Prologue: The Question

By

Theia Rising and Storm Verita

Also known as  

Theia 47 and storm-brain

Also known as

The writers of this story

Also known as

Two of FFN’s more awesome personages

Prologue

The Question

            It was one of your typical family-sitting-around-and-someone-asks-a-question stories. Or would be, if the family hadn’t been the Verita-Rising-Ghost-Anderson-Firerings, and the asker hadn’t been Aventine.

            At the time the question was asked, everyone had been sitting rather peacefully in the living room, staring at the Christmas tree. It wasn’t a typical Christmas tree, either, because typical was not something the Verita-Rising-Ghost-Anderson-Firerings liked to adhere to. Part of it was obstructed by a rather large menorah, (despite Chanukah being long over) and for some reason there was a Festivus pole on the other side. (No one was quite sure how it got there. Des blamed Ave. Ave blamed Jed. Jed blamed Kal. Kal blamed Storm. Everyone else blamed Theia.)

            Rather peacefully is of course a relative term. (It’s the rather that gives it away.) But there had been no shouting matches as of yet, except for one rather sticky moment when Bianca had started to eat Pigeon’s cookies. Shocked at her mother, Pigeon had ran off and absconded with Cez’s plate before anyone had realized something was wrong. But on the upside, had been two days since Shadow had burned any of the furniture, and Theia and Storm hadn’t throttled each other yet.

            So of course that was when Ave had to ask The Question.

            “Mummy,” she said brightly, turning to Theia. “How was I born?”

            Everyone went silent.

            “Well,” Theia said, winking in a somewhat inappropriate manner, “When a man loves a woman sometimes they—”

            “Laura. Don’t lie to her.” Storm looked up from the top of her computer, and then typed one more thing (that looked suspiciously like gtg) before putting it away.

            “What are you doing? Mummy, this is family time.”

            Storm hid Sherlock under a pillow. “I was talking to Batty.”

            Everyone looked around, finally spotting Sheva in an armchair near the electrical fire. A computer was on her lap as well.

            While Kal and Des muttered something about broken homes and parents on gadgets, Storm and Theia engaged in a rather polite and cordial discussion.

            “I’ll tell her,” Theia said.

            “No, I will. You always get it wrong.”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Is Trevor my—” Ave started, but Storm quickly shushed her.

            “We don’t want to talk about him at Christmas, Klavelly—Aventine.”

            “Cookies, anyone?” Sheva asked loudly.

            At these magic words, everyone again went quiet. Then a clicking sound echoed around the room as everyone closed their laptops and ran over to Sheva.

            “Are these the Kosher ones?” Theia asked, hand hovering over the plate. “I don’t like the kosher ones.”

            Storm rolled her eyes, grabbing several. “Theia, it’s the gluten free ones you don’t like.”

            Theia grabbed ten. “Orite. XD.”

            Kay smacked her. “Theia, we’re not on Skype anymore. Smile like a normal person.”

            Once everyone had settled again on the sofas and armchairs—with thirty one people present, there were quite a lot of these—but before they could again begin talking over Skype (their preferred method, even when sitting in the same room,) Aventine again asked her question.

            “Can I explain later?” Theia whined. “I was about to start singing Christmas carols!”

            Everyone gasped.

            “Grandma Theia, I really want to know how Ave was born.” Jed said sincerely.

            Juliet nodded. “I, like, really really need to know.”

            “Life,” said Karma, “Is worth little until I have this piece of information.”

            Matt nodded, smiling brightly at his sister-in-law. “Life is just little fragments that we can’t make sense of.”

            Luna took a flying leap onto the back of the sofa, and opened her mouth to say something. But at this action, Nien and Brock, believing that it was time for leaping onto things, both decided that what they really wanted was to sit on Theia’s head. Perhaps this was a sign that they too wanted to know how Ave was born.

            Or perhaps their sensitive ears couldn’t handle her singing.

            In any case, there is only so much space on a person’s head, and Nien was the unlucky one that was pushed off. Sulking, she went and curled up in Storm’s lap, while Brock leaned over to stare at Theia.

            “I want to hear how Ave was born. I don’t really understand the human reproductive system,” he mewed.  

            Everyone simultaneously entered what Sheva would call a deep, cleansing trance, and everyone else would call an awkward silence.

            “Fine,” Theia snapped. “If you don’t want to engage in normal Christmas tradition and hear my luffable singing voice, then I’ll tell you.”

            “And I’ll correct you when you’re done,” Storm said helpfully.

            A pause.

            “You know, it would make a lot more sense if we started at the beginning,” Theia said after a second.

            Storm nodded. At that moment she had the entire hooked part of the candy cane in her tongue, which was making it hard to talk. Thus her response sounded something like “Wuh should stah wi’ Deth.”

            Silence.

            “Come again?” Asked Rachel. Storm bit down on the candy, freeing her mouth.

            “I said, ‘we should start with Des.’”

Epilogue

            “You got all the kids when they were little?” Shadow asked, tail twitching.

            Theia nodded.

