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Loose Threads
One Hundred Thirty One
Kasumi watched with neutral eyes as Giselle put the washed tea utensils where they belonged before turning and giving one last bow to her guests to end the ceremony. Then she smiled. “That was very well done, Giselle. You do us great honor.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Giselle murmured. “Yuko suggested that we hold a formal tea as the first event after the renovation of the Nippon house was complete. Nishiko, Ayame and I prepared the kaiseki and Yuko provided the chadogu that we now own.”
Kasumi turned questioning eyes on her grandmother, who nodded. “I liberated the entire tea service a long time ago from the estate of one of my enemies. I was destroying the buildings and they were packed for easy transport and too precious to allow to perish in the fires I had set. I have kept them safe ever since, hoping that one day I would again have a household where they could be properly used.” Her rows of teeth gleamed in her satisfied smile “And fortune has granted me more than I had ever wished for. I have a powerful granddaughter,” she glanced at Iain, “a powerful son in law and their child shows signs of being even more powerful than I am. I would die content if I did not have so much to still do before my life ends.”
“Yes, you do have much to do,” Iain said as he rose. “You can’t die yet.” He offered Kasumi his hand and she used it to stand before he repeated the motion with Yuko and then Giselle. “I’m not the expert on tea ceremonies that Yuko or Kasumi are,” he said to the Pegaslut. “I can say that the food was excellent, the meal itself was elegant and the tea ceremony was very peaceful, which I understand is the goal of it.”
Giselle gave him a warm look. “Perhaps you are not as much of a barbarian as we had feared.”
“Oh, I am, I just papered it over with a thin veneer of culture.”
“That we can believe,” Giselle said with a smile of her own. “But you try to improve and that is all that can be expected from us gaijin.”
Iain chuckled. “I’d forgotten you were originally from Noir. You sound and act like a native Nipponese.”
“Giselle believes that her soul was from here and was reincarnated far from Nippon in her Noir body,” Kasumi said. “She has worked very hard to become a proper woman of Nippon, just like her harem sisters and me.”
“And I think she has succeeded,” Iain turned to Yuko. “I will talk to you tomorrow and you can give your latest report.”
“Hai, lord.” She nodded to the others and left the room.
“Giselle, please bring your sisters to the garden porch. I want to talk to the three of you and Kasumi about something and that’s a nice place for a meeting.”
“Yes, sir.” Giselle bowed and hurried away.
Kasumi eyed him curiously. “What is this about?”
“I think I have a way to address your concerns about your sister and your future brother in law. I also want to plant the seed of an idea in your head about a possible partner for Kozakura.”
“Is this about the school?”
“Yes.”
“And you only want to have to explain it once?”
“That would be preferable, yes, and then I only have to answer one set of questions from the four of you.”
Kasumi smiled. “Instead of answering the same questions at least twice?”
“Exactly.”
“Then let us go to the garden porch.”
***
Iain liked the wild and unkempt lawn that the garden porch at their Nippon house looked out over, but such chaos was never going to be tolerated by his wife. He knew there were plans being developed for formal gardens, a large koi pond and possibly even diverting a stream through this area. The stream ran on some other property that they owned in the area but if Kasumi wanted it diverted, diverted it would be. The fact that the plans were still being changed was the only reason that construction hadn’t already begun.
He looked down and carefully didn’t smile. They’d just had dinner and a formal tea, but in spite of that, Ayame had arrived with a tray of tea and warmed sake, along with snacks of various sorts.
“As you’re all aware,” Iain said as Ayame handed him a cup of tea, “for some time Kasumi has been concerned about what will happen to the school when Ranma and Akane take it over completely. Ranma is an outstanding martial artist and Akane is very good too, but neither of them has ever held a teaching position. I repeat, neither of them has ever held a teaching position. Additionally, while Akane has some experience running a household, Soun has no students and so nobody has had to deal with actually running the dojo as a business. The whole purpose of having a school is to spread the martial arts style and that requires students. They have to be recruited or attracted somehow, fees have to be collected and everything has to be tracked to see if the school is profitable or not. While any martial artist who calls herself a master would scoff at worrying about a school being profitable, if you can’t pay the bills you can’t stay open and teach. At best you get a part time job and teach when you can, which is not very good at all.”
“They have the foundation you and Kasumi established for them,” Nishiko said. The Archmage picked up her cup of tea. “They don’t need to worry about being profitable.”
“That is true,” Kasumi said, “but Shikarou gave them a lot of money when he married me and that should have been enough to see the school operate for decades, especially if the school was paying for itself. The money ran out very quickly and then it was up to Iain to help me provide for their future, which they are very fortunate he decided to do. The foundation isn’t limitless either.”
“If Akane and Ranma are trained to run a business, they can pass that on to their children,” Iain pointed out. “And then the foundation can be what it is supposed to be, a reservoir for emergencies or lean times.”
“They will not get that training from Tendo Soun,” Ayame said firmly. She reddened. “Ma’am, I mean no disrespect towards your father.”
“You are only speaking the truth I had to face when I ran the household,” Kasumi said gently. “And Akane knows it too. My mother never had to run the school as a business either. She expected my father to do that and he didn’t, but she didn’t get involved as she believed it to be the husband’s prerogative.” She turned to Iain. “Ranma does not have a head for business.”
“That’s an assumption,” Iain pointed out, “with facts not in evidence. I will admit Ranma does not know how to run a business because he’s never seen anyone else run a business, he hasn’t ever tried to run one himself and he’s never worked at a business except some part time work at the Amazon café and the Amazons aren’t really worried about it making a profit or teaching him the business side of the restaurant. Granted, part of Ranma’s issues stem from the fact that Genma thinks of himself as at pre-Restoration samurai and hates the idea of doing work. He’s tried to pass that on to his son and would never willingly let him demean himself by becoming a merchant, but that’s what a martial arts teacher is, at least in part.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Nishiko said firmly, “Genma’s problem is not that he feels he is a samurai. It’s that he is as lazy as anyone you can imagine.”
Iain chuckled when everyone else nodded unconsciously. “I won’t argue that. But for a martial arts instructor, regardless of what Genma thinks, she is a merchant. It’s just that what she’s selling is an intangible, that being the skill of her martial arts style. She’s still selling it for money because she can use that to buy the things that she needs to keep teaching. She could sell her skills directly for chickens or cows, but then she’d have to sell their products to get money to pay for the things she can’t trade for with them. Don’t get me wrong, trading for chickens is good in that then you have chickens and the meat and eggs they produce. However, trading in nothing but animals adds a layer of complexity that should be avoided if possible. We’ll probably have to teach them how it’s done.”
“We have no experience running a business,” Ayame said. “Kasumi was the headmistress of both magical schools, but she did not handle the accounting side of it. Do you have any experience running a business?”
“Kasumi did run the Tendo household successfully for several years. As for me, I have gone on merchanting expeditions and later I led some of them, and I was consistently profitable. Not always profitable, mind you, but I was consistently profitable. I also ran the entire clan in Twenty Three as a business. A dragon is supposed to be very interested in gaining money for her hoard and I didn’t want to have to spend my money to keep the clan running. It was supposed to pay me and pay me well for being the Grey.” He smiled. “And it did, eventually. I made back all of the money I invested in the clan and a whole lot more.”
“I haven’t seen your hoard,” Kasumi teased. “Have the others?”
“No, they haven’t.”
Kasumi blinked at the sharpness in Iain’s voice. “Are they going to see your hoard?”
Iain chuckled. “Sorry to sound so aggressive. They’ll be able to see it if they want. I don’t plan on giving tours and it is, in the end, my hoard. The clan has plenty of money it can spend without ever needing to touch mine.”
“Does Kasumi need a hoard,” Giselle asked.
Iain shrugged. “I don’t need it, it’s just I worked hard for my hoard. I murdered dragons and dragged reluctant horses through blizzards and thunderstorms to add to it. People wanting to use it just because it’s there would be like someone wanting to plunder Kasumi’s library and not bring the books back.”
“That will not happen.”
