Resus: We are REALLY trying to go as fast as we can… WHY AM I EVEN PANICKING?! There is absolutely no pressure to introduce game mechanics, right? That… creation… below is vengeful… it will eat your very soul and won’t let you do anything but writing… I think I’m starting to lose it… whatever “it” might be.

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Chapter 4: How the lack of sex-ed caused a family cold war

Of all the people who could open the door to this room right now… why Iverie? Her face is a mixture of shock and irritation - I guess she must have seen the guards carrying uncle Lenniel on her way here. She interrupts my father’s and grandfather’s discussion by asking them what happened.

“Well, let’s say we had a little… breakthrough when you weren’t with us.” My father informs her in really cold voice. I guess after everything that happened today he’s not really in a mood to hide his antipathy. “Too bad you missed it.”

I’m quite surprised to see my grandfather staying silent. Looks like being a father of a molested child gives you rights to voice your opinions without limits.

“Oh? And what is that important thing I supposedly missed, Naharius? Lenniel tripping over his son’s toys?” I finally learn my father’s name. How nice. It’s pretty stupid to not know your father’s name while knowing your uncle’s… but I guess this isn’t normal family.

“More like Lenniel turning out to be a sexual deviant who molested my son… who surprisingly turned out not to be retarded at all, Iverie. But I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you at all now, does it?” My father’s looking daggers at her while she, really shocked this time, turns her head towards me.

I avoid her gaze. It’s not because of unexplainable antipathy from my host - he only hates Lenniel. This time it’s my own fear. I can’t even properly described it but something in her screams at me that she’s bad news.

She looks at the men with disbelief… and then walks towards me. Damn, damn, damn! I kinda expected her to grow fangs and talons and rip me apart, but no - she only examines me closely. And, dammit, she suddenly shows a smile (really, really fake one) on her face.

“I’m Iverie Veles. What’s your name?”

I guess she expects me to run and hide behind a couch or something. And honestly speaking, I would gladly do that… but I can’t. I should say my name - I know. But my mouth acts on it’s own and says something completely different.

“I don’t like you.”… damn, looks like my tongue has suicidal tendencies.

She stares at me for a moment with a really mean and nasty looking smile across her face. My father unfortunately couldn’t notice that, but I did. This more or less confirms my weird, irrational hunches about Iverie’s sanity… something’s really wrong her but she manages to hide it quite well. It only bothers me more now that she decided to show this side of her to me.

Or, she could just be a rare case of nasty, immoral and ambitious bitch.

“Well, that confirms it. He’s not only healthy, but also seems really intelligent for his age.” My father just couldn’t stop himself from commenting my answer and Iverie didn’t take it very well. She spun around to face him but instead of attacking him like I expected she simply asks him a question…

“So, what are you gonna do now with this… situation?” Impressive. I can’t hear any venom in her voice.

“Well, first things first, I guess giving my son some protection in form of a bodyguard would be right thing to do.” He informs her with antipathy filling both his voice and expression. “After all, if those current events have shown us something is that you can’t even trust your own family.” Sarcasm. And plenty of it. I can only guess that his target was my grandfather, as it is him who responds.

“True… I really didn’t expect Lenniel to do something like that.” He looks genuinely shocked and disgusted by what happened. Well, I could imagine what my old-world father would feel if it was I who’d do something like what they think Lenniel did. “Seems like it can’t be helped, I accept bodyguards. Anything else?”

“Change of his nannies to ‘my’ nannies.” I guess that by stressing world ‘my’ he doesn’t mean nannies that took care of him, when he was young… more like making sure that I’m surrounded by his slaves, which because of collars must be loyal to him. Just when I started to like him, he make me remember what business he is involved in. Great.

