Chapter Text
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Kiana sighed nervously, gaze constantly flitting between the screen of her phone and the computer in front of her. She kept tapping her pen. The poor thing had been abused for weeks now, and the end was breaking.
At least she wasn’t chewing on it. A thought darted through her head. Teething equipment. She straightened her spine as she opened the keyword search, put in “teeth,” pressed enter, and then slouched as she saw the words “Teething Equipment” and “Dental Care” in the “completed” list.
She stared at the clock at the bottom of her monitor. 4:58. It seemed like it had been 4:57 days ago. She closed her eyes for what felt like three minutes and then opened them again. Still, the clock read 4:58.
She slumped, head in her hands. She was never good at waiting.
The sound of her phone ringing made her jump up instantly. The ringtone, the honking of geese, told her it was her sister. She answered the call as she grabbed the readied tote bag, threw on her jacket, and began to run down the stairs.
“Calm down, Sis.” Bianka’s voice said. “Falling down the stairs will make us get there later.”
“I can fly. I’m literally God. Like, Capital-G God. And even if I wasn’t, I’m still a Kaslana and a Valkyrie.” She responded as she pulled on her shoes.
“Yes, but you know just as well as we all do that you don’t want to use your powers for anything other than, yaknow, your side job as the Goddess of Finality, Protector of the Universes.” The phone call hung up as Kiana opened the front door.
Putting a hand on the doorframe, she swung out as quickly as possible, slamming it shut behind her and jamming her keys in the lock. She quickly spun around after locking the door, seeing the blue car double-parked in front of her house, and she practically threw herself at its door, wrenching it open with enough force to tear a normal car in half, and then actually throwing herself into the back seat of the car with the door slamming behind her.
“Also, we Kaslanas are many things, but agile is not one of them. And you cannot speak. You have tripped on literal air, in space, before.” Her sister said, blue eyes meeting hers in the rearview mirror. “Seatbelt.”
“Did you and Rita not see me parkouring through Arc City to disable the bomb? I climbed, very gracefully, up about thirty flights of stairs, from the outside, in less than a minute. I skated with my boots on a cable. You both were there. Also, I’m pretty sure I told you about the time I ran on chains for a couple miles, sliding under and deflecting attacks from Senti?” Kiana said as the car began to move.
Bianka raised her eyebrows. “Two months and seven days ago.” She said passively.
“You-gah!” Kiana’s face went red. “I swear there was a tripwire!”
“Even after we checked for one? On a random path in a public park? And we found none?” She countered.
“So help me, Durandal, I will fill your house with geese again,-“ Kiana began to reach forward.
“Girls.” Sigfried said, stopping her. “No fighting in the car. If we crash, that’s endangering civilian lives, and it’ll mean more time before we arrive at our destination.”
“Well can we go any faster?” Asked Kiana.
“Not if we don’t want to be pulled over. We’re already towing the line.” Bianka responded. “And no, being a cop does not let dad speed in normal circumstances. Or you.”
“Ughhhhhh…….” Kiana slouched.
“Baby, calm down.” Seigfried said. “She’ll be fine. Einstein and Tesla are monitoring her closely, and Seele is there with Abyss Flower. Plus, Mei’s a Herrscher. She’s the second-strongest Herrscher in the universe.”
“But what if something goes wrong? This is the first time we’ve tested this! Einstein and Tesla haven’t done this before!” She said, catching a scrambled Rubik's Cube that her sister tossed to her.
“They’re the most knowledgeable with this. They’ve been studying life for literal years for this, and Bronya was there to help. The three smartest minds of the world worked on this. It’s going fine so far.”
Kiana slammed the solved cube down next to her. “10.29.” Said Bianka. “Good job.”
Kiana stretched her fingers and curled her wrist.
“Kiana.” Her dad didn’t even need to look in the rearview mirror, the slight sound of glass cracking as well as the smell of ozone told him all he needed to know. “No playing with space in my car.”
She stared at the ball in her hand. From any angle, it looked like a crack in the air, a window into the stars. With a sigh, she closed her fist, crushing the ball. When she dropped her hand, there was no evidence of it.
She satin thought for a bit.
“We’re here.” Said her dad, breaking his younger daughter out of her thoughts. She grabbed the bag and unbuckled her seat belt as he pulled into a priority parking spot. As soon as the car stopped, she leapt out. A hand caught her arm before she could run into the hospital, and she turned to see her sister’s arm reaching out of the car window to catch hers.
“Kiana,” She said, “Calm down. We don’t want to give someone a heart attack by running in there. Also, your hair is a mess-hang on, let me fix that for you.”
Once she was sure her little sister wouldn’t run off, Bianka let go of her arm and stepped out of the car. She reached up, her long fingers combing through her sister’s white hair.
