The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

Princess of the Void updated first today.

“The way we re-encode. Do you know why Taiikari only ever have Taiikari?”

“I hadn’t thought so hard about it. I guess I thought it was the only way.”

“It is the only way,” she says. “Because nobody has been allowed to find another. We could easily engineer a way to give ourselves alien children. But the Empire has never permitted that research. To ensure that every alien brought into the peerage has only Taiikari. To keep the nobility strictly to my species, and their invited guests.”

Grant tilts his head. Suddenly it’s obvious. Of course they could figure out how to give Kovikan kids to Wen and Tik, or Maekyonites to Grant and Sykora. And the terrible logic is obvious, too.

“But there is something about Maekyonites and Taiikari,” Sykora says. “Something different. Something important. I have always suspected it. The way you find us all beautiful, and vice versa. I think… you’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Never.”

“I think we were fated to be with each other.” She turns onto her side on the chair, stares intensely at her husband. “Our species. I think Ziavra is proof.”

Yes.

Grant remembers it. The feeling of rightness the first time he made love to Sykora. The whispered conversations. He tries to find a bit of levity in the face of Sykora’s solemn gaze. “You want Ziavra to be the tall one?”

“I already know she is,” Sykora says. “One with Maekyonite immunity, one with Maekyonite height, one with a Maekyonite name. They will be Taiikari. But I want them to bear the mark of their father-world, too. I want the Empire to see. And when we bring Maekyon into the Empire, there’ll be more.”

“But when would that be?” Grant asks.

“What if…”

Sykora shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. She opens them.

“What if it’s soon?”

Grant sits back. “Soon like how soon?”

“Before the secret is forced from our children,” Sykora says. “Before Ziavra’s body changes and Kiar’s mind can be touched by language. Before they must grow up hiding their gifts, without knowing both halves of their heritage. Maekyon is in the Empress’s sights and her schemes. A Maekyonite is the Empire’s rising celebrity. What if, when our children arrive in the Empire, Maekyon follows?”

Grant finds his feet rooted to the spot. “You’re asking me to call for the invasion of my world, Sykora.”

“Yes,” she says. “I am.”

She takes his hand and puts it on her exposed bump. So hot under his palm.

“We don’t have to plan it overnight,” she says. “But once they’re born, once they’re in our arms. We take our first steps before they do. Surely that’s better than simply sitting by and allowing ourselves to be caught offguard.”

“I can’t—”

Grant tries to take a deep inhale; there’s a shallow anxiety blocking his breath.

“I can’t talk about this yet,” he says.

“But do you see my point?”

“Sykora. I can’t—I really—I’m sorry.”

“Shh.” Sykora sits up on her knees and puts a finger to his lips. “Don’t be sorry, Grant. And don’t be afraid. Just listen to me for a moment. I have been thinking a long time about saying this to you. And every day you prove to me more and more that you’re ready to hear it. So.”

She takes a deep breath.

“You told me when we first spoke of our babies to consider the unthinkable,” she says. “To name a dream that I refused to allow myself, because my upbringing told me it would be impossible and intolerable. Because it spoke against everything I thought was right. And now I’m living it. I’m growing it inside me. You told me you’d fight for it, and if I wanted you not to, I had to tell you. You made me choose. And I chose this, and I couldn’t even resent you, because every day I feel right here—” she touches her stomach. “And I am so, so infinitely grateful. And now it’s your turn.”

She takes both his hands.

“Here’s what I am going to do,” she says.

“I am going to call Axyna back into this room. And I am going to tell her that we need more time. We can’t decide yet whether we need intervention. And we’ll see what she says. If she says that’s fine, take your time, we will take our time. We’ll put this off for another day. But if she says we have to pick now, right now, I will keep Ziavra as you gave her to me. As the first of a new generation of Taiikari, with their Maekyonite blood visible and proud.

“And I’ll ensure that her birth is not some malfunction of our genomes, and that she is not some unique curiosity. I’ll ensure that our daughter doesn’t have to be changed to have other people who look like her. I’ll ensure that our son doesn’t have to view the world through anticomp amber. I’ll bring a reckoning to the Empire’s supposedly ironclad conception of men who are compelled and women who compel. I’ll do what we fought for, you and I, when we annexed Eqtora.”

His heart thunders against his ribcage hard enough to ache.

Her fingers walk their way along his arm. “Before your son’s immunity and your daughter’s stature are discovered, I will claim your world, Grantyde. For you and for our children. And we will rule it together. And the next generation to grow from it will be the first in Imperial history to proudly stand as tall and uncompellable as their alien fathers. And we will be something new together. Earth will change the Empire as invariably as the Empire changes Earth.”

She uses his world’s English name. Erf, so unfamiliar on her tongue.

“Now tell me not to,” she whispers. “Command, and I’ll obey.”

His voice catches in his throat. Every decision he’s refused to make comes crashing against his skull. There is no escaping this one.

“Say no, and I won’t.” Sykora’s palm ends up on his cheek. “We’ll give Ziavra her normal Taiikari body. We’ll celebrate the other, quieter ways she’s special. We’ll return to our hiding place and our holding pattern. If you don’t want me to fight for this, tell me right now. Say it, Majesty.”

No.

No. Say no, Grant. She wants to conquer your homeworld. You are the only human who can stop her. Tell her no.

Her nose presses against his. His heart hammers.

He can’t say it. God help him. He can’t say no. He realizes he hasn’t been trying to put it off because he fears Earth’s annexation. It’s because he fears the truth:

He wants this.

He thinks of the world he left behind and feels nothing but pity for its state, and contempt for its leaders, and relief that he escaped the nothing, nowhere life he led on it. And he allows himself to unseal it, feels it shift him. The unspeakable conclusion he has been ignoring for he doesn’t even know how long. One that has deepened with every promise she’s kept, every kindness she’s shown, every day their babies grow inside her.

He doesn’t care that she’s an Imperial subject. She can make them love her as much as he loves her, as much as the screaming admirers on her other worlds. She can keep them all safe from the Core and its regressives. He’ll help her. He trusts her. He loves her.

He wants his wife to rule Earth.

He doesn’t just hate it the least of all the alternatives. He isn’t simply holding his nose and making the best of a terrible decision. He wants it.

“Be brave, my love,” she whispers. “Say it.”

“Yes,” he whispers.

The Princess of the Black Pike kisses him. He exhales sharply through his nose as their lips meet, and then he kisses her back, terrified and euphoric.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...57/526-yes
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/1419041...r/2101916/

And, of course, The Greenfield Family.

Rick and Krista have arrived in St. Martin, and are enjoying their romantic getaway in paradise. But their vacation is about to get even more interesting as they meet a couple of unexpected new friends.

New friends who might not be telling them the whole truth about why they're there.

https://storiesonline.net/n/52852/the-gr...-family/12