by Tamryn Tamer
“I should have gone with,” Ariel whined as Mai patted her head. “I’m the only one who stayed home! Jericho’s going to be disappointed in me!”
“It’s okay,” Mai said emotionlessly while stroking Ariel’s hair. “It’s okay.”
Ariel normally went to Cynthia to bond but recently she’d developed a special relationship with Mai. It started when Mai showed an interest in Ariel’s plant friends. Unlike Jinx and the stupid spirit beasts, Mai asked questions to learn more about what the plants liked, how to grow them, and what plants got along with insects.
The others made fun of the fact that Ariel had plant friends but Mai was different. She didn’t laugh at Ariel or judge Ariel. In fact, because of her complete lack of outward emotions, Mai rarely laughed at anybody. The most people could hope to get from her was a smile. Or in her master’s case the occasional sexy moan.
“Thanks Ocho,” Ariel said as the giant arachnid handed her a handkerchief it knitted. She wiped away her tears and looked at the elaborate designs along the border. “This one is so beautiful! You’ve improved a lot!”
Ocho skittered back and forth along the floor happily as Huit and Acht rushed toward Ariel with handkerchiefs of their own.
“You’re all doing so well!” Ariel said while looking over the patterns. “You’re all so talented! At this rate there’s no way Jericho is going to make you leave!”
“They’ll never leave,” Mai said coldly. Despite her emotionless delivery, Ariel couldn’t help but feel a malicious intent behind her words. “They are my babies.”
Ariel was a little shocked at how much Mai had changed since she discovered giant spider babies wandering through the house. It seemed her master collected some spider eggs but forgot to store them properly and so Mai became a mommy to Huit, Ocho, and Acht.
At first, she kept them in her room along with the Dancing Arachne toy she’d received for helping clear Castle Black. She didn’t know what they ate so she fed them what she ate, fruits and vegetables. Despite being primarily carnivorous the spiders seemed to enjoy any vegetable they could suck the juices out of. And since most of the house preferred to eat either meat or sweets, nobody really noticed the produce going missing.
Over time the spiders started growing quite a bit so Mai naturally moved her babies into their own rooms. That was about the time she started talking to Ariel. Although they had their own rooms, Mai would constantly wake up to find them cuddling in her bed. Mai decided she needed to make their rooms more appealing to them.
It didn’t take long for Ariel to figure out that Mai was up to something when she came around asking questions about what plants helped spiders sleep peacefully or if any of the plants could make a spider sick. So, she followed Mai and discovered her secret children.
After some initial panic and threats to kill anybody who tried to hurt her children, Mai explained the situation to Ariel and she was more than happy to keep Mai’s secret. Unfortunately, in a heated moment she let it slip and now was worried that because of her big mouth Mai and the others would be forced to move out.
“I’m sorry,” Ariel said anxiously. “I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“It’s okay,” Mai said as Ariel rested her head on Mai’s lap. “You’re upset.”
“It’s just not fair,” Ariel whined again. “It’s no wonder Jericho was spending special bonus time with everybody else! He spends more time with them exploring ruins or completing dungeons and I’m always sitting around the house! He’s going to forget all about me.”
“Never,” Mai said. “Jericho loves you. Jericho loves everybody. Jericho will love my babies.”
“Yeah,” Ariel said while watching the giant spiders wrestling with each other. With their long hairy legs and rather fearsome looking mandibles, they were rather scary looking to the average person. She was pretty concerned that meeting the three spiders could do more harm than good. “Maybe we should hold off on that a little longer.”
“Why?” Mai asked. “Jericho knows about them now. My children should meet their father.”
“Father?” Ariel practically jumped off of Mai’s lap. “How do you figure?”
“Jericho makes love to me. These are my babies. These are his babies.” Mai said as if her explanation was as simple as addition.
“Wait a minute,” Ariel said while suddenly getting defensive. “Mirage makes love to you too! Terra makes love to you as well!”
“Fine,” Mai pointed to her children one after another. “Jericho is Huit’s father. Mirage is Ocho’s mother. Terra is Acht’s mother.”
