Chapter 7

Even if her parents apparently loved me like a son and encouraged their daughter to spend time with me, especially since I was tutoring her in more than just magic and for free no less just as Roxy had, Sylphie couldn't come out to 'play' every day. She still had chores to do around the house. If I came and got her in the mornings, she would be gone all day. So, Laws and her mother asked me not to make the morning visits because they didn't want to see her upset at being told she couldn't come out when she had things to do. I understood, so I let them know that as long as it wasn't raining, I'd probably be at our tree practicing if she finished her chores early and could join me.

Months passed and the seasons changed.

Somer and his little gang tried attacking us a few more times, even going so far as to bring in some of the older kids. All attempts were repelled with extreme prejudice. I sent them home soaked and shivering the first few times, before Sylphie worked her way up to learning combination magic well enough to be able to douse them in a deluge of freezing water herself. I let her handle the last two attempts. They stopped bothering when they realized that all they were going to get for their troubles was cold and wet.

Although… that may have had something to do with the fact that I memorized their faces and started asking around the village, with the people I was friendly with. I put names to faces, then tracked down their parents. As it turns out, some of the parents were clients of mine. Word quickly got around that anyone whose kid caused trouble for me or Sylphie had their prices triple overnight, and in every instance the reason was calmly explained with the simple request, "Ask your son why Rudeus Greyrat might be upset with him."

Those parents that apologized found their prices returning to normal. The only one that did not was Mrs. Ada. The woman was particularly livid with me. That might be because surprisingly, Paul had taken what Roxy told him that night she intervened on my behalf to heart and told the woman to fuck off. Or maybe because Zenith came out and tore strips out of her hide. Both of those had happened, according to Lilia. Roxy had never had much in the way of dealings with her so she wasn't a regular of mine, but I banned her anyway—I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire in the future, since for a while she kept coming around with her brat and making up stories about how I hurt her precious baby.

When I couldn't teach Sylphie, I spent my time practicing new things. Trying to develop new spells. Working more magic into my fighting style. I had figured out 3D maneuvering after only a month or so of practice. After that, it became second nature. I didn't need to use earth magic to launch myself, but it was fun to do so and useful for making obstacles. Either way, the technique involved casting my modified Wind Gust spell, Air Running, with every step I took and adjusting the force of each casting appropriately for the distance I wanted to clear or the speed I wanted to move. I learned how to change directions on a dime, either on the ground or in the air and move at speeds near, if not exceeding, what I had seen from Paul as needed. Standing in one place was still difficult and wobbly, but it could be managed with a single casting from a foot as long as I concentrated on it.

Sylphie was right behind me with Air Running. She absolutely loved it and we sometimes spent evenings just playing magical tag, throwing low powered Water Ball spells at each other as we danced around the sky. It was fun and a nice break from constantly focusing on work.

What's that you say? It's still training? Well, yeah. No shit. Just because it's practice doesn't mean you can't enjoy it.

With Air Running well on the way to mastery, I worked on a new way of using earth and ice pillars and combining that with creating either a swamp or quicksand using earth magic. The basic idea was, at the beginning of an encounter, to cast a wide area mire around myself and my enemy, hopefully trapping them in it. Then, I'd launch myself backwards with an Earth Wall/Pillar combo, creating a barrier between me and whatever wanted to introduce me to the pointy end of the sword that expanded into a field of spikes and slick patches of ice on top of a shallow crust that would collapse with just a few pounds of force on top of it. After hitting the apex of my launch, I used Air Running to glide while bombarding the area with spells.

I also began mastering my lightning spells and Sylphie finally managed to learn Arc.

Arc and Flash Bang were both Elementary-level spells. The first was an amped up taser but could be used with varying voltage to different effects, from shocking to welding. Flash Bang was exactly what it said on the tin, a ball lightning blast of electricity that created a blinding flash and an explosive sound near the target. Bolt was an Intermediate-level spell that created a lightning bolt between myself and my target. I could either use it for one zap, or hold it for prolonged zapping. I hadn't tested it on anyone, but it caught trees on fire well enough and caused the occasional bark explosion, so I was pretty sure it was either lethal or close enough.