Giselle straightened at Kasumi’s tone and then smiled. “Never mind, sir. Apparently, Kasumi already has a hoard, we just call it her library.”
Kasumi blushed. “I never thought of it that way, but you’re right. Will Mariko need a hoard too?”
“When she’s of an appropriate age, I’ll make the same arrangements I made for all of my kids. She’ll stumble upon a small number of valuables that are unattended and have no provenance that she can determine. If she’s a hoard builder, and all of my children have been, these valuables will be hidden away someplace she thinks is safe. She and I will have a talk about how taking other people’s things is theft and what the punishment for theft is. I’ll confiscate part of her hoard after proving it is mine and accepting her insistence that she didn’t actually steal it and she’ll get to keep the rest as the first part of her hoard. If she tries to argue about keeping everything, she and I will visit my trophy room and she’ll give up the items I can prove aren’t hers. I will take them against her will if need be since part of the lesson is that she does not get to successfully steal from family.”
“What is your trophy room,” Nishiko asked curiously.
“It’s a large room filled with the heads of the dragons I killed in single combat, usually unfairly, and took all of their stuff to start my hoard. There are other heads in there, but they’re also of my notable or powerful enemies that I killed, at least for the most part. My clanswomen insisted on some of the other heads being included, claiming that I planned their deaths even though I didn’t kill them.”
“I want to see this room,” Kasumi said instantly. Giselle, Nishiko and Ayame were all looking intently at Iain. “They want to as well.”
“I have time after this meeting. We can go there and I can give you a quick tour.”
“Good.” Kasumi frowned. “Then we need to get this meeting focused on what we can do. How can we teach them to run a business?”
“I thought, as much as possible, we’d try to recreate the conditions that they will receive the school in, only without the foundation’s cash. I think that the best way for that would be for us to visit some of the worlds a D step or two from Twelve and find an appropriate place and time, purchase or build an empty school there and take Ranma and Akane there to start a school. We’d give them training and enough money to get started and let them run it for a year or so. We’d live there too and guide them if necessary while keeping the local spirit folk and human populations from causing them too much trouble.” He smiled. “And you can be an instructor at the school if they need one. We’ll adjust the gates so they’re only gone a minimum amount of time on Twelve. The biggest thing is we will either have to give them twee or put them on birth control since we are going to be sexually active the whole time and they will be living together alone for the first time. Ninhursag will insist I take guards when I brief her, but I know who I’ll take already.”
“Pandora and Dianthus?”
“Nobody pregnant will go. I don’t want to have to listen to anyone about them having kids while we’re away is something special and so everyone wants that from now on. Pandora is pregnant. I was thinking Scheherazade and Ganieda. I intend to be openly living as spirit folk and they look the part and are incredibly lethal if it becomes necessary.”
“What about Mariko?”
“If we leave her here, no time will pass for her. If we take her, she’s precocious enough that it shouldn’t be an issue. The local yokai are already going to know you’re fertile as soon as someone with a good enough nose gets downwind of any of you.” Ayame took his now empty teacup and refilled it to hand it back to him. “Thank you. What do you think?”
“I am pleased that you took the time to think this out as much as you did,” Kasumi looked out over the grass for a moment. “I believe it would work. The others will want a year with you if I get one.”
“This is a mission to help your family out, not a jaunt for fun. That’s why we’re both taking security with us.”
“What will we do if they cannot keep the school profitable during the year,” Nishiko asked.
“Honestly, if I intended to make sure they learned how to run a school profitably, I’d plan for us to be gone for at least five years. That’s how long you should plan to lose money before a business becomes consistently profitable. But that year will give them the experience they need to make the Tendo School profitable, in time, even if they don’t make money while we’re there.”
Nishiko had another question. “What do we do with the school when the year is up?”
“I thought we’d just abandon it. Selling it would take time and we’d have to stay there while trying to sell it.”
“You said that we would choose the place and the time for the school,” Kasumi said thoughtfully.
“I did.”
“All of your dragon children are governesses of clan colonies, aren’t they?”
Iain raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of topic, but he knew that it wasn’t really a change of topic. Kasumi was working her way to broaching something specific. He just hadn’t figured out what Kasumi was thinking about yet. “All of them that have wanted to be governesses are.”
“What about Mariko? My world is overrun with humans and safely starting a colony there would be hazardous. The same is currently true for our home world unless we site it somewhere so remote that it would be difficult to grow.”
Iain drained his tea and handed it to Ayame for a refill. “What are you getting at?”
“If we carefully choose the proper time and place, the school could be the opening gambit for placing a colony on the world we use to teach Ranma and Akane how to run a business.”
“Kasumi, do you have a particular time and place in mind? If so, tell me what it is. Trying to lead me to agree with you without knowing what I’m agreeing to isn’t going to work.”
She looked down at her tea for a moment. Her face filled with resolve and she looked Iain in the eyes. “I sometimes have a hard time remembering that you are not Shikarou and you value me far more than he ever did. I do have an idea for the school’s location. I think we should put it in Heian-kyo in the year 1478 or 1479.”
“Just a second.” Iain accessed the satellite uplink with his twee and did a search on that time and location. His eyes widened. “I was thinking about something a little quieter than the Imperial capital right after the end of the Onin war that raged through it and was the kickoff of a nationwide civil war that will last for over a century. Why then and why do you want to give Mariko a colony there and then?”
Kasumi looked down again and then up. “We want the clan to grow stronger. That is what you did while you were gone. It is why the clan is so much bigger there and I doubt you are finished with whatever plans you have.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I am very nervous right now and I am not sure why.”
“It’s probably because some part of you knows you’re asking me to authorize a clan colony in the middle of the most savage war to flare through all of Nippon and to give it to our daughter. Neither the colony’s survival nor hers is assured unless we throw the clan’s military might behind it a lot more than I normally plan to. I have to ask, what brought this on?”
Kasumi laughed softly. “When I ran the Tendo household, I had a great deal of free time. Once everything was caught up, the chores only took a few hours. We had no money so I couldn’t go shopping except for the absolute bare necessities. We didn’t have a flower or vegetable garden so I had nothing to take care of. The library isn’t that far away and books are free to check out. And the one place you can almost guarantee Saotome Genma would not go is a place filled with books. I did a lot of reading. Eventually I read a novel about the Sengoku Period and that inspired me to turn my interests to the history of the era. It would be a good time for the clan to get involved and Mariko would be perfect as a Nipponese dragon to take control of the area. At the time, both the emperor and the Ashikaga shogun lived close by and taking them would allow us to impose our control on a wide region and begin expanding.”
Iain shook his head. “I just wanted to give Ranma and Akane some experience running a business and you want to conquer Nippon and, later, maybe the rest of the world. I’ll have to sit down with the command staff and see what they think since this is going to be pretty complicated.”
“You said something about finding Kozakura a husband,” Giselle said. “Who?”
“Nice try to change the subject,” Iain drained his cup and watched Ayame take it from him before he finished lowering it. “His name is His Highness General Keanellos Grey and he’s my son out of Helesatra. He’s several centuries old and has been interested in Kozakura since I told him about her a while ago and showed him a picture of her. And as for the whole general thing, he’s willing to consider retirement.”
“Why isn’t he already married,” Nishiko asked curiously.
“He’s been married to his job, which was to help turn the Vyshaan military into a modern fighting force, no matter how much it might not want to change,” Iain said dryly. “It’s been a lot of work and only Helesatra’s decree that he gets to kill anyone who is too obstructionist let him ever finish that job.” Iain’s smile was all teeth. “He didn’t have to kill as many as I’d thought he would, at least not after the first group of nobles told him no. That and we’ve been forcing the oldest and most stubborn nobles and officers out of the military since we couldn’t wait for them to die of old age, being elves and all. We’ve been replacing them with people who actually think using their brain is a good thing.”
“He is a nobleman,” Kasumi asked. “You said he is a prince.”
“He was the crown prince before giving that up when he went to the military academy. He’s still a prince and he became a duke after Helesatra confiscated some rebel property and needed someone she trusted to ride herd on it.”
