Figuring out what time it was on Taihorca IV was unintuitive. Or, if one asked the locals, it was irrelevant. People woke up when they felt like it, worked for a few hours wherever they worked, and theo bed when they got tired. There was a wide range of circadian rhythms, which meant there was no real rush hour and none of the stores or restaurants stuck to the same length of time as their definition of a ‘day’.

  Either way, Svetna had been up for about ten hours when she’d nded, so had only been good for about seven hours of vaguely socialising with Ouzzhen that first night. They’d left for separate sleeping options, a security precaution from one side or the other. Svetna’s polycule ended up in a small house in the hills on the edge of the town (which mostly ran parallel to the waterfront). There ool and windows set up to watch the eternal su. It was all very nid the sort of thing someone upper middle css rented out through one of those short term rental apps that drove the price of local housing.

  A brief hope that the rest of the gaxy had a better system danced across her mind on the way to find a bed to pass out in.

  Houyu’s cries had woken her up a couple times in the night, but that was to be expected with a baby that was only months old.

  The third time had apparently been a reasonable hour to wake up, O’tmyil inf her that it had been seven hours since she’d goo bed. So she gave up on sleeping further and sat down, holding the small baby aly rog little Houyu back to sleep after a diaper ge.

  “Multi-tasker,” Vivian said quietly, walking barefoot across the smooth floor towards her.

  It probably wasn’t linoleum, but it seemed like linoleum. All very smooth and tinuous.

  “Multi-tasker?” Svetna asked as Vivian sat beside her on the heavy and well cushioned couch (Kobaroiterior design tinuing to be cozy).

  “Mhm, looking after three babies at once,” Vivian replied, running a hand along Svetna’s belly. “It just struck me as amusing.”

  Svetna blushed furiously. “That--I... I mean, there’s barely anything in there yet. Just a couple small handfuls of cells. It... it probably won’t feel real until the m siess hits.”

  “Don’t they have something for that out here?” Vivian asked.

  “We do,” O’tmyil said, walking in from the kit with some breakfast for both of them. “But someone apparently thinks it will give her gender euphoria.”

  “Really?” Vivian asked, staring at Svetna.

  “I... I just wao see if I could tough out a couple ms of it. Then I’ll take my medie like a good girl,” Svetna replied.

  “Just as a test of your abilities aermination?” Vivian said as both of them accepted the ptes O’tmyil had cooked.

  As Svetna awkwardly passed Houyu to O’tmyil while holding the pte in one hand she seemed to be vaguely akin to a standard anglophone breakfast. There was some sort of greasy meat. Ftbread in pce of toast, but it was close enough. Then there were things that generally resembled beans in some sort of sweet syrup-y sauce. And scrambled eggs from some sort of alieure.

  The fvours were all a little odd, but not bad. Just... different.

  Part way through eating, Svetna paused, turning to both Vivian and O’tmyil (the tter tinuing to rock a now sleeping Houyu). “This... this isn’t too much, is it?”

  “Hm?” Vivian asked.

  “With Ouzzhen. That’s... I worry I’m ign you too much, Viv. You just--we just had a baby, and I’m off romang someone else for the polycule,” Svetna said, trying not to feel like the vilin. “On top of getting myself pregnant.”

  She’d gotten so caught up in politionse had started to blio the actual issues of her family. Of those she loved.

  Maybe it was what being royalty had to mean, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Or cooperate with the pressures more than necessary.

  “Oh no. You’re leaving me aloh just Plynx and Thisbe and Bokarza to e. Hic,” Vivian said, fshing a grin. “I love you, Svetna, but you don’t o carry the whole polycule on your shoulders. Everyone’s pitg in with Houyu. Everyone loves Houyu plenty. I expect to love the two little tykes you’re carrying when you pop them out and I get to meet them... Sure, it would be o see more of you, but you also have a job. Plus, the ability t peace between two a and powerful gaxy spanning empires. That’s pretty cool and worth missing a few cuddles over.”