Cue Palpatine 'Unlimited power!' meme. I may have yelled exactly that while casting the spell and cackling like an evil sorcerer at the time, too.

Sylphie took that as a sign that I needed a break from magical R&D (read by Sylphie as: playing) and dragged me off to have a picnic, then forced me to spend the next day just spending time with her instead of working on anything. It was nice. I should probably take more time for relaxing.

Chain Lightning was an Advanced-level version of Bolt that caused lightning to arc between targets. Definitely lethal, given how much juice I pumped into that one. Thunder was Chain Lightning's bigger, nastier, Saint-level brother—essentially, the first spell in the lightning school I'd made, modified for guaranteed target chaining, just refined to be capable of targeting a smaller area.

Going up the scale, I had taken Caravaggio hours out of town one day and secured him inside a dome of earth. I cast my first King-level lightning spell on the plains south of the village, well away from people. It didn't matter. The village knew about it by the time I got back. They saw and heard the noise. Mjolnir was what I called the wide-scale lightning spell I honestly hoped I would never have to use again. It left more than a square mile of plains devastated—a blasted, burning mess of ash and slagged glass.

Poor Caravaggio was traumatized. I was pretty sure he flashed back to that time Roxy accidentally zapped him.

Well, good news! I had another source of glass now. I dragged home a huge chunk using Caravaggio and some rope. That got me started on another project. With some more bronze and a lot of patience and earth magic, I set about creating tools. I made a small, collapsing, adjustable focus spotting scope and a bookmark style rectangular magnifying glass each for myself, Roxy, and Sylphie.

As far as projects went, I had made entirely too much ink, once I'd separated it out into individual pen refills and bottles. I spoke with the man who owned the general store and he agreed to sell my ink and a few pens for me—the agreed upon terms were that he would sell them at whatever cost he felt they would sell for and I would get half. It was extra pocket change and I could make it by the pot full. So as long as I got back material costs on the brass used for the pens plus a little on the top I was happy.

The road raising project went smoothly. Between Sylphie and myself, we had the town itself done in the course of a week—and most of that time was because I was going slow so that Sylphie would have something to spend her mana on at the end of the day. There was no point to it if I did it all for her, when I could easily blow my own mana on other tasks. She was the one who needed the control exercises more anyway. And once we finished the town, we took Caravaggio out and started raising the path leading out of town into a road in both directions—until it got to the point that we were spending more than two hours on horseback just to go out and back, at which point I called it good enough.

As a consequence of that, however, I noticed that Buena Village started to see more people coming and going. Traders, mostly. My ink and pens sold for a small fortune, so I reinvested most of the money in making more and selling it. After the second batch of sales, the owner of the general store asked for the recipe and I agreed to give it to him and let him produce and sell it from now on, in exchange for a quarter of whatever profit he made off of it. Then I washed my hands of it. I was a mage and I enjoyed making things, that didn't mean I was a human factory to crank out the same crap day, after day, after day. No matter how good the money was. I'd had enough of that sort of tedium in my old life.

Nope. I decided then and there that unless it was of direct benefit to me, that I wouldn't be doing any of that shit. If someone wanted something mass produced, they could do it themselves.

The book project was coming along well enough. My biggest issue was a lack of vocabulary on my part. For the science, I simply lacked certain key terms. I would need more books, preferably a thesaurus or a dictionary, in order to properly translate what I knew into this world's human tongue. That also meant that my guide to English was on hold indefinitely, until then. Sylphie could now speak English functionally at a conversational level, but we were simply missing too many words for some of the more complex terms. Teaching her to write it was easy enough, using earth manipulation to create letters on the ground and walk her through it. Math, I had already completed up to what I remembered.

