Hope was gray.
Jadis wasn’t sure why that was the first thing that came to mind as she stared down at the tiny form of her newborn child, but it was. Her brain was still trying to process the absolute miracle that was being held right in front of her, so she wasn’t exactly thinking straight. However, as she looked at the perfect little existence cradled in Alex’s arms, Hope’s skin tone did pop out to Jadis.
Her baby’s skin was gray, which would have drawn some kind of concern from Jadis about her health if either she or Alex were human. But since neither of them were, she was more just faintly amused that mixing a Nephilim with snow white skin and a Demon with ink black skin had resulted in an offspring whose coloration was right in the middle of the gradient.
Of course, her skin tone wasn’t the only aspect that Jadis took note of as she stared in wonder at what she and Alex had made together. She examined every detail of Hope, drinking in the sight like she had been dying of thirst just moments ago and had stumbled upon a cool spring in a desert.
There was nothing particularly demonic about the appearance of her and Alex’s baby, either in the Earthly sense or from the perspective of Oros. She didn’t have horns or tentacles on her head. She had the faintest whisps of hair, though not enough to give Jadis a good idea of what her hair color would be other than light. There were no tentacles elsewhere on her body, either, which was easy enough to see since Alex had nothing suitable to swaddle the newborn in. No tail or cloven hooves, nor were there any extra eyeballs. She didn’t even have pointed ears. Except for her color, their baby looked human.
Hope was strangely unwrinkled. Jadis hadn’t spent too much time around newborns in her previous life, but she had met a few and seen plenty of photos. They generally looked a bit like baked potatoes, wrinkled and maybe somewhat smushed. Their eyes barely opened beyond slits and their movements were always jerky, like they were using those muscles for the first time ever. Which was an accurate assessment, when Jadis thought about it. Hope, though, was different. Her skin wasn’t wrinkled in the slightest, nor did she have that ruddy flush of a newborn. She did have a few lines and patches of skin that looked darker than the rest, but not to the degree that it made her look smushed. Her eyes were open wide, her movements were smoother than expected, and she was much larger than Jadis thought a newly birthed baby should be, too. While she was no expert, Jadis thought that Hope looked more like a three-month-old baby, than a three-minute old one. Certainly, her awareness of her surroundings was active and engaged, and the Succubus’ focus was all on Jay.
As her child stared up at her, Jadis marveled at how beautiful Hope’s eyes were. Her sclera were black, just like her mother, but unlike Alex, Hope had rainbow-colored irises. Not just multicolored across the visible spectrum, but moving and shimmering colors like an oil slick on water. Every move and blink sent the colors in Hope’s eyes in new and interesting patterns of iridescent light. Jadis felt like she could stare into those eyes for hours.
“Can I… Can I hold her?” Jay asked, struck by the sudden need to embrace the life she had helped create.
“Yes…” Alex replied as she guided Jay’s hand closer.
Tentatively reaching out towards the tiny being, her movement was instantly halted as Hope reacted. Her small, gray hand grasped onto Jay’s thumb, holding onto her with surprising strength. The little succubus grinned widely, showing off a toothless mouth as her iridescent eyes sparkled with delight. Her expression was so happy that Jadis could feel all three of her hearts stop at the sight. She was all but convinced that her baby was about to say “I love you” with how purposefully joyous her attention was.
Of course, what came out of Hope’s mouth was more of a burbling, incomprehensible mess that caused just a bit of drool to leak onto her chin, but the intent was clear enough for Jadis.
“Oh, I love you so much,” Jay crooned as she scooped her baby into her hands. “You’re the most perfect thing in the world! I love you so, so, so much!”
Jadis realized in some part of her mind that she was babbling like an idiot, but she really didn’t care. She had always thought baby talk was a stupid way to talk with children. Now, however, she completely understood why parents used baby talk. It just sort of… came out that way, unbidden.
As she held Hope, Jadis realized that her initial assessment of her daughter’s human-like appearance might have been hasty. While she couldn’t see them, now that she was holding her, she could feel a series of tiny holes running parallel to either side of Hope’s spine. She wasn’t sure what they were, but she knew that wasn’t normal for a human, baby or not. She could also see that, upon closer examination, Hope had two tiny little nubs on her head, one on either side of her forehead. They weren’t much, barely noticeable, but they were definitely there. Jay’s finger brushed against one of the nubs curiously, drawing a giggle out of Hope which instantly melted her hearts.
“Hey. What happened? You turned into wood blocks.”
Dys and Syd blinked, her attention refocusing on the surroundings of those two bodies. Noll was standing in front of the two, his sword back in hand and a dead mire hound at his feet. She hadn’t even noticed when that had happened, as she had been so distracted by Hope even the attention of her other selves had left everything else behind. The sight of her mentor standing there with Demon blood dripping from his blade was a harsh reminder that they weren’t in a safe location. She couldn’t afford that level of distraction.
