Chương 470: 18.1

Gem The Second was not sure if she truly was Gem. She mostly felt like how she remembered being Gem when she was this age, the few ways in which she didn't were honestly better. She could eat bread now! She was still not even as tall as Gem had eventually grown to be, but her legs were stronger than they had been so early in that life, her back able to hold her upright better. Her throat and neck felt less squashed and words were coming very easily from the practice she remembered having.

In a word she felt better then she remembered, especially compared to her poor sister self who was still such a clumsy blob of a baby. However, better was still different, Gem's voice was not the same as it had been, even in her youth, it was lighter, it trilled more then Jewel's first spawn ever had. She also was noticeably growing faster. Not as ruinously fast as the Twins had and her lanky clutch mate still was.

But with her pink sister-self to compare too (assuming she was maturing at about the same speed as Gwenn at that age) Gem The Second was maturing significantly faster than she had the first time. Such a strange experience, it felt like everything about her life, her body, her flesh was improved, refined, better fitting. When she reflected too long on it Gem felt more like the product of a learning craftsman than a living breathing person.

But none of herselves could understand how the art of it was even accomplished, let alone improved! Jewel certainly didn't remember doing anything different from one of her spawn to the next. Gem the second just was different and more comfortable to be. It was just as well, having an aged Smithson baby her, reading to her, feeding her like he had the first time when he was younger? It was awkward, soothing, gratifying, a gentle reminder of her first spawn's life, but it was not the same.

Gem the Second knew this heart had never been utterly terrified that she was anyone but herself, that these 'thoughts' had never believed they would only ever be a small disconnected thing that had dreamed itself a wyrm. It was all the starker for her new sister-selves. Gem the first had been singular, the Twins identical.

'She' was not like any of her clutch-mates. They all grew differently! They were all Jewel, undeniably the same self, they could know one another just as the Twins did. She knew the stark pain of the lanky bottomless pit that was her largest clutch-mate, Gem was certain that self would make the twins appear to be triplets by the end of the year just like her near identical sister-selves. Already a head taller than this body! Gem the first's heart would have felt that was unfair.

But Gem the second's feelings failed to be angry, not like she used to be, not when her poor soft sister-self was growing so slowly among them. It felt wrong, improper that she was given a name before the proper day, well ahead of her first survived winter, that was wrong for a child. But poor Smithson could not avoid calling her Gem. Gwenn settled into it as well although suggested she claim the title of second, her sister aunt had shared a knowing look with her when she suggested the arrangement.

Truly Gwenn had always known her. Teased her to not be as foolish as her 'predecessor' (never in the same room as Smithson of course), made her promise that when Gwenn had her children that Gem would take on the 'sufferance' to visit and stay for several years so that the children could grow up properly knowing their 'tiny aunt'. She supposed if her clutch-mate had to grow as slowly as men do, as they all remembered first growing up beside Gwenn that she could even be ready by then.

Although she supposed her sister's children would not be born with teeth ready to bite and chew. Gem bit off a piece of candied pork into a small enough fleck for her yet unnamed sister-self to fit in her tiny jaws. Slipping the snack into the poor dear's mouth so she had something to distract her from the sleepy haze of boredom and confusion that Jewel's most delicate spawn suffered all waking hours. They were going to start needing even more extensive guest quarters soon if Jewel had even more clutches of spawn.

That or she would have to stop bringing all of them to Burning Depths Ford together when the duties of the Realm called for her. What would that be like? Being seasons or years apart from the unity of her mother-self? Only able to know them as sisters instead of as also her? Would they bicker as strongly as Gem had with the Twins? Would she somehow become rivals or friends with her own self? What would that feel like when they finally poured back into one?

Gem considered the befuddled, squirming, gaping of her sister self, who she knew could barely see her compared to the abysmal acuity of even Gem the first at that age. Gem the second knew that she was not united in her feelings for this sister-self, much of her recoiling from the memories of how feeble the shape of a man felt around them. When Jewel became one it would weigh on all of them again what their most fragile self was suffering.

But none of them ever came away from the experience thinking any worse for their sister-self. It was confusing. Paul was doing his best to assist with his 'proper daughter' but the man was so stressed and terrified about her health that it was often falling to the various spawn or Smithson to make sure that things were done properly and she was kept comfortable. When they visited Rochford at least Mother's wisdom and care could direct him even if her hands trembled too much to risk holding the child.

It was a shared secret among all of her selves that she was humoring the men in her life with their care of her latest clutch. Without the diminutive stature of Gem, or rather Gem the first the shared experience and knowing of one another was a far more powerful insight to their needs as infants then even Smithson could manage. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

All of her allowed him of course, listened to his soothing voice as he read the same books that Gem and all her other selves already knew. Let him feed and tend and fuss over her, whether she was an immobile, mostly blind and scaleless lump or already gaining strength and stature enough to stand with some effort and a wobbly gait. Gwenn of course seemed to see through it but she spoke to the matter by asking her elder sister about the care of her numerous children.

