The Quantum Wanderer

***

Marcelo’s POV

Next morning, we go down for breakfast. After I finish eating, I ask Huginn.

“So, how are things going over in the Holy Kingdom? You guys have been gone for a couple of days.”

“Are you missing us that much, papa?”

I think a little bit.

“A little bit.”

“Awwwnnn… Father is going to cry… Do you want something for the tears? A handkerchief? Perhaps a matching pair of panties?” Muninn says.

When he is about to laugh, Huginn holds him by the neck, against the table. The plates rattle with the impact. She is smiling to me, while Muninn is trying to get away, with her nails against his neck.

“Sometimes you give hubby too much freedom, papa.”

Cecilia and I laugh. Ruby snorts. Opal, Shandon and Aquamarine smile. Charles starts a laugh, but it dies the second Muninn looks at him.

We laugh even more. We finish breakfast. Huginn goes on Cecilia’s shoulder, Muninn stays on mine when I go outside to meet Edward. I enter the carriage when he opens the door.

“Good morning, friend.”

“Good morning. How are you?”

“Fine.” He smiles. Not a normal smile, but a very jovial one, almost childish.

“You seem happy.”

“As I should. Things are calming down on my side. The storm going on in the Holy Kingdom is not bad for us, our borders are safe, there is no external pressure. In the past there was this constant worry about border lands. Not anymore, apparently.”

“Really? How is the Holy Kingdom, overall?”

“The factions are still gathering. More and more cities are falling to the crow queen, I hear. The country is starting polarized. The old church against the new one.”

“The new one? Are they stablishing a new religion?”

“Yes. She is being seen as Wrax’s saintess. The church of Wrax is spreading across the land. That is kind of positive, though.”

I laugh.

“How so?”

“For one, they don’t have this bully culture about them as the church of Nergal does. I don’t know if it is because it is a new religion, but right now they don’t have the same thirst for power.”

I nod. It makes me happy that it is a little better than the previous one. We get a moment of silence. Edward clears his throat.

“By the way, I expect you to have a good surprise today.”

“Ok.”

The carriage arrives at the school of magic. We say a short farewell, I hop off. It goes back on its way.

The students around are eyeing me up and down. Given my hearing, I can’t avoid listening to their hushed conversations.

“Another one?” “Like lady Cecilia…”

I go to the classroom. A group forms around me, looking at Muninn. Some of the girls try to pet Muninn. He rolls his eyes and fly to beam close to the ceiling. The girls are disappointed. The boys are curious. Lucas in particular, is staring at me, with a challenging expression.

“Of course you had to be an apostate!” He snarls at me.

I smile and shrug. The girls give him a bad look. They have more pressing matters.

“How did you get him to land on your shoulder?” “Did you know the dean’s daughter also has a pet crow?” “Are they smart?” “Have you heard about the house with crow tree?”

The questions continue, until I raise both my hands. I point at the girl that made the first question.

“Well, I met him in one of my travels. We ended up adopting each other.” I point to the girl that did the second question. “I have heard about that, yes.” I point to the next one. “Yes, crows are very smart, but he and his wife are the smartest ones.” I say, with a smile that might mean just a pet holders pride.

At this point, professor Maggio enters the room. We go to our seats. He looks at Muninn, perched close to the ceiling.

“That is a huge coincidence…” He mutters.

He clears his throat.

“Attention everyone! We have had a new imperial edict passed yesterday, and you guys know how serious those things are. We haven’t had one for the longest time…

“Article first: cruelty against birds is now against the law, punishable with 10 lashes of whip. While they can still be hunted and killed for food or self-defense, unprovoked cruelty is now going to be punishable.

“Article second: Crows are now to be considered Empire’s Mascots. They cannot be killed or hurt. Penalty is going to be akin to noble murder or battery, without patent mitigation.”

He rolls the parchment he has. He looks towards the class.

“Who can tell me what the article second means?”

A girl in the front row raises her hand. The professor points at her.

“It means that killing or maiming a crow is going to be judged as if we had killed or maimed a noble.”

“Very good, Julia. There is some additional stuff in there, though.”

A girl that was using her arm as a pillow answers, without raising her head.

“Being a noble won’t get you off the hook.”

“Perfect! Well, with that out of the way… Does anyone know how this crow got here?”

“It is Marcelo’s.”

“Oh.” The teacher says. He sighs.

“Anyway, class, let’s move along.”

The class is pretty much a repeat of the previous day. He passes some exercises for the students to draw mandalas, choose the correct rune for a particular element (fire, air, water, earth), and so on. Still, time passes fast.