“Who is the heir to the throne now?”
“His youngest sister, Regwyn is the crown princess, although she’s getting tired of waiting for her mother to abdicate. She may end up stepping down as heir and becoming a colonial governess, which would probably mean Helesatra would want another child.”
“I want to meet him,” Kasumi said. “If he intends to court my daughter, I insist.”
“I’m sure he’d be excited to meet you.”
“What are his faults,” Giselle asked.
“He can focus on a task to the exclusion of everything around him. He’s got the wanderlust bug and likes traveling, but we’ve discussed how he might have to give that up in order to have a family. And he thinks Kozakura is beautiful and would be a wonderful partner, even though he’s never met her. Granted, that’s not necessarily a fault, but that’s what he thinks.”
“The local yokai have discovered that she can have a rather overpowering personality,” Kasumi said carefully. “Do you think Keanellos can work with that kind of behavior?”
“She’s a wolf spirit so it’s not surprising that she’s a bitch,” Iain said with a smile. “And I’ve spent several months working with Kozakura when Shikarou gave her to us, remember? There is a decent woman underneath that bitch and I was careful to advise my son on the complete Kozakura. He’s going to have to work to get to see that decent woman and he understands that.” Iain’s eyes met Kasumi’s “It’s better than her approaching you because she thinks I’m the only decent choice to give her children, which she’s already threatened to do.”
“She’s already approached me,” Kasumi said calmly. “While I cannot fault her taste in men and I cannot deny that you would give her the kind of children she wants, I would like to see her with someone besides my husband. Honestly, while I like Kasserine and Ava very much, I cannot understand their relationship regarding you.”
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t really understand it either.”
“Iain, that does not make me feel better.”
“I tried.” Iain shrugged. “If I had known Kozakura’s hidden depths before getting involved with you,” he shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t and I love you, not her.”
Kasumi’s smile lit up her face. “And you love me enough not to sleep with someone new if I do not want you to.”
“Yes.”
“I am happy to hear that. Shikarou would not have been so understanding.”
“You do realize that you want to send the clan into that society, right?”
Kasumi frowned. “I do not understand.”
“During the time period you’re asking us to invade, powerful and rich men kept wives and concubines, often together. Around much of the rest of the world, women are chattel. And prostitution still thrived, even at their social level. That culture is what gave Shikarou a lot of his beliefs about behavior around and with women. While women aren’t systematically oppressed as they were, or will be, during the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period, women still had a rough life and our pokegirls are female. We will have to dismantle Nipponese society and rebuild it from the ground up to make women equal to men.” His eyes met hers. “As you know well, women in modern Nippon are still oppressed by law and culture, and many of them believe that system is proper and correct. They will fight us alongside their men, if they can, and many of them will passively resist our changes even if they cannot. In many ways, it’s going to be just as difficult as forcibly removing a pokegirl from her tamer.”
Kasumi looked thoughtful. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you could be right.”
“I still have another question. Why do you want to do this?”
“The Nipponese suffered a great deal during the Sengoku Period. War swept over the land and chaos followed it everywhere. Before this, wars had primarily been fought by the samurai, but during this period large scale conscription of the commoners into the ashigaru became much more prevalent, especially after the matchlocks were introduced by the Portuguese. They were farmers who were pulled off of their fields and forced to become soldiers and they died by the droves. We can prevent that.” She smiled sadly. “What does the clan get for this? Humans, the one thing the clan lacks large numbers of, and the thing we need here. The clan forces on Toril are primarily composed of elves, kobolds and dwarves. There are very few humans. Humans will be much more easily accepted here on One and the women will be fertile, allowing growth here to help fight the ferals. Additionally, we can recruit among the yokai. The spirit folk were much more numerous during this time and their strength will add to ours and give us bloodlines we’re not related to for our children to marry or mate with.”
“And the rest of the world?”
“With our magic and the forces at our command, the rest of the world shouldn’t be able to bother us much.”
“I am not willing to commit the clan’s forces right now. There is a scheduled meeting of the command staff in a week. You’ll be there too, and your idea will be on the agenda. You will defend it.”
Kasumi nodded. “I will speak to April about it as soon as we return to the ranch. I will want time to prepare my arguments.”
“That would be wise.” Iain put his cup down and rose. “This discussion is over until that meeting. In the meantime, I believe you ladies wanted to see my trophy room. Is that still true?”
“It is,” Kasumi said. “Let me help them clean up the tea and we can be ready to go in a few minutes.”
“Sounds good.”
***
Iain shifted to his full sized dragon form and stretched out before lying down. A moment after he did, Caintigern shifted as well, followed a few seconds later by Nightraven. The air shimmered pale yellow around Iain for an instant. “You have become one of the largest drakes I have ever seen,” Caintigern said in a satisfied tone. “And you look powerful and fit.”
“Can you take a smaller form,” Nightraven was looking him over as she spoke, “and still be adult and sexually mature?”
“I can,” Iain replied. “This is my natural form, but I can take a smaller one. It’s a little stressful, but I practiced a lot in case it turned out to be necessary to do so.”
“Why would it be necessary to be smaller,” Caintigern asked curiously. “You are a magnificent drake.”
“As you said, he is one of the largest and most powerful drakes you have ever seen, and you were Queen, and used to being surrounded by the best of the People,” Nightraven said as she ran a forehand down his wing. “He is the largest male I have ever seen in person. That is the problem. He is too memorable. Dragonesses would fight over him almost constantly unless a much higher ranked dragoness claimed him and took him to her castle. It would make his mission very difficult.” She looked at her aunt. “And he would have to sire many offspring by dragonesses who are not us in order to get any peace whatsoever.”
“Not to mention any really high ranking dragonesses would undoubtedly be somehow related to Blacktooth and so on our kill list,” Iain said as he lifted his head to watch some Allosaurus wander into view. “I will not want to breed with someone like that since you’d want any of her offspring dead as well. To try and avoid this, I reviewed the memories that you ladies have shared with me and measured all of the drakes you’ve encountered, averaged their length and then reduced it by fifteen percent to come up with what I think is a fairly unremarkable drake who still doesn’t look so weak that any drake having a bad day would think to pick a fight with me so he’ll get to beat someone up, at least before I kick his ass.”
Nightraven pulled her hand away. “I would like to see this smaller drake form of yours.”
Iain glanced at her and shifted again. Now he was smaller than Caintigern but still a little bigger than Nightraven. He was much less bulky, but with a lean, wiry look to him reminiscent of a ferret or mongoose. “This is it.”
Nightraven sniffed him over. “I had wondered if this smaller form would suggest weakness, but it reminds me of some of the athletes who competed in endurance contests over long distances.”
Caintigern shoved at his shoulder with her nose, rocking his body. “I like his true form much more than I like this one. A drake should be larger than the dragoness he covers.”
“The idea is that I would change my appearance into something that most dragonesses wouldn’t immediately want to mate with,” Iain spread his wings and snapped them back into their resting position. “Your opinion suggests that it’s working.” His head shifted to look at Nightraven. “And your opinion of it as a potential partner?”
“I did not have the wide range of choices for drakes that Caintigern would have had available to choose from. If you had, wearing this body, paid court to me, I would not have automatically refused your attentions. I would also have not automatically accepted them either. At that time, my research was much more important to me than any drake.”
“Did you still live at home,” Iain asked curiously.
Nightraven’s voice was softer, as if she were lost in her memories as she spoke. “I did not. I left my birth home when my mother became gravid again from her current chosen drake. I had not yet established a permanent home. I would instead stay at something similar to what you would call a hostel while I was visiting a place where I could study. I lived frugally, using my stipend as a member of the royal bloodline carefully and hunting for food on the closest preserve that was reserved for royal use. My research discovered that one of the People, a scholar of some repute, had allegedly left our worlds and established a library while continuing her research into the origins of the universes. It was one of the things I was interested in, and some clues suggested a small number of potential universes as her destination. I determined to locate her and offer myself as her student if I could use her library for my own studies. I brought a copy of my research along as an offering to sway her decision towards my desires.”
