Hey, everyone, how's it going? OK, to answer some reviews:

Laurel-Anne Romm: No, I'm not a mama, but I do have plenty of experience as an auntie (I have a niece and a nephew). I also babysit, and I've worked at a daycare center and I was a summer camp counselor for two years. Now I'm the Mom-Away-From-Home for approximately 25 college students (I'm a Resident Assistant). The girls' exploits are a combination of my residents, my neice, my nephew and every child I've ever babysat or counseled, with a little magic thrown in. I am sad to say, however, that I alone am responsible for light my own hair on fire.

Agnstwolf: Um…wow. Can I borrow some of that energy/slap-happy? Yes the title will make sense later on, specifically at the very end of the story. It's actually the first hint of the real plot (yes, there are two plots). Kero's relationship with the girls is a sub-plot. The real plot is just starting to get going. hands over Benedryl Here, this might help with the sleep deprivation problem.

Lizai: Don't worry, the parental units get what's coming to them,

This-Is-Not-A-Flame: I really am keeping track of the spelling errors and I really will edit everything! Thank you!

This chapter brought to you by procrastination. You gotta love it.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the worlds or anything else. It all belongs to Mercedes Lackey.

Chapter 6

"No."

"Acacia." Kero's voice was level and cold. "Get in the classroom."

Acacia crossed her arms over her chest and glared. Blue eyes met and clashed, then the smaller set glanced down at the floor.

"I'm only going in because I want to." Her voice was filled with petulance and she was braced against the wrath she knew must be coming at her. Instead, she was shocked as Kero waved her through the door.

"Fine, let's go."

Acacia stepped through the door and came face to face with a young noble boy who smirked when he saw her breeches and tunic that were obviously castoffs. He was well dressed in Blues that had undoubtedly been seen by the finest tailor instead of Talia's needle, and his dark hair was styled in the latest court fashion of long layers, curled at the ends. His face would have been handsome for an eight-year-old if he had not been smirking. He face still carried a bit of the baby fat that Acacia had lost on the journey or never had. The only way Kero could describe his face was utterly perfect, utterly symmetrical. He would grow up to be a heartbreaker, and, if Kero was any judge, a rabble-rouser.

:And his parents probably paid for it.:

Kero chuckled over Sayvil's comment. Over the last few years, it had become fashionable for nobles to pay to have their children altered before birth to make them more desirable. As it was, Kero found him highly unattractive and wished she could smack the impudence out of him. From the look on Acacia's face, she was planning to do just that. Before the hellraiser could start anything, Kero stepped around front of her, effectively shoving the boy out of the way. The teacher, one Scholar Dervyl, had stepped up beside them. He was an old man, barely able to todder around the classroom and it appeared he spent much of his time in the overstuffed leather chair behind the desk off to the side.

"Acacia, look at me."

Acacia dragged her eyes from the teacher to Kero, who had kneeled and was now at eye level. The look on her face almost had Kero dragging Acacia back out of the room and taking her to the salle with Damini and the baby, but she resisted. Ianthe and Caia had already been delivered to their classrooms and would be mage tested during the day, along with the other girls. As it was, Kero was feeling extremely guilty for dragging her to school.

"Ignore him, Acacia. He's not worth it. Trust me."

Acacia raised an eyebrow. "The teacher? Sure, no problem."

Kero started to roll her eyes, then stopped herself.

:Picking up a few habits, Chosen?:

:Stow it, hayburner.:

She ignored Sayvil and concentrated on Acacia. "I meant that boy. He just wants a response. Whatever you do, don't hit him."

"Sure."

Kero raised another eyebrow. Acacia had agreed way too easily. She was up to something.

"I mean it, Acacia. Don't hit him."

"I said I wouldn't!" With that Acacia stormed off across the room to inspect the view outside the windows.

Kero sighed and rose until she was standing again, then turned to face the teacher who was chuckling quietly.

"Ah, the troubles of youth. Have no worries, Herald, I'll take good care of her."

"It's not her I'm worried about."

With that, Kero turned and stalked off.

"She doesn't really look like you."

Daren's voice was, if possible, both amused and smug at the same time. He sat leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the monstrously large and map-strewn wooden desk. The baby was propped up in his lap, leaning against his legs and staring at him with her own large, unfocused eyes. Her eyes were an indeterminate shade of gray that Kero was guessing would turn to the family trait of blue. Her head was bald as an egg and her features were wrinkled like an old crone's. Kero had no idea how Daren could determine family resemblance since, as far as she was concerned, she did not think the baby resembled anything other than a wrinkled grape.

