Growing children

Once Fenrir finally left the little bedroom, a still **** Chellise in his arms, he found Bubbles and Evo waiting outside in the corridor. Evo was attempting to climb one of the walls to rather limited success, only making it about six inches off the ground before losing cohesion and splashing back down, while his brother watched with every indication of interest.

Both forgot their former pursuits as soon as they noticed him, 'looking' up at him with an expectant air. Fenrir returned the gaze, somewhat bemused. "Hello, you two. Did Aimi send you?"

Bubbles let out an affirmative chirp but otherwise stayed still, waiting for Fenrir's command.

The direwolf couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, I suppose what we were about to get up to was fairly obvious. Alright, clean us up, and then the room as well. No reason not to, since you're here already."

The slimes immediately got to work, siphoning off all traces of sex and sweat in moments, Bubbles pausing near Fenrir's head to nuzzle his cheek affectionately. Shifting Chellise to one arm, Fenrir gave him some scratches which the slime enjoyed so much he nearly fell off the direwolf's shoulder. He quickly got back to work however, and after ensuring Fenrir and Chellise were once again spotless, the two slimes bounced and rolled into the room to take care of the mess that had been left there.

For his part, Fenrir turned his steps towards the succubi's sex den. He found it empty, most of the inhabitants of the castle still busy with the supplies they had brought back from the oni. Laying Chellise down on one of the beds, he covered her with a blanket and, after a moment spent simply gazing fondly at her sleeping face, turned towards the entrance.

Standing there, he found Saeko, patiently waiting until he was finished with Chellise, her face as tranquil as ever. She didn't speak even as he approached, only bowing once he came close enough.

"It's good to see you again, Saeko," he said.

"Likewise, Fenrir-sama. I am glad you have come back to us safely."

Fenrir opened the door for her, not wanting to speak where it could conceivably disturb Chellise, and Saeko followed his lead. As they walked down the corridor together, he asked, "How has your project with Myrina gone? Were you able to find out why she was acting the way she did?"

Saeko didn't visibly react, but the way her eyes sharpened made Fenrir think that this was precisely the question she had been hoping he would ask. "I was. But are you certain you wish to hear it from me?"

He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Who else will I hear it from? I thought we've already established that she doesn't want to tell me herself. If you remember, that was why I needed your help in the first place ...unless you managed to convince her to talk to me."

"All I will say is that if you were to take her now, she would be unlikely to put up more than token resistance. ...Unless you truly do wish to know all now, Fenrir-sama. I will not withhold the information if you order otherwise."

Fenrir deliberated for the space of a breath. "...No, you're probably right. It would be better if I heard it from her. You sure she won't run from me again?"

Saeko shrugged her shoulders. "Myrina barely knows her own self. It can be difficult to predict such a person. But I do not believe she will, and even if she does, all you need do is give chase. You are strong enough to catch her."

Fenrir eyed her, a doubt springing up which was quelled just as quickly by what he read in her face. No, she understood that he didn't only want Myrina's body, but also her loyalty and her love. With that in mind, he nodded. "Understood."

"I am happy to serve, Fenrir-sama."

The sentence was uttered so simply, so matter-of-factly that it took an effort for Fenrir not to snap his head around and stare at her again. That had seemed to come from her heart, not from the carefully constructed persona she had put in place to cover her true purpose here. Or was she just that good an actress? But no, there was just the slightest hesitation in the step which followed immediately after the statement, the natural rhythm of her walk interrupted by so small an amount that if his senses hadn't been on high alert he would have missed it. Perhaps she had meant to say it, but Fenrir was nearly certain that she hadn't been prepared to find she meant it.

Fenrir managed to suppress any external sign, but internally he was grinning ear-to-ear. 'Careful, Saeko, you almost blinked. If you don't step it up you'll end up giving me the victory in our little contest.' He took another glance at her, this time with God's Eye.