            “So how come you’re all about the same age?”

            Theia rolled her eyes at her cousin-in-law-in-law’s stupidity.

            “Obviously,” said she, “Storm and I possess powers, the likes of which you will never understand. Now go to bed.”

            The popularity she had achieved moments before decreased significantly as the younger generation was herded towards the archway that led off to the winding castle corridors.

            Cara stopped.

            “Storm, how were you born?”

            “My siblings and I were magically born when some Mystic Godly Powers exploded.”

            Ellen nodded her agreement.

            Cara frowned. “Then how is Juliet-Ninja your Grandma?”

            “What did I tell you about going to bed?”

           

            The fire was lower, making the stone castle walls glow. They reflected in Nien’s eyes as she stared at the fire. Storm yawned, turning off Sherlock and hiding her face in a pillow.

            “I’m tired.”

            “Go to bed, idiot.” Theia didn’t look up from her video game.

            “Yeah, yeah.”

            Storm stood, and walked carefully. The carpeted floor muffled her feet as she squatted next to the fireplace. Nien waved.

            “Hi, Storm.”

            Storm patted the cat on the head as she glanced up.

            “Please tell me you didn’t get me another toothbrush this year.” Theia had abandoned her videogame and was squatting next to the tree, poking at the presents.

            “Don’t open em early,” Sheva mumbled, sitting up.

            Storm jumped. “I thought you went to bed ages ago.”

            “I did.” Sheva paused. “Well, I feel asleep. Until you two started being noisy.”

            “Lol.”

            “Theia.”

            “I mean, sorry. Storm, you’re absolutely sure this isn’t a toothbrush.”

            “I’m not going to tell. And if I remember that year you gave me a free keychain from the vet’s office. You can’t talk.”

            “A keychain is more useful than a toothbrush.”

            “You want gross teeth? Toothbrushes are a better investment.” Pause. “The guy who sold us the castle really needed one.”

            Theia grinned. “You shoulda given it to him instead. Oh my god, remember how he kept on creeping on Brock?”

            One of the great things about castles were that you could laugh loudly at midnight and it was unlikely that you would be heard. “He wasn’t creeping on him.”

            Brock looked somewhat offended.

            “No, really.” Theia said sincerely. “He kept on petting him and feeling him up and stuff. I still think that Brock was the reason he didn’t charge us too much. That or he knew how much we deserved it.”

            “Oh, totally. It’s a shame it didn’t come with maid service though.” After years of living there they had very easily turned it into not so much as a castle but a trash pit. Thorn had fallen into the habit of, when her room got too messy, merely taking the things she wanted and moving into another bedroom.

            “Don’t worry. One year we can hire someone to go clean it top to bottom.”

            “Might have to not eat for a month though. ’Snot a big deal. I’m just tired of going into rooms and finding molding clothes. No wonder you always wear the same jacket.”

            Theia pulled her hobo jacket tighter around her shoulders. “No hating on my jacket.”

            Silence again descended in the room as somewhere in the castle a clock chimed midnight.

            “Happy Christmas,” Sheva yawned. “I’m going to bed for real. I’ll probably get lost along the way. If you find me asleep in a random room I’m going to blame your lack of maps.”

            Storm glanced over her shoulder. “How many times do I have to tell you? You take a left then a right then go down the hall then take a left and go up two flights of stairs then take a right then take the shortcut behind the giant rabbit statue and then go down the ladder and it’s the first door you see.”

            “And you don’t want to go into random rooms. You might find Kay and all of her spouses. (Sans Kayla, of course, Storm.) You’re too easily scarred, Sheva hon,” Theia said helpfully.

            Rolling her eyes, Sheva trudged towards the door, muttering something about golf carts.

            “She has a point, you know.” Theia frowned. “I don’t feel like going all the way to my room… I think I’ll stay here and make sure Santa doesn’t leave us any more babies…”

            “Whatever.” Storm yawned. “I don’t trust you alone with the presents. Brock, Nien, guard her will you?” Pause. “You too, Mouse.”

            Theia grinned, glancing sideways at the cats. “If you don’t tell on me, I’ll give you some of my candy tomorrow,” she whispered, after checking that Storm was gone.

Chapter Five: When the International Relations and Child Abuse Committee Came Calling

 

            “Peter has the best story,” said Cez. “That one is so amazing.”

            “Not really.” Storm brushed cookie crumbs off her lap. “That was awful. But come on. Shouldn’t we all read The Night Before Christmas and sing Christmas carols like a normal family?”

            “But we aren’t a normal family, Storm,” Kal said innocently. As if to prove this point—

            “Mouse!” Brock jumped off of Theia’s head, landing on the floor. The small brown mouse darted between his paws, ran around behind him, and, using his tale like a ramp, up to his head. She crawled up between his ears, leaning forward, just as Brock had done to Theia just a little bit ago.

            “Hi Xed,” she squeaked.

            “Gah!” The cat shook his head furiously, side to side, trying to dislodge her. “Geoff me!”

