An Afternoon of Baking and Surprises

The first afternoon activity had taken over the entire Banquet Hall kitchen. The wide open space was transformed, and possibly expanded to accommodate the extra furniture: rows of baker’s benches stretched end to end, each topped with a sheet of pastel vinyl and a neat cluster of mixing bowls, measuring cups, and the faint promise of impending chaos.

Most of the benches were already claimed when Skye arrived. She scanned the crowd, one hand shading her eyes, and quickly located her station by looking at the lists of names on a cutting board used as a tableau. Sassafras’s three bodies stood at polite attention just behind their shared counter, vaguely hesitant, as if the idea of baking for fun rather than as a duty was a concept she was still struggling with on some level.

Skye slid into place at the station, her bare feet barely whispering across the floor. She didn’t look out of place, not with her sleek drow skin and her rope-bra, or with the confidence of someone who’d spent the last ninety-five years pretending every new room was already hers. She glanced at her assigned team and nodded once at Sassafras, who returned the gesture with a blink, then began sorting the mise en place for each group member: four even lines of eggs, four wooden spoons, four identical aprons hung from pegs just above the counter.

Emi arrived a minute later, hovering at the threshold of the room with a distracted, birdlike alertness, as if she was still trying to orient herself after a long, slow flight. One hand checked the slip of paper with her table assignment, another clutched a folder of loose recipes, the remaining four hovered as if waiting for instruction. Emi’s face was more open than Skye remembered—less the lost-in-thought dreamer and more someone freshly unafraid of being seen. She even looked a bit taller, and fuller in the chest, although Skye knew Emi had not received further physical transformations.

Emi stopped at the edge of the bench, her attention caught first by the pastel tablecloth and then by the shimmer of Skye’s skin in the sunlight. She blinked, set down her things, and squared her shoulders like someone about to step onto a high wire.

Skye crossed the remaining distance in three long strides, closing the gap before Emi had even finished setting her things down. She opened her arms wide and said, “Emi!” in a voice that rang across the room, but with a softness that suggested it was the only thing she’d actually rehearsed. Emi laughed—a sound as round and effortless as her handwriting—and met Skye’s embrace with all six arms at once, folding her in from every angle.

The hug was not tentative; it was the kind of hug people gave after a birthday party that had only seemed like yesterday but was, in fact, a century of someone else’s time. They stood locked together, four of Emi’s arms around Skye’s shoulders and waist, two more fluttering between awkward and delighted at the small of her back.

When Emi pulled away, her eyes were bright and slick, and her voice had the echo of a laugh still in it. “It’s really you,” she said, then, “I—” and she had to start over. “I missed you.” She squeezed Skye’s forearms once, then released.

Skye grinned, a flash of even teeth, and said, “It’s really me. I missed you too. You look…” She paused, searching for a word. “You look perfect, Emi.” Her eyes traced Emi’s face, then flicked to the six arms and the subtle, effortless choreography they did, even at rest. “You seem… good. Are you good?”

Emi nodded, but the movement wasn’t entirely sure. “I think so,” she said. “Tomorrow, I’m getting married.” She let the word float for a second, as if it might sound less strange if she left it hanging. “Andy, and me, and six others. All together. It’s…” Emi made a helpless, six-handed shrug. “It’s a lot.”

Skye’s eyes lit with understanding and a dash of mischief. “Take it from me, it’s the good kind of ‘a lot.’ But I’m glad he’s marrying you. I always thought you were a great match.” She paused. “Is he treating you well?”

The smile Emi gave at that was different from the others—softer, unpracticed. “He is,” she said. “He’s a really good person.” She considered, then added, “Sometimes I think he’s still scared that everything is going to go away again, so he doesn’t let himself be as happy as he wants. But when it’s just us, he is. I think he’s happy.”

Skye nodded, as if she’d known all along. “Tyalangan says he’d never admit it, but he’s always needed people more than most.” She rested a hand on Emi’s wrist, the gesture easy, grounding. “I’m happy for you,” Skye repeated.

Emi’s eyes shimmered, then dropped to the bench where the mixing bowls were arranged in their perfect row. She cleared her throat, and her arms all fidgeted in a perfect, rippling wave. “You’ve been okay? I mean, you look—” Emi stopped herself, then grinned. “You look amazing, Skye. Are you happy? Like, actually happy?”

Skye’s grin softened into something more genuine, less performed. “Yes, I am,” she said, and glanced briefly over her shoulder. “More than I thought I’d know how to be.” She gestured behind her, where a young woman with the same lilac skin and white hair as Skye was standing quietly by the next station, wearing a white blouse and a miniskirt, watching them with a calm, studious expression. “Summer’s part of why.”

Emi’s hands stilled on the table, her six arms falling into a sudden, perfect quiet. She looked from Skye to the young woman standing a few paces away, and her mouth opened slightly. “Summer?” The name came out soft, almost a whisper. Her eyes traced the line of Summer’s jaw, the confident set of her shoulders, the way she held herself with an ease that only years could grant. “I knew you’d be grown, but… seeing you…” She trailed off, one hand rising almost unconsciously to her own cheek. “You’re really here.”

“She is,” Skye said, pride in her voice. “She’s the best of me and her other mother, and there are a lot of good things about Tyalangan. Come on, Summer, come say hi.”

Summer approached with efficient, deliberate steps. Her hair was loose down her back, and her face was more mature than Emi had expected, but with a steadiness in the eyes that was all Skye. She stopped just at the edge of Emi’s space and said, “Hello, Auntie Emi,” without any hesitation, as if it was a name she’d been waiting to use for years.