“Wow, you have good fingers.” Kiana said lightly. “Rita is so lucky-OW!”
Bianka shook her hand. “Finality, I think that slap did more damage to my hand then it did your hard head.”
“Rude! My head is not hard!” she replied.
Durandal just raised her eyebrow, turning to walk inside. Kiana began to follow her, Seigfried locking the car and joining.
They quickly checked in at the front desk and went to the elevators, getting out on the private floor. Kiana was nervously biting her nails, and Bianka had to grab her hands to stop her from bleeding.
They quickly found Mei’s room, and peeked in through the open door to see her laying on the bed, machines surrounding her beeping loudly, with the scientists and Seele standing watch.
Einstein raised her head, making eye contact with the Kaslanas. “Hey,” she said.
“Is she okay? What’s happening?” Kiana asked hurriedly, rushing to the side of the bed.
A hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. “I understand your concern, Kiana, but we need our space.” Bronya’s voice said as she carefully swung Kiana around to face her. “Can you please wait outside? We can’t have any distractions.”
“But…” Kiana trailed off, looking at her wife. “I promise I won’t say anything!”
Seigfried grabbed her hand and looked her in the eyes. “We should go. As they said, the doctors need their space. We don’t want to mess anything up by being in the way.” He said.
“I’ll stay, though.” Bianka’s voice spoke up. “I have a lot of experience wielding Abyss Flower. While I trust in your abilities, Seele, I believe I can do more with the lance because I’ve been training with it for years.”
Seele nodded. “I agree. Thank you, Durandal.”
Seigfreid nodded to her, pulling Kiana out of the room. They bumped into Senti and Fu Hua in the hallway, Senti falling dramatically like she had been stabbed. “Oh, woe is me!” she said. “It appears that I have…” Senti opened her eyes, blinking slowly at Kiana. “Fallen, for you.”
Kiana, who had been reaching to help her up, took her hand away as Senti began to lift her head. She dramatically flopped back onto the floor, sticking out her tongue like a dead animal.
Fu Hua shook her head at Senti with a fond expression, speaking lowly with Seigfried. She slipped into the large medical room, the door closing silently behind her. Kiana didn’t even notice.
From behind Kiana, Seigfried gave Senti a thumbs up and lifted a bag of coins. Senti saw it, left hand making a thumbs up to him with her hand out of Kiana’s vision, before suddenly jumping up and pulling a deck of cards out of her pocket. She shuffled them swiftly in the air, keeping the faces away from Kiana’s gaze, until she spread them out, holding them like a fan.
“Pick a card, any card.” she said mysteriously.
“Wha-” Kiana started, but Senti interrupted her.
“Shh. Just pick. Come on, you don’t want to leave me hanging, do you?”
Kiana looked at her, as if trying to search for any hint of this being a trick in Senti’s face. However, she found none and pulled a card. “Cool.” Said Senti. “Now, memorize what it is, and don’t tell me-ah ah ah, nope! You sure you’ll remember it? Put it back in the deck.”
Kiana did as she was told, face bewildered. Senti made a show of shuffling the deck, and even though Kiana lost track of her card after the second shuffle, she did it three more times. Finally, she stopped and pulled a card off of the top. “Is this your card?” She asked, smirking, showing the five of spades.
“How- What- ” Kiana sputtered.
“Ha! Knew it.” Senti reshuffled the deck, while waving her arms- Kiana was impressed by her talent. “Here. Pick another.”
Kiana chose again, and then put it back in Senti’s hand. Again, she shuffled five times before lifting a card. “The queen of hearts- romantic, aren’t you?” she said.
Kiana stared, but behind her, Seigfried raised his eyebrows. “Hey Senti,” he said, “Can I see that deck?”
She looked at him. “Nope, it’s mine. Get your grubby little hands off of my cards.”
He sighed. In Senti’s exasperation, she’d accidentally flashed one of the card fans in her hand to him.
“That’s what I thought you were doing.” He said.
“What?” Kiana asked.
“Senti’s cheating. All fifty-two cards are the queen of hearts.” He replied dryly.
“Wha- SENTI!” Kiana whipped around to face the herrscher, who started laughing. “How- what?”
“I totally did not buy fifty-two packs of cards and then spend a full three hours organizing them.” she said cheekily.
“And Fu Hua let you do this?” Kiana asked, incredulous.
“Nope!” Senti replied.
“But you don’t have a job!”
“Well, Old Timer does. And she’s loaded, she won’t miss two hundred and sixty dollars!”
“SENTI!” Kiana screeched once again.
The grey-haired woman winced. “Jeez, girl, you’ve got a good pair of lungs on you. Hey, I’ve been looking for a way to make $580,000 dollars. Would you be willing to donate your lungs?”