"I hope she doesn't. It would be very scary to think I looked like that as a babe."

Daren half-grinned, drew himself up as best he could in the chair, and assumed a superior knowledgeable position as an experienced parent. "No baby looks pretty right away, Kero. They're all bruised and battered and wrinkly from floating around for nine months then being squeezed out a very tight space."

Kero shuddered. "Don't talk about that."

Daren just grinned wider and turned back to the baby. "What is your name, little one? Haven't told anyone yet?"

Kero sighed in exasperation. "Daren, she doesn't have any teeth! How can she talk?"

"You, of all people, should realize there are other ways to communicate than talking. She'll tell you what her name is. Just wait for it. She's probably just trying to get a feel for you." The baby coughed a few times and whimpered, scrunching up a face that was turning rapidly red. Then she grunted and Daren assumed and alarmed look. "Oh, no."

"What?" Kero began to panic. If something was wrong with the baby and the experienced Daren could not fix it, there was nothing she could do. "What's wrong?"

"Whoa. I think you can handle this."

"If you can't handle it, I can't handle it. What is wrong?" Just as the words left her mouth, an ominous aroma hit her nose and she paled. "Oh no. No way. I am not changing that." The baby began to whine and squirm as discomfort set in, mixed with a few coughs that remained from her cold.

"You're her guardian, Auntie Kero. You need to learn to do this."

"And I take it you're going to teach me."

"Uh….no."

Kero raised an eyebrow. "Uh…yes."

"Really, Kero, it's not like you're riding into battle or anything. It's just a bit of a mess that needs to be cleaned up."

"If that's all it is, you can do it. Be my guest." Kero sank into her chair across the desk from Daren and propped her own booted feet on it. She smirked as he hesitated. "What's the matter, Oh Experienced Parent? Not sure what to do?"

It was Daren's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Nonsense, I've changed plenty of nappies, what with the twins and all. I just think that you need the experience. No time like the present, and all of that."

Kero barked a laugh. "Hah! I'm thinking 'no time like some other time', myself. Go ahead. Take the honors."

"No, Kero, the honors really should be yours."

"Wanna duel over it?"

Daren winced, then laid the baby on the desk to begin the toe curling task of changing her diaper. As he pulled the diaper open, Kero put a hand over her nose and mouth and reminded herself to breath shallowly, unlike Daren, who was rapidly turning green.

"Whoa! What did you feed this child!"

Kero grinned mischieviously while holding her nose between thumb and forefinger. She might have fought her way through armies that smelled worse, but that did not mean she had any intention of reliving those memories via an awesomely rank diaper.

"I fed her exactly what the healer told me to feed her. Don't try to blame this on me."

Daren turned his head to breath the relatively fresher air over his shoulder, then gulped and turned back to the task at hand, stopping to glare at her. "You are evil incarnate, woman. To do this to some poor, unfortunate person…"

"You mean some poor, unfortunate male."

"…to some poor, unfortunate person," he continued in round tones, as if he had never been interrupted, "is a truly horrible deed. Oh, sweet goddess, this is worse than a latrine."

"You wimps."

They looked up at the sound of an amused voice coming from the doorway of the cluttered study to see Selenay lounging against the dark wooden doorframe, smirking and shaking her head.

"It's a diaper, people. It won't attack you and try to find the weak points in your defense."

"I think it already did," Kero commented nasally, still holding her nose.

Selenay bit back a chuckle and strode into the room, bending to swipe a clean diaper from the pocket of the baby carrier Kero had dumped on the floor next to Daren's overflowing desk. The queen was looking a bit harassed these days, what with all the conflicts coming at her, but at the same time she managed a aura genuine happiness that had Kero wondering how she managed to stay happy and manage a family and a kingdom at the same time. So far, in Kero's estimate, both were jobs of equally large magnitudes, and she had yet to manage just the family, much less adding in her duties as weaponsmistress and captain to a bunch of loons.

She watched as Selenay stepped around the desk, nimbly avoiding the piles of Daren's belongings and not picking up so much as a dust bunny on her skirt in the process, then quickly stripped and cleaned the baby of the soiled diaper and pinned the baby into a clean one. After quickly checking to make sure Kero's name was on the dirty diaper, Selenay wrapped the ends up so the contents would not leak out on any other laundry and tossed it down the laundry shoot in the next room to Daren's office suite, the room he affectionately named "The Doghouse", since that was where he slept when he angered Selenay. Then she smiled.

