Chapter 3: Interlude: ...Something's Wrong with My Baby...
Lilia
From the moment she helped deliver the twins of her Protege, Lilia knew something was wrong with them.
The delivery itself went without a hitch, and the babies, yes they were twins, were brought into the world with startling ease compared to her past experiences. For all intents and purposes, it should have been regarded as a resounding success, but ironically, what inspired her worry were the circumstances of the birth of the two adorable little ones. They were simply too distinct from each other, twin existences that were not mirrors but inverses of each other.
The first brought her relief when she, for it was a daughter, started to cry out. The infant's voice was high and it all but drowned out her mother's struggling, but to Lilia, that was indication that the child was healthy. Very quickly, Lilia wrapped the crying child in a blanket, settled her into her cradle and returned to attend to Zenith while her other child was struggling to escape the womb. At first she thought that the infant was just a normal child, and as such she would soon tire herself and fall asleep while she helped deliver her younger brother.
Lilia couldn't have been more wrong; the little girl cried until first light.
The twins were both born before dusk.
Her brother, as the second child was a boy, caused Lilia untold worry when he did the opposite and wouldn't make a sound. Like his sister before him, he was birthed with no complications, but when he finally cleared his lungs of the fluid that filled them while he was in the womb, he would't even open his mouth. Tenderly she examined the little boy, his eyes and mouth closed almost as if he was simply asleep; and though she found the warmth from his nose and his heartbeat, he remained as silent as the grave while his older sister cried into the afternoon.
This was when Lilia was faced with the problem; a child who obviously had something afflicting her as she screamed over her own mother and her brother who Lilia couldn't properly gauge seeing as he was deathly quiet. She knew that a baby only cried for so long a time if there was something wrong with them, but at the same time, silence could herald the same frightening complications. A child would not, could not cry for such a long time, and seeing one force itself to was troubling indeed, while a silent child, especially at birth, was usually the first sign that there was something not quite right with the infant.
Strangely enough, it was the boy who brought her assurance first; the small child opened his eyes and looked at her with what looked to be wonder as he made a soft noise. She could only watch as the boy opened wide his bright green eyes and listen as strange sounds came out of his mouth. At first, she could have sworn that he was trying to tell her something, but the sound of his voice, much softer than his sister's insistent screaming, filled her with motherly satisfaction.
Lilia surrendered the child to the cradle, and thought of a time long past, before she was accepted into the service of her Protege.
No matter how many times she helped deliver children, she would always relish the thought that it was she who first met the infants. She was still a woman after all, and despite the mental conditioning they received to be able work at the palace the Main Guard always had a soft spot for the infants and the little children they were assigned to serve.
Lilia was torn from her thoughts were the screaming of the older child got even louder, as the efforts of young couple, Paul and Zenith, were being wasted on the little girl.
She immediately regretted having set her brother next to her, as even the boy seemed to have been disturbed by the noise she was making.
Zenith was still too weak, giving birth to twins wasn't rare but it definitely wasn't common or any easier, and it seemed like it would need more than a mother's simple touch to calm the keening child. When Paul saw that his wife couldn't do anything to ease his daughter's wailing, he took her into his arms and rocked her gently, hoping that he would serve as a more comfortable post compared to his exhausted wife.
Having been once in the care of Paul's tender mercies, Lilia wasn't surprisedthat the little girl grew louder in the arms of her father. Still, with how desperate and worried he looked when trying to calm his daughter, and given how he accepted her without a second thought, she couldn't allow herself to think in such a way. She could teach the young couple how to take care of their child when she wasn't making enough noise to wake the dead.
"Give her to me." She spoke calmly, though given that Paul's attention was solely on his daughter, it wasn't a surprise to her that he jumped at his touch. She didn't wait for him to assent, deftly but gently taking the small bundle of cloth from his arms before drawing the child to her chest and taking a good look at the disturbed infant.
Lilia could feel her heart tighten as she scrutinized the child and found nothing. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the child, no defects or problems that she could immediately see, and still she continued to scream and weep. All she could do was to try and comfort the child as best as she could, cradling it in her arms and humming a half forgotten lullaby into her delicate ears as she prayed to every god that existed that there was nothing wrong with the child.
