Abaddon’s headache suddenly intensified.
The young man seated at the kitchen counter noticed the woozy look about him and paused with a spoon inches from his mouth.
"Hey... you don’t look so good, Unc. Why are you sweating so much? Or like, at all."
Abaddon barely heard anything the young man said.
He felt his father co from behind him and wrap his arm around his shoulder for support.
Asmodeus helped him make his way towards the dining room table.
"Do I want to know...?" He asked quietly.
Abaddon shook his head. "Probably not. It might hurt my standings as your favorite child."
"It’s so odd of you to assu you were ever going to top Malenia."
Abaddon didn’t have the strength to laugh.
He didn’t even have the energy to remain in his full body, and instead reverted to his human appearance.
Slowly, everyone forgot about the reason they were hiding behind the wall and slowly trickled inside the kitchen.
Abaddon’s wives were the first to reach him, with his children slowly joining in their numbers.
Asmodeus pulled up a chair and sat down in front of his son.
"You sll like pure chronon energy... What did you do, lie down and let a new tiline run over you?"
In response, Abaddon burped. A mystic, glittery smoke wafted from his mouth.
Asmodeus was not convinced that he wasn’t hallucinating.
"...You didn’t."
"It didn’t taste very good."
"Probably because you’re not exactly supposed to eat them, you thick-headed son!"
"Lesson learned...."
"Don’t lesson learned’ . I should bang two pots right beside your ears just for such foolishness."
"I know it’s been a while since I was sick and you had to nurse , so I’m just going to let you know that your bedside manner really leaves a lot to be desired."
Abaddon felt sothing small tug on his pants leg.
Looking down, he found Gabbrielle staring up at him with a very concerned face.
"Does the reason you look like this have sothing to do with... that?" Gabbrielle hooked her finger over her shoulder.
"I can hear you, shortstack, and I hope the other kids at daycare use your hair to blow their nose!"
Gabbrielle was surprised when she started to raise her hand to flip the young man off. She paused when she realized just how absurdly natural it felt.
For a while, Gabbrielle could only stare at her hand with a thinly veiled look of betrayal.
"I need to restore you all, too, just... give a minute." Abaddon brought a hand to his head as his breathing beca shallow.
"Absolutely not." Lailah put her foot down. "Look at you, you’re barely upright. You’re done doing... whatever it is you were doing for the rest of the day."
"But the gods-"
"Will have to keep surviving without you. I can make sothing to alleviate their symptoms so that they won’t spend the entire ti in misery."
Lailah created a large tal bath in the middle of the dining room. Sothing that Lillian usually would have abhorred, but she let it go due to the extremity of the situation.
Abaddon saw a white vapor rising out of the bin and spilling onto the floor.
"...What’s this?"
"Liquid nitrogen. In you go."
"...I’m not getting in a bath of liquid nitroge-"
"Straga!"
Abaddon blinked, and suddenly he was sitting on the board of a carnival dunk tank.
Straga hurled a fastball at the pressure pad and blew a hole clean through it. Dropping his father into the clear tank filled with freezing liquid.
Through the clear glass, Abaddon flipped off his son while Straga held his arms up victoriously.
"...Not exactly what I was expecting, but thank you for the help, baby boy."
"No problem, ma."
Mira raised her hand. "Is anyone suddenly in the mood for funnel cake, or is it just ...?"
"Gotcha covered, baby face." Bekka handed her a white paper plate holding a golden fried confection.
She already had one of her own in the other hand.
"So.... is soone going to say why you’ve all been staring at funny all morning??"
Everyone turned towards the young man now standing beside the kitchen counter.
At his full height, he was as tall as Straga. Though the young prince took comfort in knowing he was still the more handso of the two.
"I an, I could understand if you were staring, cause... yknow." The dragon gestured to his face. "But this doesn’t seem like that."
The sound of a portal opening in the next room caught everyone’s attention.
Fiona strode into the room, confused and looking for Abaddon.
"Hey, why did you guys suddenly leave, and-"
When her eyes settled on the new young man in the room, she ca to a dead halt.
"...Woof. Mama likey."
"Fiona!"
"I’m grown, I say what I want, Thrudd!"
The young man pointed to his latest admirer. "See? I could understand if you were all like that. But this whole shocked and ignoring thing? Shit makes no sense. Ma tried to punch earlier. She loves my face!"