Saeko Itsumi
Female Kitsune
Status: Flustered, Disconcerted
Sage Lvl 43 – Elementalist Lvl 12
Abilities: Meditate, Restore, Fortify, Appraise, Lesser Summon Fire, Lesser Summon Water
Kinks/Fetishes:
prefers her partners to be sure of themselves, but not unkind – enjoys shibari, and to a lesser extent, other types of bondage
Disposition Towards User:
is grateful to him for awakening her - believes him to be potentially a very dangerous individual - is extremely wary of his influence, especially as she continues to feel its effects on herself

'Hmm, not much difference, only that her guard is thoroughly up now. Well, no matter. I figure we're still a ways from me needing to make any decisive moves regarding her.'

The rest of the walk was made in silence, mostly comfortable, at least on Fenrir's part, and if Saeko felt any discomfort she gave no sign. They found the rest of the girls just finishing up moving everything they had brought into the appropriate storerooms. Lilli was already getting started on the evening meal, though Fenrir suspected another sprawling orgy lay in his near future, since all of the succubi which hadn't gone along were sure to want some cock.

Speaking of Lilli, though... He let his gaze rest on her as she busied herself about the fire in the kitchens. Just as she had been ever since she had first been made aware she was pregnant, the motherly succubus was practically glowing with happiness. And no wonder, as Glory was toddling about her on short but surprisingly steady legs, 'helping' her mother prepare the food. Actually, she was mostly just making a mess, but no one seemed to mind that.

Fenrir wasn't sure where she had gotten it, but Lilli had put her in a cute little dress which made her look even more adorable than usual, her golden ringlets falling about her beaming face and brushing the tops of her shoulders. She already looked around a year and a half old, quite a difference from the infant she had been the last time he had seen her.

Even as he looked at her, the child, perhaps feeling his eyes on her, turned. "Dada!" she cried, and dropping the salt she had been carrying to her mother, ran for him. Crouching, Fenrir scooped her up, tossing her into the air and catching her again as she came down. Glory shrieked with delight, not a hint of fear to be found on her chubby little face. Grinning, Fenrir repeated the maneuver, which Glory enjoyed fully as much as the first time. Lilli looked a bit uncertain at this treatment of her child but held her tongue, instead retrieving the container of salt that Glory had dropped, her face softening into a smile in spite of herself at the floods of giggles the baby was giving voice to.

At Fenrir's elbow, Saeko let out a soft sound of amazement. Shifting Glory so she sat cradled high against his chest, Fenrir asked, "What is it?"

A hint of pink came into the kitsune's cheeks. "It is nothing. I was only surprised that Glory should trust you so completely so quickly. After all, you left when she was still too young to remember any face other than her mother's, but the moment she laid her eyes on you she seemed to place her full trust in you, to the point that she was not even slightly concerned about being thrown into the air the way she was."

Fenrir grinned as Glory tried to reach his muzzle with her tiny hands, babbling happily all the while. It wasn't yet actual speech, but Fenrir could tell there was intention behind the sounds; she wasn't just making noise for its own sake. "That's most likely because she knows instinctively that I'm her father. She doesn't need to remember me. She can just tell as soon as she sees me that I'm safe and I won't let her come to harm."

"I have never heard of succubi possessing such an instinct," Saeko said, sounding a little doubtful.

"That'd be because it doesn't come from her succubi roots, but from me."

"You have such an instinct?"

"Yes. Do you recall when you first arrived here from Eldfall and Bubbles was the first to welcome us?" At Saeko's nod, Fenrir continued, "That was the first time I'd seen him- or rather, that was when I first found out he even existed, but I sensed almost immediately that he wasn't going to harm us and that he was 'one of mine'. Put another way, I felt a kinship with him instantly."

"I see..." Saeko's gaze fell to the floor as she turned this information over in her mind. When she didn't renew the conversation, Fenrir went back to playing with Glory, making his way over to his customary seat near the fire as he did so. After several moments of thought, Saeko shook off her reverie and quietly began helping Lilli with the cooking.

