Volume 10 - Extending Family, Chapter 66 - Princess
It was a calm autumn day and the house was quiet. Yuisu was sitting at the kitchen table going over finances for the month, while Haru and Tsuen were at their jobs at the butcher and gym respectively. Mara was gaming in her room and since the sun was still up, Chione was fast asleep in bed. Judging by the quiet murmurs escaping Mimi's room, she was on the phone with her boyfriend Hajime, like always. Lastly, Quess and Iormu were up in the cabin. Those two had become inseparable, spending nearly every waking moment together.
With all the homestays living there, it meant Yuisu had a lot of receipts to organize and submit to Agent Will for reimbursement. Yuisu rubbed her weary eyes, then copied another receipt onto the expense form, thinking, Another 3,000 yen for flowers… though with summer over, the flower shop is going to close soon. At least Quess has her other source of food.
As she was wrapping up the last couple receipts, Yuisu heard the back door slide open and then click closed. She looked up to see Quess sliding into the kitchen. Speak of the devil, Yuisu thought, then she said, "Hi, Quess. How's it going?"
Quess looked side to side, checking if anyone else was around. Her pink surface, normally glistening and bright, was dim and dull, and she looked absolutely exhausted. "I've got something urgent to talk to you about." After a second, she added, "Uh, and Agent Will too, actually."
Yuisu stood up quickly, concerned. "Alright. I can drive you over to his office right now, if you want," Yuisu offered as her mind wandered, guessing at what the problem could be.
Quess shook her head slowly. "Uh, actually, Iormu should be there too." She stared down at the floor and slumped a little.
"Oh, alright. I'll call Agent Will right now. As soon as he can get here, we'll come find you. Okay?"
Quess nodded and slid back out of the room, looking only a little less tense.
Yuisu ran over to the phone, thinking, Did something go wrong between Quess and Iormu? As Yuisu dialed Agent Will's number, she recalled when Iormu broke up with Antonio, and shuddered. If that made her destroy a boulder in the hot spring, what could happen this time?
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"Ahh!" Tsuen screamed. "Get it off!" Her shrill voice carried from the bathing room, through the laundry room, and out into the hallways.
A few seconds later, Mara threw open the bathing room door and leapt inside. She landed with her spider legs firmly planted and her arms raised in a shoddy kung-fu stance. "Tsuen, are you okay?! What's going on?"
Tsuen was already wiped out from a long and busy day at work, helping guests, answering questions from other trainers, and leading workouts. She didn't have the energy left to deal with this uncomfortable situation, so she just pointed at the top of her head and whined, "Get it off, please."
At first, Mara had no idea what she was looking at. Tsuen was just cowering on the floor, naked and in the middle of rinsing off before taking a bath. Then Mara saw it. There's some sort of purple goo stuck in Tsuen's hair for some reason? After a second, the goo started to move, forming into a round blob that was still tangled in Tsuen's pink mane.
"A slime? Did it come back with you from town?" Mara muttered, but thanks to years of experience with games and puzzles, she was already formulating a plan.
First, she grabbed two plastic basins from the wall and dunked one in the bath to fill it. Next, Mara handed the empty one to Tsuen. "Hold this out a bit, so it won't get any water in it."
Before Tsuen could ask why, Mara was pouring the other basin on Tsuen's back and steadily moving towards her head. Just before the water hit Tsuen's hair, the purple slime leapt away from the water and landed in the other basin.
Mara dumped out the last of her water and flipped the plastic tub over, then clamped it on top of the one that held the slime. "Gotcha!" She held the two tubs together with both hands and started toward the door.
Mara turned back and she could see how exhausted Tsuen was, so in a soothing voice, she said, "You go ahead finish your bath, Tsuen. I'll bring this slime to Yuisu. Maybe she will know what to do with it."
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Yuisu watched the featureless violet-colored blob jiggling contentedly in the white plastic tub for a bit, then shook her head. "I have no idea what to do with it. I've never even heard of a purple slime. I would call Agent Will, but I already know he's not there. His voicemail said he gets back into town tomorrow morning."
Mara scratched her chin in thought, then said, "Maybe Quess will know something, since she's a slime and all."
"Great idea, Mara," Yuisu praised, making Mara smile. "You keep an eye on the slime and I'll go get Quess."
