Pairs of Pumpkins #11: The Teleporting Tours of a Top-Heavy Teenager (04/13)

Anastasia finished the leftover meal but it wasn't enough. Standing, she scanned the table for the next most untouched plate: Tabitha's. She hurried over to it and scooted herself into her seat, then picked up the plate and set it on her chest. The fork clattered as she readied it and she glanced back to the door again to be sure no one had heard.

When Zarron arrived earlier today, she tried to follow them to the lab but the locked door kept her out as effectively as Eva. What were they doing inside? Why were these three daughters with him?  

Zentalia was a Life Wizard and made complete sense as a new apprentice to Zarron. Anastasia hadn't focused on any one particular school of magic and relied on the library more than Zarron to learn advanced magic so Zentalia was theoretically better suited for the job.

Eva and Duayne only knew what the Ledger told them but Ana remembered as a toddler when Zarron created Zentalia. She was one of a dedicated batch he called "The Prodigies."  

Bred to be especially-intelligent like herself, there were two for each school of legal magic and Zarron sent them to magic academies to be raised, with an agreement that he would someday take one of them back. None specialized in any of the forbidden schools like Mind or Soul Magic, that she could try to track down for help with the missing Duos.

Branka was a more curious choice. Months younger than Ana and adopted by Evoker wizard parents, she was likely brought up on her parent's path. Her parents had paid full price for her and there was no indication in her original order that she was may return to Zarron's service. Something had changed.

Evangeline was right to question Tabitha's presence but the jealousy was likely unfounded. Zarron had a cold but strangely respectful relationship with the daughters he created, even the one he made to be his future wife. It was unlikely that changed whether he loved either or neither of them.

Discussing it one night with her mother, Portia theorized the raccoon needed to keep emotional distance or he might start to sympathize with the children he sold as products. They'd bred a number of hybrid fox-raccoons over the years but Zarron always used a sperm donor despite having unlimited access to his own. It seemed unlikely from their time together that he would ever develop aspirations of fatherhood. At least not while still selling children.

An omni-breeder was a marvel of magic that no other Life Wizard was capable of, Zarron had explained. In Tabitha's case, he did it just to see if it was possible and how much it might be worth.  

The miracle of her existence and capabilities turned out to not be in high demand. He sold only a few since for very specialized fates but he enjoyed the challenge of the work, moreso in more recent years.  

After being born, Tabitha was studied for a short time before she was sent off, on-loan to an Institute of Domestic Labor. She would be a professional housekeeper and cook, which meant Zarron likely kept her around to take care of him. In that way, she might also be Eva's replacement.

Perhaps more interesting, the study of an omni-breeder once physically mature would be interesting to a scholar of Life Magic and also to herself. No one could really know the extent of her breeding compatibility without testing. If that was why, he wouldn't have needed to wait so long. Of course, the last year changed a lot of things for all of them and Zarron might have changed his plans too.  

The raccoon wizard made no secret that some of his secrets he would not share with her, despite her apprentice status and burning curiosity. He was away from home often enough that he could easily be up to other projects. Perhaps he'd been working with all of them for several years already, somewhere else. It wouldn't be his first lie to her.

Always curious, she hadn't been suspicious of the time he spent away. He was an important wizard with other wizardly business. The duplicity Zarron was capable of only became obvious to her when she watched him give up three of the Duodecaplets to Madam Marmalade, body and soul.

Her interest in what exactly it was threatened to devour her thoughts but she needed to get moving. Her mother would be worried, most of her mission objectives were already accomplished.  

Anastasia stood with a wince, from overeating on an emaciated stomach. Hands steadied herself on the dining room table for a moment as her top-heaviness settled. She looked down at the expansive shelf of flesh that blocked her view of the rest of her stomach, legs, feet and the ground below her, re-confirming she was visible again.

Watching the door, she considered the possible outcomes of Eva and the Duodecaplets' treachery.  

She would take back her mother's eggs tonight but it would be easy for him to source more from any of the other daughters if not stopped. But she could take them and so she would. They belonged to her mother.

Stopping Zarron was the only way to end all of this and it made sense to throw in with her sister and the Duos against him. Surely Eva wouldn't continue selling off their own family if they won. Even if they did, without him or Zentalia there'd only be a limited number of fertilized eggs to sell before they ran out.

Ana considered again to reveal herself and intervene but she'd seen this week that the Duodecaplets would side with her sister in any conflict.  

Eva might not see past her anger long enough to listen. It didn't make sense to her, that she was so quick to believe the things Zarron said about their mother and presumably, about her now too. So much trust in someone she despised but her sister often let emotions win over logic.  Any attempt to reason with her could have the Duos attack her on sight and she had no ideal magic for dealing with their numbers at once. At least not in a way that wouldn't kill them.