The blonde-haired succubus smiled as he took a seat. "Our little one knew her father right away, didn't she?" This was addressed to Glory, and she bounced and babbled harder than ever, arms waving around to punctuate her nonsense. As he started getting more used to it, however, Fenrir thought he picked out a couple words amongst the gibberish.

"Indeed she did," he replied, bouncing the toddler on his knee. "Speaking of which, I didn't get a chance to ask since Chellise intercepted me pretty quickly, but why wasn't she out in the courtyard with you?"

"Oh, she was taking her nap," Lilli replied, expertly dicing a root that looked like a potato and smelled vaguely of garlic. "She gets a little cranky towards evening if I don't put her down to sleep sometime during the afternoon."

"I see." They fell into a comfortable silence, Fenrir looking at the tiny succubus in his arms. God's Eye told him the mana in her body had decreased since the last time he had seen her, though only by a little. While it was difficult to tell with any precision, it seemed to somewhat track against how much growing she still had left to do. Not that he had any way of tracking her mental development with any degree of accuracy, and that was likely to take at least as much energy as the growth of her body. He made a mental note to keep an eye on her mana as she grew further, if only to satisfy his own curiosity.

Her development seemed a bit odd in comparison to what he was used to; from what he remembered, a human child the size of Glory would normally be able to make themselves more or less understood, though their language would still be very much broken. But Glory only seemed to know a few words, though she at least understood the general concept of language. On the other hand, she seemed more stable on her legs than most babies of her size would be. He wondered if that was a consequence of her accelerated growth; perhaps some things could only be learned so fast, or maybe her brain developed slower than her body, at least during the early stages.

The direwolf raised his eyes back to Lilli. "About how old were you when you started talking, do you know?"

"I'm afraid I don't, Master," Lilli replied, rinsing off a knife under a stream of water she poured between two buckets. "I never had a chance to ask my mother. What about you, Yumiko?"

Fenrir turned interested eyes on Yumiko, who had just entered along with Koreen. The tall, slim succubus was holding Korir, while Koreen carried his older twin Kala in her arms. "I don't know either. Sorry, Master."

Fenrir waved off her apology. "It's fine, I was just curious. Speaking of which, though, Kala and Korir aren't growing nearly as fast as Glory, are they?"

"No, although they're crawling now. Korir's even started trying to stand by pulling himself up on the edge of furniture and things." Yumiko took a seat next to Fenrir, letting Korir join Glory in the direwolf's lap.

He was hefty for a baby of his size, of course nothing Fenrir couldn't handle. Glancing over at Kala, he could see that she was easily slimmer than her brother, though a little longer from head to foot. They still shared the same coloring, however, a textured brown which ranged from almost black at some points to almost silver in others. Like Penumbra's, their ears stood upright now, though their muzzles and tails were still short and stubby. Also like both Penumbra and Glory, they were full to bursting with mana, something Fenrir observed with interest.

Korir took to his new position in Fenrir's lap with obvious delight, bracing himself against Fenrir's stomach with both hands before bouncing on his stubby little legs, maybe trying to get closer to his father's face. Glory watched him for a moment before reaching out and clumsily trying to stroke his fur. Despite her attempted stroking being closer to whacking him on the back than anything else due to his vigorous movements, Korir paid her no mind, instead focusing on getting Fenrir's attention with a stream of baby babble that morphed into a distinctly canine whine at the high notes and a tiny bubbling growl at the low ones.

Fenrir bounced the leg Korir was standing on in time with the tiny lupine's movements, lowering his head at the same time to nuzzle around his neck and face, even nipping at the fur there as though playfighting while an instinctual little growl rumbled out of his own throat. Both Korir's mouthings and his bounces doubled in enthusiasm, so much so that he overbalanced to one side and would have launched himself directly at Yumiko's shoulder had Fenrir not caught him mid-flight.

"Easy there, little one," he chuckled, replacing him in his original position atop one thigh. "If anyone's going to jump your mother, it'll be me."