She checked Quess's bedroom first but unsurprisingly, Quess wasn't there. She'd basically moved in with Iormu, after all. Then Yuisu went out the back door and jogged up the wooden path to the cabin. The weather was crisp and cool, as if the mountain had grown tired of the heat of summer and wanted to welcome winter as soon as possible. The handful of deciduous trees were starting to turn orange, standing out amongst the evergreens.
Appreciating nature would have to wait, however. As soon as Yuisu reached the cabin, she knocked on the door. "Quess? We need your help in the house," she called out.
A loud bang and the sound of smaller objects crashing to the floor was the only reply. Oh god, are they fighting? This is worse than I thought! Yuisu tried the door and found it unlocked, so she opened it and ran inside.
Rather than being engaged in a lover's spat as expected, Quess and Iormu were on opposite sides of the building, frantically rummaging around in the kitchenette and bedroom. Quess lifted a pot from the cabinet, then tossed it aside with a clang. "Not here either!" she yelled out.
Iormu's voice came from the bedroom. "Nothing in the bedroom at all."
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"Where could she be?!" Quess cried out, sounding worried and frazzled.
In Yuisu's head, the puzzle pieces started to come together. Quess wants to talk to me and Agent Will about something, a mysterious slime appears in the house, and then Quess is turning the cabin upside down looking for something. She must already have known about this slime…
"Quess… Iormu… what's going on?"
Quess and Iormu froze, noticing Yuisu for the first time. They both turned and looked at her like little kids caught misbehaving. Iormu looked about as frazzled as Quess, with dark circles under her eyes and tangles in her long purple hair.
Yuisu asked, "Is something wrong?"
"Whatever do you mean, Yuisu?" Quess said, trying to act calm and collected, but failing miserably. Her whole gelatinous body was quivering with nervous energy.
"I think you know what I mean, Quess. I think what you're looking for is back in the house… and trying to grope Tsuen…"
"Thank Odin!" Iormu suddenly rushed forward, all forty feet of her tail pushing off against the floor. She swatted Yuisu out of the way to get through the door, shouting, "Hold on, princess! Mommy's coming!"
As Yuisu was sent flying by Iormu's monstrous strength, the final piece of the puzzle slammed into place and she thought, The purple slime is Quess and Iormu's baby?! Thankfully, Quess caught the flying host with her squishy body before Yuisu could impact the kitchen cabinet.
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Yuisu, Quess and Iormu sat around the kitchen table in an awkward silence, except for the occasional squelch or squeak coming from the infant-sized purple slime cradled in Iormu's arms.
Yuisu broke the silence. "I don't even care about the 'why' or the 'how' right now. I just need to know the 'what': What the hell happened?" Yuisu looked back and forth between Quess and Iormu, waiting for an answer.
"Well, uh," Iormu started, then she shook her head. "I think Quess should be the one to answer." Once the attention was off her, Iormu smiled down at the royal purple blob in her arms and tickled it with a finger. It jiggled in a cute sort of way, despite not having eyes or any other features.
Quess cast a glare at Iormu, then took a deep breath. She let it out slowly, then said, "First, I want to make it clear that I didn't mean to divide, to reproduce…"
Yuisu raised an eyebrow and said, "A while back, you mentioned that a slime could breed with any species. Is that true? Is that what happened?"
Quess glanced around the room, as if something might be able to magically free her from this conversation. Finally, she answered, "Yeah, that was true. But, normally it's a totally conscious decision for a slime to reproduce. The slime takes some DNA from someone, sections off a bunch of stored energy, and splits in two." Quess shrugged and smiled awkwardly. "But I guess I had too much extra energy, so my body split on its own."
"Too much energy?" Yuisu wondered aloud. "You were eating a normal amount of flowers, and I assume you were getting a little energy from the romance in the house…" Yuisu eyed Quess and Iormu suspiciously and said, "Wait a minute. When you two were spending all your time together in the cabin, what were you up to?"
"Reading," Quess answered immediately.
"And sex," Iormu whispered. She blushed a vivid red and added, "Actually, pretty much just sex."
"All day, everyday," Quess admitted, wearing a smug, awkward smile.
Yuisu's eyes went wide. "So that's why you haven't been in your little form lately…" she mumbled.
"Yeahhhh," Quess sighed. "I had so much energy that I'm not sure I could have condensed down that small if I wanted to. Of course, I probably can now, since little Pwess split off from me."
