(At 16 years and 6 months old)
(Nephelont's Dreamscape)
(Nephelont's PoV)
I was dipping in a lake, sunbathing blissfully. It was when I was at the peak of my relaxation that a tiny dragoness, a red one, dove from high up in the blue sky, took aim at my back, and was promptly slapped away by my tail.
I sneered at her before she resurfaced in human form. She was a smaller, yet different form of Lia, but her other eye was fine, and she had vastly different features even though I believed in an undeniable parent-child relationship between her and Lia.
Out of nowhere, three other tiny red dragons assaulted me, receiving the same treatment. One of them almost reached me, the younger of two boys. He had his methodical eyes trained at me.
I turned to a faraway spot, where Lia was beckoning the five of us.
(3rd person PoV)
'That was something' Nephelont quickly wiped his cold sweat away before Eucleia woke up and noticed it.
"So..." Nephelont said. He glared at the sun like usual this morning, but he decided to snuggle in the warmth of his blanket a little longer. "All three of them reached spring" By now, two of the triplets found a lover while the third was passively wooing one of his own. "What about you? Anyone caught your eyes?" He turned his face to a groggy Eucleia who was still half asleep.
"Bunbun~ We just woke up~" She said in a drawn-out voice, fighting through a yawn.
"Let's just say, I think I'm impeding your life. I may well be holding you back from experiencing some new things that fit our age" Nephelont sighed with a heavy heart. "Is staying with me what you truly want?"
Eucleia was jolted awake by his words. Her stomach churned and twisted. Her field of vision narrowed. Her thoughts descended into a chaotic mess. 'Why? Why did he suddenly ask this question? Are we not siblings anymore? NO! Then, what does he mean by this? Is sleeping in the same room and bed bothering him now? Did he find a woman he likes?...' Her thoughts spiraled until, a moment after he finished talking, Nephelont looked at her.
When Nephelont looked her way, he saw her face showing some scales. Her pupils were also unstable, enlarging and shrinking, widening and narrowing, repeatedly.
Nephelont put a hand to her face gently, drawing her from the spiral of negative thoughts she found herself in.
"Lia, it's not that deep. I simply worry for you" Nephelont said, an apologetic smile gracing his face. "I saw a dream where children who I knew were yours were playing with me, and an adult version of you in the distance beckoning us"
"Was there anyone else in your dream?" Eucleia asked, her voice dripping with dread.
"Not a soul" Nephelont's answer was brief and straight to the point. If he gave an elaborate answer, he risked Eucleia's thoughts going awry again.
"Did they resemble only me?" She asked. She felt a lump form in her throat.
Nephelont tried his best to remember their faces. They looked familiar, very rabbit-like. They looked like Bell from that one childhood painting Carillon did, just a bit more androgynous.
'Dad and uncle Carillon aren't depraved. Ludwig... He's too young and Lia isn't depraved. Who could the father be?' Nephelont thought, wondering why he even dreamed of such a thing in the first place.
"They did have faces that looked exactly how dad looked like as a kid their age, from that painting uncle Carillon made years ago. The thing is, there is absolutely no way any of the men in our family could have been the father for obvious reasons" Nephelont gave his honest opinion.
'He didn't catch on, did he? Is it still at a subconscious level?' Eucleia was flustered. She did not think that her secret romantic feelings for him would be discovered. Although, she also felt somewhat disappointed that he excluded himself as a possible father to the children in his dream.
(Later That Day)
Eucleia was roaming around the city, visiting all the places where Nephelont could have gone. She observed closely for any sign of him. She really wanted to teleport to his side and be done with it, but a prior experience prevented her from doing so. It was only once, but she teleported into the room while he was changing clothes. She stopped teleporting to his side ever since.
When she finally went everywhere possible, she remembered one last spot. They did not visit the place often, but it was a place that held a special meaning for Bell and Ais. Nephelont went there when he wanted to clear his mind, above the northwestern wall.
She arrived there at dusk, finally finding Nephelont. She found him sleeping with his head in Ais's lap and Bell's hand ruffling his hair. She just stood there, hesitant to step any closer.
'What Henryk warned all of us about is beginning to happen' Bell thought back to what Henryk said.
(Flashback)
"So, let's review what the cost is for allowing these couple of pregnancies and any further ones to be possible" Henryk slammed a thick file on the table. "The gist of it could be summarized into some bullet points.
1- Bell and Ais's first child is guaranteed to be a boy.
