Lunch break. Drae flopped down on a stool inside the kitchen of Tar Eisalae, his stomach growling at him loudly. How long had it been since he had last eaten? Too long, clearly. He'd been caught up plotting a map of the stars in the Occulus for the last… oh, the Silver Tongued one figured it had to have been several days now. Being a deity he didn't feel hunger as fiercely as he had as a mortal, and even now, five years after the fact, he found himself forgetting that he did still actually need to consume food to keep his energy up. It wasn't required as often, but with the oncoming of the summer Moons, the bear was getting ravenous. 

So, thus started the process. Without moving, Adraejen moved his hands across the air in front of him, the kitchen supplying everything he needed to create a feast fit for the Bear King he was. A large bird of some sort (he wasn't wholly picky on the species) plucked and stuffed itself in the air in front of him, while salads and bread dough began making itself. After several moments of intense magical cooking, there was a fantastic roast bird, stuffed with steaming vegetables, soft bread, freshly churned butter, sliced apples and some of the finest wine to be found anywhere sitting on the large square wooden island in front of him, and a plate waiting to be filled. 

The werebear was about to dig in when he felt the familiar ping of a certain beautiful and voluptuous red head arriving the shrine. Despite his appetite, the pangs of hunger turned to pangs of longing for a moment, and the meal was abandoned to go and see his wife who he got to see so rarely these days. 

"Angela!" Drae, her name leaping off of his tongue like a song as he appeared before her, and he swept her up in his arms, kissing her fiercely. "It has been far too long, Love!"

Angela was going through the kitchen on a large scale looking for things to eat. Her brain wasn’t really functioning like it was used to and she was having a hard time trying to figure out just what it was she was craving. She decided the best course of action was to ask her husband about it. She crossed the mirror and showed up at Tar. She had a pickle in her mouth as she stared at her husband. She sucked on it for a moment before biting and taking it out of her mouth. She swallowed it and stared at him for a moment enough for him to kiss her. She kissed him back and tilted her head. “Yes, it has… do you have any kind of alchemical powder that can make this taste different? Not entirely different but something is missing.” She stuck it back in her mouth and moved around him.

She was going for his kitchen despite saying alchemical ingredient. She knew he would be following behind her because of her rather bizarre nature. “It’s not sweet enough.” She chewed on it more. “Maybe… chocolate? Or… bananas are really sweet this time of the year.” She mused as she opened up a cupboard and looked in it.

“Or… hmm… I could try to bake them into a pie…” She was musing greatly now as she looked at Drae. “What?” He had to have had a weird looked on his face as she was pondering. “I mean… I am hungry… you look like you were about to eat… Oh… I know.” She dropped the pickle and began to go after a rip fruit that was near by. “Maybe this will satisfy it a bit more.”

Well, he wasn't expecting the pickle. Or the pickle breath, or the pickle taste on her lips. He made a face at her as he pulled back, his face puckering at the sour taste. Pickles were not something he was particularly fond of. Angela didn't usually eat them, which struck Drae as odd. Not as odd as her request for an alchemical ingredient to change the taste of the pickle itself, and he set her down.

"Uh… Alchemical ingredient? Ang, that's a pickle, if you didn't want a pickle, why are you eating it?" he asked as he followed her into the kitchens where he had been moments ago, his own meal still steaming. She didn't seem to be paying attention and was muttering about other foods. 

"Ang… it's a pickle. It isn't supposed to be sweet," he pointed out to her, an eyebrow quirking as she began going through his cupboards. The thought of a pickle, chocolate, banana pie made him balk and he wondered if she was quite all right. He looked at her, eyes wide, eyebrows quirked and mouth ajar in confusion. He had seen this before. Three times. Once with Eva, once with Angela, and he had even noticed it with Pyzis about the Shrine of the Awakening Gardens. Could she be? No, no. Not likely. 

"I can tell you are, Love. Uh, help yourself," he said as she dropped the pickle and began munching on the slices of fruit that had been part of his meal. His eyes narrowed. This was NOT normal Angela. And he began wondering if his original suspicion had been correct. Ignoring his hunger pangs, he decided on a little experiment. He went and began slicing up some nice ripe summer pears and put them in a bowl for her, before he added a relatively odd food to it. On top of the pear slices, he heap curds and whey and slid the large bowl over to Angela and offered her a spoon. "Here. That ought to satisfy you," he said before he went and sat back down on his stool and began munching on his own meal, never letting his gaze leave her. 