Kiana did not respond to Senti’s question, staring blankly at her.
“You broke her.” Seigfreid said.
“Nah, she’ll be fine.” Senti responded.
Eventually, Kiana blinked and stared at Senti. “I’m curious how you know the exact value of a pair of human lungs, but am also afraid to ask.”
“Old Timer rights crime novels, remember? She’s learned some really weird facts to make them more realistic.” Senti replied, voice even. “Did you know what a full, healthy human body can sell for up to 45 million U.S. dollars?”
Kiana looked lost, but the door to Mei’s room opened and Bianka poked her head out. At the sound, Kiana shook her head and turned around, worry etched on her face.
“It went without complications. She’s fine, and so are the kids. Wanna come see?” She said.
Kiana nodded, stiff. She walked silently, following her sister through the door. Seigfried and Senti shared a look, the father following first and Senti peeking in through the doorway.
Kiana stared carefully at her wife and the two bundled up babies un her lap. Everyone else was quiet, watching.
Kiana stepped up carefully, Mei meeting her gaze, her face a mixture of exhaustion and joy, but also slight loopyness.
“Hi.” Kiana said softly. She was vaguely aware of the others leaving, but her gaze did not stray from the bed.
“Hey.” Mei replied.
“How are you?”
“Tired. Very very tired.” She said, turning her gaze to the kids. “Any ideas for names?”
Kiana followed her gaze. One of them had a tuft of lavender hair, the other pink.
She thought for a second.
“What colors are their eyes?” She asked.
“The purple-haired one has hazel-orange eyes, and the pink-haired one has yours.” She replied.
Kiana looked at them. “I want to name the purple one Sirin.” she said after a moment’s hesitation.
Mei looked at her. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” Kiana made eye contact with her wife. “You can name the other.”
Mei thought for a few seconds. “You okay with Elysia?” She asked tentatively.
Kiana smiled softly. “That’s what I had in mind. It’s wonderful.”
Mei smiled back. “You should go tell them.” She said, gesturing her head to the door.
“But I don’t wanna leave.” Kiana replied.
“It will only be for a few seconds. Once you’re done, you can come back in and hold one of them.”
Kiana turned and walked to the door. She peeked her head out to see the whole group standing there, talking.
They all turned to face her, faces expectant. “We’ve named them.” She said softly. “The purple-haired one is Sirin, and the pink-haired one is Elysia.”
Bianka smiled. “Those are lovely names.”
Everyone in the group knew the truth about Kiana and Bianka, and about Mei’s time with World Serpent. They knew the origins of the names, what they meant.
Einstein nodded. “I’ll make the birth certificate now. Can we doctors come in?”
Kiana nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry, I don’t want too many though. This is… a lot.”
Seele smiled at her. “It’s okay, Kiana. It’s understandable.” Fu Hua nodded in agreement, the other showing their assent to the statement.
Kiana smiled and retreated into the room, the two doctors and Bronya following suit.
Kiana immediately rushed to Mei’s side and carefully lifted Sirin, cradling her.
“We’ve already tested them.” Said Tesla, tapping away at the computer. “They’re all healthy. All organs in place and the right size, blood and veins working properly, breathing fine, healthy weights; although Sirin is a bit smaller than Elysia.”
Kiana exhaled a breath she did not know she was keeping, lifting the sleeping Sirin up to her face and putting her fingers on the baby’s forehead.
“Will the name bother you guys?” She asked softly. “I know you fought her, and everything…”
Einstein looked at her fondly. “It’s okay. She’s going to get the childhood she deserves. She isn’t the Herrscher of the Void, just like you aren’t.”
Bronya’s eyes met Kiana’s. “Idiotka, if they had a problem, you know they'd say something. Tesla isn’t very good at keeping to herself.” She said in a deadpan tone.
“Hey!” the scientist in question barked, and Kiana laughed. “But yeah, she’s right. We would say something.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Kiana said.
“Also, even if it did, we wouldn’t make you change it. It’s your kid.”
“And I don’t think Mei would either,” Kiana said, rubbing the back of her head with her free hand sheepishly, turning to look at her now-slumbering wife. She turned back to the scientists. “When can she come home?”
“Tomorrow.” Einstein said. “But we’ll want to see them at least twice a week, both the kids and miss Raiden.”
Kiana nodded.
“Now, it’s almost 6:30, you should go get some food. A celebration dinner, yaknow?” Tesla added.
“Yeah. That… that sounds like a good idea.” Kiana shook her head and looked at Bronya. “You wanna come?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling. “Let’s go. Do you wanna call Theresa?”
“Yeah. If anything, just because she’ll kill me if I don’t.”
“This is true.”