The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 669: A Thing of Beauty

Chapter 669: A Thing of Beauty

Half an hour later, Dominic was looking at a fully finished crib, while putting the finishing touches on the engraving and polishing of the posts.

The mattress had just arrived, and they realized that the design needed a bit more gold to it to make it balanced, and to properly represent the golden dragon lineage of the Wavemates family.

So, Dominic had donated the gold coins, and Pops had smelted them to do the artwork. Now, all that was left was polishing everything until it was ready to present as a gift.

The more that they worked at it, the more time that Dominic had to realize that he was actually becoming the responsible adult in the room. Sure, he had titles for a while. But that was only responsibility for other adults in a workplace setting.

If he slacked on his duties as a Duke for a day, it wasn’t a big deal.

If you slacked on your duties as a father for a day, bad things would happen. The baby wouldn’t just go get their own lunch if you didn’t remember to check on them for a while.

The crib really was a masterpiece of techno magic, though. It was simple, deceptively so.

Looking at it from a distance, it looked like any other child’s bed. But the mounting point was actually a mechanical device that would let the bed rock and sway as desired. It was set when activated, so the motion that the child liked best could be selected, or a new one could be tried instantly.

“I think that she is going to love it.” Mead decided as Pops did the final test of the motion settings.

“Should we bring it over? I think we’ve still got time to present it before the Princes get their presents delivered.” Dominic suggested.

“Oh, that will be fun. Yes, let’s all go over.” Mead agreed.

She really wanted to see the response of the Princess when they arrived with the crib.

They had all poured their hearts into the design of this thing, and it wouldn’t look out of place in any Royal Palace. Hopefully, Alexis would love it as much as Mead did.

Dominic moved it to his storage cube, and waved goodbye to the front desk worker as he left for the Manor, with Pops and Mead right behind him. News had already spread through the city, as Dave had been overjoyed to tell everyone that he met while on patrol.

So, it was not a fast trip home.

“Lord Dominic! Will there be a formal holiday for the birth?”

“Your Grace, congratulations!”

“Here, take these. They’re best for morning sickness.”

Every half minute or so, someone would stop them, either to congratulate Dominic or to offer a gift for the Princess.

By the time that they got back to the Manor, he had no fewer than four different forms of soup that were supposed to be good for expectant mothers or morning sickness, and two different potions from the witches.

Neither of which came directly from the Witches themselves.

Dave greeted them at the door, and gave Dominic a thumbs up.

“They’re still waiting for the delivery. You’re the first one back,” the troll on guard duty at the door informed him.

“Perfect. We can present our hard work before she’s become too jaded by the Royal gifts.”

Pops laughed at Dominic’s enthusiasm. If she was going to be jaded by gifts, she would be by now, having grown up in the Royal Palace, with over a dozen siblings. There were so many gifts given to them every year that their castoffs sustained the families of most of the staff.

It was simply impossible for every member of the Royal Family to keep every gift that they were given. So, most were cycled through, either used up or regifted to lower Nobles.

The most common example of it was the dresses and jewellery.

A Princess was given an immense amount of jewellery, and many dresses were made for various events. More than they could keep around. So, they were given or lent to the ladies in waiting, Noble daughters assisting the Princess to increase their visibility to Noblemen and build a solid reputation.

This one would at least last for most of a decade, while they were still increasing their family size.

At least, Dominic assumed things would work that way.

Depending on how this pregnancy went, there could either be a lot of little Wavemates or only a few.

Alexis was in the main dining room with the rest of the family, as well as the Emissaries of the other Nations who were present. The announcement of her pregnancy had sent them all scrambling with gifts except the Shersdonian Emissary, who appeared to have been prepared for this situation.

Dominic could see that his gift was wrapped and sitting on a side table.

It wouldn’t be opened until the Royals had made their presentations, an order of priority issue where he had managed to jump the queue simply because he was prepared and present far earlier than usual.

Normally, others wouldn’t be informed or invited to the Manor for a few days.

But the emissaries had been at breakfast.

“Ah, the Duke returns. I take it that you managed to find just the right present?” Prince Claudius asked.

Elanor looked more excited than anyone else to see what he had come up with, and Dominic winked at her as he nodded to the Crown Prince.

“Of course, Your Highness. It might have taken a moment to get it finalized, but I have just the thing.”

Alexis made a ’get on with it’ gesture, and Dominic brought out the magitech crib.

“Lovingly handcrafted by local artisans, I present to you the latest in magitech baby care. Three axis motion, user adjustable rocking motions, even gentle vibration to help the young one sleep,” he announced proudly.

The King was immediately on his feet. Even before Alexis was.

He helped her up, and they came over to where Dominic had placed the crib.

“I assume that this was a cooperative effort between the three of you?”

“And a custom mattress from the Carriage works.” Dominic agreed.

“It’s beautiful.”