When Alshaya opened her mouth, Everett let out a groan and slammed his head into the table. Ezili, who was in the back of the room with the older kids, covered here eyes, shocked at what her little sister had done. This whole event was absolutely insane for the rest of the family, and it was only going to get worse.

Llonan looked around at the wide eyed class, and with Pearl being the way she was, immediately refuted his claim to being a prince. It was hard to prove, but when he looked over he was shocked to see that his father was standing there. It was almost surreal, but he was glad that the King had shown up. Things were getting a little awkward. Llonan did like being with Alshaya, but somehow he had a feeling that this wasn’t exactly the best way to go about this.

Lewis was standing behind Simone and Llywellyn, his arms crossed. It was hard not to be impressed with the girl and her bold attempt at kidnapping. Of course, she denied it the moment that Simone started to explain what she had done wrong.

Lewis cocked his head to the side when Alshaya claimed that he had explained kidnapping. The ex-assassin sighed, and shook his head. “That’s…not what I meant. And besides, it was Everett who-” He sighed again. Of course she would have used Everett to ask the question.

“It’s different when it comes to those who hold status and who are children, though…” Something he figured would have been obvious, but of course Alshaya would find it as a loophole.

Llonan looked around. “I…uh, am sorry?”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Llonan.” Lewis looked over to Alshaya. “Alshaya?”

“Your father is right. When a child holds a title it is way different. You can’t just take off with hi–”

Shaya put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot, “But Uncle Llywellyn used to ‘kidnap’ you all the time when you were stuck in the castle! I heard all about it.” She looked at Llywellyn with a critical eye. “So, it was okay when you were trying to perv on my mother but it's not okay when I am just friends with Llonan?”

Llywellyn was now facepalming and Simone was bright red. “ALSHAYA LEILANI!” Simone yelled. “That is… not…”

“IT IS! You can’t lie to me. I know! Uncle Llywellyn perved on you!” The child proclaimed and Simone came over and picked her up. “Come on Llonan let's go talk about this somewhere else.” Alshaya was struggling and Simone passed her off to LEwis who she struggled against a bit more. “I’m gonna marry Llonan!” She yelled.

Llywellyn apologized to the class and all of Terrowin kids had their heads hit the desks in front of them.

“Shaya you can’t put that kind of business out in front of others…” Simone explained as Lewis finally got her to settle. “That’s adult business.”

“YOU WERE KIDS!”

“We were older than you and that’s all that matters.” Simone sighed a bit and ruffled Llonan’s hair. “I’m sorry she dragged you into something. Next time just tell someone.”

The whole situation was getting out of hand rather quickly. Alshaya took her ideas and ran with them as hard as she could, and was promptly handed to Lewis when Simone ended up unable to handle the wild child. Lewis quickly calmed her down, to everyone’s surprise, but only enough to keep her from squirming out of his grasps. Her mouth was still a problem, and immediately her words were whispered amongst the class.

“So not only is he a king, but he’s a pervy king?” one of the kids asked. “What’s that have to look like?”

The apologies couldn’t come fast enough from the Terrowin kids, and Llonan was blushing hard at this point. Pearl stood up, putting her hands on her hips. “Oh, well that makes your prince a perv too!”

Despite being restrained by Lewis, Alshaya broked free and launched herself in the air. “DON’T YOU DARE INSULT MY FUTURE HUSBAND!”

Alshaya launching herself at Pearl somehow inspired the rest of the class, and everyone except the Terrowin kids seemed to take a side of some kind, starting a class wide fight.

“Nope…not dealing with this,” Lewis said as he took a step into the class. “I’ll ask for forgiveness later…” He slammed his hands together, and the clap resonated with a shockwave that immobilized all of the kids in the room. Lewis walked in, and slowly pulled every fight apart.

“Now…I’m going to release this hold…” He looked around. “If anyone, and I mean ANYONE makes a move…” Lewis glared at Alshaya. “They’ll get frozen like this for the rest of the week.” It was obvious that Lewis was not above threatening children at this point.

Llywellyn had his hand to his face, “You have a drama queen for a daughter…”

“The one and only… Super spoiled princess. Swear she came this way,” Simone looked defeated as she watched her husband break apart the fight.

Alshaya went to blow a raspberry and Simone was fast to grab her lips. One second she wasn’t there and the next she was holding Shaya’s lips. Shaya’s big pink eyes were looking up at her. The kids in the class were terrified at how fast the smaller of the Terrowin parental units were. “No sass. Your father is capable of putting an elephant down what do you think he’ll do to you. Remember that time you didn’t think we would spank you and you ended up crying for three weeks?” Shaya nodded.

The class gasped.

“For heavens’ sake, she is a drama queen. Even stubbing her toe is a seven-day sob fest.” The kids seemed to understand… After all, it was Alshaya Terrowin they were talking about. “Spoiled princess.” Simone let Shaya’s lips go. “Teacher, Shaya is coming home with us for immediate punishment. Kids.”