            “Gotcha!” Nien came sailing above them, pushing Mouse off Xed’s head and punning her. “Victory is mine!”

            “Ow!” Mouse hit Nein’s paw repeatedly with her tail, though it wasn’t doing much good. “Ow, I think you broke my leg.”

            “Nah.” Nien took a few steps back. “You’re just being wimpy.”

            Theia rolled her eyes, scooping Mouse up off the floor. “Be nice,” she ordered the cats.

            Brock saluted.

            “What were we saying?” Reese asked.

            “Um, that we weren’t a normal family,” Kal reminded her. Everyone nodded. “Anyway, The Night Before Christmas isn’t PC since we have a Jewish person and a dragon present.”

            “What does being a dragon have to do with anything?” Storm asked, and was rewarded with a puff of smoke to the face. “Okay, okay, fine.”

            “You should tell the Peter story,” Theia said cheerfully. “Otherwise I’m gonna sing.”

            “No no no.” Storm shook her head. “Peter. Right. I’ll tell the Peter story to the… how many people haven’t already heard it?”

            “Cez, Cara, Tay, Luna, Neon, Jed, Critic, Juliet, Des, Ellen, Jason, Ten, Bianca, Draco, Rachel, Lola, Andy, Reese, Jess, and Shadow,” Peter recited. “You never tell that one.”

            “Because if everyone knew it it might get us arrested,” Storm muttered.

            Silence ensured.

            “You can’t just stay silent after that,” Bianca said fairly.

            “Watch me.”

            “I can tell it,” Theia volunteered. “Stormeh is just paranoid.”

            “Paranoid? They searched our castle.”

Another deep, cleansing trance crept upon everyone, and Storm sighed. “

“Fine.” Storm paused. “Okay, so, basically… he’s our most recent kid, but I don’t really know if the others knew what was going on. Hell, I didn’t know what was going on.

            We had just come back from a family trip to Korea, and were unpacking. Ave and Thorn were fighting over the slinky, and it was because of that that we didn’t hear the bell at first. It’s a big castle. But eventually Kayla showed up and told us that there was a ‘weird looking man’ standing on the drawbridge demanding entrance.”

            “How old was she then?” Asked Andy from where she was sprawled on one of the sofas.

            “Six, seven, maybe? But all our children ended up as prodigies, so it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, so I stood up to go and tell that strange man to state his business or stay the—”

            “Mummy!”

            “—away from our castle, when Theia suddenly grabbed onto my arm and asked Kayla if the man was wearing a suit. Kayla said that yes, he was. Theia asked if the suit was blue and it was. She asked if it had certain logo over one pocket and it did.

            And then Theia started freaking out.”

            “I do not freak out.”

            “’Scuse me. Theia went into a minor state of panic, just like most mortals do on my occasions. She told me to walk really really slowly down to the gate.

            At that point I was wondering what law she’d broken and was going through the list of our financial assets wondering if there was a lawyer I could bribe as I lowered the drawbridge. And then I wondered if I shoudln’ just push the suited man into the moat and be done with him, but alas, I decided that that might be in bad taste.

            “Is this the castle of Theia Rising?” he asked, all official-like. I asked him how many other castles were in the fandom, and he asked to come in.

            I couldn’t decide between stalling and asking him if he liked ice cream and if so what kind or just going back in, since I didn’t really want to play a part in Theia’s various illegal activities. But her getting arrested would be annoying, so I just asked him why he was there.

            “We have rumors of child smuggling,” he said, dead serious.

            I laughed, which probably didn’t help our case.

            “Child smuggling?” (and then I wondered if it had something to do with any of the kids, but we’d adopted all of them, legally.) “We’ve got the adoption papers and stuff.”

            “Actually no adoption papers were filed as one would need the consent of the parents.”

            “But why wouldn’t someone have told us? All the girls have been here for years.”

            Now he was the one that was confused. I might possibly have been flipping out internally.”

            Storm stopped for a few seconds.

            “Well, what was I supposed to feel when a random guy accuses my spouse of child smuggling? Anyway. So he said something like “how can he have been there for years?” I told him that we didn’t have any children of the male persuasion, and he agreed that we did not because he was not adopted and had, in fact, possibly been kidnapped.

            I asked him what the fuck he was talking about.

            “Can I come in?”

            Figuring that Theia had already done whatever she’d been planning—how the hell could she smuggle a child without telling me? Or more importantly, why would she do it without telling me since she knew I’d hit the roof until all the dust fell on her head—I brought him inside.

            And then he shows me a search warrant and leads a bunch of artfully concealed goons across our moat. So while they start going through the mess Shadow made of the living room on his last visit, I went upstairs to find Theia—“

            “And asked me what the hell was going on.” Theia tried to speak around the sugar filling her mouth. “Right. So I sort of shrugged all innocent-like and went downstairs. And the random goonians asked me if I was Theia Rising the 47^th. And I said no, I was the Theia Rising and that I could kick their asses if I so chose and so what were they doing in my castle?”

            Ten headpillowed.