Sylphie's normal magic training, when she was available, was coming along swimmingly. She was already up to Advanced-level spells in everything but fire and water. Fire lagged behind a level.

Roxy had mentioned that natural strengths and weaknesses were a thing—specialized systems and weak systems. It was one of the areas where we couldn't really come to any kind of agreement. I argued that any such weakness or specialization lie in the wielder's own mentality—their liking or disdain for a particular branch of magic, their understanding of the subject, and their willingness to put in the effort. Roxy had argued that while that may be possible, the rule also apparently applied to forms of magic other than elemental magic, including healing magic, thus the systems themselves existed and someone like me, who appeared to be good with every spell I tried, was an exception. Sylphie was just one case, so until Roxy and I took on more students, that debate was on hold.

As far as water went, Sylphie graduated to Saint-level. She still had a lot of catching up to do though, so she was surprisingly humble about it. Well, I shouldn't really say 'surprisingly' given her character.

Beyond her normal studies, I was branching out with Sylphie. That girl needed all the love, to be honest. Not the 'with my dick' kind of love. Just some good, honest, wholesome affection from someone who cared for her and wasn't her parents. But more than she needed affection and positive reinforcement, she needed… firing. She needed a spine, and for that spine to be forged from steel—because as it was she couldn't stand up for herself at all. The slightest force of pressure or expectation on her and she folded like a cheap suit.

If I had bad intentions, or were interested in children, I could have turned this to my advantage. She trusted me and looked up to me, so I had a feeling that with time and convincing, she would do almost anything I asked of her if it would make me happy. And she'd do it with a smile.

Almost every man likes the idea of a compliant, willing woman to mold how he sees fit. I'd be lying if I said that the idea wasn't appealing. If we were a little older and she was into that sort of thing, I would absolutely do exactly that. But we weren't and she was entirely too vulnerable and trusting for me to abuse that trust.

So, I went about trying to teach her how to be strong. How to stand up for herself.

It was slow going.

Sylphie was naturally a very accepting, tolerant, and forgiving person. Being bullied had pretty much destroyed any ego she had. And she was so eager to please that the idea of refusing or denying me something was almost alien to her. I'm sure there were limits, at least at the moment, but I wasn't going to cross those boundaries.

No, instead I started testing her. After I'd taught her something, I'd wait a few days then ask her questions about it. Next, I asked for more. Instead of just basic facts, I tested her understanding, asking why something was. Then, I began making her defend her position. I started gently at first, but gradually began increasing the pressure. Sometimes, it was just being particularly persistent or contrary. Other times, I got downright nasty, even mean. My reasoning being that if I was the biggest asshole she knew and she could stand up to me, then dealing with anyone else would be a cake walk.

It was hard. On both of us. Sometimes she cried and it hurt to see, hurt to know that I had hurt her, but I pushed on and I always made sure to try to make her feel better after and explain what she needed to do next time to avoid the verbal traps I was laying out. How to shut down such a line of argument in the future. And if that wasn't possible, how to walk away from it and put it out of her mind—disregard it entirely. That last one was particularly hard.

Slowly but surely though, I began to see progress over the course of months as the scared, hurt little girl I had first met started to grow into something more.

Winter came, and with it a blizzard. Training outside for Sylphie was put off indefinitely until it cleared up. I went out from time to time to try my hand at using magic to survive in an extreme environment, but the best I could come up with was a combination of three spells—a dome of water repelling magic that I'd perfected during the artificial rainy season after Roxy left, a dome of wind, and a sustained fire spell to heat the wind up to acceptable levels. It helped for trips to town, and Zenith refused to leave the house now without me accompanying her because otherwise her toes would freeze, but it wasn't perfect.

And in the middle of that blizzard, Zenith announced she was pregnant. I was going to be an older brother again.

Congratulations, Zenith.

I knew they had been trying hard for a second child for years and having problems, so I imagine this came as a relief to both of them that nothing was really wrong.

