Chapter 755: Hidden Edges

“What a mess…”

Jadis stirred, not certain of who had spoken or from which of her bodies she had heard the voice. All three, certainly, but which was closer? It was hard to tell.

“Jadis, would you please shrink yourself? We can’t even get through the door!”

Was she still enlarged? Had she actually fallen asleep while still a giant? Well, she was always a giant. She was always several giants. Just, she was more of a giant at that moment than she was at other moments. Possibly.

“Jadis? Can you hear me?” a finger poked one of her bare legs. “Jadis?”

Right. Her thoughts might have been a bit muddled. She needed to shrink.

With a thought, Jadis forced any and all of her size-changing spells to cancel, causing all three of her bodies to immediately shrink down to her normal, still quite large, height. Not just her body though, she realized as she blearily rubbed at her eyes, but Alex, Kerr, and Sabina, too. They had still been enlarged, which explained why all of their limbs had been so tightly tangled together. And why no one was able to get through the door to their room.

That had been a lot of naked woman crammed into one space.

One of the enhancement skills that Jadis had received from her many new levels had been sort of a companion piece to the one that had given her bodies the ability to maintain emission production at increased and decreased sizes. However, while that skill had been from her ritualist class, which explained why it was so perverse, the skill that doubled the duration of her size altering spells had come from her Mirror Knight class, which was why it wasn’t particularly lewd. She just happened to have been using it for lewd purposes that night.

“Finally,” Aila sighed as she stepped over Syd’s legs, avoided a sticky puddle that took up half the floor, then collapsed onto one edge of the bed that wasn’t as rumpled as the rest. “It has been a very stressful night.”

“You didn’t have a good dinner?” Jay asked in concern as she pulled her top half up onto the opposite side of the large bed from Aila. “Wait, there weren’t any attacks or—”

“No, nothing like that,” Sorcha said as she, too, adroitly avoided the gooey pool of blue stuff as she made her way to her goblin-sized wardrobe. “We just had some bloody intense conversations.”

“And a fucking insane revelation,” Bridget added as she approached her own wardrobe. “Kerr, can you please move your sweaty ass? I can’t open the door.”

“Mmph. What insane fucking?” the therion asked as she tiredly flipped over so that she was right side up, making room for Bridget to get to her clothes. “Were you insane fucking, too?”

“Ask Thea,” Bridget motioned towards the open door.

As Syd sat up and scooted out of the way, she immediately noticed how stunned her shy lover looked. Thea’s eyes were wide and unblinking, her face frozen in a look of shock. On her right side, Eir was holding her arm, guiding Thea along as she slowly shuffled into the room. Whatever had happened, it seemed that it had affected the shieldmaiden the most. And yet for some reason, Eir was looking oddly amused.

Then Thea spoke and Jadis stopped noticing what Eir was doing.

“J—Jadis got my mother p—pregnant.”

“What!?”

The chorus of shock and outrage that filled the room was almost incidental to Jadis’ own reaction. The panic and confusion she felt at the utterly and completely unpredictable announcement would have knocked her onto her asses, if she hadn’t already been on the floor. All around the room, her lovers sprang up from where they had sprawled in recovery from their orgiastic activities, their jaws hanging open so wide that an airship could have flown between into their mouths without touching their lips. Even Alex had the most comically confused look on her face that Jadis had ever seen, a fact only known to her because she had been sitting on top of Dys when Thea had made her statement.

For the few beats of silence that persisted in the aftermath of Thea’s words, Jadis could only think of one question to ask.

“How the fuck did I do that?”

The sudden avalanche of confused questions, shocked exclamations, and panicked answers that came in response were too many for Jadis to keep track. All of them spoke at once, creating a whirlpool of swirling chaos that Jadis could make no sense of. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the cacophony was doused by the loudest shout Jadis had ever heard anyone ever utter.

“Stop!”

Standing with her arms held far apart, Aila glared around the room, daring anyone to ignore her command. Finally, she pointed a single finger at Syd, who was sitting closest to the door where Thea and Eir were.

