Princess of the Void-5.25. Dad Bod

Princess of the Void-5.25. Dad Bod

Three cycles into Sykora’s Pregnancy
Sykora exhales and lowers her palms to the floor. She pushes her butt into the air, into a downward-dog stretch, to free up space for her stomach, which is now noticeably rounder—though not quite as round as that of the pink engineer who’s huffing and puffing in the attempt to hit the same pose.
“Good, Meena,” Lakxuki!a coos. The Kovikan woman reaches with one golden, semitranslucent hand and guides Ajax’s little pink wife’s knees forward into a more comfortable bend. “Remember. Let the motion be natural.
Very
good, Majesty. You’ve trained in kunishi before, haven’t you?”
“I’ve had instructors,” Sykora’s tail switches in the air. “Not in the prenatal kind, of course.”
“Of course. Aaand rest pose. Well done. May I venture to guess you’re a dancer?”
Sykora eases to the floor. “How do you know?”
“Your posture is
splendid
.”
“If you run away with my kunishi instructor, me and his Majesty are both gonna be crushed,” Meena s from her rest pose.
The three ladies laugh; Sykora winks over at Grant, who’s sitting on a lounger with his scriptomorph in one hand and a Maekyonite baby book on his lap, reading about sleep strategies and trying to shove the English back into his head at the same time. He winks back.
“We are nearly finished, ladies.” Lakxuki!a limbers up. “One more sequence and we’ll break for lunch.”
“Last chance to take a dip in the runa-fish springs, dove,” Sykora says. “They don’t let you back in after a meal.”
“All right, all right. I’ll give Jax some company.” Grant puts his book aside. He stands up and blows his wife a kiss. “See you in a few.”
He pads down the lodge’s cool, rough-hewn hallway, feeling the cool moisture of the woven seaweed floor mats. He ducks through a clattering beaded curtain into the men’s runa grotto where Ajax lounges, a clay mask smeared across his restful face. The Master Sergeant’s head is tilted back against the pool’s polished stone lip. A darting cloud of tiny cyclopean fish surrounds him. They gleam silver in the low light cast by clouds of bioluminescent moss along the cavern walls.
Ajax opens an eye as Grant comes in. “Feeling brave enough yet, Majesty?”
“Buffet time soon.” Grant undoes his robe. Beneath he’s wearing the baggy swim shorts the lodge provides, which are woven from the same aquatic stuff as the floor mats. He balked at first at how much material there was, but it feels amazing in the water, flowing around him like an extension of the gentle currents. “Gotta at least
try
to try, you know?”
“Sure,” Ajax says. “You wash your mask off?”
“I told the lady it was sort of burn-y and she frowned and said
Perhaps let’s stick to the massage
,” Grant says. “I think maybe Maekyonite skin doesn’t love Taiikari facial clay.”
“Let’s see if the runas wanna nibble you anyway.” Ajax sloshes his feet close to the water’s surface; Grant sees the one-eyed fish cluster around them.
“God. Okay.” Grant steps out of his robe. “If they eat me alive, it’s gonna harm your career.”
Ajax whistles as Grant eases into the water. “Looking
solid
, Majesty.”
“I’ve started lifting with the Eqtorans,” Grant says. “Envy’s a powerful motivator.”
Ajax squints his metallic yellow eyes. “You weren’t envious of me?”
“I beat your deadlift.”
“You beat my
old
deadlift. I've got all kinds of time right now. Gonna come back yoked.”
“Gonna come back doughy from the food, more like,” Grant says. “We’re almost at lunch, and I’m still stuffed from breakfast.”
“Shut up and get in the—”
Ajax’s voice dies as he realizes what he just said and who he just said it to.
“Uh,” he says.
Grant laughs. “You
have
been off the Pike too long, Master Sergeant.” He eases into the water and shivers as the fish gather around him and he feels the tiny pinpoint pressures of their sucking mouths. “
God
, that’s weird.”
His Prince’s uninterrupted good mood relaxes Ajax back into the water and puts a relieved grin on his face. “You’re gonna come out of this so fresh,” he says. “And it feels kinda good, right?”
“I’ll give it a few minutes.” Grant settles further in, up to his waist. “Not putting my nipples in.”
“I figure it’s solidarity,” Ajax says. “Can’t be afraid of a little suction when Meen’s gonna feed the twins.”
“Gross, Jax.”
Ajax shrugs. The fish scatter and reform.
“It’s called a
dad bod
, by the way,” Grant says. “On Maekyon. We watched a comedy movie a while ago that reminded me.”
“
Dad bod.
What’s that?”
“Putting on some sympathy pounds.”