Emi found herself blinking fast, her arms working in unconscious concert to tidy the table and straighten her folder and do anything at all with the flood of feeling that rose in her chest. She managed, “Hello,” and then, before she could think better of it, “You’re beautiful.”

Summer’s smile was a perfect mirror of Skye’s, but softer, as if she didn’t need to make a show of it. “Thank you, Auntie Emi,” she said, without any hesitation, as if it was a name she’d been waiting to use for years. “I heard a lot about you.”

The words landed, and Emi had to laugh, damp and overwhelmed. She reached out with four arms at once and pulled Summer into a hug, less crushing than the one she’d given Skye, but no less sincere. Summer returned it, her own arms loose and comfortable, not surprised at all to be enveloped in so many.

When Emi pulled away, her eyes were visibly wet, but she didn’t look embarrassed. Instead, she reached with her lower left hand to her Inventory and pulled a small, battered envelope from it. Inside it were dozens of children’s drawings: cats, stars, a sketch of a drow with white hair and a crown of clouds, and one very lopsided but unmistakable rendering of Emi herself, all six arms outstretched.

“These are yours,” Emi said, and she fanned them out on the bench so Summer could see. “Your mother sent them to me. Every single one made me cry, but in a good way. I thought I’d never get to meet you, not for real.” Her hands trembled as she sorted through the pictures.

Summer stared at them, her usual polish slipping. She picked up the drawing of Emi, studied it, and for a moment her eyes glistened in the same way as Emi’s. “I don’t really remember making this one,” Summer said, quiet. “But I’m glad you kept it.”

Emi gave a small, hiccupping laugh. “I keep everything I love,” she said, “and I loved these very much.”

There was a silence, soft and luminous as spun sugar, and then Skye—never one to let a moment collapse under its own weight—said, “Summer, go on, show her your grown-up art. You’re very talented.”

Summer glanced at her mother, then at Emi, and reached into a leather folio she pulled from her own Inventory. She withdrew a neat, square sheet, crisp and bright, and handed it to Emi: a painting in gouache, a perfect likeness of Skye in profile, caught in some moment of motion and thought. The hair was still long and unbound, the eyes focused on something distant, and the skin rendered in layers of blue and purple that made the whole thing feel like it was carved from moonlight.

Emi stared at it for a long, slow second, her face shifting through a dozen shades of joy and longing and pride. “It’s… it’s wonderful,” she said. “You’re better than me already. That’s not even a compliment, it’s just true.”

Summer glowed at the words, but her eyes kept returning to the battered children’s drawings on the table, as if she was trying to match the person who’d made them to the one holding them now. “I’m glad you kept them,” she said again, quieter. “It means I had someone thinking of me, even when I didn’t know it.”

Skye watched the two of them, eyes gentle, and Emi felt a pressure building in her chest—a sense of loss and love braided so tightly together she couldn’t separate them.

At the front of the kitchen, a call went up: the baking challenge would start in five minutes, and everyone was to assemble at their stations. The voice was instantly recognizable as Liesa’s, ringing with authority even through the bounce of tile and glass.

Skye glanced toward the sound, and her eyes widened. “Winter’s with her,” she said, half to Emi and half to Summer. “He’s a judge today. Should I call him over?”

Summer shrugged, and Emi said, “I’d love to meet him. If he wants to.”

Skye gave a low whistle, and within seconds Winter was making his way through the crowd. He was as tall as his sister, probably five feet even and a few inches shorter than Emi, but he carried himself with the dignity of a full-grown young man. His hair was cut in an androgynous pixie cut, his eyes a piercing shade of violet, and he wore a white blouse resembling his sister’s that had already picked up a smudge of flour at one sleeve, as well as a miniskirt similar to Summer’s.

He approached the bench, clipboard in hand, and stopped with perfect poise just shy of touching distance. “Hello, Auntie Emi,” he said, and his smile was softer than Summer’s but just as real. “It’s nice to meet you. Mama Skye spoke so much about you.”

Emi’s mouth curled in a small, startled smile. “She wrote me about you, too,” she said. She opened her arms instead of just reaching out a hand, and Winter stepped into the hug without hesitation, his own arms coming up to wrap around her waist. He was solid and warm against her, and for a moment she just held him, one set of hands on his back, another smoothing his hair. He didn’t pull away until she did, his violet eyes bright and unblinking.

Summer pointed at the spread of drawings on the table. “Some of these are yours, I think,” she said to her brother.

Winter leaned in, scanned the pictures, and immediately picked out one—two stick figures, a baby dragon, and a woman with six arms all holding cookies. “That one’s mine,” he said, proud. “It was a late present for Uncle Andy’s birthday.”

Emi laughed. “I’ve kept it every day since.”

A bell sounded at the front of the room, and Liesa called for silence. The baking contest was officially beginning. Winter gave Emi’s hand a final squeeze, then excused himself with a polite, “I have to go judge now, Auntie. But we can talk later.”

He was already gone before Emi could reply.

Skye smiled. “He takes everything very seriously. I think he has Tyalangan’s work ethic, but he hasn’t fully harnessed it yet, and I can’t tell if it’s a good thing.” She reached for Emi’s hand and squeezed it, matching her son’s gesture exactly. “I’m really happy to be here,” Skye said, soft.

Summer gathered the drawings, stacked them neatly, and returned them to Emi, careful with the edges. “You should keep them,” she said. “They’re part of your story now.”