“No, no…” She waved her hand as she looked at it. “I do want it. I want to add flavor next to it.” She was finding it a hard to describe just what she wanted. So she moved on and he followed her about. “I realize that but I want sour and sweet mixed together.” She cooed towards him.

She had noticed that the fruit had been a part of his meal. “I’m not disrupting you am I?” She felt bad that she was eating his food but soon he had conjured her up something else. She took one look at it and regularly she would have asked him what the hell he was thinking but right now… it smelled and looked delicious. “Oh thank you.”

She took the bowl and began to munch on it. “This tastes really good.” She plopped down by him and looked very satisfied. “I couldn’t figure out what to eat so I thought the god of knowledge could help me out.” She cooed towards her husband as she put her head on his shoulder and began to munch away. “Rohan is in Sularia with Hazel again. My sister did their fortune and apparently, we’re going to be in-laws with Bryony.” Angela chuckled a bit.

“Her fortunate telling is normally right. Rohan has taken quite the liking to Hazel.” She waved the spoon at him. “Hazel is going to be beautiful I think… With her dark skin, dark hair, and those mercury eyes… she will be beautiful especially if she is tall like her mother.”

"No, not at all. I just wasn't exactly expecting you to be joining me," he chuckled. He watched her look at the bowl and awaited her reaction. He looked a bit bewildered when she took a heaping spoonful and ate it without a second thought, even making the comment that it was really good. He looked down at his own food and began eating, trying to pretend that everything was normal as he sandwiched slices of steaming roast bird between slices of fresh bread. 

"Well, good thing I have the answers you are looking for," he chuckled, his mind still reeling from this little bit of knowledge. He was still listening though and smiled. "Well, I'm glad that he has found a good friend. I know that Lily isn't often wrong, but let's not count on it right now. They are both still incredibly young, so it would be unfair to both of them that we take for granted that they will end up together just because a Seer saw one possible future for them," he pointed out. "Though, to be honest, we could have far worse in-laws than Sebastian an Bryony," he commented. "Rohan will be as handsome as she will be beautiful," he commented. "It will be a good match as far as looks go, but we still have a good decade and a half before we can say anything for sure," he said. 

He looked at Angela and shook his head at how she was still eating the strange food he had made her. "Angela, are you feeling all right?"

“Oh, well I’ve been missing having lunch and dinner with you anyways,” Angela commented as she munched on the meal he had gotten for her. “I do have the children but they aren’t my husband and don’t provide the same kind of feeling or company.” She mused a bit as she thought about the differences between the two feelings she got.

She nodded a bit at him and smiled. “Oh, I’m not banking on it happening. I’m just mildly curious if it will. I’m not so sure if Lily is completely a seer since her abilities only work on love and soulmates. She is very odd.” Though it made sense considering the woman was the Queen of Hearts in Sularia. “Most likely her abilities come from the spirits for her powers in Light and Love.”

She tilted her head as his last question came from his lips. “Yeah, why? I’m not certain why you would ask that unless you thought something was wrong.” She popped the spoon in her mouth again and munched on it more. “I’ve had more of an appetite than usual… but that is it.” She laughed a bit.

She waved her hand at him. “I should be fine otherwise. I mean I should be happy. My daughter is married now, after putting it on hold thanks to my sister. Colden is romancing Crystaline and it helps both families. Even Eldora and Lotus have settled down, something I hadn’t expected even if we forced their hands… Rohan has a new friend and Iva has grown even closer to her grandparents. What could be wrong?” She looked at him innocently.

"Well, I would hope that your children don't satisfy you as much as I do. If they did, then I would never get to see you at all," he chuckled, still watching her eat. He reached out and booped her on the nose.  

He nodded, "Aaah," he said as he did so. "That makes sense. Someone has to hold those remnant otherwise they would be forgotten," he mused. "I am interested to see how it plays out myself. 

