***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Magnus***

Teresa and Etan Frost regarded me in a way which felt very uncomfortable. At my age, and considering the solitary lifestyle I enjoyed before I came to this world, I would have never expected to find myself in a situation such as this one.

It felt embarrassing to sit in front of my woman’s parents to be scrutinized like some teenager who she had brought home.

I looked around their living room, hoping that Astra would return soon, but my better half had 'stepped out' with my little sister in tow, which left me to suffer her parents’ inspection alone. We had returned to their estate right after the Council meeting, much to Ivona's relief.

When they just kept staring at me, I looked down at myself. “Do I still have Hector's blood somewhere?” I thought I washed it all off back in the washroom at the Hall of Law.

“I wasn't certain whether my daughter made the right decision, but at least it doesn't look like you are squeamish,” Teresa mused while she kept staring. “But I can't help but think she made a terrible mistake. Tell me, Magnus. How are you two going to get your hands on more zipper DNA?”

“I don't understand,” I replied, not knowing what this was about.

“Zippers are notoriously hard to catch. And they swarm when attacked,” Teresa explained. “Getting meaningful amounts of meat is both incredibly hard and dangerous. Add their intelligence to this behaviour and they seldomly fall for a trap twice. Most times, they even send out a scout to check whether a carcass is safe before the rest of the flock swoops in. That's why most experienced people won't even attempt to harvest them.”

I licked my lips, remembering the Faraday cage with the skeleton at zippershit creek. “Well, having the mutation made me almost immune to their electric shocks. And I found a better way than trying to catch one, though finding a way to domesticate them would be nice. In the meantime, it was enough for us to harvest their eggs at one of their hatching grounds.”

Should I mention their daughter had been shat upon by hundreds of the little monsters?

Probably not.

“What other abilities did you bring to the table?” Etan asked. “I can see you got some nightstalker. That's a good sensory asset.”

I quickly rattled off Gurney's evaluation. It felt so long ago, but it had been just a few weeks since we said our goodbyes. I had to remember to write him and Mark a letter. Maybe I would include Nolan, the blacksmith. His spetum had served me well, but after almost a month's travel the blade urgently needed maintenance.

“We have to stock up on some of those,” Etan mused to himself. “I am afraid the zipper issue is something we won't be able to help you with. Nobody is insane enough to hunt them for a living.”

“We should still have a month's worth of egg yolks for both of us,” I pointed out.

A woman entered the room with a folder in her hands and smiled. “I have the documents, sire, lady.”

Teresa waved her over and took the folder from her, together with an archaic-looking fountain pen. She retrieved a single piece of paper from the folder and placed it on the tea table in front of me. “Sign this.”

“What's that?” I squinted my eyes at the pretty document. It quite clearly stated my name in golden letters.

“A formality. Your deed of acceptance into the Frost family,” Teresa explained. “You are a part of clan Aerie now and therefore need the proper documents as our daughter's partner.”

I flew over the text, noting it only stated the date of my arrival and that I was joined with Astra Frost and therefore part of the Frost family. Not seeing any harm in it, I took the fountain pen before I hesitated.

“Which name should I go with?” I asked, more so to myself than my parents in law.

Etan scoffed. “Just go with Tulkas if you are worried about traitors. This is just a formality to register you in the clan.”

I thought about it before I signed with my real name, not wanting to smudge my relationship with Astra with a fake name. “It will be interesting to see whether someone will take an interest in these documents. When someone asks about the inconsistency, I can just claim that Tulkas is my nickname.”

It felt strange to write my name after so many weeks in the wild, but by taking my time, I managed to make it look passable.

“Wonderful.” Teresa took the document back. “Now we just have to get your sister to sign hers and the other elders will squabble for nothing once they realize her importance.”

I tilted my head and studied the pretty woman who didn't look much older than Astra.

Teresa was a beauty, but her features and face were much softer than Astra's, making it quite obvious that the two weren't related. Compared to my better half, she could also boast a larger chest.

Not that I was a chest guy. Astra's hips and by extension her hourglass figure were equally attractive, even if she was much less endowed.