Emi nodded, her eyes damp again, and slipped the bundle back into her Inventory. She looked at Skye and Summer, then at the station before them, ready to start. She wiped her eyes with one hand, while the others began arranging the bowls and measuring cups.

They worked as a trio after that: Skye in the lead, Emi handling all the fine work, Summer moving between the two with the precision of a seasoned assistant. Sassafras, silent at the end of the bench, took it all in with a small, private smile and the quick, efficient notes of someone recording history.

The room filled with the low hum of voices and the clatter of utensils, and Emi realized how big her impossible family had become. She already was an aunt many times over. And even if the years and the worlds between them were impossible to measure, all those children were part of her family, and she belonged.

And, if the tears that glittered in her eyes as she poured flour into the bowl were any clue, that was more than enough.

---

The baking contest had thirteen teams, but only one station seemed determined to compete as if they’d spent their entire lives learning how to be one organism split four ways. Laura’s group had drawn the setup closest to the pantry, a tactical advantage that none of them commented on but all exploited without hesitation. Both of Laura’s bodies arrived at the bench ahead of schedule, one skimming the recipe while the other pawed through a drawer for a whisk, and between them they radiated a double-wide aura of competence.

Sarah Hawkins trailed in behind them, her attention toggling between Laura's two bodies as she moved. It was impossible not to stare: same face, same posture, each hand mirroring the other’s motion with a mathematical precision that should have been eerie but instead made Sarah think of a pair of birds flying in tandem, never missing a beat. She looked away, embarrassed to be caught gawking, but found herself looking back within seconds. Three days into the season, she still hadn’t built up the immunity to this kind of thing—the reality of women who were both more than and less than what the world told you was possible. Like most of the women attending this party.

If you asked Sarah, she’d have told you that most of her life had been defined by occupying the edges of rooms like this. It wasn’t that she disliked people; she just did better watching them. Now, at thirty, she’d learned to hang at the counter’s edge and wait for an opening, never volunteering unless called on.

The other two members of the group stood in perfect, cartoonish contrast. Merida, the fox-girl with the three tails, was a kinetic force—hair in a state of permanent static, tail tips flicking and bristling with every new curiosity. Even for Sarah, the Scottish accent was hard to understand at times. The fox-girl leaned hard across the divider to eye the ingredients at the next station, nose wrinkling as she memorized the setup. Before Merida could reach out and, presumably, pocket a scoop of their competitor’s flour, Claire Freeman—short, pale, and so inconspicuous that Sarah often forgot she was there, her cat-like eyes watching with an intelligence Sarah could only barely fathom—caught Merida by the sleeve and reeled her in. Claire’s cat ears flicked, warning enough, and she didn’t even need to write in her notebook to make her point.

“Stop sussing out the place,” Sarah said, mostly to cover her nerves. Merida grinned, toothy and unrepentant.

“Jist makkin sure they're usin the guid stuff,” Merida said, and the moment Claire let go, she immediately redirected her focus to the mixing bowl.

Sarah retreated to the counter and watched. Laura—both of her—anchored the station from the start, one reading the recipe aloud in a low murmur while the other laid out the ingredients in the order they’d be needed. It was the kind of quiet, practiced organization that made everything around it look improvised by comparison. Claire kept pace, measuring and passing things over before being asked, her cat ears angled toward Laura like she was tracking a frequency no one else could hear. Merida, for her part, located the vanilla extract, smelled it, and tipped a drop directly into her mouth.

“That goes in the batter,” Laura said in tandem, not looking up.

Merida swallowed. “Aaye, 'n noo it's in me. Same destinaation.”

What followed was less a rhythm than a managed disaster with a good outcome: Merida separated two yolks successfully and then dropped a third straight into the dry ingredients, shell and all, and had to be redirected twice before Laura simply moved her to the task of buttering the pans, where she could do the least damage. Claire fished out the shell. The batter came together anyway, smooth and pale, and they poured it in one long cooperative motion—one of Laura’s bodies tilting the bowl, Claire scraping, Merida holding the pan steady with both hands and one tail. The cakes went into the oven.

With the timer set, all there was to do was wait.

Merida’s eyes lit up at the unguarded hour. “I'm off tae get a gander at how the ither teams are daein',” she said, already halfway to the next station, and Claire, unable or unwilling to argue, let herself be dragged along.

This left Laura and Sarah alone at the bench, hands dusted with flour and nothing left to do. For a while they just stood there, silent except for the distant sounds of other teams prepping. Laura dusted her hands on a towel, then stacked the measuring cups, then flicked a crumb off the counter. Sarah stood, arms crossed, and waited for the awkwardness to settle.

“You can say it,” Laura said, in stereo, voices soft. “The twin thing freaks people out at first. You get used to it.”

Sarah snorted. “No. That’s not it.” She hesitated, then added, “Well, it is, but not the way you think.”

“Go on,” Laura prompted.

Sarah’s mouth twitched. She picked up the recipe card and scanned it, more to have something to do with her hands. “I keep waiting for one of you to fumble the choreography. Or make a mistake. But you never do.”

“It’s not on purpose,” Laura said, voices warm. “It just happens.”

Sarah shrugged. “I think I like it,” she said, and realized as she spoke it that she meant it. “Most of the time, I hate being watched. But it’s not so bad with you.”

Laura cocked her heads, and both sets of her blue eyes sparkled in unison. “Why do you hate it?”