The other Terrowins snapped up and looked at her directly, “You are to return home promptly after school. Is that an understanding? No dillydallying or else.” Her voice hung low in the air and all the kids were terrified how intimidating the two were. No wonder they could handle all of the kids they had.

“Ha, serves you ri–” Pearl started and Simone snapped her eyes to her.

“If you think that just because you aren’t my child that I won’t spank your bottom right here and right now… You would be crazy.”

“YOU WOULDN’T DARE MY DADDY IS A –”

“Your daddy’s noble blood has nothing on my blue blood kid. Title trumps title. Sits your little butt down. NOW,” Simone commanded and Pearl lost the color in her face as she went back to her seat. “Now, Shaya. We’re leaving. Lewis, bring Alshaya.”

Simone went over to Llonan and picked him up before grabbing Llywellyn by his ear and dragging him, “You are practically the most worthless king I know.”

“OW OW OW, MONE! I AM THE ONLY KING YOU KNOW RIGHT NOW.” It was funny watching the tall elf king being dragged off by the little woman by his side.

“Oh shut up. Portal now.”

Familiarity

It was one of the easier days with the twins. For whatever reason only they could decide, Janus and Lila were acting what could only be described as saintly. So, as a reward, Lewis and Simone decided to take a trip to Taevalinn with just the four of them. It wasn’t too difficult to convince the two year olds that it would be fun to have an outing, and soon they found themselves standing in front of the portal, tuning it to the wonderful river city.

As usual, they stepped through the portal and onto the wonderful floating city that Raile had ‘constructed.’ Immediately Janus and Lila were awed by the massive trade guild, with bustling shops and stalls all about. The smells of wondrous foods filled the air, and the busy chatter of traders and merchants rang about.

At once, the twins tried to escape, but Lewis and Simone were way ahead of them, and kept the two little deviants close.

“No you don’t. We’re going to see Auntie Leilah, Auntie Kalina, and Uncle Raile first. Then we can go do some fun things, okay?”

“No fun,” Janus complained. “Play!”

“PLAY!” Lila agreed. “Play now. No visit.”

“That would be rude,” Lewis replied.

“Rude.” Lila nodded. “We rude.”

“Yes you two are,” the ex-assassin said with a smirk. “You two are very rude.” Of course, Lewis and Simone ignored their pleas for playtime, and walked into the building where Raile kept his offices. It didn’t take long for them to discover that Raile was out and about for business, and that Leilah and Kalina were each tending to their shops.

“I guess we’ll visit Lei first,” Lewis said as they walked down the street. “Her shop is…this way, right?”

Simone had her hands on her hips and she chuckled, “We call this wanderlust my babies. You are having wanderlust… Also big stomachs.” She could hear Janus’s drooling from where she was. She took Janus’s hand and watched as Lewis took Lila’s.

“They are friends and family. We visit friends and family.”

“BOOOOOORRRRR-INNGGG,” Lila yelled.

“Okay Alshaya Jr. calm down before I treat you like how Shaya does,” Simone put a hand on her hip and Lila pursed her lips.

“Not the butt,” Lila hid her face into Lewis. “Protect meeee.”

“No one is gonna protect you Little Monster…” She smirked a bit. “Yeah, it’s this way.” She opened the door to the modest little apocathary.

“Well! IF IT ISN’T MY FAVORITE CUSTOMERS!” Leilah got excited to see them all.

“Let me see the new babies!” Simone got excited as she let Janus’s hand go so she could see Raven and Judith. “Oh, they are beautiful Lei. They hate it being this high… I can tell.”

“Yeah, they are still getting used to it. Raile likes to say ‘Ohh my poor babies~’”

“Yeah, poor babies. Play now,” Lila said as Lewis had to scoop her up.

“Visit first then we play.”

The door from the back room opened up and everything was at a standstill. “WHY YOU HAVE A FUNNY FACE AT MY MAMA!” Janus yelled up at the dark-haired man who left the room.

“Janus,” Simone quirked an eyebrow at him. “Not very nice.”

“HE’S NOT NICE! HE’S STARING.” Janus ran over and clung to her leg giving a Lewis look at the man.

“This… This is all you,” Simone pointed at Janus as she chuckled towards Lewis.

“Si- Simone…” The man finally spoke.

Simone got a good look at him now and she put her finger to her lips, “Jack?”

“Ye-yeah… and you have mini yous.”

“Yeah,” Simone smirked a bit and picked up Janus. “This is our son Janus and that’s his twin, Lila.”

“She’s mine,” Janus proclaimed.

“No, I am not,” Simone blew raspberries on Janus’s belly causing him to laugh. “Not just yours~”

“Why not?” Janus tilted his head.