“What did she say when you made your offer?”
Her voice hardened. “I never found any trace of her or of any other of the People. I had decided to return to our worlds and see if I could determine anything more about where she had gone when my mother’s warning reached me. Return to your true size.”
Iain shifted back to his normal form and slid sideways until his side was pressed against hers. He extended his wing over her and pulled it down and in, pressing it against her and gently pulling her against his body.
She shifted her head to look at him out of one eye. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to comfort you. This is the closest thing to a hug I can give you unless I climb on top of you and I figure that would get me bitten or scratched since we’re not yet at that point in our relationship.”
“I do not need comforted.” She did not, however pull away or otherwise move and Iain kept his wing where it was.
“Then I’m using you to comfort me. It was a pretty depressing story you just told, after all.”
Caintigern nuzzled up against his other side. “I wish to be comforted.” Iain spread his other wing over her and she let him use it to pull her against his side. A few minutes later she chuckled softly. “I have listened to your women who are not of the People speak of your hugs and the strange power they possess. I dismissed their words as nonsense. I was mistaken in doing so.”
“We will crush our enemies and scatter their ashes on the wind so that, for the first time, they shall do something useful with their existence and help some plants grow,” Iain said. “A hug won’t accomplish that, but the People are at least somewhat social and touching like this is something that neither of you has experienced in quite some time. This should be something that we do regularly, if not often.”
“You will not do this while I am teaching you,” Nightraven said softly. “If you do, I will hurt you.”
“You’ve hurt me before. What’s a little more hurting? If I think you need a hug, I’m going to give you a hug.”
She shifted her head and regarded him evenly. “Does that not violate your precious rules of privacy that I should have with my body?”
“It would if you were clan and not my mate.” He folded his wings and stood. “But you are not and you are.”
“We are not mated yet.”
“You asked me to be your mate and I accepted your offer. The fact that we have not had sex does not mean we are not mates. You have told Caintigern that we are mates. You and I are mates and Caintigern and I are mates. You even swore an oath to be my mate. Are you telling me that was a lie and you are forsworn?”
Nightraven sat up, her eyes intent on his. “I do not fear your alleged fey vengeance.”
“I never said you did but you also have not repudiated your own words.” His head dropped until they were nose to nose. “You are my mate.” He rubbed his nose against hers.
She jerked her head back. “I am hungry and will hunt.”
“How about I hunt, and you feed from my kill?”
Nightraven had been turning away from him but stopped. “That is acceptable.”
Iain looked to his other side. “Caintigern?”
She chuckled from where she lay. “Hunt for my niece. When she is sated, you may hunt for me.”
“All right.” Iain spread his wings as he looked back at Nightraven. “Herbivore or carnivore?”
“You decide. It is your kill, after all.”
So, if she refused it, it was going to be his fault. “Omnivore it is.” He launched himself into the air, Nightraven close behind.
***
Iain adjusted the water until it was a little warmer than body temperature and then picked up the hose. “Are you ready?”
Golden Cloud nodded. “I am. Be thorough.”
“I always am.” Iain hosed her down with the warm water until she was soaked and then hung the nozzle up and got the soap. He began lathering up her fur, being careful to make a lot of foam as he did. “How are the new arrivals integrating into the herd?”
“Theodora delivered another ten unicorns and the herd mares we woke first are helping them as planned. It seems to be progressing as well as I had hoped. Two of these are the first stallions to be awakened and rejoin the herd. I want you to meet them.”
“You know the question I am going to ask.”
Golden Cloud laughed. “I do. You always ask why. They are from the original herd and knew the First Stallion. You behave more like a mare than a stallion and I want you to teach them how to be polite to mares.” Her ears flicked, showering him with tiny pieces of suds. “The mares have seen you and interacted with you as the only stallion, even if you are not breeding them. You are polite and bring them treats. They have found they prefer polite stallions over ones that are not so.” One eye focused on him. “Wisely, you bring me more treats than the others.”
Iain had been treating the mares just like he’d treated horses while growing up. Give them gifts to make them like you and you were much less likely to be bitten or kicked since a friendly horse, once it knew you were there, was busy being friendly to try and get more treats, putting the end that kicked on the other side of the animal from you. “I can try to teach them whatever you want, just understand it’s not my fault if they ignore my lessons.”
“It is their fault if they refuse to learn what the mares want,” Golden Cloud said dismissively. “We are geniuses and a refusal means willful disobedience to what I want and the mares will reward such stallions by spending more time with the stallions who want to learn.”
“So long as you don’t blame me.” Golden Cloud had pretty much vanished into a huge bubble of soapy foam. Iain stepped back. “And now you soak.”
“Make the funny shapes and show me!”
“That’ll teach me to get creative while I’m bored,” Iain muttered. He began using his hands to form the foam into a collection of flower petals around Golden Cloud’s head. When he was done, he took a photograph of it and projected it as a hologram so she could easily see it.
Golden Cloud giggled. “More!” Iain put the phone away and began smoothing the foam down while considering what else to do to use up the ten minutes she was supposed to soak.
Later, Iain smoothed down the lion’s mane of foam he’d built up around Golden Cloud just as his internal timer went off. “Time to rinse.” He took the hose and nozzle, reset the temperature and began washing the foam and soap off of the unicorn. She was standing on a concrete pad with drains that led to a storage tank. There the rinse water would be diluted with more water and, later, the gray water would be pumped to the fields to irrigate the crops.
Once the soap was off, Golden Cloud moved to the trough and began eating the treats while Iain got the blow dryer and began drying her fur. She glanced at him. “Could you provide treats for the stallions to bring to the mares?”
“That would most likely be a lot of work for me,” Iain pointed out. “If I think about it for a moment, it’s pretty likely that if I just put out a tub full of treats for the stallions to take, most of the time I’d come back to find an empty tub and stallions and mares too full to graze standing around nearby. I’ve never seen a fat unicorn before, but I’d be willing to wager that’s what would eventually happen if I just kept refilling the tub.”
Golden Cloud looked as thoughtful as she could with her cheeks bulging with sweetened wheat and peanuts as she chewed. “That is probable. Many of the herd are weak willed and would gorge until they could eat no more.”
Finished blowing her coat dry, Iain began brushing her fur down. “Do you have any idea when you are going to come into heat?” The unicorn mare began humming softly as she usually did when she was being brushed.
The hum stopped as Golden Cloud’s head twisted around to look at him. “Are you becoming less reluctant about breeding me?”
“Honestly, it was the fact that I felt coerced into it that grated so much. As for actually breeding you, I hope it’s enjoyable for both of us and I’m looking forward to it.”
“What of the other mares of the herd? Your blood would be welcome once I am gravid.”
“I don’t know them very well and the arrangement was only for you. It’s why you get baths and so many more treats than the other members of the herd.”
Golden Cloud laughed her wind bells sounding laugh. “Many of the others are jealous of the attention you give me. Some of them say that you are fattening me up to eat me, but the truth is that all of the members of the herd are putting on weight. Our grazing lands have never been so rich and the food so plentiful.” She went back for another treat. “Do I still look pretty to you?”
“You do. Your skin and coat glow with health and you are sleek and vibrant.”
Golden Cloud chuckled. “You take direction on when to flatter me well, stallion. Am I prettier than the mare Dancer?”
Iain started to ask a question and stopped himself before he accidentally said something that Golden Cloud might take as him obligating himself to something new. “Dancer is a Moon horse and a mare. You, on the other hand, are a unicorn mare and queen of the entire herd. There is no comparison between the two of you.”
“You are absolutely correct, and I am very pleased that you recognize that fact,” Golden Cloud’s voice was filled with satisfaction.
Iain finished brushing her down. “And we’re done.” He scratched her behind the ears and she pressed her head into his hand for a moment. “I’m not going to ask if you want anything else because you always do.”
Golden Cloud snickered as she took a last mouthful of treats. “You still guard your words well, stallion.”
“I am not the only stallion anymore and you might want to call me Iain now.”