Sarah opened her mouth, then shut it. She set the card down and ran her thumb over the edge, the paper soft and smudged with batter. “I’ve never liked being the centre of attention. I got really good at making myself small, at not being in the picture. Even after everything that happened, even after I got this—” She gestured at herself, her whole body, “I still feel like a fraud half the time. Like any minute, someone is going to ask me to go back to the old version.”

Laura didn’t say anything. She just listened, both bodies turned toward Sarah in the way that made you feel like a queen and a patient at the same time. Sarah took a breath.

“I know it’s stupid,” Sarah said, “but I catch myself flinching at mirrors sometimes. I’ll see this body, and it’s so different from the one I lived in for twenty-something years, and for a second, it feels like stealing.”

Laura’s gaze softened. “It’s not stupid,” she said. “I know exactly what you mean.”

Sarah blinked. She hadn’t expected agreement. “You do?”

Laura laughed—two bodies, same exact sound. “My first day back, I spent half an hour just looking at my own hands. I thought, if I pinched myself, I’d wake up. And it would all be gone again. Or I’d go back to being thirteen, which was even worse.” Her lips curled, a hint of mischief. “I still have dreams where I’m not really here. Sometimes I wake up and have to check which version of me made it to morning.”

Sarah managed a smile at that. “So it never gets better?”

“It does,” Laura said. “Or you get used to it. But you still have the bad days.”

They let that hang for a while, the only sound the low hum of the oven fans.

Finally, Sarah exhaled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring the mood down. I guess I just needed to say it.”

Laura shrugged. “Everyone needs to say it sometimes. That’s why these shows are so good at making people talk—they give you too much time to think.”

Sarah was the first to break the silence, mostly because she couldn’t stand it anymore. “You really don’t get nervous, do you,” she said, more statement than question. “Just show up double, take over the bench, no nerves.”

Laura’s two bodies turned in perfect harmony. “I do get nervous,” she said, in stereo. “I just cover for myself. If you mess up, at least you have another body to blame.”

Sarah laughed, too loud, and covered her mouth with a hand. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You make everything look easy.”

“It isn’t,” Laura said, one voice this time, soft enough that Sarah wondered if she was supposed to hear it.

They let the silence settle again, this time less strained. The oven’s orange light glowed on the cake tins, and the smell of sugar and vanilla was starting to fill the room.

Sarah felt her lips twitch, like she was about to fake a smile and then—maybe because Laura was still looking, just waiting—she let the air out of her lungs and didn’t bother with a happy ending. “Did you ever feel like… you’re just borrowing someone else’s life? Like, it’s fine, it’s good, and he’s happy, but you keep thinking there’s this person that he actually deserves, and you’re just… not her? And he’d never tell you. He’d never leave you, because he loves you too much, and if you were the one who walked away, it’d break his heart. So you’re just left knowing you’re not enough, and knowing he’d never do anything about it.”

She heard her own voice and hated it for sounding so small, but she couldn’t stop. “Sometimes I think Matt would be happier with someone better. Someone who could actually give him what he deserves. And I know he loves me. That’s the worst part, really. I know he’d never leave me. I’m the one who keeps wondering why he doesn’t look for someone better than me.” She flicked her eyes up at Laura, bracing for the wince, but Laura’s face was a mirror: the same tight mouth, the bright stare that said she’d run the same bad programme in her own head, probably more than once.

“I met Matt in secondary school. I mean, I spent years watching him from the sidelines and never said a word. He started dating Emma, this…” Sarah smiled, but it was all teeth and no warmth, “She was tall, and really, really pretty, and also a complete psycho who spent most of sixth form telling her friends that Matt was a needy loser. They broke up, and I was the one who showed up to pick up the pieces. That’s how we started. And now he’s… he’s not nineteen anymore. He’s got abs and a real job and he can talk to women without stuttering. And if you asked me to name a single thing that makes me the obvious pick for him, I couldn’t do it.” She stopped, then added, “I think if he ever noticed, he could do better. I think he would.”

She pressed the heel of her palm into her eye, hard enough to make the world go white for a second. “I know it’s the dumbest possible thing to get hung up on, given everything, but even with this,” she indicated her body, the tight jeans and the way the crop top fit her too well, “I can’t make myself believe I’m not a fluke. And all these other girls—” She shut her mouth, suddenly aware she’d said more than she’d meant to, in a room where neither of them was supposed to be the kind of girl who aired this shit aloud.

Laura took a beat, like she was checking to see if Sarah was really finished. Then, she said softly, “I spent the first weeks of my new life thinking if I told Andy how I really felt, he’d pity me and then walk away. I’ve watched him with all these other women, and every time I'd see one of them smile at him, I’d invent a version of her that’s better than me. Wouldn’t matter if I was in the room or not.” She shrugged, like maybe that was just the price of admission. “It’s easier to be the background character in someone else’s story. You get to be invisible, and safe.”

Sarah wanted to ask—if it’s that easy, then why aren’t you? But it was obvious Laura wasn’t. She was right here, and she was asking for the ugliest parts.

Instead, Sarah asked, “Does it ever get better? Or are we just supposed to get good at pretending?”

Laura’s hands curled on the counter, steady. “You know what helps?” She leaned in, not conspiratorial but with a weight that made Sarah’s chest ache. “The only thing that’s ever worked for me is to say it to someone who gets it. And to keep saying it until it doesn’t sound like a dirty secret anymore.” One of Laura’s bodies stared at the oven, the other at Sarah. “You’re not a placeholder. You’re just someone who doesn’t know what it sounds like when people mean it. So you don’t believe them.”