"Problem solved. Now, if you two had handled that quickly, you could have done it without even having to take a second breath. Quick is good, when it comes to babies."

Kero made a mental note to do diaper drills later in the evening and nodded at Selenay's advice. Then she stood briskly and picked up the baby carrier.

"Well, thanks for the diaper change, but we must be going. Alberich is watching Dami and the goddess only knows what knew Karsite swear words she's picked up."

Selenay looked up from cuddling the baby with a frown. "You are absolutely not taking this baby away from me."

"You want her for the rest of the day?"

"Goodness, no. But I'll take her later in the evening for an hour or two. It's been ages since I've had a chance to snuggle a baby and someone refuses to give me any more. Says we're getting too old for chidren."

Daren winced and began wandering to The Doghouse, where he began making up the cot.

By the time Kero made it to Acacia's classroom after gathering up Caia and Ianthe, the two other girls were in high spirits and giggling about the peculiar quirks of their teachers. Damini was trotting along beside them, insisting on walking but needing to almost run to keep up with them. Kero was mildly shocked that she had not been summoned from the salle all day with a message that Acacia had been in a fight. However, as she was increasingly aware of the Shin'a'in axiom "Be careful what you wish for", she made sure she never thought about Acacia getting into a fight "out loud".

What she saw when she arrived at the classroom stopped her in her tracks. The girls' chattering stopped abruptly when they saw their older sister sitting on the floor outside the classroom, waiting just like she had been told to for Kero to escort her back home. The little girl looked as if she were a bundle of misery and was doing her best to hide it. Her tunic and breeches were ink-stained and rumpled, and her hair looked as if something sticky had been rubbed in it, causing it to snarl nastily in a way that made Kero wince in sympathy, remembering times when her own hair been so blood matted that it had taken her days to finally get it all untangled.

As they moved closer, Kero saw what Acacia had been trying to hide. A vicious bruise blackened one cheek and Kero began to worry the cheekbone was broken. The thought only floated around in the back of her head, though. Rage streamed to the forefront. Who had dared to hurt her little girl?

Kero did not even pause at the her brain's blithe assertion that Acacia was "hers" in any capacity and merely acted on it, charging forward without thought and pulling Acacia to her feet.

"Who did this to you?"

Acacia glared at Kero in disgust and pulled her arm away. "What do you care?"

Kero paused, mustering an appropriate answer that did not involve teaching Dami any new swear words. Before she could reply, Acacia just nodded.

"Thought so."

"Acacia. Stop."

Acacia stopped.

"I care because right now, I am the guardian of you and your sisters. It is my job to take care of you. Now, tell me who did this."

"None of your business."

Kero reminded herself that she was angry with whoever had hurt Acacia, not Acacia herself. "Acacia," she said with a calm that surprised herself. "I need to know so I pound the cretin into the mud."

:Hmm…maybe that wasn't so calm, Chosen.:

:Screw careful, I want revenge.:

Sayvil made a mental sound that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed chuckle. :Now, Chosen, you are a role model now. The children don't need to be taught to be so…so…:

:Mercenary: Kero's reply was accompanied by a mental bloodthirsty grin. :Too late. They figure that one out on their own.:

"Ah! Captain!"

Acacia's teacher had finally managed to todder to the doorway and took in the scene. The little girl did not seem in the least bit cowed by the fearsome Herald, and Dervyl found it interesting the she had no problem standing up to and outright defying the captain while most adults found it difficult to meet her eyes.

"As you can see, Acacia has had an accident today."

Kero turned her wrath on the frail teacher.

"Accident! You call this an accident? It looks like plain bullying to me! Who did this?"

However frail his body, Dervyl's spirit was in no way delicate, and he held his ground easily in the face of Kero's anger. He recognized it as mostly sheer frustration that she could not make Acacia's life at least a little easier and so was able to deflect the brunt of her attack.

"Accidents, Captain. What you see here is the results of slip during craft time. She slipped on some water from a leak in the ceiling, landed in some glue and hit her face on a desk on the way down. She assured me she was quite all right, so I did not summon the healer."

"Accident?" Kero looked to Acacia when she said it. The little girl nodded. "Why didn't you say so? I was all riled up and ready to pound someone for this!"

"Because it was a stupid accident because I have no grace. Mama said it all the time. I have no grace, so I'm destined to be forever tripping and breaking things and no man wants a wife like that." As Acacia said it, Kero detected a trace of a tear, but the little girl somehow stuffed it back inside.

