Chapter 490 – Breaking a Few Eggs

*** Alzi, Third Body ***

The crack scared me. I jumped and even slapped Zarzi with my tail, and Tharzi got one of my wings to her back. My apologizing while trying to find the egg that cracked in the lava was probably very funny for the Priestess to watch. She just had to slip in to watch. Dragon probably told her to show up to get revenge.

But the High Priestess does show us how to drain the lava faster, so I'll let it go for that help.

"Alzi, I'm scared," Zarzi says. "It really isn't fair that my first pregnancy basically has two different births. I was going crazy pushing them all out, and now I have to wait for them to force themselves out of their eggs! Can I have a small pregnancy before you give me a large number again?"

"Well, small compared to your first one is easy for me," I say. "I can aim for one or two. I'm not doing well with the waiting either, as you just felt. Sorry."

"It's fine," Zarzi says. "I probably needed that to confirm that this is actually happening. Oh, a second has started. Why is it on the other side? These kids are trying to kill their Mother again!"

"I'm not doing much better," I say, my eyes flicking between the two eggs. What is going to happen when three, five, or twenty are all cracking at once? "I need to get another body here. We need more breasts!"

"The Priestesses can handle that part," The High Priestess says. "Normally, the Mother is dead, and the father is unable to feed the kids. But we will need help lactating."

Well, that's another question. Do I do it, or do I have a Goddess do it? Maybe if I have the silly little Goddess do it, she won't be clamoring for our breasts all the time. But I still need to bring a second body over to get her here. "I'll bring the Goddess of Lactation over," I say.

"That is more than we expected, Empress," the High Priestess says with a bow. "It will be our honor."

"The honor will be mine if you can get her to stop asking for milk all the time," I say. "She's getting a little big to be doing that. Oh, another is starting! The first threw out a chunk. Can you see into the egg?"

"Not yet, dear," Zarzi says. "I think we still have a while to wait."

"Ok," I say.

...

"How has one of them not come out yet!" I scream. At least Lactation is having a bunch of fun. I decided to bring my main body over just in case the little Goddess chose to do something strange. Which, of course, the little girl is doing. She demanded to test her work. Every. Single. Time. Both breasts of every Priestess who was getting the treatment.

They, of course, didn't mind, but it was still slightly uncomfortable for me to watch the little stinker abusing her power. It could be worse; none of them are overflowing or anything, and if a Goddess approves of the milk, then it'll be good for my kids.

"Most of them are hatching," Zarzi says. "Just a few more minutes, and they'll break free, and we can start picking them up and feeding them and caring for them. And it isn't too bad that they haven't come out yet."

I'm starting to think that there is more than one reason why the Queens normally die after giving birth to their brood. The Priestesses are a lot calmer while they watch this all go down. Tharzi, Zarzi, Cisu, and I are constantly coming up with some silly scenarios as we wait for the babies to pop out of their shells. I'm happy my main body is off chasing down Lactation rather than standing here waiting. I don't need to hear my own fearful ramblings. That spiral would be hard to break.

"Why don't we just help the first one come out?" Cisu asks. "We can see her already. Forcing her out isn't going to hurt her."

"Can we do that?" I ask. "Are we ready to be parents?"

"We're already parents," Zarzi says. "I guess we can start helping them out. The kids don't need to eat the shell or anything for food. We should only help the ones who have mostly broken out, so we don't accidentally hurt them. That makes sense, right?"

"Yes," I say. "I think that is safe. Priestess?"

"Dragon is still grumpy, and having a Goddess messing with her Priestess is not doing us any favors, but yes, Empress Alzi, it should be safe," the High Priestess says. "The babies are ready to come out. Just be gentle with them."

I give Zarzi a little push. "You did the work," I say. A wonderful excuse. "You should be the first to hold one of our kids."

"You're the Empress," Zarzi whispers, but she steps over to the mostly finished baby that started this all off.

Ok, so maybe we're being a little dramatic, though I did wake us up in a terrible way. I step forward and go for the second little girl. The boys are a little shy, it seems. They want their sisters to make sure the world is safe first.

I hook my finger around the eggshell and slowly apply some pressure until it starts to crack. The baby goes for my finger instead of helping to break herself out of the shell, but I can't blame her. The shell requires more force to split than I would've thought. "Tharzi, Cisu, you should probably start helping as well," I say. "The shells are a lot sturdier than they should be for babbies to crack their way out of."

"That explains the speed," Tharzi says as they join us at the trench.

"Here you go," I say, pulling the baby free. Zarzi is handing off the firstborn to the High Priestess, and another one is coming over to grab mine from me. "You're cute, but I have to help your brothers and sisters."

Most of the eggs are cracked now. They're just waiting for their silly parents to come help them out. I'm blaming Dragon for being too proud to warn us about how to do this.

