All of us sat down on our large padded couch built into a basin in the floor naked. When you had access to terra magic, you had a lot more freedom in customizing your walls and floors as long as you were careful about the structural integrity. Tornick had helped us determine our limits on the house, and Morrigan and I had plenty of magic to make adjustnts. Our changes made our ho a lot more unique than I was used to.
Bella flexed her wings a few tis and looked at with a serious expression. "Did sothing happen at work today?"
"Corrine and a group of ex-Tamin paladins and priests were spotted heading in our direction today. Torien was able to recognize her during scouting, and we were sent to et with her since the two of us are familiar with each other," I told her.
Bella's eyebrows rose, and she gave Torien a quick glance before refocusing on . "She was headed here? Did you turn her away? Why didn't you co get ?"
I frowned. "We thought that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to involve you yet, since you can't hide your succubus features."
"And you're pregnant," Torien added.
Bella squinted at Torien with a dangerous look in her eye, but I continued before that could go any further. "The group didn't seem hostile, and they had been turned away from other places they had tried to seek refuge from. After a long conversation with the other council mbers, we decided that we needed to take them in."
Bella sat forward. "You're not serious, you're actually allowing the Tamin church into the city?"
Morrigan scooted over and placed a hand on her leg. "Bella, they're ex-Tamin church mbers, and our city needs more people who can fight the loose demons. It isn't widely known yet, but we're facing severe food shortages if we can't stockpile more food before this coming winter. The more we learned about the situation, the more dire things look. We need them to help protect our farrs from demons while they work outside the walls."
"Then more people could just beco succubi like us. No one is in danger of starving," Bella said defiantly.
"You know that the transformation has so limitations. It's not the right fit for everyone, and I don't want people to beco succubi just to avoid starving to death. I agree that it would help the food situation if more people beca succubi, but I don't want anyone to be forced into that choice," I replied.
Torien sighed. "I understand so of your misgivings, Bella. I am not fond of the Tamin church either, but these people quit the church after they killed Sorsette. That's got to an sothing."
"For what it's worth, Corrine said that she had been collecting Tamin church mbers in Norta who were not prejudiced against beastfolk. They may integrate better than we think," I added.
Bella stared at the ground with a frown on her face as her fingers flexed against the fabric of the couch. When the silence continued to hang there between us for a while, I decided to touch on the unsaid question all of us were thinking. "Do you not want to see her again? If it's about that, we can just keep her away from you. I'm sure she'll want to see you, but you don't have to et with her if you don't want to."
Her ears flattened on her head as she looked up at . "I'm afraid of seeing her again. I don't want... She'll just hurt again..." Bella looked more vulnerable than I had seen her behave in months. Most of the confidence her true form afforded her was gone right now.
"Like I said, we can keep her away if it's a problem," I told her.
Bella shook her head. "If she's living in the city... I'll want to see her eventually. I just... I don't know if I could handle being rejected again." Bella sniffled as tears began to stream down her face. "I don't want to do it again. What if we make up, but then I do sothing that makes her hate ? I don't want to make up only for her to leave again."
I pulled Bella into a hug and kissed the side of her head as she cried into my shoulder. There wasn't really anything I could say. Everything that ca to mind wouldn't help her feel any better. Unfortunately, the decision has already been made. The council wants the group to co. The only one who was strongly against it was Tenna, and even that was for reasons without much rit beyond blind distrust. So I just held Bella and rubbed her back while she cried.
After a little while, Bella pulled away and wiped the tears from her face. "Is she already in town?"
"No, I'm going out to bring her back into the city tomorrow. They're camping so distance out of the city for now," I told her.
"And the city... the city really needs them?" she asked hesitantly.
"I think we do," I said with a nod.
"Fine, but I'll... I'll need so ti before I can handle talking with her again. What about the succubi?"
I scratched the base of my horn. "We haven't told them about us yet. We're not sure how that'll go. Even if they don't hold as much prejudice against the beastfolk, it might be difficult to make them accept a new race of people who can transform themselves."
Bella reached down and rubbed her gravid belly. She looked a lot farther along at six months than she should be. If the various healers we've consulted with are accurate, she could go into labor any day now. Our sowhat... elastic bodies because of our nature may an that the birth goes easier than it would for other species, but we aren't sure yet. We're not even sure what our children will look like, or what it will an to have a succubus child.
Lori cut into the conversation after listening quietly the entire ti, "If it ans anything to you... I hope that you would try to forgive your mother for what she put you through. I never really had children of my own, but I feel responsible for my two nieces the way a mother might. Mothers are just people too... and people aren't perfect. The situation between you has changed so much, so I think that now would be the ti to offer her another chance."
"I'll... think about it," Bella replied with a sniffle. "She'll need to know about the succubi before I even begin to consider it, though. If she can't accept our sisters, then why should I give her another chance to accept ?"
I nodded. "That's fair, and not sothing I would argue against regardless. I don't want you to do anything that would put our baby at risk."
