Chapter 748: Full Plates

“What did she want?”

“A job, if you can believe it,” Syd replied while adding some more brown sauce to her roasted vegetables. “She wants to work for us.”

“Estelle Voclain, the daughter of a countess?” Aila asked incredulously. “A noble born daughter wants a job with a mercenary company?”

“You say that as though it is so very unusual,” Eir commented mildly, a small smile playing across her full lips.

“Well, yes, it is,” Aila blushed, her head turned to look at the daughter of a margrave. “No offense, but your situation is not usual, and it isn’t the same as Lady Estelle’s, either. You went into service with the temple, first, and happenstance led you to Jadis. The mercenary part came after.”

“I would say that the gods’ graces were how we came to meet, but yes, I understand your meaning,” Eir acknowledged. “Mercenary work isn’t the typical career choice of a young noble.”

“So? What did you tell her?” Kerr leaned over the table and stole a potato from Sabina’s plate while she wasn’t looking. “Did you show her the door? Or did you strike up marriage negotiations again?”

“I told her I’d have to think about it, and asked her to make an appointment for tomorrow,” Jay replied as she put one of her own potatoes onto the smith’s plate while she was still distracted by the sketches she had on the table to her side. “I didn’t want to dismiss her out of hand. Maeve needs time to doublecheck her intel on Countess Voclain and what’s going on over there.”

“You mean Anal—”

“Shut your mouth, you lint licker,” Maeve cut Kerr off before she could continue. “I swear, I’ll stop taking transformation requests for a month if you keep that up.”

“Fine, fine,” Kerr held up her hands while grinning widely. “I’ll leave it be. If you turn completely see-through tonight, that is. I want to see all the lurid details.”

“Deal,” Maeve agreed. “You go back on your word, though, and you’ll regret it.”

“Ahem,” Dys cleared her throat while giving a pointed look to the smallest person seated at the table that evening. “Didn’t we agree not to have these kinds of discussions while Hope is present?”

“I didn’t say anything lewd this time,” the therion defended herself. “Nothing she can’t repeat in public!”

“Lew! Lew!”

All eyes turned towards Hope, who enthusiastically burbled her approximation of Kerr’s words. Alex had been feeding her a small amount of magic, a trickle that was meant more to keep the infant distracted than anything else, but the Demon Lord cut the flow off and brought her daughter’s attention onto her. Holding up one finger, Alex slowly and calmly spoke to Hope, enunciating her consonants.

“It is… Pronounced… Lewd… Lewd…”

“No, no, no no no,” Jay waved her hand between Alex and Hope. “Lewd is not going to be her first word! Look over here, Hope. Look at mama. Say mama, okay? Mama!”

“Ma ja lew!”

“Okay, getting closer, but let’s drop the lew thing.”

Hope’s growth was, as compared to the children of most any other race, exceptionally fast. While she was only five months old, she was already at a stage of development comparable to a one-year-old human infant. She wasn’t talking yet, not quite, but she had been babbling nonsense words for weeks and often tried to mimic the sounds made by the people around her. There were a lot of guesses as to what Hope’s first word would be, but Jadis was hoping for the classic option, mama. At the very least, though, she was doing everything in her power to avoid her daughter’s first real word from being something dirty or obscene. Hope was quite literally the first of her species in the whole world and her first words would likely be written down in history books. Jadis did not want her daughter to go through the embarrassment of having to explain to future scholars why her first word was something that children’s books would have to censor.

“Do you want me to be there for the appointment?” Aila asked, bringing the conversation back around to the matter of Estelle. “Or are you handling that alone?”

“Probably best if at least one other person is with me for that,” Syd shrugged. “It’ll be at four. Is your afternoon free?”

“After two, yes,” Aila nodded. “I’ll be there. Do you think she will try something?”

“No, not really,” Syd shook her head, thinking of the timid woman. “I don’t think she’s here on behalf of her mother or Duke Colgrave. In fact, I bet she’s probably here without permission.”

“That’s what I think,” Maeve agreed when Aila and the others turned to look at her for confirmation. “Look, my information network can’t get me everything from everywhere all the time, but I’ve been keeping tabs on the Voclains since I used them to infiltrate you all.”

Pausing, Maeve tilted her head to one side.

