Illusion is Reality

Chapter 144

-Real grouch-

I woke up, groaning at the tight, heavy feeling. Looks like I was Yun again. I was very glad I didn't need to pee, all this weight on my internal organs would have been hell. I laid there on my side, debating if I should try to get up or not. The babies kicked. Ow. You're all being rowdy today, aren't you? I sighed, laying three hands on my belly to rub it. It just felt nice to do so. I blinked when I noticed a 4th hand that wasn't my own. I turned my head to see Ford, still asleep, with one of his arms resting on my baby bump. Awww~ he was so cute when he was asleep. I flickered to look up his schedule and relaxed. He didn't have work today. So I could just snuggle with him all I wanted.

I wiggled, pushing myself on the bed until I could back myself into his embrace. Even asleep, Ford's arms closed around me. I purred. Then I winced because the babies were kicking again. Owie. Quit fighting in there! Ugh. So many limbs were probably getting tangled as they reenacted some kung fu movie using my womb as a stage!

I patted my belly. "Settle down you little fucks." I huffed. Ugh, the skin of my belly was stretched so tight, I still didn't know for sure how many of them were in here, only that they were growing quickly as I had entered my third trimester. Their Souls were too weak for me to really count properly. And their Minds too undeveloped. Still, I found myself softly singing to them as I rubbed my belly. Hey, if there was any chance these guys are gonna know what music is, I'm gonna have to teach 'em!

"一如告知某一些的戀愛~結果會心傷 曾愉快~" I sang to them. I felt their kicks lessening as they seemed to calm. "一試何妨 如告知我的一些感覺~你不會欣賞 誰共你~一般思想~"

It was a song I grew up with as a human child. One of the many songs on the karaoke machine my parents owned and used once a week. I grew up with music. And this had always been my favorite song, even if I could never sing the lyrics right as a child.

If some form of love will end up hurting me,

But I think that I can get happiness from it,

Then why not give it a try.

I continued singing to my babies, they were still and peaceful now. And I just felt this strange calm come over me as well. Lying here, holding my belly, holding my unborn children in my arms… I dunno… I was still scared, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been eons ago. I blinked at that. I used to be so disgusted with the very idea. Though, I suppose it was partially from all the yucky stuff involved with making a baby. But...

"Well, you're all still little parasites feeding off me." I told my belly. "But you're my parasites. So I guess that makes it ok."

They didn't respond like most things did when I talked to them, that was good? Heck, if my pregnant belly started talking back to me I might actually feel a little disturbed. Still, I heaved myself up into a sitting position. I was hungry and had many mouths to feed. I groaned as I got off the bed, huffing as I leaned against the wall for support. Damn gravity. I made my way out of the room without waking Ford, he looked tired. And was dreaming about being a prince in some medieval fantasy. Huh. I think he'd been watching too much of that Game of Thrones knock off that this dimension had.

I made my way to the kitchen, sliding one of my hands under my shirt to massage my sore chest. I was still refusing to wear a bra because it hurt to have anything constricting over them. My chest had grown, and I know for a fact that I was producing milk. It was kinda hot. But I felt rather ashamed of feeling horny about it. I don't know where I picked up the kink for this, but it's something I just have to keep secret so my housemates don't get all grossed out by me.

I know Ford was ok with tying me up for my kink, but if I told him I wanted him to 'milk' me, he'd probably faint. Though I wonder if he'd be ok with massaging my chest for me? I groped myself under my shirt as I got to the kitchen. Melody was up and I didn't see Soos anywhere so I didn't bother to stop.

Melody looked up when I came in, raised an eyebrow as asked, "Boobs sore?"

"Ugh, yes!" I rubbed them some more before letting my hand drop out of my shirt as I sat down. I was wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and underwear. I mean, we spend all day in our pajamas essentially and I felt no need to get dressed if we weren't going out in public anyway. Soos blushed a lot back when this all began, but he's gotten desensitized to it by now.

I mean, Melody wasn't dressed much more than me either. Though she didn't have a giant belly pushing out from under her clothes. I couldn't find any shirts that could cover this thing. And somehow, that turned me on too. Fuck my life. (I know I can create clothes, but that was beside the point!)