Koreen let out a snort of laughter while Yumiko blushed, though not without an eager little glance in his direction. Lilli tried to frown disapprovingly at Fenrir, but even her lips twitched at the corners as she said, "That's hardly an appropriate thing to say to such a young child."

"And if I thought there was any danger of him actually understanding my meaning I wouldn't have said it," Fenrir rejoined, grinning back at her. "Don't worry, I have no intention of introducing adult topics to them before they're old enough to handle it properly."

Under the **** of his smile, Lilli could no longer hold back her own and she turned back to her cooking with a little shrug of concession. Her smile hovered about her lips well after Fenrir turned his attention back to the children, however, her periodic glances at him playing with them renewing it again and again.

In between Fenrir's entertaining his children, he listened to Yumiko's account of what had been happening in the castle while he had been gone. Not much of importance, as it turned out, but it was still interesting listening to all the little bits of gossip, such as when Safara's experimentation on a rune circle had gone wrong and created a dead zone where sound absolutely refused to propagate by any means for several days.

This in particular piqued Fenrir's interest, and he spent a few minutes interrogating Yumiko more closely. He had known that Safara had been continuing her studies on runeworking, even trying to develop new rune circles, perhaps inspired by their co-development of the mana telegraph. While no longer able to energize the circles herself, there were plenty of others around the castle who could handle that -notably, Saeko often volunteered her aid- and it didn't actually take any magic to design a circle, just knowledge and the appropriate materials.

Apparently her goal had been to iterate on the sound-dampening rune, and from one perspective at least, she had definitely succeeded. Not quite in the way she had meant to, of course, but the fact that it had worked at all was something, as normally when one tried to create a new rune circle or make changes to an existing one, it simply failed, 'shorting out' in a manner remarkably similar to an electrical circuit. Usually this didn't result in any damage to the circle, but occasionally it would explode spectacularly instead, adding a splash of danger to the discipline.

Upon learning this last detail Fenrir's mind had immediately jumped to the possibility of creating a magical equivalent to a grenade, but he had said nothing about it at the time, only tucking the thought away for a later time when he understood more about runeworking. More knowledge had followed in due course, making it clear that the greatest difficulty would lay in creating a viable fuse, as if a rune circle did explode upon failure, it did so near instantly. Fortunately, the explosion was also usually fairly weak, as most prototype rune circles were fairly small and couldn't hold much mana.

The great lupine pulled his attention back to the present. Glory had gotten bored of sitting on his lap and was trying to squirm free while Kala had crawled up to his knee and was giving him puppy-dog eyes, trying to convince him to pick her up as well. Fenrir swapped the positions of the two and watched as Glory hurried over to her mother, her mouth working a mile a minute, ostensibly telling Lilli all about her adventures with him. Lilli smiled and nodded along, exchanging a warm glance with Fenrir. Perhaps he was biased, but it seemed to him that Glory was just a little more adorable than could be entirely natural. 'Either I just feel that way because she's my daughter, or it's something inherent to baby succubi. Maybe a defense mechanism, to heighten their chances of surviving until they're old enough to take care of themselves.'

Once on his lap, Kala chose not to make any excited demonstrations, unlike her brother. Instead, she settled down against his stomach, seemingly happy just to be close to him. 'Their individual personalities are already starting to emerge, huh? Just based on their behavior here, it looks as though Kala's going to be far more calm and measured than her brother. I wonder whether she's going to hold him back from his wilder schemes, or if he's going to sweep her up into them. ...Probably both to some degree.'

Shelving that thought for the moment as well, he turned back to Yumiko, listening as she told him about the strange understanding that seemed to have cropped up between Tsavani and Violetta. They didn't seem to talk much, at least not when there was anyone around to hear them, but they had begun to spend quite a bit of time together. It was the reason Violetta wasn't in the kitchens with Lilli right now, in fact.

This bit of news was of particular interest to Fenrir because Violetta was currently the only succubus he hadn't formed any sort of bond with. She had existed in his sphere of influence for quite some time now, and she wasn't likely to go anywhere either what with all the rest of the succubi fully committed to him for various reasons. But at the same time, he wanted to get to know her better. Or more succinctly, he wasn't satisfied with their relationship as it stood and wanted her to be as comfortable with him as any of the other succubi.