“What about the rest of us?” Ariel crossed her arms. She absolutely could not let Mai’s paternity claim go forward. It would completely derail her plan to become Jericho’s wife. “We’ve all made love at some point,”
“You’re their godmother,” Mai said continuing. “Everybody else is their auntie.”
“No,” Ariel stomped her foot angrily causing the spiders to rush to the corner terrified. Ariel immediately regretted her outburst, “Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to yell! We’re not fighting!”
“It’s okay,” Mai said to her children. “We are just talking.” She turned back to Ariel and a microexpression of anger flickered. “It’s not good to yell around children. They need to feel safe and secure.”
“I know,” Ariel said remorsefully. “It’s just, Jericho’s going to be my husband. He can’t be their father.”
“Oh,” Mai said while digesting Ariel’s words. “Then I will be his mistress. It’s not uncommon for nobility to have children with their mistresses. But if I am his mistress then all three are Jericho’s children.”
“Hmm,” Ariel considered Mai’s offer. “Okay! We have a deal!”
“Did you hear that!” Mai smiled ever so slightly at her giant arachnids. They started hopping around excitedly at the sight of their mother’s barely visible smile. “You’re going to meet your daddy! You’re going to be Huit Voidcaller, Ocho Voidcaller, and Acht Voidcaller!”
“But,” Ariel smiled at Mai. “You have to support my claim to be Jericho’s wife. Can I count on you?”
“Yes,” Mai nodded while alternating hugs between the spiders. “You helped raise Jericho’s children. You are his wife.”
“Exactly!” Ariel said. She needed to make sure the announcement went off without a hitch. “Okay! I have a plan!”
“A plan?” Mai asked. “For what?”
“For introducing Jericho to his children!” Ariel said excitedly as ideas flooded her mind. “We’re going to throw a party! We can also invite the dragons! I know Jericho said they weren’t allowed inside but I’m sure they’re allowed inside for a party, right?”
“That makes sense,” Mai said. “It would be unfair to have a party and not invite them.”
“We can make it a big welcome party for everybody!” Ariel said getting more excited by the second. “We never had a welcome party for the dragons! And Jericho’s going to get a new familiar soon so we can also make it a welcome party for her!”
“Do you want to have a party?” Mai asked the spiders who skittered around happily indicating they loved the idea. Mai stood up and looked at Ariel, “Let’s get started.”
Ariel rushed off to enlist Cynthia but the dark fairy was furious at being woken up in the middle of the night. All she did was yell about how she wanted absolutely nothing to do with the most horrendous idea she’s ever heard. But Freya, Kadra, Avara, Rela, and Sirun all loved the idea and were happy to help prepare everything. Really, it seemed that all the wolves needed to hear was the word party and they were in.
Of course, there were a few problems. Lapis was almost the size of the manor so there was no way she was going to fit inside and the larger adolescent dragons would fit in the rooms but would probably struggle with some of the tighter doorways.
To solve that Ariel decided the house needed some renovations. Jericho said previously it was impossible to alter the house because there was a maximum home size base
d on the plot of land but Ariel was the queen of Dayrose. She decided it might be dangerous, but she needed to wake Cynthia up again.
“Cynthia!” Ariel barged into Cynthia’s bedroom. The dark fairy jumped out of bed and glared furiously at Ariel. “I need help!”
“What now?” Cynthia growled. “It’s after midnight and this is the second time you’ve woken me up.”
“Sorry,” Ariel said suddenly losing her confidence as the tall naked dark fairy glared at her. “It’s just, I just, I mean we need…”
“Spit it out,” Cynthia snapped angrily. Ariel should have known better than to wake Cynthia up. She was always grumpy if she didn’t get enough sleep. “I want to get back to bed.”
“I want to make some alterations to the house,” Ariel smiled as anxiously. “Can you help?”
“Alterations?” Cynthia said suddenly intrigued. “But the house is the maximum size.”