“I could have worded that better. Anyway, Countess Voclain fell out of favor with Duke Colgrave when their little plan to entrap Jadis into marriage didn’t work out. She’s been snubbed, which means it’s unlikely that Colgrave would be behind any actions that Voclain might take against Jadis. That said, the bitch could be using her daughter to try and get at Jadis and win her way back into the duke’s good graces. However, in my opinion, I doubt she would send Estelle here to try and woo Jadis on her own. When I was there, Voclain treated Estelle like a paperweight. She micromanaged her daughter whenever they were in the same room but otherwise ignored her. And Estelle didn’t like her mother, either. Really, there’s no love lost between those two.”

“Then, what, are you saying,” Bridget asked as she set her fork down. “That Estelle ran away from home?”

“A sensible course of action if she is at odds with her mother,” Meli stated while refilling her plate with roasted squash.

“Of course you would say that,” Bridget replied in a dry tone.

“I wouldn’t blame her,” Sorcha added, her exhausted posture barely keeping her head above the table.

“Who knows,” Syd shrugged again. “She could be running away, trying to start a new life away from her mother, which I wouldn’t blame her for doing either from what I know of Countess Voclain. Then again, this could be part of some kind of plot. Either way, I’m not going to reject her bid to join Fortune’s Favored just yet. But if we do hire her, it’s going to be with the clear understanding that if she tries to seduce me or something like that, she’s going right out the door again.”

Jadis held no grudges against Estelle for her role in the plot that her mother and Duke Colgrave had orchestrated against her and Bridget’s family; she had just been a pawn with no options and had obviously not been excited about being involved. In fact, Estelle had looked downright terrified at the prospect of marriage to Jadis. That said, there were limits to Jadis’ forgiveness and generosity.

The truth was, Jadis was earnestly contemplating informing Estelle at their appointment on the next day that she wasn’t interested in her services. The chances of Duke Colgrave or others from Hraustrekr’s loyalist faction trying to use or influence the young noblewoman into doing something that could mess with Fortune’s Favored were low, but not that low. The main reason she hadn’t rejected Estelle at the door was thanks to Maeve. Her lover had made it clear that the young human woman really was just an innocent bystander who had been caught up in the political machinations of her elders. In that way, Jadis felt sorry for Estelle, and if she was trying to get out from under the yoke of her rotten family, it seemed only fair to give her that chance.

There was another reason Jadis hadn’t outright dismissed Estelle, which was much the same reason that she wasn’t truly all that angry with Sorcha’s mother for inviting half a village to come live at the compound; Fortune’s Favored was in need of manpower. A lot of manpower. And not the kind that she could find just anywhere on the streets, either. They needed people who were skilled, competent, and most importantly, loyal. And a noblewoman who was trying to flee her overbearing mother could be an exceptionally loyal asset indeed.

After the Siege of Kastoria had been declared an official victory, Jadis and her companions had stayed in Volto for an additional two weeks to aid in the eradication of any remaining hostile Demons as well as assist in the effort to secure the city and the surrounding territory. Most of the avatars had stayed as well, including several Dryads who had worked together with Tegwyn and Meli’s help to set up a sort of temporary grove. With the addition of dozens of ritually altered paddleweed plants that Sorcha had provided, the Dryads were off to a good start combating the blight that had overtaken the hills and farmlands, while the many tens of thousands of Voltonian soldiers set about restoring the city to a defensible condition, just in case more Demons were to return for a counterattack.

No counterattack ever came, and eventually, Jadis, her companions, the Hero, and his companions, retired from the field and returned to Eldingholt with the full gratitude of the Voltonian people. Their official arrival in the imperial capital came with what could be called fortunate timing, though which kind of fortune it had been, Jadis still wasn’t sure. Good for the imperial army, Jadis was sure. Not so much for Ammy, Wilhelm, or the rest of their group.

Emperor Somerulf had declared that very night that he would be personally leading the armies of Alfhilderunn against the Demons who had invaded the Rubaline Dominion.

Naturally, the news had caused a huge uproar among the nobles and citizens alike. For the aged emperor to take the field, decades beyond a point where he had any business going to war, had everyone, regardless of political faction, freaking the fuck out. With her many windows into the world of imperial politics through friends and lovers, Jadis got to see the chaos firsthand, even if she was doing her level best to stay out of it.