She shook her head and swung around to face him. “You are my only stallion and stallion you remain. The others have names. I call you stallion as a mark of my favor since you are my stallion. The herd knows who you are. What do you do now?”
“I’ve got some paperwork to review for things you’re not interested in and then I’ve got magical training where I’ll get to show off some things I’ve learned while I was gone.”
Her ears flicked. “I understand you were gone for many years.”
“I was gone for many, many, many years,” Iain said with a smile. “I met several unicorns, but none of them were of your herd and none of them was smart like we are.”
“The Queen has many questions about you. Will you spend time with the herd and answer her questions?”
Iain considered the question. “I can give you an hour and a bit in four days, starting at ten in the morning. It’ll be tight and if she is late it’ll take a while to set it up again. If I run out of time before she runs out of questions I’ll try to stay a little longer but right now things are very busy, so please stress to her to be there either before our meeting or right when it begins. If she shows up halfway though the time I’ve freed up for her, I am going to think she doesn’t think her questions are very important and, honestly, I’m going to think she doesn’t think I’m very important either.”
“With our twee, we understand time better,” Golden Cloud said. “I will speak with her and if she will not meet with you then I will tell you as soon as I know. If she agrees to meet with you and then does not, she is deliberately slighting my stallion and I will be very unhappy with her.”
“I have so far tried to stay out of the internal politics of the herd,” Iain began putting the grooming equipment away. “I’m not a mare and I have way too much politics of my own as it is. That and I don’t want to be a stupid stallion and try to take power from you like the stallion who attacked me when we met did.”
“At times you have been reluctant, annoying and irritating,” Golden Cloud said. “You have never been stupid. Even with the return of our dead to the herd, the foal I will bear from you will be remarkable even among the oldest and wisest of us.”
“I hope you’re right.”
She laughed again. “Just like with the return of our dead, I will be right. You will see and reward me for being correct.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Iain put her grooming box on the shelf. He paused for a moment and gathered up the three boxes that had belonged to Ryan, Silver and Raquel. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take care of these.”
“I will see you later, stallion.” Golden Cloud trotted towards the woods.
Heather had been standing in a corner of the stable while guarding him. She looked sadly at the boxes. “What are you going to do with those?”
“I’ve got a room in my quarters on the Theodora where I keep a collection of knickknacks from the women I’ve lost. I’ll put these there for now.”
Heather fell in behind him as he headed for the Sabine House. “For now?”
“I’ve already got collections for Ryan, Raquel and Silver set up. I started each of them right after their deaths. I’ll add these things to them and, in about a year, I’ll pick out a couple of items with the fondest memories and get rid of the rest to make room for the next fatalities.” He frowned slightly. “Speaking of which,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
“Come along and you can see.” They entered the house, went downstairs and passed through the door to the Danger Room and again through the door to the Theodora. “Please take me to my quarters.”
Heather grabbed his shoulder and suddenly they were standing outside his quarters. She let him go and followed him inside.
Iain led her to a door. “Please wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“Ok.”
Iain was back a moment later, holding a small, ratty looking bundle of cloth. “Thanks. Take me back to the door, please.”
She grabbed his and teleported them. “What is that,” she asked as they retraced their steps to the Sabine House.
“Something I have to return.” He reached out over one of his delta bonds. Scheherazade, please come to the house for a moment. No emergency.
The Dread Wolf appeared. She looked around quickly. “What is it?”
“I said it wasn’t an emergency.” He held up the cloth. “I figured you’d want this back.”
Scheherazade bent down to peer at it. “Is that a sock?” She straightened. “I don’t wear socks but thank you very much.”
“You swiped this sock from me a long time ago.” Iain unrolled the sock and pulled a gold chain with a gold pendant of some kind on it. “To use to hide this in in your clothing drawer before you were killed.”
Scheherazade gasped loudly as she looked down at it. “My escudo!” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “You kept it?”
“Of course I kept it. I keep mementos of the special times I have with everyone who died. This was something really special just for the four of us.”
Scheherazade spun to face away from him and knelt in one motion as she lifted her hair up to bare her neck. “Put it on me.”
Iain unfastened the clip and carefully put the necklace around Scheherazade’s neck, making sure the latch closed properly. “There you go. Just remember to go take it off before you do anything strenuous or we’ll probably never find it without a locator spell.”
She stood, turned and picked him up off the ground in her hug. “Iain, I’m going to go right upstairs and put it in my safe. I wanted you to put it on me again, just like when you gave it to me the first time.” She carefully lowered him back onto his feet. “Do you have Eve’s?”
“I gave it to Lucifer so she had something Eve had treasured as much as she treasured Lucifer.”
“That’s very sweet,” Scheherazade said. “I have to get back to training.”
“Go.” She headed inside as Iain turned, stopping when he saw the tears running down Heather’s face. He reached out and wiped them away. “Are you all right?”
In a blur of movement, Heather hugged him so hard he grunted. “I’m not a sociopath and I could feel how wonderful that was,” she said as she let him go. “It made me cry a little. You love her so much.” She wiped at her eyes and smiled. “No, I’m not weird for this, you’re weird for not understanding.”
“Then I’m weird, I guess. Anyway, I’ve got paperwork in my office and you’re not going to sit in there and so I don’t need a guard anymore. You can stand down.”
Heather nodded. “I’ll see you later.”
“Most definitely.” He headed back into the house.
***
Iain looked around the room as Kasserine called the command staff meeting to order. All of the women, including Kasumi, the guest speaker, were intently watching him and not each other.
Kasserine looked around the table. “Does anyone have anything important to start off with before we get to Kasumi?”
“I do,” Iain said.
“Please proceed.”
“Morgana has left on her mission to recruit and bring back some minimal dragons that she believes will want to join the clan. She has also expressed some interest in joining the clan but has not formally requested to be considered.”
“What will that mean for us,” Ninhursag asked.
“Minimal dragons are tiny dragons, the size that Morgana is,” Iain put up some holograms. “They typically come in a range that represents all of the metallics and the chromatics and they look almost identical to the larger true dragon breeds they were derived from. There are other minimal dragons, including some of the gem dragons and others, but they’re much rarer. Each is a dragon, albeit on a much smaller scale, and has the full range of attacks and magic that a true dragon of that type would have, including breath weapons. However, unlike the true dragons, they can all be considered neutral in alignment. As far as intelligence goes, the chromatic and other metallic types are just as smart as the golds and silvers are, and the golds and silvers are just as smart as their normal sized counterparts are. As an extreme generalization, they are friendly, somewhat childish a lot of the time and, if they adopt someone, protective. They tend to hang out in flocks that are an admixture of the colors and metals. Attacking one of these is just asking for a quick and messy death.” He looked around the room. “And if they adopt us, they will be some of the best babysitters and watchdogs you could ever find.”
“How many dragons does Morgana intend to bring back,” April asked.
“She didn’t say, so we’ll all find out together. If she brings back more than a few, their numbers will grow quickly. Minimal dragons almost always lay clutches of anywhere from two to six eggs. Offspring are as precocious as any dragon and tend to be raised by the entire flock. Minimal dragonesses are sexually active from age ten and can lay clutches every other year if the environment can support it. Anyways, that’s all I’ve got right now.” He looked around as he reached for the water decanter and filled the glass in front of him. “From the way that everyone is ignoring our guest, I think I can safely presume there have been some meetings that I wasn’t invited to, you’ve all made your decisions and now it’s time to try to convince me that what you want to do is in everyone’s best interests and that I want to do it too.”
Vanessa chuckled as Kasumi flushed. “I knew you’d realize what had happened almost immediately. It’s almost a pity there wasn’t a pool. Ninhursag, you’re up.”
Iain blinked. “Wait, you ladies didn’t bet on something? Is everyone feeling all right?”
“It’s hard to win something worth the trouble of keeping a pool for when everyone would be betting the same way,” April said. “Now you please stop with the commentary. Ninhursag?”