"Pwess…" Yuisu repeated. "So just 'Quess' with a 'P', for 'purple'?"
"Nope." Iormu shook her head, still beaming at the baby slime wiggling around in her arms. "If Quess is a queen, then Pwess is our princess."
Perhaps recognizing her name, Pwess stretched a bit of her body up toward Iormu's face, elongating it into a solitary tendril like Quess's.
Iormu smiled wider and cooed at Pwess, "You love your mommies, don't you, Pwess?" She rocked gently side to side, wiggling her wide hips, and continued to play with Pwess's tendril.
Mommies, huh? Yuisu thought as she looked between Iormu and Quess. Iormu had taken to being a mother like a champ, especially considering she hadn't been the one to give birth. Quess, on the other hand, looked nervous, lost, and even a little bit terrified. Yuisu thought, Now that I think about it, I'm feeling a little lost and terrified by all this too…
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Apparently, queen slimes grow up very fast, at least in their infancy. By evening, Pwess was peering out at the world with adorable round magenta eyes. By the next morning, she'd learned to control her shape, and she even had a favored form: Iormu's. Shaped like a tiny Jormungand, Pwess had a purple tail that was only about eight inches long, about the same size as her pink upper body. A little tendril topped her head, sticking out of short purple slime-'hair'.
[https://i.imgur.com/HPEcVba.jpg]
Since Pwess kept getting caught in Iormu's hair, Iormu had it pulled back into a large bun on the back of her head, which made her look even more motherly. The translucent pink and purple slime had free reign to slither up and down Iormu's arms and across her bountiful bosom. She played and roamed over Iormu as she sat at the kitchen table.
"Ahem," Agent Will cleared his throat in an attempt get everyone's attention back from the slime infant. Yuisu, Quess, and Iormu turned and gave him most of their focus, but Pwess was too adorable and distracting for that to stay true for long.
"Children resulting from extraspecies homestays are not totally unheard of, though they usually aren't so sudden. There's normally a gestation period involved…" He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Also, they normally involve a human mating with a liminal, meaning a lot more paperwork and a lot of nasty lawyer stuff, so, uh, thanks for both being liminals."
Iormu and Quess both giggled at that and Quess said, "You're welcome."
Agent Will pushed his sunglasses back into place and continued, "In any case, there is still a fair amount of paperwork to fill out. Due to a lack of government foresight of this particular situation, the forms were written with expectation of one mother and one father. I assume neither of you want to be called a father, so I'll be correcting and initialing every mention of the word. Let me know if you see one I missed."
Agent Will scanned each page, corrected things as needed, and then passed them off to Iormu and Quess to fill out. After several minutes of that, Iormu suddenly shoved a page back at Agent Will.
"What the hell is that?!" she yelled, startling little Pwess, who cowered against Iormu's shoulder.
He glanced down at the page, then said, in a very calm, level voice, "That is a form to put the baby up for adoption, only if that is what you two want to do. Most homestays are simply not capable of properly caring for a liminal child during their homestay period."
A sad, resigned look appeared in Quess's eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself and started to cry. "Maybe we should, Iormu. I can't be a parent. I have no idea how to be a mother…"
"No," Iormu said with surprising force. "Pwess is my daughter, and I will be there for her." She turned and made eye contact with Quess, then smiled warmly. "We both will. We can do this together, Quess. We can be the moms she needs."
"Moms," a voice called out from somewhere. Everyone looked around, trying to see where it had come from. Yuisu had made sure to tell the other girls that the kitchen was off limits during this meeting.
"Moms!" the voice came again, echoey and hard to place. Iormu looked down to find Pwess nestled in between Iormu's breasts and staring up at her. "Moms," the tiny slime said with a tiny smile.
Quess's worries and her heart both melted immediately. In awe, she mumbled, "Her first word… it was 'moms'…" Quess turned to Agent Will and proclaimed, "Take those forms back, because Pwess isn't going anywhere," then she rushed forward to cuddle with Iormu and Pwess, wrapping them in a slimy embrace.
Agent Will let out a relieved breath and grinned. "Well, that's a little less paperwork, but now we've got a different type to fill out." He grabbed some more papers from his briefcase and passed them to Yuisu. "You know the drill, Yuisu. Time to welcome your newest homestay, Pwess."