“Also, as soon as he’ll reach appropriate age, by which I mean one or two years from now, he’s going to get tutored… by tutors of my choice.” Hmmm, now I’m getting lost. I’m not sure why shouldn’t he be the one to choose… ah! Maybe grandfather tried to ease tensions by making sure that every child is taught by tutors chosen not only by his parents but also by members of other family branches? That would actually look plausible considering my grandfather’s failed ‘bonding time’ plan…

“Oh? And why is that?” Iverie decides to step in. “Wasn’t it you who didn’t want to bother with educating that ‘deadweight’ - your own words if I recall correctly - all by yourself and dumped that responsibility on me.” This quarrel is… such a rollercoaster of feelings. From ‘well, my father isn’t that bad’ to ‘OHFUCKSOCLOSEHOWCOULDYOU’... What a terrifying fate have I just been spared from. That was such a fucking ‘near’ miss it might even leave a scar on my psyche…

“It was long before I found out he CAN actually be educated. Besides I always thought impossible tasks were your specialty, Iverie?” Her face is full of confusion. Well, not only hers, grandfather’s also confused. “It seems that by now you have failed only in learning how to grow old without becoming such a bitch.”

Ouch. Even slaves seem shocked. I can only guess that my father and Iverie never reached such level of bitterness in their bickering, at least with public. For a few seconds I seriously thought that he got her, but no. She only hisses, and then leaves the room loudly tapping her heels on the floor.

“Now you’ve pissed her.” States my grandfather. “I will go make sure she won’t set the mansion on fire.” And with that he leaves the room right behind Iverie.

“Well… if it wasn’t eventful evening but I think it’s already bedtime for you.” And with that cheesy line ends the first day in which my new dad acts like a father. I’ll withdraw from commenting his behaviour until he’ll prove to me this isn’t his first and last day. But yeah, I definitely want to go to sleep now, it was a very… busy day.

* * *

Six months have passed and in that time I learned two things. I found out that I’m almost completely in charge of this body as it gets nearly impossible to push my Host outside of our mind even for a few minutes. The second thing… well, this family - finally and definitively - proven to me that they are just a bunch of assholes only pulling out for themselves. No, really… even though it seemed like everything would be different after my little performance.

I must admit - it started quite good. I even got an actual bodyguard. Gavlan actually turned out to be the best thing that happened to me in this new life, as of yet. He is, of course, a slave equipped with this fancy magic collar. I doubt if at that point my father could trust anyone besides people who were literally unable to betray him. Gavlan has been chosen because of his proficiency as a warrior. At the beginning he wasn’t really talkative but after few weeks spent with me he realised that I’m not as bad es he expected (especially compared to other family members) so he started showing some initiative.

Oh, and he is a beastman. Wolfman to be precise. This world never ceases to amaze me. However, he isn’t much… wolflike. It looks like in this world ‘beastmen’ can mean both - a human with some animal features, and intelligent animal-like humanoid. They are actually part of the same race, only different variants.

They can be found pretty much everywhere, but most of them inhabit island (or rather small continent) called Leana, which is somewhere to the northwest. It’s frequent target of slaver raids, because it’s pretty disorganised, filled with warring tribes and small but civilised and highly decentralised countries.

Gavlan was unfortunate enough to be captured in one of such raids organised by - surprise - my family. I swear, they do anything they can to make me don’t like them.

The most important, positive result of my reveal as an ordinary child - aside from this bodyguard mess - was that I finally could freely explore our family mansion. And while having someone follow me everywhere I go was… slightly irritating, he could answer all the questions I had about this new - for me - world. Of course I couldn’t ask any suspiciously precise questions - I was only a four-year-old kid! But even by simple imitation of childish curiosity I received some valuable informations.

It looked like I was born in the coastal city of Res. It is - more or less - a merchant republic and a major trade center. It’s a part of ‘Free Cities’, but I’m not sure yet if it’s a treaty, alliance, or something else. By now I think it’s some kind of a defense treaty against outside threats, with plenty of inside wars - both trade and ‘typical’ - between it’s members.

Climate here looks pretty… mediterranean. There’s no actual winter here, just a rainy season of sorts. I’m growing to hate this weather as I always enjoyed low temperatures more than high ones.

Funny thing - the religion here is at the same time widespread and nearly nonexistent. While as far as I know everyone believe in some deity that is supposed to look after this city, I never had any occasion to see priests or religious ceremonies. According to Gavlan, the deity ‘resides’ in the grand temple somewhere in the city - but it can’t be seen from our mansion. Pretty Sumerian-like, because it seems like every city has it’s own unique deity. For now I take all this ‘residing’ business as a metaphor. But who am I to judge this - since it’s a fantasy world and all, I’m not going to take my own opinion for granted.