Violetta making friends with Tsavani was a big step either way, as it was the first time she had reached outside the circle of succubi, regardless of which of the two had actually been the initiator. It indicated she was beginning to trust again, that she felt safe enough to be curious, to take a chance. Irrespective of Fenrir's desires regarding her relationship with him, it made him happy to hear of this sign of her healing.

He looked up from Korir playing in his lap when the door opened again, revealing Safara and Kira. The two were chatting like lifelong friends, something Fenrir noted with gratification. Despite everything, he had still been a little worried for Safara considering her history with the succubi, not to mention her being one of only two Light-races in the castle.

But it seemed that he needn't have worried, as she looked no less bright and cheerful than she had when he had last seen her several hours before out in the courtyard. Her eyes swept the room upon entering, brightening when they fell upon him in his customary position close to the fire. Smiling back, Fenrir waved her over, a summons she was happy to obey.

"Welcome back, E'nas," she said as she approached, Kira beside her with Penumbra perched on her hip.

"It's good to be home," Fenrir replied, shifting Korir to one arm and pulling Safara onto his lap, pregnant belly and all. She submitted to it with a little flush of happiness, leaning against his chest without a hint of hesitation. Kira took a seat on the rug at his feet, placing Penumbra on the floor where she immediately crawled over to Fenrir, her desire to be held as well clearer than words.

Fenrir grinned and added the tiny direwolf to the jumble already present in his lap, prompting a little giggle from Safara. "It's lucky you're so big, or you wouldn't have room for everyone at once," she said, pulling Korir onto her lap in turn to make more room for Penumbra.

"I'm sure I'd find a way," Fenrir smiled back.

Kira smirked. "If you keep this up, you'll have to. I can just picture you buried under a mountain of your own children, maybe a hand or leg sticking out of the pile."

This got a few giggles out of the assembled girls. "Wait until Mitzi and her brood gets here," Yumiko piped up. "Your picture might come true sooner than you think."

"Oh, you're right," Kira replied. Turning to Fenrir, she continued, "You better brace yourself, boss. Once they get here you're gonna get swarmed."

Fenrir cocked his head. "Are Mitzi's children already walking?"

"Walking, running, falling all over everything and getting into everything else," Lilli put in from the fireside. "Mitzi has quite the job on her hands looking after them all. -Not that the rest of us don't help, of course, but they listen to her best."

Fenrir nodded. "I see." He listened with interest as Kira started to relate the story of one of their many escapades, but once it was finished and the conversation turned into more general channels, his gaze fell back to Safara's pregnant belly.

"How have you been?" he asked her, quietly so as not to interrupt the rest of the girls.

She opened her mouth to reply, then seeing the serious light in his eyes, closed it again. "I missed you," she admitted. "And I miss not being able to do magic. I can still research runeworking, so it's not as bad as it could be, but I miss manipulating mana with my own hands." She leaned her blue-white head against his chest. "I'm also worried about what will happen when my parents send a message asking me to come home. Or maybe they think I'm dead already, I don't know." Fenrir felt a tremor go through her shoulders.

"You still love them," he said.

"Of course, they're my parents." Safara smiled a rather sad smile at Korir, who was playing with a short tube made of braided fabric, stretching it out and squishing it back together again. "They're far from perfect, trust me, I know, but they do love me. They always have."

"Do you want to go back and see them again?"

The pregnant elf took a moment to think about that question. "...Well, yes, but I don't know what would happen if I did. I don't want to lose what I have here, with you. Not to mention the rest of the girls. If you had told me a year ago that I was going to be genuine friends with a whole bunch of succubi, I would have thought you were trying to make me angry. But here I am. And if you had told me a year ago that I was going to be carrying the child of a Dark-race, and not only that, but the child of a Dark-race that I truly loved? Well, firstly, I would have thought that you had gotten into my diary and were making fun of me, and secondly, I couldn't even have pictured it. Becoming breeding stock for monsters, sure; even being mindbroken into believing that I loved my captors I could see, but that's not what's happening here."

