Thirty days passed in the blink of an eye. They both learnt a lot of unusual things about their new homeworld in the meantime.

The most important thing, in his opinion, were the names. Or what he suspected were names.

“Ellie, are you jinxing us?” He heard a squeaky voice chirp. The boy, who was referred to as Ellie, was currently trying to uncurl his baby legs, consciously. But his efforts were in vain as the two tiny appendages had been extremely uncooperative.

He had read an article on some tabloids that, in rare cases, babies could walk before 3 months. He hoped he could too, but his hopes were meant to be dashed again, it seems.

“It’s Elrhain. Show some respect! And it’s not improbable, see? Our mothers take turns taking care of us, but we never see our father. You realize how these feudal societies work, don’t you?” He thought back on the other woman who would breastfeed them every other night, whilst the first one with six fingers, Elrhain’s birth mother, would take charge of their meals in all other times.

The first time this second mystery woman visited was a day after their initial investigative activities. The bubbly leaf-headed young woman hugged Elrhain’s mother, hugged the servants—he assumed by their subservient behaviour—she hugged an elderly woman and finally hugged Agwyn into a loving squeeze.

That was the name of the other baby, Agwyn. Though Agwyn was adamant in nicknaming themselves, Ellie and Annie.

When Agwyn’s mom realized she didn’t have enough hands to hug Elrhain—because she was holding another of those glowing crystals with her right palm—she conjured a stream of water to pick Elrhain up.

Even though Elrhain’s own mother went pale in the face, the curious boy didn’t mind the magical embrace at all. If anything, the water hug felt more refreshing than the stuffy physical ones.

Then, after putting Agwyn down, she held Elrhain in her arms and showered him with ten minutes worth of snuggles and smooches. That the woman had no legs horrified Elrhain for a good few minutes, but he soon lost his worries in the warm cooing. Though from the corner of his eyes, he could not help but glance at her robes where her knees should have been. There was only sloshing water there kept in the shape of a slug’s lower half. Freaky, but nothing he could change to his own liking.

Elrhain also noticed some discrepancies in Agwyn’s mother’s relationship with Elrhain’s own. The whole thing looked like a forceful, one-sided sisterly bond, with Elrhain’s mother being quite wary and respectful of the slug woman initially.

Hence, a few days ago, he suggested to Agwyn, “Do you think my mum is the concubine, and your’s is the principal wife?”

That day, Agwyn didn’t stop crying till she fell asleep in exhaustion; her eyes, nose, and ears were still plump violet in anger the following day. Elrhain was stunned. No matter how childlike their frames were, their minds were still that of old bags of bones. Agwyn should not have reacted like that.

But considering that he also acted like a bona fide toddler sometimes, without even his conscious control, he put the mystery of their volatile psych in his ever-growing list of things to investigate.

Today, he had inadvertently brought the topic up again while practising his pathetic motor skills.

“My crib neighbour, Ellie dear, stop assuming things like that, okay? It’s rude! Look at our bodies; look at all these freaky disparities in our bodies. Do you really think we are half-siblings?” Agwyn complained while puffing up her cheeks. She had been somehow crawling around the crib with her noodly body in an attempt to jump-start her carrier in physical sports.

According to her, crawling was a significantly more efficient manoeuvre to master at their growth stage than actual walking. He saw the logic in that but felt positively disturbed at not being able to do something as simple as a stand.

“You’re the one assuming, not me. People in this place have leaves for hair and water for legs. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of our other siblings, if we have any, that is, is a Manticore or a Charizard.” Elrhain replied to her grumbles with mean logic of his own. It’s not like he wanted them to be siblings. But observations said otherwise.

He had also reached the limit of bodily exertion for that day, so he had nothing better to do than heave while lying flat on his back and push Agwyn’s many buttons for some casual entertainment.

But Agwyn would not relent. She refused to step back and just go with Elrhain’s teasing with this topic. “Do you think that if they were fellow wives, they would have such a good relationship? In feudal societies back on Earth, people used to murder their fellow wives.”

“Maybe they do have a good relationship? Otherwise, why would they even raise us together like this? Even breastfeeding us in turns.”

“T-that, I do not know.” Agwyn wore a dismayed expression as she stopped in her tracks. A few seconds ago, she was circling around Elrhain’s fallen form like a drift car, mocking him for being so weak. That energy had left her.

‘Speaking of breastfeeding,’ Elrhain looked at his mother—it was still hard to accept the fact, but not as much after a whole month of being washed and breastfed. The slit-pupil lady was walking towards their crib with some leafy towels, a bucket of water, and a few other necessities from their room entrance.

She whispered in the strange language of this world what could only be expressions of adoration, and picked him up by the armpits. She cooed at him, kissed his forehead, and followed up with several other forms of motherly affection.