Hakon heard Kanami shrivel up inside. This situation was so uncomfortable for her that she could combust.
"...I’m sorry to ask this, but... what is your na?" Seras asked gently.
The young man stiffened a bit before letting out a dry laugh.
"Very funny, auntie... I almost thought you were serious just then. Right, guys?"
He swept his gaze over everyone in the room. When no one in the room reflected a smile at him, his expression beca crestfallen.
"There’s been a little bit of a mix-up." Seras continued. "We’ve all lost our mories for a bit, but my husband can put them back."
"But not before he’s well enough." Lailah insisted. "Which ans we’ll have to do so of the guesswork ourselves."
"So even though it’s uncomfortable... will you tell us your na?"
Slowly, the young man looked toward his supposed parents.
Hakon and Kanami were holding each other tightly, their eyes unsure and clearly shaken.
"Mom. Dad. You rember , right...?"
The dragons’ faces beca even more uncomfortable.
Next, the young man looked towards Asmodeus, Yara, and Imani. His face beca noticeably tighter.
"Grandmothers? Gramps? Nothing?"
"It’s not an ideal scenario for any of us, young man. B-But it’s only temporary." Imani insisted.
The young man swallowed.
He brought a clawed finger up to his own chest and nearly poked a hole in his shirt.
"It’s Nihil. You guys rember now, right?"
Kanami felt her chest get tight, and her hands clammy. Even Hakon’s expressionless exterior had been chipped away a bit. Though it was still a far cry from rembering.
"Okay, I guess not... then do you at least rember my sister?"
The tension in the room doubled. Kanami lost all of the color in her face.
"...Kidding. I kinda just wanted to see if I could call your bluff a bit."
Kanami and Hakon only had a son for forty-five minutes, and they were already beginning to understand why so parents hit their children.
Nihil sat back into his seat, rubbing his neck awkwardly.
"Aww, man... this kinda sucks a bit, not gonna lie. I know I’m not really at ho much anymore, but..." Suddenly, his eyes went wide as he looked up.
"Wait... did you just forget for a second, or is this like what happened to Red Bean??"
"Uhhh... who is Red Bean, son?" Darius tilted his head.
Nihil pointed at Thrudd.
"!? Why the hell is that my nickna!?"
"’Cause you got red hair and you spent 10,000 years of your life as a virgin who could only flick her bean?" Nihil answered like it was obvious.
The deep, guttural guffaws that left the mouths of Thrudd’s brothers, as well as Fiona, were so loud that everyone almost forgot that this was supposed to be a serious mont.
Even Behemoth was slightly amused. Sothing that Thrudd seed to find monuntally embarrassing.
"...You will not call that."
"Yeah, yeah, you can complain about the na that’s not changing because everyone already knows it later, but we have more important things to deal with here! I’ve been Thrudd’ed! I’m an accident!"
"Don’t use as an adjective!"
"I can’t believe it! What happened for to now be the only outlier??" Nihil held his head in his hands.
"...Your uncle had an accident, and temporarily beca unanchored in ti." Tatiana answered. "While he was adrift, he went all the way back to the beginning of this tiline and shut the gates so that the horrors never broke out and went into hiding."
Kanami’s eyes widened.
"...If the horrors never broke out... then my Eurphrates would have had nothing to hunt... if we had nothing to hunt, then I would have just... been at ho all that ti?"
Nihil tilted his head.
"What are Euphrates?"
Kanami’s jaw dropped.
"...Kidding."
Hakon had to hold his wife back so that she didn’t take a bite out of their son’s head.
"What’s going on in here??"
Suddenly, there was a new voice that had also never been in the house before.
Audrina visibly stiffened.
Her eyes shone with a palpable disbelief that was also shared by Isabelle.
When the footsteps reached the kitchen, everyone inside was stunned into a second silence.
"Why’s everyone in the kitchen? Are we making plans?"
Nihil turned towards the source of the shock.
"Hey, what’s my na?"
"...Handso?"
"...Okay, acceptable." Nihil nodded. "At least you haven’t forgotten ."
"What? Why would I forget you??"
"Because everybody else did!"
"What? That can’t be-"
Slowly, Isabelle began walking forward with tears in her eyes.
"Please tell I’m not dreaming... Mom? Is that really you..?"
Everyone heard the sound of a body dropping to the floor as Audrina fainted before she could hear the answer.
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