“How would that work?” I asked, remembering just in time not to stare. “I understand I practically married into the family, but my sister doesn't have any such claim.”

“You have to get over your Earth conventions, boy,” Etan grumbled. “We do no such thing as marriage. Marriage was a thing that could be all too easily broken up. Here on Tirnanog, we take a partner for life and that's it. There is no backing out.”

“I never intended to back out,” I corrected him with a glare. Gurney had been clear enough about this part of my new reality when he recruited me for his program.

“Anyways,” Teresa interrupted. “What my dear partner meant to say is we will simply adopt your sister and make her part of the Frosts. The Council won't have any legal way to get to her, even if they somehow manage to win a vote.”

“Is it necessary?” I asked. “Can't she just stay here at your estate as long as the Tates won't vote against her? And why are you still so afraid that the other clans would want to get their hands on her?”

“Yes, it's necessary,” Teresa answered with a stern expression. “It's just a matter of time until they realize her importance. Politically, as a witness, and potentially for her abilities. Once that happens, someone will try to get power over her. And she can't stay restricted to this estate forever. Once she is part of the clan, she will be persona non-grata for the other families. As for the Tates, they are our allies, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they can’t be pressured. There are scenarios which would force them to choose between the well-being of their clan and…”

She waved her hand and left the rest unsaid.

“It's fine,” Ivona spoke from the door. “Astra explained everything to me while we were refreshing ourselves.”

I turned and found my sister and Astra entering the room.

She walked over to our benefactors and signed her adoption papers. “I don't like it, but it makes sense under the circumstances. It's not like I would be able to stand being cooped up for months until it's time to get my sister.”

I forced myself to smile, knowing there would be an argument between the two of us as soon as the winter was over. She would want to leave with me, while I was inclined to have her stay here in safety while I searched for our youngest. But for now, I said nothing.

Astra clapped her hands together, drawing my attention. “Now that's settled, why don't we pay Thalia's family a visit? I already organised an appointment at their clinic!”

“Clinic?” I asked.

“Yes!” Astra took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Do you remember the issue with our poison resistance? We have to let an expert check out our situation. I am also sure they might have suggestions on how to improve ourselves. Ivona, you should come too. Maybe they can learn something about this mystery evolution of yours.”

“Please take some guards with you,” Teresa said regally while she added Ivona’s adoption papers to the folder. “I doubt anyone would be bold enough to intercept a carriage with our crest on it, but one cannot be too careful.”

Ivona and I were dragged off by Astra and half an hour later we arrived in the Tate's clinic through another tunnel.

The Tate's medical services were a semi-public institution. They took payment from those who could pay, while less wealthy people got access to their abilities for free.

I was a little baffled to find members of the Tates walking around in doctor's outfits when we walked down a white hallway a few minutes later.

“You are staring,” Astra informed me with a frown.

“Sorry, just surprised,” I returned my focus to following my partner. “Back at the Old Camp, everything was so... 'rustic fallback medieval style'. This place is more like Earth than I expected. Maybe early 20th century?”

Astra sighed and nodded. “The Old Camp's social structure broke down. They aren't capable of supporting a society like this one. They also don't have the numbers. There are at most a thousand people in the Old Camp. Clan Aerie has over twenty thousand.”

We entered a large room where we were greeted by a familiar face.

“Astra!”

Thalia gave Astra a friendly hug and extended the same gesture to Ivona. “I've gotten my mother to check you guys out. You will have the best assistance possible!”

“Really?” Astra beamed. “That's better than I hoped for.”

“Oh, and just so you know, we have Hector in one of the lower recovery wards,” Thalia explained with a grin. “Sienna takes every chance she gets to avoid that area. Maybe you should avoid the place if you don’t want to run into the Moras.”

“Don't talk bad about people who aren't responsible for their actions,” Sienna Tate entered the room with a sheet of paper in her hand. “That poor boy was set on a path he couldn't walk. If anyone can be blamed, then it’s his parents. They gambled for power and lost.”

