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Unclench Your Birdpuss

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Octavia wandered the halls of the Palace for the next month, avoiding her dad’s boyfriend and the nursery. Blitzø had barely spoken to her since he found her on the outskirts of the garden and he made it very clear that she wasn’t allowed near the eggs. Octavia didn’t know much about imps’ body language, but the way he went stiff and his spines raised whenever she passed the open doorway of the nursery was enough of a clue.

That imp hated her.

Which was fine because she didn’t like him either.

Instead, she spent a lot of time with her dad while he was recovering and even afterward. She practiced her magic with him. She saw the stupid notes her dad and that dickhead sent to each other. They had breakfast together. They…talked.

Many times they spoke around the subject of the eggs or how she had dropped one. It reminded her of the times she’d attended royal meetings or balls, and how everyone said things without actually saying them.

“Oh my! I commend you for wearing that dress. I would never be able to be so bold” meant your dress is hideous or unfit for this ball or slutty or all of the above.

This time though it was stuff like “I find our time together now so valuable” because soon there would be babies and he wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with her. Or “You are my precious first daughter. No one can replace you. Remember that please” meant “I love you so please don’t be jealous of your half-siblings and hurt them.”

She had seen her dad and that imp in the garden, burying the eggs. She’d counted them. Without anyone telling her, she knew that meant there were three potential siblings left.

Loona was in the Palace a lot too. Octavia could hear her walking around, rummaging through the fridge, or playing music on her phone. But the hellhound never sought her out.

Octavia had ruined that friendship before it really had the chance to start. That was okay. She was used to being alone and ignored. She was used to being left out.

It let her overhear a lot more than she was probably meant to. Like the phone calls her dad had with Asmodeus and Vassago about how the charges against Blitzø had been dropped without him needing to go down to the station because they threatened her mom with legal action about some attempts she had made against her dad.

Which didn’t sound fair.

Blitzø had shot her mother. Whatever her mom had attempted obviously wasn’t successful. But her dad always spoke very quietly whenever he talked about it and he never said what it was.

The imp’s friends came by a lot too, always so loud. They hung around the nursery a lot, complaining and arguing and then laughing.

Staying at her mom’s wasn’t any better. Her mom screeched at least once a day about how unfair it was that she wasn’t allowed to have Blitzø killed and the abominations that bastard had created—Octavia wasn’t sure whether her dad or Blitzø was the bastard. Her uncle was either always talking her mom off the edge of her anger or on the phone with their own counsel about the divorce.

Frankly, it was exhausting and she just did not care.

So she was surprised to receive a text from Loona.

Loona: Hey

In her room, sitting on her bed, Octavia stared at the message. She checked the date to make sure she hadn’t hallucinated or opened the convo to a weird spot. But nope. This was the most recent text and it was from only a minute ago.

So Octavia texted back.

Via: Hey

Loona: Wanna get lunch sometime?

Via: Ok

She waited for another whole minute, but Loona did not send anything back. Should Octavia send something first? Offer to pay? Suggest a place to go?

Before she could overthink it, she began typing only to see that Loona had started typing too. So Octavia stopped and deleted her message.

Then Loona’s bubbles disappeared as well.

Octavia waited again for another solid minute and just before she began typing again she saw Loona typing. Shortly after, a message came through.

Loona: Got time today? Food court?

Octavia: Sure

Loona: I’ll be at the WacDonalds at noon

Luckily, she was staying with her dad’s and she knew he’d say yes if she said she was going there with Loona.

That’s how she ended up ordering fries a few hours later and picking at her beanie while she waited for Loona to arrive. The food court was filled with the chatter of voices and hissing of food being dropped into friers. She had just gathered her fries and turned to find a seat when she spotted Loona right behind her.

Startled, all her feathers puffed out and Loona smirked.

“C’mon,” the hellhound said, gesturing with her Bubble Tea. “I got us a table.”

They settled at a greasy tabletop in the center of the mall under the overhead windows that showed off the bright red sky of Pride. Octavia placed her bag of fries on the table and plucked out a few, popping them into her mouth. Loona yawned widely across from her.

Breaking the silence, Octavia asked, “How are you?”

Loona’s shoulders lifted and fell. “Fine. Figured we should chat,” she said, staring off at the crowd of other mall goers. In her hand, she held her phone, idly turning it over.