We spent so ti waiting for Bella to calm down. It was a bit of a surprise that anything could push her to tears like this. It was sothing that hadn't happened since she had donned her true form. There was a certain level of emotional stability that this form seed to provide under normal circumstances.
"Sorry that I ca over while such important things were happening," Eira said. "I ca over thinking that I'd like to spend so family ti with you all, but now I feel like I'm intruding."
Bella smiled at her. "No, I'm sorry that our ti together is being marred by sothing so... unpleasant. You're always welco to spend ti with us, Eira. This is the first ti I'm seeing you in your true form. You look very pretty."
Her eyes trailed down Eira's true form. It looked more built than her regular one. Her shoulders were broader, and her arms looked thicker. She was naked right now, so her large cock dangled between her thighs and twitched to life when Bella's eyes trailed over it. Eira's normal body had a young tomboyish look to it, while her true form had more of a strongwoman amazonian feel to it. Her usual form had beco pretty muscular since she started adventuring, but this form took that to another level.
I had to step in when Bella licked her lips, because it was obvious where things were headed from the way the two were looking at each other. I still wanted to talk about so other stuff before things moved in that direction.
"First, let's talk more about our day. I'm not ready to head upstairs yet," I said, cutting in.
"Oh! Bella, you should see the new pocket watch that Mimi made for Lilith! It looks really nice," Morrigan interjected.
I stood up and pulled the pocket watch from my slacks where I had discarded them with the rest of my clothes. It felt a bit small in the larger hands of my true form, but she had made it large enough to make it comfortable to hold in either. I unclipped the chain from my belt and brought it over.
Bella took the watch with interest before opening it up and examining the dial closely. "These are the hour and minute markings that you were talking about? That would an the ti is nine... forty-eight, right? A little bit before the fifteenth bell, or the last bell of the day. I see those marked on the face of the pocket watch too. This looks amazing, Mimi. How accurate is it?" Bella asked while looking up at her.
Mimi smiled and looked excited from Bella's attention. "It's pretty accurate! It still loses a bit of ti, but less than a second a day now. I've tried to get it more accurate than that, but there are so many pieces that can contribute to it losing ti, that it's the best I can do right now, I think. I was already going to make so for all of us though! Torien said she would help with the materials!"
"Is that so?" Bella asked her.
Torien blushed and nodded. "I think it would be useful for all of us to be able to schedule down to the minute, rather than bells. Maybe we could have a matching pattern on the front or sothing, to rember eachother by."
Mimi clapped. "Oh! I love that idea! Hmm... I might need so help with a decorative design. Would that be sothing you would help with, Bella? That wouldn't be too hard on your body right now, right?"
Bella turned to Mimi and laughed. "That would be fine. I'd like sothing else to do, if I'm honest. Being ho by myself all the ti makes feel like I'm being lazy... I can only study my healing books for so long before I start to get exhausted by them. It's been a little while since the two of us worked on an art project together. It would be nice to see one of our drawings as an engraving." She snapped the front of the pocket watch shut and looked over the smooth tal of the outside cover, where an engraving or an embossed image could go.
"Sure! Maybe you can co visit my shop tomorrow once I'm done helping Lilith!" Mimi replied happily.
After Torien and Lori talked about their day scouting, I told her what happened on the trip to et the ex-tamin mbers, since the events led into each other. Now that Bella had already let her emotions run their course, she was able to listen to the story from a place of detachnt. I could feel so of her inner conflict leak into the bond after hearing about how they looked, and so of Dominik's observations about them, but I could see that allowing her mother into town still wasn't a comfortable prospect for her at this point.
Once we finished up the story, Morrigan was quick to jump in to talk about how things were going at the mage community etings to stop things from getting too emotionally heavy again. She and Raya were making a lot of progress teaching the other mages wild casting, and she hoped she could get around half of the people who had been mages before system's end to get casting again soon. It was much more challenging to teach them wild casting now that learning mana sense was harder without the system, but she was making good progress. Apparently, it was easier to teach them internal mana manipulation first, a skill that we learned with Theo on the way to the capital. That felt a bit backwards, especially since enhancent magic wasn't the most common casting discipline, but Morrigan explained that it was easier to teach them to move their mana first so they could start to sense it both inside and outside their body, rather than the other way around now that the system wasn't there to help them. It had been a minor breakthrough that had helped them better teach wild casting to everyone.
Not everyone was as interested in Morrigan's progress as I was, especially so of the more technical parts, so the others' hands began to wander throughout Morrigan's story. I could feel the sexual tension rising in the room as Morrigan's explanation went along. By the end, I knew that it was probably for the best that we didn't put things off any longer. Lori also noticed and decided to excuse herself the mont Morrigan finished. She gave Eira a wink before slipping away though, so it looked like there was an open invitation for her if she got bored. Eira winked back, so it looked like she got the ssage, but after my conversation with Eira this morning, I knew her eyes were set on soone else for the night.
Bella licked her lips. "Finally, let's go upstairs. I'm getting hungry and I need to blow off so steam after all of that. I can't wait any longer."
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