“You won’t get me to say it again, Majesty,” Ajax says.
“But you’re thinking it.”
“I’m in a bulk phase,” Ajax says. “You’ll get to the buffet, and you’ll understand.”
“So two boys, huh?”
“Two boys, yeah,” Ajax says. “Ronax and Karinax. Meena’s excited.”
“She wants an heiress, doesn’t she?”
“Sure,” Ajax says. “But this is just round one. Meen’s got a whole dynasty planned.”
“What’s your ultimate total?”
“Without dispensation, we’re allowed four, but both parents being Void Navy means we get two extra,” Ajax says. “And Meena’s looking to max out. So six.”
“Damn.” Grant adjusts his sitting position on the rocky wall of the pool. “She really has everything planned out.”
“Yup,” Ajax says.
“You’re okay with it, right?”
“Six kids? Sure.” Ajax cups sweet-scented water and cascades it over his dark hair. “Not like I’m the one who’s gotta do Kovikan stretch routines and pee three times an hour. And Meen’s got a big clan on Aodok. Get ‘em all into the academy no problem, get you some second-generation marines.”
“I meant letting Meena plan everything.”
“Sure,” Ajax says. “We did a rite of First Claiming, y’know.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means she owns me,” Ajax says.
Grant’s brows shoot up. “Like you’re indentured?”
“Not on paper. Just a traditional thing.” Ajax grins. “You think it’s weird, huh?”
“I didn’t say that,” Grant says. “But is it? Among the Taiikari, I mean?”
“Kinda old-fashioned, maybe.” Ajax shrugs. “I know you’ve worked hard as hell to be your own man. I respect it. Me, I’m… sorta traditional in this way, I guess. I like someone holding my leash. When it ain’t the marines, it’s Meen. She said she’d take care of me, and she has.”
Grant imagines, now and then, how it’d be if he’d been this way. If he’d just said yes on the first night and become Sykora’s happy property.
What’s it like?
He wonders as he looks at Ajax’s languid smile.
To let the love of your life take over the rest of it?
“Not everyone gets someone they trust enough for that,” Ajax adds. “But you see the right pair of handcuffs, you gotta hold your wrists out, y’know?”
“Jaxy!”
Before Grant can respond, Meena’s urgent cry filters from the studio cave into the artificial grotto.
“Jaxy, it’s happening again! Come quick!”
“Fuck.” Ajax leaps to his feet, scattering the surrounding fish. “Uh—Majesty.” He salutes. “Permission to—”
“Go on,” Grant says, and Ajax sprints from the chamber. His anticomps still hang on the hook by the entrance, unattended-to.
Grant grabs them and parts the tinkling beaded curtain into the lodge hallway. Ajax crouches next to Meena, palm pressed to her abdomen. His face is alight with awe. “I feel it,” he whispers. “Gods of the fuckin’ firmament.”
Meena giggles and kisses his horn. “The boys are trying to say hi.”
“Hi, guys,” Ajax whispers. His eyes shine in their golden corners. He rests his forehead on his wife’s stomach. “What’s it feel like?”
“It’s like… bubbly,” Meena says. “Like there’s a little bug flying around in there. Or like a fart.”
Ajax laughs. “You’re a fuckin’ poet, Meen.”
“You’re getting face clay on my baby bump, Jaxy.”
Lakxuki!a, the Kovikan instructor, has followed the ladies out from the studio. Now she pops a tendril softly to get everyone’s attention back on her beaming face. “I think we can break for lunch, gentlefolk. You may follow me. The grilled rx!yn flowers will
change
you if you’ve never tried them, I promise you that.”
Sykora touches Grant’s hand. “We’ll meet you there,” she says. “Grantyde and I have a brief engagement elsewhere.”
The civilians bow and part from the Princess and Prince of the Black Pike.
“Meena was telling me about this market they have down the street from the lodge,” Sykora says, over the ambient music thrumming through the dim halls. “With weaving shops and all these artisanal stands and these
amazing
-sounding pepper jelly pastries. I was thinking we could go incognito.”
“Uh.” Grant gestures at himself. “
Could
we?”
Sykora squints in brief confusion. Then she laughs sheepishly. “Forgive me. I think I’m loopy from the kunishi. We can send someone.”
“Why not just turn up in person?” Grant asks.
“Oh, we’d be just
mobbed
.”
“Would that be so terrible?” Grant asks. “To show a little more face to the subjects?”
Sykora’s ears fold outward. “I suppose not.”
“Where are we going?”
She pulls him gently to a door in the lagoon wall, which opens into an unadorned hallway, lit not by bioluminescent fungal lamps but by clinical light strips.