Octavia tried not to let it show how those words squeezed her frame with anxiety, but Loona’s ear flicked toward her like she picked up the sound of her heart racing. Octavia took another few fries and filled her mouth, waiting for the older girl to speak.

Like she took mercy on her, Loona kept her eyes averted as she said, “Blitzø said I shouldn’t be mad at you.”

That…was a surprise.

She swallowed her fries, wishing she had bought something to rinse the taste down with. “Okay?”

Loona slurped from her drink before she mumbled, “He said it was an accident.” Those red eyes flicked to hers. “Was it?” Her question—almost an accusation—was sharp as if daring her to say otherwise.

Octavia nodded emphatically. “It was. It truly was. Everyone left me there and I…I didn’t know what was happening. So I…I don’t know but I wanted to see if there was anything inside the eggs. Pringles, our butler, startled me and before I knew it…” She cradled her palms together and then dropped them open. “I couldn’t catch it.”

They were silent for a long time. As Loona stared at her face, Octavia looked down to the tabletop. Then, her bag crackled noisily as Loona reached in and took a few fries.

Octavia exhaled and relaxed back into her chair. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

Loona grunted and, with a mouthful of fries, said gruffly, “Well ya did.”

Shame pricked behind her eyes, but she wasn’t going to cry in a food court mall. “I didn’t mean to.” She knew she sounded stubborn. Perhaps even spoiled. “If your dad—”

“Not my dad.”

“Hadn’t started this whole mess, then it wouldn’t have happened. Mum and Dad hate each other because of him. And now Dad is just replacing us so he can start a new family with that dickhead.”

“Hm.” Loona finally lifted her phone up and looked at it. “Pretty sure that’s not what they’re doing.”

“How?”

Loona’s eyes glanced up from her phone and her snout wrinkled. “Huh?”

“How do you know?”

Slumping into her chair, Loona kicked her legs up onto the seat next to Octavia. “‘Cause your dad talks nonstop about you. When you’re at your mom’s, Blitzø sometimes leaves Stolas in the nursery and I can hear him from down the hall going on and on to the eggs about you and what kind of big sister he hopes you’re gonna be.”

Heat bloomed on her cheeks. Her french fries were getting cold. Loona plucked out another anyway and tossed it in her mouth.

“So,” she said after she swallowed it. “He’s not replacing you. He wants you there.”

Octavia picked at the feathers on her wrists. “What if I don’t wanna be?”

Loona shrugged. “Then don’t.” She stood up suddenly, the chair scraping over the sticky floor. Heads turned in their direction, but Loona didn’t react. She lifted her Bobba and tossed it into the trashcan across the room, pumping her fist when it made it in.

Picking up her phone, she tilted her head toward the shops. “Wanna go see what’s new?”

“Y-Yeah.”


Pringles did not mind assisting Master Blitzø at first. It had, after all, been partially his fault that several of the eggs had cracked. He should have been attending to Princess Octavia or he could have approached her more cautiously.

So it was only natural that the other imp had holed himself up in the nursery with his mate and the three remaining eggs. Blitzø hardly demanded anything from him and Prince Stolas continued to attend to his duties as usual. When the eggs were not in the incubator, the bonded couple were usually incubating them with their body heat.

The smell, however, was beginning to grate on his nerves. Blitzø would not allow staff inside to clean. He would throw the dirty sheets and dishes into a pile in the hallway, rarely open the windows for a fresh breeze, and demanded his own cleaning supplies to clean the ensuite—Pringles could only imagine the state of it. Despite the higher humidity for the eggs, surfaces remained unwiped, allowing bacteria to grow. Whenever one would walk past, they would get a taste of stale coffee, cookie crumbs, mildew, and sex.

Always sex.

Why?

How could the prince reside in such filth?

For the whole of the month, the vacuum had only been once twice inside of the nursery and the windows had not been cleaned once. From the outside, Pringles could see smudges in the shapes of handprints, streaks, and something that looked suspiciously like nipples with piercings. Luckily, he had not been there to witness how ever that mark had been made.