“Didn't look like it to me,” I mumbled before I could stop myself.

Sienna nodded and turned her attention to me. “That's the problem. Nobody considers Hector’s history when he flips out in front of people. His parents allowed him to take on the evolutions of a rockshell and a spiker. Both are very aggressive species and as it is with many mutations, their instincts carry over to the recipient. Added on top is the issue of Hector being an impressionable teenager at the time and the problem becomes obvious.”

“I can't say I felt much of these instincts you are talking about,” I admitted. “Well, aside from my mouth watering when I see raw meat.”

“Then you are in luck, but that's why we are here to take a look at you,” Sienna replied. “First, we take a blood sample.”

“You still have working medical devices?” Ivona asked with big, round eyes.

“Nothing too sophisticated,” Sienna admitted. “But we retain a lot of the knowledge. There doesn't need to be a high technological level for some simple analysis. Things like how fast your blood clots, how your immune system reacts to foreign intrusions, your blood-cell count... Such things are easily done without sophisticated automation.”

She walked over to a locker at the wall and took out three stacks of baggy training suits. “Get yourselves dressed so that we can begin.”

For the next two hours, Sienna ran us through a series of tests.

Not only were our physical abilities evaluated through various exercises on training tools, but the Tates also had machinery for evaluating our sensory abilities.

To test my control over my Second Sight, I had to sit in a closed off room, one of the few I had encountered so far which had electrical lighting. Then they varied the light levels to see how fast I could adjust.

Sienna even thought up a way to test my ability to create electricity by having me charge a bank of lead batteries that were rigged together to function as one of the clinic's power backup systems.

Our final stop was Sienna’s office where she had us sit on a comfortable couch while she organized the testing results.

“You are probably the densest source of energy we have access to,” Sienna mused after finishing a few calculations. “If we had a few dozen people with your evolution, we could probably find a way to solve the colony's energy problems.” She looked at me with a smirk. “I do hope you and Astra have immediate plans at procreation.”

“Err...” I swallowed, not knowing how to react to this bluntness.

“We are trying,” Astra replied in my stead.

“Good!” Sienna returned to her documentation. “Though, it can take months for a newly partnered pair to be successful.”

I shook my head at their open-mindedness on this topic. “How exactly would that even work – if it works?” I asked. “Do eventual children come out with all the evolutions of their parents or...”

“It's always a mix between the parents' primary evolutions,” Sienna explained. “For you, it would be the zipper and for Astra, it's the treemonae. Your children will gain random traits from both sides until what could be called their primary evolution slots are filled up. Once they get older, they will be able to gain new evolutions just like any previously normal human.”

“If they aren't monsters,” Astra pointed out dejectedly.

Thalia explained further when she saw the question in my eyes. “Sometimes, evolutions can leave the parents just fine but have their offspring turn out... inviable. Imagine someone like Hector who is semi-functional in our society, though he is an extreme case. Pair him up with another person who has problematic evolutions. Now imagine one of their children rolling the worst-case scenario.”

I winced. “The kid gets all the fucked up traits and none of the good. How bad can this get?”

Thalia pressed her lips together.

Astra shrugged. “One of my childhood friends fell in love with someone she shouldn't. They partnered up and tried their luck anyway. The outcome was horrible, like in one of those bad horror movies. The guard had to seal their living quarters and burn everything in them. Otherwise, we would have had another Abomination case on our hands.”

I looked at Astra, unable to hide my horrified expression. Did they burn the parents too? I didn't want to ask.

“Don't worry,” Sienna assured me. “That's very unlikely to happen in your case. Astra didn't only watch how your skills match, but also what would happen in case of random intermingling of your base traits.”

“How can you say that?” I asked. “I thought you knew nothing about the zipper mutation before I came here?”

Sienna rolled her eyes. “Indeed, there are never guarantees with new evolutions, but everything I see hints that there should be no issues. None of your mutations overlaps. You are both sane and not affected much by your instincts.”

