzy, what do you think?”

…

“I… guess so. It’s not really mine… but it’s yours, so I guess that’s close enough. And you can do this to make… some of this up to Pearl, I guess.”

Which… makes me pause.

“Um. Izzy? The things we did a lot… like a lot a lot when your Mantle first took hold on us both… That, um. That’s how the mortals make more mortals, right? I’m pretty sure that’s what you were pining for through our bond for forever and a day…”

My wife blinks. “Two women don’t have children without divine intervention, Nemesis.”

…

“But. Didn’t we both kind of, divinely intervene? At least I’m pretty sure that’s what happened…”

I feel her stiffen in my embrace, but we both seem to have reached the conclusion that leaving the topic at that for now is for the best.

…

“Although I’m still pretty sure I’m not a woman… I think.”

***

So I probably shouldn’t have, but I did sneak a look at my wife with Appraise.

Sure enough, right there in her traits.

[Pregnant (Nemesis)]

Only she has it though. I wonder why…

…

For some reason, what I remember from my time as Astraea is hazy, even though I’m pretty sure I knew this…

…

…

Maybe I’ll never know.

Should I tell her? I should probably tell her, shouldn’t I?

(Fantastic. So not only are you bringing unjustified destruction to untold numbers of mortal lives, but you’re bringing unjustified destruction to two told numbers of mortal lives.)

Maybe? I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing here but with any luck maybe my retainers or Livvie or someone else I know will know how to handle this? How does someone even raise a human child!? Or, well. Whatever these are. Not-Pearl most definitely isn’t human, or at least I’d assume not from all the animalistic snarling, eye rolling, and generally acting like some kind of… I don’t even know what.

(It’s acting like a horror. No, not the generic term, a literal horror, the monster type. You literally made a horror, and stuffed your wife’s friend’s shattered soul in it, and then managed to have it imprint you as its parental figure… even though they typically aren’t naturally occurring, they spawn from dungeons and so forth. And here – like an idiot, you went and made one – like an idiot. How does it even think it has a parental figure!? Do they just… have that normally? Nobody knows-okay. If you don’t research this I will. Tell me you’re going to research it.)

I mentally shrug.

If you want to, I’ll research it with you. How about that?

And there’s the inevitable sigh.

…

(…Fine.)

Wait, really!?

(Gods, yes, don’t make me change my mind.)

And I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear her whisper about how she’s going to regret this.

***

“Here I am, as promised!” I declare, not even five minutes after Nyx agreed.

And Markus promptly struggles to catch the papers and small parts sent flying by my abrupt arrival via rift. “Dear gods, don’t do that!”

“Eh, you’ll be fine. This is an enclosed space, it’s not like you’ll-oh, sorry about that one.”

The animated book lets out a Nyx-worthy sigh as the unidentified gizmo vanishes through the tear, making it extraordinarily clear that he’s spent literal centuries with my former Assistant. “These are all prototypes. You know, as in can’t be replaced?”

I shrug. “Whatever, Nyx is a genius, she’ll have another one made in-”

“I’ll have another what made in what now!?” the cranky daemon groans, reentering the workshop basement from its single door. “Ah, is that the specimen?”

“Yeah, this is it,” I reply, gesturing absently toward the squirming an snarling mass of faux-flesh under my arm. “I, uh. We haven’t named it yet.”

“You should do that already. Anyway, first comes initial observations. I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention when you first did… that. So start talking. What happened? What did it do?”

I… can tell this is going to take a while, so I set my ‘child’ on the floor to roughhouse with itself to its heart’s content before approaching Nyx’s workbench.

…And spend the next hour and a half describing in painful detail every nuance of the homunculus horror rolling on the floor with Artemis, accompanied by the symphony of said horror in a hissing match with His Highness Philip, Lord of All He Sees, Master of the Litter Box and Toy Mouse.

Because of course they are.

OF COURSE THEY ARE.