The bell rings, professor Maggio leaves the room.

“WHAT THE FUCK!!!” Lucas practically jumps from his chair. He has his right hand over his left shoulder.

The class starts laughing. Muninn flies to my shoulder. Lucas turns around.

“KEEP YOUR FUCKING PEST ON A COLLAR, FUCKING PEASANT!”

Yes, Muninn dropped a ‘bomb’ on the kid’s shoulder. A smelly one, at that. I don’t remember bird poop smelling so bad, but then again Muninn eats mostly meat. Come to think of it, I have never seen him pooping before. Really odd.

Lucas leaves the classroom, probably for a restroom to clean himself a little. I look at Muninn. He looks up and whistles a short tune. Dedi, Travis, Mayara, Chet and I laugh.

“That is just!” Dedi says.

“I know, right?” Chet comments.

“Do you think I can pet him?” Mayara asks.

I look at Muninn and nod. He sighs. He hops a little bit to the side. Mayara reaches slowly with her index finger. The tip of her finger disappears among the feathers. Muninn stretches his head up. The other guys also stretch their fingers, but he just jumps to the side, avoiding them. When they stop trying, he positions himself in front of Mayara again.

The boys laugh.

“At least I can understand that!” Dedi says, laughing.

Some girls are looking back, kind of envious of Mayara. I look at Muninn.

“There, now you have your fan club.”

He ignores me, with his head up.

Professor Curie enters the room. She looks at Muninn being petted by Mayara. She mutters the same sentence as professor Maggio.

“What a coincidence…”

She shakes her head, and heads over to the desk. She starts the class.

“Class, we are going to review some of the materials we use for healing potions.”

She turns around, and starts drawing some leaves on the punish white board. Lucas enters the room at this moment. He sneaks behind her.

“I saw that, mr Lucas. You are to bring me 6 healing potions recipes tomorrow in your handwriting. Be prepared to have to execute one of the recipes yourself.”

“Yes, madam…”

He turns around, stares at me with fury. And here I thought he couldn’t get any worse. Not that it bothers me.

Professor Curie proceeds with her class, drawing leaves, talking about different plants. She makes some exercises. Not that different from professor Maggio’s class. Once the bell rings, we go to our noon snack.

We sit in the table that kind of became our spot. The girls are on their to join us. I don’t really see them, but there is a round crowd moving.

Dedi and Chet are still laughing about Lucas when they sit down. Dedi turns to Muninn.

“Man, you were awesome!”

Muninn puffs his chest. Mayara points out to him.

“Wait! Does he understand what we say?”

“I think he does. You would have to ask him, though…” I laugh it off.

Travis holds his closed fist close to Muninn’s paw.

“That was perfect. A lot of people would love being able to do what you did, little guy.”

Muninn bumps his fist. I laugh at the fact that only Mayara is noticing that his actions show a lot more thought than they should.

The girls sit with us. Cecilia has Huginn on her shoulder. She jumps/short fly to the table, by Muninn’s side.

I can see Lucas talking to the employees that provide the snacks, pointing to our table. The staff person apparently ignores him. Some of the people around him, in particular knights, are getting angry by the second. He is going to make his life very hard in this school.

Cecilia ask how things are going, Chet tells her what happened earlier. The girls, including Huginn, stare at Muninn. He shrugs. He has this almost imperceptible smile on him. Just barely enough that the girls and I notice, but others don’t.

Everyone is laughing.

The girls mention that their day is going normally. Ruby mentions that she stopped another kid’s aura with her hands, but it wasn’t a big deal. She expected more. Dedi and his group are impressed with the feat.

After a light talking, the snack is over, we go back to our afternoon classes. We have the meditation.

I don’t shoot anything during magic practice, and this time the professor doesn’t tell me to go wild.

The day ends normally, I get my ride with Edward. I go home, have my dinner, and retire for the day. Huginn goes to do her thing in the Holy Kingdom, while we sleep.

“PAPA! PAPA! WAKE UP!”

I wake up, still very drowsy. Huginn is on top of me. Muninn is on the bookshelf.

“What is going on?”

The girls start waking up as well. We are still drowsy. We look at Huginn.

“Hikari’s baby! She is starting the contractions! She is asking for you!”

The adrenaline wakes me up immediately. The girls have the same reaction.

“What do I do?” I ask. I look around the dragonesses. They are way more relaxed than I am. Cecilia is sitting on the bed, stretching her arms.

I open a portal.

“Hold on there, scared cat! What do you think you’re doing?” Cecilia asks.

“Going to help?”

“Take a breath.”