To them, it took an eternity, but when the moon began to descend and the stars were beginning to fade, the child finally fell silent. Her breaths were far from deep and calm, and her sleep, though she was asleep, was fitful and distraught. When her brother seemed to have approached her at first, she redoubled her volume, but soon enough, when they reunited the two in resignation, she began to calm down.
Lilia found it very strange that the girl, though definitely the more energetic of the two, worried her more compared to her smaller and weaker brother. It was worrying; she only stopped when she was too exhausted to cry out, and even as she slept she moved around restlessly as if haunted by nightmares. It was a boon that her brother was so calm, that he wasn't disturbed by his twins movements and that he even seemed to hold her down while they both slumbered.
The Maid simply hoped they weren't so different that one of them would wake up the next morning...
Lilia had heard about such a thing before, an old tale of two children born so different from each other that the end was too tragic to speak about.
Two total opposites; Twins, a boy and a girl. One blessed with tranquility that could easily be confused for weakness, while the other granted so much strength that she was suffering for it.
"Will she be alright, Lilia?" Paul asked with a soft voice, unwilling to disturb his children while the horizon began to brighten. He was tired, none of them caught a wink of sleep on account of the daughter, but more than that the worry ate at their very souls. "Will my daughter live?"
Lilia could not find it in her heart to tell them the Tale of Mirrored Twins and the fate that could await their children.
...While the other would never move again.
The boy who lived was to be called Rudeus.
The girl who did not die was named Candace.
Lilia, Zenith, and Paul were very much relieved when the weeks began to pass and Candace began to cry less and less into the night. The night terrors seemed to fade when she was allowed to sleep with her brother, and Rudeus was never one to be very fussy anyway. Comfortable peace settled in the household as the early weeks came and went, and soon enough the children were old enough to start spending more time awake than asleep.
At first, life continued as it usually did, with them rushing to Candace whenever she would make any sign of discomfort and Rudeus quietly clinging to her side, always there whenever she seemed to need anything. It was much better this way, since he was the easiest way to keep her happy if she didn't need to feed, change, or sleep, and if he needed anything, then he wouldn't have to cry for very long since they were all there. The children were inseparable after the first month, Candace made sure that they wouldn't try again after more hours of crying, and more often than not she or Zenith had to keep watch over to make sure they were always happy.
At least one of them were with the children at all times, as even Paul tried his best when his twins were involved, but the increased proximity with the children allowed her to notice something unnerving about them.
Indeed, it was a long and slow process, but as the weeks turned to months and the months slowly approached a year, it looked as if Rudeus was slowly getting stronger while Candace grew progressively weaker.
The little girl had the breath of a hurricane and a wail that could rival a keening dragon, but as the time passed she cried less and less and slept in more and more. She would cry when she was hungry, or when she needed to change, or when she was uncomfortable, but other than that, she seemed content to slumber the day away in her bed. It got to a point that they didn't need to keep watch over her anymore, since the night terrors she faced and whatever seemed to bother her was replaced by a strange lethargy that kept her in bed all of the time. She didn't even like being taken out of her little cradle though she was quite alright with being separated with Rudeus so long as they were reunited by the end of the day.
Rudeus himself seemed to have taken all the energy his sister once displayed, the boy being much more active now that he was allowed to grow. But to Lilia, that was just as worrying as Candace's weakness, especially when the son seemed to have inherited the more repulsive habits of his father. He had the eyes of the nobles when they would survey their maidservants and whenever she had to carry him, he would purposefully bury his face into her chest and pant like a deviant. He would peer at her and his won mother with strange eyes, she would call them lustful if she wasn't sure that he wasn't supposed to know what that meant.
His smile was the worst; the visage of a rapist so disgusting that even Paul couldn't compare in terms of depravity.
She sometimes had to remind herself that she was comparing a grown man to his own infant child, but that only made it worse since the image never faded.
In comparison, whenever she was awake, Candace was an angel. She would smile like a regular baby would, an image that would inspire nothing but love an adoration and doubly so considering she was a woman with strong maternal instincts. She would move slowly rather than rushing through everything when being tended to, and when Lilia carried her, she would snuggle into her and simply look content with herself. Gone was the infant who cried at every little thing, and sometimes nothing at all, and replacing her was a true bundle of joy whenever she was bothered to wake up.
Now Lilia was a very superstitious person, so Rudeus' perversion coupled by the circumstances of the twins' birth planted a seed of doubt in her. There were tales of demon children even back then, of course such fears would be aroused when all the signs were present.