The vixen leaned on the dinner table, staring into the plate when it clicked: if she helped her half-brothers find the Espum, it would show them she wasn't hostile. With it, they could neutralize Zarron however they saw fit. He trusted them all too much to ever see it coming.  

This hadn't been the mission as planned but it was an opportunity to do more: stop the operation and take care of their former master for good.  

If the nine of them and Eva could defeat Zarron and Zentalia while Ana and their mother could recover and restore the three lost Duos, they'd have a peace offering. They'd win over the other nine long enough for them to explain the truth. All would be forgiven and they could be one, enormous and undivided family.

With Zarron out of the way, his Manor could easily shelter more than a hundred people. It would be a leap forward in the impending housing crisis they were creating with the rescue of every sold-off sibling.

Anastasia allowed herself a smile. It was perfect. She had to make sure her brothers and sister prevailed while her mother and her defeated Madame Marmalade.  

After cleaning up her muzzle with a napkin, she pushed clear of the dining room table. The Espum was in the library, safe and secure with the most valuable and dangerous spell components.  

Ana hurried out of the room stopping to check the door, then rushed up the stairs as best she could for her build. Going up was always easier than going down.  

Down the hallway and into the library, she went straight to the Espum. It was exactly where she remembered it: inside a dust-covered, rune-scribed lead box. It took a bit of magic to open it which revealed a glass jar full of clear, stabilizing gelatin. Suspended in it was a vial of orange powder.

After a moment of hesitation, she took the jar with a wince. Espum was untraceable by any sense but taste but she already felt weaker for its presence. Perhaps it was just in her head.

Giving this and its instructions to Eva, Duayne and the nine Duodecaplets and letting them surprise Zarron with it, was no less a betrayal than putting a knife in his back herself.  

Without his magic, would they murder him? Did he deserve that for all he'd done? She couldn't guarantee any outcome; Eva and the Duos would decide. For all their skill and training, the Duos had not killed before and she hoped they would find another appropriate punishment. If he couldn't speak or move his hands he'd be effectively disarmed even after the espum wore off.  

Was there any other way to safely suppress a wizard of his power than death?

Without Zarron, Anastasia would know nothing of magic. She wouldn't have access to a library as vast as his to become the wizard she was today. Everything her sister feared about the outside world was doubly true for herself and her especially freakish proportions.

Unlike her sister, Ana didn't need to speculate about it: she'd experienced the cruelty of being sexualized, mocked and harassed for her appearance, both with and without her mother present.  

It wasn't easy at first or even still but in the months she spent traveling alone to catch up to her mother, she learned on her own to refute it with supreme confidence in her magical prowess and at times, the magic itself. Without Zarron's mentorship, she'd have been helpless.

On the other hand, without Zarron she wouldn't exist at all. All of them were Zarron's doing and from the brothers and sisters she'd met so far, she'd been among the most fortunate.

Some siblings had been taken into happy families with loving parents, wealthy enough to afford their prices but for every one of them, there were many, many more who had been sold to cold-blooded masters, abusers, slavers and profiteers.  

In the months since she'd left Stusport with her mother, they'd saved siblings bought to be breeders, whores, servants, slaves, soldiers and gladiators. Her sister Marina was already a working whore when Portia and Anya found her. Recently rescued brothers had been forced to take blood for profit.

Whether Evangeline's accusation of his love for her was meritless, whatever passed for kindness from Zarron was privilege and favoritism, not compassion. He chose to keep her but he also chose to sell off her kin in legions, without regard to their fates.  

She could put a stop to all of it. She would put a stop to all of it.

Zarron deserved whatever fate Eva and the Duodecaplets would decide.

Ana hurried over to his desk and set the vial within a jar on it, right in the middle where it wouldn't be overlooked. Now she had only had to let one of them know what to look for.  

Then she grabbed a block of charcoal from his desk and drew the familiar, magical runes she used to hide herself again: Invisibility and Silence. Both had been in heavy use since fleeing the house but especially since reconnecting with her mother. She'd gotten fast and good at it but still needed a mirror to consistently draw the one on her back.

"Shondula!"

The runes flared and she disappeared from sight.  

""Vitulas!"

A clap confirmed she was silent.

Her mouth smacked, the ozone flavor of magic before it passed to dryness. Magic did that when using too much, too fast. She'd spent eight days invisible already.

Anastasia stopped at the doors of the library and turned back with a sigh. If everything went according to plan, she might be back someday. It might not go according to plan.

She'd looted the library as thoroughly as one enchanted sack would allow her to carry but there was so much more knowledge in here to learn. Hundreds of years of gathering books containing lifetime's worth of knowledge, Zarron reminded her often as she grew up. She was lucky to have ever had access and she held that thought as she backed out, pulling the doors closed until they sealed shut in front of her.

Anastasia hoped it was not for the last time.