His eyes narrowed as she reassured him that she was fine, and seemed in good spirits so it was quite apparent that she wasn't sick. She went on about being happy because of the recent marriage of one of the girls, and the continued romancing of the others of Cyprus's children (finally some good news aside from the bitch's death for that part of the family), about Rohan's new friend, and Iva's continued growing relationship with her mortal grandparents. He shook his head. "Nothing I suppose," he admitted. It was true. "But… Ang, I think you're pregnant!"

“Our children,” she corrected him before chuckling. “And no they don’t in that way.” She wrinkled her nose a bit and twitched it as he booped her.

“It will certainly be interesting… It always is with the Arriese women.. courts.. anything else that has Rosenites in it.” She chuckled a bit more.

She watched his face as she packed more of the food into her cheeks and chewed. Her green eyes were watching his steel colored eyes with interest as she continued. Once he made a claim to her she started to choke on what she was trying to swallow. “Don’t joke like that!”

It was obvious she was down the river of denial as she got a drink and chugged it. She coughed a bit more before she looked at what she was eating. She groaned loudly. “Is it that obvious?” She pouted a bit. “I wanted to find out myself but I can’t tell no matter what I do.” She hadn’t wanted to admit it. “It appears like I can’t tell now that I’m pregnant with your children… At least not at the moment. That should change soon. I’ll just have to be more perceptive.” She seemed happy now as she smiled.

“I didn’t want to think I have been duped again by my own children but it looks like the blood of another divine can throw me off… I would have to know and actually put forth the energy to look into it. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t crazy… but then I got hungry so I can here anyways.” She rubbed her stomach before coming back over to Adraejen. “Was it really that obvious?”

Drae gave her a look that suggested he was the tiniest bit offended that she would have thought he was joking about her being pregnant. Such jokes were below him. He watched her as she stood and retrieved another mug of drink. He pointed with a skeptically raised eyebrow to the bowl of pears and curds which seemed to drive the point home. Her groan made him smile and chuckle slightly. 

"If you say so, Love. I think it is one thing to know you are pregnant with the children of those who asked your for a child,  and a completely different one when it comes to your own, relatively unplanned children with your husband," he commented with a chuckle. "In the first case, you are using your powers to help induce pregnancy. In ours, Love, there is no need nor reason for you to need to do that. You get to be a completely normal, natural mother," he chuckled. When she mentioned his divine blood, his brow furrowed. 

"I don't think that has anything to do with it. We conceived Rohan before I became a God. Remember? He was just as much a surprise as this pregnancy," he reminded her. 

He gave her a deadpan look when she asked if she had really been that obvious, and again pointing at the bowl he had prepared for her, he looked her straight in the eyes. 
"You came in with a pickle, and asked for an alchemical ingredient to help change the taste, or for something to go with it. Short of having some sort of sweetened frozen milk by-product some how infused with cocoa I don't think that is a real possibility," he said as he stood up and took her hand. He kissed it and smiled broadly. 

"It seems that we were indeed destined to have a child besides just Rohan together. And now that he is a little older, I have no qualms about this," he smiled. "Do you think we'll have another anomaly and have another son?"

“I’m only telling you how it normally is Love,” Angela didn’t want to sound like she was insulting her husband. He was after all knowledge and was way more intelligent than she was. “I do remember Rohan… even then do you know how many lovers I had? It had never happened not even once.” She rubbed her red curls and frowned at him. “Surprises are wonderful I suppose.” She was only a little bit worried that her power sphere was slipping which could have meant the worst.

Her green eyes watched as he kissed her hand and she returned the smile. “I don’t know… but now that I know I am pregnant nothing will be a mystery anymore.” Who knew how far along she was since she was only just now getting the cravings, however, her body wasn’t a regular mortal one either. She stood still for a moment and closed her eyes as she pushed her magic to discover what information they had on their newest bundle.

When she got it she opened her eyes with a bit of a shocked stare. “Anomaly. Two.” She took a deep breath. “It looks like you and I are destined to have twins this time around… a boy and a girl.” She was now laughing with a smile as she thought fate was messing with them even farther. “I don’t think this is what we had planned for after Rohan.”