Kero crouched down so she was level with Acacia, eye-to-eye. "Do you really think it is possible for a little girl who is growing as fast as you are to have as much grace as a lady who stopped adding inches to her legs long ago? Every second, you are a different amount of inches. The fact that you coordinate as well as you flat astounds me."

She saw something drift through Acacia's eyes, but it was gone to fast to identify.

"Do you know what?"

"No, what?"

"When I was your age, I fell down so many times that my mother began putting me in breeches so that I could at least see where my feet were and maybe identify what I was tripping over."

"You know what?"

"No, what?"

"It turned out I was tripping over my own two feet."

Acacia giggled, then stuffed it back inside before she could be perceived as being so weak as to giggle in front of The Enemy. Kero, however, had heard the sound, and the embarrassing near-revelation that her first pair of breeches had been a result of a fall down the stairs was worth it. She rose with a sigh and gathered up all the girls.

"We ready to go? It's almost time for dinner."

"Spoooon!" Dami grinned from where she was clutching Dervyl's robes, nearly knocking the old man over.

"Yes, almost time for a spoon."

A sound awoke Kero that night from an exhausted slumber. Her senses told her it was not a threat, and she thought for a moment that it might have been the dog, but her hearing detected his snores from where he slept, laying across the threshold to the girls' room. Thinking it might have been the baby, she rolled over towards the crib and got tangled in partially completed dress she had been stitching when she fell asleep, as well as with the rest of the clothe she had managed to sneak to the market to buy during the day.

Swearing, she untangled herself, then stopped at the sight before her. When they had moved into their new suit, Eldan had placed the rocking chair in front of the two windows in the eastern wall. The cradle Kero had borrowed from the nursery that resided next to the rocker, however was empty. The rocker was not. The creaking of it had woken her up, and she froze in surprise at the sight of Tarma, glowing softly in the moonlight as only one of the spirit kal'enedral could, rocking and crooning to the baby.

The baby did not even seem to be phased that someone who had been dead for several years now was crooning a Shin'a'in lullaby to her, and was merely content to be snuggled and loved. A hand on her shoulder startled Kero, and she turned in surprise to see her grandmother sitting on the bed behind her.

Kethryveris looked just as beautiful as a spirit as she had alive. Like Tarma, she glowed faintly in the moonlight. Her hair was luminous and her eyes sparkled in humor and sympathy.

"I see you have a bit of a challenge on your hands, Granddaughter."

Kero smiled. "A small one."

"Five small ones, to be exact."

Kero looked over at the sound of Tarma's voice. It was different now. The harshness was gone. In its place was a melodious, expressive voice that soothed the rough edges brought on by worry and brought about comfort. She had used that voice well on the baby, who was now sleeping contentedly as Tarma laid her back in the cradle. The Kero's Clanmother straightened and walked over to where Kero and Kethry sat, and took a seat herself on the bed, cross-legged and adroitly avoiding the scattered dress parts and clothe.

"I can't believe that something like this should happen to any children from our family," Tarma growled. Even without the harsh voice, the tone did not loose any of its menace. "Something horrible should happen to that woman and her husband." Tarma paused with a bemused expression, and Kero mentally placed bet herself that Tarma was imagining numerous horrible fates for the girls' parents. A light slap from Kethry brought the Kal'enedral back to the present, and Kero suppressed a grin as Tarma tossed her long, thick braid back over her shoulder in a way that Kero recognized as her "getting down to business" gesture. "I expect those children to be visiting the Clans come summer."

"Yes, Tarma," Kero said obediently, mentally wincing at the challenges such a trip would cause, then she yawned as exhaustion overwhelmed her again. "I'm sorry. I'm just so tired…" her voice trailed off as her head lolled, and a quiet chuckle accompanied the wrapping of arms around her from behind. Kethry eased Kero back to the pillows, then began gathering up dress parts to put in Kero's sewing basket.

"Go to sleep, then, little hawk. We'll take the night shift. Go visit your man."

Tarma's words lulled her off to sleep, where Eldan's soft smile and warm arms greeted her. When she woke in the morning, she found she was fully rested. During the course of her morning stretches and routine, she found her hair had been styled in the myriad of braids of Shin'a'in tradition, tipped with beads that a Shin'a'in might be tempted to call conservative, but on Kero screamed outrageousness. Never underestimate a Shin'a'in's sense of humor…and never let them near you when you're sleeping. The Bright One only knows what you'll wake up with…