“Well,” Ariel smiled. “I was thinking about that. And since I’m the queen of Dayrose I should be able to decide what is or isn’t allowed in a house located in Dayrose, right?”
“Ariella,” Cynthia was suddenly wide awake and rushing to her closet to slip into a dark leather bodysuit. “You are brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“What?” Ariel said nervously. “We can?”
“Yes!” Cynthia said rushing toward the large office Cynthia had claimed for the day to day operations of Dayrose. “Dayrose’s territory is the entire forest so we can expand our city to be as large as we want. Of course, we need to be cautious about expansion but at the very least we can make some slight adjustments that allow for increases in size. I’ve always wanted a distillery.”
“A distillery?” Ariel said as her anxiety increased. “I just wanted to knock out some walls and maybe have the dining room partially outdoors so the dragons could come to a party.”
“We can do that too,” Cynthia assured her while searching through various property documents. “Here it is! All we need to do is increase the area we’re allowed to modify and adjust the approved modifications. Let’s push the potential modification area all the way to the fence. Oh! Let’s modify the fence too! We could maybe add some roosts for the dragons.”
“I think this might be going a little far,” Ariel said panicking as Cynthia started to add changes to the document. “And we don’t really have the gold or resources for these types of…”
“What are you talking about?” Cynthia scoffed. “Have you been to the treasury? There’s over fifteen million gold down there! These upgrades wouldn’t cost more than ten. And you’re the queen of Dayrose!”
“But…” Ariel tried to object as Cynthia continued the modifications. “Are you destroying the city wall behind the house?”
“Of course not,” Cynthia said. “I’m moving it. Just a little bit to expand the property. We should really start talking about expansions now that I think about it. With half of Kar Mograth being destroyed, we could probably recoup some of the costs if we increased the city size just slightly and sold off some small properties.”
“Can we do that?” Ariel asked as Cynthia pulled out more papers and a regional map. “Cynthia, I think we should wait for Jericho…”
“Fine,” Cynthia said scratching out the city additions. “We’ll do that later. For now we’ll focus on this property.”
“But…” Ariel was pretty certain that she should wait for Jericho to review the changes.
“Ariella,” Cynthia smiled as she stroked Ariel’s cheek. “Do you still intend to make Jericho your husband?”
“You know I do,” Ariel blushed. “But you said the rules say I can only marry a fairy with a noble pedigree.”
“I’m still working on a solution for that,” Cynthia grumbled. “But! Assuming I do find a way, you need to start acting like a wife! You need to stop thinking like Ariella Pepperspring and start thinking like Ariella Voidcaller. Do you think Ariella Voidcaller would worry about a few small changes like these?”
“Ariella Voidcaller,” Ariel felt like she was going to pass out just thinking about it. Her heart was pounding in her chest. It was going to be real, Cynthia was going to make it happen for her. “It sounds so regal!”
“Doesn’t it?” Cynthia grinned manipulatively as she pushed the heavily modified document in front of Ariel. “And when you think about it. If you marry Jericho, half of the treasury belongs to you anyway. And look! The changes will only cost nine million gold!”
“Oh my god!” Ariel said looking at the extensive modifications. The manor was mostly the same except there was just more of it. The house along with the rooftop garden massively increased in size as the sides of the house were expanded on, a lake was added to the back yard, Cynthia’s distillery was added, the fence was upgraded to a wall complete with eight separate dragon roosts, and most importantly the dining area was quadrupled in size and half of it was outdoors so the dragons could come to the party. She loved it. “I love it. Do you think Jericho will like the changes?”
“I think he’ll love them,” Cynthia smiled. “Look, I even increased the size of the master bedroom slightly.”
“He does like the bedroom,” Ariel said pensively. The new manor was beyond gorgeous and Ariel couldn’t imagine Jericho not loving it but was still worried that he might be mad about making such a big decision without him. “I still feel like I should ask him.”
“Ariella,” Cynthia spoke sweetly. “Did he ask for your input when he built the manor?”
“No,” Ariel said after thinking about it for a moment.
