Novel Full Chapter 776: First Meeting
“Isn’t she precious?”
Hajun and Kirina stared down at Baby Odessa inside of her crib.
After being passed off to her grandparents, the youngest daughter had maybe a couple minutes of cooing and hand movements left in her before she was completely tuckered out.
Now, she slept peacefully in the quarters of the two ancient dragons who were staring at her fondly.
“This truly takes me back… I miss having Seras be this small and cute.” Kirina mused.
“Hmph, speak for yourself. My pookie snookems is still the most precious thing living, dead, or in between!”
Hajun pulled out an instant camera from his back pocket.
He proceeded to snap several photos of his grand daughter at a grossly unnecessary speed.
“…But I will admit, Odessa is a very close second.” He shrugged.
When the photos were printed, Hajun smiled giddily before walking around the room looking for places to frame his newest grandbaby collage.
Kirina shook her head at her husband before the two of them heard a knock at the door.
Hajun was focused on framing pictures, so she went to answer in his stead.
“I… Bashenga?”
Hajun raised a brow as he turned around. “Hm? What about him-“
Now, Kirina and Hajun had mirrored slack-jawed expressions as they stared at the most unlikely duo ever.
The family’s resident edgelord; Bashenga, and the mother of all creation- Asherah.
“W-What are you two doing here…?”
“Did you come here on purpose for us, or were you just wandering around and found us by accident..?”
Bashenga felt another ulcer forming. “Why does everyone have the same reaction whenever I show up?”
Kirina and Hajun shrugged innocently.
“We were hoping to lay eyes on the new baby for a moment. Would that be possible?” Asherah asked politely.
“You don’t have to be so formal, Asherah. We’re all family here, so please come right in. We’ve just put her down.”
Bashenga would have used that moment to make his stealthy exit, but Asherah placed her hand on his back and guided him into the room.
Together, Asherah and Bashenga stepped towards the baby’s crib and peered down inside.
There, Odessa was tightly swaddled and sleeping better than the dead.
Her little chest steadily rose and fell in a perfect rhythm. She was like the world’s most immaculate little angel.
“Oh my… She’s quite precious, isn’t she?” Asherah said quietly.
“… She is alright, I suppose.” Bashenga responded back.
“Just alright? I would say that she is the most precious thing in the whole infinite abyss.”
Asherah took a second to look back and forth between Odessa and Bashenga.
“You would have been the cuter choice, but unfortunately you were born already knowing how to talk, and brimming with sas.”
Hajun and Kirina chuckled- much to the annoyance of Bashenga.
“Oh! Hajun and Kirina, might I please borrow you for a moment?” Asherah asked innocently.
“Hm?”
“Us?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind.” Asherah nodded.
As the three adults started to leave the room, Bashenga brought up a very good point.
“And what about the child? You would leave her unattended?”
“Of course not. You will watch her.”
“Come again?”
Asherah smiled beneath her veil.
“Have fun with your sister. Us adults will be having a small chat outside in the meantime.”
“Ashera-“
The blue goddess shut the door and locked Bashenga inside.
Kirina and Hajun had an entire conversation with only the exchange of a glance.
“Uhm… Are we apart of some sort of plot, Mother Goddess?” Kirina asked knowingly.
“Yes.” Asherah answered without hesitation.
She then proceeded to explain the details of her methodical plan to the both of them.
“I see.. and what are the odds of this working?” Hajun scratched his head.
The door was shaken so hard that it nearly came off the wall.
However, Asherah quickly fortified it with several barriers to avoid disaster.
“…A bit better now if I do say so myself.”
–
“Asherah, you unbearable old shrew!! You must be a fool if you think I will let you keep me captive in here!! I am beyond your games and schemes!!”
Bashenga gathered all of his strength and threw out a punch strong enough to knock down everything in it’s path for hundreds of kilometers.
But the bedroom door remained intact without so much as a chip.
‘WAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!’