As the words left her mouth, Laura went still for half a heartbeat. Sarah watched one face turn away from her, towards the oven, while the other stayed fixed on her. There was something in the pause—a tiny tightening around the eyes, perhaps, or the way Laura seemed to draw a quieter breath—that made Sarah wonder if she'd said something that had landed closer to home than she'd intended. Then it was gone, and Laura was looking at her again, steady and open.

Sarah flinched, and felt it, and let herself sit in it for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to turn this into therapy hour. You probably have more important stuff to do.”

Laura shook her head, both bodies in tandem. “No. I don’t.” Her voice pitched low, almost private. “I understand how you feel, I understand this is a lot. If you ever want to talk to someone who isn’t going to tell Matt, or judge, or make it all about herself, you can always write me. You can vent, too. That’s what I’m actually good at.”

Sarah tried to laugh, but it was a shaky little sound. “Thanks,” she said, and she meant it.

The oven timer dinged like a tiny gunshot. Both women jumped.

“Moment of truth,” Laura said, and the pivot away from pain was so smooth Sarah could have sworn it was magic. Maybe it was.

They tackled the cakes, set them on the rack, and fussed over the frosting in near silence. Only after they’d finished the work, only after Merida and Claire came back—Merida with a stolen fistful of chocolate chips, Claire with a look that made Sarah think she’d had to reel the fox-girl away from mischief—did Sarah realize she’d spent the entire hour not thinking about what people saw when they looked at her.

It didn’t fix anything. But it helped.

---

I’m soooooooo bored! Daphne had been relegated to stirring icing with a big wooden spoon to keep it from setting too much as the cake baked. It smelled weird. The ingredients were weird, too. Butter and cream cheese, both from normal cows? Why use cow dairy when hu-cow dairy was so much cheaper (and much more fun to extract from egg sacs)? Some light brown liquid that tasted of alcohol and some kind of poison vegetable thing? Why use that brown alcohol stuff when squid ink was readily available and tasty? Then a bunch of very powdery sugar. Daphne offered to grind some salt to the same texture if that’s all they were looking for but was denied. Like every other culinary idea she had.

The mermaid glanced over to the other teams longingly. Skye and Emi were giggling as they tried to get a mark of frosting on each other’s noses (Skye was definitely losing; six arms against two was a hard challenge to overcome). Her wives Scarlet and Alex were both working diligently with Marissa.

It’s okay, Daph. You’re making friends. What did your Beloved tell all the cute bunny-daughters? Sometimes you have to do boring things to make friends, but you should try anyways. Maybe you’ll come to like it.

She sighed and returned to paying attention to her team. Norah and Riley were arguing about what color to make the frosting. Daphne started to open her mouth, only to see them both glare at her. “What?” Daphne asked innocently, giving her biggest, shark-toothiest grin.

“Were you about to offer something as weird as your other suggestions?” Norah asked accusingly.

Daphne got defensive, “Hey, none of my ideas were weird! You humans just have weird tastes!”

“You wanted to have our team present an aquarium filled with live fish for a baking competition. That was such a great idea,” Riley offered, completely deadpan.

“Fish is best served alive. Everyone knows that. And, anyways, Tracy thought it was a good idea.”

“Tracy also thought that hacking the show during Andy's birthday was a good idea,” Norah declared, “I just need to carry the team. Here is what we are going to do...”

Daphne started to daydream as the two returned to arguing. I bet our Beloved is having so much fun with Sam at the bachelor’s party. I bet they are doing something cool, like playing DoD or fishing for kraken or doing cool magic things. I bet THEY aren’t “baking” not crab cakes. I wonder if I could sneak into their party?

“Hey, where did Tracy go? She needs supervision, especially after trying to spike the cake batter with aphrodisiacs.”

Daphne bristled at the idea of Norah’s supervision. “I’ll go look for her. She’s been gone to the bathroom for a while.” Daphne handed off the bowl of gross icing goo to Riley and exited the kitchen as quickly as she thought she could politely get away with.

The dining room area was cooler. Tracy was over by the presents, talking to them, which was a perfectly normal action. Daphne would talk to her dolls quite a bit while she’d do her daily Time for a Restock chore when her wives are too busy. She politely waited on the edge for Tracy to finish.

“Hey, Tracy! Wanna get us to the bachelor party?”

The teal-furred cat-girl cocked her robotic arm on her hip as she declared, “Nah, Daph. The competition judging is going to be... explosive!”

As Tracy walked back into the kitchens, Daphne lingered for a few moments. She happened to notice that one of the presents was addressed to her. That was odd. Why would one of the wedding presents be addressed to me? Oh no! Did we mess up by not having a random wedding guest get a present at OUR reception? Ahh!

Daphne really wanted to consult with her Beloved about this. She understood human traditions better. But, her Beloved was at the fun party, not this one. She then wanted to talk to Scarlet or Alex about it. But, they were on another team in this lame bachelorette party baking competition thing. Norah would definitely yell at Daphne for collusion!

Not knowing what else to do, Daphne did something she never liked: consult her artificial human memories from her weird human legs transformation. Human her never got a present before, having grown up in an especially poorly managed Greek orphanage. Human her wanted to take a peek.

But, the human her was almost always wrong, so she didn’t.

