After the emotional episode, they all needed to decompress before rejoining the others, repositioning so that Carl and Klaire could cuddle into Kyubi while she cradled them both in her tails.
"Carl, you better make sure you co ho tomorrow. If things get ssy, I don’t want you thinking "well at least Klaire still has a love and Kyubi still has an immortal family and a safe place to live with them", understand?"
"Yes, I won’t throw away my life, not when I have all the tools I need to get away. I’ll be maintaining a brief glimpse into the future. The other will be ready to blind at the tip of a hat and I’ll have Tiamutael ready to get us out."
"Speaking of, I love you both, but I love our babies as well and they are probably waiting for dinner..." Kyubi summarised the situation almost perfectly, but for the one one slightly more likely estimation that Klaire followed with.
"That, or Odra couldn’t wait and is having her little sister cook for everyone."
"Yeah I stand corrected, for a family as weird as ours, it’s amazing how normal they all act when the mood finds them."
With a group sigh, they stood and made their way downstairs, finding the exact scene Klaire described playing out.
"Ki-ko, sit down, big sis is learning to cook." Klaire said, eyes finding a nervous looking Odra half-asleep on the couch."
"But-" Kitsunoko tried to argue, but was quickly interrupted
"You can teach her to cook while we’re away Sweetie." Kyubi continued as she moved to drago the lazy dragon onto her feet.
"But-" Raziel tried to make so sort of case, until she too was interrupted except by Carl.
"We’re sorry guys we should have called for Aegis."
"Dad, we’re more worried about quality, Odra offered but we didn’t want to risk it."
The three parents stopped what they were doing and regrouped before giving a slight bow and apologising.
"Ugh, I get it, I’m not exactly the holy one. I only know a couple of recipes Sis taught and I know I’m not really good."
"No Sweetie, that’s great, why didn’t you ask us to teach you so?"
"Pride, I guess... It’s kind of a problem with us dragons, I wanted to get so distance to learn to be self-sufficient. I’m not a kid, but as a creation, I have very little in the way of practiced life skills and it’s a little embarrassing."
The three of them moved in to hug her. "You know that things like that are exactly what we ant when we said you can talk to us?"
"Sorry we didn’t notice, we should have made sure you knew things like that."
"...And we shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions either. Ki-ko, did you want to help your big sis cook dinner and we’ll sit back and only help if you two ask."
"Thanks Dad! Now Odra, I don’t know if you can cook this, but we’re soul searing by gently cooking the at with my soul-fire..."
As they all listened to what she described, they looked between themselves, before laughing when Klaire’s soul form partially detached and made her dribble.
Kyubi stifled her laugh quickly. "I don’t know where she learnt it, but your soul-form seems to think it sounds delicious."
"It really does, I haven’t felt her act independently since Faylorna forced to accept we’re two individuals living a single life. I hope you’re ready , it sounds like our little girl is making this al specially for you."
Her soul-form quickly parted and made its desire to hold the small girl known, receiving a sharp reply from the already disturbed kitsune. "Mum, I’ll hug you when I’m done, I’ll ruin it if I get distracted so please wait."
The soul-form looked back at Klaire and the others, expressing her disappointnt with a series of frustrated gestures and was about to return when Raziel and Tiamutael stood and requested hugs.
The soul-form made a strange noise, not a howl, but a lullaby that followed a tune similar to one Danielle used to hum to her as a child, then Kyubi felt a little left. "Co on everyone, we want cuddles too."
The soul-form looked a little disappointed, but then Kyubi stood and joined the cuddle, easing its concern that they saw it as a different entity.
When Carl too, stood and joined the hug, the soul-form looked back to Klaire as though it couldn’t entirely believe they were accepting her as a part of their family.
"Don’t look at , I told you Carl loved , it was you that saw yourself as separate."