Inquiring with Imre into Smithson's own insights, comparing notes. Her sister cried some nights, hugged Gem and spoke to her how much she missed her, or missed her former self. The Spawn she remembered being. Gem the second cried with her, mourning how she was. There were a lot of tears at night. Poor Imre, word had come that his father had finally perished while they were here, attending as Electors. It was strange how her memory worked.

She knew that much of her-selves ached at the loss of another friend, but Gem the second recalled only fuzzy recollections beyond the pain that they shared in the moment. All of her and Gwenn tended to Imre, giving support so he could do his duty as a Vassal and Elector of the Realm. But as her youngest selves it was a waste to fuss and worry, that was a matter for her larger selves. She had simpler and more immediate pains and trials.

With any luck both Gem (the second) and whatever name she or Paul picked for her Clutchmates after next winter would be able to stop wearing the infant smocks soon and get proper dresses in the cut they preferred. Gem felt a bit of a trembling worry in her belly at the thought, what if she kept growing past the stature she had once suffered as a pained indignity? Would it hurt Gwenn and Smithson if she stopped looking like the childlike Gem they remembered?

Did she even care about being taller now that there were two of her selves of a more than sufficient stature? With a third seemingly well on her way? She was not sure about her future stature nor what she should feel, either as a whole or as any one of herself.

Her poor soft self brought a fogginess to everything whenever they came together, that snubbed snoutless face was so awful, while they were separate her heart ached for the poor girl, it felt like there was always snot and dead air trapped up inside her face above her eyes! What did any of this mean!? Why were they constantly being born?! What purpose did the strange unknown hand that was shaping each of the spawn mean for them!?

The Twins (soon to be Trio) seemed obvious on reflection, selves meant to be warriors, lean and swift and coordinated, more wyrm than man. It made sense as a troubling but sensible thought that had settled in each of their hearts like lodestone. Gem paused, frowning, she didn't presently even know what a lodestone was, she could not recollect the heaviness or why it should drag on her ability to fly so much, it was something other than its weight, but now as only herself Gem did not know it.

She shuddered at that reminder. Her sister-self with her poor smothered senses caught onto her discomfort and began to fuss again, she gently hushed and ran a finger against her clutch-mate's feet, gentle enough to just barely tickle but not overwhelm. Soothing but joyous. What intent was there in making a spawn so human? With only teeth and a mere finger's length of tail to show she was anything of a wyrm.

If she let herself think back on the fuzzy memories of arguing with Paul over him not taking on a mistress to sire a proper heir the pink sister-self might make some sense. A proper daughter for Paul and his family, a suitable heir to carry on his blood line. But did it even count if as far as either of them had tried there was none of the proper 'process' involved in producing her?

Nevermind that nearly everyone in Viznove was assured that her husband was the most virile and potent man in the world for bedding a dragon every night it wasn't the truth! No, she was forgetting, or no, she had never remembered as Gem the Second those books she read, they were fuzzy thoughts, recollection of impression, a thought of a thought. Somewhere a part of her knew better than this though.

The gap itched in her head far worse than the one on Lodestone, forced her to focus on a new bite of candied pork and to chew intensely to distract herself. Banish the worry with meat and flavor, accept that her over-all-self knew what she did not. Do not worry, there were proper laws that assured that the girl, the sister-self could legitimately take on the role as Paul's child. She had to trust that feeling even if considering it left her adrift.

But at the moment Gem did not know for sure, and if she did not know these things was she really Gem at all? Had she properly remembered everything important that made her who she resembled? Was she just memories poured into a too small cup until they overflowed and left her lost with only half of herself every time she was unconnected from the greater whole?

She shuddered again, she remembered dying, she remembered being dead, the horribleness that was more than simply being gone, not being asleep, no she remembered rotting, not very much but she had felt it. Not how she could feel the sting of her claws pinching her forearm to try and distract her now. No, it was a disconnected, separate, horrible, separating pain.

Like she had not just been merely Gem hurting, but Gem herself had been shattered, broken, spilled from a cracked cup and left to seep in agony into smaller and smaller parts, that all turned upon one another, tore into and bit each other, and all burned and suffered and died, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces of a ruined whole.

Before she felt like she had dwelled on it even a moment Smithson's arms were around her, hands against her back gently making circles, the tears were in her eyes, no they were flooding down her cheeks, she was shuddering, shaking, she'd dropped her candied pork! She should not be crying! For some reason she had not yet remembered with this heart that was improper, but the warmth of Smithson's embrace made that thought hard to hold onto, the way he smelled the same as she remembered and yet subtly different.

Was it him that had changed or was it her own nose that was different? That too she decided did not matter, he was here, he was holding her, he was soothing her and letting her throat relax, the sounds of distress fade into sobs. She wasn't dying, she was still here, Gem was alive, she wasn't dead, she wasn't rotting, she wasn't becoming less and less, divided from herself over and over again as the time stretched out and out into forever.

Smithson was older, he was larger, he was more assured and yet also so much more fragile, but he was here and holding her. Gem the Second might not be Gem, no matter how many people she loved wanted her to be, no matter how much she remembered, but she was here and Smithson's embrace soothed her.