---

The final team approached the judging panel, some smiling, some dead serious. Norah, in her powersuit containing her huge egg sacs, placed the cake on the table with a look daring the judges to find complaint. Riley, hair bristling with irritation, stood, arms folded under her heaving egg sacs, almost itching to say “I told you so.” Tracy had a mischievous grin on her face, her big egg sacs barely contained by her whale-netting shirt. Finally, Daphne was showing off her sexy shark teeth, feeling a little inadequate in the egg sac department. She didn’t want to spend SP to temporarily make herself bigger. Plus, she didn’t bother to wear anything other than her oversized T-shirt that declares her as a Certified “Enthusiastic Marine Wizard with Boundary-Setting Quirks and Strong Feelings about Salinity” by Harem Queen Sam Collins! Scarlet would not have approved of Daphne showing off that she is bottomless.

The cake itself held little interest to Daphne. The icing color argument resulted in just leaving the gross goo in its natural off-white shade.

“This seems a little... dense,” Dawn declared tactfully as she sliced into it.

“Bad batch of yeast?” Norah attempted to excuse, “Just because the cake didn’t rise as much as it was supposed to, it should not affect the flavor. The flavor is the important thing.”

The judges finished cutting the slices. They bit. They instantly spat it out. Winter stared at Daphne then sighed, “Never trust a mermaid in a kitchen. They don’t believe in it.”

Dawn winced. “This was a… very interesting flavor, Norah, Riley.”

Sumiku blinked, clearly trying to maintain a composed expression. “This one did not realize cuisine had changed this much during the time she was locked away.” She said, diplomatically.

Penny and Claire Mercer looked at each other, both of them pale, and Claire gave a small head shake, to which Penny responded with an equally small nod of commiseration.

Norah tried the cake, then turned to stare directly at Daphne. “What did you do?”

“Oh easy! Your recipe had to be wrong so I fixed it while you were doing that mise en place thing. Two CUPS of sugar? Gross! I transmuted the sugar into salt! Should have made the cake much tastier! I did compromise and transmuted the teaspoon of salt into sugar, for those with a sweet tooth.”

A wave of groans and horrified gasps washed over the kitchen. Winter dropped his fork with a clatter. Dawn stared, mouth slightly agape, at the cake as if it had personally betrayed her. Sumiku simply closed her eyes, looking pained. Penny made a small gagging noise into her hand.

Scarlet leaned over to whisper to Marissa, “And you wondered why I was happy that Daphne was not on our team? I love my goofball of a mermaid-wife, but...”

While the others bask in her culinary genius, Daphne tried the cake, taking a big bite out of it. The frosting tasted gross, but the cake bit was pretty good! It could have used some squid ink...

Across the table, Norah’s fork clattered onto her plate. Her face had gone pale, her jaw tight. She took a slow, deliberate breath, as if steadying herself for an explosion. Beside her, Riley’s nostrils flared. She set her slice down with a thud that made the table shake, her knuckles white where she gripped the edge. Her hair twitched.

But before either could speak, Tracy—grinning like a maniac—pulled a remote from somewhere and pressed a big red button.

A conspicuously large gift box that had been brought in by penguins earlier exploded in a shower of harmless fireworks and multicolored dildos, a surprising number of which were ash gray and uniform in size. Staggering out of what was left of the exploded mess was a stunned blonde woman dressed in a penguin costume. Another woman in the same costume was launched out of the package, wobbly landing, then quickly falling over; the blonde barely paid her fellow penguin costume clad compatriot any mind. The gathered women looked on, equally stunned, as dildos rained down over the party, several landing in the assembled cakes.

But, Daphne didn’t pay attention to that. Instead she focused on the girl landing with a hard thud a few feet away. Her huge egg sacs served to cushion her fall. Daphne hurried to check on her.

There she was. Her (future) friend Gina, face smeared with cake, did have huge egg sacs, barely contained by her penguin costume. They were straining the costume so tightly that the poor girl could hardly breathe. She smelled of that poison yellow vegetable called lemons. I keep telling people that vegetables are poison! Daphne, wanting to help her (future) friend, tore open the costume to expose her egg sacs. Her egg extractors instantly hardened in the cool dining room air and she moaned; cake bits flew out of her mouth.

“Gina!” Daphne whisper-shouted, “Your egg sacs are HUGE!”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU PERVERTED MERMAID? I OUGHTA...”

“Shh... it’s rude to shout while your Mistress is giving a speech!” Daphne whisper-shouted again, drooling at the sight of Gina’s egg sacs continuing to grow, “Don’t you remember that you were not invited? Also, that is a strange way to pronounce ‘my best mermaid friend.’”

“I WASN’T TRYING TO SAY... Wait, where am I?”

“The bachelorette party. You know, for Andy’s brides?”

“Damnit, Marcie. I don’t want to be here. You’re the one with the hate-boner!” Gina screeched at her Mistress.

“Don’t worry, my bosom buddy! Daphne will save you both!”

“No... wait, Daphne! Leave her, just save me!”

“But... but that isn’t nice,” Daphne whisper-shouted again.

Gina groaned, then muttered, “I will consider being your friend... maybe... possibly... in the future... when pigs fly?”

Daphne didn’t need to be told twice. She focused and cast True Polymorph. Daphne did not enjoy Gina’s egg sacs shrinking, nor her panicked shrieking, as she was turned into a charm pendant. Soon, no more noise, just Gina as a mermaid with enormous exposed egg sacs, rendered in gold, on the ground amid the penguin costume and cake crumbs. Daphne scooped up her future friend and put her around her neck. Gina fit right between Daphne’s C-cups, once the necklace chain was tucked under her T-shirt.

Not exactly Operation: Benevolent Kidnapping, but it’d do! I will win Gina’s friendship yet!

Gina screamed in her mind, “What did you do to me, you cum guzzling freak!”