Frankly, Jadis couldn’t help but feel responsible, since she had no doubt that the message she had delivered from the deceased Alfarr to Somerulf had been responsible for the emperor’s sudden change in disposition. The old elf had been leaving all the military decisions up to Hraustrekr, his heir apparent, even if he had personally disagreed with some of the policies that had been enacted, since he knew that he’d be leaving his son to do the job soon enough anyway. After Jadis’ brief meeting with Somerulf, all of that had changed, and the emperor was dead set on taking advantage of the defeat of the Demons in Volto to push all available armies into the occupied Dominion.

The fact that Somerulf had made a formal pledge to the surviving members of the Rubaline Dominion royalty that the empire would be turning over all recaptured territory to their nation had to have caused Hraustrekr’s head to explode.

While Jadis had been more than willing to help with the situation in Volto, and she was certainly invested in aiding with the war effort in the Rubaline Dominion, she wasn’t quite so eager to rush off to battle so soon after completing her campaign against Kastoria. For one thing, she had yet to hunt down Demon Prince Desire, who had gone completely off the radar. For another, she had a lot of unfinished business when it came to Cobbler and the many turncoat Demons that she and Alex had taken into their ranks. And for a third, Jadis had her children to think of; not just Hope, but the many new pregnancies that had come about thanks to the vigorous efforts of her and her mates.

Upon return to the empire and a visit to Lyssandria’s High Temple, midwife priestess Bertha had confirmed that Dys was not the only one of Jadis’ bodies that was pregnant anymore. Jay had become pregnant with a goblin and Nephilim hybrid girl, the news of which had literally caused Sorcha to faint. Syd, on the other hand, had become pregnant with another Nephilim, with the “father” being Noct. Happy news, deserving of celebration, enhanced further by the fact that both Sorcha and Noct were also pregnant themselves.

Sorcha was also having a goblin and Nephilim hybrid girl, while Noct was going to have a pure Nephilim boy. Again, wonderful news that had caused ecstatic celebrations among their not-so-little group, but Bertha had not stopped there. The old priestess had kept going, her growing midwife powers allowing her to confirm that Alex had, once again, become pregnant, only this time she was going to have a Nephilim child, a little girl, rather than a Succubus.

And that Meli was going to have the same.

The sudden influx of Nephilim babies was, upon reflection, not that big of a surprise. Even disregarding the inordinate amount of sex that Jadis and her lovers were constantly having, for ritual purposes or otherwise, Jadis had her Aura of Fertility, which increased in potency the longer an individual stayed in range. Additionally, Jadis had her Skew the Legacy skill active and set to Nephilim progeny, primarily for Noct’s benefit. With all those factors combined, it was actually a bigger surprise that Severina, Maeve, and Amarantha weren’t pregnant.

Then Bertha had checked Ammy and revealed that the petite catgirl was pregnant with a litter of three Nephilim and something called a Nekomata and everyone had really started freaking out.

Once the extreme reactions had subsided, the action taken had been to pause all of the new pregnancies before they could progress any further, even Alex’s, much to the Demon’s disappointment. None of them were in a position to handle going through pregnancy and care for children, especially not Alex, considering all the changes they were still working through thanks to her tertiary class. Hope and all the challenges that came from raising a newborn species while still traveling the world and fighting evil armies was already almost too much for them to handle. They didn’t need to increase the difficulty by adding more children to the family.

Jadis and her lovers weren’t the only ones with a lot on their plates, either. With Emperor Somerulf heading to the front lines of the war, Wilhelm and his companions had naturally followed after him. That meant that Ammy had left with the Hero, just as promised. And, just as promised, Jadis was making as many trips to visit her fiery lover as she possibly could. Fortunately, Wilhelm and his companions weren’t staying directly with the emperor and his armies, but were instead acting as a mobile unit, going where they were needed along the border, while operating out of the brand-new, heavily modified, Leviathan class airship that Ahlstrom Aviation had gifted the Hero. The fact that the Swift had its own communication hub installed in it made it much easier for Jadis to arrange conjugal visits with Ammy.

Wilhelm, Ammy, and all of the Hero’s Companions being away wasn’t the reason behind Jadis’ need for manpower, however. Nor was the increased production of airships, the sudden surge of pregnancies, or all of the uproar with Somerulf taking the army to war. No, the reason for her need came from the fact that she had successfully negotiated the purchase of The Crook from Volto.