  With that she leaned in and kissed Svetna on the cheek. It led to a smile spreading across Svetna’s fad she leaned in against Vivian’s side.

  “I’ll still try to catch up on the cuddles as soon as I .”

  “I just want to know why I was excluded from the list of other lovers,” O’tmyil said in a quiet protest.

  “Because you go where Svetna goes,” Vivian replied.

  “... true. I shall also have to catch up on missed time together when possible,” O’tmyil said.

  It turned out that Ouzzhen had rented out a home much closer to the water. Walking over to it with O’tmyil in her pocket, Svetna had found the low sun now felt more like early m than su. Once she was ihough, the curtains were drawn on the sunward side, the lighting currently artificial. (The windows oher side had open curtains, and probably a dozen security personnel watg from a ‘discrete’ distance.)

  “Good m, Svetna,” Ouzzhen said, looking rather more impressive in the somewhat human scaled home.

  Sure, it was actually sized for Kobaroians, but they still had at least a good metre of height on any Kobaroian woman. Somehow the two other Zuumults mao look smaller where they stood, but Svetna supposed that was a matter of fidence.

  “Hello, Ouzzhen,” Svetna said. “I see you have a video s set up already.”

  “It seemed foolish to waste time when you seemed to have so many shows to, well, show me,” Ouzzhen replied, grinning again. “I’m certainly ied in the idea... Vahr has ected us to a copy of your i, so we should be able to watch whatever has been digitized.”

  “A copy of the whole--that’s, like, terabytes? Uh... lots of terabytes.” Svetna said, mildly baffled.

  “Mhm? A good amount of data for a single p,” Ouzzhen replied. “I believe our search algorithm should be better at hunting for data than ahling ones.”

  “I... I really feel like a medieval peasant out here sometimes,” Svetna mumbled.

  “It’s cute,” Ouzzhen said with a grin.

  “I’ll take that as a win,” Svetna replied, before heading over to the couch.

  After a bit of instru she found she uood the interface well enough and was able to start hunting for shows. Which also meant hunting for episode lists, because the first episode was rarely the best episode for many of the shows she wao find.

  The search fun that the Zuumults had was really quite amazing, managing to pull up forum posts from 1998 as easily as major corporate websites ipedia articles. Cht blocks were absolutely useless in the face of it.

  Which meant that soon enough they were watg through all the most cssic episodes of Svetna’s favourite anime. While the shows were great and her Japanese was still spotty enough that she had to check what the subtitles were saying at points, her main focus was still oher or not Ouzzhen was enjoying things.

  The spstick seemed to go over well, so that was good. Some of the other edy seemed to escape them. As did the entire cept of genderbending... to an eveer degree than it fused most aliens, but that was uandable all things sidered.

  There was one respohat seemed quite gehough.

  “I quite like this priest fellow with the purple hair,” they said, wearing that sharp toothed grin once again.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s fun. Evil, but fun,” Svetna replied, before trying to hunt down another show.

  The first thing Bokarza did with having a proper day off was sleep in. It was such a wonderful luxury; just ying in bed until it got b. Especially on a p where it never became noon, so it was hard to feel bad about getting up te.

  Once she’d had enough, she and O’ktaubr headed out to explore the town and its surroundings. There were some good restaurants with traditional Kobaroic dishes. There were also small grocers selling bags of junk food. She’d not had a ce to indulge in any of her guilty (cheap) pleasures in a while, even when ba Kobaroic space, so happily munched on a bag of deep fried juk leaves while she strolled about the town. Sure, even here people reised her as the queen, but they didn’t care much. Just the occasional autograph request. Which she was happy to give.

  Plynx was sitting with Agent Lee, watg the home Ouzzhen had taken up residen. There were a couple of rooms with stronger insotion that made infrared readouts difficult, but Svetna had only briefly stepped into one of those. She’d been pletely alone and the blueprints showed it was the toilet. So, when she left a couple mier it was agreed there was no cause for .