            “So they showed me their shmancy search warrents and told me that they had orders to search the house. And Storm comes down saying something like WTF, but she didn’t actually say WTF. And she sort of glared at me, but I’m used to that, so I just ignored it. And so they went out and wandered through the castle…. You know, I’m pretty sure two of them got lost and never came out.” She blinked innocently.

            “Yeah. So I’m trying to figure out what they’re looking for, and Theia isn’t telling me anything, and they won’t tell me anything. So after awhile they leave after even checking behind all our pictures—“

            “As though we would be so cliché as to have a hidden passageway behind a picture—“

            For… god, I think it might have been days but it was probably just a few hours. They even watched our surveillance tapes, but Theia kept them from rewinding because she just claimed that her cousin-in-law and her cousin-in-law-in-law had just had hot sex in a guestroom and if they went back she’d accuse them of inappropriate conduct.”

            “Hey!” Kay protested. “I never heard that part.”

            “But it’s true,” Theia said. Kay glared at her. “Oh, come on, Kay. Everyone could hear it—“

            Everyone put their hands over their eyes and tried to cover their ears.

            “Scarring images,” Luna said sincerely. “Moving right along.”

            “Ah, yes.” Theia nodded. “Where were we? Oh, right, hot sex in the guest room. So anyway, after awhile they left. And Storm was pestering me like you wouldn’t believe—”

            “I’d totally believe it,” Jason muttered.

            “Okay, imagine that but ten times worse. And I wait a couple days to make sure it’s safe—“

            “To annoy me, you mean—“

            “Lol.”

            “Laura.”

            “Sorry, I mean, yeah, mostly. And then I went and took Peter out of the printer cartridge.” Theia snickered at the stunned expressions of everyone present. “See, what happened, was that when we went to Korea there was this little boy that kept on following me around all miserable. His parents had escaped North Korea and he tried to go home and ended up getting hopelessly lost. And so then he decided that I was an awesome person—he has excellent judgment—and so I was like, okay, I’ll bring him home. And so I smuggled him onto the airplane. But then when someone reported a bag that breathed, they tracked me down to our castle. But then I hid Peter in a printer cartridge.”

            “…A printer cartridge.”

            “It’s true, Rachel.” Peter nodded. “I remember it. Quite small and cramped in there, it was. Even though it was a larger than average cartridge and I was a smaller than average child.”

            “It would’nt have mattered if they found him. When he came out he was completely pink,” Theia recalled. “So Storm sees this pink kid running down the hall, and she had a cow… I’m pretty sure the cow is still wandering around up there too.”

            “Sometimes,” Sheva said in a low, scary voice, “Visitors to the castle have heard a mysterious mooing sound in the night. If you hear it… it’s Storm’s cow.”

            Everyone laughed. The awkward, strained sort of laugh one hears at the end of a sary story, when you’re just realizing that the danger has passed. The relieved type.

            The tired type.

            The clock chimed quarter to midnight, and a fight broke out over the last cookie.

Chapter Four: In Which Everyone Blames Theia

Chapter Five

In Which Everyone Blames Theia.
Again.

Everything went quiet.

            “And now for Kal’s story,” Storm said a little more forcefully, looking pointedly at her dearest spouse.

            Theia developed a sudden interest in the ceiling, and Storm groaned, hiding her head in her hands.

            “You didn’t do it, did you?”

            “Well—“

            “Theia!”

            Theia looked appropriately apologetic. “Kalila I’ll tell you about your early life… later.”

            Kal looked appropriately devastated. “Mummy!”

            “The obvious guilting has already been done, Kaline.” Storm patted her daughter on the shoulder. “I’ve been pestering her for like a week.”

            Theia threw up her hands. “Whatdya expect? I’m grounded! And it’s Kalila!”

            “It’s Kaline. You would have gotten to name her if you’d remembered how you found her!”

            Theia continued holding her hands in the air. “It was behind a bloody chocolate shop! What else is there to say?”

            Storm facepalmed. Sheva facepalmed. Ellen and Jason and Kay and Jess and Reese and Andy and Lola and Rachel and Draco and Bianca and Ten and Kayla and Des and Ave and Thorn and Peter and Tay and Luna and Pigeon and Jed and Critic and Juliet and Cara facepalmed. Shadow tailfaced, and Kal looked tragically sad.

            “Well,” said Storm, trying to stay patient, “you went behind the chocolate shop because you heard someone crying and found this cute little toddler. And because you love kids and have no morals whatsoever when it comes to bringing them home—no offence, Peter and Thorn—you brought her home.

            So I’m sitting inside with Ave doing something or another and Thorn is doing homework and everything is all normal and then suddenly Theia walks across the drawbridge. And Kayla came in and was like, ‘Storm, Theia is coming in with a weirdly shaped bundle.’

            And I groaned, because I knew what that meant. And sure enough Theia came upstairs holding the worlds cutest—except for Ave and Thorn and Kayla and Des and Peter, of course—toddler, and was like, ‘this is Kaline.’”

            “Kalila!” Theia snapped.