Cecilia stands up from the bed, she dresses a robe. We all do. I put some shorts. I am a little bit anxious, I have never participated in something like this.

“First, “ Cecilia continues, “we have to get some help. Given the conditions with Hikari, we have to take someone that knows about birthing a child, that can be trusted.”

“Ok…? Where?”

“I am going to get my mom.”

“Does she know about that stuff?”

Cecilia snorts.

“How do you think she had so many kids? Who do you think helped my sisters? Just by the cheer amount of grandchildren would provide her enough training to be a specialist. Besides that, she helped neighbors. Or do you think my parents had the gold to get choir of priests around the seat?”

One of the things the church was famous for was charging a lot of coin for cures. Sending in a priest for a birth is something that only nobles would be able to afford. Farmers had to rely on local knowledge, on both the techniques and healing plants around.

Cecilia goes out the bedroom. We get down to the living room. About a quarter of an hour later, Cecilia comes down. She brings her mom in tow. I turn to them.

“What about Charles?”

“Don’t worry about my father. One headless chicken is enough.” Cecilia answers.

Ruby snorts. Shandon and Aquamarine laugh a little. Shandon lets out a comment.

“And it isn’t even his egg!”

The jokes and the way they are behaving get me calmer. I turn to Lucille.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“Most of it. We are going to need a lot of towels, preferably that have gone through boiling in water, and some sharp knives, preferably boiled as well.”

I go up to our room, grab my bag of holding and come back down. It has all sorts of dwarven knives you can imagine.

Huginn opens a portal, we jump through. We are taken to a very large room, there is one bed in the very middle of it, with a wood frame and curtains. Sitting on it is Hikari, her hand over her stomach, and Akiko, providing her some support. Hikari makes a pained face. Akiko tries to mimic the breathing that Hikari should be doing.

They are sitting on a puddle of red liquid. Lucille immediately looks at that, and sticks her hand in the somewhat colloidal liquid. She smells it, then she tastes it.

She tilts her head to the side and looks at Cecilia.

“What is going on? This… This is not blood.”

Cecilia sighs.

“Things may look a little different than normal, mom.”

Lucille goes to Hikari, and places her hands over Hikari belly, with her eyes closed. She waits for around half a minute and then she opens her eyes, with a smile.

“The child is moving. It is still moving into position. There are some hours to go.”

She turns to Akiko.

“Is there a doctor you want to call? The father?”

Akiko presses her lips.

“The walls have ears. Things are not quite simple…” She looks at the amniotic red liquid.

Lucille turns to Cecilia.

“Is there anywhere private we can go?”

Cecilia thinks for a minute.

“Perhaps the elves? Our other options would be making a mess around some courts.”

I open a portal to our home in the land of the elves. When we jump out of it, Ipê is already there.

“Good night, big brother!”

“Good night, Ipê. I wonder if you can help us…”

The other girls come through the portal, supporting Hikari.

“Oh! Of course.”

After the portal closes, a chair raises from the floor, around Hikari. It looks like one of those beds where the woman can put her legs spread apart. I scratch the back of my neck.

I leave some knives on top of a chest of drawers.

“I think that I may be getting in your way.”

“Nonsense, honora-“ Akiko starts to say.

“Yes you are! Hikari needs privacy!”

“Do you want me to send anything to you?”

“Bucket, towels, water, something to boil the water.”

I open a portal towards home. I search the kitchen, and I manage to find a bucket in a bigger cabinet. I go upstairs, I retrieve a new towel from our room. I open a portal just big enough to pass the bucket. I send the bucket with the towels inside it to them.

I close the portal. Not much I can help now. I strip the robe and lay down on the bed, unable to sleep.

***

Cecilia’s POV

It is very nice seeing my mom just going over and beyond. Hikari gets another pained expression. Mom sticks her fingers inside her, and smells again what is coming out. My mom turns to me.

“Do you have any Motherwort?”

“What for?” I ask.

“For pain. She is not bleeding, so we can use it. I am also going to need Motherwort and WishGarden AfterEase just in case.”

I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“I can help, sister.” Aquamarine says, with a smile. She touches Hikari’s head, and her pained expression soothes immediately.

“Don’t relax her too much, though.” Mom tells her.

Aquamarine nods. Mom inspects Hikari, waiting for the dilatation. The labor keeps progressing. At the end of hours, the baby finally comes out. Hikari is spent. Mom holds the baby upside down and gives it a little smack on the butt. It starts crying. She cleans the baby with a humid towel. She wraps the baby in towels, and hand it over to Hikari.

“A very healthy baby… boy?”