The twins were doing their usual routine when it came to meeting others. It was hard enough to get them to do anything other than what they wanted. What they wanted usually entailed playing around or goofing off. That was what they were focused on, though there were a few times where they found other interests; the prime example of this was when Lila learned to play chess with Xeik.

Lewis was awkward when it came to other children, which was almost absurd considering his own. Still, as the scene played out, Lewis couldn’t help but smile at his Simone. She was practically glowing as she doted on Leilah’s new babies. Lila, with her usual sass, wanted nothing more than for this to be over.

It was Janus, though, who called out the stranger in the back room. Lewis was quick to glare in that direction, wiping the smile off his face immediately. Janus was right, though. The stranger was staring at them, and immediately Lewis reached for the dagger that he always kept hidden in his coat.

As it turned out, though, Lewis’ aggression was unneeded. The stranger turned out to be a blast from the past, and the very last person the ex-assassin ever thought he would see again.

“Jack,” Lewis said with a sigh. Out of all the people from either of their pasts, this was the last one who would be out for blood. “It seems you’re…alive.”

Jack awkwardly shuffled into the main room. “I am…” He still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Lewis and Simone had not only survived, but thrived since the last time he had seen them.

“Janus,” Lewis said with a smirk as he walked up and picked the child up. “That would be because your mother is mine.” He bopped the kid’s nose. “But I don’t mind sharing.”

“Share? No share.”

Lila huffed. “Boooreeedd. Play now.” She was uninterested in the appearance of Jack. “Play with Nyssa and Piper?”

Lewis looked over to Simone. It wasn’t the worst idea while they caught up with Jack. At least, that was what he assumed they were about to do. If it were up to him, though, he would rather have just left entirely. He would much rather have been wandering around with the twins.

Simone smirked a bit at the father and son duo. It looked like Janus was hell-bent on fighting for his right to Simone. “Sweetheart,” Simone booped Janus’s nose, “I’m sorry but your daddy had me first.”

The toddler looked like he had a broken heart, “Besides, without him, I wouldn’t have you both… My greatest little treasures.” She tickled Janus and he giggled.

“Fine, take care of her,” Janus said stubbornly. “Or I fight you.”

Leilah laughed at Janus and shook her head, “Nyssa! Piper! You have guests!” The two little redheads ran in and were excited to see Lila.

“No play, want mama,” Janus said stubbornly. His eyes met Jack’s and he held out his arms. He snuggled right into her bosom and just stared. He was content with making sure this newcomer didn’t have a chance with his mother.

Simone sighed a bit and kissed the top of Janus’s head. Lila on the other hand threw her hand up at Jack, “Bye. Later. Play now.” Nyssa and Piper took her hands and led her off to go play. “Finally. PLAY!” She squealed from the playroom.

“Sorry, she is… special.”

“Brat,” Janus said. “Lila brat.”

“Don’t call your sister a brat~”

“Spoiled. Brat,” Janus said up to Simone with an honest expression.

“They are… really developed for their age…” Jack said as he watched the two of them almost scared.

“Aye, they are special. Our little miracles,” Simone answered as Leilah took them over to a little sitting-room so they could talk and catch up. “We’ve been pretty busy lately. We have thirteen children but only Janus and Lila are our biological since I can’t have children.” Simone bounced Janus and he seemed to fall asleep easily even though he fought it to fight with Jack.

“Thirteen?!”

The reality that Jack was present, and that Lewis would have to interact with him regardless of his desire to was finally settling in. The ex-assassin smirked, though, as Lila went off to play with the Talon girls. “Play nice, Lila. No magic.”

The girl called back, “No magic. Promise.” It was hard to tell if she would actually try to keep the promise, but the effort was there and that was quite the good start. The rest of them moved into the next room, where they sat at a small table. Leilah left and came back, offering a rose blend of herbal tea. As she started to pour it, Simone mentioned the thirteen children.

“Thanks,” Lewis said as he took a sip of the fresh rose tea. “Eight years ago we left the tower. After that, we decided that…” He paused. “This is all boring and a long story that doesn’t need to be told. We have thirteen kids, and they’re well taken care of.” Waving his hand, Lewis took another sip of the tea. “What really matters…” He stared at the old potions apprentice. “How the hell did you end up here?”

Lady Angela had made a comment about his skills a long time ago, so Lewis knew a little more than he was letting on. There was no way that Leilah, who wasn’t far behind Angela in potion making skills, saw anything in Jack. Though, Leilah was quite a lot nice than Angela when it came to people.

At least, that was what Lewis assumed. Leilah was hard to read sometimes..and when it came down to Everett, Nyssa, and Piper, well….

“Sorry,” he said aloud. His thoughts were all over the place, and he knew Simone could hear them. “So, Leilah…where did you pick him up?”