"Hey," I spoke up while waving my hand to float the leftover roast beef sandwiches out of the fridge and into my grasp. "Is it normal to be horny all the time?" I mean, woman to woman, I figured I should ask.

Melody snorted. "Yup. I'm assuming you mean during pregnancy?" She spooned out more food for Maria in her high chair. "Some people are. I know I certainly was."

"Oh~?" I laughed. "Huh. Would it be weird to ask you about your sex life?"

"Ahahaha! Yeah no problem. Ask away." Melody slapped her knee. "But I won't answer all questions, just so you know."

I nodded. "Well, um…" And now that I was here, I wasn't sure what to start with. "How often are you horny?"

"Oh I'd say I'm pretty average. A few times a month or so." Melody wiped some food off Maria's mouth. I blinked. Ok, cool to know. "Ugh." I wiggled in my chair. Melody gave me a sympathetic look. "How're you handling it?"

"I'm masturbating everyday." I deadpanned. "But it's hard to really get into it with this dang thing in the way." I slapped my belly lightly.

"Have you tried asking Ford to help?" Melody raised an eyebrow. I shrugged. "Nah. Not really into that kinda thing. And Ford would probably die of embarrassment if I asked."

"Well, there's always toys." Melody was super nonchalant about this, and that was refreshing. I thought about it. "I never used toys before, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try." anything to help relieve this feeling between my legs. Ugh. I was used to getting horny maybe once every few years, not multiple times a week!

Thank Ax that at least this didn't transfer over to my other vessels.

'Please don't thank me for this kind of thing' I cackled quietly at uncle Ax under my breath, chewing on my sandwich. Ok, what should I do today? Frankly, as much as I loved watching anime with Soos, I was getting tired of it. Of sitting around. Of being indoors. Of the uncertainty everyone was feeling.

And I was trying very hard to not be stressed, so I wasn't looking at the human news. Miz and Xin also avoided them. Which made it difficult for me to check social media, so there wasn't much I could do that wouldn't 'spoil' what was going on.

...eh, I guess I would spend today masturbating then? That almost seemed like a terrible waste of time.

I finished up my sandwiches and searched for more stuff to eat. And then I paused. Well, there was something else I could do that was fun, without having me exposed to what was happening in this world.

I adjusted my bowtie, feeling almost weird to be back in my triangle form. I felt… an odd sense of comfort, being myself again. I mimed a deep breath, getting ready to put on a show. The spot light clicked on and the area was lit up.

COOKING WITH BILL!

I whooped and bounced into the air. "Hi kids! Welcome back to another episode of Cooking with Bill!" I waited for the applause and heard a few smatterings of clapping limbs and displaced air. And some crickets.

"Wooo, tough crowd today." I adjusted my bowtie. "Now, I know everyone's probably too upset by what's happening in the world to get into the spirit of things," I floated back and forth, like pacing. "But that's precisely why we need to do something fun, ya get me?" I flicked my fingers, the countertop being covered with ingredients as a sparkling screen transition swept through the screen.

"Now I have mainly done simple dishes here, but I have been practicing baking while stuck in quarantine, and my roommates essentially told me I can't just make shit up like I normally do." I pouted while a laugh track played. "Like my boyfriend says, I can't break the rules until I learn them. So I'm gonna be making a little something that uses both a recipe AND my own little flair~" I waved my hands as sparkles danced off my fingertips.

"Today, we will be making… nutella pizza!" I threw out my hands as chocolate sprinkles flew around like confetti. And consequently got in my eye.

"AKGHRUSBFJJSOSOSKKKSSS!" I flew around the room, knocking into stuff. "ALWAYS the eye! Why?!" Laugh track played. "No! You shut up!" I pointed at the audience (though with my impaired vision, I think I actually was addressing one of the ovens.) "Ok, no shooting the sprinkles horizontally, just rain from the ceiling?" I muttered.

Once I cleaned myself off, I gestured to the table. "So first off, we need to make the pizza dough." Which was the annoying part, I still had that yeast monster slopping around back here somewhere. Had to remember to feed it now and then. Actually made for a good starter for breads, even though it was pretty gross to look at.