What if there was something wrong with them? What if Rudeus was a demon child? What if he kills his sister?
Such thoughts plagued her mind and forced her hand, and those same thoughts screamed even louder in her mind when her family's practices when warding against evil did nothing.
In another life, Lilia would have simply left Rudeus alone and come to accept him when he showed some promise, but with Candace in the immediate line of fire, she would not stand idly by.
Lilia found it very difficult to keep track of where Rudeus went once he learned to crawl, but she made sure that she kept an eye on Candace when she could. Slowly she began to see that Rudeus always made an effort to separate himself from his sister, at least when she was asleep since she would always try to stay with him whenever she wanted to play. She would notice that the boy, though he had the curiosity to rival any cat, mostly kept himself to the confines of the house; though he could be sometimes found looking out the windows he never once tried to exit the four walls of the house.
On rare occasions, when Candace was feeling particularly energetic, they would go to the edge of their room and watch the clouds pass them by, the little girl always so enraptured by the sight of the sky while the boy seemed perfectly happy to watch his sister smile.
And that's how she managed to forgive the 'demon child.'
He still acted more like a perverted old man than a child whenever she held him or his mother fed him, but slowly and surely such habits died down once he began to wander the house. She didn't see much of him then, she was still busy trying to protect his sister, but when the twins were together it was hard not to see the obvious affection that they seemed to naturally have for each other. The weakening child was always so happy with her brother and the child she thought was possessed acted more like the toddler he was when he was playing with his sister.
She was honestly shocked when she first found out that he spent most of his time in his father's study when he wandered out of her sight.
Rudeus appeared to be reading the book and comprehending it's contents, and that was the very first time she saw him as a child instead of a monster. He 'spoke' in a way she couldn't understand, and he perused the pages with purpose and intelligence in his eyes rather than malice of ill intent. In her eyes, this was no longer a child that needed to be cared for like his sister still was, this was a boy that could stand on his two feet as he looked at and learned about the world.
A stray thought crossed Lilia's mind, what if he was just imitating Paul? What if Rudeus is a genius rather than a demon?
It was a conclusion that had far too much merit; she knew very well how much children could see even if their parents thought they weren't looking, and with how brazen Paul always was, she wouldn't have been surprised if Rudeus managed to see. She knew, somewhere deep within her soul that she could have easily been fooling herself, but watching the children play and laugh day by day softened her heart.
There was no way a true demon could care of anything, especially not their own flesh and blood.
Satisfied, Lilia left Rudeus that day, keeping everything she learned within her heart as she continued to care for the twins. She would keep his secrets, if only to keep him from coming back to her and smothering his face in her chest. It seemed perfectly alright if he was reading, and she was sure that Paul wasn't stupid enough to keep the more 'dangerous material' where Zenith could easily find it. She would even take care of Candace more to allow him more time in Paul's study; there was a respectable number of books there after all, and as fast as he was at turning the pages, it didn't look like he would finish any time soon.
Thus did the imagined battle between the Guard Maid and the Demon Child come to a close.
Life at the Greyrat Household was much happier for her since then.
AN: Just an interlude; an expanded Lilia Chapter just like in the WN/LN to show some contrast. Already things are changing, with how magic is and what the family, specifically Lilia thinks of the twins so that would have an effect later in the story. I know it's a bit quick for a timeskip, but let's be real here; who wants to read a story about the life and times of week old babies? I have a cousin who, like Candace, seems happier to eat, sleep, get dirty, repeat than crawl around, explore the world, and be cute.
I got the name Candace via Random Name Generator by the way, it seemed kind of obscure (other than Phineas and Ferb) so I just rolled with it instead of rerolling.
If anyone is here for Silly Songbird: Sorry to disappoint but I'm taking a break from any serious writing for a while (RL should be a video game difficulty setting... oh wait, Left for Dead has it ha ha hah...) Again, this isn't really serious, just a way to unwind, destress, and explore the rich world of Mushoku Tensei (Read the Original, it got turned into an LN for a reason)
There are more fanfics about this too so that's good; always nice to see others try their hand at making stories. =))
(Copied from last time) That's it; Review if you want to tell me anything (flames will be laughed at) and don't expect me to update this too often.
I'll see anyone still here next update =))