On most days, this lady would spend every waking minute beside their crib, either weaving clothes out of unknown material or simply playing with the two kids till they fell asleep.

Today, someone had called her away early in the morning after their first breastfeeding session. Whatever happened, she looked mighty happy right now.

Elrhain’s mother loosened her silky robes at the shoulder. He knew what was to come, and he was numb to it at this point. Elrhain thought back on the first day of this absolutely new experience,

***

“Wha-, let go of me, woman! Help! What are you doing? Wait, that’s lewd. It’s immoral, I tell you-pfftmm” Elrhain struggled with all his baby might, but that seemed to just excite the women even more. Elrhain could swear he saw the woman’s golden slit-pupils turn pink.

He had never been so humiliated in his life.

Logically, he knew it was natural. Emotionally, he felt like he had sinned, and he was sinned upon.

Not to mention his own damn body betraying him at the most crucial moment. The moment his mouth touched the cherry tips of his mother’s soft breasts, it started sucking uncontrollably like a starved vacuum cleaner, and his entire body relaxed into a melty cloud. As if the milk injected him with a dose of elephant tranquillizer in some heinous scheme to force him to suffer the indignity defenceless.

After what felt like a week-long torture session, the young mother giddily laid her son down on his tiny prison.

“You seemed to be enjoying yourself,” Agwyn harrumphed, but her voice also leaked a strange sense of glee. He couldn’t tell if she was making fun of him or was feeling salty.

“Y-You wouldn’t know! I-if you ever tell anyone about this then—Wait….” He stopped, eyes wide. Then the just dishonoured boy smirked with mirth.

“What?” The other baby asked in confusion. She got her answer when the elated woman gently picked her up into the same position Elrhain was just in. “Hold on a bloody minute, you’re not even my damn mother-pfftmmmph”

‘Ah, now we both share this dirty secret.’ He watched on in equal parts glee and shame as his breast friend was defiled right before his glistening eyes by none other than his own mother.

***

Lunchtime was over, and Elrhain watched his skittish mother fidget around the room like a headless pigeon. He’d never seen her this nervous, and he’d seen her nervous practically every other day over the past month.

He asked Agwyn, “What do you think is going on?”

“Maybe someone special is visiting? She keeps looking at the door.” She answered, and no sooner did the door in question open wide with a large gust of wind.

Agwyn’s mother entered the room with a loud exclamation while skipping with her slug shaped legs. She slid past her entourage and scooped both the infants up into a squishy cuddle.

Elrhain, who became dizzy after a short merry-go-round by the reckless slug woman, sensed a large shadow lumber over his tiny form. He felt a shiver run down his spine as an unmistakable premonition of doom washed over him, and his eyes and arms involuntarily grabbed towards his weak-legged mother. The unreliable woman was fidgeting by the wall with watery eyes.

‘This traitorous- Wait, hold on.’

Now that he looked carefully, she had a more reverential, if slightly fearful look on her face as she looked in his general direction.

No, she was looking behind him.

Past the fluttering hair of Agwyn’s mother stood a man straight out of a barbarian fantasy. He had long braided hair and a Viking’s beard. His eyes glowed Lilac and nostrils flared with fire.

The barbarian wore no upper clothing, revealing the bulging muscles and the symbols throbbing all over them. They pulsed with fury, both the muscles and the symbols. They promised violence and absolute dominance on Elrhain’s barely one-foot form.

The little boy felt the sweat on his back trickle down like a cascade, and a salty taste assaulted his taste buds, almost making him vomit. The bubbly voice of Agwyn’s mother faded into the background as his eyes crossed with the hulking predators.

The barbarian squinted, his teeth biting at his lower lips—the braided beard menacingly swaying in the air.

‘M-Momma.’ He tried to speak, but his voice came out empty. Elrhain tried to turn his head around but found it stuck in position by an invisible vice grip.

So he did the only other thing he could do.

He screamed, then peed his pants.

***

Elrhain lay down on the crib with a fresh pair of pants. His eyes reflected his empty souls as the boy just stared up at the glowing rock on the ceiling, searching for answers as to why the actions of someone has unintended consequences on others.

“Pfft, y-you peed in her breasts, ahaha! I thought we practised holding it in! Hells, why doesn’t this world have a video recorder?” Agwyn was literally rolling on the crib, giggling her guts out. She had fared far better in that encounter with the troll than he had.

‘Hmph,’ Elrhain snorted. She didn’t see what he saw. She was safe in the crib all the while he had to oppose blood-lust head-on. It was like waking up in the middle of the night to find the boogeyman staring right at him, just a thousand times scarier. At least the boogeyman was imaginary.

The beastly snarl on that man’s face was real.

Well, the snarl had now morphed into an apologetic expression.