Pringles had once walked past and been aghast to hear the imp teaching Prince Stolas how to sanitize the toilet. It was uncouth and irresponsible. And frankly dangerous, considering how the last attempt to teach the prince something domestic had fared. His Highness had attempted to cook a “grilled cheese” and set a grease fire in the main kitchen. The chef had been livid and only calmed when he was made aware that he could oversee the reconstruction to make it as he saw fit.

What trouble could a prince in charge of cleaning supplies get into? It would only be a matter of time before he unintentionally poisoned someone by mixing incorrect chemicals and creating mustard gas.

Luckily, it would not last forever. He had spoken—at length—to Prince Stolas when he was away from the nursery about how he should prepare the home after the chicks hatch. His Highness had informed him that Blitzø would be returning to work and even keep his own primary residence.

With enthusiasm, His Highness informed Pringles that he and Blitzø had “communicated” and planned to co-parent. Surely, the imp could be no worse than Lady Stella, though it did little to calm his nerves.

Would the young ones be staying elsewhere for periods of time? What kind home did this assassin keep? His hellhound daughter had the manners of a sinner and seemed to always be attached to her phone.

When Pringles approached Master Blitzø about the subject, he was told to ‘fuck off’ and mind his business. So it came as a surprise that, on a Thursday morning just after breakfast, he heard Blitzø shouting for him.

“Pixie Dust! Get your ass over here! Hurry the fuck up! If you’re not—”

What sort of situation required such commotion so early in the day? Shifting a paneled door open and slipping into a passageway between rooms, he quickly appeared by the nursery. “Yes?”

Blitzø’s eyes were wide and wild. His tail whipped back and forth as he hung his head out the doorway of the nursery. “Get feather tits! Paperweight is hatching!”

Well, that was certainly cause for commotion.

He hurried as fast as smaller legs could carry him to the study and found the prince’s phone on his desk, buzzing away. The study was not so large that a quick glance would not reveal the tall Goetia and His Highness never brought his cellphone into the inner sanctum, meaning Pringles would have to go in and get him.

Pushing back the curtain, he peered into the cold darkness. Stars winked back at him. Planets glided by. He would not step inside, fearing what would happen to him if he did. “Your Highness?” he called, his voice barely traveled.

When silence continued, Pringles clung to the curtain and leaned in further, unable to ascertain whether the darkness was void beneath his feet or a reflection on a surface. There was no sign of the prince; not a feather nor a footstep.

“Your Highness?!” he called again, louder. If the prince was in a prophecy or one of his fanciful imaginings, Pringles would not be answered.

Almost imperceptibly, four new stars blazed to life in the distance, growing larger and larger as if they were coming for him, to swallow him whole. He dug his claws into the crushed velvet of the curtain, shrinking in on himself. Nothing but the prince could escape this boundary.

As the red stars grew closer, Pringles was ashamed to realize that they were not stars at all, but the eyes of his prince. “Your Highness,” he greeted, straightening up.

The prince stepped quickly toward him, something like water rippling under his feet. “Yes?”

“Master Blitzø wanted me to inform you that one of the eggs is—”

And then the prince was gone, through a portal, before Pringles had finished the sentence. Task complete, he hurried away from the deathly silence of space and to the kitchens where he could inform the staff of the impending arrivals.


His Looney, alongside M&M, arrived before Stolas did. Everything was happening so fast. He had heard a sharp crack and sprung to his feet, worried that somehow one of the eggs had fallen. (They had a habit of shifting and rocking as the chicks inside them moved.)

But they were all still safe in the incubator. It wasn’t until Blitzø was checking them over individually that he noticed a puncture on the outside of Paperweight’s shell. Dread filled him. Somehow another egg had been harmed under his watch. Cradling the egg in his chest, he hurried to the doorway to call for the butler to bring that weird egg glue except there was another crunch and the egg shook in his hands.

Staring down at the egg in his hands, worried at what he might see (Had he held it too tightly? Had he crushed them?), he found a sharp black talon sticking out of the puncture.

Paperweight wasn’t broken. They were hatching.

Oh, fuck! Hatching!

Stolas hadn’t answered—because that would’ve been much too easy—but Pringles went to get him and he called Loona to come bear witness.

Holding the egg in his hands, he watched his team step through the portal from IMP and crowd around him. Even Looney seemed interested as she leaned over all of them, sniffing and peering at the egg.