[ GROUP SSAGE SENT FROM CARL : HEY, JUST TO LET YOU KNOW, WE’VE FINISHED. DID ANYTHING HAPPEN AFTER? ]
[ GROUP SSAGE RECEIVED FROM BAHAMUT : THE ELVES ARE INTERESTED TO KNOW HOW IT WENT WITH KYUBI AND KLAIRE. ]
[ GROUP SSAGE SENT FROM CARL : THOUGHT THEY MIGHT BE, I FIGURED IT OUT, BUT IT IS TRICKY. WHY NOT BRING THEM BACK? ]
"The elves are heading back, they wanted to know how it went. I’m not sure how this is going to go."
"Yeah, it’s a bit of a slap to the face, "it will be fine as long as you’re really motivated, but if you’re not, then who knows but it’s your fault". I don’t know how I’d have reacted if losing my people was preceded by that choice."
"What’s worse, is that if it was just Eldorlora, I think It would be fine. Illum loves his wife so much, his fear for her might make her falter."
It wasn’t long after that Kitsunoko served dinner, staring intently at Klaire until she took her first bite. The taste was the single most delicious thing she’d ever tasted, a al that both beings wished to saviour.
"Ki-ko, it’s delicious, but it’s very rude to stare at soone whilst they eat."
"Sorry Mum." Ki-ko said as she skipped proudly round to Odra. "...What about you?..."
"It’s nice, why are you looking at like that?"
"Well, because now you enjoyed sothing you cooked, you’ll be motivated to learn more."
"Wow! You can be a an little sister. Did I not seem motivated before?"
"Omy, you just watched while you tried to sleep on the counter while everyone else got cuddles..."
Carl, Klaire and Kyubi turned to look at her, but she just adjust her hair over her eyes and continued eating.
"....Mum, can you show her how to make a desert, she might pay more attention to sweets."
Kyubi nodded, then told the judgntal little fox to eat her own dinner.
They had just finished when there was a knock at the door and Carl welcod Bahamut and the elves, explaining the process whilst the others washed up after dinner.
"...So it cos down to whether or not our own motivation can overco the nature of our species?"
"Unfortunately, yes... When we went through it, we had to first face every flaw, it isn’t a painless experience." Carl explained.
"I’m probably the most similar to what you would need to face. I needed to admit that my nature made unhappy, that it made do things that were manipulative and selfish. You don’t need to answer but, how many apologies do elves need make in regards to curing their fertility issue?"
The elves looked at each other, for a brief mont Carl and Klaire weren’t sure what Kyubi ant.
"When you two ca to my realm, you were concerned about the frivolous nature of elves... We didn’t earn that reputation ironically. Many elves resorted to hedonist lives in order to boost the population, necessary or not, we turned our backs on our principles..."
"...We have many, many apologies to make. We will leave, return when we feel properly motivated and have a clear image of how the elven species will be in the future."
"Of course, no rush. That was the situation already, so it seems we are truly done for today at least, I should probably start preparing for tomorrow."
"May I ask why you are going? It would not be uncommon to simply send word, in fact it is common practice given the typically poor reception of such news."
"Well, two reasons. The first is simply that making an attempt on my life would be self-destructive at best. The second, is because I see a chance at redemption for so of them, it may be a longshot, but Jupitteran at least tried to save the fox-spirits."
"He also tried to kill Faylorna..." Klaire said from behind him.
"Yeah but so did you, so I can’t really hold that against him without being a hypocrite." Carl laughed.
"Yeah, I suppose that tracks." Klaire shrugged. "It’s not she seed to consider it a sincere attempt on her life."
"You said so, who were the others."
"Venusiah, she seed to see the light after eting my little boy Tiamutael, guessing the "Dragon-god hatchling" tag was a wake-up call."
"Hmm, keep that one on a short-leash, she is an entitled brat at best and yet not one that should be underestimated. Do you know Solaquin?"
"Solaquin? No, I haven’t heard of that one."
"He is the strongest offensively, matching most chief deities, he is particularly unpredictable. I suggest having soway to detect heat fluctuations, it would be a good early warning for him attacking, you surely wouldn’t have ti to react."
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