“Goodness, she’s such a big girl!”
Jocelyn hefted a giggling Hope into her arms, rocking the happy baby back and forth with a delighted grin. With one hand she dangled a stuffed toy that was probably some form of stylized duck, though it was entirely blue, so it was hard for Jadis to be sure. She wasn’t going to ask, though, since she was fairly certain that Jocelyn had handcrafted the mishappen duckling. Hope’s little fist grabbed hold of the toy and pulled it close, but as Jadis had expected would happen, the Succubus was far more focused on the Oracle’s magic aura than the gift she had been given.
“Oh!” Jocelyn jumped a little, though she was careful not to jostle the child. “Is that what you meant by her, ah, latching onto you?”
“Yes…” Alex smiled sweetly as she lovingly brushed a hand over Hope’s fuzzy head. “She is… Curious… And… Voracious…”
“I am not surprised,” Wilhelm said as he tickled Hope’s chin with one finger. “She is quite large.” Paling a second later, he quickly amended the statement. “Not that I meant that she is in some way overweight! I would never comment on a lady’s figure!”
“No, you’re right,” Syd laughed from where she stood behind Alex. “She’s a chubby baby. And she’s huge. Also, you know it’s okay to pay compliments about a lady’s figure if she’s interested in you, right Wilhelm?”
Syd smirked as she watched the Hero and the Oracle slowly blush crimson. According to Amarantha’s reports, nothing concrete had come of the dancing the previous night. However, in Jadis’ opinion, the two were being particularly awkward around each other, while also constantly staying within arm’s reach at the same time. It was adorable, really, and Jadis was enjoying the show.
The two inexperienced heroes dancing around their attraction wasn’t the extent of Jadis’ entertainment, either. Using her spell, Eyes of the Succubus, she was getting to see a lot more than just her natural eyes could reveal.
Jocelyn’s aura was a strangely calming mix of blues that sparkled with flecks of gold. Her magic radiated out from her center, practically obscuring her whole form in a single orb that was darker in the middle and sky blue around the edges. The sparks of gold that floated in her aura reminded Jadis of a glitter lamp, the lava lamp’s less drugged-up cousin. It truly was a beautiful effect, which no doubt played into Hope’s interest.
Jadis and her family had discovered that while many of the rules that applied to newborn infants were applicable to Hope, some of them were not, and others were heavily altered. Hope didn’t need to eat food; she subsisted entirely on magic. That didn’t mean she couldn’t eat food. Like all babies, the little hellion liked to stick things in her mouth to find out how they tasted, which had resulted in at least a few instances where she had eaten some soft foods. Those incidents had led to the one instance where Hope had needed a diaper thus far, which had been a mortifying experience for everyone involved. Jadis looked forward to retelling the story when her daughter was old enough to be embarrassed by it.
A key difference between Hope and other babies was that while she did like to gum on things due to her limited ability to interact with the world, she far preferred to latch onto their magic if it was an option. Any person who had a magic aura, even if it was very small, was liable to get nibbled on by Hope if they were within five or so feet of the Succubus. Even if she wasn’t hungry and had just been fully fed by Alex or Jadis or one of the others, Hope would still suck a little magic out of those who were nearby, seemingly just to see what they tasted like. She would do the same to magic items as well, which had caused several problems with enchantments that Sabina had been working on, so they had to keep the rapidly growing infant away from magical devices as much as possible. There was no way to directly stop Hope from latching onto nearby magic, except by proximity and distraction.
“Oh, I think she just touched my magic as well,” Wilhelm blinked as he rubbed the back of his head. “That’s very strange.”
“Oi! What does it feel like?” Tiernan demanded, a notebook in one hand that strongly reminded Jadis of the one Aila carried everywhere. “Is it painful? Unpleasant? Ticklish? Pleasurable? Numbing? Do spill the sauce, man! She hasn’t latched onto me yet.”
“Ah, sort of ticklish, I suppose?” the Hero said as he continued to scratch at his brown hair. “It doesn’t make me want to laugh, but ticklish seems like the right word. It doesn’t hurt.”
“I can confirm that,” Syd told the academically excited gnome. “When she feeds on you, it’s a stronger, firmer sensation, but if she’s just tasting like she is right now, it’s sort of ticklish.”
Syd watched as a small bit of the Hero’s aura was drained away by Hope. Only a very small amount, though, which showed that the tiny Succubus was just tasting the new auras around her, rather than actually feeding.