“Even after you gave him all of your money to buy homes in Dayrose?” Cynthia shook her head. “And you even sold your house when he asked you to! And what about the profits from reselling the homes he purchased with your money? Who kept that money?”
“He did!” Ariel said realizing Cynthia was right. And the additions weren’t just for her, they were necessary for everybody. Ariel reached down and signed the document setting the construction in motion. “There!”
“Good job!” Cynthia patted Ariel on the head while looking over the various property documents and surrounding areas. “The workers should be here shortly to begin the upgrades. You should probably get back to planning your party.”
“Right!” Ariel said eying Cynthia suspiciously as the dark fairy started pulling out blank parchments and working through theoretical changes. “Aren’t you going back to bed?”
“Oh,” Cynthia nodded. “I’m just going to work on a proposal for some desperately needed city upgrades. They’ll be rather expensive but we don’t need to do them all at once.”
“Like what?” Ariel asked as Cynthia started to outline a massive city expansion with the manor sitting in the center like a castle. “And how are we supposed to pay for it?”
“That’s up for the king and queen to figure out,” Cynthia smiled. “Shouldn’t you get back to planning your party Queen Voidcaller?”
“Huh?” Ariel felt giddy. “Right. We can worry about that later.”
She rushed off to tell Mai and the others about the good news as workers started arriving to do magically fast upgrades on the manor. She just hoped they finished everything before her master arrived home. It was going to be a great surprise.
Chapter 9
A Surprising Gift
“Fuck me,” Jericho laughed as he guzzled his twentieth healing potion. Walking was proving difficult but with the help of Luna and Riseva he’d managed to meet up with Sable and Theia and was finally heading toward the three spirits he sensed just outside of the battlefield. “Normally it stops hurting by now.”
“We could always kill you,” Riseva said while scraping one of her stingers against his lower back. “You could teleport right back here as your cute self.”
“I can’t,” Jericho smiled. “I want Terra to know I beat his big demonic ass without dying.”
“And nearly killing me,” Sable said guzzling a health potion of her own. The petite Nyxian’s numerous bur
ns were nearly healed. She was closer to the blast radius than Jericho had anticipated but was able to quickly shield herself with dark magic. “A little warning would have been nice. And look at poor Theia!”
“Oh,” Theia patted her slowly regenerating wing. “This wasn’t from the explosion. This was from Rizar. He took my wing but I took his head!”
“About that,” Jericho said gesturing at the enormous head Theia was dragging behind her. “What do you intend to do with that?”
“I’m going to see if the Choir will let me turn it in with Niraxi’s head during exam time,” Theia said. “I know he’s not a Fallen but I think he should count toward a rank increase. Don’t you?”
“You know what,” Jericho nodded. “I agree. You killed a big evil mother fucker who planned on destroying all humanity. The Fallen are tiny evil mother fuckers who want to rule over all humanity. That should count.”
“The important thing is everybody is okay,” Luna said happily.
“Yeah,” Sable glared at Luna skipping along cheerfully. “You didn’t even have to fight.”
“I used diplomacy,” Luna stuck out her tongue at the nearly healed Nyxian. “You know what they say, diplomacy is just war by other means.”
“That’s not the saying,” Jericho chuckled as they approached the small group.
“Darling!” Mirage blinked over and grabbed Jericho. She didn’t seem the least bit disgusted by his appearance, just concerned as she looked at his various wounds. “What happened? You poor thing!”
“I’m fine,” Jericho said while staring at Jinx holding down a bound blonde-haired woman. It was tough to make out exactly what was happening but Jericho figured Mirage and Jinx came to some sort of agreement to annoy Terra. He looked at Mirage judgmentally, “Mirage. Did you tie Terra up?”
“No! And I find the implication a little offensive honestly,” Mirage feigned offense. She tugged on Jericho’s arm. “Come see for yourself.”
Jericho and the group followed Mirage to the small camp littered with health potions. As they approached, they quickly realized that Terra wasn’t bound up and their jaws collectively dropped.
