“Stay calm, do not panic. I will clean up the mess. Wrap them up, take them to the nursery and speak to Captain Liiti.”
“But-”
“You do not know if it is serious and are jumping to conclusions. Bundle Ret up and go now. The nurseries are open all the time for a reason.”
Heavy steps plodded around before finally storming out the house, leaving it in an awkward silence. Once the silence had settled down, Relkir sighed to themselves, then headed to the kitchen to get some cleaning equipment. They were pretty sure baby Retvik had just eaten too much and had thrown up because of it, but this was the first time Retvik had done so, and the sensation of vomiting had clearly scared Retvik more than anything else. But Retvik’s reaction had scared Gath and Gath had started panicking because of it.
While Relkir hadn’t needed their temporal powers to convince Gath to just take Retvik to the nursery rather than the 24/7 doctor, they had used said powers to say things in the right order, to make Gath not panic too much. The last thing Relkir, Gath and the baby all needed was for Gath to go into a parental Defensive Stance over Retvik.
Relkir in the mean time got to work, cleaning up the mess. Retvik had tried some new, chunkier baby food today, fed to them by spoon rather than the finger-smearing method, and had been very, very excited about it. After eating a lot of food, they had bounced and rolled around with glee, only to very quickly empty their stomach and start crying about it. Considering the pale vomit looked as if it had just come out of the jar, Relkir was certain that the baby was just too excited and not quite ready for larger foods yet.
As Relkir cleaned though, they noticed a presence. A temporal, godly presence. Relkir ignored it at first though. They were busy. The vomit needed to be cleaned up before it left any acidic stains. And a quick glance forward suggested that Ksini would lose her patience and force a conversation eventually anyway, so Relkir might as well get the cleaning done sooner rather than later.
It only took about a minute.
“I must admit, I’m impressed.”
The form of the Time Serpent, the Lady of Time, the former Allbirther, faded into existence, taking up most of the downstairs area, while her head poked into the bedroom where Relkir was cleaning.
“Impressed with what?” Relkir asked.
“With you.”
Relkir grunted, not paying Ksini much attention. She was lucky that Relkir knew their family was not at risk, because any other Rethan would have quickly gotten panicky and defensive with such a large snake creature in the house.
That thought made Relkir pause. Had Ksini once intruded on… a familiar Rethan’s house and fallen asleep on their bed? Or was Relkir picking things up?
“Huh. You pick up weird temporal memories.”
“What… what am I seeing?”
“Some Time Drakes can see a sort of repeated past effect when it comes to meeting other Time Drakes. You’re picking up the time when I wanted to speak to… another important Rethan and fell asleep on their bed because I hadn’t slept in a decade.”
“Huh…” Relkir trailed off, then frowned. “So why are you here?”
Ksini smiled. “I wanted to check in on you. And congratulate you.”
“How comes?” Relkir felt confused again. They rubbed their eyes, their physical way of pushing back their Time Drake powers. They didn’t want to use their temporal abilities, to make sure that Ksini didn’t see them as a threat. Ksini noticed what Relkir was doing though.
“You’ve also developed emotional and physical ticks in a way to control and contain your powers. I find it fascinating how well you are concealing everything.”
Relkir grunted. “Are you going to ruin all of that now?”
“Honestly? No. But I am very amused at how you did that whole full physical in front of the 10th Legion and they were left scratching their heads and completely unaware that you can literally control time. You just got buff.”
“But…” Relkir hesitated, then inspected their body. “Why… why am I buff now?”
“That’s just part of being a deity. You’re perfect. Same way I’m perfect.”
“But… that makes no sense. Alright, sure, I am of the Rethianos bloodline but I am not the right size and my eyes are the wrong colour. I am definitely not perfect.”
“Well, you’re perfect enough!” Ksini smiled. “And that is also why I am here. Because I wanted to congratulate you on your healthy, perfect kid.”
“My perfect kid who just threw up because they ate too fast…” Relkir tutted. “I feel like there is an ulterior motive here.”
“Because there is. I want to know when you are getting egg-ridden.”
Relkir frowned, stopped what they were doing, then looked up at Ksini. “What?”
“When are you getting egg-ridden? I need data.”
Relkir gestured at themselves. “I am literally cleaning up the vomit of my not even three month old baby. The baby I am a father of, because Gath could not get me egg-ridden and I accidentally got them egg-ridden instead… Wait, what do you mean, you need data?”
“I need data about whether Time Drakes can have kids!” Ksini bluntly explained. “I have one verified data point of a Time Drake laying an egg and four unverified data points of a Time Drake being a father, sadly you beig a father does not work as a verifiable data point because your kid was conceived before you became a Time Drake, so I need you to pop out a kid yourself to see if the first data point is repeatable.”
Relkir blinked in confusion and vague disgust, before tutting and sighing. “I want to be a mother, but it is more important for me to be a father right now, to both my kids. When the time is right, I will consider a third kid, but I am not ready for that. And I would appreciate you not pushing me on that subject. It would skew your data anyway, forcing the situation rather than letting me do things naturally. Anyway, may I please go back to being a father now?”
Ksini inspected Relkir somewhat, then shrugged. She was satisfied with Relkir’s words. “Sure thing, dear. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
“You already are. Please leave now.”
“Very well. Toodles!”
The Lady of Time flicked her tongue in and out, then abruptly disappeared, leaving a vague scent of vanilla and rose. Relkir rolled their eyes, then went back to cleaning up. They had more important things to deal with.