"So you start with yeast and water. Make sure it's hot water. Not boiling, but hot." I pulled out a large bowl and began picking up my supplies. "You can also use a starter, but… I'm not sure where mine ran off to, so I'm sticking with yeast for now." I had to stop and clarify, "Don't use super yeast unless you want to have a near unkillable amorphous yeast monster that just won't die even when you set it on fire." I paused. "I mean, unless you want to have an almost sentient starter around. Who knows?"

I began pouring a little bit of yeast into the bowl. Then the hot water. "Stir In some sugar until combined with everything else and let it rest, while covered, to get all foamy." I stirred the bowl, "You know, almost all baking stuff is kinda like this. Especially bread. It's just yeast, sugar and water for pretty much anything." I stared at the bowl. "That's why I don't trust it." I glared at the yeast mixture suspiciously as I put the plastic wrap on too. "If this one turns into an Abomination too, I'm not baking bread on this show anymore."

I kept sending the bowl suspicious looks as I got the rest of my ingredients together. "Ok, so it's pretty simple, in another bowl, mix some flour and salt, then have some olive oil or some other oil that you wouldn't mind having the taste of in your pizza dough, I've got avocado oil personally. Because I like avocados." I glanced at the bowls in front of me. "Well now we just have to wait. Because a lot of bread making is waiting." I paused. "I hate waiting." I whined.

I flopped onto the countertop. "Uuugh. What can I do to keep you all entertained while I wait?" A noodly black hand stretched from off screen to stop in front of me, holding a card. I picked it up with a, "Thanks." and the hand retreated by stretching it's way off the opposite side of the screen, leaving a long black arm in the middle of the kitchen.

"...do the cooking show thing where I have the finished thing already waiting so I can pull that out instead of waiting." I read off the card. I groaned. "You're telling me this now? Ugh. It's fine. I'll just find some other way of entertaining people while I wait. It's just 5 minutes, ain't a big deal."

I straightened up, pushing at the arm still hanging in the middle of the room, "So! While we wait, let's talk about Sex Ed!" I cackled. Oh I know there were gonna be angry ratings from those idiot parents who thought Sex Ed shouldn't be taught because kids should just ask their parents for answers to questions that parents weren't going to give them. "So, first off, lemme explain how sex actually works." I leaned on the countertop, waggling my eye at the camera. "And believe me, it involves a lot more than just dick going into a hole…"

"...and then, after that whole grueling process, if you're lucky, maybe one of the people involved would actually orgasm." I shrugged. "Personally, I think masturbation is the way to go. You get to set the pace, you don't have to bother someone else to fuck you if they don't want to, and since you're the one in charge of yourself, you'd know your own limits and if you don't, you can learn them." I pointed at the camera, sitting on the arm that was still bisecting the shot. "That's the most important part here, learning what you are or aren't comfortable with. Word of advice, always start with masturbation before you even attempt to go for a two man show, you got me?"

I tilted back, giving the camera a stern look. "Can't do a duet if you can't solo. And you can't do a trio without first learning to duet. Same goes for a quartet, quintet, sextet (HAH) and so on."

My sides sprouted more hands halfway through my Sex Ed talk and had been working on the rest of the pizza dough, pouring in the flour and oil and gently stirring just enough to incorporate before scrapping it down onto the heavily floured countertop to knead.

Then I oiled up a large bowl and put the dough in for the next rise, covering it with plastic wrap again. I did all this while continuing my lecture. Which took over an hour of me painstakingly explaining how biological Sex wasn't a binary thing and how Intersexed humans also exist and came in all variations thereof. And how Bio-sex and Gender had nothing to do with each other.

And using some hot dogs and other various food items as 'models' for said lecture.

And all that was BEFORE I actually explained the process of having sex with another person. Because all this shit was important to know! Because if you didn't know this shit, there was a high chance of injuring yourself or your partner(s) during the whole process. And don't even get me started on the whole, 'blow air inside your partner's holes' thing. Despite what air pump inflation hentai shows you, it does NOT work that way in real life and forcing air into someone's ass or vagina or penis would cause an internal rupture, hemorrhaging and possible death. Air pressure is still pressure, and anything being forced inside an orifice that doesn't have ROOM for it, would cause ruptures.