            “You didn’t tell the story so I’m telling the story and I’m telling it my way. At least I’m not telling them about how you fell out the window and were almost eaten by a—”

            “That never happened!”

            “Yeah but I’m telling the story, aren’t I? Anyway, so Theia said ‘this is Kaline.’ And Ave started talking about how cute she was, and Thorn did too except I think it was a ploy to get out of homework.

            So Kaline lived with us for awhile, and we were wondering when people would start talking about that kid that disappeared from the chocolate store. I kept on expecting to wake up and be put under arrest. But we never were. And after about a week adoption papers appeared in our mailbox that said sign here and return to sender.

            Well we obviously had no idea who the sender was, but Theia signed and left them in the mailbox. Right after she did that the mailbox lit up pink and the papers disappeared. We thought that was it, but then Theia had the sense to check— did I just say Theia had sense? I meant that Theia just randomly checked to see if there as anything inside and there were adoption papers.”

            “Lit up pink,” Kal said slowly. “So that means that it was probably—”

            “Aphrodite,” Theia said. “Who wanted us to adopt you.”

            Ave looked suitably impressed. “You mean Kal is a child of Aphrodite?”

            Theia nodded. “It’s probably why she’s so… hugable.”

Chapter Three: Irish Jesus and the Friend in the Closet

Chapter Four

Irish Jesus and the Friend in the Linen Closet

Theia stood up dramatically, turning towards the fireplace. “On the morning of October 3rd, 1997, Storm was in bed and I was up desperately trying to complete an assignment given to me weeks before. It was four AM, on a dark and stormy night. As I was typing madly away on my computer, there was a loud, sharp knock.

“Mia and Kayla were already asleep and I froze. And then I muttered to myself, ‘Who the hell would be up at this hour?’ And then I got up after grabbing a copy of Breaking Dawn—don’t look at me like that, Draco, it’s for self-defense, really. I mean, who wouldn’t get a concussion after being knocked out with that thing?—and then I went to the front door.”

“And no one was there,” supplied Storm.

“Shut up, Storm. You were in goddamned bed. It’s my story to tell!” Theia pouted. Storm rolled her eyes and waved her hand in the air, gesturing for her wife to continue. “But anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted, I went to the door and opened it. And no one was there. I thought at first, ‘Shit, what kind of idiot would doorbell-ditch me at four in the morning? I should call the police.’”

She paused to munch on a cookie. “Mummy,” whined Kal, “continue!”

Theia glared at her. “Kalila,” she said after swallowing, “I can tell this on my own time. But anyway, as I was closing the door, I heard a baby’s cry. I opened the door again and saw a cute little redhead girl wrapped in pink blankets. I’m pretty sure I said something like ‘Ohmigod female Irish Jesus’ and then I picked you up. Of course, wrapped around your wrist, was a note that said, ‘I’ve been watching you. Take good care of her.’ And it was signed with a KA.”

She nodded importantly at the dubious looks on everyone’s faces. “I thought up random names to fit you, Kelly dear, and then I went to the mysterious initials for inspiration. And then I thought, ‘Crap, Kelly and Aventine! Kelly Aventine! A beautiful name!’ And then I ran upstairs to Storm and my bedroom and woke her up.”

Storm laughed. “I called her a few bad names.”

“Mummy! Bad influence!”

“Oh, shut up. Go on, Theia, or I’ll continue it for you.”

Theia glared at her spouse. “Nuh-uh. So anyway, I turned on the lights and told Storm to shut up when she started swearing at me. When she asked what could be so important at four o’ clock in the damn morning—her words, I swear—I grabbed the newly Christened Kelly Aventine in her face. She had the drool and little tufts of red hair too. It was so cute. I love little kids.” Theia sighed.

There was a pause. “Mummy, get on with the story.”

“Oh, right. XD.”

Kay smacked her again. “Oh, right. Haha,” amended Theia hastily. “So Storm just looked at me all weird and said, ‘You didn’t steal this kid or anything while I was asleep, did you?’ And I made some retort about domestic trust and lack of money—”

“You’re living in . . . a . . . castle,” Rachel pointed out.

“It was expensive, okay?

“That’s why I gave you the toothbrush,” said Storm helpfully.

“I know and I loved the stupid toothbrush, dear. Now shut up and let me continue. Now. When we started arguing, Kelly started cooing and we put her in a dusty old crib Storm managed to find in the attic at five in the morning. It was the best we could find. When we’d actually had proper sleep and my ass wasn’t in trouble with my agent for not completing work on time, we got her proper baby stuff and cleared out one of the fifty guest bedrooms.”

Kelly frowned. “Is that it?”

Theia tapped her chin. “Well, not exactly. We never found out who your parents were but you loved the puppies in the windows of the pet store, so I bought you most of them with Storm’s credit card. She got mad at me for that, although I don’t know why, and said I needed to get a bank account of my own. Which . . . I still need to do.”

There was a pause. “Anything else?” she pressed. Theia squinted at the window and pursed her lips.