The barbarian in question was currently kneeling on the floor. The servants had already been ordered to leave the room while Elrhain’s mother took care of the… messy aftermath.

Agwyn’s mom had punched the barbarian in the guts after that.

Elrhain didn’t even know why he was so afraid. If earlier the man had a face like Elrhain stole his last cookie and owed him a billion credits, right now he sounded like a kicked puppy getting scolded after chewing through all 15 pillows in the house.

He saw the man stand up after Agwyn’s mother finished delivering her stern piece. Elrhain’s mom was standing on the side with an awkward expression on her face, not interfering with the slug woman and big guy’s one-sided feud.

The man soon loomed over the crib again, his face perplexed and unsure. Now that Elrhain watched closely, the barbarian was covered in tattoos similar to Agwyn’s.

“He’s your dad,” Elrhain said.

“… looks like it. Why is he making faces at you?” She asked.

“You should have seen the look on his face earlier.” He grumbled back.

With hands more enormous than their bodies, the barbarian very carefully picked Agwyn up. Like she was the most fragile thing in the world.

Agwyn giggled, deciding to reward the man. And it worked like medicine. The man broke into a shit-eating grin, and those watermelon-sized eyes of his melted like they were made of candy. He whisper-shouted something excitedly, and Agwyn’s mother rushed to his side, the fury all gone.

She taught him how to hold Agwyn in different ways, and he listened like a filial disciple. Soon after, the man was guffawing merrily with his daughter giggling in his arms.

The more Agwyn did something, anything, the more the man changed from a prairie wolf to a domestic pug.

‘Ah, he’s been tamed.’ Elrhain thought. He once read an article in a weekly father’s magazine on how most fathers were biased towards daughters, especially if the girls were born late. It seems this was the case here, too. Presuming they were siblings, of course.

‘But, maybe I can….’ He contemplated for a bit.

Agwyn made some more cute baby noises to let her parents know she was tired. It was extraordinary how expressive her baby-speak could be at conveying complex emotions. Her mother smacked the big guy on the shoulder and gestured him to put Agwyn down.

The big guy obeyed. He tugged the fluffy fur pillow under Agwyn’s head, but then the man went on to look at her with a gaze full of yearning.

Elrhain saw the perfect chance, the void in the barbarian’s heart, and made his sinister move. He made eye contact with Agwyn, and the other baby guessed right away his motifs and scooted over to the side.

Just when the man was about to retract his hands from the crib’s fence, Elrhain grabbed a large pinky with his tiny fingers and cried, “Agoo!”

A strategy that always got his mother’s pupils to turn heart-shaped, he did not feel like he would fail against the man-shaped doggo.

And he was right!

The man’s eyes first turned wide in shock! He looked startled, and his eyebrows squinted extremely hard. He looked at the five tiny fingers tenderly hugging his pinky. His expression morphed from confusion, then fear, and finally to absolute amazement.

“Aiyaaa,” Elrhain struck on, pretending he was a cute chubby cupid in a cuteness simulator. He tried to grab the man with his other hand too, but lost his balance and clumsily fell over with a yelp. He quickly sat up again and turned his watery eyes upwards, right through the big guy’s eyes to his softest heart. Elrhain’s hands searched for something to hold but found no destination. And with that, large droplets of tears started tumbling from his eyes as he sobbed like a wronged daughter-in-law.

The man looked at a loss. He turned his gaze towards his wife, whose eyes were smiling into crescents. Agwyn’s mom called over Elrhain’s own with a soft whisper.

The other woman had seen what happened, and her face was beaming too. She still looked a bit reserved when speaking with the larger man, yet it did not stop her from pointing at his pinky.

The man slowly extended his smallest finger towards Elrhain’s outstretched palm, his face masked with nervousness and anticipation.

Elrhain didn’t disappoint. ‘Hook, line, and sinker!’

A silent few seconds followed his third baby-squeak, “Kyaa~n,” and the man burst into another round of boisterous laughter. He picked up Elrhain like his wife showed him earlier and tossed him up in the air.

The two women blanched, but the big guy expertly caught Elrhain without even the slightest discomfort. Then, up and down again and again, he played with the little boy.

It reminded Elrhain of the thrill rides back on Earth. He quite liked those. So he giggled away. Gradually, he found himself in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Another natural reaction of this body, he assumed. But he didn’t mind. It made his cute act feel genuine instead.

Soon, he, too, grew tired. He yawned mightily, and the barbarian finally put him to rest on the soft crib bedding, just as gently as he did with Agwyn.

He whispered a few more sweet nothings to them both and then, being pulled by Agwyn’s mother, left the room with the ladies.

“So…” Agwyn asked. “What do you think?”

“Did you see how they both followed him out the door? I’m telling you, they are all married!”

Agwyn slapped him hard and refused to talk for the rest of the day.