Fuck. The average size of a vagina is 3 to 5 inches! 6 to 7 inches if the vagina having person's much larger. Trying to shove anything larger than that all the way in was going to fucking HURT! And guess what? If having something shoved inside you to the point that it's uncomfortable, or it hurts, then the person experiencing this probably won't be able to orgasm due to this discomfort!

My hands took the pizza dough out once it had risen and I finished my lecture. "Ok so now you just start flattening this out to be pizza shaped." I said cheerfully, like I hadn't just spent the better part of 75 minutes talking about proper lubrication or how Greek and Roman physicians as far back as 300BC to 200AD claimed that Bio-sex was a spectrum and how Male vs Female wasn't the end all, be all of human sexual development. And how the rise of modern medicine and especially surgical restructuring of the human body had led to doctors forcibly altering an intersexed baby's genitals to superficially look more male or female, hiding what that child truly is and causing massive amounts of psychological stress and physical issues for them once they grow up and go through puberty.

"Anyway, so once you've rolled the dough out a bit, and if you're feeling brave, you can try tossing it." I said cheerfully as I gripped the dough and attempted to toss it. I say attempt, because it slapped onto my face. "Ack!"

I pulled it off myself and sputtered. "Ok, or you can just do this." I said as I put my hands, with my fingers balled up, under the dough and began to slowly punch and spin it around with my knuckles, slowly allowing gravity to pull the dough out. "It's slower, I think? But it's less likely to hit something."

I twirled the dough in this way until it looked big and thin enough, and placed it down on a baking sheet, after sprinkling some cornmeal on it. "Ok, and for a normal pizza, this is when you put on the sauce and other toppings, but since this is a nutella pizza, we're gonna do something different." I told them.

I took out a fork. "Now, with any pizza dough, you gotta stab it until it's hope and dreams are crushed so it doesn't rise and bubble in the oven." I said, stabbing the dough repeatedly in rows and columns until all of the middle parts had little puncture holes. "Just keep stabbing, and stabbing and stabbing and Ș͚T̬͎̹ͅA͇͇̖̙B̢̝̰̦̪̫̼B̭͇̪I̢͖̬̮̣̣̦Ṋ̲̪̞͈͉G̜̪̫̦̯-" the screen tinted red and got darker and darker until-

"And done!" I said cheerfully, the room back to normal. The pizza dough let out a sound that could have been a whimper. "So nutella actually burns if you put it in the oven at the temperature needed to cook the dough, so that's why we cook it separately. Dough first, then spreading on the nutella once it's fresh hot out of the oven." I made an 'ahem' sound. "It's almost like I know this from personal experience of burning nutella in the oven or something..."

I slapped the pizza dough on the tray, it squeaked. "Now just pop this bad boy in the oven over 400 degrees fahrenheit!" I stretched out my hands towards the oven so I could pop the pan inside without having to move. "Now, I think I'm supposed to use a pizza board or something, but I'm not allowed to have wooden tools anymore so we're just using a baking pan." I shrugged, dropping my arms once I was done with them and growing new ones. Black noodle limbs littered the room, I kicked one aside as I made my way to the other side of the counter to grab the things I needed for the toppings.

"Now, I'm using nutella, blueberries and cream cheese but you can theoretically put whatever you want on this pizza. It's pizza! The point of it is that you can do what you want. You could put pretty much ANYTHING on a pizza!"

(Disclaimer, you cannot put just ANYTHING on a pizza.)

I glanced up at the disclaimer hovering at the top of the screen. "Awww… but pineapple-"

(Disclaimer, YOU CANNOT PUT JUST ANYTHING ON A PIZZA.)

"Yeesh! What's their problem?" I rolled my eye.