“Yes, we’ve met and discussed things with Kasumi,” Ninhursag began. “Yes, we have already decided and, yes, we’re here to convince you. There’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t have any rules saying you have to be involved with all of the meetings and we are supposed to act as an advisory board for you.” She smiled. “Sometimes it’s easier to advise you if we’re all advising the same action.”
“Sometimes,” Iain replied, “I’m sure that’s true. But I am not going to start rubber stamping your decisions and adopting them as my own just because you are all in agreement.”
“We can all agree and still be wrong regarding the best interests of the clan,” Kasserine said. “We understand that it is your place to act as our ruler and our place is to try and help you make the best decisions for the clan, but that those decisions are yours to make. If we ever start thinking that we’re supposed to be making those decisions instead of you, it’s time to replace us.”
“And Theodora and I would never agree with anyone trying to supplant you,” Daya said from where she stood near the door.
“I’m glad that, at least theoretically, we’re all in agreement on that. Now, since Kasumi doesn’t look upset, I presume you think we should conquer Nippon.”
Ninhursag nodded. “We have reviewed the histories of the Onin War and the Sengoku Period that followed it. It was not a good time to be Nipponese, especially not a commoner. Our intervention would save a lot of lives and prevent a lot of hardship that would be turned into loyalty to Grey. And we do need humans for here. Because of their reproductive practices, kobolds will not be able to help with the taming of the feral population and, according to Theodora, the elven and dwarven populations of the clan are unlikely to be willing to come here in any great numbers.”
Iain drank half of his glass of water and put the glass down. “Have you considered what this will take? You have fought battles and won all of them, but this will be a war and, with the possible exception of Lucifer, you have never fought a war. At that time, Nippon’s population is somewhere around fifteen million people. Yes, you can defeat any army that you face from that time period, but conquering land means taking and holding land and you don’t have much experience with that and, even considering the Sisterhood’s forces, we don’t have the people to rule over that many people. There would be no choice but to involve a significant percentage of the clan’s forces on Twenty Three and they have their own issues that they’re dealing with. It may be necessary to deal with their problems first to free up the resources that they have that we will need before addressing the situation in this Nippon.” He looked around the room pointedly as the women looked at each other. “And where is Mariko?”
Kasumi looked puzzled. “She is with the children.”
“You want her to become governess. She should be here.” He reached out with his twee, including Theodora and Daya in the message. Mariko?
Yes, Father?
Theodora is going to give you a guide. It will bring you to where the command staff and I are. We are here meeting to discuss your future and how it might unfold. I thought you might be interested in hearing it.
I will run to you, Father.
I will bring her safely here, Theodora told him.
Thank you.
Kasumi’s frown deepened. “While she looks like a six year old, Mariko is only a month old, Iain.”
“Do you remember our talk about my children and their precociousness? My children are born more,” he paused, “aware of themselves than you are used to. Mariko is not ready to leave and become governess, not for at least ten more years, but she is already more than capable of making decisions about her future.”
Kasumi gave him a humoring smile. “I remember that discussion, but Mariko has not shown any sort of,” she broke off when the door opened and Mariko ran into the room, skidding to a halt next to Iain.
The door closed as Mariko bowed formally to the group. “Mothers, Father, I have been summoned and I am here.”
Iain gestured at a chair. “Sit. Theodora is going to give you a recording of the discussions that these ladies had about plans to invade and conquer a Nippon on a different world. She’ll also give you some additional background information while doing so. Daya is available for a military or tactical consultation if you have questions for her.”
Mariko turned her eyes on him. “Father, will you also be available for this consultation?”
“If you want. I’m not sure why, but yes.”
“Father, while playing with my sisters is entertaining, it is not much of a mental challenge. I have been keeping busy by reading through the reports of your time on Twenty Three. I respect your methodology and trust your advice because of what I have learned from them.” She smiled at Kasumi, who was staring at her. “I am sorry, Mother, but I have been deceiving you a little. I was afraid that if I did not deceive you, you would immediately wean me and force me away from you. I want to be around you and I still need the nutrition that your milk provides. And you’re nice and warm and smell right.”
Kasumi reached out and gathered Mariko into her arms, smiling as her daughter snuggled into her. “I would never force you away from me. I made that mistake with Kozakura. It’s just that you surprised me with being so mature.”
“I am not mature, mother. I will not be mature for another decade at the very least. I was never unaware of who I was, from the instant that I woke up as I was being born. Father said that all of his children are like this. He also said that Xune was like this even though she was not of his bloodline.”
Kasserine raised an eyebrow. “Iain?”
Iain nodded. “She’s right. Dragons are born or hatched with a great deal of innate knowledge of themselves, their abilities and the world around them. It’s not anywhere near complete, which is why so many abandoned wyrmlings don’t make it, but it’s there, which is why some of them do very well for themselves. It does not, however, mean they don’t want or need parents. Just like with non-dragon children, we give them guidance, life lessons, training and information that will help them to be successful and help them to define who and what they want to become as they get older. We protect them from their surroundings and from themselves. They also still need a lot of socialization.”
“I also want to know who my siblings are,” Mariko said. “I don’t want to accidentally pick one to have children with me because our bloodlines are obviously superior to all of the others that I have seen so far. We are so superior that it would be easy for me to make that mistake if I don’t know who they are.”
“That’s right, I forgot that part” Iain said. “Humility. We’re also needed to help teach them humility.”
“I am only speaking the truth, Father.” Mariko looked slightly upset when everyone laughed.
“You are,” Iain conceded as Kasumi showed no signs of relinquishing their daughter. “And sometimes the truth is funny while still being the absolute truth. The idea that our blood is so innately superior to anyone else’s is arrogant and it could easily become arrogant to a fault if it makes you dismissive of others just because they’re not family.”
“Yes, Father.” Mariko cocked her head. “Father, I am looking at what Theodora and Daya have sent me. While the Sengoku Period is an excellent time to inject the clan into the Nipponese power structure as far as the shoguns and daimyo are concerned, we must also consider the Imperial court and the emperor.”
“What do you mean,” April asked as Kasumi suddenly looked thoughtful.
“The emperor is widely respected and revered among the Nipponese, and especially among the peasantry. At that time, they are figureheads for the shogun but tend to be ambitious and wish to return to direct rule. They would want to make us subordinate to them and are respected, so we will have to include their influence into our calculations.”
“I see what you mean by precocious,” Lucifer murmured to Iain.
“What do you see as a solution,” Iain asked.
“I would say that I would have to marry a future emperor and incorporate the royal lineage into the family, but there is a problem.”
Vanessa nodded. “You wouldn’t be the ruler. It would be your husband and then your son or daughter.”
Mariko looked surprised. “I hadn’t considered that yet. I was concerned that the shogun and the daimyo would fight harder if they thought the emperor was going to bring them to heel. They wouldn’t know to be worried that we intend to do the same thing and would fight us as foreign invaders who they would think they could coopt if they lost.”
Kasumi reached for her water and took a drink. “I had forgotten about the emperor since he is a powerless figurehead in my world, even if he is not one here. However, his influence is still real and will be much stronger during that time period. What do we do about him?”
Iain leaned back in his chair. “Have you and the others made any plans beside agreeing that this a good idea and then planning how to convince me to agree with you?”
Ninhursag shook her head. “Other than discussing Kasumi’s idea, no, we haven’t. After all if we can’t convince you then any planning is a waste of time.”
“Do we have to do this during the Sengoku Period?”
Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “It was the best time because of the chaos. Do you have another time you think might be better?”
“I might. It’s over a century earlier, though. The situation is as chaotic, but just not for very long, giving us a much smaller window of opportunity, but a window nonetheless.”
Lucifer frowned. “I’m reviewing that time period. The only thing that comes to mind is the Kenmu Restoration, but I don’t see how that could help us.”
“The Kenmu Restoration is when our plans would finally come to fruition and we could make any problems involving the Imperial family go away. But I was thinking our work would begin twenty years before then.” He met his daughter’s eyes. “Most of the work at that point would involve you and how well you can act for several years.”
Mariko frowned. “Explain.”
“What was that, young lady?”
She gave him a winsome smile. “Please explain, Daddy.”
