It was finaly my birthday. I should have been born a week ago, but mother was delaying it. She was waiting for thunderclouds to create 'right' atmosphere and image. And now, with the sounds of thunder all around us, I am about to be born.

Before my birthday, nothing of interest happened. Well there was that 'mana storm' and few more assassination attempts, but other that that nothing.

Mana storm is a phenomen lasting for almost one month, and hapens every year. It can't be seen with a naked eye, but all mages feel it's influence very strongly. Basicly it makes all magic harder to perform. I heard that in earlier years when empires were still in the making, it was the time when military actions were often taken. It was a perfect time for countries with less mages to turn tables in their favor.

As for assassinations .. I only know that we were attacked. By the time we left too see what's with the commotion outside, even bodies were removed by our the servants. Assassins probably planed to use mana storm for beter chances, sadly for them, our obelisks worked perfectly even during them, and we had no one left to interrogate.

My guess is that it was work of the Zolmor kingdom, they lost chance to get my mother as slave so now they wanted to remove her. Though there is also posibility that other nobles don't look kindly at our growing influence.

*

During birth my connection to the eyesight and hearing I had with mother was canceled. I don't know how long all this process of birth toke, but it surely felt like an eternity, well maybe it was just day or hours, but with nothing to do I couldn't tell.

"Don't forget to cry little Nina." I heard voice of mother in my head, when I was finaly born.

It was peformance for midwifes and other servants that were helping with the birth, but after my attempt to cry mother quickly stoped me. My cry felt very unnatural. Well I can't be blamed, have you ever tried to imitate cry of a baby with a mindset of an adult ?

After birth I was a bit gloomy as my eyesight and hearing was terrible. After looking and hearing trough eyes of my mother for almost an half year, it was a strong contrast. It was strange feeling being newborn. My movements with body were limited.

"Time to eat little Nina. Say ahh ..." I heard voice of my mother.

And then we have other implications of being baby. No one should be doing this consciously. I swear I could hear mother giggling every time when she stuck her nipple into my mouth. I felt so embarrassed. 

Even with my evolved body, It toke me two whole days til I could finaly see and hear like a normal person. I don't know how long it should take for newborns, but it was still too long for my liking. I could finaly examine myself beter. When mother walked past mirror, with me in her hands. I noticed that I have blue eyes just like her. This is good, I would hate to have eyes inherited from that 'scum father'. Next thing I noticed was that I had lightning spirit as well. It looked so cool. Though body of newborn might have lessened that effect. As newborn I looked quite .. ugly ? I hope it's only because I am still newborn.

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I tried to control lightning spirit, but it didn't responded to my comands.

"Now now little Nina, be patient girl. If all our children were to control lightning from birth, it would be a disaster for people around us. Not all babies are supposed to understand what they are doing. You will be able to control it with time." I heard voice of my mother.

I tried to imagine what would hapen if baby born by one of us in the future started to unleash lightning around it unconsciously. That would be scary.

After a bit more, mother planed to return to an academy. She will take me with her, but I will be often left at our premises in academy when she attends to her lessons. Newborns could make lessons quite difficult it seems. But Vivian was supposed to take care of me when mother does that.

Speaking of our white fox, during all this time she became even more powerful, partly because mother finaly finished special diadem for her, that enchanced her powers even further. But what I meant was that now she was equal to Jade when fencing, even when using only two swords . If we talk about raw power then I think only my mother could be her opponent, mostly because Vivian can't stop lightning with her powers like she does with spells of others.

*

But before we returned to an academy we made a visit to a SOB again.

'Services Of Binded' or just like most call it - SOB. It's an official organization dealing with slaves. Slavery In Aizerus Alliance is legal as it's in most of empires or kingdoms. But only slaves confirmed by SOB, in case enslavement was noticed wihout legal claim, offender would be punished by the Law, depending on involment death penalty or drop in rank of House was not an exception. This way no nobles dared to enslave their enemies or rivals out of prying eyes.

All slaves were expensive because of many costly procedures needed for checking if enslavement was legal. It was done with the help of comunication network, test of slave and one who delivered trough 'Hall of Truth' other enchancements, and lastly binding ritual itself. So even if some commoner was enslaved, after all procedures were done, they would cost a fortune. Only nobles could afford slaves and number of slaves they had were used to show off. 

"Good morning Lady Darkmoon, sorry to say but we have no more news about slaves with origins of Darkmoon House from our network in Zolmor." greeted us a lycan.

SOB functions in many kingdoms and Empires, and we were buying trough them our relatives that survived and were enslaved in Zolmor kingdom. Sadly there were very little of them.

"Too bad .. Show me what you have from slaves with battle potential." said my mother while holding me in her embrace.

Lycan lead us into a huge hall where soon slaves of different races were brought. We were also buying slaves as servants or potential warriors. At first we only hired them, but very many of them were spies from other Houses or assassins in disguise and mother changed her target to slaves.

My gaze was attracted to a naga, I found them exotic on our first day in the academy. She was woman just like that demon from the academy.

"From females I would like that naga and a weircat, as for men .. that gorgon seems ok, hmm ?" mother stoped and looked at Vivian.

"Found someone fancy Vivian ?" she asked with a grin.

"Wh .. what are you sa .. saying Lady Celina ?" Vivian started to blush.

"Your tails give you away my dear Vivian. But if there is really someone you fancy I might buy for you. Money isn't a problem for us now." said mother still with a grin.

When mother mentioned I looked at her tails and from their movement I could see that she was indeed excited.

"N..no its nothing like that La..Lady Celina." flustered Vivian.

"Are you sure ? If we leave now, somone might buy him after us and he will have to do all kind of things as slave .. Even in bed." teased further mother.

Vivian went silent for a moment then looked to one man.

"Pl..please buy me that lycan, La..Lady Celina." she asked with a red face.