  Still, it was o be able to use the binocurs to watch as Svetna showed various works of Earth media to Ouzzhen. Just for her own pieind.

  “That is not the anime,” Plynx muttered, eyes narrowing.

  Ageepped up beside her, binocurs of his own poi the viewing s. “Ah. I is not. Still, the protagonist is a samurai. I believe that is within an acceptable margin of error.”

  “It still strikes me as an odd means of approag gactic diplomacy,” A’khaun, the Lanthonean head of the imperial guard, said as he also watched what ying out. “Sedu I have heard of, but this is... something else.”

  “This is how to find one’s way into the target-diplomatic’s heart, not merely they-target’s pants,” Plynx replied. “Far more sting, though perhaps less reliable.”

  “Valuable with a target that is asexual,” Agent Lee said.

  “Zuumults reproduce asexually, but that does not mean they do not have appetites for the pleasure,” A’khaun said.

  “Whatever the case... I have realised isode this is. Of course she has goh that episode,” Plynx said, purring briefly in amusement.

  There were lots of antique shops to dig through in the small beach town. That seemed to Thisbe to be indication it did indeed normally get a good number of visitors. Whatever the case, she was happy to poke about as well as to chat with the elderly Kobaroians who staffed many of the stores.

  They all plimented her on how good she looked for being 200, causing Thisbe to remember with slight embarassment that was roughly the same as being 80 for a Kobaroian. They had meant it genuinely, rather than as a pyful joke.

  In fact, she discovered one particurly a woman was actually older than she was. The woman’s at was rather old fashioned, which tested Thisbe’s Kobaroic, but everyone here spoke without hurry. Things happened when they happened, a patiehat came with livio the o and its tempestuous weather.

  Really, all of it was leaving her a little homesick, thinking about how long it had been since she’d st been in Barbados. Or the Caribbean in general. Moving to mainnd ada had been useful for finding work, but it simply wasn’t where her is lived.

  Distracted by that she very nearly missed Vahr hurrying along and popping into a small grocer. Curious what any of the Zuumults were doing alone she slipped into the store as well. She found them staring at a wall of crispy chip-like snacks and looking utterly baffled.

  “Svet you on a snack run?” Thisbe asked.

  Vahr jumped slightly, clearly not used to having anyone sneak up on them. “Um, yes. She said we required ‘chips’. And not the micro kind.”

  “Mhm. Some pop would also be good,” Thisbe replied, before looking over the sele. “Ah, there’s a party mix. That’s probably fairly close... oh, and those are blue fvour. Svetna likes to say that blue is good when you want something deliciously artificial. Doesn’t work with Lanthonean cooking, but seems reliable everywhere else. I reend also grabbing her some blue and white or transparent pops.”

  With that, Thisbe found herself leading Vahr through the store, finding their efforts to not bump into anythie being te for the store rather endearing. After a few minutes she’d loaded their basket up with signifitly more food than she’d normally get for a party. It seemed needed with just he a Zuumult’s appetite had to be.

  Though it also led to rather a lot of bags being handed over by the slightly terrified looking Kobaroian man behind the cash.

  “I’ll take a couple,” Thisbe said as she noticed Vahr struggling to grab them all.

  “Oh, I could not impose upon you further,” Vahr replied.

  Smiling, Thisbe found herself liking them, and decided to projee of that foo rex them. “There’s nothing else on my schedule.”

  “Ah... well, thank you,” Vahr said.

  Stepping out of the store, however, she found them in rather a hurry to get back to their elde--rger sibling. With those long legs it would have been rather a struggle for Thisbe to keep up if she hadn’t been a vampire nearly ohird tury of vampirism. As she was, it was merely slightly awkward to hurry after them.

  Perhaps three mier they’d crossed the two kilometres to where Ouzzhen was staying, Vahr having to pce a few more bags in Thisbe’s arms to be able to open the door.

  “Ah, Vahr, we were starting to miss you,” Ouzzhen said, turning to the door with that nearly ever present smile on their lips.