Names were discussed, plans were made, my old clothes were gathered up for hand-me-downs, the crib was dragged out of storage and cleaned up. Then there was the issue of room to consider.

With my old bedroom converted into a bathroom, Lilia using the downstairs bedroom, and Paul and Zenith not wanting to have the new baby in their own bedroom for reasons that would be obvious to anyone who'd ever raised a child, there weren't many choices. Either I was going to be sharing space with a screaming newborn, or someone would be bunking downstairs in the main room that served as kitchen, dining room, and living room in one. Zenith was heavily against the idea of putting a newborn downstairs, so they all leaned on me to allow the new kid to bunk in my room.

Haa, yeah. No. Nope. They can hang that shit up. I valued my sleep and my private space too much to give either up. That, and the fact that delicate things like books (or silk panties) and babies don't mix. Never put a baby near anything you mind being pissed, shit, and puked on or just outright destroyed.

Just to clarify, I didn't have a pantie fetish or anything. Panties were only sexy for what they hid while being worn. I just thought it was cute and sweet that Roxy had gone that far. That, and I could probably use them to tease her later. I had this mental image of pushing her down, shoving them into her mouth, and fucking her into the ground until she went cross-eyed when we finally saw each other again…

The very next morning after learning of Zenith's pregnancy, I went outside and set about fixing the problem before the deadline. I had taken a few drafting courses in my previous life, not to mention I came from a family of carpenters and had spent many a summer growing up helping my uncles put up houses, or my dad or grandfather with various projects around the house building and installing cabinets, drawers, furniture, floors, and more. Sure, that was with fairly modern tools (well outdated by Earth standards, because you don't throw away a tool that works), but spells could make up a lot for those with enough creativity—in other words, it would be an excuse to practice spellwork.

It cut into my magical fun (read: training) time, but if the alternative was a baby screaming in my ears at all hours of the day and night, then it was a sacrifice I would just have to make.

With an idea of what I wanted, I went out and made an addition to the house. Unfortunately, I couldn't really match the style of the exterior with the materials on hand. We could always reface it later with the proper materials to match the style, though. For now, as long as it had four walls, a roof, and didn't leak I was fine with it. I leveled off a spot of ground adjacent to the house on the back side. Next I set about using magic to make brick (actually stones shaped into nice, even little bricks made from earth magic), cement (baked limestone, which I could create with earth magic and heat with fire magic), and concrete (cement plus sand and/or gravel, again created with earth magic).

With Paul's help, we took Caravaggio, hitched him to a wagon, and headed to the forest where we cut down trees and I dried, cut, straightened, cured, and shaped them into proper lumber using water, wind, earth, and fire magic for various aspects of the process. It was great and fun. And one day, I would use those skills to build something even better. Maybe when Roxy came back.

We were a month or so into our expansion to the house and it was shaping up nicely. Unfortunately, Paul just had to go and fuck it up.

Turns out, he can't keep his dick in his pants. Zenith was worried about complications, so she cut him off. Well, instead of going celibate or taking the issue in hand himself for a few months, he decided to play hide the sausage with the maid.

On the one hand, I didn't blame him. Lilia was a beauty. Big tits, glasses, the stern look, and the maid outfit really did it for me.

On the other hand, I totally blamed him. The man completely lacked impulse control. A man wasn't supposed to let himself be lead around by his dick.

Yeah, I was pretty sure they did this last time too, and off and on occasionally since I was born, but this was the first and only time Lilia had gotten pregnant and they couldn't really hide it any longer. Or rather, Lilia wouldn't hide it and confessed one night at dinner that she was pregnant.

Paul actually manned up and admitted that it was his. Once more, he managed to surprise me.

Zenith called an emergency meeting, after slapping the shit out of Paul. That she restrained herself to a single slap, with no screaming, yelling, accusations, or otherwise was kind of impressive. The fact that he let it happen, and let it hurt him, actually went a ways towards showing he genuinely felt shitty about it—or at least about getting caught. I highly doubt he felt guilty about the act itself.