Not the whole Crook. The ancient civilization of Asteria had taken up a sizeable portion of land, a good third of which belonged to the Kingdom of Parusyat in current times. For the area that was under Volto’s dominion, there were small coastal towns and a few mountain villages and mines that Jadis didn’t want to take responsibility for. However, the vast expanse of forests and mountains that were occupied by no one but beasts and Dryads? That area she was interested in. The Voltonian Senate had practically thrown the deed at Jadis, ceding all ownership to her and relinquishing their nation’s rights entirely. Senator Celsa had originally only been trying to get the area immediately around the Hall of Memories ceded to her, which was all Jadis originally wanted, but after the immense success of Kastoria, where the causalities had not been a tenth of what had been feared, Jadis had been in a position where she basically could have asked for whatever she wanted and it would have been given to her with a smile.

Well, Jadis didn’t want to take anything that could lead to bad blood between her and her Voltonian neighbors, so she had very happily accepted the ownership of an area of land that had remained a fallow wilderness for a couple of thousand years, thanked the senate, then went on with her day.

With the ruins of Old Asteria in her direct ownership, Jadis was in the position where she could begin work on something that she had been discussing with her lovers for a while, or at least ever since they had been led to the ancient Nephilim Archive by Meli’s grandmother. That was to say, the creation of a new compound. Really, more of a village, or even a fortress, out on the mountain where the archive was located. Or, from another perspective, the founding of a colony, which could one day lead to a new nation of Nephilim.

An idle dream, in Jadis’ opinion. Even if she and her lovers spent the next fifty years having babies as frequently as they could, they still wouldn’t have a population exceeding four digits. Not exactly a nation. Not even a city state, really. But the possibility was there, especially when Jadis thought about the potential that she had for reaching CLR three hundred. Even if the whole demi-god class thing wasn’t true, she’d still be a super powerful individual with a long, long lifespan. Founding a nation where her children, regardless of their race, could all live in peace and prosperity definitely had a certain appeal to her.

Regardless of the feasibility of founding a true nation in the future, Jadis still wanted to set up an outpost in Old Asteria. There were a lot of reasons to do so, but one of the more pressing ones was the fact that she already had a small colony of Demons living out there, practically all on their own. Techne, the ancient Golem who stood guard over the Hall of Memories, was watching over them, as were several of the Dryads from Meli’s family grove, but otherwise the Demons were not getting a lot of supervision. Jadis wanted to change that by setting up a real outpost, where people could live and work, and the Demons could get regular interaction with other people, which would hopefully help them acclimate to living in regular society. Creating such a village wasn’t a pipe dream the way a new Nephilim nation was. It was a necessity. Not just because integrating Demons into imperial society was a serious challenge thanks to the thousands of years of bad blood brought about by the cycle of Demon invasions, but also because Jadis had more to deal with than just thirty or so mostly unhatched Demon eggs.

Not all of the Demons in Kastoria had chosen to fight to the death.

“Hey Alex,” Jay asked while letting Hope feed on a bit of her magic. “How many Demons do we have following you now? Including Oats and Cobbler?”

“Eighty-nine…” Alex answered immediately. “I do not… Count… Little H.”

No, Jadis didn’t count Little H, either. That one Demon stubbornly refused to listen to reason and was instead utterly dead set on following Samleos and his Urges. The other eighty-nine, however, which included a multitude of unhatched eggs that had been rescued from the corpses of Demon Matriarchs in Kastoria, as well as some already older Demons like the one that Alex had pulled straight out of a soldier’s dead body, had sworn allegiance to a new Demon Lord. They were willing to follow the strongest, their inborn knowledge and instincts telling them that Alex was the one in charge, and had concluded that listening to her was the right decision, regardless of what Urges might be sent their way.

It seemed that having a Demon Lord’s Halo was for more than just show.

“Alright, well, how many of them do you think we could sneak back into the city for a few days, like we did with Oats?” Jay continued with her thought. “Just to get them some interaction with the community. I know Crash is getting pretty pent up, so we’ve got to get her some time out of those caves to stretch and do some fighting before she starts chewing on the walls.”