I picked up the carton of cream cheese. "So I'm gonna make a cream cheese frosting. Which is super easy. Just whisk the cream cheese with some powdered sugar until it becomes a paste." I said as I scooped out some cream cheese into a large mixing bowl. "It's easier when the cream cheese is room temperature, but you can brute force it even if it's cold." I had a couple more arms working on whisking that. "And for blueberries, just make sure you wash them, and pick out the stems first." I had another few hands working on that.

"There's not too much I need for prepwork for ingredients here." I told the audience. "But if you wanted to use strawberries or make your own caramel or something…" I paused. "Should I make my own nutella instead of using the store bought stuff?" I pulled out my Com with another two hands and looked up how to make Nutella.

"...roast the cut up hazelnuts… coconut oil, chocolate chips…" I read off. "Eeeeeh too much trouble." I tossed my Com away, it floated and disappeared off screen. My other hands flopped to the ground limply as I finished using them. "Anyway! Let's go check on that pizza dough!" I walked over to the oven, kicking more limbs out of my way. Oof, getting pretty crowded in here.

I put on some oven mitts, I didn't need them, but I was trying to set a good example for the kids, and pulled the pan out. "Ooh! Looks like the crust it done!" I cheered, bringing it back over to the counter, jumping over another arm as I went. "Now just spread that nutella on for all your delicious nutella needs!" I sprouted some arms to begin doing that while another set of arms grew out to begin scraping the cream cheese mixture into a piping bag with a star tip.

"I like using a piping bag for the cream cheese so I can make the tops look pretty." I told the audience as I carefully squeezed little dollops of the cream cheese on top of the nutella covered pizza. My arms littered the ground in piles as I discarded them. "And finally, I decorate with some blueberries and then… since I'm planning to share this with my siblings, I'm gonna cut it up into little rectangles so everyone can get bite sized pieces."

I held the plate of nutella pizza up to the camera, the audience finally began clapping and cheering. "Yes I know, it's gorgeous. It's very delicious too." I picked up the plate. "Well, just gonna put this aside and-"

I yelped as I tripped over one of the arms. The plate flew out of my hands and I gasped as I stared at it.

Mmm, what 'cha saaaaaay~ Mmm, that you only meant weeeeell~

I watched it fall in slow motion, "Nooooooooooo!"

The pieces fell toward the ground. I watched it in horror.

And then all the discarded hands sprung up to grab the pieces, I heaved a sigh of relief. "Ugh. That took more out of me than my core can handle…" I flopped back onto the ground, face down. I raised a hand limply. "This has been Cooking with Bill. Tune in next time for another episode, which hopefully wouldn't be as stressful."

The screen blurred out as the credits began rolling.

Cooking with Bill is sponsored by Zoomba Floor Cleaners. Do you leave your body parts lying around everywhere? Zoomba is here to help. With our patented limb gathering technology-

On screen, a mini-bulldozer looking thing came in from the left of the screen and began pushing the arms and me as it travelled across the room.

-we can clean any and all limbs. Zoomba Floor Cleaners. Don't let your dead weight, weigh you down.

I was tangled in my own arms as the bulldozer continued on it's way, tumbling everything around and around.

"Hey Miz." Zoe and Zach laid with me in my best-nest. I had them curled up on my chest, the three of us just hanging out in the warmth. My blankets were the 2nd most fluffy and soft thing in the whole house, so the twins have taken to sleeping with me up here most nights. "When your babies are born, are they our little brothers and sisters, or our cousins?"

"They're your cousins." I tilted my head over to nuzzle the top of Zoe's head. The number 1 softest thing in the house was the two of them. "Cause I'm your sister, but Yun isn't."

The twins accepted this without any issue. They were still learning what was what in the world, and I was teaching them all sorts of things. Since they couldn't go to school, I'd pretty much taken up homeschooling them.

"Oh!" I said, that reminded me. "We're gonna practice multiplication today." they mastered addition and subtraction, and I learned multiplication in 2nd grade so clearly it was something human children could learn when they were 7...

"Yay!" Zoe cheered. She liked it because I would put out really tiny pieces of candy or other dime sized snacks, and if she gave the correct answer, I would multiply them by the amount needed. I simply laid them out in two lines, like a line of three and another line of two and asked for 3×2 and so on. Zach was pretty good at doing the numbers in his head, Zoe needed a paper to write down the harder two digit multiplication equations.

