I do not own Chaotic nor anything related to it. It belongs to TCDigital.

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The Simple Things

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Three solans of peace. Jupiter turns twelve solans old today.

"You're getting to be a big boy now, aren't you?" I'm not joking, he's noticeably taller than I expected.

"I'm gonna get big like you!" Jupiter grins as he presses his hands together.

"Probably a lot bigger," I muse. I grab a pen from my desk. "Could you stand against the wall right here?"

Jupiter stands as straight as he can while I draw a line on the wall at how tall he is. "There," I say as I put the date by the line, "now we'll see how fast you're growing."

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Hera, at twenty-four, is starting to learn the arts of mugic with other students and teachers. She's already well ahead of her classmates, though, what with the early start Isis and I ensured for her, so she's been getting bored. The slow pace of the others isn't the only thing that bugs her, either.

"I think they only want to be my friends because of Uncle Iflar," Hera says out of the blue as she bursts into the bedroom. "If I wasn't his niece, they wouldn't be so nice to me."

Isis reacts before I do. "Why do you say that?"

Hera folds her arms and slumps against the bedroom door-frame. "They're all 'Princess Hera' or 'Your Highness' to me..."

I raise my eyebrows, but Isis give me a look that tells me that she'll handle it. "What do you want to be called?" she asks.

"Just Hera," she mopes.

Isis sits down on the floor next to Hera. "And have you told anyone that you want to be called Hera?"

Hera rubs her hands and looks down. "...No..."

Isis says, "People want to be polite most of the time, so they'll say what they think is appropriate. If they know you'd rather be called Hera, I'm sure they'll do so."

"I guess," Hera mumbles, looking uncertain.

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Jupiter's fifteen solans old, and he's very interested in learning how to use a sword, so after a lot of worrying about it, I've finally decided that he can learn from Mudeenu.

Of course, in the very first lesson, Jupiter accidentally makes things very awkward. "Uncle Mudeenu, why are you dressed like a servant?"

Mudeenu gives me a glare that, if looks could kill, would have murdered every living thing in Al Mipedim.

Jupiter looks back and forth between Mudeenu and me. "Did I say something bad?"

I shake my head. "It's a long, difficult story... I don't think now is the right time for it."

"...Okay," Jupiter says. "So, what am I going to learn first?"

I leave Mudeenu and Jupiter to the lesson and head up to my room, where I stare at the height chart I made for Jupiter. The monthly measurements have been climbing up the wall at a startling pace. In three short solans, he's grown from about the height of my hip to the height of my chest. If this keeps up, he's going to be big.

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Twenty-seven solans old, and Hera has certainly blossomed. She looks more like a young woman than a little girl, now. She still has the same youthful eyes, though.

With age, though, come awkward questions. "Dad, what are 'boobs'?"

Whatever I'm working on, I've completely forgotten what it is. "Oh, um... Who did you hear say that word?"

"Some of the human kids my age who watch the mugic lessons," Hera answers.

I bite my lower lip. "Well, um, 'boobs' is slang for 'breasts'..."

"Oh," Hera nods. She fiddles with the bottom of her shirt. "So... they were checking me out?"

I'm suddenly seized by the urge to cause a few young men to mysteriously disappear. "Sounds... like... it..." I manage to say. "You... haven't been doing anything inappropriate, have you?"

Hera blinks. "Ew, Dad! No!"

I breathe a heavy sigh of relief. "Just be careful out there, okay?"

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No child should be this tall at the age of eighteen solans, right? So why is Jupiter only a head shorter than me?

"I think I'm going to get taller than you, Dad," my giant Mipedian child laughs as he watches me double and triple check the height chart. "Maybe even taller than Maliph," he adds as his eyes light up.

I actually drop the pen. "Wh-what do you mean by that?"

"I have the same color scales, horns, and eyes as him, and you've been speaking to him about how fast he grew as a child." Jupiter grins. "It wasn't that hard to figure out that he's my biogi... bioloj... biolokik..."

"Biological?" I suggest.

"Yes, my bi-o-lo-gi-cal father," Jupiter says.

I don't know what's weirder, that Jupiter knows a big word like "biological" at his age, or that I'm hearing him say he knows about Maliph.

Jupiter sees the look on my face, and he hugs me. "Don't worry. You're still my dad."

I smile and hug him back. "Thanks, son."

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"Pasco tried to kiss me today," Hera informs the table at dinnertime.

The general reaction around the table was that of shock. I barely avoid choking on a chunk of meat before asking, "What did you say?"

"Pasco tried to kiss me," Hera says. "And touch me. I punched him in the nose."

"Way to go, Hera!" I say.

Isis gives me an unamused look, then puts her fork down and rests her arms on the table. "Did you tell Tiaane or Sobtjek or someone else?"

"No," Hera says. "Should I have?"

"It's important that you tell an adult immediately if someone tries to touch you inappropriately," Isis says.

"I will next time," Hera says.

"In the interest of Pasco's well-being," I mutter, "there had better not be a next time."

Hera grins at me. "Maybe I'll tell him that you'll do to him what you did to Aa'une, like in that statue the Danians made of you."

I really do choke this time. After coughing the obstruction up, I ask, "Where the heck did you see that statue?!"

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Up next: The Bigger They Are...

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Like I said before, Chaotic belongs to TCDigital.

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