“Alex gave birth,” Syd explained, her words coming out in a breathless rush. “I just, I mean—shit, what ah, I meant to say is we’ve got to get out of here.”
“That was quick,” Noll’s one good eye widened in surprise. “Fine. I can run, you’ve got your wings. We can grab the blonde on the way out.”
Mention of Severina caused Dys’ eyes to involuntarily turn towards the battle in the sky. Bursts of red and gold continued to flare as the two Seraphim fought. Another good reason for them to flee the area as fast as possible. Jadis had no doubt that if they joined up, she and Sev could defeat the possessed Vitus, but she wasn’t so unaware as to assume the red winged man was the only danger. The Playwright was still unaccounted for, and he had to be royally pissed that Jadis had foiled his plans again. Who knew what kind of response he could be arranging at that very moment to counter her move?
As Jadis resolved to grab her girls and make a run for it, she felt the magic presence of her plasma wings wink out of existence. In the next second, the light she had generated was gone and they were bathed in darkness.
“Shit, has it been fifteen minutes already?” Syd cursed. “I don’t have the magic to cast another wing spell.”
“You can swim, can’t you?” Noll growled.
“Yeah, but I can’t bring my baby into that miasma over there,” Dys gestured towards the distant shore where the cloud of toxic gas shrouded the landscape. “And I don’t think even I could swim a hundred miles back to Glanum.”
“Hmph,” Noll made an angry noise. Jadis couldn’t see his face very well in the dark, but she could tell that his ears were lying flat against his head, a sure sign of his frustration. “I’ve done a lot in my life. Transporting pups across Demon wastes isn’t one of them.”
“Hold on,” Dys told the therion. “Let me see what Alex can do.”
Before Noll had even finished expressing his frustration, Jay had already explained the situation outside to Alex. Passing the adorable little bundle that was Hope back into her lover’s arms, with just a bit of reluctance, Jay continued on to her question.
“Do you have enough magic reserves to give me, ah,” Jay paused for a moment to check her current magic. “Shit, I have ninety-six right now. I need two hundred to recast my wings. That’s two of casts of your Focal Shift spell.”
Alex gently caressed Hope as she allowed the newborn to play with one of her medium-sized tentacles. Her demeanor was calm, her mood obviously still high, but Jadis could tell by her body language that she was taking the situation seriously. After a moment of thought, she responded.
“I do not… Have enough…”
“It’s alright. You must have used everything up on that barrier and dragon. I’ll use my progenitor skill to regenerate my magic, instead.”
It would have been easier if Alex had the magic to transfer, but it wasn’t a shock that she didn’t. Alex had been casting smite quite a bit, and she had probably had to use some healing spells as well at some point, though that was just speculation on Jadis’ part. In any case, Jadis had her meditation skill from her Progenitor class that she could use to rapidly speed up the process. It would be weird to meditate when she felt like she should be fighting, but Noll was there to act as a guard, and it wouldn’t take long.
Doing the calculations in her head, Jadis’ face fell as she realized that the meditation wouldn’t make things all that much faster for her. Sure, it would increase her gains by five times, but her base regen was only thirty-five. It would still take her well more than thirty minutes to recover enough magic to cast her flying spell.
“Hope… Is hungry…” Alex said, interrupting Jay’s internal concerns. “I have… Eighty magic now… Feed Hope… And I will pray…”
Jay took the squirming baby back into her hands as Alex sat up straighter. For half a second, she considered dropping her Mirror Magnification spell so that her size would be more compatible with her tiny infant Succubus, but she quickly realized that it would be pointless. While Dys was pregnant, things hadn’t progressed far enough for her body to start producing milk before she had asked Bertha to pause the pregnancy. She had no milk to give. Kerr had tested that possibility. Extensively.
“I don’t have—”
“You do…” Alex interrupted Jay with a finger pressed against her lips. “You have… Ninety-six…”
“I…” Jay struggled to understand. Ninety-six of what? Then, it clicked. “You mean, my magic reserves?”
“Yes…”
Alex said nothing more before falling into a silent prayer. Jadis still felt a little odd about the idea that her lover’s prayers were being directed towards her, but that wasn’t the focus of her thoughts at that moment. What Alex was suggesting was bizarre, yet she couldn’t think of a different interpretation. While Hope looked human, she was far from one. Neither of her parents were human, and one of them was a Demon. Nephilim needed to eat, but Demons didn’t. That meant that Succubi… well… Jadis had a guess as to what it meant. A guess that she would need to test.