I watched and listened as they talked. Zenith asked what Lilia would do. Lilia said she intended to help Zenith with her own birth, then find a midwife for herself, have her child, and go home. Paul tried to butt in, but Zenith told him that if he didn't shut his mouth, she was done—and no one there took that as anything but completely serious on her part.

Paul shut his mouth.

Lilia's home was several months' journey on foot to the south and if she was leaving after just giving birth, there was a good chance she and the child would just die on the road. And that was in normal conditions. In the middle of one of the roughest winters I could remember? They wouldn't make it far at all.

Considering that I owed Lilia, since she'd actually been trying to get closer to me since that night she all but outright admitted she had been seeing a younger Paul every time she looked at me, I decided to try to help her out. "Mother, I know you're angry and you have every right to be. Father broke your vows. But you shouldn't punish Lilia for his weakness. She's been nothing but good to our family, and a good friend to you, right?" I asked, earning a shaky nod from Zenith. "She's practically family at this point anyway, and you'd just be sending her and my half-sibling to die if you made her leave any time soon. Wouldn't it be better in the long run if she stayed, and your children grew up together as siblings—having someone their own age to play with and talk to?"

"Well, yes," Zenith hemmed. "I suppose so."

"It's not like she had much of a choice about who she was interested in, either, right? I mean, she spends most of her time working here in the house," I pointed out.

Zenith closed her eyes, frowning. "We weren't trying to keep her isolated—"

"No, of course not," I agreed. "But the fact is, we're the only people she really interacts with on any sort of permanent basis."

"I guess," Zenith pouted.

"Also, you know it'll be easier to raise them with Lilia's help."

Zenith looked like it hurt to admit. "Yeah."

"And this way I get two cute siblings. I'll be honest, I'm hoping for sisters," I admitted with a laugh. "Then I can spoil them." At least this way, if I framed it as a selfish request on my part, she could shift some of the blame for the situation away from Lilia and onto me. Not much admittedly, but maybe enough to help.

With a final sigh, Zenith nodded. "Okay, you win Rudy. Lilia, don't leave. Stay with us." She didn't exactly seem enthusiastic about it, but I could hardly blame her considering what I was asking of her.

Paul and Lilia stared at Zenith in shock. Lilia broke down crying and Paul looked like he didn't know what to do. The issue decided in her mind, Zenith made the choice for him and headed off to their room alone, so he turned his attention to comforting Lilia. Wow, good job Paul! Comfort the mistress, ignore the wife. Moron.

Standing up, I followed after Zenith, heading up to their bedroom on the second floor. I knocked softly at the door and she cracked it open a moment later. There was a hint of disappointment in her eyes when she found me instead of Paul, but she quickly smothered it and put on a watery smile. "Yes, Rudy?"

"Can I come in?" She nodded, opening the door a bit and I slipped inside. Zenith moved over to sit on the bed, then patted the space beside her. I obligingly obeyed, hopping up onto the down mattress beside the woman and leaning into her side as she wrapped an arm around my back.

I didn't really know what to say here. 'Sorry your husband cheated on you with your best friend and I talked you into keeping the backstabber around and helping to raise her kid,' wouldn't really cut the mustard, or so I suspected. There is a reason NTR is a shit fetish. Those kinds of hurts are deep and long lasting, and being forced to keep enduring it would only make it worse. But in the end, it was the most pragmatic choice—sacrificing one person's happiness for the lives of two others. Realistically, she may even get over it eventually.

You couldn't fix dead, however. At least, not to my knowledge. Not yet. I reincarnated here, so obviously there is some kind of method.

It turns out that I didn't really need to say anything. Zenith opened the floodgates herself. "I thought I had prepared myself. I knew what kind of man your father was when I married him, Rudy. He was always the lustful sort when he was younger, chasing after any woman that caught his fancy. He's not a bad guy, he's just… stupid."