  “I was unfamiliar with the sorts of snacks I was sent to get,” Vahr said, sounding rather more apologetic than Ouzzhen’s tone had seemed to require. “sort Thisbe assisted me, however.”

  With that they stepped out of the way while grabbing the bags from Thisbe. Not sure what to do with herself she gave a small wave.

  “Woo Thisbe!” Svetna said.

  “It is very appreciated,” Ouzzhen added.

  “No worries,” Thisbe replied, still standing awkwardly at the door.

  Svetna had hurried over to look through the snack colle, which left her only watched by Ouzzhen. It was hard to deny that Thisbe wao stay to keep an eye on them... she’d known enough older vampires in her day to know that many Supernaturals saw mortals as mere pythings. Unfortunately, she was a vampire herself, and so had no easy ability to follow Vahr across the open door.

  “The help was very appreciated,” Ouzzhen said, “but if you have other things to attend to there’s no need for you to stand there. We won’t find your departure rude.”

  “Of... of course not,” Thisbe said, knowing that asking for an invitation would be overstepping at the moment.

  And so she left.

  The first day had gone very well ina’s opinion. Sure. Ouzzhen had iing tastes in characters (purple haired priests, silver haired pyromaniacs, and so on), but they were all pretty iic characters.

  On the sed day they’d spent most of their time out and about. Hiking leasant, with Ouzzhen able to help them over a few obstacles with ease. Really, it was so much ease that Svet her heart rag. The power dispyed was... well, she couldn’t help but wonder how that would trao certain other activities. (She’d already worked up her durability a bit with Bokarza after all.)

  For the third day, though, it was back to cultural lessons. AKA: anime and giant monster movies. There were just so many excellent series to watch, and Ouzzhen seemed quite happy for the ess of watg a show while seated on a couch, occasionally mung on snacks.

  “There are lots of alien invasions in your media,” Ouzzhen said, leaning back as two hours of monster madness rolled to an end.

  “There’s lots of invasions from other tries in our history,” Svetna replied, feeling a bit embarrassed. “Making up an enemy was the politically safe option.”

  “Uandable,” Ouzzhen said, nodding, before turning to study her with those space-bck eyes. “I am gd to see it has left no great fear in you.”

  “I’m... I’m an optimist like that,” Svetna managed as Ouzzhen leaned in.

  Soon enough their arms were to either side of Svetna, leaving her heart rag. This was the moment she’d waited for. Either she was about to be kissed or eaten by the rge apex predator she’d been spending so much time with.

  At least those were the options the reptilian part of her brain were (or, maybe the fish parts, sidering how shark-like Ouzzhen was).

  Of course it was a kiss. Rather a cold one, but she’d kissed Thisbe while the vampirian was famished, so she’d had cold kisses. It was, other than that, a touch disappointing pared to the build up, but that just meant Ouzzhen cked practice.

  They did not thusiasm, however. More kisses followed, Svetna realising the others were hurrying out of the room. Someone closed the curtains, she vaguely noticed that, but Agent Lee had said the curtains were no great to the safety monit force, so that didn’t panic her. In fact she barely noticed as her clothes began to be removed, partially feeling like a doll o Ouzzhen.

  Oh, but the and firm hands were wonderful as they traced her body...

  Utterly er an hour of ecstasy, Svetna made her way to the shower. It was both a matter of washing up and hoping that some high powered hot water would massage her muscles out after some of the force Ouzzhen had just used. It had never been unpleasant, but it had been rather more... intehana was used to. She was almost as sore as she’d been after fighting.

  It was definitely something she hoped tain, though.

  So she wandered into the washroom ahe hot water bst her. Things were definitely going well.

  AnnouUsual bit about how you read chapters early on Patreon a access to both War Dog's Leash (a sci-fi dystopia involving an oblivious egg, plurality, and super soldiers) and Another Sky (a dark isekai with lesbian polyamory) over there. And some of the exclusive bonus chapters set between HaProTGirl and Empress of the Gaxy.