“I do not… Believe… Crash has… Teeth…”

“Yeah, well, knowing her, she’d figure out a way,” Jay replied dryly. “Anyway, who else should come? We can’t bring too many, not until this crap with Cobbler’s trial is over and her name is cleared, so we’ve got to limit it to the Demons who need some people time the most.”

“Sunny…” Alex advised after a few moments of thought. “And Lapis…”

“Lapis? Really?” Jay raised an eyebrow in surprise. “It hasn’t been that long since we dropped her off with the others. Is she not doing well?”

“Lapis… Needs… A body…” Alex explained, her tone shifting slightly, indicating her concern. “She needs… Possession… Or obsession… She does not… Have bread… And Hans… As Oats does…”

That made sense. Oats was a possession Demon, sure, but she had never expressed any further interest in inhabiting another body ever since she had first indulged in her desire to bake. Having Hans around to cook food with also did wonders for her mood, what with the red-eyed Demon having become emotionally attached to the cook. Lapis, which was the name they had given to the possession Demon who had switched sides and helped Alex find Twisted Desire, didn’t have the same strong interest to occupy her mind. She was something of a lost soul, having given up her faith in Samleos, yet not having truly found something to replace that faith with, other than her new loyalty to Alex.

“Well, I don’t know about getting her a body to possess,” Jay mused, “but maybe we can introduce her to a few hobbies or tasks suitable for a Demon of her… stature, to try. She did a good thing, helping you. I don’t want to leave her in the lurch.”

“Why can’t we give the little squid a body?” Kerr interjected, turning away from her conversation with Bridget and Maeve. “I mean, not a person. Like, I could go out into the countryside and hunt a deer or a fox. Shit, we could buy a goat in the market and give it to her if we wanted to.”

“Maybe, if that’s what she wants,” Jay answered slowly. “I don’t think possessing animals is a big deal, since it’s no different from us eating animals, really, but at the same time, the idea kind of worries me. I can just see that going wrong in some weird, unexpected way. What if someone thinks she’s a goat when she isn’t one and does something to her? Treats her like an animal instead of a person, you know?”

“You could put a collar with a nametag on her.”

When several eyes turned to look at the weary goblin slumped in her seat, Sorcha just shrugged.

“What? It doesn’t have to be a complicated solution. Just give her a sign saying, ‘I’m a Demon’ and there you go. Problem solved.”

“Good idea,” Maeve nodded in agreement. “It’s not like she would be hiding who she is. Better to declare things openly.”

Jadis mentally frowned at the idea but held her tongue as her lovers continued to discuss the topic. There were some historical precedents for labeling people that Jadis didn’t like, but she wasn’t sure that it was the sort of thing to bring up. After all, those were Earth precedents, not Oros ones, so they didn’t necessarily apply.

“If that’s the case,” Aila added, her brow furrowed in thought, “that signs are used to indicate if an animal has been possessed by a Demon, then I might argue that the same could be done for corpses possessed by Demons.”

“Hold on,” Kerr raised a hand. “I thought I was the reckless one. Going from goats to people is a big fucking leap, Blue.”

“I don’t mean to suggest just any person would be available for demonic possession,” Aila said, her tone showing how deep in thought she still was. “But there are those criminals who refuse to change their ways and are eventually executed by law. Such a criminal was the source for Alex’s body, even if she never had the chance to undergo trial thanks to her own actions. Would giving the corpse of an executed murderer to Lapis for her to possess be all that different?”

Jadis was the first to respond to Aila’s question, the very same question having been rolling around in the back of her mind for quite some time.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I can see all kinds of ways that others might argue against it. For example, how would the family of the deceased react, even if the dead person was a criminal? Or especially because of that? If the man or woman was not well liked, or even a terrible person that many people would like to forget about, would it be fair to them to give that body a new life, potentially forcing them to see a face again that they had planned on burying in their past?”

“How might the victims of an executed criminal feel if they were to encounter his or her face on the street at random?” Eir asked quietly, her own brow dark with thought.

“Would we have to get permission from all those parties first?” Dys continued her other self’s speech. “Would we have to make sure that the possession Demon stayed away from those who had been affected by the actions taken by the body that they would be inhabiting? What about other people who just knew the person casually? What if someone came looking for revenge?”