Stolas arrived a few minutes later, mentioning that he had invited Octavia, and they waited silently. All of Blitzø’s muscles were tense, flexed, ready as if he were about to fight.

Paperweight had grown significantly heavier than before and the shell shuddered in his hands at the force of the little one inside. Stolas had said it could take hours before they were fully out of their shell, but Paperweight cracked a whole hand through in a matter of minutes.

Black talons scraped the outside of the shell before drawing back inside.

Oh, oh, oh,” Stolas cooed.

The hand appeared again, grasping the outside of the shell and crunching it in a fist, breaking the hole wider.

Blitzø’s purr tore out of his throat, too proud to hold back.

“Are they supposed to be that strong?” Moxxie asked.

Another crack and two hands appeared, waving in the air, scratching the shell. It rocked in Blitzø’s hands again. He wanted to help, to pick at a piece of the shell but he couldn’t move, too worried that he would lose his grip if he did.

Stolas was making little bird noises at it like he was encouraging it. Beside him, he felt Loona’s tail brush up his thigh. The baby’s hands withdrew and the egg stilled for a moment before a split began to run through the center.

A palm rested lightly on his shoulder as Millie nudged into his side, getting closer. “Oh mah Satan,” Millie mumbled.

He wanted to say something except there was too much feeling in his throat to get anything out.

The shell cracked, breaking a wide hole where the others had been and something slimy fell into his hands, covered by the rest of the shell. Stolas’s beautiful hand appeared and maneuvered the shell away gently, lifting it off the baby and out popped the strangest thing.

It had a snout like Blitzø. Large red eyes like Stolas, but the irises (closer to Octavia’s) glowed yellow. It huffed at them, slapping around an imp-like tail. Its body and neck were long like Stolas but all red flesh. Not a feather to be seen. Something laid plastered to its back and nubby horns poked out from the top of its head. It opened its mouth, releasing the cutest little hiss and revealing a forked tongue.

A dragon.

“Stols.”

Millie made a squealing noise, covering up the small ‘oh shit’ Loona mumbled. There was a camera flash above him. A thump from behind them had Millie turning around to fuss over Moxxie, who apparently passed out.

Stolas was already reaching out to pick them up. “I see her.”

“Stols,” Blitzø repeated, watching Stolas kneel beside him to cradle Paperweight. With one finger, Blitzø pet her head, feeling the smoothness of her skin. “She’s a fuckin’ dragon. We made a fuckin’ dragon.”

Paperweight was so small that she could fit in Blitzø’s hands, a compact little bruiser. She made a few cranky noises, squirming in Stolas’s grip and then yawned widely.

Stolas drew her closer to his body and stroked down her spine, pulling off bits of shell and goo still left.

She buried her head in the feathers of Stolas’s chest. Like father, like daughter.

A troubling noise broke them out of their admiration, the sound of something cracking open. In the incubator, Big Fucker had fallen over somehow and split open, goo falling out onto the soft cushion inside.

“Shit.” Blitzø hurried over to the egg. “Fuck.”

He hopped up the step ladder and lifted the lid. Loona was by his side, flanked quickly by Stolas. The whole month they hadn’t been able to see anything inside the egg, but Loona had sworn she’d heard something. Neither of them had smelled any rot either so they let Big Fucker stay in the incubator but it was anyone’s guess if anything was actually in there.

Blitzø tried to pick up the egg but it broke open in his claws and…

“The fuck am I looking at right now?” Blitzø asked, staring at the mess in front of him.

Because the egg had split in half and inside of each half of the shell was another egg. Two eggs.

“Twins?” Stolas asked.

The eggs wobbled and there was a very distinct whining noise from inside one of them. Still within the incubator, the eggs rolled toward each other like some kind of demolition derby style, cracking into each other over and over.

“Should we stop them?” Stolas asked. Which wasn’t what Blitzø wanted to hear. Stolas was supposed to be the expert. Paperweight snored under Stolas’s chin.

Blitzø glanced backward, spotting Millie who had Moxxie propped up and was giving him sips of water. With his smartest family out of commission, Blitzø made the decision to separate them, placing them on opposite sides of the incubator. He was picking up pieces of eggshell, tossing them into the trash can that Loona held out for him, when one of the twins made a loud crying noise from inside its shell.

