Two Years Later…

You sit on a porch of your Dagda estate and look out across the lawn at the wild woodlands beyond. You pass your hand over the Brass Scarab at the base of your throat and brush it across the green-and-white amulet. All you can do now is worry and wait. You glance again at the watch on your wrist. You should have gotten a call from the medical wing by now. You'd be in the delivery room yourself, but Doctor Spirabils wouldn't hear of it, given how difficult to sterilize your augmetic leg is. Your microbead chirps with an incoming message, the one you have been expecting for the past sixteen hours.

"Tristan here, go ahead."

"It's twins Sir. A boy and a girl. Come on down to the observation room."

You all but leap from your chair in your haste.

You meet Yasha and your wife Mu'randa in the observation room. You smile at them. The three of you are still lovers, despite the legal and social barricades preventing you from marrying the both of them. You exchange only smiles, given how tired Mu'randa must feel. You hug them both about the shoulders, words unneeded.

Three years later…

You and Mu'randa rest on the porch as Yasha chases Odin and Titania across the lawn. Just another glorious day on Oasis. You reach over and stroke the gold-and-tan amulet on is chrome chain about her neck. You haven't heard from Ariavari or Anai since that day aboard the Malignus Maximus. Thinking of that hulk, you look up into the sky and can just barely pick out its bulk beyond the clouds. You doubt you could spot it, were it not for the furious pace of work and the constant flare of ship engines as they strip hulk after hulk from its crushing embrace.

You would also be wondering what they found at it's core had not Inquisitor Olaf offer you and Yasha a most impressive insight and gift. What they found was an abandoned Imperial Cloning facility. What he offered the two of you was to use that facility to produce an heir of your bodies. Faunia rests in her crib beside Mu'randa, quietly sucking on her thumb. You know 'Uncle' Pyrus will be checking in periodically on her and you, making sure nothing else has gone crazy while he wasn't looking.

Ethna MacWater pokes her cowled head out of the house to call you all to dinner. You rise, eager to see Vir and Morrigan again after so long away from Dagda.

Five Years Later…

You unseal the letter from Archmagos Explorator Jace, wondering what led him to actually write something down instead of burst-transmitting it or simply calling you. The first paragraph raises your eyebrow, the second has its twin join it.

Rex wasn't aboard the Golden Butterfly when Simo blew it to hell and gone. Instead, he had been working for a hardliner Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor. One with more paranoia than common sense. Once Rex lost the Golden Butterfly, he started asking questions very quietly, and had come out to the Riptide system to get answers for himself. What he had found there was both his first taste of life outside of the upper cloisters of a Forgeworld, and a eye-opening reality check. The past eight years has seen him get involved with Inquisitor Ironsides and wage and win a very quiet war against his former paymaster. Jace quiet wisely didn't poke into the details, but you make a note to yourself not to piss off Olaf.

Ten Years Later…

It's Odin and Titania's eighteenth birthday, and Faunia's fifteenth. The party has been going on for quite some time, but you have an announcement to make as the desert course is cleared away.

"Ladies, Gentlemen, and Tech-priests, your attention please. This is a social event, so I won't take you away from all of the fun you are having, or the deals that you are making, for too long." You pause as a small wave of laughter sweeps the hall. "But I did have one last gift to give to our guests of honor."

Zheeves hands you a case containing three scrolls of parchment.

"Odin, Titannia, and Faunia Von Sebastion. Being of the age of majority and Heirs to the Von Sebastion family, It is time for you to receive command of your own starships..."