Simone let out a sigh and gave Lewis a smile. He would always be her Lewis. “Man, you really haven’t gotten much better at the communication department Lewis~” Leilah joked as she sat down next to everyone.

“Only if he has to.” Simone waved her hand. “We are better at communicating than anyone else though.”

“I would expect nothing less from someone with a red heartstring. You two really impressed us at Mother’s party. Your partnership is amazing~”

“Yes, well I wish Lewis would have let me go on more jobs with him before he retired,” Simone made a pout face but rolled her shoulders. “The one time I did go we ended up in a dungeon.”

“Yeah, Rhenakos told me he wanted to die by your thighs…”

“Rhenakos has a big fucking mouth,” Simone snapped and Jack jumped a bit. “Sorry… Rhen… tries sleeping with me a lot.” Jack made a grossed face showing he knew who Rhenakos was just from hanging around Leilah. “Yep. Anyways, long story short. We decided we wanted to do good in the world… I wanted a family and Lewis wanted to help orphans… So we got a huge castle and slowly our kids found us. Literally, almost all of them found us. Our oldest is around eighteen now… and our seventeen year old got his girlfriend pregnant so we’re expecting grandchildren~ We never thought he would sow his wild oats… considering we were spiking his breakfast…”

Jack stared at her, “That’s cruel.”

“Well, we were scared he was going to have children all over Revaliir. He was kind of a slut,” Simone chuckled. “His basically wife is what reigned him in. I’m excited about grandchildren~ Lewis is too. He won’t tell you but he’s gone shopping for them already. Anyways, our youngest is Glynn and he is around a year and a half. Lewis retired from assassinating people~ he’s trying his hand at growing grapes now and… I write books.”

Now that Simone had told the short story it was Leilah’s turn, “Mother threw him out of Elysia at me. Told me, that since he tried to take care of Simone with honest feelings she would grant him this one chance to make his skills better. He’s a lot better now that he has a real teacher. He’s been here for… half a year now?” She thought about it. “Somehow he has never been here when you two visited though.”

Jack nodded a bit, “I thought since Lady Angela had a lot of kindness maybe she could direct me… but she called me worthless trash that didn’t know how to brew a potion right and threw me out. I had no idea she was that intense…”

“Tell me about it,” Simone had a look on her face, “she uses me as a live experiment whenever she fucking feels like it. Price to pay I guess. She made my body and brought me back. I’m at her whim just like Lewis is. We owe her a great deal. A lot more than she will let us say.”

“I always questioned it,” Jack seemed interested now, “what happened to you that is.”

“Lewis made a deal with me. Once my curse holder was killed and I was released from my torment that he would kill me to set me free. My curse was the worst case of immortality… If you want to call it that. Dying over and over and resetting forgetting my memories. I went through centuries of hell before Lewis found me.”

“And how?” Jack could now know about Simone even if it looked like it was scaring him.

“He was hired to kill me because I can’t bare children. So my nobleman of a husband at the time hired an assassin to kill me. Only when I didn’t die Lewis became angry because of his pride. So he brought me back to the tower until he found a way to get rid of me. It was Angela who helped him get in contact with me. We call it the dream dive. He entered my mental landscape. It lasted mere hours out here but inside… It was probably closer to a year for Lewis. It connected us in ways we can’t explain fully and Angela doesn’t know all of the details. We do know its called resonance. Two souls completely in sync who can become one. It’s this resonance which Angela used to bring me back. Lewis and I are basically one being now. I’m alive because Lewis is alive. His lifeforce is now my lifeforce and as long as I’m breathing he lives. It’s a gift and a punishment for obvious reasons.”

“Lady Angela has a sick sense of humor,” Jack mentioned but it looked like he already knew from Leilah’s stories.

“Yeah, she’s got a dark streak. However, she is the best doctor there is and she always comes to fix us if we need it. I had a while there after the twins were created that I would black out from a hole that had grown in the resonance. It was thanks to her and Xeik that we don’t have that issue anymore.”

“And the twins? You said they were a miracle and now created.” Jack was more observant now. No doubt because of Leilah.

“They were born out of our love and excess mana when our son Everett was kidnapped. They shouldn’t have happened at all. I guess Xeik put it the best way. Think of me as a well– Lewis and the twins each have a bucket that they can take from me. The twins can draw skills from me just as much as Lewis and I can draw from each other. It makes them incredibly intelligent. They can go as far as their bodies can which is terrifying. As soon as they could walk they did. As soon as they could talk they did. Writing? They can but not great. As they get older they are beginning not to be able to draw knowledge from me but all that’s done is make them upset some days. Right, Lewis? Tell Jack about their tantrums.”

“I’m good,” Janus said sleepily.

“Okay, but you really aren’t most days,” Simone chuckled. “I love you still.”

“Love you more than daddy,” Janus smiled up at his mother and Simone smiles.

“I’m really going to be broken-hearted when they get bigger.”