"He thinks with his dick," I supplied, earning a somewhat shocked, wide-eyed look from Zenith before she giggled.

"Oh, I should scold you for saying that, shouldn't I? It's true, though," she admitted. "It just happened so suddenly and I was shocked."

I shot her a knowing look. "You really think this is the first time?"

Zenith sighed and slowly shook her head. "Paul only married me because I got pregnant and I demanded he take responsibility. I'm sure you have some older brothers and sisters out there somewhere. No, it's surely not the first time with Lilia. Just the first time he couldn't hide it. I want to think the best of your father and believe that Lilia is his only indiscretion since our marriage, and only because they have some history together and Lilia is very lonely. It's exactly as you said. She doesn't have many friends in the village and spends most of her time here, so what choices did she have, really?"

I decided to allow her that lie to herself, even if we both suspected that that's all it was. Instead, I asked, "Can you explain it to me? I understand that you took a vow to be faithful to each other and that's why you're angry, but is that normal? How are marriages and relationships usually done?" If it were Roxy I was talking to, I'd specify 'in this world,' but I couldn't with Zenith. It wasn't really something that ever came up with Roxy either. I'd just kind of thought we'd figure it out as we went, but with this whole situation, I felt it best that I go ahead and educate myself on the matter.

If only to avoid falling into some kind of blunder like the idiot who called himself my father. Not that I would voluntarily fall dick first into something like this.

Humming, the woman squeezed me a bit tighter. "That depends on where you come from and your faith. In the religion I practice, the Milis faith, and the place I came from monogamy is the rule of the land. That is, one man marries one woman and they stay with each other for the rest of their lives, allowing for remarriage should one partner die or divorce and remarriage should one be unfaithful. I'm not so naive as to think that inappropriate activities didn't happen behind closed doors, but that was the law of the land at least. Officially, the Asura kingdom allows and recognizes both monogamy and polygamy. Unofficially, we lean heavily towards monogamy because the Milis faith is popular… but there are different rules for nobles and everyone else. The common folk are expected to be fruitful and multiply, to ensure more workers and soldiers. The nobles, on the other hand, are mostly corrupt hedonists. Other lands and religions of the central continent practice either monogamy or polygamy, or both. That's the practice of multiple partners marrying. Generally, that's one man and two or three wives. There aren't many places where that's reversed."

Pausing, she added quickly, "But Rudy, everyone has to agree to something like that! You can't just decide it for yourself or you'll hurt their feelings!"

"Huh. Good to know."

Her hand came out from behind my back and ran through my hair, before her fingers clenched my skull. "Please don't turn into a man like your father."

I winced. "Wasn't planning on it."

Zenith squeezed a little harder, her nails digging in. "Rudy… I know about Roxy."

I wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or deny it. Instead, I asked, "What do you know?"

"I know the two of you were getting up to adult things together at night. I peeped. I didn't realize you were so… mature for your age. Must be the Greyrat blood. I also know that, because she's a Migurd, Roxy is older than she looks. Did she coerce you, or…?"

Reaching up, I gently brushed her hand off of my head before turning around and sitting cross-legged on the bed so I could look her in the eye properly. "I caught her masturbating in the hall one night while you and father were trying for another child."

Zenith blushed, covering her mouth and looking away. "Yes, she did like to watch," she admitted quietly. "I saw her one night… She didn't do or say anything else, so I thought it was a little harmless fun to blow off some frustration. It was kind of exciting, actually."

"Not in my need-to-know category," I deadpanned.

So at least Zenith was aware of Roxy's voyeurism. Not entirely surprising. I rolled my eyes, suddenly glad I caught her when I did. If it were Paul, Roxy might just have wound up like Lilia. Nope, mine damnit.

"We talked. You know I'm… not exactly normal," I admitted with a shrug. I was unprepared for the woman's strength when she grabbed me, turned me around and pulled me into her lap. I settled in and enjoyed the breasts resting against the back of my head and neck. "Definitely see why dad has a type."