*** Main Body ***

Lactation runs out of Priestesses to test rather quickly, even with her thorough quality checks, which left us with one place to go. This body is not able to help the kids out of their eggs, since I'm not in any condition to be bending over so much right now. But I can still cheer them on while I feel the pain of bending over through my third body, which is a little backwards from how it is meant to be. Only a little, since my main body is supposed to do it all, and my third is supposed to be for helping my wives, not my kids.

The Priestesses have set up a line to walk the newborns to the temple's version of a nursery. Dragon already has her claws all over the brood. I'm surprised the next Queen doesn't come from the broods. She could have the High Priestess act as the transitioning Queen while one of the Golds from the brood is raised to take the throne. That seems like it would solve the early death caused by the next Queen problem.

I guess the Queen could still die from other causes before having her brood. And even if she didn't, the next Queen would have to grow stronger for a long time before she would actually be powerful enough to keep the idiots in line.

"How about we go see your sisters?" I ask Lactation. I don't think my cheering is doing much to ease the pain in everyone's backs. Getting to hold the babies for a bit is infinitely better than an Empress telling you how well you did. "And don't think about asking for milk. Your affinity is for helping babies, and you are not one anymore, even if I'm willing to act like you still are sometimes. We have more babies than breasts around right now, so you'll have to wait for your turn."

The Goddesses are a lot better behaved than I give them credit for. Lactation has clearly been giving me more control over my milk. I don't even have accidental leaks as I could in the past. It only comes out when someone is sucking on them, or I let it out myself. And her mouth soothes the little ache in my breasts whenever she breastfeeds on me. Destruction has only destroyed things that don't matter, like random balloons Nakuma just leaves around, or trash that's about to be thrown away.

It's harder to tell when Luck does something. I'm sure games will be interesting to play with her. She and some of her kitsune sisters could rob a casino. They could use their mana to hide the fact that a Goddess just walked in, and then just stand back and laugh as she walks out with all the chips. But right now, she's just a baby who accidentally gets spoiled.

Ok, so she may actually be the worst out of the Goddesses in the lower realm. Maybe I can have Misfortune and have them balance each other out? Why do I think about such strange things?

"Let's see what colors we have so far," I say. I've found mostly Reds so far. I did get one Silver, but I haven't seen what colors my wives have picked up. I know there are a few more Silvers and at least one Gold in the mix somewhere. "It's looking really pretty so far—Reds, Silvers, some Browns, even a Green in the corner. We'll go meet them all. If you want to mark one or make them your Champion, please give me some sort of warning. And I'm not bringing that up to pressure you into doing it. I'm just trying to limit my scares right now. It's just hitting me that I have over a hundred kids now. Close to two hundred, if you include them all, or maybe it is two hundred. It will be soon enough, at least. And I'll be hitting three hundred too soon after that. Kids. Meet the kids."

I should've brought Mommy and the others along. Even Mai would be happy to be here, I think. Do I bring another body over with them?

"The babies are so cute," I say, coming up to the first crib. "They are a bit bigger than normal. I'm glad to see that the eggs let them grow a bit more. Their scales are so pretty."

"Empress, the first male has come in," a Priestess says.

"Ok," I say. "Can you just put him in the mix? They can all get to know each other from the beginning. It should help stop them from abusing their brothers when they're older."

"Of course," the Priestess says.

"Thanks," I say. We'll see how well my plan works. I need to see where we are in getting Fertility to stop her silly gender ratio issue. I know she's stopped the royal breeding issue. The other Queendoms sent some letters in thanks for that, not that I did anything about it. I kind of forgot it was still happening and hurting the other Queendoms. Looking at the cribs, it isn't hard to see that Fertility still hasn't stopped her preference from affecting the world. "There are plenty more to check on."

...

Down the line, I go, getting more announcements about the royal dragons and male dragons that come in. Ten males, one who's a royal, and three female royal dragons. So, I have six royal dragon children. One from Mommy, one from Shimmer, and four from Zarzi. How many will Elo give me? Will more from Mommy be royal? The next kids from Shimmer should be phoenixes, so I'll have to wait a few pregnancies before she's likely to have that panic attack again. Hopefully, she handles the phoenixes better than she did the dragon. I don't want to go through that labor again.

"A lot of sisters for you," I say. "A lot of work to make sure they grow up well." I wonder if the Silvers my children are going to replace have been killed yet. It should be happening soon if it hasn't already. I'm already putting pressure on them... "We'll treat them well. With sisters like you, they'll do just fine."

"Hello, Alzi," Zarzi says. "The last few are coming in. No more royals or males. This was a rather blessed brood."

"Just in case the worst happened and the war killed all the royal dragons," I say. "Dragon was prepared. We'll see if she blesses the next ones like this."

"She wants us to be the strongest again."

"We kind of are," I say. "But we'll see what happens with the future generations. Phoenix won't want to fall behind, and I'm sure Kitsune is going to pressure me into helping her next generation grow stronger as well."

"It all flows from you," Zarzi says. "The next few generations won't have much use for all that power. But after that, it will be up to fate if the strong are nice or cause the same problems we've always had."

"I suppose." That's a little depressing.