Fenrir gave her a little teasing smirk. "Are you sure?"

She gave him a little shove and a mock glare. "Of course I am. I know the lengths you went to for me when I got kidnapped by the slavers. And you've always been gentle with me when we both know you didn't have to be."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Did I mishear you, or did you just try to prove that your love for me was real by pointing out that I love you?"

Safara colored. "Yes..."

Fenrir couldn't help chuckling, and Safara's blush deepened. "Well, I've already told you all about how I love you," she hurried to say. "You already know that I feel safer with you than I ever have anywhere else, besides maybe in my mother's arms when I was just a baby. You're this larger-than-life figure that's so far beyond me in so many ways, but despite that you come down to my level to share in my joys and comfort me in my fears, even though I know you've got bigger problems to worry about. How could I not love you for that?"

"So you only love me because I loved you first?"

"Well, no..." Safara suddenly became very interested in her hands on her lap.

"No?" Fenrir prodded.

"...It sounds shallow, but I first fell in love with you because you were so big, and powerful, and the way you took charge of everyone was so compelling. It was completely natural for you, like you had been born to lead, to command. I would never have admitted it at the time, but that authority drew me to you from the very beginning. It wasn't the authority of the tyrant who rules through fear; instead, your very presence inspired, like you said once, willing obedience. You didn't shout or bully, you just outlined what needed to be done and we all did it, because we trusted your decisions. Sometimes even in spite of ourselves."

Fenrir sobered, running a hand through Safara's hair. "You suffered for that obedience, though."

"No, I didn't," Safara immediately rebutted. "You wanted to take me out of the citadel as soon as you found a way to me. I was the one who convinced you to leave me there." She drew a breath. "I've thought about it a lot. If I had done as you wanted instead of arguing, I would never have gotten caught by the Saintess and later been kidnapped by the slavers. Everything that's happened to me is my own fault."

"No, it's not." Fenrir's tone was as hard as steel, making Safara jerk her head up to look at him wide-eyed. The children on his lap also turned startled eyes up to him, prompting him to lavish them with comforting caresses as he continued in a softer tone. "It is not your fault that you were **** and sold into slavery, or that you were tortured by Murtell. The blame for that rests with them. It's not even your fault that you were caught by Elmeria, since I was the one who put you in that situation to begin with. And-" -he held up a hand to forestall the words on Safara's lips- "except for the consequences to you specifically, everything turned out better than anyone could have hoped for.

"Because of the Saintess using you as bait, I was banished to Apollyon along with her, which gave me time to subdue her in about the only environment that it would have been possible to do so. My absence then **** Kira, Katari, and Chellise to ally with Princess America and her friends, which ended in us gaining allies in the very heart of the capital, and their rescue of some of the other slaves being traded by the traffickers brought us Saeko, Myrina, and Tsavani, all of whom are valuable additions to our family here." Fenrir paused, his brow creasing. "But you had to pay for all that, not only with terrible fear and suffering but with the loss of your magic, maybe permanently."

"We don't know that," Safara reminded him. "We still have several different leads to chase down regarding the null rune that was put on me, and I'd go through worse than I did if it meant I could have the life I have now. I'm going to have a child. Your child. I'm not sure you understand what that means to me."

Fenrir pulled her in closer, stroking her hair, and for some seconds they sat in silence, simply enjoying the moment.

Children! Who doesn't love children?
These days, a surprising amount of people. I blame people not disciplining their children properly. But either way, I expect most would be hard put to it to dislike these adorable little bundles of fur and/or joy. We also get an update on Saeko's ongoing game of chicken with Fenrir, he's given the next step for dealing with Myrina, and he and Safara share a heart-to-heart. And just like that, we're already at five thousand words. Ah well, there's always next chapter.
Enjoy!