“It’s a complicated issue,” Jay finished. “Way too complicated to discuss over a single dinner and form a conclusion. For now, I think we better stay away from possession, even using animals, until we have things worked out a little more clearly.”

“I think you’re probably thinking too hard about all that,” Maeve said while popping a roasted carrot into her mouth, “but yeah, no reason to rush it, I guess. It’s only been, what, a few weeks since we got back from Kastoria? When did we capture the city? A month ago?”

“Five weeks,” Thea supplied the answer, the quiet human watching the exchange with keen interest.

“Right, five weeks ago,” Maeve nodded and continued. “We’ve got time. We don’t have to rush. But I do think if Lapis or any of the other Demons start asking, goats should be on the table.”

“I do not believe placing goats onto the table would be helpful,” Meli said while staring hard at the Fetch.

“No, I mean—fuck, it’s just an expression, Meli.”

“I understand the expression,” Meli shook her head. “I do not believe that providing animals for Demons to possess would be an appropriate choice.”

“Why? Is this some kind of Dryad thing?” Bridget asked. “No offense.”

“No,” Meli replied mildly. “It is not. I make my judgement based on what I believe would be best for the mental development of the Demons. In a goat’s body, or any other similar beast, they would be even less capable of communicating with other people than they already are. Hooves would not be able to perform sign language. Nor would talons, beaks, or claws.”

That was another good point, Jadis realized. She had thought that giving Lapis a body, even the body of a beast, would help her connect with others. If the body made it even more difficult for her to communicate, then the body would be more of a hindrance than a blessing. Unless they found a monkey or something else with hands somewhere. That could work, Jadis supposed. Then again, the idea of a Demon possessing a baboon made Jadis flinch.

“I believe this is a discussion we should share with my cousin,” Eir stepped in, her expression a little brighter than it had been before. “There may not even be a point to considering these options, depending on what she says about Cobbler’s trial. Her position as magistrate may also offer perspectives on the matter that are not visible to us.”

“That’s fair,” Jay sighed, mentally putting the conversation to the side for the time being. “I do need to see her again. It’s been almost a week now without any updates.”

“Maybe Severina will return with an update for us?” Eir asked hopefully. “She went to the palace today.”

“I don’t know if Vraekae was at the palace or not,” Dys leaned back in her chair as she spoke. “She’s been there a lot since the emperor left, but not every day. Since Sev isn’t back yet, then—”

“Above,” Noct interrupted, while Eir, Kerr, and Thea also looked upward towards the third floor of the building.

“Speak of the angel…” Dys muttered.

That Severina had been gone all day and had missed the start of dinner was not unusual. With all of the uproar caused by Emperor Somerulf departing for the battlelines a couple of weeks ago, Severina had been kept busy as both a noble, and as a close advisor to Prince Kestil. While she didn’t go to the palace every day, they were all used to the Seraphim spending long hours away at her duties and missing meals. However, by the sound of the metal boots on stone coming from their collective room above, it seemed as though the justicar had just then arrived through their balcony door to join them for dinner, albeit a tad late.

“Hey Sev,” Syd waved at the justicar as she exited the stairs. “Glad you made it before the food got cold.”

“Good evening,” Severina said breathlessly, her demeanor a few hairs shy of panicked. “Jadis, may I please have a word?”

“Alone?” all three of Jadis blinked at the request.

She wasn’t used to speaking privately; keeping things that one of her lovers had to say from the rest of the group wasn’t their habit. They didn’t keep secrets from each other, not really, so there wasn’t much point to asking for privacy. After a moment, Severina seemed to remember that fact.

“You’re right,” she said with another breathless sigh. “You should all hear this anyway.”

“What is it?” Eir asked, her voice full of concern. “Are you well, Severina?”

“I am, thank you,” she answered, her tone calming as she got better in control of her emotions. “And before any of you ask, no, I do not bring any dire news concerning the emperor or the Rubaline Dominion.”

“Then what’s the big deal?” Syd asked, getting up from her seat and moving to stand by her winged lover. “What has you so worked up?”

“Hope has been invited to Princess Lynn’s tea party.”

At Severina’s flustered explanation, all eyes turned onto the infant succubus sitting on Alex’s lap.

“Ftthlapth!” Hope squealed in joy.