First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1268: Living and Learning

Chapter 1268: Living and Learning

Ayaana made sure the coast was in the clear before she attempted to claim her prize.

She leaned over the kitchen island with her pointer finger extended and a devilish little grin.

She had nearly managed to scoop up a bit of icing from the unattended bowl when a wooden spoon hit her on the hand hard.

“Ow!”

“Just because my eyes aren’t on you doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re up to. You should know that better than anyone.” Zahara pulled three layers of cake out of the oven and rested them atop the stove to cool.

“Why can’t I have a little bit?? You haven’t even started frosting it yet!” Ayaana complained.

Zahara turned around, pulling off her smock and dropping it on the counter. “You can’t have any because you gorged on all of the peanut butter cups before our grandbabies could get any.”

“…That wasn’t me, that was Bekka being needy.” Ayaana defended.

Unamused, Zahara rolled her eyes.

Slipping from her sleep, Ayaana wandered up to her wife with a cloying smile.

“Come on.. It would be okay for me just to have a little bit, right…? You can even choose what I lick it off of~.”

Zahara seemed genuinely tempted for a moment. That was, until she heard a small gag come from behind her.

“You know… I would think that after growing up with this kind of thing happening literally all the time, I would be used to it by now, but nope. Still feel a little sick to my stomach every time I hear this kinda stuff in the kitchen, of all places. Really makes eating in here feel kinda… impossible.”

Thea leaned against the doorframe while making a sickened expression. Zahara became excited as she slipped out of her wife’s grasp.

“Sweetie, where are the twins? I know they like to lick the icing in the bowl, so I wanted to let them have-”

“If you hate me, just say that.” Ayaana folded her arms and pursed her lips.

“Oh, pipe down, princess.”

A hard smack on the butt made Ayaana let out a small yelp that decreased Thea’s will to live by a whopping ten percent.

“If you all are done speeding up the amount of time I’m going to need on a therapist’s couch… I kinda need your help with something, Mom.”

Ayaana looked back and forth between her wife and her daughter. “O-Oh… Does it have to be right now, or-”

“You guys can find another time to be old and gross, so please-”

“”We are not old!””

“Mom!”

–

Thea took her mother into the backyard, where an entire assortment of statues was arranged in neat rows on the grass.

Chief among them was a statue of a woman, seemingly frozen in agony amid an intense battle.

“I assume you didn’t come out here to make me stare at human-sized lawn ornaments..?” Ayaana tilted her head.

Thea shook her head. She grabbed her mother by the hand and led her toward the lead statue.

Gingerly, she touched the face of the woman she hadn’t seen in practically forever.

“I know you all wouldn’t recognize her… But… this was my master. She had the witchblade before me in our first timeline.”

Ayaana became understandably rigid.

The witchblade had endured for two timeline resets, but not a third.

The version of the weapon that Thea had now was the result of Valerie’s ’spontaneous’ idea to give her warrior daughter a suit of armor that amplified her power and gave her some new ones as well. She dubbed it the Celestial Blade.

Naturally, by the time the family got their memories back, how the witchblade had come about was one of the last things on anyone’s minds.

But now, it was something that they seemingly had to think about.

“How did she…?”

“I don’t know.” Thea admitted. “W-When we were with Bash looking for Gaia, we came across the tree she was inhabiting, and…T-There was this thing like a parasite attached to it. When we engaged it spat out… all of these people from a pool of black tar.”

Ayaana nodded slowly as she began walking among the statues, taking special care to note each of them.

“It sounds like a form of Blight… they’re like hive minds that spread by infecting organic and inorganic matter alike… If they come into contact with world trees, it’s usually very bad news. You all were lucky you got to Gaia before she could be corrupted.”

Thea nodded, amazed by her and her brothers’ luck. “I’ve never heard of these things before.”

“Oh? Well, you should try to turn your gaze from just our universe for once.”

“H-Hey, I check on more than just-”

“Or the one that Aisha and Aubrey come from.”

Thea puffed out her lips as she folded her arms. Her mother laughed melodically at her expression. “Don’t worry. I can fix them all easily enough.”

“Really?”

“Oh, honey. Getting out of bed in the morning is harder than this. Of course, when I see your daddy get up and walk away, I just wanna pounce on him like-”

“OKAY! I regret questioning you or engaging in this conversation, so can you just help them now??”

Ayaana rolled her eyes and started to unfurl her hand. But at the last second, she closed it once more and looked towards her daughter. “Thea-Baby.”

“Yeah, ma?”

“You know… this woman won’t have any idea of who you are, or even the significance of your relationship. Unless you’re planning to restore her memories, but… I think that would send the wrong sort of message to the women in your life, no?”

Thea understood her mother’s concerns almost instantly. In all fairness, if the shoe were on the other foot, she probably wouldn’t like it either. Especially knowing how she had once felt about the woman.

But Thea was a very different woman now than she was when she was a sixteen-year-old human. She didn’t get hung up on old crushes, or thoughts of what might have been, or even regrets.

She had the loves of her life. They had two beautiful children together. That would always be more than enough for the eldest princess.

“…Don’t worry, mom.” She smiled.. “I just want to do a good deed. No ulterior motives, and no interest in rewriting the past. She was good to me, that’s all. And I don’t want to leave her like this.”

Eris and Lisa still dwelled inside of Ayaana. Two deities who were quite proficient at seeing emotional truths and the context of someone’s heart.

She could tell that her daughter was being genuine. It settled all of her lingering concerns and allowed her to continue her work with a smile.

“Alright then, honey. Just making sure.”

Ayaana unfurled her hand, and a pure white snake slipped from between her fingertips.

It coiled around the first statue, growing larger and larger until it was practically a constrictor.

And then, it swallowed Thea’s master whole.

“H-Hey!”

“Oh, calm down.” Ayaana waved her hand. “Let little Gilbert do his thing.”

“…Gilbert??”

Ayaana raised her brow dangerously. “Something to say about my sweet baby’s name?”

Thea shook her head so hard that her lashes nearly flew off.

“That’s what I thought.”

As Thea waited for… Gilbert the snake to finish whatever he was doing to her former master, Thea realized that there was one bit of information that she had indeed forgotten to share with her mother.

“Hey, mom… I need to tell you something… It’s about K’ael.”