A shrill cry scraped the walls of Bashenga’s skull.
Looking over his shoulder, his expression became grim.
Odessa was wide awake as a direct result of his yelling.
But to make matters even worse, she was awake AND fussy.
…This only made him bang on the door harder- and added a twinge of desperation to his voice.
“S-She’s crying- the child is crying! Someone come in here and save her before she expires!!”
No matter how much Bashenga called for aid, no one answered him.
And his sister didn’t stop crying either.
He even erased all sound in the room.
But since Odessa’s shadow is technically the one doing the crying, that didn’t work either.
Bash was on the verge of tearing his own hair out.
“What more do you want from me?!” He finally yelled into the crib.
Odessa just cried louder.
This was going to take a while…
–
It was exactly forty minutes and not a second sooner before Bash even considered doing what most would have seen as obvious- picking up the baby.
He held the infant delicately, but with a clear lack of basic understanding. It was embarrassing.
He just stared at Odessa while he held her as far away from him as humanly possible.
She continued to sniffle as she stared back at him.
“…You look like one of mother’s burritos. You’re the exact same size and everything.” He finally said.
Odessa’s lip quivered as if she could understand him.
“D-Don’t you dare start crying again! I take my words back!”
Odessa continued to sniffle, but she didn’t cry.
This made Bashenga feel relieved- if only for the moment.
He was still waiting on the other proverbial shoe to drop.
But while he waited for this horrid scenario, he continued to monitor Odessa for signs of displeasure.
And it took a while, but eventually he could see what old Asherah might’ve been trying to allude to earlier.
“…Your face is indeed what the human mortals would call ‘cute’. As expected of the children of our father’s line. But I alone remain unaffected by your charms nonetheless.”
Odessa didn’t actually understand him, but her shadow did become somewhat restless at that taunt.
“…You should know that I do not like you. Well I am not fond of humanity in general, but you are a human child. Making you much worse than normal.” Bashenga confessed.
Odessa would have taken some real offense to that if she understood what was going on.
Bashenga’s gaze suddenly fell to the ground. “Though I… suppose that Courtney is not bad. She is also our sister… I am unsure if you have met her yet.”
She had. Everyone had introduced themselves to Odessa within minutes of her being born.
“Perhaps you’ll grow up to be strange like her… and you’ll claim to harbor some interest in me too. You’ll buzz around me like a little fly and I’ll have to shoo you away for your own good.”
Bashenga hadn’t yet lrealized that he was talking so much. His words were simply spilling out on their own with no way for him to stop them.
“It is better that way. I seem to be the only one who realizes that. What need have you to play games with the end of all things? Our roles in creation do not overlap.
It doesn’t make any sense. From a purely logical standpoint, I should be the thing that you fear the most. I am the thing all humans are supposed to fear the most- the end of the world.
But even now, you’re standing here letting me hold you like you think I’m some kind of jolly fictional character who’ll reward you with toys you don’t deserve… laughable.”
Odessa sniffled. She was starting to get fussy again.
Bash thought that she looked uncomfortable, so he decided to free her from her swaddle.
It was harder than it looked. He couldn’t figure out how exactly to undo the blanket ensnaring her.
So, he cut it off her with his claws instead.
It never even occurred to him to look through the shared memories of all dragons and figure out how to unbind a swaddle.
Once Odessa was free, she did the biggest stretch her little body could muster.
Because she looked more content, Bash smirked discreetly.
“I thought that looked uncomfortable. I’m supposed to be the cruel one, but they stick you in such an uncomfortable looking contraption every night. Maybe I am not as bad as I..”
Like a fog had lifted, Bashenga finally realized what he was about to say.
And everything he thought he knew about himself came crashing down in an instant.
It all left him with but one question.
“Who… am I really ?”
*Achoo!*
Bashenga wiped Odessa’s nose of snot while staring at her awkwardly.
“I believe my previous assessment about you was right. You are going to be an unbearably large amount of trouble.”