“There is an entourage from the core here, led by Lieutenant-Gefreiter Axyna,” she says. “Which means it’s time for tea with the mad scientist.”
“Well, now. Look at that.” Axyna grins at Sykora’s exposed belly. “Really fattening up, eh?”
“I’d appreciate it if you would discharge your duty, Lieutenant-Gefreiter.” Sykora shifts in the examination room chair. “And then depart.”
“Straight to the point. All right. Wouldn’t want to tempt the pregnancy rage.” Axyna’s elbow playfully nudges Grant. “Suppose you’d know all about that, Majesty.” With a pair of tweezers, she holds up a capsule the size of a grain of rice. “Now I could inject this, if you wish, or if you don’t love a needle you could—well.” She makes a suggestive shoving motion. “Takes longer that way, but they’ll both go to the same place.”
Sykora fixes her with a steady stare. “I am not afraid of needles.”
Axyna shrugs amicably. “Have it your way, warrior queen.”
Grant can’t help but flinch as the needle slides into his wife’s baby bump. Axyna sets the used applicator aside and nudges a rolling monitor into place with her tail. “Fun opportunity for you, Prince. Let’s see if your wife is as lovely on the inside as the outside.”
A murky biological landscape lights up on the screen. Grant averts his attention.
“Any problems to ?” Axyna asks. “Bumps of another kind?”
“I’ve found myself short-tempered at times,” Sykora says.
“At times. Hmm.” Axyna traps her tongue between her teeth as she steers the robot.
Sykora frowns. “But Grantyde has kept me level.”
“Speaking of your husband,” Axyna says. “How long’s his dong?”
“What.”
“If he’s proportional, you might get too shallow for the fellow by your fifth cycle,” Axyna says, as though Sykora weren’t staring daggers through her. “Something to keep an eye on. But I suppose he didn't get your throat pregnant, eh?” Before the Princess can formulate an appropriately venomous reply, she sits up, tail wagging. “Our intrepid little robot has encountered your kiddos.” She taps the screen. “Want to see?”
“Oh my God,” Sykora breathes. “They’re
people
.”
Grant’s pulse races. They
are
people. Little arms and little legs.
Axyna steers the nanoprobe closer. “Just need a tiny cell or two from each to go with the blood from Mother.”
The camera fuzzes. Sykora’s hand tightens on Grant’s.
“And… there we are.” Axyna lets out a weird little fluttering laugh. “There we are. Finished.” She spins the screen in her direction and starts tapping away on the monitor’s console. “The biometrics are transmitted, and our little probe’s job is done. It’ll be harmlessly absorbed by your body and summarily pissed out.”
“Thank you for that unasked-for information,” Sykora says.
Axyna laughs her odd laugh again. “You
were
wondering.”
Sykora does not reply to that; it’s clear to Grant by her face that she was. The Lieutenant-Gefreiter hums off-tune to herself as she works.
“Did you see their faces?” Grant whispers.
“I did.” Sykora’s frown breaks into a smile to mirror his. “I think that one with its mouth open was Aurora.”
“How could you tell?”
“She looks like you. When you’re doing your refinery paperwork. You go—” Sykora demonstrates an open-mouth look of confused concentration.
“I do
not
.”
“I’ll take a picture next time. We can put it right next to the one where you vandalized me at the clinic.”
“Oh,” Axyna says. “Oh, hmmm. Oh,
very
interesting. Oh, my.”
Sykora looks over, the jollity leaking from her. “What’s this
oh
shit, Lieutenant-Gefreiter?”
“Just looking at your diagnostics.”
“What
about
my diagnostics.”
“You are pregnant,” Axyna says. “With three healthy, growing Taiikari. By all indications, they will deliver on time. But this is quite fascinating.”
Sykora’s eyes are widening with wrath. “
What is fascinating
, Axyna?”
“There is more…
compatibility
between you and your husband than I had presumed,” Axyna says. “Our genome is closer than usual to the Maekyonite one. I’d noted it, of course. But it appears the standard re-encoding has been
particularly
effective.”
“I swear to God I am going to rip your fucking throat out
if you don’t tell me what’s going on
,” Sykora snarls, lunging beneath Grant’s mollifying touch.
Axyna shrinks away, cackling like a little dog’s snapped at her. “You are going to have three Taiikari babies. Three wonderful, healthy Taiikari babies. One son with immunity to compulsion. Two daughters with lovely, red, compelling eyes.”
She grins up at Grant.
“And when they’re all grown up,” she says, “one sister will be Mommy-sized, and
one
sister will be Maekyonite-sized.”

.
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5.25. Dad Bod