"What else should we do today?" I asked them. "Ooh! Can we read more of Secrets of Droon?" Zach gasped. I grinned. "Sure! Do you guys wanna alternate who reads the chapters?" I managed to track down the full text for those books through my limited internet connection to the dimension where my blog was, since that dimension seemed really similar to my original world. Mainly in terms of their shows and books. So I went and 'downloaded' all the things I could for later perusal. And the twins really liked the books I materialized for them. I was planning to start them on Animorphs once we finished Droon. Harry Potter was still something I was on the fence about, sure it was a series near and dear to my heart, but I knew how fucked up the later books got. I grew up along with the books, maturing as the books did. But the twins were too young for that. So it might be better to wait for them to be a little older first. Maybe I could read them the Xanth series as well once they were older? (Imbri is horse waifu!) Heck, I don't know. I have too many things I want to read to them. We already finished all the Dr. Seuss books. Zach liked Horton Hatches an Egg the best. Zoe liked If I ran the Zoo. And once they were much older, I was planning to read them books from the Discworld series. Was I being rather ambitious? Maybe.

Either way, I thought about it. Math, reading, probably art as well. Some time in the yard with Sir Bedazzle (who was fully dog sized now) to get some physical activity in… oh! We need to do something with science today as well! I sighed. Having to be the twin's teacher was hard. But mommy was busy, and Seb was busy. And no offense to either of them, but I knew more stuff than them. I felt a little bad that I couldn't stay with the twins all day, but I had to be Yun sometimes to get food and such. I have tried being in two places at once, but it got harder when Xin had to work.

I am working too hard, I think.

And on top of all this, I still had sessions with Linda.

Just because we were in quarantine, didn't mean I didn't need therapy. In fact, according to Linda, more people needed therapy now than ever before. So I was on a call with her after the twins finished their 'classes' for the day.

"How've you been?" Linda smiled. "Not bad, you?" She sighed. "I'm doing alright." she paused. "How's your pregnancy?"

"Eh, it's uncomfortable sometimes, but mainly I've just been tired and horny all the time."

Linda's mouth twitched. "As long as your health is doing ok, I think you'll be fine."

"...I know you don't approve of this." I looked away. Linda adjusted her position. "Well, I am… a little worried about your mental state."

"I know it's… probably irresponsible for me to have children, when I haven't fully healed from losing my others, but I couldn't let the Pieces die once they got fertilized and… well, they were alive."

"I know." Linda smiled faintly. "And I know you'll love your children with everything you have." She then gave me a stern look. "But you have to set healthy boundaries. Family or not, children or not, your own limits are important. Especially if you're going to be taking care of children." she told me seriously. "Trust me, you don't want to have a breakdown around them." I shuddered. Yeah no, that was horrible to think about. "So what should I do?"

"First off, take a deep breath." I followed her instruction. "And breathe out slowly. Ok, Miz, how are you feeling?"

"I'm… doing ok."

"Alright. Well, if you ever feel not alright, I want you to take a step back, perhaps leave and relax before you go back to whatever situation has stressed you out."

"...can't really do that when I'm taking care of infants…" I deadpanned.

"In most cases, yes." Linda nodded. "But I know you have roommates who have a child of their own. Miz, I need you to learn to rely on others, to trust others to be able to help you."

The idea floored me. "But… what if they get something wrong, what if something goes wrong?"

"Miz, breathe."

I took a deep breath and held it for two seconds before breathing out again. "I know Melody and Soos would never intentionally hurt a child." I said carefully. "And Fordsie's better now. He's been getting lots of sleep, I made sure of it."

"Miz," Linda said firmly. "You can't do everything on your own. And when you're feeling bad, you have to let them help you."

On some level, I knew she was right. But it was still a difficult thing to really do. I didn't really rely on people to help me with stuff. I mean, I had Linda to help me with… myself. And I sort of relied on Seb to be my protector, Wanda to be my mom… but I didn't technically need their help. I would exist just fine on my own without them. But I've read on my blog about how too much independence and self reliance was due to being let down by people. And it rang true to me.