But all of that is off topic from ‘a bunch of assholes’ theme. It all started with relatively peaceful two weeks filled with my uncle’s excuses and accusations against my father. In Lanniel’s version of the story it was all my father’s plan from the very beginning - he obviously made me say all those lies. But, as that didn’t happen - there was no proof. And no one payed any attention to Lanniel’s ‘whining’... at least for now.

But in the end, what practically divided the whole family apart was the very same ‘news’ which lead me to my desperate reveal - my mother’s pregnancy. Well… not pregnancy itself but rather new light casted upon it when father decided to dig in this topic a little bit and found that conception must have happened exactly when he was away on a business trip for a whole month.

A lot to take in, i know, and that wasn’t even the big problem yet. Simple adultery would just end up as a conflict between my parents. but my mother - her name is Alva by the way - turned out to be an idiot. Not only she cheated on father when he was away… she did it with a slave. Moreover - she consciously let that slave impregnate her. Why she did that I’ll probably never know. However the deed was done and the whole family went mad.

Quarrels and debates were so frequent and loud that even I heard most of them. And their contents were rather simple - whether or not throw my mother together with her bastard out of the family and disown them…

Fortunately my dear relatives didn’t go as far as to suggest throwing me out alongside her, but doubts about Naharius actually being my father begin to appear. And on doubts it ended… Everyone have been too preoccupied with my mother’s futile struggles to ease this whole situation. Futile because, well… it was all her fault after all. Nothing she could do would help her in any way. Besides even if she was actually disowned it still would be better fate than what happened to that unlucky slave. Why unlucky? He didn’t have any say in the matter, he’s a slave so he had to do whatever my mother told him to. And because of her he has been sold to a mine or quarry… I didn’t really knew any details about it. I guess his presence reminded every family member of what my mother have done… Petty and stupid - another reason why I dislike Veles.

This state of family argument continued for two whole months because no one actually wanted to make any decisions. And then... Then my father have definitely proven that he’s also an idiot. He knocked up a slave girl. And that was a big gamechanger.

As now everyone is more or less aware of the fact that I am not retarded, people didn’t gossip freely with me around anymore, but I still found out some informations. It looks like my father was so pissed with his wife’s betrayal he decided to vent his frustration in the most stupid way possible. Seriously, somebody should teach him how to masturbate, that would solve his problems.

Anyway, the arguments more or less ceased after that. My mother accepted her much lowered standing within the family - but she and her child remained a part of it. She also forced my father to - more or less - legitimize his bastard child, mainly to humiliate him. It’s not like he could do much at this point - he just lost everything he gained because of my actions against uncle Lenniel. Not only he turned out to be a hypocrite, but also a stupid hypocrite, who couldn’t even restrain himself. Not to mention that having a child with a slave in this family was viewed as something nearly as bad as being a child molester, though I couldn’t really understand why. So now it was once again Iverie to be number one potential successor. Seriously, father? Grrrrr.

The only good thing - aside the fact that I was going to have two siblings - was my newly found freedom. Cold war in the house reached a level, in which everyone was too preoccupied to even notice me. So I could, well… together with Gavlan, explore the mansion relatively freely.

And I must admit - it’s pretty impressive. Traversing the hallways even without looking into the rooms caused me to lose orientation more than a few times. Only occasional windows and Gavlan’s help allowed me not to get completely lost. I think that maze of hallways was caused by frequent changes and extensions all the while the main focus was external looks rather than comfort of the residents. And so this beautiful mansion made out of cut stone blocks looks breathtaking from the outside and - except for the close vicinity of the main hall - is a goddamn tragedy when it comes to finding a way from point A to B...

Also worth noting is fact that except for the main hall with the ONLY STAIRCASE IN A WHOLE BUILDING, big dining room and relatively small garden and the fact that there is sewage system and running water inside but of course I can’t really make any comparisons so I can’t be sure if it’s something unusual. Of course there’s a lot, and I mean A LOT of rooms and closets… but they’re mostly empty or generally unused. It’s mostly due to the current, not ideal, position of the family and also the fact that most of the family doesn’t actually lives here - only the main branch and those very close to it. But the extra space is needed in case of a big family gathering when everyone comes and requires a place to sleep.