Astra looked at a wall. “That’s why I talked to you several times before I proposed. It wasn’t enough to get to know you, but I at least needed to see how your evolution affected your emotional state.”

“Which brings us to the conclusion of your situation,” Sienna added cheerfully while she rifled through the stack of documents which she had accumulated over the course of two hours. “I can say Gurney got it almost right, given his limited access to testing equipment. In the case of the Carrion Eater trait, he simply lacked the full picture. I would reclassify Carrion Eater as a more general form of 'Carrion Metabolism'. Which also explains your poison resistance.”

“So, any suggestions on how to proceed?” Astra asked.

Sienna pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t take a new evolution for as long as you think you can still advance your current abilities. Magnus still hasn’t grown his filaments to their full length, though he should start exercises to form some clothes with them. I cannot comment on the limits of the zipper mutations, but both of you can improve your second sight.”

She stood up and went to get several thin folders. “You two treat the nightstalker’s sensory organs like a second pair of eyes, but they are so much more than that. When I exposed you to a strong source of light, you were blinded for a few seconds. Same for you using Second Sight on the hospital’s water generators. You couldn’t even look at them, but you should be able to gradually control the intensity at which you are using the ability. Like squinting with your eyes.”

I thought back to when Sienna had us look at a generator. With my Second Sight, it was like looking into a furnace. This had me thinking the ability was maybe related to some form of magnetism or energy.

“Also your Precognition!” Sienna continued as she handed us the folders. “Your mastery of it isn’t perfect. Please read these documents and follow the suggested training methods until you think you have reached your limits.”

“As for other ways to improve yourselves.” She gave us a mad grin. “Have you two thought of symbionts?”

Astra held the documents to her chest. “I thought of getting one, but wasn’t sure which one. With this new bioelectricity and our immune system, I am even less certain. Wouldn’t the ability kill a symbiont?”

Sienna thought about it. “You are mostly right, but we have records of some symbionts being found in the deeper caverns that should survive bonding with you. And isn’t your family famous for hunting in places that are avoided by others?”

She went to get more folders. “I am thinking of three possibilities in particular. The first is a bloodmantle, a type of pyrosome that guards its host by adding protective features to the blood. Or a mona, an animal that lives in symbiosis with the treemonae in the deep caverns. They fiercely guard their partners with their poison. The last is a slei, a type of slime mould that greatly enhances its wearers’ physical resistances.”

Astra’s expression became a little stiff upon listening to Sienna’s suggestions. “Upon second thought, I will have to reject allowing something slimy to grow on or inside of me. Are there other things that we could look out for?”

I only nodded along with Astra. There was no way I would allow a slime mould to grow on me!

Sienna thought for a few seconds before she answered. “Hmm. I see you still have no mutation which affects the brain. Alternatively, I would suggest increasing your mental abilities by hunting down a squir. I have the trait myself and must say the boost it gives to mnemonic abilities is considerable. A side effect is that training repetitive skills becomes much easier, since both your muscles and filaments require a high degree of coordination. And I would consider it to be a relatively safe mutation to add to your repertoire.”

We exchanged a few more pointers with Sienna and she loaded us up with stacks of literature to comb through but warned us to check with her before we decided on something.

Ivona was another matter.

Her abilities gave her above average speed and exceptional endurance along with physical toughness all across the board. The rumoured connection with her sister was something that Sienna couldn’t test, but I noticed she also didn’t comment on it being impossible.

And aside from a starfish mutation and the mystery component, my little sister admitted to being a complete blank.

“Astounding,” was Sienna’s only comment on the matter.

I learned that while Ivona’s abilities were nothing special, it was unknown to encounter them as a complete set in a primary mutation.

Sienna promised nonetheless to research the matter in her family’s extensive libraries. “I can’t believe none of the Aerie ever got curious about that violet skin. Sadly, I am myself just a little more than fifty years of age. A lot of knowledge was lost when my mother died in the clan wars.”

“Thank you, elder Sienna,” Astra bowed to the bubbly doctor and we excused ourselves.

Loaded with stacks of documents and worn out, we returned to our carriages to call it a day.