Akiko snatches the baby from Hikari. She opens the small cocoon mother had created with towel and looks at him. It has a tail. Currently, still wet, the towel wasn’t able to clean all the liquid from it. Tears roll down her eyes. She puts the baby on the cupboard, the closest surface, and takes out a knife.

“NO!” Hikari shouts.

Opal holds Akiko’s arm with the knife. Akiko tries to move the arm, but she can’t. She would have better luck moving it against steel.

“You don’t understand, “ Akiko says, tears rolling down her eyes, “we have to cut the tail! Or they are going to find us!”

“NO! NO CUTTING MY SON!”

“But… But…”

Ruby snorts.

“You do not have to maim this child!” Opal says.

“Yes! No matter who, we can help.” Ruby says, hitting her own chest.

After some moments, Akiko relents. She sits down.

“You might as well understand what you are messing with.”

She lets the knife go, on top of the table. She sighs.

“As you already know, I am not from around here. I am from another land, across the big desert. Honni is what we call the land. Our way to dress is different, our language is different, our gods are different.”

The baby starts moving, Akiko wraps him up in the towels again. She puts the baby in Hikari’s tired but careful arms.

“I come from a long line of priestesses. Our job is to the be the human part in the channel with the gods. We are educated since children in different arts. Archery, dancing, singing, reading and writing, etiquette. Everything to turn us to better servants.

“The gods also have their communicators. They are spirits that can assume several shapes. Their most known shape is that of a human with fox ears and tail. Kitsune.

“In our religion we are as important as the Gūji, but with different tasks. While he is responsible for coordinating the kannuchi, the priests, I am supposed to relay important messages from the gods.

“The messages don’t really come that often, though. For a long time, I thought that I was just going to be a figurehead, supposed to get married to the Gūji after serving my tenure in the temples.

“You can imagine how surprise when he came into my room. At first, he had Gūji’s appearance, pretending to be drunk, trying to approach me. I pulled out my kodachi, telling him that one of his heads would be lost if he kept going.

“He laughed out loud, clapping, assuming his true shape. One of a very beautiful man, with fox ears and several tails behind him. He placed his index finger on the tip of the blade, to move it aside, I pressed it forward just a little. It prickled his finger.

“He laughed even more. He told me he was happy to meet me. He had a message from Midori no Sama, a Yama-no-kami. He delivered me a scroll. I did not lower my little sword. I picked the scroll with my other hand. He was having fun with the situation.

“He stepped back, until he was by the balcony, and then just threw himself back. I ran to the balcony, scroll in one hand, sword in another, but he was already vanished. I took a look at the scroll. Some people were starting to build houses too close to mount Furikama.”

“Next day, I delivered the scroll to the Gūji. He was also surprised with the new message. His predecessor had not received a message, and now he was receiving one. He opened the scroll. He really thought that he was special because he got a message. He was really disappointed.

“For the next couple of weeks, I kept meeting suspicious priests that would ask me the strangest things. Each time, a different face. They would also bring me sometimes a flower here and there. Eatable, sweet, flowers.”

I look at Ipê at this point, she is pressing her lips, shaking her head. Akiko continues the story.

“They are known to be tricksters. At some point, no matter the shape he would assume, I would recognize him. A flower in my room, to try to see me changing clothes. Birds. Other people. There was always this aura.

“Until he got tired. I thought he would eventually just stop and go back to his reign, but he stayed around. At some point, he was just a fox, pretending to not understand what other people would talk around him. I would spend whole afternoons watching the flowers and petting him.

“At some point, he started visiting me as human. We got attached. We fell in love.”

She looks at Hikari, and puts a strand of hair behind her ear.

“We managed to keep everything hidden, until something wonderful and scary happened. I got pregnant.

“When I noticed, I was so worried that I didn’t know what to do. The Gūji, in a selfless act, assumed the child in my belly.

“The gestation was longer than normal. When the contractions came, a fox stayed by the room. The Gūji didn’t know what was going to come out of my belly. He was half expecting it to be some normal human child, the idea of me carrying a youkai seed was a little hard to believe. He became a believer when the gestation extended.

“For the birth, he called in a trustworthy midwife. Once the baby was born, the fox became my Kage in front of the midwife. You should see her face!

“He told me that he had to cut her tail, lest she would be found by the others. They would not tolerate the sin. And so he did.

“But it was too late. They came for him. The midwife tried to cover for the baby, she had her throat ripped by the female that appeared in front us. He placed Hikari in my arms, and next thing I know we are both in a strange land.

“I worked in the city, and with the years I was able to buy a small inn. That’s when I met all of you and honored guest.”