“Better.” Iain looked around the room. “The Kenmu Restoration happened due to the ambitions of Emperor Go-Daigo. In the timeline we know, he ruled from 1318 until 1339, when he dropped dead and Emperor Go-Murakami replaced him. His first wife or consort was from the Fujiwara clan, her name being Fujiwara no Kishi. They were apparently very fond of each other because they eloped in 1313 and officially married in 1314. Also, in 1314, she presented him with his first child, an unnamed daughter who didn’t live very long. If she had lived, she would have been nineteen when Go-Daigo succeeded with his second attempt to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate.”
“You want me to replace her after she dies, Father?”
“Understand that this will not happen until you’re at least sixteen. Kasumi would fight doing it any earlier because she wants to raise you and so would I, since there’s a lot you’ll need to learn about that place and time and about being a Grey. However, you’re a bit off. I want you to replace her right after she’s born. We’ll take the daughter, fix whatever killed her and raise her as clan. You will wait a few years, reveal to Go-Daigo that you’re a dragon, infer that you’re a throwback to the bloodline of Toyotama-hime that flows through his veins, and that you know about his ambitions to return the power to the throne and, for a very specific price, offer to help.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened. “He makes her his heir.”
“Exactly. Even if he later changes his mind, and he most likely will because of the time period and their ideas of male superiority, we can later use that to place Mariko on the throne, possibly in 1335 when the samurai revolt over Go-Daigo’s policies. It’s still not going to be easy. Both the samurai and the court nobles will have agendas and, unless we just smash the entire place flat, making them clan will take time, just like it did in Keltormir and Vyshaan.”
“You will still have to smash them flat,” Kasumi pointed out.
“We will and we can, even if we don’t include the forces from Twenty Three. Ninhursag’s troops and the Sisterhood can smash any samurai or peasant army flat. And I propose we use modern technology and magic a lot to help that happen. Since Mariko will be openly kami, they’ll figure it is magic. It’ll help we can recruit ambitious and smart Nipponese from all levels of society into the clan since the stratification of the caste system won’t be implemented until the Tokugawa shogunate, which won’t come about if we do this right. That’ll let us start building local military forces and loyal and, just as importantly, not corrupt local government officials. Pair these officials with pokegirls, probably a lot of Celestials and Officer Jenny along with the other breeds we want to use, and the changeover begins.” Iain grimaced. “And that means we are going to have to establish a supply line with some pokegirl world where we can purchase the girls we’re going to need and make them clan. Shit. I’ve been avoiding that but I guess there isn’t any choice now.”
“We can pick a world where we have never been,” April suggested. “Then we establish our identities and a cover business and start buying.”
Iain began chuckling. “You know, with my harem, I could probably be a serious contender for winning the championship of any league we set up shop in.”
Ninhursag grinned anticipatorily for a moment before shaking her head. “No, that would probably be bad. They’d expect you to start as a novice tamer and have a starter and all. None of us could pass for that starter and so you’d have at least one more pokegirl to add to the family.”
“Not to mention,” April added, “as soon as you’d been a tamer for more than a week, we’d have to upgrade your tamers box during Sadie Pokens to whatever the largest size they have for all of the girls that would be trying to join us. It still wouldn’t be big enough, but we’d do what we could.”
Lucifer smiled serenely at them. “It would not come to that. Just as soon as some official tried to order Iain around, everything would come apart when he told this person what to do with that order.”
Ninhursag and April looked at each other before turning to Iain. “She’s right,” they chorused.
“The fact that our family does not train to battle to unconsciousness,” Kasumi was obviously fighting not to smile, “and instead to kill would probably quickly become an issue once you started receiving challenges from other tamers for your quality harem.”
“Wait,” Iain protested, “I was not suggesting anything. I was merely making an observation.”
“And you were making it,” Ninhursag pointed out, “to rank and status conscious pokegirls who, especially the ones in this room, are used to being the biggest fish in the biggest ponds.”
“Let me formally apologize if it seemed as if I was pandering to the ambitions of my most ambitious pokegirls in any way,” Iain said somberly. “That was not my intention. I don’t need a league trophy to show we’re the best, especially since if we did do that, we’d have to take the trophies in every league just to prove we were the absolute best of all and that would make all the other tamers cry so loudly that we would lose sleep from the noise, possibly even in orbit.” Everyone laughed. “Theodora?”
“Yes, Iain.”
“I am formally approving of this plan, at least of the initial stages of it. We’ll have to explore the local universes to find an acceptable one for the takeover of Nippon in that time period and also look for one that has pokegirls but hasn’t heard of us or anyone named Wolf who had a pokegirl blood trait involving ears, tails, teeth or claws.”
“Yes, Iain.”
He looked at Ninhursag. “Satisfied?”
“For the most part, yes. Who is going to be doing the exploring to find these universes?”
“I’ll talk to Yuko about borrowing a cup of memories of that time period as well as where she was then so as not to cause trouble. Then I’ll shadow walk with my security element to that time and go next door to begin looking. As long as the history matches up, I don’t expect to have to look long. After all, we are going to cause a branch as soon as we start changing things. I intend to start a few years before the time we’re interested in so we can gather intelligence and set up a small infrastructure and a door before moving there. We might even have time to get Ranma and Akane that experience we were talking about since running a business is almost the same no matter what time period it’s run in.”
“That would nice,” Kasumi said quietly.
“As for the pokegirl world we’ll use, we have enough of a foundation for a localized dimensional map with the worlds we already know about that Daya and Theodora can send reconnaissance drones through sequential universes faster than we could visit them. They’re looking for pokegirls including Nurse Joy, Night Nurse, Office Jenny and other LEO breeds and no evidence of anyone like us, Kerrik or Shikarou. That actually shouldn’t take too long to perform from space.”
“By opening smaller gates just for the drones,” Theodora said, “and using the laser communication system across the gate, I can open the gates very close to Luna that still won’t be seen and send through drones to invade their communications quickly and efficiently without crossing over. I can put small thermonuclear scuttling charges on the drones and aim them at the sun before I destroy them when I’m done instead of bringing them back to here. That will mean I don’t have to open entrance and return gates for me or Daya, which will shave days off of each investigation since transit time from the gates is a huge factor.”
“Just remember to do visual checks too,” Iain cautioned. “We don’t want to find the perfect place only to discover on arrival that everyone has antenna instead of ears because you visited a place that’s not as close to the others as you thought.”
“That is a very good point,” Daya noted. “Visual checks involving direct observations of a random and significant number of the local sentient population have been added to the protocols that Theodora and I are discussing. Direct observation is required to overcome any potential misunderstandings resulting from digital effects and their popularity.” She smiled. “We should be able to begin opening gates and conducting the first surveys late tomorrow night.”
Ninhursag looked surprised. “That’s much faster than I thought would be possible.”
“The necessary assets are already available. While more gate generators would speed the process, we have enough to begin the project. What will take longer is Iain’s side of the program and waiting for Mariko to finish growing to maturity.”
“That reminds me.” Iain refilled his glass. “What is the status of this project going to be? Is it a clan survival issue?”
“I believe,” Kasserine said slowly, “that we should break the project down into its three primary components and decide on the status of each of them individually.” She smiled at everyone. “Otherwise, if the entire project is a clan survival related issue, we should move immediately and without waiting for Mariko to grow to maturity since she can play her role now. I don’t believe that should happen.”
“Neither do I,” Kasumi said firmly.
“You don’t get a vote,” Ninhursag said as gently as she could. “You’re our guest here today and not a member of the command staff.” Kasumi’s eyes glittered as Ninhursag turned to Iain. “Having said that, I agree with Kasserine. Mariko needs to grow up. How would you break the program down, sister?”
“I think there are three components, the first being Mariko reaching adulthood,” Kasserine said. “The second component is locating an appropriate pokegirl world or worlds and establishing a presence there so we can begin purchasing the pokegirls we will need for it.” She looked at Theodora. “Can we have a random name for this program please?”
Theodora nodded. “Orb Weaver.”