Cradling her smiling child close to her chest, Jay grinned down at the little ball of joy. Halfway closing her eyes in concentration, she took hold of that immaterial substance within herself that she had long ago recognized as being magic and held it out towards Hope. It wasn’t unlike when she used her magic to power enchantments. As soon as the ethereal resource brushed against the Succubus baby, Jay jolted in mild surprise. She could feel Hope latch onto her magic, grasping that otherworldly part of her with a strength not unlike her little fingers had shown when holding Jay’s thumb.
Checking her status sheet, Jadis raised her eyebrows in surprise. Her magic reserves had dropped from ninety-six to ninety-five. Then ninety-four. Then three.
“You… eat magic?” Jay whispered to her Succubus daughter.
Hope responded with a happy gurgle while shoving most of her tiny fist into her mouth.
It would take Alex five minutes to regenerate her magic reserves to the point where she could cast her Focal Shift spell twice. While it was certainly faster than what Jadis could achieve, it was still far too slow for her liking. Five minutes was an eternity on the battlefield, but without access to her wings, there wasn’t much Jadis could do but wait and watch the distant fight between Severina and the man once known as Vitus. A few more Demons crawled up onto the shore, which gave her something to vent her impatience onto, but even those attackers were tapering off. Jadis wasn’t sure if it was an object permanence thing or what, but it didn’t seem like any of the remaining Demons were going to brave the water to get to her.
“Why aren’t all of the Demons coming after us?” Dys asked Noll.
If she was being forced to wait, she could at least try to distract herself with potentially useful information.
“Deep waters,” Noll waved a clawed hand at the dark sea as he paced next to her. “When the Demons killed all the Merrow, Tamar cursed them. Great monsters of the ocean seek them out if they stray too far from shore.”
“Sea monsters?” Dys exclaimed.
“Powerful ones.”
“The gods can do that?” Syd asked from where she nervously fidgeted with her sword staff between her hands. “Interfere, I mean? Or was just Tamar allowed to curse the Demons because all of her avatars were exterminated?”
“No idea,” Noll shrugged. “I’m no priest. Ask Eir.”
“Alright, fair, but I’ve never heard of Lyssandria cursing the Demons because of the Nephilim.”
“Why would she? You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
That question caused Jadis to shut her mouth. She hadn’t revealed her origins to Noll and wasn’t sure when she should. She trusted him, and she felt she should be as open with him as he had been with her about his past. This didn’t feel like the time for that sort of conversation, though.
Regardless, she really hadn’t ever heard of any kind of curse that Lyssandria had used against the Demons when the Nephilim went extinct. She hadn’t heard of Tamar doing so, either, or Svaroga, the god of the extinct Dvergr, or Dwarves. If curses were a part of the covenant, Jadis felt like it should have been mentioned to her. Then again, when would it have come up? She hadn’t been exactly studious when it came to the religious history of Oros.
“Did you check your levels?”
Dys glanced down at Noll, blinking as her brain took a second to process his words thanks to her distraction.
“Ah, no, not yet,” she admitted, a little ashamed of the fact. “I, uh, was distracted.”
Noll gave her a disappointed look, then shook his head while letting out a disgruntled sigh.
“I gained a level this night. I’m sure you did.”
“Oh, really? What are you up to now?”
“One hundred and seventy,” Noll grunted. “Can’t let you catch up too fast.”
Jadis wasn’t surprised to hear that her mentor had made so much progress, even despite his already high CLR. Last Jadis had been told, Noll had been level one hundred and fifty-eight. He had been a major contributor to the battle in Glanum, so he had to have gained a good number of levels from that fight. Not as many as her, but still.
As part of Jadis’ mind steered towards checking her stats and level up notifications, a different part stared at Noll with a sudden realization. The old wolf was pacing back and forth in front of the cave, just as impatient to get going as she was. His one yellow eye kept constant vigilance for more Demons while also keeping track of the distant fight in the sky. However, every now and then, his gaze would flicker to the cave entrance.
“Hey, uh, Noll,” Syd said as she moved to stand in the mercenary’s way. “This has been a crazy few minutes here and my brain is feeling more scattered than chicken feathers in a hurricane, so forgive me for not asking sooner, but would you like to meet Hope?”
Noll jerked his head back, his expression shifting from intense concentration to awkward confusion.
“Hope?”
“Yeah,” Syd nodded. “That’s what Alex named our baby.”
Noll was silent for a second, his wolf-like face unreadable.
“I’m not family.”
“What?” Syd tilted her head to the side, confused by the response.
“I’m not family. You shouldn’t be putting your pup near some old dog with no relation to you. It’s not safe.”
“That’s a hell—a fucking ridiculous thing to say, Noll. You are family. I trust you with my life, and the life of my loved ones. Please. I want you to meet my daughter.”
Noll stood stock still for another second, making no attempt to respond to Syd. When he finally answered her plea, his words were so much of what she had expected that she almost laughed.
“Alright,” Noll said gruffly as he stalked towards the cave. “Let me see the pup. Just don’t expect me to hold her.”
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