“Your aura. Tegwyn is the father. Your aura increased Vera’s fertility. Actually, it probably had a bigger impact on Tegwyn, since he’s an avatar with a low fertility rate, and you are around him more often. Either way, we’re talking about your aura.”

Jadis wasn’t wholly certain of why she felt relieved by Aila’s clarification. Mostly because she wasn’t sure why she had been panicked to begin with. She had never done anything even remotely untoward with Vera. The thought had never crossed her mind; Vera was Thea’s mother. That said, she had still freaked out at the unexpected accusation, because… what? Maybe some of the absolutely ridiculous amounts of sperm she was producing for Sabina’s enchanting efforts had somehow… made its way into Vera? The fuck was she thinking? Had she been teleported into some kind of early twentieth century afterschool special about the dangers of holding hands outside of wedlock?

“Forgive her,” Eir said, her expression still twisted in amusement as she guided the shellshocked Thea over to the bed. “She is still having some trouble coming to terms with the announcement.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Syd blinked. Moving to sit on the bed, she grabbed a pillow to put on her naked lap, then pulled the reeling brunette over so that she could sit on her. “Are you okay, Thea?”

“Yes…” Thea numbly replied.

“She’s fine,” Aila sighed. “Vera is not only pregnant, but she is also getting married to Tegwyn. Thea is still… processing the idea.”

With a happy shout, Sabina pushed her way out from where she had been wedged between the wall and Severina. Rushing up to Thea, she enveloped the shieldmaiden in a tight hug, smearing a great deal of Kerr’s cum all over her clothes.

“Congratulations! I’m so happy for you and for Vera and for Tegwyn! It’s so wonderful for your mother that she found love again! I should go congratulate her and Tegwyn, too! I’ll be right back!”

Before Sabina could rush out the door on her quest to offer her best wishes to the happy couple, Syd grabbed hold of the naked half-elf and dragged her back onto the bed. At the same time, Aila moved to stand in front of the smith, hands raised before her.

“Vera went to accept Tegwyn’s proposal as soon as we got back to the compound. Let’s give them the night to celebrate in privacy. We’ll congratulate them in the morning.”

“Oh, right,” Sabby nodded in understanding. “They aren’t my parents, but they kind of are in a way since they’re Thea’s parents, or at least Vera is and Tegwyn will be soon. Either way, I wouldn’t want to catch them in the middle of having celebratory sex, either. That would be weird.”

“Because that line of thought you just had was completely normal…” Sorcha muttered as she pulled her usual nightgown over her head.

“Hold on,” Dys called out as she rose to her feet with Alex clinging to her side like a gigantic limpet. “If Vera hadn’t even accepted the proposal yet, how did you all even find out about this? Shouldn’t this have been an announcement with Vera and Tegwyn both?”

“Eir’s mother spilled the soup,” Bridget said as she skirted the faintly glowing puddle on the floor, doing her best not to put her bare feet in the goo.

“Yes, she did,” Eir confirmed with an abashed expression. “My mother is surprisingly adroit at gathering gossip at times. I’m not sure how she found out about Vera’s situation, but she chose an opportune moment to create some mischief.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Maeve’s voice came from somewhere on the ground. “That’s my fault.”

“What—ah, what the fuck!?”

Bridget’s question turned into a shouted curse as the large puddle that she had been avoiding quickly coalesced into a humanoid form. Coming together in a standing position, an oddly blue Maeve waved a tired hand towards Thea and then Eir.

“I told Svana about the proposal.”

“How did you know?” Syd demanded as others in the room echoed her sentiment.

“I’m a spy,” Maeve shrugged before walking over to one of the bronze barrels. “I hear things.”

Sticking her foot into the not-entirely-full container, Maeve’s body slowly became less glowy and blue and more transparent before eventually the barrel was completely full of Alex’s seed. Stepping away, the shapeshifter directed the remaining small amount of the blue so that it dissipated throughout her body before her color changed back to the usual orange she preferred.

“So, you gossiped about Tegwyn proposing to Vera with Eir’s mother?” Severina demanded, having finally found a towel to wrap around herself. “That is terribly inappropriate!”