“Thank you. The final component of Orb Weaver is locating a suitable Earth with a Nippon that is what we are looking for and establishing a presence there to begin gathering intelligence on our opponents and the Imperial family.”
“The second component should be clan survival,” Vanessa said. “We need girls now, both for this program and for the coming feral encroachments on humanity all over the planet.”
“We have a declaration of clan survival, which means we vote,” Kasserine said. “Survival.”
April nodded. “Survival.”
“Survival,” Theodora and Daya said simultaneously.
“Survival,” Ninhursag added.
“Survival,” Lucifer said.
“Survival,” Vanessa finished. She looked expectantly at Iain.
He nodded. “Fine, survival. Theodora, consider the second component of Orb Weaver to be a clan survival issue. Issue a project name for it.”
“It is Barn Spider.”
“Does anyone think that the third component is clan survival related,” Kasserine asked.
“I don’t really want it to be,” Iain said thoughtfully, “but it may need to be. Prioritizing it gives us several things. It lets us set up an intelligence operation, it lets us determine the best kind of identity to establish ourselves as, it lets us begin surveying the spirit folk population and it could let us begin acquiring humans immediately through the purchase of nuhi.”
“What is that,” Vanessa asked as Kasumi suddenly looked uncomfortable.
“Nuhi are slaves as defined under the legal code of the time. They could be bought and sold and we could do like I did for Eilistraee with the drow and purchase them, bring them here and free them. Some might want to be recruited to help us with Orb Weaver, but even if they do not, they’ll be new DNA and fertile people who could become clan, Texans or want to return to Nippon. They can also, of course, be partners with pokegirls.”
“Iain is right,” Kasumi said quietly. “I am not proud of what happened then with my people, but it is true. And spirit folk kept slaves too, both of humans and other spirit folk. They will also be for sale with the right incentives.”
“If we are buying nuhi,” Iain added, “we might want to consider branching farther out. Not that far from where we’ll be living are several caliphates. Muslims keep lots of slaves and that would let us buy more from other ethnicities, increasing our genetic variety. And, if we turn Nippon into clan, even if we don’t expand we will end up squaring off against Muslim slavers and possibly the caliphates as well. They’ll consider us heretics and it will probably come down to us or them. That’ll give us more DNA. It will also potentially give us locals who are clan who can later be spies in these areas since they’ll look like everyone else.”
“Survival,” Theodora said.
“We have a survival declaration,” Kasserine said. “That means we vote. Survival.”
“Survival,” Ninhursag said. “Although I do not like that it means Iain will be sent off.”
“With a security element,” April said. “Who would you take, Iain?”
“I want Ganieda and Scheherazade for this. Both are fast, both are lethal and I want them to frighten the locals if need be. Illusions can be used to minimize their presence until I want them to show themselves.”
April smiled. “They’ll do. I’ll have a word with them before you go. Survival.”
“Survival,” Daya voted.
“Survival,” Theodora repeated.
“Survival,” Lucifer said.
“And survival,” Vanessa said.
“Survival,” Iain drained his glass. “Fuck, like I don’t have enough to do already.”
“The determination is that this is a clan survival issue,” Kasserine said formally. “Theodora, we will need a name.”
“Cross Spider.”
“How does the naming work, Father,” Mariko asked.
“Orb Weaver was chosen randomly by Theodora,” Iain replied. “The components of a project like this get names that reference the project name. In this case, both spiders are orb weaving spiders.” Iain looked at Kasserine. “Kasumi will likely be involved in Cross Spider, at least in the stages where we establish an initial presence there. She might be in Barn Spider too since she knows how tamers behave and isn’t a pokegirl. Mariko is essential to Orb Weaver as a whole. I suggest they be included in the briefings for Orb Weaver.”
“I agree,” Kasserine said.
“We can set up specific meetings for the project to compartmentalize Orb Weaver,” Theodora said. “It means one extra meeting a week for a while and then tapering off to one a month or one a quarter.” She smirked at Iain. “Want me to translate that into tendays for you?”
“Ha. Ha. While I didn’t want extra meetings of the command staff, this is clan survival so set them up. You and Daya will play hostess in rotation so it doesn’t screw up the regular rotation.” Iain looked around the room. “I don’t think these extra meetings need to be face to face, at least not right now.”
“Agreed,” Ninhursag said. “Classification?”
“The entire project is need to know only,” Iain said. “Discuss only in secure rooms.”
“That means if one of you tries to talk or otherwise communicate anything about it outside of the secure areas,” Daya said quietly to Mariko and Kasumi, “we will stop you.”
“I want Bellona read in,” April announced. “She’s our intelligence specialist.”
“That’s fine,” Iain replied, “but she may not be able to go to this Nippon for the next year at the very least.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to have enough problems with the spirit folk until they learn to leave us alone. I don’t want anyone pregnant or any of the children, with the possible exception of Mariko, going there until they learn kidnapping us is a really bad idea.”
April blinked. “Bellona is pregnant?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said Bellona can’t go because she’s pregnant.”
“No, I didn’t. I said two different things. You’re drawing an inference between them that is based on facts not in evidence.”
“You spend entirely too much time around Ygerna and Gormlaith,” April said as she folded her arms.
“Maybe I do, but be sure and tell Bellona that pregnant women can’t go when you read her in.”
“You are such a dick.”
“And we’re glad he is,” Ninhursag said as women laughed. “What’s next on the agenda, Kasserine?”
Iain Grey
Harem
Ninhursag Grey - Elfqueen & maharani
April Grey - Duelist & beta
Dominique Grey - Blessed Archmage
Pandora - Fiendish Archangel
Zareen - Nightmare
Sofia - Ria
Vanessa – Evangelion
Lucifer – Megami Sama
Ganieda – Snugglebunny Splice
Heather - Elfqueen
Marguerite – Unicorn
Scheherazade – Dread Wolf
Irena – Sanctuary Goth
Lynn – Dire Wolf
Rosemary – Mistoffeles
Dianthus – Elfqueen
Candace – Nurse Joy (kami)
Bellona – Dragonqueen
Elizabeth - Vampire
Outer Clan
Golden Cloud – equine unicorn
Arianrhod -Fey Goblin Female
Satellite Clan
74 male Goblins
89 female Goblins
Queendom / Outer Clan
73 Elves
Dionne - Elfqueen
Adrianna - Elfqueen
Heltu - Wet Queen
14 Wet Elves
Dead Harem
Eirian - Silver Dragoness
Aurum - Gold Dragoness
Skye - Blue Dragoness
Emerald - Green Dragoness
Beryl - Red Dragoness
Julia - human
Ling - Cheetit
Matilda - White Tigress
Liadan - Twau
Sorrel - Armsmistress
Natalie - Blazicunt
Maria – Slutton
Alabaster – Dragoness (white)
Onyx – Dragoness (black)
Lapis – Dragoness (blue)
Garnet – Dragoness (red)
Iolite – Dragoness (purple)
Malachite – Dragoness (green with white swirls)
Dabria (was Loviatar) – Dark Queen
Omisha (was Hel) – Demoness
Viersunuth great wyrm blue true dragoness
Talyl – drow commoner
Zarza – drow commoner
Sabrae – drow commoner
Sintree – drow commoner
Alyfaen Dinaen – drow, matron of House Dinaen
Phaerxae Dinaen – drow, former matron of House Dinaen, mother of Alyfaen
Selsharra of Evermeet
Mother Children
Vanessa
Myrna (Age 4)
Saoirse
April
Dorothy: Duelist (Age 3)
Meara: Duelist
Regan: Duelist
Lucifer
Olivia: Megami Sama (Age 6)
Seraphina: Megami Sama
Miram: Angel (Age 5)
Zareen:
Caltha: Nightmare (Age 0)
Kim: Nightmare
Xanthe: Nightmare
Epona: Nightmare
Philippa: Nightmare
Nott: Nightmare
Nyx: Nightmare
Sofia
Anna: Ria
Esmerelda: Ria
Monica Chambers
James: Jamie Harris kid (Age 2)