"...I'll try. Dunno if I can." I muttered. Linda smiled. "As long as you're trying. Try telling your roommates about this, so they know that you'd need help. And if they know, they can offer to help, which might make it easier for you to accept than it would to take the initiative to ask them yourself."

I nodded along. Made sense. She also explained a little mental exercises I could start doing for managing stress.

"Imagine every interaction or action with other people or a task would cost you energy points." she started. "And when your points deplete past a certain point, you'd be stressed and unhappy." I nodded along. Ok. "And you have to stop and take a step back. Get away from the situation or person that's costing you points and just… do something you enjoy, relax, have fun, to replenish."

She went into further detail after that, having me name and list people or activities that would cost me points versus give me points. And essentially it was all about managing my points before I could get bad enough to have a breakdown.

I guess it made sense, but it was hard to really keep track of.

Well, I knew that being around Zach and Zoe was both a plus and minus. Linda explained that this sort of thing would happen, since the costs of things would change depending on my mood and a thousand other factors. But I guess I had even more chaotic costs and gains than other people, maybe.

I laid in bed after my session, just staring up at the ceiling and wondering if I would ever get better. I would feel like I'm making progress and then slip up, plummeting back down all over again.

It got to the point where sometimes I wondered why I even bothered to try.

It would hurt less if I stopped trying.

(And the little Linda voice in my head was telling me, "That's the self destructive depression speaking. Don't listen to it!")

So I guess I'll keep trying. And failing. And trying again.

I sighed again. I was feeling restless again. Guess I should go set more things on fire.

"Is there a reason you're taking me with you to burn stuff?" Amelie rode on my back as I was in Xin form. "I just wanted someone to talk to while I'm doing this. And most of my other friends on this side are in quarantine."

"We can go hang out with Mermando afterward if you want?" Amelie patted my head. "Oh, that would be cool." I finished disintegrating everything here and rumbled. I really needed a better way to manage myself. Hm… I wonder...

"Do you think Mermando or his people would like to learn how to cook?" I asked Amelie. She blinked. "But they're underwater?"

I cackled, even as I dove into the ocean, swimming off as Amelie slipped back into her skin, swimming beside me. "Bold of you to assume I can't set fires underwater!"

"You're kinda terrifying sometimes, you know that?"

I giggled.

Mermando watched the finished product, a whole cow I had cleaned, butchered, and then roasted underwater. And some boiled seagrass as a side. He glanced up at me. "...we don't have the powers to boil things in a concentrated space without hurting people like you do."

I blinked. "Ok, fair."

One of the manatees raised a flipper. "Oh, why would we need to cook the seagrass?"

I stared. "Well, heating up plants allows more of the nutrients to be released out as the cell walls are broken down. This makes your stomach digest easier and obtain more nutrients for less food overall. So you'd be able to get more for less." It was how humans became the apex predator of the Earth. They didn't have claws or wings or venom, but they learned to wield fire and with it, cooking.

Cooking created humanity. It was one of the truths of the universe as I knew it. It's why cooking was so important. It was the base of all societies, how they prepared food. How they found food, how they grew food-

Though, cooked food and animals wasn't really something done as much. Domestic animals got more cooked food than wild ones, but I hadn't really looked into how wild animals faired with it? The manatees were animals. They were intelligent people, but still a wild species of animal. The merfolk normally ate their food raw, sun-baked, or boiled over undersea vents. They would grind their meals into a paste for easier digestion, but actual cooking of the food all the way through was difficult. The sea vents were a dangerous place after all.

Unless...

I looked down at my hand, having shifted back into my humanoid form, while having no issue being underwater. I wiggled my fingers as I thought about it.

"You can't compress water, they say." I huffed. "Well, guess what? I eat physics for breakfast." I said as I squeezed and the liquid twisted and bent inward. Everyone gasped as I formed a small sphere of compressed water. And it was hot. The molecules of water weren't meant to be pressed this close together. You see, most things, when compressed, their atomic structure would be mashed together in on itself. This is because there's usually always some bit of space between them, and once you've compressed something past that point, it would break.