“Right, then there was Thorn when you were in fifth grade. When I came home from the agency—my agent was being a pain in the ass about my latest novel then, you see—you were coloring your homework with permanent rainbow Sharpie with a girl looking over your shoulder. Then you saw me and beamed and was all, ‘Mummy, this is my twinsie!’”

Sheva gave Theia a dubious look. “You let her draw on her homework? With permanent Sharpies?”

“No, of course not! I want her to get into college too! So I just stare at this girl and I’m like, ‘Dude, how are you twins?’ And then Kelly glares at me and shuns me because she thinks it’s obvious. Of course, I’m still confused by the time Storm comes home.”

Storm laughed, pulling her feet up on the sofa. “And then I looked at Thorn and said—”

“She said,” said Theia loudly, glaring at her spouse, “and I quote, ‘Who the hell’s this girl? Theia, did you kidnap another kid again?’ And then I went, ‘Of course not, Storm! You wound me with such a suggestion!’ But then Storm called the police office and asked if they had gotten any reports of missing children. Naturally, this made them suspicious and they came around to our castle ten minutes later. We hid Thorn in a linen closet, I yelled at Storm for calling the police, and then we legally adopted her.”

 Pause.

“We’re still not really sure where she came from though. She never got around to telling us. She should really do that someday.”

Theia beamed. Kelly and Thorn glared at each other and Kayla rubbed her temples. “C’mon, guys, it’s Christmas. Can you kiss and make up, please? I’m sure most of the people here would just love that.”

Kelly stared at her hands and Thorn looked away, outside at the dark night.

“And so concludes the story of Kelly Aventine and Acacia Thorn,” Storm declared quickly. “Now, for Kal’s story.”

Chapter Two: The Lion's Den. No, I mean the one at the zoo.

Chapter Two

The Lion’s Den… at the Zoo

            Another plate of cookies went around.

            “So can I sing now?” Theia didn’t even wait for permission. “Bee ourrr guest, be our guest—”

            “If you’re going to sing it should at least be Christmas songs.” Thorn covered her ears. “Seriously, Theia.”

            “I want to hear the story of how Lion got here,” Tay said quickly.

            Theia stopped. “You’ve heard that story like ten times this week.”

            “But it’s funny.”

            Theia stretched out on the sofa, pushing her sister to one end with her feet.

            “Later,” Theia mumbled “I’m singing.”

            “Storm, you tell us. We really really want to hear it again.”

            There were nods of agreement. Storm glanced at Kayla, who was laughing at Sheva’s disgusted expression as she tried to move Theia’s feet out of her face.

            The high domed ceiling above them made everyone feel very small, despite there being at least thirty people in the room. (They hadn’t necessarily wanted to be in the room together, but it was an unspoken agreement that family togetherness meant actual togetherness instead of just being on the same planet, and those that were not there would not be missed as it was effectively breaking ties with the rest of all that was good in the world.)

            “Okay,” Storm said, over the bellowing of Good King Wenceslas coming from the sofa next to her. “So it was maybe a few months after Des showed up and we were taking her to the zoo because she wanted to see the lions.”

            “She could talk at a few months old?” Rachel added something under her breath about this being such a weird family and how they might possibly rival her nine others.

            “Of course she could. She could talk starting maybe two weeks after she showed up in our firepit. It was quite creepy, really. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. The zoo.

            So I wanted to take pictures of the peacocks, Mia wanted to see the Lions, and Theia wanted to see the phoenixes. She still hasn’t understood that Phoenixes don’t exist.”

            Sixty eyes turned towards where Theia was now pretending to be asleep. But she couldn’t ignore it when people were talking about her, so she pretended to wake up.

            “I’m sitting in a bloody castle with six children and the world’s most awesome spouse, one of my children used to be an elf, I have talking cats and a dragon for a cousin-in-law-in-law,” she said. “What’s to say Phoenixes don’t exist?”

            “But they’re not at the zoo, Mummy.” Kal looked a little worried, as though she was just starting to realize that her younger mother’s sanity was in question.

            “Anyway. So after we walked up to where the the information person was and Theia asked where the Phoenixes were they sort of stared at us as though we belonged in straightjackets and told us there weren’t any. Convinced it was all a sham, Theia went to every freaking info booth demanding that they tell us the truth.

            By that point, Mia was screaming that she wanted to go see the lions now. So I convinced—”

            “Forced—”

            “Theia to give up the search.

            We were down at the lion area and Mia was staring at them, eyes about as big as those gumballs that Peter is trying to put in his mouth, when a little girl showed up next to us.

            We didn’t really notice her at first until she informed Theia that ‘Your baby is talking.’

            Theia looked down at her.

            ‘Are you an elf, too?’

            The girl didn’t seem to find the question odd at all.

            ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m Lioness.’

            I hadn’t really been paying attention until that point so I said something like yes, there were lionesses in the habitat.

            ‘No,’ she said in her little girl voice, ‘I’m Lioness.’

            ‘Your name is Lioness?’ Theia asked, pulling Mia away from the glass.