As interesting to watch as Jocelyn’s magic sphere was, Wilhelm’s aura was just as eye catching, though in different ways. The Hero reminded Jadis somewhat of Hraustrekr, at least in structure, if not character. Both men had exceptionally solid magic density that fully conformed to their body shape, their auras barely protruding above their skin. Whereas the first prince was a diamond, Wilhelm was a solid bar of gold. He shone like the radiance that exuded from his god-gifted sword; not blindingly so, but there was no obscuring him behind others. The golden allure of his aura was such that even Jadis wanted to reach out and touch the pleasing vision of metallic luster.
Tiernan, on the other hand, was a raging whirlpool of red, blue, yellow, and purple colors. The Archwizard’s tempestuous aura swirled around him like a thunderstorm, pulling in the ambient aether with even greater speed than Alex’s roiling magical substance. Looking at the gnome with her Succubus eyes was a bit like watching a fireworks show in a hurricane. While it was visually stunning, Jadis wasn’t surprised that her baby daughter hadn’t yet tried to touch the violently spinning aura. It was quite honestly a bit intimidating.
“Well, I think she’s adorable,” Amarantha said in her tiny voice as she put her paws on Jocelyn’s arm so she could get a better look at Hope. “I also think it’s entirely unfair that your progeny is already so large! How am I supposed to be the older aunty when this kitten is already big enough to squash me!”
Syd laughed at the Lares’ joking complaints, while also privately enjoying her aura. Out of all of their visitors that morning, Jadis found that she personally liked Amarantha’s magic the most. In truth, the aura the fiery cat exuded was just an extension of the magic that was her flaming fur. Burning yellow and red flames spread out around the Lares, visible only via Succubus vision, giving off the impression of a roaring bonfire. There were green and purple flames mixed in with the rest of the fire, but not in a tumultuous or extravagant way, like Tiernan. There was just something pleasantly attractive about Amarantha’s aura that made Jadis want to curl up by the warmth and either take a nap, or cuddle with loved ones.
“You said that the wee lass is only a few weeks old,” Tiernan was saying as he scribbled in his journal. “She hardly looks it, though I admit I am no expert on children of any race. Is she growing at an accelerated rate?”
“She is…” Alex answered calmly as she continued to dote on Hope, who had just been passed into Wilhelm’s arms. “She is big… Because of Jadis… She grows fast… Because of me…”
“That’s our theory, at any rate,” Aila spoke up from Syd’s side. “Bertha, our midwife, has been checking on her every day, recording Hope’s changes and growth. This is all very new to everyone, and it’s still early to be certain, but we estimate that she is growing at about three times the rate of a human infant.”
Whether or not that theory was true was hard to say, especially since Hope had been born in a seemingly more advanced state than most infants. She was also naturally larger than most human babies, almost certainly due to her Nephilim heritage. Still, she had grown fast over the past two weeks, putting on several more pounds in a short amount of time. According to Bertha, if Hope was scaled down to a more average size, she would still place the three-week-old baby at about five months of growth. Since she had been born around the developmental stage of a three-month-old infant, that was where their approximate progression calculation was coming from.
“So, she is growing far faster than most races,” Tiernan nodded as he scribbled notes down. “Fascinating.”
“Slower than a Lares,” Amarantha pointed out. “That rate means she should be fully grown by the age of six, if I’m judging you two-legged types correctly. If she were a Lares, she would be an adult at the age of two.”
“I… didn’t know that,” Syd cocked her head to one side. “I thought Lares live for a long time, just like most avatar races.”
“We do,” the Mystic’s tail twitched as she looked up at Syd. “But we mature fast. Now go ahead and ask me my age. I dare you.”
“Why would I need to ask?” Syd grinned at the fiery cat witch. “I can already tell from your immense power and wisdom that you have to be a hundred years old, at least.”
As Amarantha dangled from Syd’s hand from where she had firmly sunk her fangs, Jadis silently evaluated the auras of her lovers as contrasted to those of the Hero’s party, at least for those who were in the room. It wasn’t as though she could make a one-to-one comparison, especially since she didn’t know the specific details of the Hero and his companions’ levels. Other than the fact that she knew they were all at about or above CLR one hundred, she had no data on their stat numbers, and she wasn’t going to ask. Their auras, though, were something she could visually compare, though she wasn’t sure how reliable the seemingly subjective images and sensations were.