A moment later, the other twin egg rolled across the incubator and smacked into the other egg. Blitzø tried to separate them again with the same result.

Stolas sighed from across the room where he and Millie were attempting to wrangle Paperweight into a diaper and clothes. The little dragon was hissing and spitting, fussing loudly at being taken away from the feathers it wanted.

That one was gonna be a fighter.

“I suppose we should let them be together,” Stolas said.

Moxxie had gone to find the butler and fetch a few bottles so they listened to Paperweight work her way up to a wail as they watched the two eggs run into each other over and over, narrowly missing their final egg sibling.

Like they were in sync, the shells crumbled at the same time and the twins fell on top of each other in a heap.

“Wow,” Loona said sarcastically, ears flattened to her head from Paperweight’s crying. “At least you don’t need a paternity test.”

Both twins looked like little replicas of Blitzø down to the eye markings with their skin being the only exception. Pale skin was covered in blue down that was stuck to the chicks’ bodies from the egg goo. They mewled pathetically, scratching at each other blindly as if their eyes were stuck shut.

Blitzø tried to lift one, but the baby clung to his twin so he took up both of them. He had the very impish urge to lick them clean. He brought them to his face and snuffled against them, pressing his snout to their bellies.

A moment later, Loona plucked one from his hands and licked the baby’s face. “Shut up,” she said without looking at him and then set to licking the baby clean.

“Looney,” he croaked.

“I said ‘shut up’,” she growled.

It wasn’t until evening, after M&M departed, that Octavia arrived. Blitzø’s spines flared as she stepped into the nursery, but Stolas was already there, whisking her further in, showing her the twins who slept pressed against each other in a bassinet, and Paperweight who was still awake, glaring at Loona who was holding her.

Octavia only glanced at the twins, but she stayed for longer, watching Paperweight and Loona.

“Would you like to hold her?” Stolas asked hopefully.

Blitzø’s gut reaction was to say no, that Octavia could absolutely not hold her, but he kept his mouth shut. He walked closer to Loona though to be ready if he needed. Octavia blinked at the offer before she shook her head and took a step back.

“No,” she said softly. “No, I just came to say hi.”

She lingered for a bit longer until Paperweight started to fuss. That’s when she said goodnight to her dad and headed to her room. A few moments later Loona followed.


It took another three days before anything happened with the final egg. Blitzø was exhausted, running on fumes and espresso. If it wasn’t a diaper change, it was someone needing to eat or be put down for a nap or twin one pulling twin two’s feathers. Or Paperweight wanting to be held constantly.

After the first day, Loona had returned to the office with M&M, not wanting to be near the noise. Stolas did as much as he could—almost more than Blitzø, as if he were trying to burn himself out. Blitzø would catch him awake in the evening once everyone was supposed to be asleep. Stolas would be reading book after book, article after article, about why the final egg hadn’t hatched.

Frankly, his feathers were a wreck, but it seemed like every time Blitzø got his hands on his bird that Paperweight would need something.

On the fourth morning, they woke up to find a very large chick with tufts of purple feathers, snoozing in the incubator. The shell underneath and on top of it looked as if it had just collapsed, breaking open under the weight of the baby inside.

The downy feathers had already dried overnight and the chick had fluffed up, looking like a naked near replica of chubby kid Stolas.

“Four, Blitzy,” Stolas whispered, peering at the chick.

“Yeah.”

Stolas nuzzled his face as they stared at their last son. “We need to name them, darling,” the prince said, brushing sharp kisses against his face.

“Yeah. What about—Shit!

From the corner of his eye, he saw Paperweight unfurl two large leathery wings and give them a coordinated flap, launching herself out of her bassinet. He dove off the stepstool for her, managing to break her fall and get the wind knocked out of him at the same time.

“Excellent catch,” Stolas commended. “What do you think of Calypso?”

Paperweight purred on his chest and sprawled out, thumping her tail contentedly, before falling asleep. Blitzø laid there with her warm heavy body on top of his, staring at the ceiling, and settled his hands on her back. Fatigue pulled at his eyelids and he let them shut.

He hummed in response to whatever Stolas had said. “Lemme think on it,” he answered and slipped into the oblivion of unconsciousness.

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