            Lioness nodded solemnly.     

            So I asked her where her parents were, wondering if I should go back to the zoo people. They’d probably have thought we were crazy… first we come by asking for Phoenixes and now we want to find the parents of a kid named Lioness.

            But she just stared at me like I was a crazy lunatic. (Don’t say it. I know you’re thinking it, Batty-la. Don’t.)

            ‘I dunno,’ she said.

            So I looked around, hoping that someone would be showing signs of frantically looking for a wayward toddler.

            No one was.

            Shouting that I’d found a child might be a bad plan because you never know what kind of creepos are out there, so Theia asked for her parents’ names.

            ‘I dunno.’

            ‘Who did you come with?’

            ‘I dunno.’

            ‘Why are you here?’

            ‘I dunno.’

            ‘Have you always been here at the lion exhibit?’

            ‘I dunno!” She started to cry. “I’m Lioness.”

            ‘Yeah, we got that part.” Theia raised her eyes at me, like, can you believe this? I don’t know if Mia even realized what was going on because one of the cubs was wandering near the glass and she just thought it was the cutest thing ever.

            ‘Do you think we should take her to the zoo people?’ I asked her.

            Theia shrugged. ‘I dunno.’”

            “Witty, T,” Jed said, and Storm jumped, having just been watching Kayla and imagining her again as the clueless toddler she had been.

            “I know. I’m really great at that stuff.” Theia nodded, rolling over and pretending to go back to sleep, wiggling her feet again in Sheva’s face.

            “Veritate Sto!” Peter stabbed a finger in the air.

            Storm continued.

            “And so then we’re like, okay, we have to figure something out. So we go and leave the exhibit. And she just randomly follows us. So we take her towards the zoo people. They sort of roll their eyes as we got there and I just remember really hoping that they didn’t remember the phoenix incident.

            ‘This kid lost her parents,’ said Theia, stepping forward. I nodded along.

            The woman leaned forward, looking around. ‘What kid?’

            ‘That—oh, shit.’ We looked around for a few minutes and finally saw her crouching behind the garbage can.

I pointed, and said something like ‘That one. She says her name is Lioness and she doesn’t know who she came here with, who her parents are, or what she does when she’s not at the zoo.’

            The woman looked amused. Lioness looked at her, then at us, and then took off.

            ‘Oh, shit.’

            Theia ran after her, leaving me to put Mia back in her backpack and put the straps on so that I could follow.”

            “The people at the Veritapolis zoo really love us,” Theia said wistfully. ‘I got in trouble once for throwing pebbles at the Mary Sues in the Mary Sue exhibit.”

            “I like the fire-breathing bull one best,” said Peter randomly.

            “Strange things happen at that zoo all the time. Maybe they were used to random little kids popping up out of nowhere. They didn’t lock us in the nut house, but maybe that was just because they couldn’t catch us. You wouldn’t think a toddler would be able to go that fast, but she was basically running on all fours and me and Theia were having a hard time keeping up I think we lost her around the Sue house.

            So we’re like, okay, that was really really weird, but the kid isn’t our responsibility. So we kept on going and seeing all the animals and stuff. And at some point we realized that she was following us.  But I thought she was just playing games. I’d see the top of her head behind a bush or something. And we finally got out to the car, and I’m starting to start it up again when suddenly she climbs in the back seat.”

            Theia nodded, not pretending to sleep anymore. “And Storm was like, O_O.”

            “Laura.”

            “I mean, Storm was totally shocked and staring bug eyed, in an O-underscore-O fashion.”

            “Well, yeah. I mean, I thought we were going to be arrested for kidnapping and child transport and stuff. So we kept saying things like ‘We’re not your parents,’ and that type of stuff, but she looked confused. So after awhile she said something along the lines of ‘But you have a talking baby.’

            ‘Hey,’ said Mia from her car seat. ‘You can talk too.’

            ‘But you’re too little to talk.’

            ‘You’re too little to run.’

            ‘Am not!’

            ‘Am too!’

            Theia called the zoo on her cell and asked if anyone had reported a missing kid but they said no one had. And so she said that we’d found one and they should call us, but before she was able to ask someone to come out and collect said missing kid, the car drove out of the parking lot and onto the highway.”

            Storm stopped at their dubious expressions.

            “No, but seriously. It just started driving us home. So Lion came home with us and a few weeks later adoption papers randomly appeared in the mailbox, just like with—but we’ll get to that part later.”

            “Did you ever find anything out?” Neon asked, looking shocked.

            “I dunno.”

            “We think it might have been some sort of godly intervention.” Sheva grabbed Theia’s feet and began tickling them until, Theia unable to defend herself, she could drag her sister off the sofa. Theia oomphed as she landed on the floor, the stone only held at bay by half an inch of carpet.

            “Ow.”

            “Do you remember anything, Kayla?” A pause, then Jess added, “how’d you get the name Kayla?”

            Lion shrugged. “I dunno.”     

            “What about me?” Ave asked hopefully, pulling an afghan tighter around her shoulders.