Zenith's chin dug into the top of my head painfully and I winced. "I've always known you were special, Rudy. I'm the one that first found you, sitting in the study unconscious with a bucket of water and an open spell book."

I blinked. "Oh. That… makes a surprising amount of sense. I'd kind of assumed it was Lilia."

"She discovered it later and kept it secret from us, until I confronted her and confirmed it," Zenith admitted. "I think only Paul didn't know until you blew out part of the house."

"Right." Shaking my head, I continued my previous line of thought. "Anyway, Roxy. We talked. I offered a way for her to experiment with that side of herself safely, because I didn't want her getting kicked out. This was when I thought she was only a teenager. Took a while to figure out the Migurd thing."

Chuckling, Zenith kissed the top of my head. "We wouldn't have thrown her out. Of course, your father might have made a pass, but I doubt it. As you said, he has a type." Humming, Zenith's voice was teasing as she asked, "Roxy, and now Sylphie? Do you have a type, Rudy?"

"My type is 'cute female.' That Roxy is a Migurd and she's going to be stuck like that for the next hundred years and Sylphie has elf in her, so she's probably going to be of a similar build is coincidental. I'd be perfectly happy with a woman who looks like you."

That begs the question though, what am I going to do as a human with one, maybe two potential wives who both have maybe double my own lifespan? That's always the worst, any time one of the immortal or long-lived races mates with a human or one of the other ephemeral races. Offspring doomed to live a half life. Maybe I could dig into medical knowledge? I know up to Intermediate-level right now and I have a whole lot of medical knowledge this world didn't. The problem is, I don't trust trying to hack my own DNA using magic. Something to try later, after much experimentation and animal tests—

With a triumphant sound, Zenith said, "But you admit it's Roxy and Sylphie!"

I opened my mouth to deny it, before slowly closing it. I considered what she'd said for a moment before admitting, "Probably. Roxy, yes. Sylphie, well I'd have to be oblivious to not see that she has a crush. And since I'm the only guy she knows and I'm kind of a huge influence on her life, odds are good she's going to grow up with one person in mind when she starts thinking about romance and marriage. Getting off track again though. After we added the bathroom, your nightly performance broke her and Roxy crawled into my bed one night and didn't leave. There was some kissing, a bit of touching, and a lot of lewd hand holding involved. It was nice."

Giggling, and fully committed to teasing apparently, Zenith asked, "Do you know what's involved in making a baby, Rudy?"

I sighed. So, it was going to be one of those days. Well, if it took her mind off of Paul's betrayal and gave me some genuine bonding time with Zenith—of which I hadn't actually had much lately—I wouldn't begrudge her. I didn't spend nearly enough time with her as it was. Paul and I at least talked while we were training, but I didn't even have that with Zenith and I'd been spending a lot of time out of the house lately.

Have I been neglecting her? She's given me nothing but unconditional love and support, and I've been… way too independent, so she might be feeling like I don't need her or want her around.

It was still hard to see this young woman as my mother, just as it was hard to see Paul as my father—especially when he fucked up as bad as he did. The problem is, I was a grown man. I didn't need new parents, on an emotional level. I didn't want them, either. But that didn't mean I had to reject them entirely. Maybe I should just stop trying. They can be family without being replacement parents. And even if I were just treating her as a… I don't know, sibling? Cousin? I've still been neglecting her. I'll have to do better.

If that meant enduring a little teasing for Zenith, then so be it. Especially when I bore some blame for her taking this burden on her shoulders.

That didn't mean I wouldn't give as good I got, though. So, I put on my best 'innocent' voice and turned up the 'cute but oblivious shota' act to eleven. "No mother, I don't. Why don't you tell me? Please, spare no details. I want to be a good and dutiful husband for both Roxy and Sylphie when I grow up!"

"Well, you see, when a man and a woman… and sometimes another woman love each other very much," I heard the hitch in her voice, but ignored it as Zenith and I played our little game.