Daphne telepathically replied back, “Oh, magic! I turned you into a sentient necklace. You can enjoy the feel of my egg sacs and have a general sense of what’s going on. Once I figure out that it’s safe, I’ll reverse the spell and we will have so much fun together! Oooh, do you want to play Dungeons of Delving first or go chasing tasty squid or go to Elion Coast’s flying pig festival or we could find a way for you to blow Marcie as a mermaid to let you carry her mermaid babies or...”

Daphne ignored Gina’s mental shrieking as she continued to think of fun friendship activities. Maybe the bachelorette party wouldn’t be so boring after all!

---

Confetti, cake shrapnel, and stray dildos were still raining down when Riley reached the epicenter of the explosion. She didn’t hesitate: one boot planted dead center on the penguin-belly mass of Marcie’s onesie, the other braced in a frosting slick, she leaned in and grabbed the heavy edge of the prep table that had collapsed onto Marcie’s middle. The table was wedged tight, the kind of jam you needed two hands and a grudge to shift, but Riley had both. With one ugly crack—wood splintering, a sound that made every woman within ten feet wince—she heaved it up and aside, and Marcie’s long-held breath escaped in a whistling, high-pitched gasp.

Norah, who had missed the impact only by a few steps, caught the aftermath: Riley crouched on the flour-dusted floor, cake sludge on her sleeves, one hand fisted in Marcie’s hair and the other trying to work leverage under the soft bulk of the penguin suit. Marcie, for her part, wasn’t resisting, but her face had gone the color of overripe strawberries, and the size of her chest—already testifying to several rounds of magical escalation—seemed to have doubled in the minute since she hit the ground.

There was no trace of the mermaid (or whatever she’d been carrying off), just a crumple of black-and-white plush, and the shattered remains of a two-tier cake now sliding slow-motion off the edge of the table.

“Can you breathe?” Norah asked, neutral as glass.

Marcie tried, and the result was an impressive spray of confetti and colored sugar. She managed, “I’m fine,” but it sounded more like, “I’mb fime,” her face still half-buried. She made a valiant attempt to sit up and immediately slumped back, the momentum of her chest knocking her flat again.

“Help me with her,” Riley said, voice a little strained. Together they wedged their arms under Marcie’s and heaved her up, wedging her upright enough that she could see over the top of her own chest, though not much else. Her glasses were smeared with frosting, she gave a couple of heroic snorts, and looked straight at Norah.

“You did this on purpose,” she accused, with a tone that said she’d been preparing the line for years.

Riley and Norah exchanged a look. Riley shrugged. Norah said, “If I wanted to kill you, I’d have used less cake.”

The next time Marcie got a lungful of air, she was vertical and wedged between Norah’s shoulder and Riley’s arm, the world tilting like a slow-motion crash in a supermarket. The penguin onesie was still zipped to her chin, but half of it had burst open along the seams, spilling seams of yellow fluff and about a pint of lemon frosting directly onto the front of her costume. The floor was a slick hazard—some combination of cake, dildos, and what looked like about a gallon of cheap rum that had missed its destination—but the two women didn’t let up. They frog-marched her through a field of wreckage, Norah with her jaw set and Riley scowling at anyone dumb enough to look twice, and dumped her against the wall just inside the terrace doors, as far from the rest of the crowd as they could get.

Marcie took a second to reorient. The first thing she noticed was the cold, and the second was the glass Riley pressed into her hand. It was filled with an electric-blue slush, and it fizzed audibly.

She drank it—pure reflex, brain still on the bench—only to realize three swallows in that it tasted almost exactly like prickly pear. Like… like the cursed cactus that had once made her chest triple in size on live television. There was a split second of hope, a prayer that maybe this was just her body’s trauma memory kicking in, but the hope died when her breasts immediately surged, doubling their surface area and bursting the seams of the onesie like a runaway airbag.

“Oh, come on,” Marcie hissed, the syllables fighting their way out through the compressed mass of her own torso. She clutched at the fabric, as if she could hold the growth back by sheer will. “What is the meaning of this?”

Norah didn’t blink. “The same cactus you enjoyed at the birthday. Don’t pretend you didn’t see this coming. We did warn you.”

It would have been a hell of a punchline, but Marcie’s chest, still growing, began to push the rest of her backwards until her back hit the wall. She clawed at the onesie, managed to break the zipper, and two globes the size of beer kegs flopped free, leaving her topless, breasts resting on her thighs.

“Gonna be real with you,” Riley said, “if I had tits that big, I’d go mad. No offense.”

“None taken,” Marcie managed, but her voice was breathy, almost a squeak.

Norah crouched down to meet Marcie’s eye-level and said, “Now that we have you, let’s talk about the review.”

Marcie shot her a look that said she’d rather be fed to a paper shredder.

“You said I was incompetent,” Norah said, conversational, like she was discussing a bad manicure. “You said Andy wasted his veto on a woman who couldn’t even keep her own spot. That he should have used it on someone else.”

Marcie tried to cross her arms, but the chest expansion had made that impossible. She settled for clamping her hands together in her lap, under her massive mammaries. “Yeah, because it was true.”

Riley’s mouth twitched, and she didn’t even try to hide her smile. “Let it out, Marcie. This is your moment.”

Norah ignored the peanut gallery. “Do you know what actually happened that day?”

Marcie snorted. “I know what they showed us. Dawn was about to be eliminated, Andy had a single veto left, and rather of using it to save you, he folds. And you go home.”

Norah’s jaw tensed. “That’s not what happened.”