“I didn’t gossip,” Maeve said crossly as she grabbed the cover and secured the lid onto the metal barrel. “I traded her the information so I could get information I needed in exchange.”

“You traded—wait, you sold information to Svana?” Jay stared at the Fetch in disbelief.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Maeve sat down heavily on the top of the closed barrel. “Look, Eir’s a sweetheart. You’re a big ball of fluff and that’s one of the many reasons we all love you,” she pointed at the wide-eyed elf. “But your mother? That lady has edges that are a lot sharper than they look. She’s a professional. If I’m going to get information from her, I’ve got to give her something, even if it’s something entirely innocuous and only of interest to our little circle.”

When Maeve’s gaze refocused on the lost expression on Thea’s face, her demeanor shifted to genuine regret.

“Really, I’m sorry. I thought it was a safe secret to trade since I figured your mother was going to accept Tegwyn’s proposal and tell everyone the good news long before Svana had a chance to do anything with it. Look, I’m really sorry if I ended up hurting you because of this, Thea. I—”

“It’s alright,” Thea finally spoke up. Letting out a long sigh, she relaxed back into Syd’s arms and she gave the shapeshifter a half smile in answer to her concern. “It’s not b—bad news. It’s good. I was… I am still surprised. I knew they were, ah, seeing each other. I just never thought… a brother?”

“Okay,” Maeve nodded again, her expression still contrite. “Again, I’m sorry. Also, congratulations.”

“Before we let this drop,” Jay held up a finger from where she still knelt against one side of the bed. “What was that about trading information to Svana?”

“Yeah, a few things,” the shapeshifter answered awkwardly. “She has some excellent connections to sources that I’ve never had access to before. Honestly, it’s really lucky that she’s your mother, Eir. I’ve been able to massively expand my information sphere because you’re her daughter. I don’t think I would have ever been able to get this close so quickly, otherwise.”

“Oh… that’s good…” Eir murmured as her expression mirrored the same stunned expression Thea had been wearing earlier.

“Okay, while Eir is coming to terms with the fact that her mother isn’t the bowl of sweet cream we all thought she was,” Kerr spoke up as she circled around to Maeve’s front and stood with her fists on her hips before the Fetch. “What else have you been telling Svana about our private lives?”

Coming to stand next to Kerr with her arms crossed over her chest, Aila glared down at the suddenly much smaller shapeshifter.

“And who else have you been trading secrets to?”

“I haven’t given away any of our secrets,” Maeve answered their inquest without meeting their eyes.

“Maeve.”

“Really, nothing important…”

“Maeve!”

“…I may have told Svana a few things that concern your parents,” she motioned towards Aila. “And your clan,” she nodded towards Kerr. “And some of the other parents, siblings, cousins, and distant relations of everyone in this room…”

“Really, Maeve?” Jay came to stand behind her two frowning lovers. “Why is Svana even going through you to ask those sorts of things? We’re all family. If she wants to know Addy’s birthday or Gallo’s favorite color, I’m sure they’d all tell her if she asked.”

“Yes, they would,” Maeve agreed as she twisted her hands together nervously. “But like I said, I had to trade Svana some kind of information, even if its all basic stuff that she could easily get on her own. It’s just common courtesy among spies and information brokers. I’m getting the family discount, but that doesn’t mean I’m getting it all for free. I’d be an embarrassment to my profession if I took and didn’t give Svana something to chew on.”

“Alright, well, if it’s nothing but simple information like that, I guess no harm, no foul,” Jay sighed as she looked down at her still anxious lover. “…but it wasn’t just stuff like that, was it?”

“…I may have also told Svana about everyone’s favorite fetishes and sexual positions.”

“Maeve!” a chorus of voices shouted in unison.

“Wait!” the shapeshifter threw her hands up into the air as the crowd closed in on her. “It was worth it though! I promise!”

“How worth it?” Severina demanded as she loomed over the spy from behind with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

Maeve’s worried expression turned into a wide grin.

“I think I finally figured out who’s been spying on Fortune’s Favored, and more importantly, how they’ve been doing it.”