But water was a liquid. It couldn't break like a compressed rock when placed under pressure. And normally, water could only react to compression by escaping. Like if you had a bag of water and squeezed it, the bag would break and the water would escape, without ever having the water actually be compressed in any way.

But Xin, you might ask, people compress air all the time, and air is even more free form floating than water, why can we compress air but not water?

Well, it's very simple. There's more space between a volume of air than water. Because water takes up ALL the same within it's given volume. There IS no space between the water molecules to get pressed inward. They were all in there, shifting around and against each other.

But like I said, I eat physics for breakfast. So I held up the ball of compressed water, a perpetually boiling ball of contained energy. I had squeezed the water until the molecules were actually doing something that shouldn't be physically possible, and my powers kept them all contained. And if my powers stopped doing so, the orb would explode as the water finally escaped.

This was all well and good, but what I was really after was what this little ball of boiling water was created to do.

Boil and cook food while underwater.

I looked around. "So… ah… this is too hot for anyone to hold directly. So does anyone have some kind of stone pot or pan I can put it in?"

But they weren't listening, everyone was staring at the ball in awe. "How does it work?" Mermando asked. Amelie swam up to butt her snout against my arm. 'Wouldn't this increase the ocean temperature even more and cause trouble?'

I blinked. "Oh right. That IS an issue." I looked down at the boiling water ball. "Hm… what if…" and I made a container to put it in. "Ok, so all the heat will stay inside this container. If you want to cook something, just put it in here and wait a few minutes. Then take it out and eat?" I put the container down.

"Warm food?" the merfolk seemed intrigued by the concept. I handed the container over for them to try out with some shellfish and seaweeds. They ate them, picking the cooked results out of the container with fascinated sounds. I stared. Ok, I think they like it?

I… actually hadn't been intending to start anything here, just thought the idea of cooking things underwater was funny. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would be pretty cool to start introducing methods of cooking food to give more nutrients to all the species who didn't cook their food.

Not to say the merfolk didn't prepare food, they had plenty of delicious raw dishes. Shellfish was a big thing among them, and crustaceans were a treat. So they had plenty of 'food'. Just harder to find 'cooked' food. And I certainly wasn't expecting Mermando to ask if I could make more of these cooking boxes.

So there I was, crushing water into a ball and putting them in boxes that were Cursed to keep the heat inside. Of course, the course of cooking food would cause them to lose heat overtime. But this was a trial run anyway.

And then I was distracted thinking about how I should sell perfect thermoses that would keep the stuff inside at the same temperature they went in. I would make millions! And I'd be able to use that to donate to more charities! I was already selling Insulin, facemasks, sanitation sprays and wipes and toilet paper through Void Deliveries, why not other products?

Medicine was a start. I was rather lost in thought about the good I could potentially do. Amelie bumped against me. "Xin? You ok? You're making a weird face?"

I blinked back into the present. I gifted them with my presence. I bestowed upon them the glory of me.

"Uhweh?" I said eloquently. Amelie snorted. "Nevermind, go back to what you're thinking."

"Okie." I zoned out again. I eventually bid them all good bye for the night after they had a veritable feast, the manatee trying out semi-boiled algae and such with pleasant surprise. I wondered if this would do anything, change anything? Giving the manatee and merfolk access to boxes filled with boiling water that wouldn't spread their heat to the ocean around them. Ehhhh it should be fine.

I woke up in bed. For a moment, I was disoriented and couldn't remember where and who I was. And then I felt the aches and pains. Ah, I was Yun.

I sighed, lying there, rubbing my belly. Splitting myself was really starting to get complicated.

I winced at a dull ache in my lower body. Ugh. Being pregnant sucked sometimes. I rubbed at myself, trying to ease the pain. But it didn't go away. In fact I winced again, feeling some kind of weird rippling pain all up and down between my legs. Ugh. Ow. No, this actually really felt like shit. I rolled a little, trying to change my position, to see if that helped. It didn't. The ache only got worse, I curled in on myself, groaning. I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep like this.

And then I felt something wet trickling between my legs, even as the pain-wave started pulsing faster. My eyes widened. Oh shit.

I was going into labor.