There was a pause. Marcie looked at her with open contempt, the kind of stare she reserved for men who tried to explain the rules of wrestling to her at cons.

Norah said, low, “I told Andy not to use it. I said if he did, I’d never forgive him. I was already gone the moment I ripped off my own ribbon.” She flexed her left hand, as if remembering the feeling. “I was on my knees, Marcie. I gave up my own spot to save Dawn’s. The only chance I had left was that he’d listen to me.”

“Nonsense,” Marcie said, but the fight was leaking out of her voice.

Riley snorted, “Believe it. Girl’s got receipts.”

Norah pressed. “Andy did what I asked, even when it meant letting go of someone he cared about. He waited. But do you know why?”

Marcie didn’t answer. Her chest was still inflating, her back now arched so far the wall was the only thing holding her upright. She looked like she was about to tip over. Riley, merciful for once, wedged a chair under her for support.

Norah said, “He held it until the end. He was looking at Arabella. Not me, not Dawn, not anyone. He was testing if she’d follow the rules, or if she’d show mercy.”

Marcie’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because Katherine said to.” Norah said it soft, almost reverent. “Katherine was the one who told Andy that Arabella could be trusted, that she had changed. Katherine staked everything on that, because she was the only one who’d ever seen Arabella out of a season.”

There was a long silence. Marcie’s lips parted, but nothing came out.

Norah’s tone softened, just barely. “Arabella used her own veto at the last second. And if she hadn’t, Andy would have used his. Nobody was ever going home that day.”

A tremor ran through Marcie’s arms. She looked at the blue drink, looked at the hands holding it, and seemed to see herself for the first time. Her chest, swelling still, had begun to lift her off the chair; she gripped the seat for dear life.

She said, very quietly, “You are telling me the whole thing was a fake-out. That Andy had it handled the entire time.”

“Yes.” Norah didn’t flinch.

The words seemed to drain the color from Marcie’s face. “Why was I not informed of this?”

Riley, leaning against the wall now, said, “Because you were too busy writing the takedown to listen.”

That stung, but it was true, and Marcie knew it.

She was quiet for a long time. Outside, the last confetti was still settling in the air, and from the far end of the Hall, a wave of laughter drifted in, punctuated by the impact of a large dildo landing in someone’s soup.

Finally, Marcie squared her shoulders, as much as she could with a hundred pounds of breast, and said, “All right. I get it.” She looked at Norah, and there was a respect there that hadn’t been present before. “I get it.”

Norah nodded, once, and let herself exhale.

Marcie stared at the floor, then at Riley, then back to Norah. “You know what this means, right?”

Neither woman answered.

“It means Andy is not a coward. He is a genius.” The words had a raw edge to them, as if she’d never said anything so honest in her life. “He is genius, and everyone—including me—has been sleeping on him.”

Riley barked a laugh. “Oh, now you’re back on the Andy train? What happened to hating him?”

Marcie ignored the jab. “He is not the best at the challenge stuff. But he is the only one who can play the Hosts at their own game. He is the only one who ever figured out that the rules are not just for the girls. They are for the Hosts too. He is… he is the only one who gets it.” There was a look in her eyes now, wild and bright. “I have to have him.”

Norah’s expression flickered from relief to horror in less than a second. “What?”

“You heard me,” Marcie said. “He is the only man worth it. He is the only one who ever fooled the woman that will rule the world.”

Riley snorted, “You’re insane.”

Marcie turned to Riley, her chest so big now it physically knocked the chair off-kilter. “You think I am going to let him get married tomorrow without at least one real challenge? Not a chance. I am going to crash that wedding, and I am going to show him what a real woman can do. None of these airheads, none of these—” she paused, looking for a slur that wasn’t gendered— “cake-eating troglodytes, none of them even know what he is.”

Norah buried her face in her hands. “This is not what I wanted.”

Riley shrugged. “You wanted to get her off your ass, didn’t you? She’s Andy’s problem now.”

Marcie, already plotting, started to say something else, but a fresh ripple of laughter from the crowd interrupted her. Someone was trying to pick up a dildo from the floor, and it kept slipping out of their hands and bouncing away. Marcie watched, a mad glint in her eye.

“All right. If I start now, I can get this under control before the ceremony,” Marcie announced, her voice bright with manic energy. “Maybe even juice it a little more. Make a scene. Outplay them all at their own game.”

Norah’s expression didn’t change. “You’re impossible,” she said, her tone flat as worn stone. “And you can’t even stand up.”

Marcie’s smile widened, undeterred. “That is what it takes.”

Riley let out a sharp laugh, baring her teeth. “You know what? I’m rooting for her.”

Norah shot her a look of pure betrayal. “Don’t encourage her.”

Riley shrugged. “You want a wedding without a little chaos? Boring.”

Marcie strained against the weight pinning her to the chair, her thighs trembling with the effort. She managed to lift herself an inch before sinking back down, the sheer mass of her breasts holding her in place like anchors. Undaunted, she beamed. “I am getting married at that wedding if it is the last thing I do. And I want a cake. A real cake. None of this lemon-cactus garbage.”

She began rocking gently in place, humming with restless energy, her mind already racing through stratagems and showdown plans.

Norah watched the futile motion, then turned to Riley. “What do we do now?”

Riley, never one to sweat the details, said, “We find a drink and we watch the show. She’ll come down in a couple of hours.”

Norah doubted that, but followed Riley anyway. They left behind the debris and the noise and the spectacle, and for a minute, at least, the Hall was peaceful.