Chapter One: Des

Chapter One

Of Des

            “Mia… Mia came what, the first winter in our castle? Must have been—we were only just engaged, right, Theia?” Storm stopped, horrified, realizing that she had just asked Theia a non-accusatory question. “Well, anyway. See, we were in here, opening presents—”

            “Didn’t you get me a toothbrush that year?”

             “We’d just moved into an effing castle, it’s not like I had a lot of change. Anyway. We were in here, opening presents and stuff when out of nowhere a baby starts crying. So we look around, a little freaked out—”

            “A little? ‘Theia, does this castle have a baby infestation that we didn’t know about?’”

            “Shut up, Theia. As I was saying, we look around, trying to peel wrapping paper off our fingers, and in the fireplace there’s this little baby covered in soot.”

            Everyone turned towards the aforementioned fireplace, quite possibly imagining a baby sitting in the flames.

            Storm realized this was the quietest it had been all of Christmas break. It was rather nice.

            “That’s kind of gross, Des-Mom.” The lights were reflecting in Juliet’s eyes, making her look rather evil. “Seriously gross.”

            Des rubbed her skin.

            “Eh, it wasn’t that bad. They exaggerate.” Sheva rolled onto her stomach, looking up at everyone else. “I bet it’s almost washed off by now.”

            Everyone laughed, except for Juliet, who edged away a few inches, flipping her long dark hair over one shoulder.

            Theia reached up and tried to pull Brock off her head. “And then I walked over and read the note that was taped to your—“

            “—forehead. I was telling the story, Laura. Be quiet.” Storm chucked a pillow at her.

            Theia gaped at Storm for a moment, and then whipped a massive supersoaker out from under the couch, where she had saved it should such an occasion ever arise.

            “Domestic violence sets a bad example for the children!” Ave shrieked as Storm picked up the bow she always claimed was only hanging on the wall for decoration and loaded a fart arrow. “Mummy—”
            “Yammy, don’t you dare—”

            “Plug your nose!”

            Shadow snorted, blowing a plume of smoke into everyone’s faces. During the coughing and the swearing that followed—“Goddamyt, Shadow, I’m going to have to make someone air out the furniture again,”—Storm and Theia lowered their weapons.

            “Anyway. So according to the note, this is what happened:

            See, Santa once had an elf. But this elf had no aptitude for crafts, though she could write really, really well. They think that something went wrong in the genetic tinkering they did to make the elfs good craftsmen, for she was good—or better—at writing than the others were at making toy cars. Unfortunately, Santa is a materialistic man who values material goods. He and the elf had a bit of a face-off after her attempt at making a Zhu Zhu pet went awry, and the fake hamster bit the buckle off one of Santa’s boots.

            But the elf sent such a persuasive letter on why she should not be smited that Santa realized that her skills were wasted at the assembly line.

            So he turned her into a baby.”

            “Hoooooold up.” Kal poked her sister. “You mean Desy is an elf? I thought that nearly six hundred elves died in toilet related incidents each year!”

            Des hunched over, pushing her glasses up her nose, and looked as though she wished that there were not thirty other people in the room, saying something like “harrumph.”

            “Don’t worry.” Theia patted the former elf on the head. “He turned you into a human. No toilet problems for you.”

            Storm rolled her eyes.

            “So once the elf had been turned into a baby human he had to find her a good home. So he brought here because—”

            “—he loved Storm’s cookies,” said Theia, at the same time as Storm’s “We’re just that awesome.”

            “Stormsry’s cookies aren’t as good as Great Aunt Sheva’s,” Jed said, shoving another cookie into her mouth. “Why didn’t Santa go there?”

            Everyone stared at her for a long moment.

            “Santa doesn’t like kosher cookies,” Rachel said finally.

            Everyone stared some more.

            “Keep going with the story, mummy,” Ave said. Storm blinked.

            “And then Theia looked at me and was like—“

            “Theia looked at me and said—”

            “Shut up, Jessica.”

            “I did not say that!”

            “You shut up too, Theia.” Storm crossed her arms, reclining her armchair some. The footstool extended, and Critter groaned as it hit her.

            “Storm!”

            “Sorry. Do you guys want to hear the end or not?”

            Instantly, again, everything was quiet, except for the vague sound of Xed snoring. He had, it seemed, gotten tired of the conversation.

            “And then Theia was like, ‘STORM! Our daughter's Mozart! Except, you know, a literary-wise and female kind.’”

            Everyone laughed.

            “And that was how Desmia came into our lives.” Theia stopped. “The details of her actual birth, however, are unclear.”

            “You mean elf sex isn’t hot?”

            “Kay!” Sheva covered her eyes. “Mental images.”

            “That’s really how Des got here?” Draco frowned .

            Theia shrugged. “That, or some old lady wrote the story and dropped a baby down the tallest chimney in the castle. Desy wasn’t scratched at all.”

            Silence followed these words as everyone tried to decide which was more likely.

            “It’s got to be Santa,” Luna said finally.