***The Royal Family's Winter Resort***

***Aengus***

“~Nyahaha!~”

I try my best to shield my mind from my girlfriend's screams of love and arousal which are echoing through the door. Feeling awkward, I rearrange my position in my seat, hoping to hide my own excitement while holding onto my hand-cards.

“~Aahn!~”

Not allowing me to be there for Sharid, my father, Nicosar, and Arthur forced me to play a game with them, but my mind just isn't in it. I want to hold her hand and help her through this difficult time.

“~Yess!~”

I finally can't take it anymore. “Mom, just what did you do to Sharid?”

For some reason, Sharid was brought into the bathroom when she started writhing on the floor and I was forbidden from entering the room. Just what kind of strange medicine did Mom use on her?

My worries are only amplified when my mother doesn't pay any attention to my question.

Instead, she is sitting on the couch while chewing on her fingernail, worriedly eyeing the door towards the bathroom. “This is strange. It should hurt! It should definitely hurt, I am sure of that. Did I make a mistake with the base-pairs? But that's impossible... it's more likely for the recipient’s face to melt off than having the potion's effect reversed!”

“What should hurt? Sharid!” I drop my cards and run towards the door, but Ireth blocks my way.

“Sit!” Ireth gives a single command and I immediately fall to my knees, remembering the days of when our grandmother was baby-sitting Seria and me. Grandma is scary – maybe even scarier than Mom and Dad! I can't oppose her!

“~More!~”

“~Aah!~”

Argh! Why does Sharid sound so excited!? This hurts my pride! She didn't scream like that when I screwed her! What is worrisome that it has been hours since the process started. Is it possible to break someone's mind with unending pleasure? Was that my mother's plan? Though, it sounded more like she intended to have Sharid feel pain.

Knowing my mother’s skills with alchemy, I can barely believe that she messed up with one of her remedies.

“This is totally unexpected. That girl seems to have some guts. She might be really good material for our family,” Ireth talks to herself, apparently changing her mind about Sharid's worthiness.

“I will take a walk outside.” Angrod leaves the room with a grumpy expression.

“~Magnnificiennt!~”

My eyes wander to my sister who regained her senses.

It looks like she knows more than me because Seria just winks and then returns to playing the kowtowed miscreant of the family.

Finally, the screams calm down after what felt like an eternity.

The doorknob turns and Sharid stumbles back into the room, covered in sweat and tired, but alive and standing. She remains at the entrance, holding onto the bathroom's door to balance herself.

“That was the ~best~. Did I pass the test?” She smiles and surveys the room, looking for a hint of acceptance among the family members.

I frown, noting that my fiancée’s appearance changed. There are red and black locks of hair added to the single white one. Two horns are crowning her head like a tiara and a long black tail is curling cutely behind her.

Sharid notices me staring. “Why are you looking at me like that? Something behind me?” Sharid turns around, stumbling over her own dandy legs in the process, clearly unused to the weight of an additional appendage. “~Gyaa!~”

The door-knob breaks off with a 'snap' and goes flying as she falls backwards onto her butt.

Sharid immediately gets onto all fours and crawls to the large mirror at the cottage's entrance, mewling in horror all the way. Once there, she settles down and paws her mirror image like a cat fighting its own reflection. “~Nyarrrr!~ Tail! Horns!? My hair! I look like a striped zibra from the red desert of Dira!”

She turns red when she notices that her newly grown tail ripped her trousers and immediately tries to cover her perfect butt. “What happened to ~meeee~!”

“Whatever a striped zibra is... your metamorphosis should have hurt!” Celes complains with a sulky voice. “Of course you failed the test! I have to rework this serum. Something went seriously wrong! You should have never been able to endure this. Nobody who can avoid it does!”

I form a silent 'O' with my mouth, realizing that Mom turned Sharid into a Chimeran. Into a demon-kin to be exact. And like all Chimerans, Sharid had to go through the most dreaded trait of our physiology, something any Chimeran who ever lived would curse Seria for – if they knew who to hold responsible for our fucked-up biology.