2- The boy is guaranteed to grow into a replica of Ais, including his voice but excluding one red eye and his privates. That is despite all his insides being made to fit the male body, including the development of his brain, thus his male-like personality.
3- All of Bell's lineage, with the only exception being his first kid with Ais, are to be cursed to both be androgynous and look exactly like him, except for their hair and eye colours.
4- All of Ais's lineage would turn out to be wind spirits at least half as strong as Ais is, with the possibility of some being just as strong or even surpassing her.
5- Welf and Hephaestus's first child is guaranteed to be a girl.
6- She is to inherit Hephaestus's exact deformity.
7- All of Hephaestus's lineage would have the minimum amount of divinity and arcanum befitting a half god but will have no place in the upper realm.
8- At a random point during her life, the girl will develop an unbreakable attachment to the boy. What that attachment develops into could be one thing one day and become wildly different as they grow up.
9- At a random point after their coming of age, something major will happen to their relationship, the circumstances and the results of which are unknown."
He gave them a brief window to absorb it all.
"Sorry, someone had to take the fall" Henryk smile apologetically. "On the bright side, nothing is confirmed to be negative yet" At his words, the heads of the parents in the room with him perked up. "We just need to raise them how normal kids are raised, and even the undetermined major shift in their relationship could turn out positively"
"You're right" Welf cupped his chin as he nodded, drowning in thoughts.
"While what you said is a lot of control over a child's life," Bell started getting antsy. He already got attached to the child that was not even conceived yet. "we could look at it as if what you did was make certain that the outcome of an event relying on random chance turned out to be one of the infinite outcomes it had in store"
Henryk was not blamed for the terms and conditions, or even the "curses." Rather, he was thanked that he found roundabout ways to make it happen without enforcing any real negative outcome on the children.
(Flashback End)
Ais looked to the side, gesturing for Eucleia to come closer.
Eucleia felt that something was coming, a talk centered around a very heavy topic, but she soldiered on and got closer. She sat down in the spot cleared especially for her, right beside Ais. Bell elected to remain standing. His knees became somewhat stiff from sitting for so long.
After Eucleia sat down, she did not know what to say. Instead, she waited for Ais to start the conversation.
"Lia, do you still think of him as a sibling?" Ais said, not moving her eyes from Nephelont's blissful sleeping face. Although he was sleeping on the cold bricks of the ramparts, leaving his head in his mother's lap more than made up for the discomfort. It completely overshadowed it, in fact.
"..." Eucleia opened her mouth and choked on the first word. She wanted to say that yes, she still saw him as her brother, more of twin really. However, she could not say those words. "I... don't think of him like that anymore..." She looked away in guilt and shame. There was a lot of fear mixed in. Now that they knew, they may make a serious attempt to separate them from each other.
"Can you tell me when that happened?" Ais took it in without changing the tone of her voice or her body language. If anything, she seemed more focused on grooming her son's long hair instead of the conversation. That let Eucleia relax a bit.
"Months after mother talked to us about it, and after a few of your attempts to drag us into the talk, I started thinking how cute his kids would look. How rabbit-like they may be if they grew to resemble Uncle Bell" Eucleia said, her voice unstable. Her emotions were reflected in that voice. "At some point, I don't remember when, I noticed that I began to imagine them with my red hair" After saying that particular line, she started wanting to run away from the self-perceived shame.
Ais put a hand over one of hers, keeping her sitting down.
"My sun talked about his dream, the one he had today" Ais looked at dusk's golden sky. "He doesn't seem to realize that he himself wants to be part of that family" Ais noticed it through Nephelont's stoic face, his desire to be that unknown father. There was some jealousy, a sort of jealousy that one would only develop after harboring romantic feelings toward another.
"Help him" Although not many, Ais remembered a few times Eucleia spaced out while looking at Nephelont the past year. She assumed that Nephelont should have known something was happening with how much time he spends with Eucleia on a daily basis. Ais chose her next words very carefully, yet it would seem she failed to calibrate them. "He's dense"
An awkward silence settled in as Nephelont groaned. His eyes fluttered open before he looked up. Seeing Ais and Eucleia's faces, he went back to his nap. Bell was visible in his field of vision, which helped him not to concern himself with where his father disappeared to.
Eucleia couldn't handle the shock that Nephelont unintentionally delivered, falling unconscious. If one focused well enough, one could see her soul escaping through her mouth.