“Love, not control, you moron.” Baba Yaga’s eyes turned into steel. “I did the best that I could with the Horsemen, teaching my children everything they needed in order to become good people. I have no regrets and that’s the only important thing.
“What they made with their life is their fault, not mine. If you have to remember anything of that I told you today, remember this. The role of a parent is to teach their kid how to walk, not to choose their path.
“When you have a child, you don’t have the right to force them to move forward, only to be there for them and help them get up when they fall.”
Lith was stunned by her words, wondering if he might be capable of becoming as wise as the Red Mother was.
‘I can’t blame Baba Yaga for the Horsemen more than I can blame Mom for Trion and Orpal being assholes. She gave them everything she had, yet all they did in return was to keep asking for more.’ He thought.
“Let’s get back to the others, or my children will get jealous of you.” Baba Yaga said while walking to the door.
“Jealous? You are centuries old and so are they!” Lith blurted out in surprise.
“Millennia old, actually, but some things never change. If you had no father and your mother started spending much time with a man, what would you do?” She asked.
Lith opened his mouth to answer, but his mind projected a series of images involving the hypothetical man that went from slasher movies to sordid prison camps so he shut up.
“My point exactly.” The Mother chuckled as Solus slipped back at his finger.
“Wait, since you’re so friendly, wouldn’t you be willing to teach me Creation Magic or at least help me upgrade my gear?” Lith shamelessly asked.
“Let me get this straight. You and Epphy didn’t even trust me enough with her body while I should teach you something that only two people on Mogar can do? Do you think I run a charity or what?” Baba Yaga replied with a scoff.
“Well, you have a whole orphanage in your tower so I’ll go with charity.”
“And those children will learn the basics of magic from me, not share my greatest discoveries. You sure are a piece of work. I said that I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, not that I’m making you my sole heir!” The Mother said.
“It was worth a shot.” Lith opened the door and made way for her with a bow.
“There you are. After I finished scolding Nyka for her recklessness and noticed you had yet to return, I started to get worried.” Kalla said.
“Mom, it was my first big fight. We all make mistakes.” Nyka said in embarrassment.
“Not when I, or better, Scarlett warned you one hundred times to not get carried away by your blood frenzy!” The shadows covering Kalla’s skeleton moved akin to a swarm of angry wasps.
“If not for uncle Vladion, you would have died out there! Even I told you to be wary whenever a skilled opponent seems to make a stupid mistake that creates an opening because it’s usually a trap.” Kalla replied.
“You say a lot of things, and most of them don’t make sense, Mom!” Nyka said with anger.
“Damn teenagers! They are so ignorant yet not only do they always assume to know it all, but they also think that everyone past twenty suffers from brain damage!” Before Kalla could start an angry parent rant, Scarlett calmed her down.
“You can scold Nyka later whereas the matter at hand is a bit more urgent so bear with me.” The Scorpicore said, making the Wight even angrier. “No pun intended, sorry.”
“Fine!” Kalla sat down on the floor while inflicting Nyka the cruelest punishment a parent could involuntarily conceive.
She hugged the young Vampire, keeping Nyka between her arms while licking her clean as if she was a small cub, to make sure that she was alright and relieve anxiety.
“Mom, I beg you! Please stop!” Nyka felt like she was going to die of embarrassment and wished for Mogar to swallow her whole, but for the umpteenth time that evening, the planet turned a deaf ear.
“Okay, here is what we’ve discovered so far thanks to the Eyes of Menadion and our resident blood expert.” Scarlett said while pointing at Vladion and Hushing Nyka’s mouth.
“Whoever is behind the missing undead is also the same person that gave those Emperor Beasts the powers typical of the Guardian Bloodline that lesser species are not supposed to have.
“We have no clue how they did it but, according to the Eyes, their old and new physique is kept together by an unknown liquid of tremendous power. We call it Ambrosia and I think it might be derived from the undead.
“To make things even creepier, after using the Eyes, Vladion noticed that the reason why their blood is, for the lack of a better term, so delicious is that it holds the properties of several lesser species at the same time and they are all boosted by the Ambrosia.” Scarlett said.
While the others started to rack their brains to understand how the two phenomenons could be related, Nandi knew exactly how. Or better, he knew someone that would have no problem cracking that case.
‘Mixing together different life forces, making several beings merge into one, and recover the powers of a bloodline are all things that I witnessed the Master do in the past.’ The Minotaur thought.
‘It’s what makes us Abomination hybrids so powerful. Thanks to his experiments we are constantly recovering and harmonizing all of the powers that we had in life, those we had as Eldritchs, and those that our monster side possessed in its unfallen state.’
Nandi pondered a lot, weighing his loyalties toward the man he considered as a father and the woman he considered as a mother. Both of them had played a crucial role in giving him a second life, yet they had never met.
“Where does all of this leave us?” Baba Yaga asked.
“I don’t know, but we can contact the Council and find out if non-Awakened members of the lesser species disappeared at the same time as the undead.” Scarlett said. “I don’t think many of them took part in this experiment by their own will and their disappearance can’t have gone unnoticed.”
“I think you’re too naïve.” Kalla stopped lapping Nyka for a while. “Four Emperor Beast cannot kidnap people from all over the Eclipsed Lands in such a short period of time. Not even one hundred of them would be enough.
“This is something carefully planned and meticulously executed without leaving any loose ends. The fact that our prisoners know nothing at all means that they were expendable from the beginning. Failures that couldn’t bear better fruits.”
“How do you know?” Vladion asked.
“Because that’s what I would have done if it was my experiment.” Kalla said, making Baba Yaga remember the reason why she hated Liches.
“I agree with her.” Lith nodded. “I’ve met enough children of Awakened to know how much they hate their parents for not sharing the secret of the mana core with them.”