“Could you please get Sharid a bathrobe,” I address Rose and the maid nods, returning with a simple robe for Sharid to cover herself.

“But it did hurt like hell,” Sharid confirms, baffling Celes.

“Mom, one of Sharid's divinities is... Masochism,” Seria points out some vital information, providing the final clue to Celes's puzzlement.

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Sharid tries to stand upright, but fails miserably, so I jump to her side and assist her.

“What?” Celes eyes her newest daughter in law.

“That explains it,” Ireth mumbles, stroking her forearm in contemplation of this development.

“Anyway, there is no longer a problem with her heritage.” Katrine nods to herself. “We can just say that she is the sole surviving member of a small branch family. Nobody will dare to question us if we play our cards right.”

“Bullshit!” Celes pulls a device out of her clothes and holds it towards Sharid's head. “But it seems like the serum worked just as intended. Hmm. Everything should be fine. No abnormalities...” Then she waves it downwards towards my fiancée’s tail.

The device beeps angrily, hinting at some kind of complication and making me tense up.

“Is something wrong with me?” Sharid looks up at Celes, waiting for a verdict with tears in her eyes.

Celes frowns and points the device at Sharid's tail and then at her belly, getting the angry 'Beeb' again. Suddenly, Celes's body blurs and I feel my earlobe being almost ripped off as she pulls me down to the ground to kneel before her. “Ow! Strength freak!”

I quickly shut up when I realize that my mother's eyes are glowing red. She is seriously pissed off.

“Why is she pregnant!” Celes demands.

Sharid turns white. “I feared something like that...”

I feel a little dizzy. “We- we did it just once!” I point out sheepishly. Sharid warned me of her curse and her bad luck, but honestly, I didn't believe that I could be unlucky enough to score full points from just one happy encounter.

“Big Brother's pull-out-game is terrible. He was on top,” Seria confirms mercilessly, nodding to herself and inadvertently shifting most of the blame for this towards me.

“Twins!” Celes screams at us with all the outrage of a mother having caught her stupid kids with an unplanned and unapproved pregnancy.

Damn it all, I thought I could enjoy my youth for a little longer. Maybe a few shared months of innocent youth with Sharid.

Ireth smacks her forehead. “This offspring of mine.” She looks at Katrine and my grandmother nods. “They became too fertile since our days.”

The door opens and Angrod returns to the living room. He freezes for a second and surveys the room, sensing that something is up. His eyes check our faces and he nods. “Those are the 'Oh-Shit-Baby!' expressions.” Clearly needing a second time-out, he turns and walks right back outside again.

“Get up, Sharid. I will help you into the chair.” I pull her to her feet.

She still has a shocked expression on her face and doesn't resist me when I lower her into one of the chairs at the dinner table. Dazed, she inspects her hair, tittering, “Aengus, do you still like me if I look like this? It feels like I have been defiled. And what about this!” She points at her belly, unconsciously using her tail to do so.

“Gah!” Realizing what she did, she catches the new appendage and starts wrestling with it to no avail, as it seems to have a mind of its own. Giving up, she instead hugs me around my waist with tears in her eyes.

“It's fine! I love you no matter how you look! Actually, it suits you! I find it sexy! And the kids are ours!” I pat her head while I glare at Mom who is still fretting over Sharid's successful trial. “Sharid passed your test and it's not like we are not adults who can't decide what they want.”

“Tch!” Upon seeing my determination, Celes forces herself to smile. “Fine! There is no point in repeating the trial. The pervert will just get more excited if I tune the serum. Welcome to the family, daughter!”

Suddenly, a deep vibration shakes the entire building and Sharid clings to me with a scared expression, her eyes round with terror. “What was that?” She looks towards the window. “Why is it pitch-black outside?”

“Daddy is playing outside!” – “Yes!” – “Lookie!”

The triplets storm out of the room, yelling with an excitement only children can have when something unforeseen happens.