My peaceful days - in a way this ‘cold war’ was much more pleasant for me than the time before the revelation of my mother’s infidelity - lasted for about four months. Right now I’m ‘impatiently’ waiting for my bastard of a younger sibling to be born. Of course, they didn’t let me witness the childbirth itself but I’m sitting together with Gavlan right outside the room where the whole event takes place. Of course, my father’s not here. Actually, nobody’s here besides me and slaves. Most likely even my mother wouldn’t be here if she could. It doesn’t bode well for the future of the child.

Thankfully it’s already over, even though I didn’t have to wait long because there was a big delay before I found out it’s happening since no one bothered to inform me. Just now slave accoucheuses carried my younger sibling out. It seems like, despite her initial pride about this whole pregnancy, our mother really changed her mind about this kid when father found out about her betrayal… I still can’t come up with a good reason for her to ever think that getting pregnant with a slave would be a splendid idea… She really is kind of an idiot.

Somehow I can’t utter any words. I didn’t expect this to have any effect on me… but it seems like it just got to me that I’m going to have an actual - living, breathing sibling. I never had one, not even in my previous life. Gavlan, on the other hand, doesn’t seem affected as much as me and rescue the situation.

“So, what’s this new Veles gonna be? Young master or mistress?”

“It’s a girl.”

I have a sister now.

* * *

Cold war within the family continued even after the birth of my sister. Actually, I’d say that it got even worse and the only real victim of it is no one else than my poor baby sister. It’s nearly four months after her birth now, and our father still didn’t even acknowledge her existence. Although, the first one to get rid of any responsibility was in fact mother… she practically abandoned her newborn daughter leaving all the related duties to slave nannies.

I finally got to know some more about local religion. It seems that a newborn baby doesn’t receive a name till about three weeks after birth. There’s a naming ceremony similar to baptism held in the city’s only temple. Unfortunately due to my ‘dear’ father’s developing paranoia - his brother molesting his son, wife getting pregnant with a slave and then getting his own bastard really shattered his perception of safety… - I couldn’t, and still cant leave the mansion…

It was actually pretty sad seeing that mother was the only Veles to attend my sister’s ‘naming’. And even she was there only because it was somehow required. Moreover, right after the ceremony ended she left her daughter with slaves who were accompanying her to the temple.

Truth be told I’m not entirely sure I would go even if I had permission to do so. After my previous life I’ve been contacted by a mysterious, black, seemingly shapeless creature with multiple personalities… and reincarnated here in this world to unleash havoc and destruction… I don’t suppose such qualifications would work in my favor in the vicinity of a local deity. I still don’t know if that part abut said deity ‘residing’ in the temple is actually any real and I don’t feel like risking it yet.

After this whole ceremony mess I didn’t even want to try asking my mother about my sister’s name. I eventually learnt it through Gavlan who asked among slaves present in the temple during the naming… Lena. I kinda liked that name.

Following months were… depressing. Most of this time I spent with Lena. And I was the only family member to actually do that. I know that she’s still an infant but come on! There is definitely something wrong with this situation. I didn’t have to help in any chores, slaves were more than sufficient in that matter and even if I tried to help I would only make a mess and cause problems.

Fortunately my interest in my sister didn’t seem to cause any suspicions. I guess it was simply seen, once again, as genuine childish curiosity. Acting like an actual young kid is sometimes really hard. I mean… I see all this, let’s be honest here - pathology going on and I can’t do shit about it. But I have a confession to make. I did this whole ‘spending time with my sister’ thing mostly to earn some positive opinion among slaves. It’s pretty cold hearted, I know. I’d still do it, even out of my own free will… but certainly not to this extent.

So, yeah… Last four months went by rather uneventful. And now, it seems like this whole irrational state of family cold war is gonna last for at least this long once more because now I also have a brother. At least father had enough decency to be here when slave girl he slept with gave birth. I honestly didn’t expect him to do so but despite his recent potential psychological problems - or maybe because of them - he even holds my newborn brother for a while here. Moreover he even show some emotions. Quite surprising but well, it’s not like he’s the worst person in this family… he pales in comparison to Lenniel or Iverie, in my humble opinion.