As impressive as the Archwizard Tiernan was with his brightly colored hurricane of magic, Aila’s aura was far more subdued. She had no color to hers at all; the magic surrounding her like smoke slowly rising from a snuffed candlewick was just as ghostly translucent as the spells she regularly cast. That said, there was a solid sphere of arcane energy resting inside of Aila’s chest that screamed power to Jadis’ newly awakened senses. While the sphere inside her barely moved, it practically thrummed with its own tightly restrained energy. If Tiernan was a roaring storm, Aila was a primed explosive, waiting for a trigger. Both represented huge amounts of destructive force, though which was more powerful was hard for Jadis to judge.
The comparison between Jocelyn and Eir, however, was far more direct. Where the Oracle had a blue aura with golden sparkles, the newly risen saint had a red aura with tendrils of purple energy running through her sphere. While Jadis had compared Jocelyn to a glitter lamp, Eir was more like a plasma globe moving in slow motion. The purple bolts of power that ran from the elf’s center to the furthest reaches of her aura weren’t quite the chaotic bursts of energy that could be seen flashing inside Tiernan’s storm but were closer in nature to Jadis’ own plasma tendril wings that she could summon with her spell. They were beautiful to watch as they floated around in the red haze of Eir’s primary aura sphere, and it was always interesting to see how they would spark off of anyone who came within Eir’s range.
Jadis really needed to get the two women to stand next to each other so she could see what would happen.
Doing so would also make it easier to compare them, though even without a side-by-side view, Jadis could tell that Jocelyn’s aura was stronger than Eir’s was. There was visibly more substance to her magic, and her aura was larger and brighter. Not by a huge margin, but noticeably so, all the same. Jadis knew that Eir would never be bothered by that fact, but the competitive streak in her own nature made her want to raise her lover’s level even higher, just to prove that Eir was a better healer than the Hero’s chosen Oracle. It was a silly, utterly pointless impulse that was honestly childish, but Jadis couldn’t deny that she still felt it.
Fortunately, there were many things going on around her to serve as a distraction from her less than noble thoughts.
“You shouldn’t be violent like that around an infant,” Jocelyn chided as she reached up to pull Amarantha off Syd’s hand. “It sets a poor example.”
“A kitten should learn how to bite the insolent early in life,” Amarantha countered as she squirmed out of Jocelyn’s hold and leapt back onto her walking cauldron. “Besides, Jadis didn’t even have the good grace to bleed.”
“Not my fault your puny teeth can’t break my skin,” Syd shot back while sticking her tongue out at the Lares.
“It is entirely your fault,” the flaming feline answered primly. “Don’t deny that you have skills boosting your Fortitude! And who chooses your skills but you!”
Syd could only smile and shrug in response to the witch’s accusation.
“Oh, speaking of Fortitude,” Tiernan perked up from his notes. “I think you will need to excuse me! As interesting as your unique little girl is—again, my congratulations to you both—I want to learn more about those Demons that you have been, ah, rehabilitating. Which way is outside?”
“Go left down the hall,” Syd pointed towards the door. “One of my other bodies will meet you at the bottom of the stairs and lead you outside where the rest of your party is.”
“I’m not sure if ‘rehabilitation’ is the right word to use,” Aila mused as Tiernan quickly scurried out of the room. “Honestly, some of them have been so harmless that it’s hard to believe that others of their kind are so hostile and destructive.”
“I explain… Samleos’ Urge…” Alex spoke solemnly as she took Hope back from Wilhelm. “He is easier… To push away… When you know… Who… And what… He is…”
“I am not an avatar,” Wilhelm nodded his head, “but I think I understand what you mean.”
“They have not all been harmless, though, have they?” Jocelyn asked as she bit her lip with worry. “I have heard that some of those you took under your protection are still… aggressive.”
“To varying degrees,” Syd admitted with an unhappy sigh.
“Aggressive!” Amarantha chirped as her tail curled around her feet. “Does that include the ‘Crash’ Demon who Halvor is playing with outside?”
“Ha…” Syd smirked and shook her head. “That’s a different kind of aggression.”
“More like obsession,” Aila muttered.
“We introduced Crash to High Priest Steingrimur, of Charos’ temple, last week. You should have been there to see that interaction.”
“We’re still replacing a lot of the cobblestones…”
As Aila finished her lament, a terrible crashing noise of shattering stone echoed from the training yard that was outside the window of the sitting room their small group had occupied. As shouts and cheers followed the noise, the redheaded mage let out a weary breath.
“And that will be a few more in need of replacement…”
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