We follow, only to find Angrod doing stretching exercises on the veranda with a relieved expression.

“What happened, dear?” Celes walks up to him and then she looks up. “Not again! I liked that moon! It had all those little nooks and crannies a moon should have!”

Angrod blinks, trying to play the innocent. “Nah, I didn't do anything. Just relieved some stress. This whole situation got me a little worked up.”

“The moon...” Ireth whines, apparently just as attached to the thing as my mother.

Angrod turns and looks at the sky. “Which moon?”

“I hope you get me a new one,” Celes complains. “And not a yellow one again. I hate that colour.”

“He did it again.” Seria harrumphs.

“Did this planet have a moon? I wonder...” Angrod turns and walks towards me. “Son!”

Sharid jumps and hides behind me while holding onto my clothes and hissing, “You said that he isn't dangerous! ~Liar!~ Did he really just destroy a moon?”

“Sometimes, when he gets worked up,” I whisper, feeling her wobbling behind me, unable to keep her balance with the new tail.

Suddenly Angrod brings forth a package from a dimensional pocket and offers it to me. “You can put it to better use than I can! There are times when men just have to accept the windings of fate. Think of it as an early wedding gift.”

I take the package and shake it, too suspicious of the contents to simply open it right then and there. There is a headband with cat-ears on top of it. “What's inside?”

“It's my highest quality cat-costume! It's a legendary equipment which I enhanced a little with magic! At first I didn't want to admit it, Aengus, but when I heard Sharid's screams I had to give up. You found the perfect wife, son. Put it to good use!” He puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles at me. “But before you stick it in again don't forget that... she probably doesn't have complete control over her southern region, if the tail serves as an indication.”

I pale.

Sharid pulls at my sleeve while using me as a shield against my father. “Whaat dooees hee meeaan?” She asks with long, elongated words, clearly afraid of hearing the answer.

Angrod snickers and shakes his head. “On the other hand, you are already down shit creek. It shouldn't matter if there is one more mishap...”

Celes steps closer and takes Sharid by the upper arm, pulling her away from me. “Girl, we should probably have a long discussion about demon-kin physiology before you maim my son.”

“Maim?” Sharid squeaks. “I would never!”

“Not if you are properly trained... which is why we need some carrots...” Celes sighs, clearly not cherishing the idea of giving Sharid 'the talk' about the bees and the flowers.

Seria joins in and tries to encourage her friend. “Don't worry, Sharid. We can help you to get this... little issue… under control… it’s manageable.”

Sharid looks worriedly back and forth between Celes and Seria until her eyes fall onto the gift I got. “~GYAA!~ Can't be! Those are from Mom's best set! She described them to me at least a thousand times! Our brothel's income went down by ten percent since they were stolen!!” Sharid wobbles towards Angrod, having forgotten her fear.

“~~~Filthy Thief! Die a thousand deaths!~~~”

Angrod just smirks at her without an ounce of shame and straightens his shirt. “You should know better than to use Siren's Voice against me. I was the one who bestowed that skill on you after all. What I took from your mother was payment in exchange for her daughter's excellent abilities.”

Celes only looks at Angrod like he is filth. “Angrod, don’t dig your own grave any deeper… and which skills exactly are you responsible for? Is this somehow related to your ‘other’ side?”

My father stops smiling and clears his throat. “I may have picked up one or the other skill during my female reincarnations. I bestowed all my best powers which I brought to perfection during those times onto her!” He points at Sharid.

“Curses!” Sharid complains.

“Gifts!” Angrod corrects, and then admits, “If you can control them.”

“~Honey bear?~” Celes stops the exchange with her sweetest voice.

“Yes, sugar cat?”

“Just shut up and follow me.” Celes takes Angrod by the hand. “Seria, I trust you to get started with Sharid’s training.”

Celes leads Angrod back into the house while the rest of the family stares after them with perplexed expressions.

“Why did daddy make the moon disappear?” The triplets look at us with disturbed expressions.