Speak of the devil… she actually shows her ugly head. Not at the beginning, but after my father leaves my brother to nannies, as it’s already getting quite late but only now they finally let me see my newly born brother… and then, she comes. I can hear from behind the door. Iverie doesn’t come in she only asks one of the slaves whether the child is a boy or a girl, and if it was born healthy. After receiving answers, I can hear her evacuating in a hurry.

Ok, now that’s suspicious and because of that I decide to follow her for a bit.

Persuading Gavlan to accompany me could be tricky, so I simply lie to him that I want to go back taking a more ‘scenic’ way. He doesn’t seem surprised probably remembering the expeditions when, not so long ago, I tried to wrap my head around the topography of this place. Then again, it’s not like there are battalions of assassins lurking within the mansion, so he has no reason to refuse.

Then I simply follow Iverie desperately trying not to be too obvious about it so that Gavlan won’t think of it as suspicious. She doesn’t even try to be stealthy - why would she anyway - and the entire building is slowly getting ready for the night, so I can hear her footsteps from quite afar. Fooling Gavlan wouldn’t be possible for too long, so it’s quite fortunate that her chambers are close to the place where the slave girl was giving birth.

When we reach her quarters, I fool Gavlan again, this time by blabbering something about me getting curious what is my aunty doing. Sometimes it’s actually quite nice to be a kid of this age, since nobody takes me seriously… Gavlan seemingly decides that I’m only playing and lets me eavesdrop a little on her door.

I know that she has two kids - a girl and a boy. Her daughter is two years older than me, I saw a few times and I must admit that she looks like much younger version of Iverie. On the other hand, her son is two years younger than me. I can hear them in the background, so they are definitely not sleeping, but sounds they’re making are muffled so they must be in a different room. Unfortunately they’re loud enough to make clearly hearing what Iverie is speaking very hard.

She’s not alone - I can differentiate two male voices but they’re totally indecipherable. One, most likely, belong to her husband - who as far as I know is controlled by her in such extent that he most likely asks her for permission even to use the toilet.

“Well, now that we know it’s a boy…” Iverie’s voice can be heard, at least partially. She must be closer to the door than them. But sometimes for some reason she lowers her voice. “... within three weeks. And of course neither one of you... ...you really call yourself men?”

Male voice speaks something I don’t understand.

“... you expected from him? That was literally the most retarded thing you’ve ever…”

The same voice again. This time what he says sounds like a longer monologue.

“... well it wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t mess up with the dose… … stop jabbering about yourself being framed by him, he is a fucking kid for Gods’ sake.”

Oh shit. Is the second man… uncle Lenniel? Now that’s what you call a surprising development. Gavlan with his great hearing must’ve heard it too - even though he wasn’t really eavesdropping - as he suddenly grabs my arm and steer me away from the door. On his face there is a clouded look. This time he doesn’t care about my protests and leads me towards my room.

I have few things to think about. What was it about ‘messing up with the dose’? Not to mention… what Iverie meant by ‘within three weeks’ and then saying something I translate to ‘them not wanting to help her with something’? And it’s somehow connected to my new sibling being born as a boy…

I suddenly have terrible premonitions.

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Resus: First things first, Truth… if you’re reading this I want to tell you that we both really appreciate your comments since you always seem to grasp exactly what we were trying to accomplish in our writing… But because of that I must ask you to write your thoughts in ‘spoilers’ as a vast majority will probably end up as ones. All the while I personally love what you’re doing… to some extent for the depressing value it has on Mirrond (it’s really hilarious to see him struggling in anger and disbelief on how you know all that xD).

Mirrond: *here should be a smart and funny comment but a person who should write this is fighting urge to throw his display out the window*

Resus: Yeah… now that this is over time for some (even more) serious talk…

Mirrond: Next week’s submission might be slightly… late (later than tuesday). Just a little bit, as it’s suppose to be at least as long as this one but we have less time to write it as my weekend is pretty… busy. At least Christmas is coming, so there will be plenty of time later on ;_;

Resus: Unfortunately we still have to ask you to comment your thoughts on this chapter so that more people can find this story and read it :P

Mirrond: #TotallyNotBeggingForAttention

EDIT:

Resus: Fixes few minor problems with continuity and logic… If there’s anything stupid left - please inform us so we can fix it :P